Questioning Chivalry in the Middle English Gawain Romances

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository QUESTIONING CHIVALRY IN THE MIDDLE ENGLISH GAWAIN ROMANCES Sarah Rae Lindsay A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: E. Donald Kennedy, Advisor E. Jane Burns, Reader Patrick O’Neill, Reader Joseph Wittig, Reader Jessica Wolfe, Reader © 2011 Sarah Rae Lindsay ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract SARAH LINDSAY: Questioning Chivalry in the Middle English Gawain Romances (Under the direction of Edward Donald Kennedy) My dissertation argues that the romance genre, and in particular the character of Gawain, allowed English authors and audiences of the late middle ages (1350-1500) to negotiate new chivalric ideologies in response to broad social changes. In the midst of two major wars and a rapidly growing and upwardly mobile merchant class, the role of the knight in England shifted from the battlefield to the court. I examine the ways in which five Middle English romances, all of which feature Gawain, respond to these cultural changes. These romances date from the mid-fourteenth through the end of the fifteenth centuries and range from literary to popular, providing a broad overview of the many ways in which romance approaches the question of the role of prowess in chivalry. My examination reveals that the romances have a conflicted response to the loss of martial violence as the defining characteristic of a knight: the chivalry exercised primarily in courtly rather than military situations becomes a useful tool in building social relationships, but it also threatens to emasculate the male nobility and destabilize traditional social structures. By contrasting new cultural practices of chivalry with old literary ideals, the Gawain romances provide an ideal medium through which English society can explore the implications of adopting new chivalric ideologies and ultimately reformulate conceptions of chivalry that better reflect the changing role of the knight in late medieval society. iii Acknowledgments I owe thanks to many people for their help, support and encouragement throughout the course of writing this dissertation. Thanks go first to my advisor, professor E. Donald Kennedy, for his advice as I began this project and his careful reading of everything from my first prospectus draft to my final chapter. I also thank professor E. Jane Burns, who always enthusiastically provided helpful and challenging feedback, and to my other readers, who responded to this dissertation with constructive and thought-provoking questions. Elizabeth Keim Harper and Mary Raschko not only generously read early drafts and provided the invaluable support of a writing group, but also gave moral support and proof that it is, in fact, possible to complete a dissertation. I also thank the Department of English and Comparative Literature for the Hunt Award, a summer grant that enabled me to spend time focusing on this project. Additionally, I owe many thanks to others who helped and encouraged me along the way: to Leslie and Monica, who made leaving my child so I could work as easy as possible, and to all the others who helped as I balanced an infant and a dissertation. To my parents, who always believed that I could achieve whatever I wanted. And mostly, to my husband Brad, who patiently listened as I worked out my arguments and who never doubted that I would finish my PhD. Finally, I thank my daughter Isabel, who has inspired me to work harder and has brought great joy into my life over the last two years. iv Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: The Pursuit of Individual Honor in the Alliterative Morte Arthure………….19 Chapter 2: Honor and Prowess in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight…………………...68 Chapter 3: Performing Chivalry in The Carl of Carlisle…………………………….…111 Chapter 4: Exchange and Emasculation: Gawain’s Embodiment of Chivalric Fears in The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell………………………………...142 Chapter 5: Chivalric Failure in The Jeaste of Sir Gawain……………………………...177 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...212 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………216 v Introduction At the beginning of Chaucer’s The Squire’s Tale, the Squire mentions Gawain “with his olde curteisye” as a standard to which the characters of his tale aspire.1 Although Chaucer generally avoids Arthurian material, this casual reference indicates the reputation and renown of Gawain in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As Arthur’s nephew, he has had a role in written Arthurian narratives since (at least) the tales of the Mabinogion and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae; but while he was quickly overshadowed in French romance by Lancelot, in English chronicle and romance he remained the best and, judging by the number of extant romances in which he features as a main character, the most popular of Arthur’s knights through the sixteenth century2. As Chaucer’s allusion demonstrates, Gawain’s key characteristic in English romance is his courtesy, his adherence to the codes of conduct encompassed by chivalry. Yet curiously, this chivalry embodied by Gawain is seldom the same from romance to romance. Instead, precisely because Gawain always represents chivalry in its broadest sense of the behavior proper to a knight, he becomes a character through whom the writers of English romance can explore different formulations of chivalry. Gawain thus becomes an anchoring figure in discussions of what chivalry is and should be in the shifting social realities of late fourteenth and fifteenth century England. In particular, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Squire’s Tale, in The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed., ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), l. 95. 2 For a discussion of Gawain’s popularity in England, see Thomas Hahn, “Introduction,” in Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, ed. Thomas Hahn (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications for TEAMS, 1995), 1-7. through Gawain authors and audiences of these romances explore the relationship between chivalry and violence as the real-world role of the knight began to shift away from the battlefield and the social role of chivalry began to slowly morph into the courtesy of the Renaissance courtier. Two distinct attitudes towards chivalry emerge in the romances that use Gawain to negotiate new formulations of chivalry amid shifting social realities. The first is optimistic: it acknowledges the changing role and nature of chivalry as martial qualities such as prowess and courage become less important, seeing in courteous behaviors apart from the battlefield, and even in legal processes, the ability to form and maintain beneficial social relationships. In romances of this nature, Gawain’s words and non- violent actions have the potential to benefit his society. Yet the second trend, often present in the same romance as the first, questions the extent of the social good brought about by non-violent chivalry. This response fears that chivalry divorced from violence is emasculating and ultimately harmful to social structures and order, threatening specifically to make men like women. Without the prowess, the traditional chivalric feats of strength and courage, displayed on the battlefield, tournament or the hunt, are chivalrous men truly men? The romances ultimately have no answer to this question, and certainly prowess and bravery in combat remained central chivalric virtues throughout the period. But the way in which English romances of the late fourteenth and fifteenth century, especially romances featuring Gawain, question the relationship between chivalry and violence is significant. It points to a broad interest in defining chivalry in an age of shifting social values and also to an awareness of the problematic nature of violence even if controlled by the codes of chivalry and balanced by an emphasis on the ! 2! courtesy appropriate to the court or the non-militarized gentry. Historians of chivalry in the Middle Ages have repeatedly shown that violence resides at the heart of chivalry. Richard Kaeuper’s recent Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe thoroughly explores the often complex role of chivalry in regulating and legitimizing violence in medieval Europe. He explains the relationship between violence and chivalry thus: “Knights worshipped at the shrine of the demi-god prowess and practised violence as an esteemed and defining entitlement. The primary constituent in chivalry was prowess which wins honour, weapons in hand.”3 Kaeuper certainly examines the ways in which medieval writers sought to contain and channel violence; he notes that “most medieval writing about chivalry will show a tendency to social criticism or even a reformist cast.”4 Yet in his view, violence remains the defining, central element of chivalry. Other historians accept and bolster this view; for example, Stephen Jaeger defines the civilizing process, which he identifies as beginning in tenth-century Germany, as one that subjugates the desires of the warrior to the strategy of the statesman. He writes, “Civilized man at his best emerges when the warrior tendency in his soul, alive, energetic, and able when necessary to break through the brittle shell of civility that contains it, willingly subjects itself to

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