Having Ado with Lancelot:
A Chivalric Reassessment of Malory's Champion
by
Jesse Michael Brillinger
Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (English)
Acadia University Fall Convocation 2010
© Jesse Michael Brillinger 2010 This thesis by Jesse M. Brillinger was defended successfully in an oral examination on ______.
The examining committee for the thesis was:
______Dr. Barb Anderson, Chair
______Dr. Kathleen Cawsey, External Reader
______Dr. Patricia Rigg, Internal Reader
______Dr. K. S. Whetter, Supervisor
______Dr. Herb Wyile, Acting Head
This thesis is accepted in its present form by the Division of Research and Graduate Studies as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (English).
………………………………………….
ii I, Jesse M. Brillinger, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non‐profit basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis.
______Jesse M. Brillinger
______K.S. Whetter, Supervisor
______Sep. 19, 2010
iii Table of Contents
Introduction: Malory, Chivalry and Lancelot ...... 1
Chapter 1: Medieval Chivalry in Literature and Life ...... 10
Chapter 2: Lancelot, Love, and Chivalry ...... 29
Chapter 3: Urry, Lancelot, and the Death of Chivalry ...... 57
Conclusion ...... 85
Works Cited ...... 89
iv Abstract
Having Ado with Lancelot: A Chivalric Reassessment of Malory's Champion
by
Jesse M. Brillinger
This thesis advocates an approach to Malory's Morte Darthur that is focused on the presentation of knights and chivalry. The thesis argues that a study of the Morte which considers the historical practice of English knighthood offers a unique approach to understanding Malory's text and the treatment of Lancelot. The thesis offers an overview of fifteenth‐century English knighthood and considers the Morte alongside other medieval works concerned with chivalry such as the alliterative Morte Arthure and the Awyntyrs off Arthure. Taking Malory's Pentecostal Oath as the standard for chivalry in Le Morte Darthur, the thesis reassesses the status of Lancelot's knighthood. Particular attention is given to chivalric virtues and the ways in which chivalry is compromised by Lancelot's involvement with Guinevere, both Elaines, and with Urry. The thesis concludes that a sustained chivalric critique reveals Lancelot as a flawed hero torn between love and the stringent demands of chivalry.
v 1
Introduction: Malory, Chivalry, and Lancelot
Any consideration of a fifteenth‐century literary text such as Sir Thomas Malory's Le
Morte Darthur should begin with a consideration of the social and literary climate into which the text was born. After all, just as each author is shaped and influenced by his or her own experiences, so too is each author's text infused with the author's unique experiences and the subtle cultural nuances that defined his or her days.
Literature of the fifteenth‐century, like the literature of today, was not composed in a vacuum, devoid of engagement with the society and culture in which those works were penned. Malory, like many of his contemporaries, was directly influenced by the times in which he lived and the political turmoil that marked his age. Malory's famous lament on the fickle loyalty of the English is just one example of the sustained engagement the Morte makes between Arthurian fiction and the author's interpretation of contemporary fifteenth‐century English politics.
Lo ye all Englysshemen, se ye nat what a myschyff here was? For he that was the moste kynge and nobelyst knyght of the worlde, and moste loved the felyshyp of noble knyghtes, and by hym they all were upholdyn, and yet myght nat thes Englyshmen holde them contente with hym. Lo thus was the olde custom and usayges of thys londe, and men say that we of thys londe have nat yet loste that custom. Alas! thys ys a greate defaughte of us Englysshemen, for there may no thynge us please no terme. (1229. 6‐14)1
Malory's remarks in this particular passage demonstrate a clear concern with the political instability that is destroying the England he knows, just as a similar
1 Unless otherwise stated, all parenthetical citations are to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur as printed in The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugène Vinaver, 3rd ed. rev. P. J. C. Field (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990).
2 instability destroyed the England of Arthur. Such engagement is all the more pronounced here since Malory's lament on English fickleness is not based upon any source, but is rather the author's own invention.2 Examples like this, and the treatment of numerous elements throughout Malory's narrative, demonstrate the existence of a central and fundamental concern that extends beyond a simple retelling of the Arthurian tales. Selective narrative intrusions, willful distortion of source material, and at times over‐kind characterization, mark Malory's Arthuriad as a literary text that is forcefully engaged with the cultural and material realities which defined the author's age.
It is my contention throughout this thesis that the most important reality underlining Malory's text and age is chivalry. Dhira B. Mahoney argues that,
The term chivalry as it is used in late fourteenth‐ and fifteenth‐ century English romance has not travelled far from the etymological origins of the word: it might be defined as the code of conduct subscribed to by the chevalier or warrior on horseback, or, as a secondary meaning, the class or body of persons to which he belongs. Nor is the concept as it appears in literature much removed from actual life. (529)
Accordingly, in the first chapter of this thesis I will offer an overview of knighthood and chivalry in order to demonstrate the pervasive cultural concern with the institution of knighthood in the Middle Ages. By examining other medieval works such as the Morte Arthure and Awyntyrs off Arthure, I will demonstrate the existence of a fundamental medieval concern with the lived practice of knighthood, a concern
2 Eugène Vinaver argues for the originality of this passage stating, "There is nothing in either of M's sources that could have suggested this . . . the reference to popular discontent in M is surely a reminiscence of contemporary events, not of literary sources" ("Commentary." The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 1647).
3
I argue is replicated most sharply in Malory's work. Indeed, the strong narrative focus on knighthood, and the seriousness with which knighthood was engaged by its contemporaries, lends credence to suggestions that Malory and his contemporary audience would have expected questions of conduct to be raised when discussing knightly action. This expectation for debate makes it far easier to understand the delicate treatment Malory affords his knighted subjects and offers a potential avenue for further investigation into the most contentious of Malory's knights, Sir
Lancelot.
The second chapter will seek to unravel the presentation of Malory's
Lancelot in matters of love. As I argue, Lancelot's relationship with Guinevere is a highly problematic union given the expectations of medieval chivalry. This point is most clearly seen in the dire results of Lancelot and Guinevere's love, the repercussions of which shake Arthur's Round Table fellowship to its very core. This reality certainly forces Malory's reader to reconsider the nature of Lancelot and
Guinevere's union and certainly forces questions about Malory's presentation of this illicit love given the impropriety and institutional damage caused by such a union.
In order to support this assertion, I will demonstrate that Malory, in unique fashion, altered the Maid of Ascolat episode to present his Lancelot with a more eligible and marriageable alternative to Guinevere. Further, Malory also chose to include specific rebukes of the lovers that highlight the problematic nature of Lancelot's love affair with the queen. Despite efforts by Malory to lessen the culpability of
Lancelot and Guinevere, it is quite apparent from Malory's ambivalent presentation
4 of the entire relationship that, while perhaps unavoidable, their love is the cause of great tragedy for England.
The third chapter will focus on the actions of Lancelot as they relate to the
"Healing of Sir Urry" and the death of Lancelot. I will argue that the Urry episode, far from establishing Lancelot's superiority, instead forces him (and Malory's reader) to confront Lancelot's claim to the title of "beste knyght of the worlde," given his less than ideal conduct in matters of the heart. I will demonstrate that the
Urry episode, unique among Malory's sources, is an important moment because it at once shows Lancelot as the best and worst of Arthurian knighthood, struggling internally with the knowledge that his transgressions impinge his claims to worship.
These claims will be addressed more fully when I consider the state of Lancelot's knighthood at the Morte's close. I will argue that while Malory is certainly sympathetic towards Lancelot's plight, the inner conflict between martial man and courtly lover necessitates Lancelot retire to the cloister in penance for his misdeeds.
Yet one last triumph of Arthurian chivalry remains when Lancelot commands his remaining fellows to take the cross and fight in the Holy Land. While the final act of
Arthurian chivalry is recorded in a relatively minor passage in the Morte Darthur, I believe it demonstrates the penitential aspects of knighthood as well as a last triumph for Malory's Round Table knights.
Many of the connections between Malory's text and the socio‐political realities of fifteenth‐century England are well documented. Scholars have long sought geographical and political connections between Arthur's French campaigns and those of Henry V, while various other critics have used these campaigns and
5 passages like the "Lo ye all Englysshemen" lament to portray Malory as politically partisan. P.J.C Field provides a thorough overview and rebuttal of this debate, arguing instead that Malory's text does not reveal enough allegiance one way or the other to be deemed staunchly Lancastrian or Yorkist ("Fifteenth‐Century History"
47‐71). But the Morte does reveal a concern with chivalry, knightly combat, and political instability. These pervasive concerns have led many modern readers to view Le Morte Darthur as a text that is influenced by and reflecting late‐medieval ideology. Raluca L. Radulescu has demonstrated that Malory's Morte shares known concerns of the English gentry during the latter part of the fifteenth century. Of particular importance to this thesis is Radulescu's assertion that "a fifteenth‐century gentry reader would have become aware that chivalric behaviour may be learned within the Morte" (Context 88). Similarly, by approaching medieval chivalry in relation to the history and literary tradition that helped define medieval knighthood,
Maurice Keen has demonstrated that authors like Malory, writing relatively late in the medieval period, "could still tailor [their] accounts of tourney and duel to give them a realistically contemporary flavour" (Keen 248). This historically recognizable and historically accurate presentation of English knighthood is further attested by Larry D. Benson who has shown the accuracy of Malory's depiction of fifteenth‐century English chivalry, noting that "Malory's book reflects some of the evil of the chivalry of his own time as well as some of its good" (199). What all these critics have argued, and demonstrated convincingly through their research, is that
Malory's text is not isolated from the concerns of its age. Rather, Le Morte Darthur is actively engaging with the world it knows, a world that is engulfed in the flames of
6 civil war and political factionalism, a world desperately in need of the High Order of
Chivalry.
In this thesis, the connections between life and literature in the fifteenth century will be explored in order to demonstrate that Sir Thomas Malory's text, and the characters like Lancelot who populate it, are part of a much broader cultural conversation concerning proper conduct in knighthood and the true nature of chivalric worship. By examining sources of Arthurian literature that predate
Malory's text, and interrogating the presentation of knighthood therein, a fuller appreciation for Malory's understanding and depiction of fifteenth‐century knighthood can be advanced. Through an examination of central chivalric moments in Arthurian stories such as The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne, the alliterative Morte Arthure and, of course, Malory's Le Morte Darthur, I will demonstrate throughout this thesis that a pervasive concern with knightly conduct exists in the cultural and literary sources that, in part, inspired Sir Thomas Malory's conception of knighthood. I will further demonstrate that the concern with proper knightly conduct found in the literature and contemporary cultural conversations of the latter medieval age extended beyond the texts and directly into the lives of
Malory and his chivalric contemporaries. The pervasive culture of conversation and debate concerning medieval knighthood throughout the Middle Ages makes a reassessment of Malory's Sir Lancelot both appropriate and, amongst adherents of chivalry, very much expected.
It is this pervasive social and cultural concern with knighthood throughout the Middle Ages that must draw a reader of Malory directly to a consideration of
7 what constitutes proper knightly conduct within Le Morte Darthur. Andrew Lynch has noted that, "Le Morte Darthur consists mainly of descriptions of martial combat, a subject of supreme interest both to its author and its implied audience" (Lynch
28). As Lynch rightly points out, the pervading concern in Malory's Arthuriad is knights, knighthood and the attendant knightly action. Malory's primary audience was not Western academics of the twenty‐first century, but rather the martial men of England who formed what Malory termed the High Order of Knighthood.
Malory's audience, as active participants and supporters of contemporary English knighthood, would have been particularly adept at discerning the subtle realities of fifteenth‐century knighthood and thus at judging its practitioners accordingly. The great challenge for the modern reader of chivalric works is to try and reclaim the subtleties that defined medieval knighthood and those who practiced it. Only by understanding the culture of chivalry can a critic attempt to understand how a medieval audience would have viewed the chivalric performance of a knight like
Malory's Lancelot, a knight who seems at once to embody the best and worst aspects of knighthood in the Middle Ages.
My focus on chivalric performance and the presentation of knighthood in
Malory's Morte, as it relates to the lived practices of fifteenth‐century English knights, will show that Malory's text presents its readers with a complex picture of what contemporary knighthood could offer. Malory presents ample evidence of knights who fail to abide by specific tenets of chivalry and contrasts them, sometimes sharply, with admirable exemplars. Outside of the Round Table fellowship, itself often a bastion of unknightly deeds, there are numerous other
8 knights who can be found within the Morte demonstrating improper or downright bad conduct. One such example is the knight‐slayer Garlon who attacks other knights unawares and by devious means "destroyeth many good knyghts" (83. 24).
This charge against Garlon's chivalry is a charge that must surely have infuriated contemporary medieval audiences to the same degree it does the knight who ultimately kills Garlon, Balyn. Examples like Garlon demonstrate that within the
Morte itself there exists a sustained criticism of unknightly conduct and clear condemnation of such behaviour.
In contrast to Garlon, and other knights accused of being "traytoure[s] unto knyghthode" (269. 35), stand the knights of Arthur's Round Table. Malory's Morte is replete with positive representations of knightly conduct as evidenced by Lancelot,
Gawain, Kay, Palomides, Tristan and, of course, Sir Galahad. However, what is immediately apparent from this brief list of Arthurian notables is that in Malory's text none of these characters are able fully to satisfy the stringent demands of chivalry. Each knight fails and succeeds at upholding central tenets of chivalry at different moments in Malory's narrative. The only notable exception to this statement is Sir Galahad, a knight whose conduct is so far above reproach as to verge on the truly divine. With the exception of Galahad, what becomes apparent from a sustained interrogation of individual Round Table knights is their collective fallibility. Sustained interrogation demonstrates an awareness that knighthood, and its adherents like Malory, are fundamentally concerned with issues of good conduct and recognize the difficulty in negotiating the many pitfalls and at times contradictory expectations of the chivalric life. I will argue that Malory's central
9 concern with knightly conduct, and his unique inclusion of a rubric for chivalry in the Pentecostal Oath, demands an approach to Le Morte Darthur that addresses the prominence of chivalry in the text. Further, by approaching Malory's Morte with a focus on knightly conduct, I will offer insight into how well the knights of Arthur's court, and especially Sir Lancelot, fulfill or fail the lofty expectations of fifteenth‐ century English chivalry.
10
Chapter I: Medieval Chivalry in Literature and Life
The immediate difficulty for a modern reader of Malory interested in holding the
Morte's knights to account is what constitutes a suitable yardstick for measuring
Malorian chivalry. As Keen has noted, the term chivalry itself is problematic with
"elusive ethical implications" (Keen 2). Yet despite the difficulty inherent in offering a succinct definition of chivalry that encompasses the whole of the European continent, and no less than five‐hundred years of actual practice, the reader of
Malory's Morte is in one sense quite fortunate. Malory chose to include a guide to chivalry. Early in the narrative, as Arthur is establishing his kingship, his realm, and the body of knights who will help him secure these things, Malory records how
Arthur establishes the Pentecostal Oath which is to be sworn annually by each member of the Round Table.
Thus whan the queste was done of the whyght herte the whych folowed sir Gawayne, and the queste of the brachet whych folowed sir Torre, kynge Pellynors son, and the queste of the lady that the knyghte toke away, whych at that tyme folowed kynge Pellynor, 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 [sucour:] strengthe hem in hir ryghtes, and never to enforce them, uppon payne of death. Also, that no man take no batayles in a wrongefull quarell for no love ne for no worldis goodis. So unto thys were all knyghtis sworne of the Round Table, both olde and yonge, and every yere so were the[y] sworne at the hyghe feste of Pentecoste. (120. 11‐27)
The Oath foregrounds the importance of good conduct in all aspects of the knight's life, with particular attention and penalties attached to conduct that contravenes the
11 knight's oath. The inclusion of the Pentecostal Oath can be read as an attempt by
Malory to insert a yardstick by which the conduct of Arthur's knights can be measured. This oath, which the entire Round Table fellowship is made to swear annually, reflects the actual practice of knights in Malory's age. As Beverly Kennedy notes, in instituting the Pentecostal Oath "Arthur reflects the practice of both
Lancastrian and Yorkist kings when he requires his knights to swear a peace‐ keeping oath" (Knighthood 38).
Significantly, this crucial passage seems once again to be entirely original to
Malory.3 It is not found in the French sources of Le Morte Darthur, though Richard
Barber has established that the Oath does bear striking similarities to the oath sworn by England's Knight's of the Bath. Barber acknowledges that, "Malory has rephrased the oath more vigorously, but the conduct prescribed and the concern for justice, loyalty and mercy, and defence of the weak are very similar" (Barber, "Morte
Darthur and Court Culture" 148‐9). Thus, Malory's inclusion of this unique passage, which clearly outlines the proper conduct expected of Arthur's knights, demands serious attention. Further, that we find similar expectations of chivalry reflected in contemporary knightly circles is suggestive of an active cultural conversation focused on conduct in chivalry. Since, as Raluca L. Radulescu suggests, the
Pentecostal Oath "contains the fundamental rules that knightly worship is measured against" (Gentry 86), it is my contention that Malory's Pentecostal Oath must be read
3 Eugène Vinaver states decisively that "This conclusion is M's own". Vinaver further argues that the Pentecostal Oath "is perhaps the most complete and authentic record of M's conception of chivalry" ("Commentary." Works, 1335).
