Justice and Injustice in Malory's Morte Darthur Laura Kay Bedwell, Ph.D
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ABSTRACT The Flawed Ideal: Justice and Injustice in Malory’s Morte Darthur Laura Kay Bedwell, Ph.D. Chairperson: D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., Ph.D. In his Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory portrays Arthur, not as the strong, fully just king of later portrayals, but as a weaker monarch more in keeping with those of fifteenth-century England. Arthur begins well by establishing his Pentecostal Oath, which provides strict behavioral guidelines for the knights on whom he must rely to establish justice in his kingdom. He also has at his disposal legal custom and the patronage system, both of which can provide strong levels of control. However, Malory’s Arthur makes inconsistent use of the tools of governing. Though he at times punishes the violators of his laws, he as often condones improper and even criminal behavior. Likewise, the knights of the Round Table too often place their own desires above their responsibility to establish justice in Logres. As a result, the fall of the kingdom can be attributed to the failure of justice in the realm. Though this study engages in much close reading of Malory’s text, such reading alone is not sufficient for informed judgments regarding the relative effectiveness of the justice of Malory’s Arthurian realm. Therefore, the study is grounded in considerations of justice stemming from the medieval English judicial system. Political theories of justice drawn both from works in the speculum principis tradition and from chivalric manuals provide additional historical context. Comparison of the episodes Malory represents in his text with historical theory and practice implies that Malory’s Arthur is not an ideal king, nor is his Logres an ideal kingdom. Malory instead represents both the strengths and weaknesses of Arthur and his knights, confirming and at the same time criticizing the behavior of his characters. In the end, though, it is the flaws inherent in Arthur’s justice that destroy both him and his kingdom. The Flawed Ideal: Justice and Injustice in Malory's Morte Darthur by Laura Kay Bedwell, B.A., M.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of English ___________________________________ Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ Hope W. Johnston, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Jeffrey S. Hamilton, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School May 2011 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2011 by Laura Kay Bedwell All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments................................................................................................................v Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi I. Introduction ....................................................................................................................1 II. The Pentecostal Oath ...................................................................................................18 III. Justice beyond the Oath ...............................................................................................65 IV. Arthur’s Justice in Action ..........................................................................................104 V. Knights as Agents of Justice ......................................................................................155 VI. Conclusion .................................................................................................................202 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................208 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many people without whom I would not have been able to finish this project. Special thanks must go to Dr. D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., who directed my work, answered my questions, and encouraged me when I felt most at sea. I would also like to thank Dr. Hope Johnston and Dr. Jeffrey Hamilton for their insights, without which this study would be much poorer. I wish as well to express appreciation to the Baylor University English Department for giving me the opportunity to study at this institution and for funding my graduate study. And, finally, thanks go out to Tom, Stephen, Drew, and Philip, the four men who stand behind me all the way. v DEDICATION For Tom, who after twenty years will no longer be married to a student. I love you. vi CHAPTER ONE Introduction Camelot, King Arthur’s perfect kingdom, captures the imagination like few other legendary places. Even today, centuries after the composition of the tales of King Arthur, most people know that Arthur ruled a kingdom that was governed by justice and chivalry, where the people lived in safety because of their strong king and his mighty Round Table. But how much of this picture comes from the actual legends, and how much is the result of their clever recasting by Victorian poets and T. H. White? More to the point of my study, how does Sir Thomas Malory, the author often credited with creating the shape of the King Arthur legend that we now know, portray justice in King Arthur’s Logres? Other treatments of King Arthur certainly portray him as both noble and just. For example, John Lydgate’s The Fall of Princes says of Arthur that “Among al kynges renommed & famous, / As a briht sonne set amyd the sterris, / So stood Arthour notable & glorious” (3.901). Arthur’s kingdom shines a bright light of chivalry throughout the world and is the “Welle of worship, conduit of al noblesse, / Imperial court al wrongis to redresse”(3.903). To Lydgate, Arthur is not only an illustrious king, but his court is a place where wrongs are put right. A modern author of Arthur’s legend, T. H. White, has a similar opinion. White’s Arthur is firmly convinced that the point of rule is to create justice and peace for all. Early in his reign, Arthur determines to found a popular society that all knights will want to join, and then to bind the members of his Order with an oath promising to use their power only in the service of Right. The young Arthur says, “The 1 knights in my order will ride all over the world, still dressed in steel and whacking away with their swords [. .] but they will be bound to strike only on behalf of the good” (White 248). Throughout The Once and Future King, White’s Arthur holds to that ideal, regardless of the difficulties he has in enforcing it. Since White draws much of his inspiration from Malory, often quoting from and referring to the Morte Darthur, it might seem reasonable that Malory’s Arthur would be similarly enthusiastic about establishing justice in his kingdom. Malory’s overt treatment of Arthur is just as positive as the images created by Lydgate and White. The Morte Darthur’s narrator portrays Arthur as a strong king who at his coronation swears “unto his lordes and the comyns for to be a true kyng, to stand with true justyce fro thens forth the days of this lyf” (I.16.21 - 231). So he does begin much as White’s Arthur does—with a focus on justice. But at the end of the text, in the famous, “Lo ye Englishmen” passage, Malory’s narrator calls Arthur “the moste kynge and nobelyst knyght of the worlde” (III.1229.7 – 8). Though this is a positive statement by any standard, it has little to do with justice. And a close examination of the text demonstrates that Malory’s Arthur, despite his glowing reputation, often has little to do with justice as well. Long before the fifteenth century, the Emperor Justinian’s Institutes defined justice as “constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi” (Qtd. in H. G. Richardson 170). Many medieval sources, including the Middle English poem “The III Consideraciouns Right Necesserye to the Good Governaunce of a Prince,” translate and 1 Here and throughout, unless otherwise noted, my source text for Malory’s Morte Darthur is Eugène Vinaver’s 3-volume The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 3rd edition, revised by P. J. C. Field. Each entry refers to volume, page, and line numbers, as appropriate. 2 reinforce this definition, claiming that “justise is [the] perpetuell, ferme and constaunt will to give unto eery persoone his owne right and that he ought of dutie for to have” (Genêt 196). If Malory’s Arthur is to be a just king according to medieval standards, he must make it his business to give to all his subjects their due, including security for the peaceful and punishment for the wicked. Indeed, a medieval king’s primary task was the establishment of justice in his kingdom, a fact confirmed in works that capture medieval political theory on kingship, in the coronation oath of the kings of England, and in Arthur’s own coronation oath. Though Malory at times represents Arthur’s fulfilling this essential duty of kingship, Arthur’s commitment to justice in the Morte Darthur proves inconsistent. The fully-just Arthur destroyed by the weaknesses of those around him—the Arthur of Tennyson and White—does not appear in Malory’s text. Instead, Malory’s Arthur proves a flawed king, one who at times acts in the interests of justice, but who as often behaves as though such concerns are unimportant. Arthur punishes some of his kingdom’s evil- doers, but he allows others to escape without punishment. He establishes