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Land, Lineage, and Nation

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Land, Lineage, and Nation 52 Insular Romance the kinds of significance given to any episode, the poet ideally har• Chapter Two monizes the claims of law with those of morality and the interests of all classes with those of the hero. In presenting an ostensibly universal social reconciliation that in fact embodies the barony's concern for landed stability and the middle class's affinity for social Land, Lineage, and Nation order, Havelok the Dane boldly transforms the interests of society's middle and upper ranks into a literary vision of fulfillment in which hard work and dignity are compatible, profit and virtue coincide. The stories of Horn and Havelok, in all their versions, join se• riousness of purpose to buoyant optimism. Horn and Havelok con• trast as heroes, but their differences only emphasize their stories' shared themes. Havelok is a disarmingly affectionate man who needs much encouragement to win back his heritage.82 Horn, in contrast, wields active power over his destiny with autonomous confidence. Yet both models of behavior, the loving and the lead• ing, define the hero in terms of his relationship to his followers and The conventional notion of what constitutes medieval English ro• identify his fate with that of his people. mance—much bloodshed, great length, marvels and wonders, ac• The later romances of English heroes follow the direction of tion rather than reflection—comes close to perfect embodiment in Havelok the Dane toward greater accessibility. Social meanings are the stories of Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton. Lord Ernie's increasingly sustained and even overshadowed by affective and re• assessment typifies modern reaction to these romances: "The aus• ligious appeals. Diminishing political and social energy coincides tere simplicity of the older forms is overlaid with a riot of romantic with a growing interest in the hero's personal success and in action fancy; their compactness of structure is lost. The romances are and event as purely narrative phenomena. Yet the later romances' swollen to a prodigious length, in which incident is threaded to in• diversity, rather than countering their underlying attentiveness to cident, adventure strung to adventure, and encounter piled on en• baronial issues, seeks to reformulate those issues in less class- counter."1 They are as long as novels, and their detractors often defined, more universal terms. fault them for failing by modern fictional standards,2 while their admirers class them with popular detective novels or thrillers.3 But 82. Havelok is generous and kind, tolerant of insults, innocent of guile and sin (LH 251-62, 385-94, 486-88, 800-2; HD 945-54, 991-98). In LH he never initiates "novel" content, design, technique, and invention by no means aggression or mentions his feudal rights but is pushed along the road to kingship by characterize the aesthetic of these works, nor are they particularly his guardian Grim, Grim's daughter, his wife Argentille, and the powerful Dane Sigar Estal. The ME Havelok shows a little more initiative, but he too must on sev• strong on mystery or thrills. Rather, they develop earlier romances' eral occasions be led or encouraged to win back his heritage. interest in baronial issues of land and lineage; their design, the kinds of events and problems they treat, and their stylistic proce- 1. Ernie, Light Reading, p. 78. 2. Charles W. Dunn writes that Guy of Warwick's "incidents are unduly repetitive and prolix; the Middle English adapters show no inventiveness or critical sense. The extent of its appeal is presumably dependent more upon the fame of Warwick Castle than upon its literary merit" (Severs, ed., Manual, I, 31). 3. E.g., Richmond, "Guy of Warwick: A Medieval Thriller"; McKeehan, "Guil- laume de Paterne: A Medieval 'Best Seller'"; Ramsey, Chivalric Romances, pp. 1-7. 53 54 Insular Romance Land, Lineage, and Nation 55 dures convey images of noble life that give their "riot of romantic tran de Born's "Be'm platz lo gais temps," here springtime prompts fancy" a meaning worthy of the success they enjoyed. reflection on the deeds of English ancestors: This chapter treats the thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman ro• En le temps de averyl e may, quant les prees e les herbes reverdissent e mances of English heroes, their English descendants, and some chescune chose vivaunte recovre vertue, beauté e force, les mountz e les later fourteenth-century romances as well. Sir Beues of Hamtoun* valeyes retentissent des douce chauntz des oseylouns, e les cuers de and Guy of Warwick (both ca. 1300) are so closely related to Anglo- chescune gent pur la beauté du temps e la sesone mountent en haut e s'en- jolyvent, donqe deit home remenbrer des aventures e pruesses nos aun• Norman versions that some critics have treated them as transla• cestres, qe se penerent pur honour en leauté quere.5 tions. But