12 as the penultimate standard for Malorian chivalry, second only to the informed judgment of practicing knights like Malory himself.
It is, perhaps, this seeming conflict between the authority of Malory's
Pentecostal Oath and the subjective measurement of knightly communities that presents the biggest hurdle to measuring the success of individual knights in Le
Morte Darthur. After all, there is ample evidence of Malory's knights, even his seeming favourite Sir Lancelot, acting in a manner that seems to run contrary to the ideals of chivalry espoused in the Pentecostal Oath. Yet it is these very contradictions that make an understanding of fifteenth‐century English knighthood so vitally important to our appreciation of the text and its characters and themes.
English knighthood in practice, just as in medieval literature, was by no means a perfect institution. Rather, the success of a knight's chivalry was entirely dependent on how well he could mediate the lofty demands of the office with the rough realities that defined the life of a martial man. Radulescu suggests, in order more fully to appreciate the values associated with chivalry, that there is a
need to evaluate such values in a variety of contexts, as one needs to consider the heterogeneous nature of the surviving evidence, which ranges from military tracts that contain some references to chivalry, to late‐medieval translations of chivalric treatises, as well as historical records of chivalric debates and rituals, and the rich material provided by romance literature. ("How Christian is Chivalry" 72)
It is my belief that by interrogating Malory's presentation of Arthurian knighthood against the varied contexts that came to define fifteenth‐century English chivalry, a fuller understanding of the chivalry of Sir Thomas Malory and his Morte can be advanced.
13
It has been my contention that a careful examination of source material, historical evidence, and Le Morte Darthur itself will reveal a prevailing concern with how knighthood was conducted throughout the Middle Ages. This examination will reveal not only a sustained culture of critique surrounding knighthood, but also the importance for those living the chivalric life to regularly interrogate knightly conduct. If Malory is indeed concerned with demonstrating proper chivalric conduct and extolling the virtues of knightly worship, then surely Lancelot, the queen's bedfellow, deserves more sustained interrogation against the cultural and material realities that came to define fifteenth‐century English knighthood. Of course, before a sustained investigation into Malory's presentation of Lancelot can be advanced it is necessary to demonstrate that Malory's contemporaries, both living and literary, shared a concern with knightly conduct and Malory's favourite topic, worship.
The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne is a medieval text that demonstrates a clear concern with chivalric conduct in its contemporary period. It is also, as Ralph Norris recently confirms, a text known to Malory (Norris, Malory's
Library 33). This point about the chivalric concerns of the Awyntyrs off Arthure is true whether we place the poem's date of composition at c. 1375, as is sometimes claimed, or at the later date of 1424‐25, as proposed by Rosamund Allen. Allen's date is based in part on “probable allusions in the poem to the Triple Alliance of
1423‐6 between England, Brittany, and Burgundy, and to the heavy losses of France and her ally Scotland in the 1420s” (Allen 152). Since these losses all stemmed from or included the knight in his principal role of mounted warrior, her suggestion lends
14 credence to a reading of the Awyntyrs off Arthure which considers the material and cultural realities of English knighthood.
The connection between The Awyntyrs off Arthure and contemporary chivalry is especially apparent in the ghost’s criticism of Arthur’s atrocities and Gawain’s pointed question to the ghost
“How shal we fare,” quod þe freke, “þat fonden to fight, And þus defoulen þe folke on fele kinges londes, And riches ouer reymes withouten eny right, Wynnen worship and wele þorgh wightnesse of hondes?”. (Awntyrs 76. 261‐64)
This question acknowledges the primacy of chivalric concerns in the mind of Gawain and, perhaps, the primacy of this concern within the text as a whole. Further,
Gawain’s questioning of the queen’s mother's ghost seems to reflect an admission of the harsh realities that represented in many ways the material cost of the practice of knighthood. This is especially true of knighthood in its strictest sense of the armoured and mounted warrior, a primary force in medieval culture and combat.
The despoiling of lands would have proved in some sense necessary to sustain a host of any size while deep in enemy territory. This may seem to be a grim calculation, but medieval warfare was a grim business for both attackers and defenders. Malory acknowledges these harsh conditions in the Morte when Sir
Lyonell advises Lancelot during the siege of Joyus Garde to "kepe oure stronge‐ walled townys untyll they have hunger and colde, and blow on their nayles; and than lat us fresshly set uppon them and shrede hem downe as shepe in a folde"
(1211. 24‐7). As this passage demonstrates, there exists in medieval romance an
15 acute awareness of the realities of medieval warfare and, subsequently, the realities which defined the life of a practicing knight.
The difficulties of furnishing and provisioning a medieval army may seem to modern readers as presenting a logistical nightmare. Consider the immense cost of undertaking war, both in financial and security terms, and the full weight of the war‐ maker’s gamble begins to become apparent. Medieval literature reflects and acknowledges these risks, and, consciously or not, the alliterative Morte Arthure, a poem known to the author of the Awntyrs off Arthure, shows Arthur dismissing concerns that he ‐ like Richard I ‐ might be killed by an arrow fired from the walls of a besieged castle. Arthur, who rides out unarmed before an encircled castle, is warned by Sir Ferrere of the dangers facing Arthur's person, but also those that face
Arthur's knights should harm come to their sovereign. As Ferrere states
a foly thowe wirkkes, Thus nakede in thy noblaye to neghe to þe walles Sengely in thy surcotte this ceté to reche And schewe þe within, there to schende vs all! Hye vs hastylye heyne, or we mon full happen, For hitt they the or thy horse, it harmes for euer! (MA 189. 2432‐ 37)
Sir Ferrere astutely points out to the king in this passage that if Arthur or his horse is hit by a bolt from the castle's defenders, the effect of that harm could have serious long‐term ramifications outside the potential for physical harm to Arthur himself.
This demonstrates not only an awareness of the realities of war during the Middle
Ages, but also a concern with rash conduct. For the Arthur of the alliterative Morte
Arthure the city's defenders, "wyn no wirchipe of me, bot wastys theire takle" (MA
16
2444) by firing at the unarmed king. Sir Ferrere, in contrast, worries about the future of Arthur's entire enterprise, not only the risk of injury to Arthur himself.
The death of a warlord is just one of the many possible outcomes which faced the prospective knight as he pledged his service for material sustenance. The worries attributed to Sir Ferrere in the alliterative Morte reflect an awareness of these dangers, while Arthur's response reflects competing demands to risk one's life in order to gain renown. Despite illustrating seemingly contradictory positions, what Sir Ferrere and Arthur's conversation demonstrates is that the performance of proper knighthood was beset with questions of what constitutes suitable conduct.
For Arthur of the alliterative Morte death is in the hands of God, and thus the knight trusts his life will end when he has been ordained to die. Ferrere is much more practical and advises against such unnecessary risk. Both men represent differing, but potentially complementary, views on the actual performance of knighthood.
What is most important about this exchange between Sir Ferrere and Arthur is not their conduct itself, but rather the questioning of conduct in knighthood and the potential for debate regarding individual knightly conduct. In approaching Malory's text through the ethos of chivalry, an understanding of the text emerges that is focused on a didactic concern with the conduct of Arthur's knights and the lessons that can be learned there. William Caxton recognized the opportunities for chivalric education within the Morte when he enjoined its readers to, "Doo after the good and leve the evyl" (Works, cxlvi).
As mentioned previously, the ethereal nature of the codes of conduct generally termed chivalry, makes it is notoriously difficult to rule a knight's conduct
17 as decisively bad. A practicing knight may view Arthur's conduct in the preceding passage as foolhardy, while another knight may reasonably appreciate the sheer audacity of the king riding out without armour. Beverly Kennedy acknowledges this quandary when she states that, "The problem which Malory addresses in his Morte
Darthur, and which none of the treatises on chivalry ever confronts, is that not every man will have exactly the same notion of what it means to be a 'good' or 'noble' knight" (Knighthood 58). As Kennedy notes, there is a fundamental uncertainty about what is required to fulfill the lofty expectations of chivalry with the individual knight, or the individual knightly critic, equally uncertain when faced with difficult questions of conduct. Yet despite the problematic and often contradictory principles of knighthood, what is most important to take away from examples like the alliterative Morte and Malory's text is that questions of conduct are being raised at all. Since it is clear that a conversation on knightly conduct is taking place, it is less important to try to define the limits of proper chivalry than it is to engage with the culture of chivalric debate which, I believe, is one of the most vibrant aspects of the Middle Ages.
There seems little doubt that warfare throughout the Middle Ages was a singularly brutal affair. This is true whether we are discussing the medieval period as a whole, or limiting ourselves to Malory's contemporary age. So while "the fifteenth century was in fact far more violent than the thirteenth" (Whetter,
"Historicity" 270), the central questions of conduct which concerned practicing medieval knights would have been fundamentally the same throughout the Middle
Ages. These questions of conduct were not limited to the actual practice of living as
18 a knight, but also included behaviour in warfare, tournament, love, life and even death. One particularly thorny issue of conduct in war concerned the provisioning of an army in enemy territory. The gathering of resources during the march provided an armed force with vital supplies that supplemented their own limited supply line, thus enabling a protraction of hostilities. The raids or chevachees led by the heroes of England like Richard I and Henry V in France represent the vital link to a tradition that saw material and physical damage to an enemy’s land viewed as strokes upon the enemy himself. The physical depreciation of commodities was undertaken with an understanding that such efforts wounded the defender's ability to wage war and thus their appetite for conflict in general. These undertakings of terror were calculated for maximum impact and thus designed to lessen the ability of an enemy to mobilize a large field army.
Yet it seems obvious that for many authors, such as the progenitor of The
Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne discussed earlier, such conduct problematized the practice of knighthood and possibly placed the knight's very soul in jeopardy. After all, the codes of conduct governing knighthood, most often labelled chivalry, demanded the protection of innocents and outlined clearly the manner in which a knight was to conduct himself in war. Many critics in fact consider the Arthur of the alliterative Morte Arthure as a flawed hero‐king precisely because of the violence and supposed crimes represented by scenes like the siege of
Metz. K.S. Whetter offers a summary and rebuttal to this critical viewpoint, arguing instead that "however much the destruction of monasteries and hospitals . . . offends modern sensibilities (see 3032‐43), we cannot condemn Arthur's actions by
19 medieval siege conventions" ("Genre as Context" 56). What is evident from a consideration of these Arthurian texts is a fundamental concern with conduct and a desire to showcase the competing demands placed on the practicing knight.
The complexities and contradictions often inherent when discussing knighthood have led me to argue that European chivalry can by no means be articulated in a clear or easy manner. Chivalry, in practice throughout the Middle
Ages, was a mutable set of ideals that varied according to both period and place.
French chivalry by the fifteenth century was noted for its spectacular pageantry, a facet of Continental knighthood that later critics used to dismiss the seriousness with which knighthood and its attendant chivalry were celebrated in their entirety.
This critical perspective on the lived experiences of medieval knighthood has made it necessary to defend the very existence of a practiced knighthood during the latter stages of the Middle Ages. Thankfully, a number of critics have not only demonstrated the historical veracity of pan‐European knighthood, but also demonstrated convincingly that chivalry remained an important part of European warfare centuries after the last plate‐wearing knight rode into battle. Maurice Keen argues that the pervasive and lasting influence of European chivalry results from chivalry being "at once a cultural and social phenomenon, which retained its vigour because it remained relevant to the social and political realities of the time" (Keen,
Chivalry 219). The prominence of chivalry as a vital and contemporary institution
20 with footholds in both literature and life is further attested by the work of such critics as Richard Barber and Richard W. Kaeuper.4
Discussions of knightly conduct in chivalric literature demonstrate that there existed a widespread concern with knighthood throughout the Middle Ages and right into Malory's own day. At times these issues of conduct are clearly articulated and tied directly to expected chivalric performance. Within Le Morte Darthur itself there is particular prominence placed on knights as mounted soldiers, a status they are expected to maintain. Sir Lamerok advances this position when he chastises his fellow knights for being unhorsed, saying
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 batayles, for there should no knyght fyghte on foote but yf hit were for treason, 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! (667. 21‐8)
Sir Lamerok's claim that a knight is dishonoured by fighting on foot, unless driven to do so, is an important link to the broader debates on chivalry which, I argue, form an important facet of medieval knighthood as Malory knew it. This passage also suggests a certain limited fluidity to the knightly ethos, broadly termed chivalry, where conduct is governed as much by codified expectations, like those outlined in the Pentecostal Oath, as by the martial reality of the moment. This is an important point to consider when advancing a comprehensive reassessment of the chivalric success of Malory's knights, including his champion Sir Lancelot.
4 See especially: Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry (New York: Scribner, 1970) and Richard W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001).
21
The modern reader must consider, as medieval chivalric circles would have considered, the entirety of a knight's actions. Richard W. Kaeuper advances a similar understanding of Malorian chivalry when he argues that, "In Malory's view, chivalry may be right or wrong in its practice, and stands thus in need of constant reform" (296). But Kaeuper adds quite astutely that the real distinction Malory makes is "between right chivalry and wrong chivalry" (296). Thus, for instance, even Lott and the rebel kings who oppose Arthur in Tale I are acknowledged by
Malory, by Merlin and by Arthur's allies to be good knights (25‐26). This seemingly contradictory treatment is even extended to Mordred, the king's incestuous son and a notorious traitor, who is described in the final battle of the Morte as a knight "who ded hys devoure that day and put hymselffe in grete perell" (1236. 4‐5). The problem is, in both examples, that the rebel kings and Mordred are in the wrong because they oppose Arthur, the rightful king. Thus Kaeuper's assessment of
Malory's understanding of chivalry in his contemporary day is an important one. It not only supports a reading of the Morte that advances a positive ideal of knighthood, but also opens the knightly action within the text to sustained critique, just as Malory's contemporary audience would have approached it. That we find discussions and assertions like those advanced by Sir Lamerok within the body of the Morte is further proof that there is ample evidence of broader discussions surrounding Malory's preferred topic, the deeds of knights and the winning of worship.
Given the frequency with which knighthood was discussed, and the seriousness which surrounded such discussions, it cannot be at all surprising that
22 we find Gawain in the Awyntyrs concerned about God's view on knightly conduct.
The spectre of Guinevere’s mother forces Gawain, and a contemporary knightly readership, to consider more than the favours of Fortune. The ghost's warning to
Gawain regarding Arthur’s fall is clear,
May no man stere him with strength while þe whele stondes. Whan he is in his magesté, moost in his miʒt, He shal light full lowe on þe sesondes, And ʒour chivalrous king chef shall [a] chaunce. (Awntyrs 76. 266‐ 269)
While this warning is clearly meant for Arthur, the message Guinevere’s mother delivers to Gawain can also be applied to the broader state of medieval knighthood.
Though it is often the prowess of the knight’s arm which determines his worth, the author of the Awntyrs suggests that faith in martial success alone is a false faith.
After all, if King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table can be laid low by the whims of Fortune surely lesser knights and contemporary readers must also face the prospect of falling from Fortune’s favour, or more worryingly, losing their worship.
This link is explicitly made by the apparition of the queen’s mother when the ghost states:
False Fortune in fight, That wonderfull whelewright, Makes lordes lowe to liʒt ‐ Take witnesse by Fraunce. (Awntyrs 76. 270‐3)
Here the author of the Awyntyrs is explicitly tying the fate of Arthur and his knights to contemporary French knighthood. I would suggest that there is more to the spectre’s invocation of the example in France than merely commentary on the
23 excesses of the Round Table. During the time The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne
Wathelyne was composed, either c. 1375 or 1424‐25 as suggested by Rosamund
Allen and others, England was in a state of war. The Hundred Years' War led to the near total destruction of France's chivalric community at Crécy in 1346, while the
Battle of Agincourt in 1415 effectively ensured continued English influence on the
Continent for another two generations. Both historical battles were celebrated in
England and could quite reasonably be advanced as the lesson of France the author of the Awntyrs wished to advance.
What is perhaps one of the most intriguing elements of the conversation between Gawain and the spectre of Guinevere’s mother is that the ghost singles out
Arthur for rebuke because of covetousness. “Your King is to covetous, I warne the, sir knight” (228. 265). These lines demonstrate one of the links between this poem and the alliterative Morte Arthure. The lines also, perhaps more obviously, demonstrate a concern with the materialism that dominated contemporary criticism of medieval knighthood, and indeed much of the early modern criticism which followed it. The value of this criticism may not, however, be immediately apparent.
Such criticisms are important because critical views of contemporary English knighthood, like that found in the Awyntyrs and, for some scholars the alliterative
Morte, are further proof that conduct in knighthood was a constantly debated and engaged topic, regardless of the individual writer's opinions, specific historical period or geographic location. Thus, while "critics from the earliest days accused
[chivalry] of failing to find the golden mean of an effective but civilised knighthood"
24
(Barber, Knight and Chivalry 330), the fact that such criticism exists at all is surely telling.
