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“I Wyll Be Thy True Servaunte / and Trewely Serve Thee”

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“I Wyll Be Thy True Servaunte / and Trewely Serve Thee” “I wyll be thy true servaunte / And trewely serve thee” Guildhall Minstrelsy in the Gest of Robyn Hode Dean A. Hoffman I Although the Gest of Robyn Hode has long been recognized as the earliest- known extended verse of the medieval English outlaw, the details of its prove- nance have consistently eluded scholars throughout almost a century of fairly intense scrutiny. And while most literary historians have assumed some form of minstrel transmission for the earliest Robin Hood poems, none has ventured any coherent description of actual performance style for this important but enigmatic work. In the first major historical study to posit a th-century basis for the leg- end, J.C. Holt argued at some length for the dissemination of the Gest and the shorter surviving narratives through minstrelsy from the halls of the aristocracy to the marketplace and tavern, but offered no detailed conjecture about the man- ner of these performances (Holt []:–, –, , –). Not- ing the equivocal references to the spread of the legend in such th-century sources as Dives and Pauper, Bower’s Scotichronicon, and How the Ploughman Lerned His Pater Noster, David C. Fowler supported the tentative conclusions of E.K. Chambers—which included Erasmus’s curious description of English minstrels “who recitant but studio vitant cantum”—maintaining that these early Robin Hood tales were most likely recited or chanted rather than sung to a rounded melody like the familiar popular ballad, a view supported by the succession of such terms in the Gest as “tel,” “speke,” “say,” and “songe” (Fowler :–; see also Chambers :). In contrast, Douglas Gray has largely dismissed the notion of historical reconstruction of the Robin Hood tales, owing less to these inter- nal ambiguities than to the inherently ephemeral nature of the performance act itself (Gray :–, n). Yet if Thomas H. Ohlgren is correct that the Gest of Robyn Hode was in fact commissioned in as a semi-dramatic minstrel “talking” staged at an annual awards banquet by the Drapers Company of London—a radical reassessment of the poem based upon its extensive subtext of references apparently drawn from mercantile culture—this recognition of a likely “premiere performance” of the Gest not only sheds light on its plausible histrionic style, but also reveals banquet The Drama Review 49, 2 (T186), Summer 2005. © 2005 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1054204053971135 by guest on 30 September 2021 Dean A. Hoffman entertainment to be an extended satirical metaphor that reinforces the need for viewing the legend in essentially mimetic terms (Ohlgren a:–). The Gest’s numerous examples of minstrel phraseology clearly suggest its ori- gins as a performed poem. Fyttes I, III, V, and VI open with the familiar “lyth and lystyn” formula, while a transitional aside occurs in fytte IV—“Now lete we that monke be styll, / And speke we of that knyght” (–;in Knight and Ohlgren :–)—and conventional benedictions conclude fyttes IV and VIII. Furthermore, the preponderance of dialogue in the poem would seem to demand some form of dramatic realization (cf. Ohlgren a:). But more al- lusive references to the declamation of verse can be found. Sir Richard atte Lee appears twice “full mery syngynge” () or traveling “with a lyght songe” (); King Edward and his retinue, disguised as monks to ensnare the outlaws and the knight, are described as riding “syngynge to grene wode” (); and the mock progress afterward by the king and the outlaws to Nottingham ends with the whole liveried company celebrating “with notes hye” (), perhaps like the very band of minstrels performing the poem itself. Elsewhere, Little John’s deception of the Sheriff of Nottingham in fytte III is designated as “goode myrth” () or humorous minstrelsy. Sent out a second time to the Sayles, where he initially met the knight and presently will accost the monks, Little John is urged to look out for “a man that myrthes can” (). In the midst of the discomfiture of the monks, Robin even speaks to John like a minstrel as he orders him to search their bags:“Come now forth, Lytell Johan, / And harken to my tale” (–). We are told of Robin’s recounting of the episode to Sir Richard with an appropriately histrionic flourish: “Whan Robyn had tolde his tale, / He leugh and had good chere” (–). And finally, the recurrent minstrel term contained in these verses, first mentioned in a cryptic aside during the knight’s journey from the Abbey to his home in Werysdale— “He wente hym forth full mery syngynge, / As men have tolde in tale” (– )—is echoed during the disguised king’s manhunt for the outlaws:“Whan they had tolde hym the case / Our kyng understode ther tale” (–). Probably the most revealing instance of lingua franca by the unknown compiler of the poem occurs in the ambush following the archery contest, as the betrayed Robin