ABSTRACT
Poetics of Holiness: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Pearl Poet
Elisabeth G. Wolfe, Ph.D.
Mentor: D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., Ph.D.
Scholars have often acknowledged Bernard of Clairvaux as a probable influence on the four poems surviving in MS Cotton Nero A.x.—Pearl, Patience,
Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—but few have pursued the interpretive potential of comparisons between the writings of the twelfth‐century abbot and those of the anonymous fourteenth‐century poet. Both men wrote to similar audiences and shared a common concern: persuading an indifferent culture that the purity of heart without which none can see God is a worthwhile goal, despite the difficulties one encounters along the way. Examining parallels between the two authors reveals key insights into Gawain’s battle for virtue, implications for monastic audiences of Jonah’s impatience and for clerics of
God’s intolerance of habitual sin, and the Dreamer’s theological errors that hinder his pursuit of God. Poetics of Holiness: Bernard of Clairvaux and the Pearl Poet
by
Elisabeth G. Wolfe, B.A.
A Dissertation
Approved by the Department of English
______Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D., Chairperson
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Approved by the Dissertation Committee
______D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., Ph.D., Chairperson
______Phillip J. Donnelly, Ph.D.
______Barry A. Harvey, Ph.D.
______David Lyle Jeffrey, Ph.D.
______Joe B. Fulton, Ph.D.
Accepted by the Graduate School August 2009
______J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean
Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School.
Copyright © 2009 by Elisabeth G. Wolfe
All rights reserved
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abbreviations and Sources ...... vii
Preface ...... x
Acknowledgments ...... xii
Dedication ...... xv
Chapter One: Introduction: The Theologians and the Critics ...... 1
Bernard of Clairvaux: A Scarcely Acknowledged Influence ...... 6
A Note on Intertextual Connections: Source, Influence, or Inspiration? ...... 14
Toward a Deeper Reading ...... 17
Part One: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Defense of Virtue ...... 26
Chapter Two: Theology under Cover of Romance: De gradibus humilitate et superbiae in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ...... 27
The Character of Gawain and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ... 27
The Steps in Gawain ...... 30
The Judgment of Gawain ...... 44
Stealing Past Watchful Dragons? The Audience of Gawain ...... 46
Conclusion ...... 49
iii Chapter Three: Nif Maré of Hir Knyʒt Mynne: Bernardine Marianism in Gawain ...... 51
The Marian Symbolism of Gawain’s Shield ...... 52
Testing Mary’s Knight ...... 64
Conclusion ...... 68
Part Two: Patience and Cleanness: The Obligations of Religious and Secular Clergy ...... 70
Chapter Four: Þaʒ Hit Displese Ofte: Patience and Bernard’s Writings on Monastic Obedience ...... 71
Patience in the Rule of Benedict ...... 72
Bernard on Patience, Poverty, and Obedience ...... 75
Fugitive Monks and De praecepto et dispensatione ...... 79
The Example of Jonah ...... 82
Conclusion ...... 88
Chapter Five: What Not to Wear: Clerical Reform in Cleanness and Bernard’s Writings to the Clergy ...... 90
Textual Evidence of a Clerical Audience ...... 92
De conversione ad clericos and the Clergy’s Need for Personal Holiness ...... 98
The Negative Exemplars ...... 103
Conclusion ...... 109
iv Part Three: Pearl: The Pursuit of God ...... 111
Chapter Six: Saf by Ryʒt? Merit and Grace in the Narrative of Pearl and Bernard’s Sermons and Treatises ...... 112
The Grace/Works Dichotomy and Bernard’s De gratia et libero arbitrio ...... 113
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard ...... 116