textual studies demonstrate that no English manuscript translates an extant Anglo-Norman manuscript, so that their differ• In the season of April and May, when meadows and plants become green ences cannot be considered evidence of direct poetic reworking. In• again and every living creature regains its nature, beauty, and force, the hills and valleys echo with the sweet songs of birds, and people's hearts stead, the various versions of each story, like the versions of Horn soar and gladden at the beauty of the weather and the season, then we and Havelok, are related works whose differences may be more ac• should remember the adventures and deeds of prowess of our ancestors, curately understood in terms of insular generic and historical de• who labored to seek honor in loyalty. velopments than in terms of textual revision. Fulk is loyal to his lineage and to feudal law: the "aventures e pru• The longer romances of English heroes usually connect exile and esses nos auncestres" typically continue to arise from disputed land return to feudal dispossession and reinstatement, and double the tenure and a family's cyclical self-renewal. This is evident in the first hero's winning of land with his winning a bride to continue the lin• of the later romances of English heroes, the Anglo-Norman Boeve de eage. As for Horn and Havelok, the law and the courts are impor• Haumtone, composed somewhat later than the Lai d'Haveloc but tant sources of justification for Bevis, Guy, and Fulk—though this probably not long after 1200. More than in the Old French Bueve de confidence in law breaks down in the later Athelston and Gamelyn. Hantone, in Boeve a clearly discernible line of interest in land and In addition, the diffuse longer works incorporate new sources of family runs through a varied range of motifs and adventures.6 validation for noble heroes. Motifs from epic, saints' legends, and Boeve, which closely resembles the story of Horn in plot,7 unites courtly poetry demonstrate heroic worth by other standards than the hero's first exile loosely around his first disinheritance. Like winning a heritage. Where these standards conflict, uneasy accom• Horn, Boeve becomes a model vassal who defends the feudal hier• modations reestablish the heritage as the dominant value for ad• archy at home and in exile, refuses to marry until his patrimony is venturing heroes. 5. Fouke le Fitz Waryn, ed. Hathaway et al., p. 3, lines 1-8. The editors summa• rize research on the relationship between the extant prose version (ca. 1330) and its Des Aventures e Pruesses Nos Auncestres lost verse source (ca. 1280), pp. xxxiii-xlvii. 6. Boeve de Haumtone, ed. Stimming. Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature, p. 157, sug• Central to all these works is the English hero's status as fictional gests a late twelfth-century date, but cf. Stimming, edition, pp. lvii-lviii. Stimming, pp. clxxx-cxciii, and Matzke, "Beves Legend," summarize debate over the origin of forebear and defender of his nation. The opening lines of Fouke le the story and the relationship of the AN version to the three continental versions Fitz Waryn (ca. 1280) illustrate this emphasis by revising the topos (Bueve de Hantone, ed. Stimming). Recent opinion supports continental dependence on the AN version (Rickard, Britain in Medieval French Literature, pp. 140-41). that spring's renewal stimulates human activity. Rather than inspir• 7. During Bevis's first period of exile from his patrimony in England he is wooed ing love as in much lyric poetry, or warfare as epitomized in Ber- by josian, the daughter of the foreign king he serves, and in consequence suffers a long imprisonment in Damascus. A second exile from England (after his horse 4. Beues of Hamtoun, ed. Kolbing. On its dependence on the AN Boeve, see Kol• Arundel kicks King Edgar's son to death) follows Bevis's marriage to Josian and a bing, edition, p. xxxv; and Baugh, "Improvisation," pp. 431-32. The eight MSS and temporary reacquisition of his lands and titles. This exile repeats the pattern of for• early printed versions used in Kolbing's edition differ considerably, although three eign success and wooing by a foreign princess found in Bevis's first exile, with many main versions may be classified from them. See Kolbing, pp. vii-viii; Baugh, "Con• added adventures of separation and reunion. Finally, Bevis's twin sons participate in vention and Individuality," pp. 126-29. I cite the Auchinleck (A) MS, except where the acquisition of three kingdoms, those of Josian's father, Josian's pagan husband Yvor, and England. variants are significant to the discussion. 56 Insular Romance Land, Lineage, and Nation 57 secured, and makes plans to avenge his father's death and rewin his The family continuity that Boeve sees represented in his children own rights.8 His subsequent confrontations with King Edgar in• culminates when his two sons share in achieving his heritage and spire the most politically cogent section of the work.
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