Essentially, I am arguing that criticism of medieval chivalry should not be construed as a wholesale indictment of the institution of knighthood itself. The sharp contrast between the lofty ideals espoused by chivalry and the violent purpose of the knight have long been fodder for critics of knighthood. In fact, the very existence of such criticism demonstrates the primacy of place knighthood occupied historically and even into modern times. What is revealed through an interrogation of those texts truly concerned with knighthood is the seriousness with which they treat their subject matter. Gawain's questioning of the ghost regarding the fate of knights in The Awyntyrs demonstrates a real concern with the afterlife of those who live their lives by the sword. It is highly doubtful that a contemporary medieval audience would have viewed Gawain's questioning as proof of knighthood's failings. Instead, it is far more likely that a fit medieval audience would have understood the subtleties of Gawain's query and appreciated the difficulties of practicing a knight's life. As discussed above, the central concern
Gawain is trying to reconcile through his questioning of the ghost is really the fate of knights who, by virtue of their very profession, must kill and fight at the behest of others. The principal tenets of chivalry are in some sense a poor consolation considering the necessarily brutal aspects of living as a knight.
Malory, it seems, recognized the complexities and challenges a life in arms presented. His inclusion of the Pentecostal Oath following the "Wedding of King
Arthur" points to a concerted effort to ground the Morte's presentation of chivalry
25 against a readily accessible and clearly defined code of conduct. While many knights of Malory's Morte have been found wanting in relation to the Pentecostal Oath, the very inclusion of the Oath is in itself telling. After all, the inclusion of such an Oath, mirroring that of known secular chivalric orders, is unique among Malory's sources and, as Kaeuper points out, most importantly "It is a practical oath" (295). These facts, combined with the parallels to an extant chivalric order, argue convincingly for a serious concern with knightly conduct in the midst of Malory's Arthuriad.
In my opinion, the central concern evidenced by these discussions, both literary and historical, is the difficulty in abiding by the dictates of chivalry while engaging in the grim business of war. Questions surrounding the material and societal cost of warfare were surely important to those who lived in the medieval period, but questions of good knightly conduct seem to be far more important as evidenced by the wide range of texts and treatises that deal with the subject. The reason for the prominence of this medieval concern with the conduct of knights is plain. As a highly skilled martial man the medieval knight represented, in a strictly practical sense, both the strong‐arm of local magnates and the potential for justice here on earth. This duality of role and purpose serves to highlight the complex and complicated profession of knighthood, a profession which was evidently of such importance to Sir Thomas Malory. Kaeuper suggests that when reading Malory
"Contemporary readers could well finish the text with a sense that their world should more closely approximate this ideal, that chivalry could provide a moral as well as a military and societal function" (Chivarly and Violence, 294). I agree entirely. But what of Malory's oft‐criticized champion, the queen's lover, Sir
26
Lancelot? Is it fair or proper to apply the yardstick of Malorian chivalry, the
Pentecostal Oath, to a character whose French origins must necessarily bind him to
Arthur's wife? I have argued hereto, that the climate of debate which existed surrounding the lived practice of English knighthood expects a collective discussion on chivalric conduct in literature. As such, Lancelot's conduct both in arms and in amour are fair places to begin a sustained reassessment of how well Lancelot performs as a knight, just as this performance allows us to measure the true status of his worship. By engaging with the spirit of debate found in Le Morte Darthur, I believe it is possible to reclaim the expectations and understandings of knightly conduct that would have been familiar to Malory and his chivalric audience.
It is generally agreed that within Malory's Morte worship is the most important quality denoting a knight's chivalric success. In fact, worship, and attendant variations of the term such as worshipful, are recorded nearly three hundred and ninety times throughout the text of Le Morte Darthur, clearly centering worship as a fundamental theme of Malory's text (Kato, 1552‐4).5 The prominence of worship is probably nothing new to a reader of Malory's Morte. In fact, even the casual reader is quickly made well aware that mighty deeds of arms can increase a knight's worship, but equally aware that knightly failings, or infamous misdeeds, will have a similar direct impact on a knight's status. Whetter argues that "whatever
Malory's own experience and attitude to warfare may be, his principal focus is more
5 Tomomi Kato records no fewer than twenty‐five variants of worship including: worship, worshipfful, worshipffull, worshipful, worshipfull, worshipfuller, woshipfullist, worshipfully, worshipfullyst, worshippe, worshipped, worshipt, worshipte, worship‐wynnynge, worshyp, worshype, worshypfull, worshypfullist, worshypfully, worshypfullyest, worshypfullyst, worshyppe, worshypped, worshyppis, and worsshypfully. The sheer volume of these terms demonstrates that a clear concern with worship exists throughout Malory's Le Morte Darthur.
27 on the precarious balance between the good and bad effects of war and the worship it generates amongst its participants than in historical accuracy" ("Historicity" 270).
While we cannot know the personal motivations that inspired Malory to compose his Arthuriad, motivations which may well have been prompted by the dynastic strife of the War of the Roses, it is evident from a reading of his Le Morte Darthur that the primary focus of the text is on knights and knightly action.
Examples demonstrating the priority placed on winning and retaining worship are rife throughout Malory's book. In one such example, Sir Palomydes finds himself among the party bested in a tournament melee, leading him loudly to lament his changed status by exclaiming, "Alas . . . that ever I sholde se this day! For now I have loste all the worshyp that I wan" (762. 3‐4). As Palomydes recognizes, a knight's success is not assured because of great deeds done long ago. Rather, a knight's success and attendant worship can change based on how well the knight embodies the chivalric life and its oft competing demands of violence and mercy. In essence, it seems that for Malory and his contemporaries a knight's worship is entrusted to his chivalric peers who judge his conduct according to their own standards and understanding of knightly conduct. With the demise of a practiced knighthood, and practicing knights, it falls to the reader of medieval literature to assess how much worship belongs to an individual knight. Using Malory's
Pentecostal Oath as a guide to the Morte's articulation of chivalry, and considering this oath alongside contemporary discussions on English knighthood, will allow for a reassessment of Arthurian chivalric practice that is better informed in relation to the lived realities which defined Malory's age. By proceeding in this manner, a
28 reassessment of Sir Lancelot's conduct throughout Le Morte Darthur can be advanced that properly takes into account the expectations of Malory's contemporary chivalric audience and the expectations of practicing knights like Sir
Thomas Malory.
Since worship is presented as the primary goal of Malorian chivalry, it will be necessary in the following chapters to consider more fully the conduct of Sir
Lancelot throughout Le Morte Darthur. It is my belief that a sustained interrogation of Lancelot's conduct in arms, in love, and in death will demonstrate that while
Lancelot is certainly a successful man‐at‐arms, other less admirable conduct compels us to question just how worshipful Sir Lancelot's depiction in Malory's text really is. The following chapters will directly address some of Lancelot's conduct throughout the Morte and strive to connect these debatable questions to the chivalric conventions and the societal expectations of fifteenth‐century knighthood.
Further, I will continue to draw connections between Malory's text and contemporary social and literary conversations, in order to demonstrate the pervasive engagement that European society of the Middle Ages had with medieval knighthood. Of course when a reader begins to consider the presentation of Sir
Lancelot in any text, a confrontation is immediately evident between Lancelot the knight and Lancelot the lover. The next chapter will explore Malory's presentation of Sir Lancelot in relation to his love interests in order to gauge how successfully that same knight negotiates the pitfalls between chivalric worship and romance.
29
Chapter II: Lancelot, Love, and Chivalry
When reassessing the chivalric success of Malory's champion, it is important to consider all aspects of Lancelot's character in order to offer the most complete understanding of his meaning and purpose in the text. After all, the inclusion of the
Pentecostal Oath in Malory's Le Morte Darthur demonstrates that for the author there is more to proper knightly conduct than just martial success. Indeed, it seems clear from Malory's text that his conception of knighthood was as a complex institution reliant upon sometimes contradictory principles. For Malory, an avid enthusiast of the chivalric caste, these competing demands of chivalry and the questions of good conduct which they raise are central to determining the quality of knighthood represented in Le Morte Darthur. As the opening of "The Noble Tale of
Sir Lancelot" makes clear, Lancelot is defined, for Malory as for medieval and modern readers, by both his chivalric prowess and his relationship with Guinevere.
That Lancelot's romantic attachment to the queen is a contributing factor to the death of Arthurian chivalry can surely not be overlooked. Thus, the romantic relations of Lancelot throughout the Morte are as important to Malory's tragedy, and to any assessment of Lancelot himself, as the martial successes of the man.
When considering Lancelot's romantic encounters, a reader of Malory must inevitably confront the unease with which the narrator records the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere. Malory's unease is apparent not only in his dropping many scenes from his sources which focus on or justify the adultery, but also in his insistence that, when the lovers are caught together in the
30 queen's chamber, "as the Freynshe booke seyth, the quene and sir Launcelot were togydirs. And whether they were abed other at other maner of disportis, me lyste nat thereof make no mencion" (1165. 10‐3). Malory's source, however, the
"Frenynshe booke," is explicit: the lovers are in bed.6 Karen Cherewatuk notes that
Malory's treatment of the lovers' relationship is "typically English in his reticence about illicit sex, even as he offers the most complete version in English of Arthur and
Guenevere's marriage and Lancelot and Guenevere's adultery" (Marriage 25). That
Malory tries to distance his text from too much familiarity with Lancelot and
Guinevere's illicit love is an important point, but so too is Malory's decision to present a fuller picture of the adultery that will eventually spell the ruin of Arthur's
Round Table. By excising overt references to Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery that exist in his French sources, and further developing the societal implications of their union, Malory is demonstrating that while the love of Lancelot and Guinevere may be "trew," it is nonetheless a destructive force that ultimately threatens the unity of
Arthur's realm.
The destructive potential of Lancelot and Guinevere's union is seen primarily through the factionalism it fosters. While Arthur and Guinevere are united there is an uneasy peace between the political bodies that comprise Arthur's England. When
Lancelot breaks from Arthur and flees with Guinevere, the tenuous peace that
Arthur maintained through the Round Table is sundered. Without the centralized
6 Vinaver suggests that, "Concious as he is of the difference between the 'old love' and 'love as it fareth nowadays', M follows neither Le Morte Arthur (1806: 'To bede he gothe with the quene') nor the French (p. 92: 'se coucha avec la roïne'), both of which might, in his view, convey the wrong idea of how lovers were expected to behave in Arthur's time" ("Commentary." Works, 1630).
31 authority of the Round Table, the long simmering factionalism that dominated
Arthur's early years as king break out anew. As Arthur laments, "me sore repentith that ever sir Launcelot sholde be ayenste me, for now I am sure the noble felyshyp of the Rounde Table ys brokyn for ever" (1174. 13‐5). In these lines the king recognizes that the revelation of Lancelot and Guinevere's illicit union will undoubtedly lead to the collapse of the Round Table fellowship. This collapse leads directly to factional warfare and the end of a unified kingdom under Arthur.
The fracturing of the Round Table fellowship, which the revelation of Arthur and Lancelot's discord prompts, is immediate. As news spreads of the king's conflict, the political opportunists in his realm begin to see their advantage. In fact,
Malory notes that, "Whan they harde that kynge Arthure and sir Launcelot were at debate, many knyghts were glad" (1178. 17‐9). Clearly Malory is acknowledging the self‐serving factions within Arthur's kingdom who see profit and gain to be had from the disintegration of a unified realm. Indeed, the king's earlier fears are realized when Mordred rises in rebellion. Rather than having all knights support
Arthur Malory notes that "they that loved sir Launcelot drew unto sir Mordred"
(1233. 9‐10), marking clearly how the fallout from Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery has wide‐ranging consequences that will shake the peace of Arthur's kingdom to its core.
The mutability of the political landscape and the ease with which loyalties shifted were surely familiar to Malory, who was himself immersed in the political maneuverings which defined the War of the Roses. Indeed, as P.J.C. Field has demonstrated, Malory's lengthy imprisonment in the 1460s, an imprisonment
32 during which he composed his Arthuriad, owes as much to political factionalism as to any actual crimes.7 But while the troubles of Malory's day centered primarily on issues of good kingship and rival claims to the throne, Arthur is afflicted by the love of those closest to him. Like the troubles of Malory's age, however, once the troubles at Arthur's court begin there is no respite until the Morte's tragic denouement. Thus, Malory's inclusion of elements that demonstrate the political degeneration, which is a direct result of Lancelot and Guinevere's illicit union, cannot be ignored. In essence, Malory's Lancelot cannot escape his share of responsibility for the downfall of Arthur's kingdom, just as he cannot escape those martial qualities which so often set him apart from his peers. Yet while it seems clear that Malory did not favour Lancelot and Guinevere's love, his delicate treatment of the topic, and of Lancelot, begs the question: how did Malory intend his
Lancelot and Guinevere to be read?
It is Malory's explicit presentation of cause and effect which suggests to me that his treatment of Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery is intended to be read as a lamentable, but ultimately unpreventable, sin. Merlin's early warning to Arthur that
"Gwenyver was nat holsom for hym to take to wyff, for he warned hym that
Launcelot scholde love hir, and sche hym agayne" (97. 29‐31) is important in this regard since it demonstrates that the love of Guinevere and Lancelot is, in some vague sense, fated to happen. This suggestion that Lancelot and Guinevere are fated to love one another also addresses the fact that Malory's audience may have been
7 P.J.C. Field, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory, suggests quite convincingly that Malory, as a practicing knight, MP, and notorious criminal, was directly involved in the political turmoil of the War of the Roses with his own allegiance shifting between the Houses of York and Lancaster.
33 familiar with the adulterous union of the queen and her champion. This familiarity, and the supposed authority of Malory's sources, in effect forced Malory to confront the thorniest relationship in Arthurian history.
I believe that Malory's presentation of Lancelot and Guinevere shows he certainly sympathized with the lovers' plight. Malory was evidently familiar with other sources of his story that depicted the queen and her champion bound by the forces of fate, but Malory chose a presentation of the Arthurian tragedy that is far more human. I have argued that Malory's central concern throughout the Morte is proper knightly conduct, an understanding of which is most clearly articulated by his inclusion of the Pentecostal Oath. Significantly, Lancelot's love for the queen forces him to repeatedly violate central tenets of that oath, and thus endanger the status of his knightly worship. Malory's portrayal of Lancelot as knight and lover is focused on showing the hazard of Lancelot and Guinevere's love, while particularly highlighting the eventual rejection and repentance of that affection following the collapse of the Round Table fellowship. For Malory, it is the destruction of the
Round Table that marks the real tragedy in the Morte since its absence marks the end of knighthood's greatest incarnation. Malory is all too aware that it is human failings and human weaknesses that doom Arthur and the Round Table. Therefore, I believe that Malory most clearly articulates his view of Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship through his presentation of chivalry.
While there is ample evidence within Malory's text which demonstrates an uncomfortable ambivalence towards Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship, it is
Guinevere herself who most clearly articulates the tragedy of Le Morte Darthur. In a
34 lengthy speech to Lancelot and her assembled ladies, Guinevere makes use of the public setting to state openly her own transgressions and their unhappy result.
Guinevere announces to assembled company that
Thorow thys same man and me hath all thys warre be wrought, and the deth of the moste nobelest knyghtes of the worlde; for thorow oure love that we have loved togydir ys my moste noble lorde slayne. . . . And there[f]ore, sir Launcelot, I requyre the and beseche the hartily, for all the lo[v]e that ever was betwyxt us, that thou never se me no more in the visayge. And I commaunde the, on Goddis behalff, that thou forsake my company . . . for as well as I have loved the heretofore, myne [har]te woll nat serve now to se the; for thorow the and me ys the f[lour]e of kyngis and [knyghtes] destroyed. (1252. 8‐25)
In this powerful speech, Guinevere is adamant that the ruin of Arthur's England was primarily caused through the actions of Lancelot and herself. The veracity of the speech and the conviction with which it is delivered forces a confrontation between the lovers' romance as presented in Malory's Morte and the tale's tragic outcome.
Guinevere is careful to make her speech a public act. Indeed, she explicitly
"called her ladys and jantillwomen to her" (1252. 1‐2) before openly declaring her guilt. Guinevere's use of the court of public opinion as the venue for her confession invites further comparisons to Malory's frequent use of "reporte" as a means of verifying truth. This term is generally used by Lancelot as an invocation to his peers to verify the truth of his words. One memorable use of this phrase occurs when
Lancelot, perhaps conscious of his questionable conduct towards Elayne Le Blanke, addresses her father's concerns by stating, "I reporte me unto youre sonne, I never erly nother late profirde her bownté nother fayre behestes (1091. 3‐5). This invocation of another as witness, and thus as a surety of truth, is mirrored in
Guinevere's last speech to Lancelot. By addressing her speech "to all tho ladyes"
35
(1252.7), the queen is inviting the veracity of her claims to be considered not only by the assembled women and religious recluses in the abbey, but also women of the court and Malory's wider audience. That none of the ladies present counter
Guinevere's harsh self‐censure demonstrates the truth of her words. Thus, Malory's
Guinevere becomes the strongest critic of her adulterous love for Sir Lancelot. By publicly announcing her sins and the damage they have caused, Guinevere is admitting openly her culpability in the destruction of the Round Table.
While it is true, of course, that Guinevere is not solely responsible for the dissolution of the Round Table fellowship and the final tragedy of the Morte, her awareness of the fault she does bear is both significant and important for my purposes.
This admission is important since it demonstrates an awareness within
Malory's text that conduct is very much a matter of public perception. Lancelot appeals to others throughout the Morte to verify his honour in questions of conduct.
Similarly, Guinevere's decision to state her role in the downfall of Arthur's kingdom publicly demonstrates a serious concern with the adulterous nature of the affair and the effects it produces. These concerns and Guinevere's unequivocal admission of fault demonstrates that within Malory's Morte "the revelation of Lancelot and
Guinevere's love is integral to the collapse of the Round Table and the death of
Arthur and nearly all the principal characters" (Whetter, "Love and Death" 110).