Holy Innocents and the Fate of Infants ...... 120
The New Jerusalem, the Church, and the Bride of Christ ...... 126
All Saints’ Day and the Community of Believers ...... 131
Conclusion ...... 135
Chapter Seven: My Lemman Swete: The Dreamer, the Pearl Maiden, and Bernard’s Degrees of Love for God ...... 136
Bernard’s Degrees of Love for God ...... 136
The Dreamer and the Pearl Maiden ...... 143
Conclusion ...... 150
Chapter Eight: Vnavysed, Forsoþe: The Dreamer’s Ignorance and Bernard’s Discussions of Knowledge, Reason, and Will ...... 152
Bernard on Knowledge in Sermones in Cantica ...... 153
Overcoming the Dreamer’s Wretched Will ...... 157
Overcoming the Dreamer’s Ignorance ...... 161
Conclusion ...... 172
Chapter Nine: Conclusion ...... 174
v
Appendices ...... 178
Appendix A: Fourteenth‐Century British Libraries Housing Bernardine Manuscripts ...... 179
Appendix B: Bernardine Titles Commonly Held in Fourteenth‐ Century British Libraries ...... 180
Appendix C: Could the Pearl Poet Have Been a Cistercian? ...... 181
Bibliography ...... 185
Works Cited ...... 185
Additional Works Consulted ...... 196
vi
ABBREVIATIONS AND SOURCES
The following abbreviations will be used for parenthetical citations and footnotes only:
AW The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, ed. Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron (Berkeley: U of California P, 1979)
BCP Book of Common Prayer
De cons. De consideratione (SBO III: 393‐493; trans. Five Books on Consideration)
De conv. De conversione ad clericos (SBO IV: 69‐116; trans. Sermons on Conversion 31‐79)
DLVM De laudibus virginis matris (SBO IV: 13‐58; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 1: 53‐132)
MED Middle English Dictionary
QH Sermones xvii in Ps. XC “Qui habitat” (SBO IV: 383‐492; trans. Sermons on Conversion 115‐261)
RB Regula Benedicti (trans. The Holy Rule of St. Benedict)
SBO Sancti Bernardi Opera, gen. ed. Jean Leclercq (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957‐1977). 8 vols. in 9.
SC Sermones in Cantica Canticorum (SBO I: 1‐255, II: 1‐320; trans. On the Song of Songs)
SD Sermones de diversis (SBO VI‐1: 73‐406; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 3: 397‐552)
Sent. Sententiae (SBO VI‐2: 1‐255; trans. The Parables and the Sentences 117‐ 458)
vii SS Sermones de sanctis (as Sermones per annum, SBO V: 1‐447; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 3: 1‐396)
ST Sermones de tempore (as Sermones per annum, SBO V: 1‐447; trans. Sermons for the Seasons 1: 1‐52, 309‐446, 2: 1‐433)
All Scripture quotations are from the Douay‐Rheims Version, unless noted otherwise; in‐text references to the Psalms will follow the Hebrew numbering rather than the Septuagint/Vulgate, but parenthetical citations will give the
Vulgate numbering in brackets. Quotes from Bernard will be cited according to the section and paragraph numbering in SBO. Middle English translations will be excerpted from Borroff’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and
Patience and Tolkien’s translation of Pearl; the translations from Cleanness are my own.
Thomas Cranmer was hardly exaggerating when he said in the preface to the 1549 BCP that the Sarum Missal and its accompanying volumes were so difficult to navigate that “many times, there was more busines to fynd out what should be read, then to read it when it was faunde out.” The Sarum and York
Breviaries available from Early English Books Online are maddeningly complex and often give no more than an incipit, which requires the reader to know what the texts are before beginning to search, leaving those of us from non‐liturgical churches at a distinct disadvantage. I used the 1549 BCP as a guide for the majority of the lections used in the British Church and confirmed them as best I
viii could with the 1494 Sarum Breviary and the 1526 York Breviary, with the 1495
Sarum Breviary and the 1555 York Breviary as a backup.
