Arthur, Richard I, Charlemagne, and the Auchinleck Manuscript: Constructing English National Identity in Early Middle English

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Arthur, Richard I, Charlemagne, and the Auchinleck Manuscript: Constructing English National Identity In Early Middle English

Larissa Tracy

Early Middle English, Volume 1, Number 1, 2019, pp. 83-88 (Article)

Published by Arc Humanities Press

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/731653

[ Access provided at 25 Sep 2021 19:09 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] ARTHUR, RICHARD I, CHARLEMAGNE, AND THE AUCHINLECK MANUSCRIPT: CONSTRUCTING ENGLISH NATIONAL IDENTITY IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH

LARISSA TRACY

Auchinleck manuscript (ca. 1330), Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv. MS 19.2.1, includes a stunning array of EarlyThe Middle early English four textsteen fromt hhagiography-century to romance, from Matter of Britain and England to Matter of France, celebrating heroes like Arthur, Richard I, and Charlemagne.1 These three seemingly disparate heroes—one legendary and British, one real but hardly admirable and mostly French, and one laudable but very distant and very French—are brought together in a narrative endeavour that promotes the development of early Middle English in favour of Anglo-Norman or Continental French and creates competing Sowdone of Babylone (Sultan of Babylon) that echo the Auchinleck Roland and Vernagu and Otuel, Afigures Knight of attempt English tonational shape identity.Charlemagne Later intoMiddle a hero English who romances could still like appeal the to an audience that no longer had strong cultural or linguistic ties to the French. Texts like the Alliterative Morte Arthure, grounded in the tradition of the Auchinleck Of Arthure and of Merlin, focus on a reshaped and rehabilitated English King Arthur, while the Auchinleck King Richard, which differs greatly from the later Richard Coer de Lyon, creates a valor- ous and noble portrait of a historical English king who spent more time and money abroad and preferred France to England. The Auchinleck manuscript provides a template for reading Arthur and Richard as “English” and engages in a process of appropriation that legitimizes an English identity distinct from that of France rooted in the use of Middle English as its literary language. The Auchinleck brings together narratives of several prominent heroes whose sto- ries are situated in England: Guy of Warwick (who appears in three pieces: The Specu- lum, a set of stanzas, and a set of couplets), Tristrem, Orfeo, Arthur and Merlin, Bevis of

1 This paper forms the basis of two chapters in my monograph, England’s Medieval Literary Heroes: Law, Literature, and National Identity, which is nearing completion. I also address some of this material in my forthcoming chapter “Charlemagne, King Arthur, and Contested National Identity in ‘English’ Romances,” in Cross-Cultural Charlemagne: Envisioning Empire in Medieval Europe, ed. Jace Stuckey (Leiden: Brill), and in “Creating Literary Heroes: Nostalgia, National Identity and the Idea of Justice,” delivered as part of a workshop on nostalgia at St. John’s College, Oxford, June 21–22, 2017. I am grateful to the governing body of St. John’s College, Oxford for the Visiting Scholarship which gave me the opportunity to work in the Bodleian and St. John’s Library (July–August 2016), as well as Stewart Tiley and Ruth Ogden at St. John’s and Martin Kauffmann at the Bodleian, for giving me access to select manuscripts. My deep gratitude goes to Kathleen Doyle for allowing me to see London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero A X, and Ulrike Hogg who gave me access to the Auchinleck Manuscript. 84 Larissa Tracy Hampton, Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild, and King Richard I. It also includes romances and lais from the Anglo-Norman tradition like Lay le Freine and Floris and Blancheflour. There are hagiographical accounts of saints like Katherine and Margaret, Pope Gregory, and the Purgatory of St. Patrick, as well as religious treatises like Þe Desputisoun Bitven þe Bodi and þe Soule and The Harrowing of Hell. Among these texts are also short his- The Battle Abbey Roll) and the history of England after it (The Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle). It is a rich compen- diumtorical of works literary that tastes record and both genres the with Conquest content ( that bridges the gap between the Anglo-

