UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Supernatural and the Limits of Materiality in Medieval Histories, Travelogues, and Romances From William of Malmesbury to Geoffrey Chaucer Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9ck303t5 Author McGraw, Matthew Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE The Supernatural and the Limits of Materiality in Medieval Histories, Travelogues, and Romances From William of Malmesbury to Geoffrey Chaucer A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Matthew Theismann McGraw December 2013 Dissertation Committee: Dr. John M. Ganim, Chairperson Dr. Deborah Willis Dr. Andrea Denny-Brown Copyright by Matthew Theismann McGraw 2013 The Dissertation of Matthew Theismann McGraw is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Supernatural and the Limits of Materiality in Medieval Histories, Travelogues, and Romances From William of Malmesbury to Geoffrey Chaucer by Matthew Theismann McGraw Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in English University of California, Riverside, December 2013 Dr. John M. Ganim, Chairperson The supernatural, broadly defined as magic, marvels, wonders, and miracles, might at first seem to be wholly separate from material goods and the cultural practices surrounding material objects; miracles occur solely through divine grace, and magic would logically seem to involve making things happen without using physical force. Yet, in the depiction of the supernatural in medieval texts, miracles, marvels, wonders, and magic all depend in some way or another upon material goods. At the same time, the supernatural has a recursive effect upon materiality in the texts in this study; it functions as an amplifier of signification. Objects become invested with more meaning because they are associated with supernatural power. Places, particularly in the travelogues and romances, become fraught with marvels and horrors that reflect the concepts with which the lands are associated. Kings and heroes exceed human limitations in ways that are both explained and authorized through their connection with supernatural power. In fact, the texts suggest that these objects, these kings and heroes, could not have the effect that they do without divine sanction or iv magical intervention. The presence of magic becomes a means of defining the point at which unadorned materiality or unassisted humanity does not suffice. This study seeks to explore the medieval concept of materiality, and of its limits, through these connections between the natural and the supernatural. By examining the various depictions of the material and the immaterial both in texts that are, to one degree or another, fictions and in texts that treat the supernatural forces as quite real, a hagiography, a bestiary, an herbal, and a text of ritual sorcery, this dissertation attempts to understand the period’s view of the material world, the immaterial forces that affect it, and humanity’s role in relation to both. v Table of Contents Introduction The Supernatural and the Limits of Materiality….....……………............................ 1 Chapter 1 Supernatural Texts and Material Practices Introduction……………………………………………………………........ 23 The Power and Limits of Human Agency in the Liber Iuratus Honorii....... 33 The Lacnunga and the Healing Power of Sacrifice……………………....... 53 The Golden Legend: Saints, and Materiality…………………………......... 80 Physiologus and Human Nature……………………………………….........103 Chapter 2 Kingship, Relics, and the Implications of Supernatural Power Introduction…………………………………………………………............ 119 Kings as Mediators and Redeemers…………………………………........... 123 The Gesta Regum Anglorum and the Divine Support of Kings………......... 131 Kings, the Monstrous, and the Marvelous in The History of the Kings of Britain…………………………............ 147 Divine Sanction in the History of English Affairs………………....…..........160 Romantic Redemptions of Kings and Kingdoms...........................................167 Chapter 3 Known Lands and Distant Wonders Introduction…………………………………………………………............ 173 Gerald of Wales and the Disturbing Marvels and Curses of Ireland............. 181 Ambivalence in Gerald’s Journey through Wales…………………............. 195 The Wonders of the World in Mandeville’s Travels………………............. 207 The Role of Magic in Distant Mirrors…………………………….….......... 214 Chapter 4 Magic, Identity, and the Boundaries of Possibility Introduction………………………………………………….…….…......... 224 Sir Launfal and the Material Ideal.……………………....…............ 233 Sir Gawain and Insistent Signification……………….....…... ......... 241 The Wife of Bath’s Tale and Magical Humiliation…….…….......... 247 Sir Orfeo and Liminal Figures........................................................... 249 Conclusion................................................................................................................. 258 Bibliography.............................................................................................................. 260 vi Introduction The supernatural pervades medieval and early modern texts. The histories are full of references to relics and to the divine support for kings. Travelogues present bizarre creatures, mystical locations, and wonder-working artifacts. Romances employ fantastic objects and otherworldly locales. Whatever the source or nature of the supernatural elements, one of the effects of the supernatural in the texts is the same; it extends the ability of material objects to convey meaning. The presence of the supernatural serves to give added weight to the expression of concepts and relationships. Magic functions as an amplifier of significance. Aethelstan’s sword in the Gesta Regum Anglorum is not merely a weapon; it is an expression of his ability to defend his country and of the divine favor that supports his reign. Bertilak’s girdle in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, because of its purportedly magical properties, serves both as a preserver of life or virtue and a means of underscoring Gawain’s failure. In romances, magical items and supernatural events expose the limits of human nature and interrogate the ways in which identities and relationships are explained and expressed by objects. In histories, they define the qualities of a people or a king and serve to reify the less tangible aspects of kingship and cultural identity. In the travelogues, they are able to define differences between lands, to add an exuberant quality that attempts to capture through hyperbole the wonder that can be found in the mundane encounters with different people, places and customs; magic in the travelogues can also be used to explore the variations in nature that make strange people and customs seem either monstrous or 1 fantastic. That reaction to difference is then, in a sense, concretized into magical things and effects. That reification allows intangible qualities to be examined more easily, and, consequently, allows for an interrogation of the limits of materiality itself. For example, stories in which knights are supported by magical creatures or objects call into question the degree to which chivalric ideals could ever be made manifest in the world. Sir Launfal’s ever replenishing purse in Sir Launfal calls attention to the dependence of nobility upon material possessions for their status and identity, yet his transformation into an apparently eternal symbol of chivalry through the intervention of the fairies calls attention to the limits imposed by material goods. The text implicitly asks to what degree mortal men, dependent as they are upon other humans for the production of their material goods and limited by the constraints of mortality could achieve the perfection required by the chivalric values. Likewise, the dog-headed men and other part human figures mentioned in the histories and travelogues call into question the distinction between the animal and human, particularly when they are shown to have the capacity for Christian salvation. 1 The texts dealing explicitly with magical rituals and effects offer similar kinds of conflations of the material and immaterial, particularly in the herbals and texts of ritual magic. The latter texts, those dealing directly and specifically with the practices of magic and the descriptions of the supernatural, offer a special vantage point for considering the depiction of the supernatural in the histories, travelogues, and romances. The texts that explicitly describe the supernatural as real, without the distancing effect of an averted 2 gaze that is directed toward entertainment, the description of faraway places and people, or the crafting of a story of kingship, place the more canonical texts in the cultural and intellectual context of an on-going debate throughout the medieval and early modern period about the limits of humanities' capabilities and the nature of man's relationship with the immaterial. While other studies have discussed the role of magic in medieval texts, particularly its role in romance, that subject has not been examined through the relationship between the material and the immaterial in quite the same way as it is presented in this study.2 The issues of the supernatural surrounding the depiction of kingship in histories and the effects of the marvelous in travelogues have