For the Cistercian Use, I have relied heavily on Chrysogonus Waddell’s
2007 edition of the early Cistercian breviary preserved as Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. Lat. Oct. 102. Bernard did direct a revision of the Cistercian liturgy and lectionary sometime in the mid‐1140s, but the majority of his surviving sermons predate that revision. The Cistercian Use differs from the Sarum Use in a number of ways, including the dates of certain feasts, and Bernard did not always adhere to the lections in his homilies; I have tried to indicate these variations in my discussion when they are relevant.
ix
PREFACE
This project began with a simple assignment for a class on Middle English religious literature taught by Dr. David Lyle Jeffrey during my first semester of grad school. We were scheduled to read all of the poems attributed to the Pearl poet, and knowing my interest in the question of personal holiness—a point on which I feel my own Pentecostal tradition can find encouragement and enrichment in medieval thought—Dr. Jeffrey assigned me a presentation on medieval exegesis in Cleanness and suggested a number of authors to research, including Bernard of Clairvaux. As I read through the steps of pride in De gradibus humilitate et superbiae, however, I thought, “Wait—that’s Gawain!”
Once Dr. Jeffrey confirmed that almost no scholarship existed on the presence of Cistercian thought in these poems, the hunt was on. And what a hunt it has turned out to be! More than once I have begun reading Bernard with just the vaguest idea of the connection I wished to make with the poem at hand, only to have my thesis or some twist to the argument jump off the page at me when I least expected it. Along the way, I have been refreshed and encouraged by both the poems and the Bernardine texts I have read—and even, surprisingly, by some of the critics. (Getting to read and use the scholarly works of J. R. R.
x Tolkien and C. S. Lewis was an added bonus!) To be sure, I have encountered my fair share of frustrations and challenges during the five years I have worked on the topic, but on the whole it has been much more fun and rewarding than I sometimes feared it would be. I hope you, too, will find it so.
xi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The list of people I have to thank for their help, encouragement, and influence on this project could easily be a book in itself, and even then I would probably still forget someone. So I ask advance forgiveness if this abbreviated list overlooks anyone who deserves recognition. I regret that space prevents me from listing my many blessings!
Perhaps the easiest place to begin is with the members of my dissertation committee and defense readers, all of whom played key roles in my graduate school experience well before the dissertation phase and to whom I owe an incalculable debt of gratitude: Dr. D. Thomas Hanks, Dr. Phillip Donnelly, Dr.
Barry Harvey, Dr. David Lyle Jeffrey, and Dr. Joe B. Fulton. Other faculty mentors and friends who deserve special mention include Dr. Janya Martin, Dr.
Rosalie Beck, Dr. Kevin J. Gardner, Dr. Greg Garrett, Dr. Ralph C. Wood, Mrs.
Jerrie Callan, and Dr. Mary Lynn Klingman. I also have to thank Dr. Carey C.
Newman and my colleagues at Baylor University Press for providing advice and encouragement and for understanding when the stress of the dissertation left me frazzled. Nor can I forget Mrs. Sandra Harman, who helped me find solutions for some very non‐standard formatting questions; Mrs. Lois Avey, our
xii unflappable graduate secretary whose cheerful encouragement has brightened many a day for me; and Mrs. Janet Jasek and my former colleagues at Baylor
Interlibrary Services, whose skill in finding the materials I need occasionally borders on miraculous. None of this would be possible without finances, though, so great thanks are due to Dr. Robert Ray, Dean Larry Lyon, and the
Graduate School for providing me with the Presidential Doctoral Scholarship and arranging my assistantships.
Some of my greatest encouragement and spiritual refreshment over the past five years has come from friends I have made through the C. S. Lewis
Foundation, especially Dr. Stan Mattson, Dr. Jerry Root, Dr. Gayne Anacker, and
Dr. Louis Markos. I would not have met them without the help of the Rev. Dr.
Ann D. Normand, Mrs. Joyce P. Fisher, and Mr. Ronnie Rudd, so I owe them special thanks as well. And of course, I want to thank Pastor Duane Hoxworth and the family of Praise Temple Assembly of God, my church home for the ten years I have been at Baylor, and all of my friends and prayer partners at Baylor, at home, and around the world.