In its collection of these romances and religious texts, the Auchinleck is very much Norman Conquest and the development of Middle English as a literary language. which contains the earliest version of the South English Legendary (hereafter SEL) as welllike theas the early only to Middlemid-fourteenth English texts-century of Havelok Oxford, the Bodleian Dane and Library, King Horn. MS Laud I am misc. currently 108, in the process of evaluating manuscript evidence, particularly the scribal decoration and any connections that might tie their composition to the same region. As A. S. G Edwards hasflourishing noted regarding of these two the manuscripts Laud manuscript, (and approximately parts A and B forty “are others),decorated to seethroughout if there are by of visual continuity, indicating “a more sustained and ambitious attempt to impose a senseone main of unity flourisher on the who contents.” added 2decorated Tracking initials,”the decoration which givesof the the texts manuscript helps place a degree these manuscripts within the broader geo-political context of medieval England. Joel Fredell has made a similarly compelling argument regarding the decoration of London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero A X, which contains the work of the Gawain-poet, suggesting that this manuscript was compiled and decorated at a scriptorium in York or Yorkshire more 3 It was fairly common for scribes to copy a manuscript and leave spaces for the later addition of lombards, decoration, rubrication, illustrations,broadly at the and turn illuminations. of the fifteenth Several century. of the blue lombards in Auchinleck and Laud to the same Yorkshire decorating house as the Gawain manuscript, or may have regional associations.have similar red4 One-pen possible flourishing explanation to Nero (among A.x, which many) suggests for corresponding they may have scribal connections styles is that there was a greater “English” literary endeavour during the first years of Henry 2 Circulation,” in The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: The Shaping of EnglishA. S. G. Edwards,Vernacular “Oxford, Literature Bodleian, ed. Kimberly Library, K. MS Bell Laud and JulieMisc. Nelson 108: Contents, Couch (Leiden: Construction, Brill, 2011), and

21–30, at 28. Edwards also notes that “The most substantial attempt to impose degree of overall 3 Joel Fredell, “The Pearl-Poet in York,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 36 (2014): 1–39, at 37. Fredell: coherence on the manuscript is its decoration” (28). the Scropes; clusters of scribes and decorators indicate at least two or three separate production teams co-existing“Specific hands at the and time decorators in York” (15). are shared I am grateful among to these Dorothy manuscripts Kim for bringing for major this local to my families attention such and as to Scott Klienman for giving me access to images of the Laud manuscript for comparison. 4 I have since been able to look at the Lincoln Thornton manuscript and have observed some simi lar initials, but complete analysis is still ongoing. I am grateful to Claire Arrand, Special Collections Librarian at the University Library, University of Lincoln, for allowing me to view the Lincoln manuscript in June 2017. 85 Arthur, Richard I, Charlemagne, and the Auchinleck Manuscript IV’s reign, as he pressed English claims in France—a campaign that Richard II (usurped by Henry IV) was very reluctant to pursue—promoting the production and circulation of English texts. If these manuscripts were written in a variety of places during the fourteenth century, then later gathered in the north, in a York decorating house of the kind that Fredell suggests or one like it, that may explain why manuscripts with multiple booklets in diverse hands were then uniformly decorated. The manuscripts that collect different “English” sections of the SEL—dominated by early English and insular saints— with “English” romances, or bring together a variety of “English” religious and secular texts and then decorate them uniformly, lending cohesion to an otherwise disorganized collection, may be part of a concentrated northern literary production at the behest of Henry IV or his supporters, to promote a sense of “English identity” and legitimize his reign.5 The production and provenance of the Auchinleck manuscript, which has long been placed in London, have received renewed scrutiny in Susanna Fein’s edited collection, most notably by Ann Higgins who makes a convincing case for Auchinleck’s “northern identity.”6 The prominence of Middle English romances situating their heroes and their heroic ideals in an English context in collections like Auchinleck, Laud, and the Lincoln Thornton manuscript (Lincoln Cathedral MS 91) suggests a popular interest in revising continental literary sources for a more local audience. Regardless of its regional identity, Auchinleck is very much an English manuscript. Gail Ashton points out that “romance is a genre about nation and nation building,” argu- ing further that subdividing it into “matters of England” or “matters of nation” “imposes a coherent unity that the many historical and political disjunctures of late medieval Eng- land deny.”7 However, the Auchinleck manuscript exhibits a certain amount of cultural unity. Its narratives feature Arthur and Charlemagne, as well as Alexander and Richard, within an evolving sense of national identity that transforms matter of Britain into mat- terbut ofthe England, emphasis and on reduces English the geographical prominence locations of the French and heroic Charlemagne figures places to that Auchinleck of a petty king. Roland and Vernagu, king of France, Denmark, and England, as well as Gascony, Bayenne, and Picardy, but not as an emperor. In Otuel A uniqueKnight, toCharles the Auchinleck is only ever manuscript, depicted as portrays a king ofCharlemagne France, based as 8 - han Bly Calkin writes that the textual evocation of Charlemagne as the king of England in in Paris (not far from St. Denis), rather than as a conquering ruler of vast territories. Siob

5 At the moment, this research is ongoing and highly speculative; there is much work that remains to be done. For a discussion on the Northern provenance of heroes like Beowulf, King Arthur, Gawain, and Robin Hood see Robin Melrose, Warriors and Wilderness in Medieval Britain from Arthur and Beowulf to Sir Gawain and Robin Hood (Jefferson: MacFarland, 2017). 6 Ann Higgins, “Sir Tristrem, A Few Fragments, and the Northern Identity of the Auchinleck Manu script,” in The Auchinleck Manuscript: New Perspectives, ed. Susanna Fein (York: York Medieval