While Guinevere certainly demonstrates the depth of her affections for
Lancelot throughout the text, her decision ultimately to renounce him is the strongest argument for a reading of the Morte that views their love as an unfortunate, yet unavoidable facet of the Arthurian tragedy. The queen's response
36 to Lancelot's request for a last kiss is the final and most explicit proof of Guinevere's rejection of Lancelot. When asked for a final kiss Guinevere responds sternly by exclaiming, "Nay . . . that shal I never do" (1253. 27‐8). This final act of rejection foregrounds Guinevere's repentance, a repentance that, initially at least, seems much stronger than Lancelot's. Despite the tragedy which has engulfed the Round
Table, Lancelot "had caste me to have had you into myn owne royame" (1253. 21‐2).
Guinevere's unequivocal rejection of Lancelot's hope for a future together, and the rejection of a last kiss, serve to highlight the changes and genuine regret the tragedy of the Round Table has wrought on the queen. This last poignant act demonstrates convincingly the full depth of Guinevere's repentance, a repentance that views both herself and Lancelot as the chief cause of a national sorrow. I hope to demonstrate that Malory's treatment of this romance may not be as ambivalent as it at first appears. In order to offer an accurate sense of how Malory and his contemporaries would have viewed Lancelot's affair with Guinevere, it is necessary not only to consider this relationship against the conventions of Malory's day, but also against other romantic possibilities raised in the Morte.
The purpose of trying to ascertain contemporary reactions to the illicit love of Lancelot and Guinevere stems from a desire to achieve a deeper insight into how
Malory and his peers would have viewed this union according to the conventions of their own day. Beverly Kennedy argues that Malory's audience "would have found the lovers' repeated acts of treasonable adultery, as recounted in the French version of Arthur's reign, extremely offensive" ("Guenevere" 27). This cultural disdain for adultery can be seen in Malory's Morte through his tentative treatment of the lovers'
37 private encounters. There is only one incident in the entire Morte in which Malory explicitly states that Guinevere and Lancelot have become intimate, but even then
Malory deals with the whole night's adventures in only four lines. Malory's decision to "passe upon thys tale, sir Launcelot wente to bedde with the Quene and . . . toke hys plesaunce and hys lykynge untyll hit was the dawnyng of the day" (1131. 28‐
31), demonstrates clearly Malory's desire to limit the presentation of adultery in his text. Despite Malory's reluctance to comment directly on Lancelot and Guinevere's affair, according to medieval conventions surrounding adultery the lovers are certainly in the wrong. According to the medieval understandings in Church and common law "adultery was primarily a sin" (Carbasse, "Adultery"). Karen
Cherewatuk's analysis of medieval adultery is even more damning for Lancelot and
Guinevere since, as Cherewatuk observes, "the Treason Statute of 1352 . . . defines a relationship with the king's consort as treasonous" (Marriage, 50). In this light, it would seem there is little room for a favourable view of Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery. While Malory clearly respects and perhaps even sympathizes with the
"trew" love of his star‐crossed lovers, there can be no doubt that "Malory's gentry or court audiences would have immediately recognized the irreparable damage
Guenevere has worked against her husband's worship and ability to rule"
(Cherewatuk, Marriage, 50).
As I have demonstrated, adultery was quite clearly a problematic feature of
Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship, a problem Malory tried to minimize. Still, despite Malory's desire to minimize the culpability of Lancelot and Guinevere in the fall of the Round Table, he still evidently found their relationship worrisome. Thus,
38 it must be seen as quite important that Malory chose to develop other romantic possibilities for his Lancelot within the Morte. One of the most striking romantic possibilities Malory presents which involves Lancelot is his version of the Fair Maid of Ascolat episode. While the story is well‐known in Malory's sources, it is the unique treatment of this section of Le Morte Darthur that marks it as an important moment when considering Malory's presentation of Lancelot. Malory does not diverge greatly from those sources which treat the tale of the Fair Maid, but he does carefully choose the manner in which Elayne, the Fair Maid, is presented.8 First and foremost, Malory deviates from his sources by naming the maid "Elayne le Blanke"
(600. 18). In the French sources, she is "often identified simply as the demoiselle d'Escalot" (Lacy, Elaine). Malory's decision to give his heroine a name is certainly important, but equally important is his choice of name. Cherewatuk argues that
Whether or not Malory found the name already attributed to Galahad's mother, he astutely decided to call the maiden of Ascolat by the same name. Malory thus creates for his audience an echoic effect: on hearing or reading the later tale of the Fair Maid, the audience reflexively recalls the earlier story of Galahad's mother. (Marriage 57)
These echoes lend credence to my suggestion that Malory intended his audience to view Elayne Le Blanke as a potential alternative to Lancelot's love for Guinevere.
Naturally, such a reading of this episode is reliant upon demonstrating that Malory's text strives to present this Elayne in a favourable light.
While I believe Malory treats both Elayne Le Blanke and Elaine of Corbin with a certain special care, it appears the Fair Maid of Ascolat commands more of
8 In an effort to minimize confusion, I have chosen to differentiate between Elayne Le Blanke and Elaine of Corbin by a varied spelling of their shared name.
39 the author's attentions. Details like the relatively minor addition of the appellation
"le Blanke" immediately serve to highlight the maid's chastity and good virtue.
While such distinctions serve to draw attention to Elayne's positive qualities, Malory does not content himself with merely embellishing small details. Cherewatuk notes that "In contrast to his sources, Malory eliminates detractions about the girl's rank"
(Marriage 62). This seemingly minor distinction between Malory and his sources could not be more significant. By choosing to remove questions of rank and instead establish Elayne's status as a member of the minor nobility, "Malory removes social class as an obstacle to Launcelot marrying Sir Barnarde's daughter" (Cherewatuk,
Marriage 62). In essence, Malory has deviated from his sources in order to present a more eligible and marriageable Elayne, a point whose significance is heightened when the reader recalls that Malory's Lancelot, when he encounters Elayne, is lately returned from the Grail Quest and the lessons learned there.
The reader will remember that it was during the Grail Quest that Lancelot could finally "se and undirstonde that myne olde synne hyndryth me and shamyth me" (896. 6‐7). Lancelot's great sin is, of course, his love for Guinevere. The revelation that Lancelot cannot achieve the Grail because of his own failings is an important one. After all, with the exception of the Grail Quest Malory's Lancelot is presented at nearly every turn as a righteous knight favoured by God. While I have argued earlier that this favourable treatment is problematic given Lancelot's conduct, Malory's text only explicitly chastises Lancelot within the Grail Quest itself.
That Lancelot's limitations and the cause for his failure in the Quest are fully
40 exposed to the reader is telling. This is especially true when Lancelot's conduct throughout the rest of the Morte is considered.
Such consideration demonstrates clearly that Lancelot's failings in the Grail
Quest, and throughout the Morte, stem from the unheeded injunction of the hermit
Nacien. When the old knight enters Arthur's court prior to the Quest, he chastises the Round Table knights for their presumption to have women accompany them in search for the Grail. More specifically, however, the old knight proclaims that "I warne you playne, he that ys nat clene of hys synnes he shall not se the mysteryes of
Oure Lorde Jesu Cryste" (869. 3‐4). This warning highlights systemic problems within the Round Table fellowship that will be exposed through the course of the
Grail Quest, and ultimately through the tragic conclusion of Le Morte Darthur. Thus,
Lancelot's unwholesome love for the queen becomes a focus of Malory's text, since it is this same love that will ultimately sunder Arthur's kingdom.
In my opinion, it is apparent that while Malory's Lancelot does not succeed in the Grail Quest, his adventure there serves to demonstrate that Lancelot has lost the godly path. His love for Guinevere is "oute of measure," (897. 16) but perhaps most worryingly Lancelot himself confesses that
all my grete dedis of armys that I have done for the moste party was for the quenys sake, and for hir sake wolde I do batayle were hit ryght other wronge. And never dud I batayle all only [for] Goddis sake, but for to wynne worship and to cause me the bettir to be beloved, and little or nought I thanked never God of hit. (897. 17‐22)
This frank admission illustrates plainly how the love of Guinevere has corrupted
Lancelot's knighthood. Lancelot's assertion that most of the deeds he has done were for the queen's sake, and that he would fight for her regardless of cause,
41 demonstrates a clear violation of the Pentecostal Oath, an oath which I argue should be considered the yardstick for measuring Malorian chivalry. This argument is supported by Dorsey Armstrong who argues that Malory's Pentecostal Oath is an
act of chivalric legislation . . . [that] sets in motion an ideal of knightly behaviour [while] the rest of the text tests that code in a variety of circumstances, revealing the tensions, shortcomings, and blind spots of the chivalric project. (29)
Thus, while it is true that many of Arthur's knights err in relation to this oath, only
Lancelot pointedly acknowledges his failings and yet continues to perpetrate them.
The critic may wonder whether it is perhaps this stubborn loyalty to his illicit love that Malory found appealing in Lancelot. Still, there can be little doubt that so far as the lessons of the Grail Quest are concerned, Lancelot remains an unrepentant sinner.
This contradiction of words and deeds serves to highlight the problematic nature of Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship. Lancelot's love of Guinevere certainly inspires him to heroic deeds, but it also manifests itself as a version of knighthood that is wholly devoted to the service of one's lady. While there is certainly evidence, especially in the French sources, for such lady‐centric chivalry, I would argue that Malory's text is not so expressly concerned with the romantic as it is with questions of conduct and excellence in knighthood. Terence McCarthy notes that Malory's Lancelot "bears little resemblance to the French Prose Lancelot," (86) while acknowledging the "essentially military spirit of the Morte Darthur, its lack of interest in matters of personal sentiment, its insistence on public loyalties, [and] its notions of virtue" (91). Malory's focus on the martial aspects of the Arthurian legend make it clear that while his text derived from romance materials, its core
42 concern is not romance, but rather the words and deeds of knights. I see Malory's chivalric focus throughout the Morte as indicative of an author who sees in his material the possibility for reform through education. The knighthood presented by
Malory, at times famously flawed as evidenced by Lancelot, is meant to encourage a knightly audience to consider the errors and merits of the individual knight's conduct. William Caxton certainly shared this view of the Morte when he urges
Malory's readers to "take the good honest actes in their remembraunce, and to folowe the same" (Works, cxlvi).
This didactic focus is important and marks Malory's text as an ongoing critique of fifteenth‐century English knighthood and the broader European knighthood in general. In this light, the illicit union of Lancelot and Guinevere is more than mere backdrop to Malory's broader Arthuriad. Rather, the adultery of
Guinevere and Lancelot's single‐minded passion for his lady represent a serious threat to the stability of the Round Table and, ultimately, Arthur's entire kingdom.
Larry D. Benson acknowledges the problematic presentation of Malory's principal lovers and suggests that
When chivalric romances became a guide to conduct, the condonation of adultery was no longer acceptable. This may be why English romances, which are all from this later period, seem so moral when compared to their French antecedents. Though fifteenth‐century nobles were eager to be known as model lovers equal to Tristram or Lancelot, they obviously did not want to be known as adulterers. (160)
Benson's assertion that Malory's contemporaries would not want to have been viewed as adulterers is central to any understanding of Malory's Lancelot. If
Malory's contemporaries were squeamish at the thought of adultery in the court of
43
Arthur, then it seems unlikely that Malory himself would have viewed the union of
Lancelot and Guinevere as a high point in the history of Arthur's Round Table.
Despite the problematic nature of Lancelot and Guinevere's union, there can be little doubt that Malory held both characters in deference. As discussed earlier,
Malory goes to great lengths to minimize Lancelot's culpability and assure his readers that Guinevere was not punished for her transgressions of the marital bed.
In one of Malory's most famous addresses to the reader, Malory even asserts that
Guinevere "whyle she lyved she was a trew lover, and therefore she had a good ende" (1120. 12‐3). This brief passage serves merely to highlight Malory's somewhat contradictory handling of the entire affair. It seems evident from these lines that Malory respects the constancy of Guinevere's love for Lancelot, while expressly ignoring any reference to the transgressions the queen has made against husband, king, and God.
As Cherewatuk notes, "The Malorian narrator never condemns Guenevere for adultery, but one wonders how fifteenth‐century readers would have judged the queen ‐ especially given that the charges against Guenevere . . . are valid" (Marriage
50). It is the validity of Mallyagaunce and Mordred's accusations against the queen which must make any reader of Malory pause. While Malory never explicitly condemns Lancelot and Guinevere's love, the reader of the Morte, and especially its contemporary readership, would have understood the gravity of the lover's transgressions. That the only explicit condemnation of Lancelot and Guinevere's conduct comes from their enemies is telling. It reinforces a view of Lancelot and
Guinevere's love in the Morte as an unfortunate, but also unavoidable facet of the
44
Arthurian tragedy. By limiting the condemnation of the queen and her champion
Malory is clearly striving to present the lovers in as positive a light as possible, especially given the difficult circumstances. That being said, it is also clear that
Malory's treatment of the entire relationship stems from a discomfort with treasonous adultery against a noble king like Malory's Arthur.
In order to demonstrate the difficulties inherent in presenting adulterous love in the Middle Ages, it is again necessary for the reader of Malory to confront the historical and material realities of fifteenth‐century England that shaped and defined the Morte. Just as the knighthood of Malory's text can be traced to its actual practice, so too can the contemporary mores and morals, so often ambivalently presented, be recovered and better understood in relation to the text. A fuller understanding of how Malory's contemporary audience would have viewed the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere leads to a fresh perspective on Lancelot's other romantic entanglements. Since it seems clear that Malory, while favouring the constancy of Lancelot and Guinevere's love, still views their relationship as a fundamental cause of the collapse of Arthur's England, it follows that if Lancelot could have found love elsewhere the tragic conclusion of the Morte may have been avoided. This suggestion is certainly speculative, but it raises the possibility that
Lancelot's other romantic connections could prove important indicators of Malory's view on the propriety of Lancelot and Guinevere's love.
While there are numerous ladies, both young and old, who vie for Lancelot's affections, the stories of Elayne Le Blanke and Elaine of Corbin are perhaps the best indication of a textual view which considers Lancelot and Guinevere's love to be less
45 than ideal. Through a consideration of these two women it will become apparent that Malory not only tailors these sections to highlight the eligibility and desirability of his heroines, but that the women themselves will defend the propriety of their love for Lancelot. This marks both passages, and both women, as important alternatives to Guinevere as the sole possessor of Lancelot's love.
While I believe both Elayne Le Blanke and Elaine of Corbin represent a potential alternative to Lancelot's ultimately destructive love for Guinevere, the tragic ends of these women serves further to highlight the damage Lancelot and
Guinevere's relationship is having on the broader community of Arthur's court.
Cherewatuk, arguing along similar lines, suggests that "Malory twice confronts
Launcelot with marriageable women [the Elaines] who could draw him from
Guenevere and into socially beneficial marriage and procreation" (Marriage 73).
Sadly, Lancelot is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to acknowledge that his union with
Guinevere can never realize a positive outcome. Adultery aside, Lancelot's relationship with the queen cannot produce the same advantages as marriage could.
This textual focus on the institution of marriage, and the societal benefits derived from it, foregrounds Malory's concern with Lancelot's love‐blind behaviour. I conceive of the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere as a problematic instance of romance gone too far. Instead of serving Guinevere merely as her champion, in the courtly sense, Lancelot quite literally takes the queen as his own, thereby ignoring the advice of his friends, holy men, and even God. Perhaps most troublingly, Lancelot, in his blind desire for Guinevere, is willing to explicitly contravene the standard for Malorian chivalry, the Pentecostal Oath.
46
The reader will recall that upon Guinevere's death Lancelot is visited thrice by a divine vision that commands him to go and gather the queen's body so that she may be interred. What is most telling about this passage is that Lancelot is instructed to "fetche thou the cors of hir, and burye hir by her husbond, the noble kyng Arthur" (1255. 19‐20). By reuniting Arthur and Guinevere in death Malory is again highlighting the sanctity of the institution of marriage. Further, the divine injunction that Guinevere is to be buried alongside Arthur, bound together for eternity, undermines those critics who have described this vision as evidence that
Lancelot and Guinevere "have consummated a spiritual marriage, a union of souls"
(Kennedy, "Malory's Guinevere" 27). Instead, I would argue that the ruin of the
Round Table, due in part to Guinevere's earthly transgressions, has led the queen to regret her love of Lancelot. The decision to retire to the abbey is not rooted in fear, but instead in an awareness of the need for "grete penaunce" (1243. 6). This suggests that Malory's Guinevere recognizes her own part in the destruction of
Arthur's kingdom and is striving in her last days to redress the wrongs she has committed. She even asks "Almyghty God that I may never have power to see syr
Launcelot wyth my worldly eyen" (1255. 36‐7). This final prayer, related to
Lancelot by the queen's ladies, stresses the queen's renunciation of Lancelot and a fervent desire to repent. In the end, Guinevere's final resting place is beside her husband and king, evidence that the queen has, in my opinion, achieved Malory's
"good ende".