Now comes the hard part: how to thank my family enough! My amazing parents, Bill and Claudia Wolfe, have been beta readers, encouragers, prayer warriors, and accountability partners all along; but all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins have both provided encouragement and attempted to remind me not to
xiii work too hard. I especially want to thank Ann and Dr. Randy Blanton for encouraging my childhood interest in all things medieval.
Words are simply inadequate to express what I owe to all of you. Thanks for everything.
xiv
To my brothers in Christ,
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
and
the unknown poet of Pearl, truly “precious perlez vnto His pay”
xv
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction: The Theologians and the Critics
A homily on patience based on the highly impatient Jonah; another on purity of heart that traces infamous sinners through salvation history; a dream‐ vision with a narrator whose grief has turned to idolatry; a romance in which the best of knights has a chink in his spiritual armor: these four poems from MS
Cotton Nero A.x. (respectively Patience, Cleanness, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight) reveal a poet steeped in Scripture and eager to remind his audience of their obligations to God. His favorite passages seem to be Matthew 5:8 and
Psalms 15 and 24, all of which relate the necessity of a pure heart, and he teaches primarily by negative example. An amazingly skilled wordsmith and a man of wide‐ranging interests, the Pearl poet chooses to employ his talent in the service of its Source, leaving us with four anonymous classics of Christian poetry.
Nowhere does the Pearl poet make overt references to specific theologians in the way William Langland does. Indeed, the only authority he names other than Scripture is The Romance of the Rose. Yet encountering Scripture by itself in the time‐honored Protestant way—me and Jesus, no notes, no guides other than the Holy Spirit—was literally impossible in the Middle Ages. Whether in the
1 breviary or in the Bible itself, every text was physically surrounded on its pages by smaller print containing the commentaries of ages past; and many serious students of the Scriptures, like Bonaventure,1 memorized both the text and the commentaries (Karris xi‐xii, xvi‐xxii). A sub‐creator2 like the Pearl poet could easily take such ingrained knowledge, transmute it in a creative work, and still expect an audience equally well versed in sacra doctrina to pick up on the hints.
To cite only one example, the metaphor of the pearl in Cleanness 1113‐42 bears strong similarities to the commentaries of Augustine and Ambrose on I John 1:9, with the washing in wine being equivalent to both baptism and the renewal of baptism through confession and penance (Augustine, Tractates 128‐30; Ambrose
255‐6). Dante built the Commedia on his Thomistic theology; Langland and
Chaucer incorporated the Church Fathers and the Doctors into their poetry, if only to highlight the folly of characters like the Wife of Bath. It stands to reason that as steeped in Scripture as the Pearl poet was, he might likewise weave into his own work elements derived from theological commentaries. At least the compiler of Cotton Nero A.x. seems to have thought so, since he bound these four poems with a series of theological writings that includes several anonymous
1 Robert J. Karris quotes a telling passage on exegesis from Bonaventure’s Breviloquium: “No one will find this kind of thing an easy task except by long practice in reading the text and committing its literal sense to memory” (xxi).
2 In “On Fairy‐Stories,” J. R. R. Tolkien speaks of human creativity as sub‐creation. Only God can create ex nihilo, but we have the right to recombine elements of the Primary World that God created and make Secondary Worlds in our stories, songs, and myths (48‐51, 60‐61, 68‐75).
2 tractates and the pseudonymous Meditationes quaedam piam S. Bernardi (“Cott.
Nero”).
Yet thus far, few scholars have examined the potential depth of meaning made available by comparing the works of the Pearl poet with the exegetical and theological works that would have framed his understanding of Scripture. To be sure, the roles of subjects such as Scripture (especially the Apocalypse) and the liturgy are well covered by current scholarship, but very few theologians have received significant attention as potential sources or influences (Blanch 314‐326).