7 Gail Ashton, Medieval English Romance in Context (London: Continuum, 2010), 13. However, Press, 2016), 108–126.

8 Roland and Vernagu, the Auchinleck Manuscript (ff. 262va stub–267vb), National Library of these terms identify the primary figures involved in the narrative, if nothing else. Scotland online: http://www.nls.uk/auchinleck/mss/roland.html (accessed February 12, 2010). 86 Larissa Tracy Roland and Vernagu - 9 But that evocation is omitted and negated“unites French in Otuel and by English, the geographical and reflects limitations. England’s Ofcomplex Arthour relation and of Merlinship with, based Charlemagne, on the legendary France andhistories the realm’s of Geoffrey French of- influencedMonmouth, past.” Wace, and La3amon, constructs Arthur as a hero whose imperial appeal is appropriated in later Middle Eng- lish texts like the Alliterative Morte. Charlemagne. Alliterative-poet, appropriate Arthur is the conquering emperor in Auchinleck, not Similarly, later English poets, specifically In this context,the Arthur and Charlemagne aspects of the historical reality of Charlemagne and refashion them to fit Arthur, creating a figure that the English can claim as their own. compete as figures of justice and temperance: Charlemagne as King of France, and Arthur, fourteenthnot only as Kingcentury; of England, both are but listed also as among an emperor the Nine and Worthies,conqueror but of mythic the two proportions. strains of MiddleBoth English Arthur romance and Charlemagne that develop exist around as figures each ofrepresent emulation the and contest heroism and divisionin the late of and was not fully resolved until the end of the Hundred Years War in 1453 when the Eng- lishFrench kings and ceased English to have national any legitimateidentities—a claims fracture over thethat throne began of as France. early as As the John Conquest Scatter- good writes, after military successes against the Scots and the French in the fourteenth century, “the English felt invincible and, having at least redeemed their own language from the hegemony of the French, felt secure about imposing it on someone else and relegating another vernacular to inferior status.”10 The English romances are not simply translations, but careful revisions of popular Continental material that emphasize the

- qualities of kingship and heroism most applicable and appealing to English, rather than theAnglo French-Norman, heroes audiences. like Charlemagne, Part of the andappeal reclaiming is the elevation (and rehabilitating) of heroic figures Arthur whose for legthe English.endary histories The other are part rooted of that in Englishappeal reststradition—however in the choice of fictional—whileEnglish itself. All diminishing the Middle English adaptations of Old French or Anglo-Norman texts draw upon French literary sources, but the fact that they are in English suggests that there was an effort to end the 11 The prologue of Of Arthour and of Merlin begins with an exposition on the value of cultural domination of French literature in post-Conquest England. the poet puts aside the discussion of French and Latin in favour of English: “Ac on J[n] glischeducating ichil children, tel þerfore especially / Ri3t is the þat advantage J[n]glische of vnderstod French and / LatinÞat was everywhere born in Jnglond. (18) but / Freynsche vse þis gentil man / Ac euerich Jnglische Jnglische can” (20–24).12 The poet

9 Siobhain Bly Calkin, Saracens and the Making of English Identity: The Auchinleck Manuscript (New York: Routledge, 2005), 17. 10 John Scattergood, “Redeeming English: Language and National Identity in the Later Middle Ages,” in Occasions for Writing: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Politics, and Society (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), 17–37, at 36. 11 Calkin, Saracens and the Making of English Identity, 17. 12 Of Authour and of Merlin, The Auchinleck Manuscript (ff. 201rb–256vb), National Library of