Guinevere's death serves to highlight the problematic nature of her love for
Lancelot and the fissures it causes in Arthur's realm. Her eventual repentance and
47 rejection of Lancelot are proof of the impropriety of their relations and a recognition of the damage their love has wrought. I have contended that the Morte's treatment of Lancelot and Guinevere's illicit love recognizes the damage this love caused, but
Malory still treats both lovers with delicacy. Malory is largely bound by convention into the retelling of Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery, yet his treatment, while sympathetic, is evidently not one that views the relationship of Lancelot and
Guinevere as emblematic of what a knight's love should be. By turning to a brief examination of the words, conduct, and character of Elayne Le Blanke and Elaine of
Corbin, I will demonstrate the positive possibilities these women present as alternatives to Guinevere's love, alternatives that are free of the knotty problem of medieval adultery.
The first Elaine encountered in Malory's Morte is Elaine of Corbin, the daughter of King Pelles. As the daughter of a king, Elaine can be seen as the social equal of both Lancelot and Guinevere. When she arrives at Arthur's court there is general agreement that "dame Elayne was [the fairest and] beste beseyne lady that ever was seyne in that courte" (803. 7‐8). While this high praise is certainly deserved, perhaps most importantly Lancelot himself recognizes her beauty and worth. As Malory's text mentions, despite Lancelot's cold treatment of Elaine at their meeting in Arthur's court, "yet sir Launcelot thought that she was the fayrest woman that ever he sye in his lyeff dayes" (803. 17‐8). This passage is important since it demonstrates that Lancelot is not entirely blind to the charms of other women. Further, it serves to highlight the desirability of Elaine as a woman of beauty, and thus presumably a woman of worth.
48
Further evidence of Elaine's potential marriageability is the birth of her and
Lancelot's son, Galahad. While the specifics of Galahad's conception are grounded in unenviable duplicity, the result is a "fayre sonne" (806. 22). While this contradiction between deed and result is problematic, it recalls the earlier episode of Sir Torre.
When Torre's qualifications for knighthood are being discussed, including his parentage, Torre is uncomfortable at the suggestion that he is the product of an illicit union between his mother and King Pellynor. Importantly, Merlin assures him that "hit ys more for your worship than hurte, for youre fadir ys a good knyght and a kynge" (101. 23‐5). In this light, the duplicitous deed that begets Galahad upon
Elaine becomes a minor consideration beside its positive product. Even Elaine's father knows of and condones the plan to conceive Galahad, a point which may not reassure modern readers but which would have satisfied a medieval audience.
Thus, Elaine of Corbin's relationship with Lancelot should not be considered according to the manner in which it proceeded, but rather according to the results it produced. For Malory, the birth of a good knight seems to be the ideal purpose of marriage. While it is true that Elaine and Lancelot are not wed in the traditional sense, the birth of Galahad highlights the possibility that were Lancelot to marry a worthy woman like Elaine of Corbin, more excellent knights would surely be the result.
Malory does not limit himself merely to hinting at possible alternatives to
Guinevere's love. Malory's presentation of Elaine of Corbin and Elayne Le Blanke also includes explicit speeches that condemn Lancelot and the queen. One of the passages in Malory's text which is most critical of Guinevere is Elaine of Corbin's
49 rebuke of the queen for chastising Lancelot's infidelity. In this passage, original to
Malory, Elaine of Corbin clearly outlines Guinevere's serious failings while highlighting her own eligibility as a wife and companion for Sir Lancelot
madame, ye have done grete synne, and youreselff grete dyshonoure, for ye have a lorde royall of youre owne; and therefore hit were youre parte for to love hym; for there is no quene in this worlde that hath suche another kynge as ye have. And yf ye were nat, I myght have getyn the love of my lorde sir Launcelot; and a grete cause I have to love hym, for he had my maydynhode, and by hym I have born a fayre sonne whose [name] ys sir Galahad. (806. 15‐23)
This stern rebuke forces a reader of Malory to confront the truth in Elaine's condemnation. As Elaine rightly points out, Guinevere has committed and is committing a grave sin by forsaking her husband and king for the love of Lancelot.
While Elaine's appeal is directed against Guinevere alone, its implications for the
Morte as a whole are evident. If indeed Elaine's accusations against Guinevere are well‐founded, as I contend they are, then this passage is a stinging indictment of
Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship. After all, the illicit love of Lancelot and
Guinevere is rooted in the rejection of Arthur "that noble kynge," (1231. 27) and will not produce the rewards of the married state. Instead, the relations of Lancelot and
Guinevere sow discord among the court and enfeeble the King both lovers claim to value so highly.
Indeed, it is Malory's consistent presentation of Arthur as a good king that is the greatest hurdle for critics who would suggest that Lancelot and Guinevere's love is celebrated in the Morte. Unlike some of Malory's French sources, especially the
Lancelot‐Grail cycle, the Morte goes to great lengths to show Arthur as both a good
50 knight and a good king. This presentation of Arthur as a good king is consistent throughout the text and is an example of one instance when Malory seems blissfully clear in his meaning. The reader of Malory's Morte is intended to read Arthur as a great king of Britain. The union of Lancelot and Guinevere, those two people who are closest and dearest to the king, creates a difficult political climate for Arthur that leaves him publicly weakened. This sentiment is expressed most clearly by the king when Arthur laments the strife that has sprung up as a result of Guinevere and
Lancelot's lately exposed transgressions. The impending tragedy is evident when
Arthur states
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. Alas, my good knyghtes be slayne and gone away fro me, that now within two dayes I have loste nygh fourty knyghtes and also the noble felyshyp of sir Launcelot and hys blood, for now I may nevermore holde hem togydirs with my worshyp. Now, alas, that ever thys warre began. (1183. 7‐14)
In these lines Arthur acknowledges that his own worship has been tarnished and as a result he is unable to hold together the fellowship of the Round Table. Most troubling, Arthur notes that it was through these same knights that his kingship and thus his kingdom were held together. This admission forces a reader of the Morte to confront the very public ramifications of Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery. Arthur argues that it was through him that the knights of the Round Table were held together, and in turn their power as a political unit upheld Arthur. Without a king and without his knights the Round Table ceases to exist. Instead, the power vacuum left in the fellowship's wake encourages opportunists like Mordred to overthrow the
51 king. It is these tragic consequences, the evil fruit of Lancelot and Guinevere's love, that demands readers of the Morte stop to consider the consequences of their love.
The second Elayne introduced in Malory is the daughter of an "olde barown"
(1067. 4), named Sir Barnarde. Malory takes great pains to present this second
Elayne in a positive light. She is seen through her interactions with Lancelot to be thoughtful, kind, virtuous, and chaste. Her only sin is "that I loved thys noble knyght, sir Launcelot, oute of mesure" (1093‐94. 17‐1). This line recalls Lancelot's earlier confession during the Grail Quest that he "had loved a quene unmesurabely and oute of mesure longe" (897. 16). The only difference is that while the queen is not a suitable lover for Lancelot, Elayne is presented as the very definition of suitability.
I believe that Malory's favourable treatment of Elayne Le Blanke suggests that she was intended to be a character of some importance in his Arthuriad. This can be demonstrated through Malory's unique development of this episode. Unlike his sources, Malory's treatment of the Fair Maid episode is deliberately developed to present Elayne as positively as possible. For starters, she is unnamed in both
French and English sources: simply referred to as the Maid of Ascolat or the Fair
Maid. Malory names her, a fact that alone gives Elayne greater importance than the source character. But Malory does not confine himself merely to minor changes when dealing with his Elayne. He also includes a lengthy and original speech from
Elayne in which she defends her desire for Lancelot against suggestions she should
"leve such thoughtes" (1093. 1) of love. Elayne passionately argues
Why sholde I leve such thoughtes? Am I nat an erthely woman? And all the whyle the brethe ys in my body I may complayne me, for
52
my belyve is that I do none offence, though I love an erthely man, unto God, for He fourmed me thereto, and all maner of good love comyth of God. And othir than good love loved I never sir Launcelot du Lake. And I take God to recorde, I loved never none but hym, nor never shall, of erthely creature; and a clene maydyn I am for hym and for all othir. And sitthyn hit ys the sufferaunce of God that I shall dye for so noble a knyght, I beseche The, Hyghe Fadir of Hevyn, have mercy uppon me and my soule, and uppon myne unnumerable paynys that I suffir may be alygeaunce of parte of my synnes. For, Swete Lorde Jesu . . . I take God to recorde I was never to The grete offenser, nother ayenste Thy lawis but that I loved thys noble knyght, sir Launcelot, oute of mesure. And of myselff, Good Lorde, I had no myght to withstonde the fervent love, wherefore I have my deth. (1093. 3‐1094. 3)
Elayne Le Blanke's impassioned response to her confessor is, as Ralph Norris notes, an "entire passage [that] has no counterpart in Malory's major sources" (Malory's
Library 124). This is important since it demonstrates Malory's intent to present this
Elayne as an attractive alternative to Lancelot's problematic love for Guinevere. As
K.S. Whetter suggests, Lancelot's relationship with Elayne Le Blanke is important
"since it offers Lancelot ‐ had he accepted the Maid's love ‐ a way out of his adulterous and destructive love with Guinevere" ("Love and Death" 110).
While highlighting the problematic love of Lancelot and Guinevere, Elayne's complaints in the above speech also serve to highlight her just claims to affection.
The reader is reminded, again as a matter of public record, that Elayne is a pure woman whose only sin is loving too much. Further, and more importantly, the
Maid's assertion that "I take God to recorde" (1093. 16), demonstrates a certainty that she has been blameless in her conduct. Of course it is these lines and Elayne's insistence that "I loved never none but hym, nor never shall, of erthely creature; and a clene maydyn I am for hym and for all othir" (1093. 9‐11), that forces a reader to reconsider Guinevere's claim to Lancelot's affections. In her last confession, Elayne,
53 like her earlier namesake, is given a speech in Malory's Morte that serves to stress the unsuitability of Guinevere and Lancelot's passionate love. Elaine's speech highlights that Guinevere is certainly not a "clene mayden" nor can she claim to have
"loved never none but hym" (1093. 9). This powerful speech forces the reader of
Malory to compare the love Lancelot shares with Guinevere to the potential for love with Elaine.
The importance that Malory attaches to this Elayne cannot be ignored. He takes great care to show her as a tender and loving woman of virtue. The reader is aware that Lancelot is indebted to the Maid of Ascalot for the care with which she has tended his wounds. While this service in itself demands great affection, Malory takes great care to see Elayne praised, both while alive and dead. These acclamations serve to highlight the eligibility and desirability of a union with Elayne.
Significantly, Malory chooses to continue extolling Elayne through Lancelot's cousin
Bors. While Bors' speeches are known from Malory's sources, it is significant that
Malory chooses to include them.9 When Bors first encounters Elayne he asks
Lancelot if this "ys thys she . . . that men calle the Fayre Maydyn of Ascolat?" (1084.
24‐5). Lancelot responds that it is, but "that by no meanys I can nat put her fro me"
(1084. 26‐7). It is Bors' response to Lancelot that I would suggest most accurately demonstrates the Morte's and Malory's conception of Elayne as a proper object of
Lancelot's love. In responding to his cousin Bors argues sternly:
Why sholde ye put her frome you? . . . For she ys a passyng fayre damesell, and well besayne and well taught. And God wolde, fayre
9 Vinaver notes "The corresponding passage in the Mort Artu begins on p. 40, l. 16, and goes as far as p. 43, l. 33 ("Commentary." Works, 1602).
54
cousyn . . . that ye cowde love her, but as to that I may nat nother dare nat counceyle you. (1084. 28‐32)
This speech is important because it demonstrates that Lancelot's closest kinsmen wish Lancelot would leave his unwholesome love for the queen and instead find some other worthy partner. As this passage shows, to Bors Elayne represents an attractive woman who firmly possesses those qualities which should inspire the affections of a knight. But perhaps Bors' greatest insight into Lancelot's dilemma is his wish that Lancelot could, by the grace of God, find love with a woman like Elayne.
Sadly, Bors' admission that he will not dare to counsel Lancelot on this matter stresses the hopelessness of Lancelot's love and the impossibility of a happy end to it.
The last and perhaps most intriguing element of Malory's Fair Maid episode is Malory's version of the letter which reaches Camelot with the body of Elayne. In the letter, which Arthur "made a clerke to rede" (1096. 26), Elayne publicly states her complaint against Lancelot saying
Moste noble knyght, my lorde sir Launcelot, now hath dethe made us two at debate for youre love. And I was youre lover, that men called the Fayre Mayden of Ascolate. Therefore unto all ladyes I make my mone, yet for my soule ye pray and bury me at the leste, and offir ye my masse‐peny: thys ys my laste requeste. And a clene maydyn I dyed, I take God to wytnesse. And pray for my soule, sir Launcelot, as thou arte pereles. (1096. 28‐35)
Like Guinevere will do all too soon, Elayne publicly announces the results of her relationship with Lancelot. This public complaint is an important narrative moment in Malory's broader Le Morte Darthur. It grounds the love of Lancelot and Guinevere as the cause of suffering for Elayne whose only crime is loving a knight who is in love with the queen. Thus, Elayne's injunction that "unto all ladyes I make my
55 mone" (1096. 31) stresses that Elayne wishes to be judged according to the court of public opinion. Elayne invokes God to bear witness to her chastity and demands that "at the leste" (1096. 32) Lancelot should bury her and offer her soul masses.
These requests demonstrate a belief on Elayne's part that she has been wronged by
Lancelot's refusal to return her love.
In admitting the relation between "all my grete dedis of armys" (897. 17) and his love for Guinevere, Lancelot can be seen to willfully perpetuate a violation of the
Round Table's Pentecostal Oath never to "take no batayles in a wrongefull quarell for no love ne for no worldis goodis" (120. 23‐4). The oath also, of course, enjoins knights "allwayes to do ladyes, damesels, and jantilwomen and wydowes [socour:]"
(120. 20‐1). Although this hardly means Lancelot is obligated to marry Elayne of
Ascolat, Elayne herself certainly holds Lancelot partly to blame for her death and she has a point. Whetter suggests that
Launcelot need not reciprocate Elayne's love, of course, but he is remarkably if not wilfully short‐sighted in failing to see the consequences of accepting Elayne's token and leaving her in charge of his shield whilst he rides out in disguise. ("Characterization" 126)
Furthermore, Malory throughout the remainder of the Morte constantly reminds us of the potential liaison between Lancelot and Elayne, and thus of the potential means by which the destruction of the Round Table fellowship may have been avoided. One such reminder, discussed earlier, is the echo of Elayne's public denunciation of Lancelot in Guinevere's own admission of guilt. Another echo is that both Elaine and Lancelot eschew religious counsel about the excesses of their earthly loves. The problem is that all of these echoes, like the love of Lancelot and
56
Guinevere itself, have both good and bad effects. These echoes remind readers that alternatives to the love between Lancelot and Guinevere do exist in the Morte and thus of a potential alternative to the tragic ending of Malory's Arthuriad. Malory's treatment of Lancelot and Guinevere also reminds the Morte's readers that Lancelot is who he is precisely because of his love of Guinevere. His love for Guinevere inspires Lancelot to heroic deeds, but also places him directly at odds with his king, many of his fellow knights and, ultimately, the Pentecostal Oath he swore. The conclusion of this problematic love and a consideration of Lancelot's last days will be the subject of the next chapter.
57
Chapter III: Urry, Lancelot, and the Death of Chivalry
In the first chapter of this thesis I offered evidence that demonstrated the pervasive interest medieval audiences had in chivalry, both as a pan‐European phenomenon and as a lived discipline that called its adherents to live their lives to a higher standard. In the second chapter, I applied the understandings of medieval European chivalry gained in the first chapter to facilitate a broader reassessment of the chivalric performance and love of Sir Thomas Malory's Lancelot. What became immediately apparent from a sustained chivalric critique of Malory's Lancelot is the serious contradictions that seem to define Malory's presentation of his champion.
The problematic nature of Lancelot's relationship with Guinevere, his refusal to consider other romantic possibilities, and preference for the queen's love even at the cost of his knightly worship, all indicate a presentation of Lancelot within Le
Morte Darthur that is not nearly as positive as more generous critics have allowed.
The current chapter will continue to examine specific instances of Lancelot's conduct against the guiding dictates of chivalry by dealing with two of the most ambiguous and divisive moments in Malory's text and especially in Malorian criticism, the "Healing of Sir Urry" and Lancelot's final moments in the episode
Vinaver entitled "The Dolorous Death and Departing." It is my contention that by applying the rubric of chivalry and interrogating Lancelot's words and conduct against these standards, a fuller appreciation for the complexities of Malory's Sir
Lancelot will be developed.
58
Malory’s inclusion of the "Healing of Sir Urry" is unique in the Arthurian tradition in that it is Malory’s own creation, though perhaps with a very minor source, and also important for being Malory’s longest original scene in the whole Le
Morte Darthur.10 This marks it as an important narrative moment for a number of reasons. Most importantly for the purpose of this thesis, the "Healing of Sir Urry" offers readers one of those fundamental moments in the Morte when contradictions of Lancelot’s chivalric success become most apparent. C. S. Lewis, when discussing the "Healing of Sir Urry", notes that “Here Lancelot is proved by infallible signs to be in one sense (he knows too well in what and how limited a sense) the best knight of the world. Hence, while all praise him to the skies, he can only weep like a beaten child” (20). As Lewis rightly points, Lancelot is well aware of his own human failings and the grave sins he has committed against both his physical and spiritual lords. In this sense, Lancelot’s tears of lamentation should come as no surprise since the reader, as well as Lancelot, is well aware of how far his transgressions with
Guinevere have gone.