Some critics who do explore a theological influence do so with a questionable preconception of the poet’s personal beliefs. In 1904, Carleton F. Brown linked
Pearl most clearly with Thomas Bradwardine’s anti‐Pelagian writings on merit and grace, but he spent far less time in detailed analysis of Bradwardine’s potential influence on the poem than on establishing the poet’s evangelical tendencies and independence from both patristic tradition and contemporary mystical theology (127‐30, 133‐45). Eileen T. Baleno argues from Patience and
Cleanness in her 2003 dissertation that the Pearl poet follows Gregory the Great in emphasizing right reason as an essential requirement for salvation. Then there are scholars like David C. Fowler who explore Christian themes in Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness but insist that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is purely a romance
(171‐225). The danger of over‐allegorizing Gawain certainly exists, but refusal to
3 consider its spiritual implications misses as much depth of meaning as does refusal to consider anything but allegory.
No one study can possibly cover the full spectrum of theological writings that would have been available to the Pearl poet in the late fourteenth century in the hope of uncovering neglected interpretations. But the poems’ historical context can give us a clue as to where to begin. Most scholars date the poems to the 1390s, when the Catholic Church was reeling from the effects of the Black
Death. The best churchmen had given their lives treating plague victims, and most of those who remained or who entered the Church to fill the void were either horribly corrupt or woefully undereducated. Education had largely moved from the contemplation‐driven monastic schools to the disputation‐ driven cathedral schools, and few of the teaching friars or canons displayed the clarity of thought or the sanctity of life of a Bonaventure or a Thomas Aquinas.
Lynn Staley notes that widespread simony and the infamous laxity of canons such as those who resided at St. Paul’s in London contributed to a strong anti‐ clerical mood in the late fourteenth century, especially as seen in works like the
General Prologue of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the reform‐minded writings of John Wyclif (9‐19). Following Richard Rolle’s lead from the first half of the century, the writers of the Yorkshire Revival relied heavily on the writings of twelfth‐century arch‐reformer Bernard of Clairvaux as an authoritative basis for
4 their calls for personal revival (Horstmann 1: 7, 114, 130, 145‐54, 219, 241, 250,
333‐4, 2: 87, 94, 101, 398‐402, 409, 413, 430, 448). Wyclif and the Lollards similarly used Bernard’s works to argue for ecclesiastical reform (e.g. Apology 9,
16, 21, 24, 28, 30).
At the same time, though the institution of knighthood had fallen far from the ideal embodied in the early days of groups like the Knights Templar, some groups of knights actively sought a renewal of Christian knighthood. Perhaps the most relevant of these new chivalric orders is the Order of the Passion of Our
Lord, founded by Philippe de Mézières. Rather like King Arthur, Mézières sought to renew society by making knights models of Christian virtue through contemplation of the Passion and the pursuit of purity of heart; his ideal knights could conduct a successful crusade in gratitude for the Passion precisely because of their personal virtue (Tarnowski 163‐75). Though Mézières often did not specifically cite past authorities, choosing instead to focus on the examples his knights were to become (168‐70, 174‐5), contemplation of the Passion became popular due to Bernard’s devotional writings, and Mézières’ ideals echo the modified Cistercian rule Bernard drafted for the Knights Templar and Bernard’s insistence that the Second Crusade, which he was forced to preach and then blamed for, failed because of the immorality of the Crusaders. In light of the poet’s emphasis on holiness for both knights and clerics, therefore, I will pursue
5 the possibility that he knew and was influenced by Bernard’s sermons, letters, and treatises.3
Bernard of Clairvaux: A Scarcely Acknowledged Influence
Richard Newhauser names Bernard of Clairvaux as one of several possible homiletic sources for the Pearl poet (268), and P. M. Kean notes that Bernard was one of the most popular sources for devotional writers in fourteenth‐century
England (39). G. L. Prestige calls him “the supreme Christian romantic” who
“set the spiritual tone for the later Middle Age” (186). Yet neither of the major recent editions of these four poems, that of Andrew and Waldron or that of
Vantuono, cites Bernard even once. Have scholars fallen into the trap of not being able to see Bernardine traces in the Pearl poet’s works because they are too obvious?