Scotland online: http://auchinleck.nls.uk/mss/arthur.html (accessed September 18, 2016). 87 Arthur, Richard I, Charlemagne, and the Auchinleck Manuscript explains that he has seen many nobles who cannot speak French and so, for their love, he will tell his tale in English. Patrick Butler has recently argued that rather than being written in English for its own sake, the prologue “is written in English while communi- cating anxiety over the perceived loss of French.”13 He further writes that the prologue depicts French as a means of avoiding bloodshed, whereas speaking English indicates a predilection to violence.14 Auchinleck version) is decidedly different than the rest of narrative, as Butler points out, it is not the only prologue that However, draws such while a linguistic the prologue distinction (a specific in the Auchinleck.addition to Thethe beginning of King Richard, the B version of the longer Richard Coer de Lyon which omits the ridiculous and fantastic elements of the A version (demonic origins and cannibalism, mostly), makes a similar statement about writing in English. The poet lists all the great heroes of medieval literary and legendary tradition—many of whom have their own sto- ries in the manuscript—Alexander, Charlemagne, Roland and Oliver, Arthur and Gawain: “As of þis romaunce of Freyns wrou3t, / Þat mani lewed no knowe nou3t, / In gest as-so we seyn; / Þis lewed no can Freyns non” (19–22), and many of them will be pleased to 15 While it is possible that the poet is disparaging the lack of French knowledge, or the inability of uneducated nobles to hearunderstand noble tales French of “dou3titales, the kni3tes prologue of Inglond” to Richard (28). suggests mockery; rather than mocking those who do not know French, it mocks those who think French is the only literary language—mocking the mockers, in a sense. What follows in both Of Arthour and Rich- ard are tales that elevate the Englishness of these kings. In fact, Richard greatly resem- bles the imperial Arthur in the Auchinleck version of his narrative. This is the beginning of a larger tradition of “Anglicizing” literary heroes whose origins were decidedly not English, but rather British or Anglo-Norman (even though Richard I from the French romance tradition, which cast him as feckless and degenerate, and reha- bilitatedwas born into in Oxford). the imperial During warrior the late king fourteenth of the Alliterative century Mortespecifically, and the Arthur just and is reclaimedloyal king of the contemporary Stanzaic Morte Arthure brought down by the failings and treachery of others. He is directly compared to Charlemagne. Both Charlemagne and Arthur contend with alien threats and with familial betrayal; the Alliterative Morte even acknowledges the stature of Charlemagne but casts him in a less than positive light. Before he receives word of Mordred’s betrayal near the end, Arthur has a long, prophetic dream interpreted by a philosopher as the end of Arthur’s good fortune. Fortune’s Wheel is turning against urges him to found abbeys in France for the kings, like Frollo, who “though fremedly in Frauncehim. Arthur has feyhas beleved” shed much (3405); blood he and has destroyed unkindly leftmany them men for (3398–99). dead as strangers The philosopher in France.

The philosopher encourages Arthur to consider the fates of the kings and conquerors, the 13 Patrick Butler, “A Failure to Communicate: Multilinguilism in the Prologue to Of Arthour and of Merlin,” in The Auchinleck Manuscript: New Perspectives, ed. Fein, 52–66, at 52. 14 Butler, “A Failure to Communicate,” 52. 15 King Richard, The Auchinleck Manuscript (f. 326; E f. 3ra–vb; S R.4 f. 1ra–2vb; E f. 4ra–vb; f. 327), National Library of Scotland online: http://auchinleck.nls.uk/mss/richard.html (accessed

September 18, 2016). 88 Larissa Tracy other Wort 16 The philosopher ends with a prophecy of the kings to come, one of whom hies: Alexander, Hector, Julius Caesar, Judas, Joshua, and David (3408–21). shall Karolus be called, the kinge son of Fraunce;

He shall encroachbe cruel and the keen crown and that conqueror Crist bore holden, himselven, CoverAnd that by lifelichconquest launce contrees that ynow;lepe to His herte

When He was crucified on cross, and all the keen nailes The Charlemagne thatKnightly the philosopher he shall conquer prophesies to Cristen (because, men hands. “historically,” (3422–29) Arthur comes before him) is cruel and brutal; he claims the holy relics but the philosopher suggests that his claim to them is illegitimate. The philosopher urges Arthur to turn away from such a legacy. This rejection of Charlemagne as a model of corrupt kingship is also a rejection of the French heroic ideal in favour of an English ideal, one grounded in English law and cultural identity. As such, building from the traditions begun in the narratives of the Auchinleck manuscript, Arthur becomes a viable alternative to Charlemagne as a model of heroic kingship and justice grounded in a sense of English national identity that owes little to the complicated ties with France.

LARISSA TRACY is Professor of Medieval Literature at Longwood University. Her publications include Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature, Women of the Gilte Legende, Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination (with Jeff Massey), Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages, Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture (with Kelly DeVries), Flaying in the Pre-modern World, and Medieval and Early Modern Murder. She is also series editor for Explorations in Medieval Culture (Brill).

Abstract: The Auchinleck manuscript (ca. 1330) includes an array of Early Middle English texts from hagiography to romance, from Matter of Britain to Matter of France, celebrating heroes like Arthur, Richard I, and Charlemagne. These seemingly disparate heroes—one legendary and British, one real but hardly admirable and mostly French, and one laudable but very distant and very French—are brought together in a narrative endeavour that promotes the development of Early Middle English in favour of Anglo- - tity. This article argues that Auchinleck provides a template for reading these heroes Norman or continental French and creates competing figures of English national iden as “English” and engages in appropriation that legitimizes an English identity separate from France and grounded in the use of Middle English as its literary language.

Keywords: Auchinleck, nostalgia, national identity, romance

16 Alliterative Morte are from King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Alliterative Morte Arthure, ed. Larry D. Benson, rev. Edward E. Foster, TEAMS All quotations of the line numbers are given in parentheses. Middle English Text Series (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1994), 131–284. Hereafter,