It is important to remember that the "Healing of Sir Urry" is situated immediately after "The Knight of the Cart" episode in which Lancelot and Guinevere consummate their love and immediately before the final tale, the "Death of Arthur".
In this way, the unique passage dealing with Sir Urry follows the consummation of
Lancelot and Guinevere’s love that, in turn, directly precipitates the ultimate destruction of the Round Table and the death of its renowned king. It must be
10 Vinaver argues for the originality of the Urry episode stating, "The third and the fifth episodes of the Book The Great Tournament and The Healing of Sir Urry ‐ are virtually unknown in Arthurian literature" ("Commentary." Works, 1591).
59 stressed that the "Healing of Sir Urry" immediately follows the "Knight of the Cart," the one incident in the entire Morte Darthur where Malory explicitly admits that "sir
Launcelot wente to bedde with the quene" (1131. 28‐9). So while those critics who favour a positive reading of the Urry episode celebrate Lancelot's success in the healing of Urry as proof of his unmatched status as "beste knyght of the worlde"
(1145. 19‐20), such celebrations must necessarily ignore Lancelot's ignoble conduct towards King Arthur and, ultimately, Lancelot's own harsh assessment of his deeds following the death of Arthur and Guinevere. The climate of contradiction which
Malory creates around central questions of conduct can be seen clearly in Lancelot's behaviour throughout the Urry episode. Unlike previous trials in the Morte,
Lancelot is here hesitant and downright unwilling to attempt the healing of Urry.
Lancelot’s resigned confession to Arthur when attempting the healing, “I muste do your commaundemente, which ys sore ayesnste my harte” (1152. 17‐8), demonstrates clearly the unwillingness of Lancelot to undertake a trial which could publicly expose the most secret shame of which Malory's readers are well apprised.
Lancelot’s prayer on Sir Urry’s behalf further demonstrates Lancelot’s awareness of his failings and his unworthiness of the title best knight of the world.
By examining Lancelot's prayer closely, we see that his hesitancy in trying to heal
Urry stems from fear of public exposure for his grave misdeeds, rather than stated fears "that I shulde presume uppon me to enchyve that all ye, my lordis, myght nat enchyve" (1151. 21‐3). As the reader will recall, Arthur was the first to attempt the healing of Urry, without any of the hesitancy or unwillingness that Lancelot displays.
For Arthur the healing of Urry is to be attempted:
60
to gyff all othir men off worshyp a currayge . . . nat presumyng uppon me that I am so worthy to heale youre son be my dedis, but I woll corrayge othir men of worshyp to do as I woll do. (1146. 24‐9)
The contrast between Arthur and Lancelot's behaviour in this instance could not be more sharply highlighted. While Lancelot attempts to excuse himself from this trial for fear of the effects should he fail, Arthur is willing to attempt the healing of Urry in order to set a positive example for other practitioners of chivalry. Arthur can be seen in this instance as a true practitioner of the dictates of knighthood and a king concerned with the wellbeing of the institution of chivalry. Rather than fear the effects of failure on his worship, Arthur attempts the healing of Urry to demonstrate an expected standard of trial and tribulation for those employed in the chivalric life.
In contrast, Lancelot offers a variety of reasons for not initially attempting the healing of Urry. Despite this rather questionable reasoning, Lancelot is ultimately encouraged to attempt the trial by Arthur "for no presumpcion, but for to beare us felyshyp, insomuche as ye be a felow of the Rounde Table" (1151. 31‐3).
Faced with a duty to attempt the trial his fellow knights have failed, Lancelot prays
Now, Blyssed Fadir and Son and Holy Goste, I beseche The of Thy mercy that my symple worshyp and honesté be saved, and Thou Blyssed Trynyté, Thou mayste yeff me power to hele thys syke knight by the grete vertu and grace of The – but, Good Lorde, never of myself. (1152. 20‐5)
In my opinion, this prayer exposes more than an admirable sense of humility on
Lancelot’s part. After all, it is important to note that the first part of Lancelot’s prayer is not intended for the sickly Sir Urry, but is rather a prayer to save the worship and honesty of Lancelot. This, I would suggest, proves that Lancelot’s unwillingness to join the rest of the Round Table in attempting to heal Sir Urry
61 stems from a genuine fear that this test will reveal Lancelot as a fallible knight instead of the oft‐vaunted best knight in the world. When Lancelot does finally turn his prayer towards Sir Urry he invokes the virtue and grace of God, but specifically intones that the healing of Urry must come from God and not because of any qualities Lancelot himself possesses. This qualifying statement could again be easily ascribed to a high sense of humility, but it seems more than unlikely given the terms of the enchantment cast upon Urry. As a reader of this episode will recall, Sir Urry has been cursed by a powerful sorceress “so that he shulde never be hole untyll the beste knyght of the worlde had serched hys woundis” (1145. 19‐20). Thus, while it is true that the "Healing of Sir Urry" ostensibly "proves" Lancelot the greatest knight of the world, it also exposes the growing conflict of loyalty which is tearing Lancelot, and ultimately the entire Round Table fellowship, apart.
The contradiction between Lancelot the sinner and Lancelot the saviour is no clearer than when Sir Urry is healed at Lancelot's hands. In this specific moment
Malory’s choice of words is quite telling and supports my assertion that while this particular incident assures Lancelot’s chivalric primacy for his supporters, it sharply highlights Lancelot’s failings in the eyes of his sharpest critic, himself. So instead of triumph and joy at the miraculous healing of Sir Urry, Malory notes that “ever sir
Launcelote wepte, as he had bene a chylde that had bene beatyn” (1152. 35‐6). This choice of phrase and its impact on the entire Urry episode is perhaps more important than some critics have allowed. Elizabeth Scala argues that, "Through the
Urry narrative . . . Malory emphatically reasserts Lancelot's superiority" (396).
While I certainly agree the Urry episode shows Lancelot in a positive light to his
62 companions, in order to accept that Malory emphatically demonstrates such a point the reader must minimize Lancelot's own self‐censure and his transgressions both before and after the healing. The fact that Lancelot weeps like a child who has been beaten suggests that Malory is well aware of the contradiction in Lancelot’s healing of Sir Urry. Thus, when Lancelot is proved the greatest knight of the world through the miraculous healing of Urry, there is also an implicit rebuke of Lancelot's conduct known only to Lancelot and Malory’s reader. Both parties are well aware of how far
Lancelot’s transgressions with the queen have progressed and just how seriously these transgressions undermine Lancelot’s knighthood and its attendant worship.
In this light, it should not be surprising to find Lancelot weeping when confronted with the gravity of his sins, even if those sins are, for the moment, hidden from the rest of the Round Table. P.J.C. Field sums up Lancelot's predicament at this juncture nicely by suggesting that "Sir Launcelot of course wept because he had a bad conscience" (Life and Times 174), a point I certainly see supported by the textual evidence within Malory's Morte and consistent with an author who is concerned with the deeds and misdeeds of martial men.
This assessment of Lancelot's motivations for trying to avoid attempting the healing of Urry and the tears that follow his apparent success is also advanced by
Kenneth Hodges. Hodges argues that
Ultimately, Launcelot is called to attempt the healing. He, knowing his sin, does not wish even to try, and when he succeeds despite his expectation, he bursts out weeping, providing one of the most poignant recognitions of the mingled glory and shame of his love. (59)
63
As Hodges illustrates, the act of healing Urry is one that ensures Lancelot's continued preeminence among Arthur's knights, but it also sharply exposes
Lancelot's own self‐censure. The expectation of failure that made Lancelot so loath to attempt the healing of Urry is grounded in a clear recognition of his own misdeeds and his violations of the Pentecostal Oath. In essence, the "Healing of Sir
Urry" serves as an important narrative moment because it explicitly demonstrates a break between Lancelot the public knight renowned for his worship and a painfully self‐aware Lancelot who recognizes the falsity of that preeminence.
Andrew Lynch seems to support this position when he considers the
"Healing of Sir Urry" in relation to the narrative of combat in the Morte. Lynch argues that within the Urry episode Lancelot’s hesitation “offers an instance of a potential split in Malorian identity between a knight’s self‐consciousness and the objective proof of his worship in the eyes of others” (6). Within the Urry episode, and I would argue throughout the Morte, Lancelot can be seen to grapple with his outward and inward self. To the eyes of Arthur’s court and his brother knights,
Lancelot remains the champion of the Round Table. Inwardly, however, Malory shows Lancelot struggling with his obligations to feudal lord, courtly lover and chivalric worship.
The lessons of the Grail Quest and the sins of Lancelot and Guinevere are recent history at the time of the Urry incident. Indeed, the opening lines of the
"Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere" (1011‐1012) repeatedly juxtapose the words Sankgreall, Gwyenyvere, and Launcelot, thereby repeatedly reminding the reader of the lessons of the Grail Quest, Lancelot's qualified failure in that quest and
64 of the love that is between himself and Guinevere. So just as the Urry episode closes the seventh tale of the Morte, the seventh tale opens with Lancelot and Guinevere arguing about the impact of the Grail Quest on their love. Lancelot is emphatic that
"if that I had nat had my prevy thoughtis to returne to youre love agayne as I do, I had sene as grete mysteryes as ever saw my sonne Sir Galahad, Percivale, other Sir
Bors" (1046. 8‐11). This confession makes the entire Urry incident that much more important as an indicator of Lancelot’s chivalric success.
That Lancelot succeeds in healing Sir Urry is surely important, but so too is a consideration of Lancelot’s conduct before and after this episode. If the healing of
Urry requires that Urry “sholde never be hole untyll the beste knyght of the worlde had serched hys woundis” (1146. 11‐3), then what is a reader of Malory to infer from Lancelot’s success? The answer to this question is surely that the Urry episode is meant to contrast Lancelot the chivalric exemplum with Lancelot the man. As I have demonstrated hereto, a consideration of Lancelot's conduct in the Urry episode is fraught with contradictions and certainly not a narrative moment that definitively enshrines Lancelot as the chivalric hero par excellence of Malory's Le Morte Darthur.
Just as it is important to consider Lancelot's conduct and seeming success in the Urry episode, it is also important to consider the manner in which Lancelot undertakes the healing of Urry. Under the pretence of preserving his honour and worship Lancelot tries to refrain from searching the wounds of Urry. As discussed earlier, it is only Arthur’s admonishment and his injunction that “ye shall not do hit for no presumpcion, but for to beare us felyshyp, insomuche as ye be a fellow of the
Round Table” (1146. 11‐3), that prompts Lancelot to attempt the healing. In fact, it
65 is quite clear that Lancelot is anything but a willing participant when it comes to this particular trial. Lancelot himself tells Urry that “Jesu wolde that I myght helpe you.
For I shame sore with myselff that I shulde be thus requyred; for never was I able in worthynes to do so hyghe a thynge” (1152. 12‐5). These lines demonstrate an uncertainty in his merits that is uncharacteristic of Malory’s Lancelot. Compared with his later boast that "in thys realme I had worshyp, and be me and myne all the hole Rounde Table hath bene encreced more in worshyp, by me and myne, than ever hit was by ony of you all" (1201. 19‐22), Lancelot's hesitancy to attempt Urry's wounds is uncharacteristic of the martial man who has hazarded his life and his worship countless times before. Lancelot’s belief that he is unworthy stems not only from a certain admirable modesty, but also, more troublingly, an awareness of the illicit love for Guinevere which problematizes his undisputed place as the champion of Arthur’s Round Table.
It should also be noted that Arthur’s assertion that the Healing of Urry is to be undertaken not out of pride or presumption but rather to bear fellowship is an important one. It demonstrates an ideal of conduct that reinforces the community of martial men embodied in the Round Table. Arthur himself states this position when he offers to be the first to attempt the healing of Urry. The king's statement that "I woll corrayage othir men of worshyp to do as I woll do” (1146. 28‐9), is telling. These lines demonstrate a concern with worship, but perhaps more importantly a belief that an example must be set. These lines also show a belief in the unity of the Round Table as a whole, something Lancelot both epitomizes and, ultimately, undermines. In this light, Lancelot’s later preoccupation with his
66 worship should not be viewed as a negative in itself. Rather, I would argue that the
Urry episode demonstrates clearly the break between outward appearances and the inner turmoil which is beginning to erode the bonds of fellowship which bind Arthur and his knights together. Lynch acknowledges the complexities of the Urry episode while arguing that
Urré's healing 'proves' that Lancelot is 'the beste knyght of the worlde' (1145/19‐20); but Lancelot's reluctance to act, his humble yet priest‐like prayer 'secretely unto hymselff' (1152/19‐20) and his weeping (1152/35‐36) perhaps allow an equal importance to moral self‐searching, even to feelings of guilt. (6‐7)
This distinction is important and further demonstrates the complexities of Malory’s portrayal of his Lancelot. An awareness of the gravity of the sins Lancelot has committed against his king forces a confrontation between the martial Lancelot and
Lancelot the courtly lover of Guinevere. The healing of Urry offers a glimpse into the growing dilemmas that will ultimately prove the undoing of Arthur’s Round Table.
Malory’s unique inclusion of the "Healing of Sir Urry" episode also raises another dreaded spectre for the Round Table. While I have suggested that
Lancelot’s prayer shows an awareness of his failings, it also provokes questions about the very state of knighthood in Malory’s text. After all, if Lancelot the unconfessed sinner is really the pinnacle of earthly chivalry, then it seems evident that there exist serious failings amidst the practice of Malory’s knights. Indeed, many critics view the Urry episode "as dramatic evidence of the Round Table's failings" (Atkinson 350). Robert L. Kelly even suggests that the Urry episode is part of a wider pattern of critique in which "Malory does not blench from Lancelot's failings as a knight" (191). These are both important considerations since Malory
67 and his contemporary chivalric audience could not have failed to notice such discrepancies of practice given their familiarity with chivalric practice and conduct in knighthood. Indeed, Larry D. Benson argues that
Malory’s Arthurian tales, more fantastic than many original fifteenth‐century romances, reflect the real chivalry of the time, heightened and idealized but based firmly enough on reality that the gentlemen for whom Malory wrote could recognize the contours and many of the actual details of the chivalric life of their own day. (139)
The recognition Benson envisions Malory’s contemporaries finding within the Morte necessitates an awareness of the material realities, as discussed in the previous chapters, which defined fifteenth‐century English knighthood. This awareness reveals quickly that a contemporary fifteenth‐century readership would have recognized the questionable conduct of Arthur's knight's and certainly held opinions regarding them.
When a reader of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur considers the presentation of
Lancelot in chivalric terms, it is difficult to reconcile this paragon of martial excellence with the adulterous traitor whose actions and inaction are major causes of the collapse of the Round Table. The Urry episode is one of many instances when
Malory uses his narrative in order to present Lancelot in as positive a light as possible, despite the glaring evidence to the contrary. The facts of Malory's treatment of Lancelot demand that any critic of Le Morte Darthur treat his Lancelot with a similar delicacy. For it seems that of all the knights Sir Thomas Malory chose to portray, it is the character of Lancelot with whom he identifies most. The sympathetic treatment Malory affords Lancelot, and the attention he takes to
68 demonstrate Lancelot’s martial prowess, clearly demonstrate a concern with preserving Lancelot’s status as a leading knight.
It is this preferential treatment that makes undertaking a chivalric reassessment of Malory’s Lancelot so difficult. It is clear from episodes like the
"Healing of Sir Urry" that Malory is earnest in his attempts to establish the chivalric excellence of Lancelot. Malory goes to great lengths to establish the martial superiority of Lancelot in "The Noble Tale of Arthur and the Emperor Lucius" and of course in the "Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake". Throughout these tales, and throughout the Morte, Malory seems genuinely to delight in his Lancelot. It can be no mere coincidence that the trauma of Urry’s wounds can only be soothed by
Lancelot’s intervention. Still, these attempts to show Lancelot in an entirely positive light do little to mitigate the certain culpability of Lancelot in the Round Table’s ultimate destruction. As was noted earlier, the healing of Urry follows directly upon the explicit consummation of Lancelot and Guinevere’s love. Unlike his sources, this is, moreover, the only occasion in the Morte where Malory admits the physical consummation of their love. This important incident also directly precedes Malory’s assertion that “every nyght and day sir Aggravayne, sir Gawaynes brother, awayted
Quene Gwenyver and sir Launcelot to put hem bothe to a rebuke and a shame”
(1153. 32‐4). As these lines make plain, the ultimate destruction of the Round Table fellowship is fast approaching its grim finale. The "Healing of Urry" episode is one last chance for Malory to attempt to demonstrate the superiority of his favoured champion, but even Malory cannot save Lancelot from the fault he must bear. A consideration of the death of Lancelot will demonstrate that despite the martial
69 success of Malory’s Lancelot, Lancelot himself is fully aware of his failings when held against the standards of chivalry.
The image of Lancelot prostrate upon the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere is, perhaps, one of the most poignant and pitiable in Malory’s entire Morte. K.S.
Whetter calls it "One of the two most striking images at the close of the Arthuriad"
(Understanding Genre 144). Yet, it is this same moment that marks, to my mind,
Lancelot’s complete and final eschewal of the chivalric life. For it is in this moment that Lancelot comes closest to accepting his portion of the blame for the destruction of the Round Table and the kingdom of Arthur. When chastised by the hermit for
“suche maner of sorow‐makyng” (1256. 24‐5), Lancelot’s response is unequivocal.