Bernard’s Popularity in Late Medieval England
The sheer number of Bernardine manuscripts in Great Britain during the late Middle Ages attests to Bernard’s popularity. According to David N. Bell’s
An Index of Cistercian Authors and Works in Medieval Library Catalogues in Great
Britain, the various editions of the Registrum Librorum Anglie identify manuscripts
3 Many thanks to my dissertation committee for suggesting these observations on the historical context.
6 of Bernard’s genuine works4 in sixty‐five monastic and cathedral libraries throughout England and Scotland by the end of the fourteenth century; three of the Cambridge libraries and five of the Oxford libraries also held Bernardine manuscripts during that period, as did thirty‐one other British libraries whose surviving catalogues do not match the Registrum or were excluded from it (19‐31,
41‐7, 57‐152, 161‐71). The records of Cistercian abbeys that form the basis of
Bell’s earlier An Index of Authors and Works in Cistercian Libraries in Great Britain add another ten libraries, bringing the total to 114 (45‐8).5 Only thirty‐four of these libraries were in Cistercian houses. These figures do not include manuscripts that individual scholars copied for their own use, some of which made their way into major manuscript collections much later.
Bernard’s impact on medieval culture at large, from the impact of De laude novae militiae on Arthurian literature to the spiritual use of courtly language
4 Several works are listed twice or more; some are pseudonymous, while others are misattributed; and some are listed so vaguely that positive identifications are impossible (Bell, Cistercian Authors 19‐31). Many of the manuscripts in the catalogues that Bell uses no longer exist (2), and I suspect that other catalogues that have not survived would shed even more light on the number of Bernardine manuscripts in British libraries at the time.
5 Bell’s indexes are composed primarily of raw data, though compiled in a user‐friendly format. The statistics presented here, and any errors therein, are the result of my own examination of that data, which I have distilled into the two lists presented in Appendices A and B. Bell warns in the introduction to An Index of Cistercian Authors that the book is not intended to prove anything and that the reader should exercise caution in using the data (9), and taken alone, the data do not prove anything about the Pearl poet’s potential exposure to Bernard. Even so, the fact that Bernard’s works appeared in at least 114 libraries throughout Great Britain by the end of the fourteenth century indicates his popularity, as does the fact that the fifteenth‐century brothers’ library at Syon Abbey boasted a better selection of Bernardine manuscripts than did Rievaulx.
7 following Sermones in Cantica Canticorum, has received wide scholarly attention, prompting such volumes as Sr. Benedicta Ward’s The Influence of St. Bernard. His works are cited in every book of Ancrene Wisse except the first (e.g., 2.143‐44, 3.75,
4.703, 5.261, 6.87, 7.20, 8.273). Walter Hilton cites Bernard on the topics of prayer and meditation in The Scale of Perfection (1.33, 35). Prestige also traces devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Five Wounds, and the Holy Name of Jesus—a major feast in the Sarum Use calendar—to Bernard’s sermons advocating devotion to
Christ’s humanity (199). Arnold Angenendt, following Bernard McGinn, likewise credits Bernard with founding medieval mysticism, especially
Leidenmystik, Frauenmystik, and Brautmystik6 (45, 65, 98, 138‐43, 175‐6, 285, 307,
414, 548‐9). In discussing glosses on the Old Testament in the 1494 Lübeck Bible,
Olaf Schwencke agrees with myriad scholars when he asserts that Bernard’s
Sermones in Cantica Canticorum had a profound influence on every late medieval commentary on Song of Songs and provided a foundation for later mystics (59,
116, 127, 150; cf. e.g. Angenendt 175‐6).