ac- cuses his enemy: “And wo be thou! thou proude sheryf, / Thus gladdynge thy gest” (–; see Dobson and Taylor :n). Finally, scattered references in the Gest reveal its inherently dramatic ethos. Robin Hood’s scheme for the discharge of Sir Richard’s debt is described as “gode game” (), a term that recurs twice afterward in the lengthy description of the newly restored knight’s defense of a disadvantaged yeoman at the wrestling match en route to his lavish repayment of Robin Hood () and much later in the archery contest of fytte V ()—scenes which are also designated by the suggestive term “play” (, ), as is Robin Hood’s death at the hands of the prioress of Kirkesly and Sir Roger of Doncaster (). II Because in Ohlgren’s reading virtually everything of consequence in the Gest, from Robin Hood’s surname to his climactic encounter with King Edward, has some precedent in the Drapers’ systems of livery, apprenticeship, and ceremonial that would be easily recognized with a measure of bemusement by banqueters who belonged to the cloth-manufacturing guild, the actual recitation of the poem need not have been particularly heavy-handed. In his influential Poetria Nova (c. ), Geoffrey of Vinsauf advocates restraint and control in the intonation of verse, using an appropriately gustatory image: Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1054204053971135 by guest on 30 September 2021 Robyn Hode So tame your voice that it is not at odds with the subject, nor let it be in- clined down a path other than that which the subject matter intends; let both go together: some particular tone of voice will be the perfect reflec- tion of the subject matter [...]. This is a disciplined charm; this technique of oral recitation is appealing and this food is flavorful to the ear. A voice decently moderated, and one seasoned with twin flavors of face and manner, should therefore be so conveyed to the ears that it may feed the hearing. (in Murphy :–) Furthermore, in his expansion of this discussion in the Documentum de Modo et Arte Dictandi et Versificandi, Geoffrey emphasizes the importance of preserving the accentual quality of performed verse, urging “respect for the accent of the syl- lable, not for the length” (Geoffrey [c. ] :). This principle could eas- ily be utilized by the minstrel delivering the Gest’s insipid jog-trot scansion and pedestrian rhyme scheme with an intentionally parodic edge, not as four-beat quatrains but instead as eight-beat couplets (closer in spirit to the “eight and eight” meter preferred by Shakespeare’s Bottom), with a fairly rapid, matter-of-fact pace that would have been facilitated in spoken English during this period by the gradual disappearance of the unstressed “e” vowel pronounced in Chaucer’s ear- lier poetry, resulting in fewer voiced syllables for each line of verse (see Barber :). But a more explicit proscription of spoken delivery can be found in the so- called Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. – bce), one of Geoffrey’s major antecedents and an eminent source in its own right for the adaptation of Ciceronian rhetoric to medieval literary theory (Murphy :–, –;see also Enders :– ). Here, a qualitative middle ground between two unaffected modes of speak- ing seems best suited to the present context of performance for the Gest of Robyn Hode, one that is distinguished by moderation and economy in the voice rather than an attempt at full realization of character and mise-en-scène: The Tone of Conversation is relaxed, and is closer to daily speech. [...] The Facetious can on the basis of some circumstance elicit a laugh which is modest and refined. [...W]ith a gentle quiver in the voice, and a slight suggestion of a smile, but without any trace of immoderate laughter, one ought to shift one’s utterance smoothly from the Serious Conversational Tone to the tone of gentlemanly jest. (Geoffrey [c. – bce] : , ) It is worth noting that this approach to recitation would be particularly effective when set against the demonstrative gestures of mime, a paradigm that has been denoted as a common form of medieval staging (Tydeman :). This dy- namic does not go unrecognized by the author of this treatise, who is careful to discern between the absence of gesture by the actual speaker in the Tone of Conversation and the “conspicuous elegance or grossness” in that of the actor (Geoffrey [c. – ] :–). Hence, an incantatory, lyrical cadence marked by a wry irony—an accessible yet mannered style later castigated by Marlowe as the “jigging vein of rhyming Mother-wits”—may have been the modus operandi for the performance of the Gest of Robyn Hode (Marlowe [] :). It is one that could have been well-suited to the accompaniment of a small troupe of costumed or masked ac- tors, referred to as disguisers, whose improvisations among the guild members in the hall would have created a kind of theatrical running commentary on the Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/1054204053971135 by guest on 30 September 2021 Dean A.
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