I trust I do not dysplese God, for He knoweth myn entente; for my sorow was not, nor is not, for ony rejoysyng of synne – but my sorow may never have ende. For whan I remembre of hir beaulté and of hir noblesse, that was bothe wyth hyr kyng and wyth hyr, so whan I sawe his corps and hir corps so lye togyders, truly myn herte wold not serve to susteyne my careful body. Also whan I remembre me how by my defaute and myn orgule and my pryde that they were bothe layed ful lowe, that were pereles that ever was lyvyng of Cristen people, wyt you well . . . this remembred, of thier kyndenes and myn unkyndenes, sanke so to myn herte that I myght not susteyne myself. (1256. 26‐38)
As Lancelot makes clear, he recognizes that the faults within himself have brought to pass the ruin of those persons Lancelot cherished most. This point is strengthened by the fact that Lancelot's speech in this instance is original to Malory.11
11 Vinaver defends the originality of this section arguing, "In the French Mort Artu and in the English poem Lancelot dies of an illness caused by his life of penance . . . In neither of these texts is Lancelot's death in any way related to his grief; he falls ill as the result of his devotion to religious duty, not because in his sorrow he refuses food and drink and lies 'grovelyng on the tombe of kyng Arthur and quene Guenever'" ("Commentary." Works, 1622‐3).
70
The importance of this original speech is perhaps best summed up by
Lancelot's specific choice of words. As Lancelot mentioned in the speech quoted above, it is due to "my defaute and myn orgule and my pryde that they were bothe layed ful lowe". Each specific term Lancelot uses in this instance refers directly to a perceived weakness in his conduct. The choice of the word "defaute" is important because of its connotations with a lack or want of appropriate action. This could be interpreted as recognition that Lancelot's improper dalliances with the queen could have been stopped before they progressed as far as they did. Similarly, Lancelot's admission that his "pryde" played a part in the ultimate destruction of Arthur and his realm suggests a growing awareness that the bold claims Lancelot made denying any wrong‐doing against Arthur were certainly more prideful than they were true.
Claims like,
if there be ony knyght, of what degré that ever he be off . . . that woll sey or dare say but that [Guinevere] ys trew and clene to you, I here myselff sir Launcelot du Lake, woll make hit good uppon hys body that she ys a trew lady unto you (1197. 6‐10).
Despite Lancelot's impassioned protestations, it is the falsity of his claim that is immediately clear to a reader of the Morte who can still recall the intimacies
Lancelot and the queen have shared throughout the text. It seems apparent that the pride of Lancelot will not allow him to admit culpability or wrong‐doing until the tragic demise of Arthur's kingdom has been realized. When interrogating Lancelot's conduct throughout "The Deth of Arthur," the reader must confront a Lancelot who protests his innocence and the innocence of Guinevere loudly. In fact, Lancelot goes so far as to characterize himself as the wronged party, complaining that "I shulde be thus shamefully banysshed, undeserved and causeles" (1201. 13‐4).
71
Lancelot's lament cited earlier clearly recognizes the lack of proper conduct towards Arthur and his queen and the role of pride in compounding his very real guilt. But while these failings seem apparent from Lancelot's conduct, his own self‐ censure includes a further important term, "orgule". While this term contains connotations of pride it also can refer more broadly to a prideful presumption, haughtiness, or arrogance (see the Glossary to Works, s.v. orgule). As such, presumption is certainly a major failing in Lancelot's character. I would argue that time and again throughout the Morte the interested critic can see Lancelot act out of what can only be described as presumption. When summoned before Arthur at the
Pope's command, Lancelot, according to Malory's text, takes great pains to set the spectacle for his and Guinevere's return to court. As Malory records,
Than sir Launcelot purveyed hym an hondred knyghtes, and all well clothed in grene velvet, and their horsis trapped in the same to the heelys, and every knyght hylde a braunche of olyff in hys honde in tokenyng of pees. And the quene had four and twenty jantillwomen folowyng her in the same wyse. And sir Launcelot had twelve coursers folowyng hym, and on every courser sate a yonge jantylman; and all they were arrayed in whyght velvet with sa
As this description of the entourage accompanying Lancelot and Guinevere indicates, Lancelot proceeds to meet Arthur not as a vassal, but instead as wealthy lord in his own right accompanied by his lady. Further, Lancelot's decision to have his knights carry olive branches as tokens of "pees" further reinforces the suggestion that Lancelot, and not Arthur, is the injured party. I would contend that this elaborately staged procession could speak more to Malory's contemporary audience than it would a modern reader. Still, despite the progress of time, it seems
72 evident that this passage signals Lancelot's position not only as the queen's equal, but also, perhaps, her lord. The reader is left to wonder whether this is one incident of the "orgule" that Lancelot later bewails on the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere, an instance when his own pride and presumption led him to forget his obligations to
Arthur and the loyalties owed to that "moste noble kynge that made me knyght"
(1187. 26‐7).
Yet while Lancelot seems ready at the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere to accept a share of the responsibility he earlier avoided, Malory does his best to preserve the saintly image of his hero. These attempts include describing the corpse of Lancelot in the same terms used to describe the most devout and holy. In
Malory’s description,
whan Syr Bors and his felowes came to his bedde, they found [Lancelot] starke dede; and he laye as he had smyled, and the swettest savour about hym that ever they felte. Than was there wepynge and wryngyng of handes, and the grettest dole they made that ever made men. (1258. 15‐9)
While Malory could have been content with a description of Lancelot's death that made mention of the man in chivalric terms, instead, Malory describes Lancelot's corpse in saintly terms. The odour which Bors and the other knights notice emanating from the corpse of Lancelot is a clear connection to the standard literary death of Christian saints. Karen Cherewatuk has shown that "Malory treats
Launcelot's end with an abundance of religious details" ("Saint's Life" 62), one of the most prominent of which is the sweet‐smelling corpse. Further, Malory notes that the sorrow expressed by these knights is the greatest expression of grief men had ever made. While this final description could be taken literally, it can equally be
73 seen to be a hyperbolic expression given the catastrophe of death that has consumed the entirety of the Round Table and all of its supporters.
Further evidence of Malory's over‐kind characterization of Lancelot in death is evidenced by the bishop's dream which heralds it. As the bishop recounts it, "here was syr Launcelot with me, with mo angellis than ever I sawe men in one day. And I saw the angellys heve up syr Launcelot unto heven, and the yates of heven opened ayenst hym" (1258. 7‐10). Clearly Malory is concerned with depicting the passing of
Lancelot in as favourable a Christian light as possible. But despite Malory's lofty descriptions of Lancelot's death, the presentation of Lancelot in death is highly problematic, given Lancelot's own conduct.
Any critic of Malory who examines Le Morte Darthur will encounter many such problematic portrayals, but nowhere are these problems more obvious than in
Malory's portrayal of Lancelot. How is a reader meant to respond to the known sins and admitted culpability of Lancelot? How should a chivalric audience respond to
Lancelot's clear violation of the standard of Malorian chivalry, the Pentecostal Oath?
More importantly, how can the reader reconcile these deeds with Malory's presentation of Lancelot in death? While these questions are difficult to answer, progress can be made through a consideration of the chivalric realities which defined the knightly life of Malory and his contemporaries. Benson argues that
"Chivalry is, among other things, a moral code, and those who admire chivalry are by definition moralists" (145). In this light, Malory and his readers must both confront the immorality of Lancelot’s deeds and the clear connections the text draws between those same deeds and the ultimate destruction of Arthur and the
74
Round Table. So while Lancelot may epitomize the martial aspects of knighthood, when measured against the lofty standards of chivalry set out most explicitly in the
Pentecostal Oath, Malory’s highly polished Lancelot begins to lose some of his sheen.
When discussing Sir Thomas Malory's Lancelot, there can be little doubt that the author of Le Morte Darthur admired the martial aspects of Guinevere's champion. Malory, as an active practitioner of knighthood, could surely appreciate the trials and tribulations inherent in his profession and certainly empathize with the challenges facing chivalry's adherents. This argument is supported by Field who points out that
Throughout the Morte Darthur [Malory] makes large claims for the dignity of knighthood: he regularly refers to it as 'The High Order of Knighthood'. That phrasing must surely reflect his real feelings. A knight who felt so strongly about the importance of his rank would be particularly likely both to make large claims for himself and to feel a sense of responsibility towards others that he might often find difficult to make good. (Life and Times, 173)
As Field rightly suggests, it should not be at all surprising to find that Malory's depiction of Lancelot is a strikingly favourable one. As an active participant in the knightly life Malory could understand the potential conflicts of loyalty faced by a knight like Lancelot, torn between love for his lady, love for his lord, and the lofty demands of chivalry.
It is, perhaps, through Lancelot that the reader can gain a better insight into
Malory the man. Given Malory's own checkered past, one has to wonder whether the rape charges twice levelled against Malory in 1451 dealt with a crisis of love like that experienced by Lancelot and Guinevere. It seems highly suspicious that the author of Le Morte Darthur, a vocal proponent of knighthood and chivalry as
75 evidenced by the unique inclusion of the Pentecostal Oath, would rape the same woman, Joan Smith, on two separate occasions. While surely limited to the realm of hypothesis, it is exciting to advance a position like Christina Hardyment, who suggests that
Under serious scrutiny, the notorious rape case against Sir Thomas Malory collapses like a house of cards. [Malory's] role in the Joan Smith affair was exactly what we would expect of the author of the Morte Darthur: that of a knight chivalrously embarking on the rescue of a damsel in distress, and succeeding after a first, failed, attempt. (304)
Hardyment's plausible suggestion demonstrates the possibility that Malory, rather than being guilty of rape in the modern understanding of the term, had a personal experience with the competing demands of chivalry and affections of the heart. It is certainly telling that, when the rape charge was brought to court "it was pressed not by the alleged victim but by her husband, and under the statute of 6 Richard II, a statute whose purpose was to make elopement into rape despite the woman's consent" (Field, Life and Times 106). Further evidence that the charges against
Malory may have been exaggerated is offered by Corinne Saunders who notes in her detailed study of rape in Middle English literature that "Although Malory was twice charged with felony . . . he was never tried; his case was repeatedly deferred and he spent eight years in London prisons before being freed, apparently when the Yorkist forces defeated the Lancastrians" (235). The validity of the charges against Malory are certainly suspect, but equally uncertain is Malory's own conduct during the heightened tensions of the War of the Roses. While it is tempting to speculate on
Malory's reasons for involving himself with Joan Smith, what does seem evident is
76 that in his own life Sir Thomas Malory may have been willing, like his Lancelot, to
"take the woo wyth the weall" (1171. 22).
There can be little doubt that Sir Thomas Malory was more than familiar with the codes of chivalry which existed throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.
While various knightly orders and regions of Europe had their own specific codes, these codes shared enough similarities and central tenets to be broadly defined as chivalry. Though individual orders and nations of Europe may have manifested certain aspects of chivalry differently, it was the universality of the chivalric movement in Europe that made it so pervasive and successful. It should not be surprising therefore to find that Malory includes a clear manifestation of the chivalric ethos within his Morte in the form of the Pentecostal Oath. Upon the conclusion of "The Weddyng of Kyng Arthur," the Round Table knights swear
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 wydows [socour:] strengthe hem in hir ryghtes, and never to enforce them, uppon payne of death. Also, that no man take no batayles in a wrongefull quarell, for no love ne for no worldis goodis. (120. 17‐24)
The oath the Round Table knights swear to uphold reflects many of the tenets central to chivalry within Malory’s own day. The injunctions to be honourable in conduct and preserve the rights of women demonstrate a real concern with ordering the martial mayhem of the Middle Ages.
That Malory has his Round Table knights subscribe to the same moral tenets, which would surely be recognizable to a contemporary knightly reader, suggests
Malory’s central concern is the performance and conduct of those practicing
77 knighthood. In fact, critics have shown that Malory’s Pentecostal Oath bears striking resemblances to similar oaths taken by contemporary knightly orders like England’s
Order of the Garter or Knights of the Bath. Benson notes that “Malory’s formulation of the basic knightly code thus reflects the common understanding of his contemporaries” (Benson 149). As Benson points out, this suggests more than a simple familiarity with the chivalric ethos; instead, it shows Malory to be quite familiar with the codes of conduct concerning knighthood. Indeed, as Field observes, Malory's Order of Round Table Knights "comes closer than any historical one did to the professed aims of such orders" (Field, ed., Morte lxiii), further demonstrating the concern with proper chivalric conduct that exists throughout the
Morte.
This intimacy with contemporary English knighthood means that Malory must himself have recognized the problematic nature of Lancelot’s conduct. The oath Lancelot and the other Round Table knights swear to uphold is clearly contravened by his adulterous relations with the queen. The reader will remember that the Pentecostal Oath enjoins its adherents to "take no batayles in a wrongfull quarell for no love ne for no worldis goodis" (120. 23‐4). Lancelot has certainly violated this article of the Oath and admits as much when he confesses "all my grete dedis of armys that I have done for the moste party was for the quenys sake, and for hir sake wolde I do batayle were it ryght other wronge" (897. 17‐9). Lancelot's willingness to hazard everything, including his knighthood, is a testament to the strength of his affections for Guinevere. More troublingly, this confession shows
78 that for the queen's sake Lancelot is willing to endanger the very stability of
Arthur's realm.
That this relationship directly harms Arthur, Lancelot's friend and king, is direct evidence of the problematic nature of Lancelot and Guinevere's love. After all, the presentation of Arthur throughout the Morte is such that even critics of Malory's
Arthur must grudgingly admit that, "Malory wanted Arthur to be the best king of the world" (Korrel 255). Nowhere is this deference to Arthur more clear than in
Lancelot's own admission during the siege of Joyous Garde that "I have no harte to fyght ayenste my lorde Arthur, for ever mesemyth I do nat as me ought to do" (1193.
22‐4). These lines demonstrate an awareness that in his conduct Lancelot has violated the most basic of chivalric bonds, that between a lord and a knight. Further,
Arthur's consistent portrayal as that "moste noble kynge," makes any attempts to justify Lancelot's rejection of Arthur monumentally difficult. The codes of chivalry known to Malory and his contemporaries, and most clearly articulated in the Morte by the inclusion of the Pentecostal Oath, are explicit in their condemnation of selfish action like Lancelot's blind love for Guinevere. Benson notes that, “Malory and his contemporaries were convinced that there was indeed such a code, a definite set of ideals and practices that defined what they called the High Order of Knighthood”
(Benson 148). This readily identifiable code, though difficult to adhere to, represented the standard that Malory and his contemporary audience would have expected Arthur's knights to strive to follow. Lancelot's claim that "I woll never se that moste noble kynge that made me knyght nother slayne nor shamed" (1192. 17‐
9), is honourable verbiage, but little consolation given that Lancelot's willful
79 contravention of the Pentecostal Oath brings to pass the very end he wishes to avoid. Given the near‐wholesale tragedy which closes Malory's text, I would suggest modern and contemporary critics of the Le Morte Darthur would have to be willfully ignorant of the chivalric ethos in order to ignore Lancelot’s grave crimes and the condemnation that even Lancelot is ready to accept by the Morte's conclusion.
While most of Malory’s sources end their Arthuriads in dolorous death,
Malory’s Morte envisions one last triumph of English knighthood. Following the death of Lancelot Malory notes that "syr Bors, syr Ector, syr Blamour, and syr
Bleoberis wente into the Holy Lande[.] . . . [T]hese foure knyghtes dyd many bataylles upon the myscreantes, or Turkes. And there they
Fryday for Goddes sake" (1260. 8‐15). This specific inclusion of an original passage which depicts the last knights of the Round Table achieving the pinnacle of chivalry is important.12 In chivalric terms, going on crusade was the highest form of service any knight could possibly render. Christopher Tyerman has demonstrated that the
Crusades were, like chivalry, a pan‐European phenomenon and notes that
"Awareness of the First Crusade pervaded elite western culture" (244). Field has also demonstrated that Sir Thomas Malory had a direct tie to the crusading culture which Tyerman has demonstrated to be so pervasive long after the fall of Jerusalem.
Field links Sir Thomas Malory to an uncle, "Sir Robert Malory, Prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem" (68). Founded sometime before the First Crusade, the
Knights of St. John were the military arm of the monastic community of Hospitallers.
12 Vinaver notes that Malory's "reference to the French book is meant to conceal a departure from it. In no French version do Arthur's knights appear as crusaders fighting 'myscreauntes or Turkes'" ("Commentary." Works, 1663).
80
For these knights "Fighting was charitable and resulted from the Order's primary task. It was an extension of the care of the poor" (Riley‐Smith 55). This exciting genealogical link to an extant crusading order would certainly lend credence to my suggestion that Malory, perhaps even more than his contemporaries, viewed crusade as the highest achievement a knight could make. Certainly "crusades and the defence of Christendom against Islam are more conspicuous in the Morte
Darthur than in Malory's sources or in most other English Arthurian romances"
(Field, Life and Times 82). Thus, the inclusion of this passage describing the last battle of the remaining Round Table knights demonstrates again Malory’s central concern with knighthood, chivalry and their lived practices.
The question is whether or not the near complete demise of the Round Table in civil war necessitates a sinful knight like Lancelot to hang up his spurs, in accordance with the religious life Guinevere chooses as her repentance. Indeed, it seems that in his final moments Lancelot disavows the chivalric life in favour of the holy life. It is interesting and certainly important that Lancelot chooses a religious death, while his companions seek death in arms. Significantly, however, Guinevere rejects earthly life and love while Lancelot is still alive, whereas Lancelot's rejection of earthly love and earthly chivalry comes only after both Arthur and Guinevere have been denied him by death. As for Malory's final vision of chivalry in the Morte,
Whetter argues that "the setting in the Holy Land should not blind us to the fact that the knights are once again knights of this earth" ("Secular" 1), thereby demonstrating that the conclusion of Malory's text ends not in mourning, but in a celebration of the knightly life. This point creates an important distinction between
81 the conduct of the Round Table knights when Lancelot is still alive and their actions immediately following his death. Indeed, it is this distinction that forces a confrontation between Lancelot’s last moments and those of his knightly compatriots. Lancelot can be seen to disavow the chivalric life in his last moments, preferring the cloister to deeds of arms. While he lives, the last Round Table knights follow his example, renouncing arms and asking the eremitical archbishop that they
"myght be in the same sewte" (1254. 33). This is a sure testament to Lancelot's elevated standing among those knights, such that "they had no lust to departe but took such an habyte as he had" (1255. 1‐2). After his death, however, these same knights again return to chivalry and achieve its highest distinction, marking a rejection not of Lancelot, but rather the holy life he chooses to embrace.
Yet while Lancelot rejects knighthood for himself, it must be remembered that he is the one who instructs the others to take the crusade, with Malory noting that “Syr Launcelot commaunded them for to do or ever he passyd oute of thys worlde" (1260. 12‐3). This demand to take up the cross is an interesting one which presents, like so much of Malory, a myriad of possible readings. On the one hand,
Lancelot could be instructing his fellows to take the crusade for the absolution of sin it offers. Tyreman notes that the genius of Urban II's recruiting strategy for the First
Crusade lay in the promise of the "plenary indulgence, remission of sins, for fighting in the holy war" (67). While such indulgences became the norm when undertaking crusade, in the Holy Land or elsewhere, a similar reading in Malory seems unlikely given his demonstrated love for all things knightly. I would contend that it is far more likely that, despite Lancelot's known failings, his decision to encourage a last
82 quest of the Round Table knights is reached as a man who cherishes chivalry. While the dolorous death of Arthur and Guinevere has had a significant impact on
Lancelot, leading him to eschew the knightly life, he is still a supporter and believer in the "High Order of Knighthood." Thus, like Arthur, Lancelot can be seen in his final moments to be a lord whose own service in chivalry inspires other knights to lofty deeds of arms. In this way, Lancelot's death in the holy life could indeed be read as a good end. Ector's great threnody for Lancelot, the last word on Lancelot and the last speech in the entire Le Morte Dartur, praises Lancelot as "hede of al
Crysten knyghtes" (1259. 9‐10), suggesting that in spite of his flaws Lancelot remains a model and inspiration for all other knights. So while Lancelot's own conduct in life was surely problematic given the stringent demands of chivalry, his memory and example will continue to inspire lesser knights to great deeds of arms.
There have been those critics who have questioned the authenticity of the
Round Table's final crusade. Meg Roland has suggested the final chivalric moment in Malory's Morte may in fact be an addition by William Caxton, Malory's posthumous publisher. Roland demonstrates convincingly that there exists
"sufficient textual evidence to question Malory's authorship of the term 'Turkes' in this passage and to suggest that William Caxton inserted the reference" (30).
Unfortunately, without a complete manuscript independent of Caxton, there seems little chance of settling the questions Roland raises. Still, despite the possibility that
Caxton may have tweaked the wording of this passage, its unique inclusion seems entirely characteristic of Malory. Given that many medieval writers and practitioners of chivalry viewed crusade as the highest form of knightly service, it
83 should not be surprising to find Malory's remaining Round Table knights taking the crusade once both Arthur and Lancelot have died. Geoffroi de Charney, whose famous death at Poitiers made him a true exemplum of chivalry, argues in his Book of Chivalry that
the man who makes war against the enemies of religion in order to support and maintain Christianity and the worship of Our Lord is engaged in a war which is righteous, holy, certain, and sure, for his earthly body will be honored in a saintly fashion and his soul will, in a short space of time, be borne in holiness and without pain into paradise. (165. 215‐9)
As Charney's text makes plain, there existed amongst practicing knights a firm belief in the righteousness of their martial office, but more importantly that crusade was the longed‐for epitome of chivalric service in medieval knighthood. While we cannot say definitively that Malory was solely responsible for the unique inclusion of the Round Table's final act of chivalry, even if Caxton inserted the entire passage, a suggestion I find plausible but unlikely, ultimately "Malory must be given credit for devising the pattern that his printer detected" (Goodman 270). Malory was, after all, concerned primarily with the deeds of knights when he wrote his version of "The hoole book of Kyng Arthur and of his noble knyghtes of the Rounde Table" (1260.
16‐7).
Chivalry was, throughout the Middle Ages, the code of conduct that defined the institution of knighthood. As a practicing knight who evidently gloried in his chosen profession, Sir Thomas Malory could certainly not be ignorant of the stringent codes that bound knights, or the contradictions inherent in chivalry's lived practice. Throughout Europe and throughout the Middle Ages countless treatises were published which extolled the importance of chivalry amongst the knightly
84 class and encouraged practicing knights to live up to a nearly impossible ideal.
While a thorough exploration of fifteenth‐century English chivalry has not been the focus of this present work, a consideration of the chivalric has been vital to gleaning a better understanding of Sir Thomas Malory and his presentation of Arthur's most prominent martial man, Sir Lancelot. What is clear from a consideration of Malory's
Lancelot is the complex nature of Malory's characterization and the evident empathy Malory had with his favoured champion. The chivalric lessons to be gleaned from a consideration of Lancelot's conduct are multiple and often contradictory. Thus, it falls to the reader of Malory's Le Morte Darthur to consider the textual evidence, contemporary chivalric attitudes, and the material reality that defined the lived practice of knighthood in order to appreciate the dizzying fullness of Malory's Arthuriad. Malory tends to offer his readers no definitive answers on questions of chivalric performance, but that these questions are raised at all makes for an interesting and engaging approach to considering the successes and failures of Le Morte Darthur's martial men.
85
Conclusion
My purpose in "Having Ado with Lancelot" has been to advocate a reassessment of
Sir Thomas Malory's champion within the context of chivalry. This critical approach stems from a desire to untangle the great matter of Malory's text and, perhaps, offer a broader understanding of Le Morte Darthur as Malory and his contemporaries would have understood it. Sadly, the passage of time invariably erodes the firmament of historical fact, leaving students of history struggling for a foothold that will allow a better understanding of their chosen topic. There are no practicing knights left to consult, nor hermits to offer clarification on the finer points of chivalry, yet, for the critic of literature, the challenges of understanding a text penned over five‐hundred years in the past are no less daunting. Thankfully, it is the text itself that so often holds the clues to a better understanding of the past, an understanding that must necessarily be advanced in order to fully appreciate the subtleties of literary works stamped with the social and cultural hallmarks of their particular age.
This present study has attempted to place the martial and chivalric aspects of
Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur within the cultural framework that defined the historical practice of knighthood and the philosophy of chivalry. Throughout his work, Malory demonstrates a conscious and concerted interest in what he terms the
"High Order of Knighthood." Indeed, I have argued throughout this thesis that it is the institution of knighthood and the practice of knights with which Malory is primarily concerned. To my mind, the success of Malory's Arthuriad lies not only in
86 his unique compilation of source material, his wilfull narrative digressions, or the humanity with which he invests his characters; the Morte Darthur's success is also due to the close proximity of the author to his literary matter.
It must be remembered first and foremost that Sir Thomas Malory was an active knight, directly engaged in the politics and intrigues of his day. Thus, it has been necessary in the present study to try to connect the knighthood in Malory's Le
Morte Darthur with the medieval office of knighthood, especially the loosely defined and ethereal code of conduct referred to broadly as chivalry. But in this regard the reader of Malory is quite fortunate. Malory's evident love for knighthood and all things knightly prompted him to take a most unusual step in Arthurian literature, the inclusion of an explicit code of chivalric conduct commonly referred to as the
Pentecostal Oath. With this oath Malory not only replicates the actual practice of medieval chivalric orders, but also inserts a useful measuring stick with which to assess the chivalric success of his literary brothers‐in‐arms. A careful consideration of Malory's text, with a focus on the chivalric, is a useful method of untangling Le
Morte Darthur and offers an understanding of the text that, I believe, most closely resembles that of a medieval knightly audience. By attempting to ground the present study in the socio‐historical realities that defined Malory's conceptions of
English chivalry, it is my hope that I have enabled a much fuller understanding and appreciation of the Morte and Malory's Lancelot.
It has been my goal in this thesis to try to understand the seeming contradictions that define the medieval practice of knighthood and its attendant chivalry. In this sense, the choice of Lancelot as the focus for this thesis was an easy
87 one. As perhaps the most famous of Arthur's knights, Lancelot at once embodies the best and worst of actual knighthood. Despite Malory's considerable delicacy,
Lancelot's crimes are voluminous: he is at times over‐proud, haughty, commits treasonous adultery with Guinevere, kills several of his unarmed fellows in her rescue, and denies his impropriety till the very end. Yet, as Sir Ector laments,
Lancelot is also
the curtest knyght that ever bare shelde! And thou were the truest frende to thy lovar that ever bestrade hors, and thou were the trewest lover, of a synful man, that ever loved woman, and thou were the kindest man that ever strake with swerde. (1259. 12‐6)
While this high praise may seem to complicate or even invalidate my contentions, it seems to me that such contradictions are the very heart of Malory's great matter.
For Sir Thomas Malory's contemporaries, knighthood was by no means a perfect institution, but it also held the lure of future perfection. The medieval English knighthood of Le Morte Darthur recognizes the hardships and the contradictions inherent in the knightly life and seeks to reform and thus encourage those living the chivalric trial.
By centering my chivalric reassessment on Malory's Lancelot, I hope I have demonstrated the validity of a critical approach which views the authority of the
Pentecostal Oath as the standard for Malorian chivalry. In relation to this oath,
Lancelot's conduct must be seen as fundamentally flawed. His all‐consuming passion for Guinevere places him at odds with the spirit of the Pentecostal Oath and, thus, with medieval expectations of true chivalric worship. But this failure to meet the stringent demands of the Pentecostal Oath should not be taken as final proof of
Lancelot's failings. Instead, it seems that for Malory knighthood and chivalry offered
88 a unique relationship with the world, one in which forgiveness is only a heroic deed away. As Gawain famously comments when chastised for past conduct, "I may do no penaunce, for we knyghtes adventures many tymes suffir grete woo and payne"
(892. 19‐20). It seems evident that for Malory and his contemporaries the very difficulties of the chivalric life made the knight less susceptible to criticism of his conduct. I imagine Malory shared this sentiment; what is more, I imagine he shared it amid his hopes that chivalry could act as the catalyst to restore England and his most beloved "High Order of Knighthood" to their former glories.
89
Bibliography
Primary Sources
The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne. Ed. Ralph Hanna III. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1974. Print.
Charney, Geoffroi de. The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charney: Text, Context, and Translation. Trans. Ed. Richard W. Kauper and Elspeth Kennedy. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania , 1996. Print.
Caxton, William. "Preface." The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. Eugène Vinaver. 3rd ed. rev. P.J.C. Field. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990. Print.
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte Darthur: The Seventh and Eighth Tale. Ed. P.J.C. Field. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008. Print.
Malory, Sir Thomas. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. Eugène Vinaver. 3rd ed. rev. P.J.C. Field. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990. Print.
Morte Arthure: A Critical Edition. Ed. Mary Hamel. New York: Garland Publishing, 1984. Print.
Secondary Sources
Allen, Rosamund. "Chivalric Romance: The Awntyrs off Arthure." The Arthur of the English: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval English Life and Literature. Ed. W.R.J. Barron. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999. 150‐5. Print.
Armstrong, Dorsey. Gender and Chivalric Community in Malory's Morte d'Arthur. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2003. Print.
Atkinson, Stephen C.B. "Malory's "Healing of Sir Urry": Lancelot, the Earthly Fellowship, and the World of the Grail." Studies in Philology, 78.4 (Fall 1981): 341‐52. Print.
Barber, Richard. "Malory's Le Morte Darthur and Court Culture Under Edward IV." Arthurian Literature XII. (1993): 133‐55. Print.
Barber, Richard. The Knight and Chivalry. New York: Scribner, 1970. Print.
Benson, Larry D. Malory’s Morte Darthur. London: Harvard UP, 1976. Print.
90
Carbasse, Jean‐Marie. "Adultery." Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Ed. Andre Vauchez et al. 2 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000. Print.
Cherewatuk, Karen. Marriage, Adultery and Inheritance in Malory's Morte Darthur. Arthurian Studies LXVII. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2006. Print.
‐‐‐. “The Saint’s Life of Sir Launcelot: Hagiography and the Conclusion of Malory’s Morte Darthur.” Arthuriana 5.1 (Spring 1995): 62‐78. Print.
Field, P.J.C. "Fifteenth‐Century History in Malory's Morte Darthur". Malory: Text and Sources. Arthurian Studies XL. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998. Print.
Field, P.J.C. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993. Print.
Goodman, J.R. "Malory and Caxton's Chivalric Series, 1481‐85". Studies in Malory. Ed. James W. Spisak. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1985. 257‐ 274. Print.
Hardyment, Christina. Malory: The Life and Times of King Arthur’s Chronicler. London: HarperCollins, 2005. Print.
Kaeuper, Richard. Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
Kato, Tomomi. A Concordance to the Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1974. Print.
Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. New Haven: Yale UP, 1984. Print.
Kelly, Robert L. "Wounds, Healing, and Knighthood in Malory's Tale of Lancelot and Guinevere." Studies in Malory. Ed. James W. Spisak. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Press, 1985. 173‐197. Print.
Kennedy, Beverly. Knighthood in the Morte Darthur. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985. Print.
‐‐‐. "Malory's Guenevere: A 'Trew Lover'." On Arthurian Women: Essays in Memory of Maureen Fries. Ed. Bonnie Wheeler and Fiona Tolhurst. Dallas: Scriptorium Press, 2001. 11‐34. Print.
Korrel, Peter. An Arthurian Triangle: A Study of the Origin, Development and Characterization of Arthur, Guinevere and Modred. Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1984. Print.
91
Lacy, Norris J. "Elaine of Astolat." The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Ed. Norris J. Lacy et al. New York: Garland Pub., 1996. Print.
Lewis, C.S. "The English Prose Morte." Essays on Malory. Ed. J.A.W. Bennett. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963. 7‐28. Print.
Lynch, Andrew. Malory’s Book of Arms: The Narrative of Combat in Le Morte Darthur. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997. Print.
Mahoney, Dhira B. "Malory's Morte Darthur and the Alliterative Morte Arthure." The Study of Chivalry: Resources and Approaches. Ed. Howell Chickering and Thomas H. Seiler. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1988. Print.
McCarthy, Terence. "Malory and his Sources." A Companion to Malory. Ed. Elizabeth Archibald and A.S.G. Edwards. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997. 75‐95. Print.
Norris, Ralph. Malory's Library: The Sources of the Morte Darthur. Arthurian Studies LXXI. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008. Print.
Radulescu, Raluca. The Gentry Context for Malory’s Morte Darthur. Arthurian Studies LV. Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2003. Print.
‐‐‐. "How Christian is Chivalry." Christianity and Romance in Medieval England. Ed. Rosalind Field et al. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2010. 69‐83. Print.
Riley‐Smith, Jonathan. The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus c.10501310. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967. Print.
Roland, Meg. "Arthur and the Turks." Arthuriana 16.4 (Winter 2006): 29‐42. Print.
Saunders, Corinne. Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2001. Print.
Scala, Elizabeth. "Disarming Lancelot." Studies in Philology 99.4 (2002): 380‐403. Web. 10 June 2010.
Tyreman, Christopher. God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. London: Penguin, 2007. Print.
Whetter, K.S. "Characterization in Malory and Bonnie." Arthuriana 19.3 (2009): 123‐ 35. Print.
‐‐‐. "Genre as Context in the Alliterative Morte Arthure." Arthuriana 20.2 (2010): 45‐ 65. Print.
92
‐‐‐. “The Historicity of Combat in Le Morte Darthur." Arthurian Studies in Honour of P.J.C. Field. Ed. Bonnie Wheeler. Arthurian Studies 57. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004. 261‐70. Print.
‐‐‐. “Malory’s Secular Arthuriad.” Malory and Christianity: Essays on Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur.” Ed. D. Thomas Hanks Jr. and Janet Jesmok. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Press, forthcoming. 1‐22. Print.
‐‐‐. "Love and Death in Arthurian Romance." The Arthurian Way of Death. Eds. Karen Cherewatuk and K.S. Whetter. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2009. 94‐114. Print.
‐‐‐. Understanding Genre and Medieval Romance. Burlington: Ashgate, 2008. Print.
Vinaver, Eugène. "Commentary." The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. Eugène Vinaver. 3rd ed. rev. P.J.C. Field. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990. Print.