Bernard’s legacy in medieval British culture was not confined to the liturgy or devotional practices; it extends to the imaginative literature of the
6 Mysticism focused on the Passion, Mary, and the Church (or the soul) as the Bride of Christ.
8 period as well. William Langland7 certainly expected at least one segment of his audience to know Bernard, since he cites Bernard three times in the B text of Piers
Plowman and once uses a character’s misquotation of Bernard as an example of sinful clerics’ theological abuses (4.121; 10.55; 15.60‐3, 421‐3).8 Nor was Langland the only Middle English poet inspired to incorporate Bernard into his poetry.
The Pricke of Conscience, an anonymous fourteenth‐century poem sometimes attributed to Richard Rolle, quotes Bernard ten times9 in Latin and gives a
Middle English translation; the poet also paraphrases a Vita sancti Bernardi in
Middle English (248‐52, 559‐67, 619‐28, 913‐9, 1875‐83, 1947‐55, 2248‐73, 2529‐63,
5654‐63, 5826‐30). Bella Millett identifies six versions of a Middle English lyric from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,10 four of which appear on the same page as Latin reflections attributed to Bernard and are explicitly linked to one or more Bernardine passages, either by simple cross‐referencing or by a statement
7 Langland’s use of Bernard has also received little scholarly attention, if JSTOR and WorldCat are reliable guides, but I must leave that topic for someone else’s pursuit.
8 Line numbers are from the Kane‐Donaldson edition and Donaldson translation, reprinted in Robertson and Shepherd. Other editions may vary slightly in their numbering.
9 Owst identifies at least one of these quotations as coming from the Meditationes Bernardi (531‐2). Since the edition I consulted has no annotations, I am unsure whether the other quotations are from genuine Bernardine texts; still, the Pricke poet clearly believed any text with Bernard’s name on it to be authoritative.
10 “Ho that sith him one the rode” from Harley 7322; “Quanne Hic se on rode” from Royal MS E. 1; “Qvanne I zenke onne the rode” from Ashmole 360; “Vyen I o the rode se” from Bodley 57; “Wenne Hic soe on rode idon” from St. John’s College, Cambridge, MS 15; and “Wose seye on rode” from Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 323.
9 that the lyric is an English translation of Bernard’s thought (“Case Study”).
Karen Saupe remarks on Bernard’s influence on Marian literature in her introduction to Middle English Marian Lyrics. Editors of volumes produced by the
Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS) have also noted
Bernardine connections in such diverse works as “In a Valley of This Restless
Mind,” “The Dispute between Mary and the Cross,” Thomas Hoccleve’s
Regiment of Princes, and the poetry of William Dunbar.11
More importantly, however, Bernard also remained popular among students of homiletics. Basil Pennington argues that the Cistercian Fathers’ greatest literary legacy lies in their sermons and letters (“The Cistercians” 215), and late medieval documents provide ample evidence of this truth in Bernard’s case. In De reductione artium ad theologiam, Bonaventure states that of the three spiritual senses (allegorical, moral, and anagogical):
Primum maxime docet Augustinus, secundum maxime docet Gregorius, tetius vero docet Dionysius; Anselmus sequitur Augustinum, Bernardus sequitur Gregoriam, Richardus sequitur Dionysium, quia anselmus in ratiocinatione, Bernardus in praedicatione, Richardus in contemplatione; Hugo vero omnia haec.
The first is taught chiefly by Augustine; the second, by Gregory; the third, by Dionysius. Anselm follows Augustine; Bernard follows
11 A Google search for “Bernard of Clairvaux” in the editions available on the TEAMS website (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams) on 29 Oct. 2008 returned 178 hits, though most of them were repetitions of the name in a handful of texts. I chose four works roughly representing the range of results; Ancrene Wisse and The Scale of Perfection were also among them, but Sarah Stanbury’s edition of Pearl returned no hits.
10 Gregory; Richard follows Dionysius. For Anselm excels in reasoning; Bernard, in preaching; Richard, in contemplation. But Hugh excels in all three. (5)
Robert of Basevorn also notes in his 1322 treatise Forma praedicandi that one of the many possible reasons for the popularity of the three‐point sermon is that “this method is mostly followed by Bernard” (qtd. in Chance 38). Laurence Bedeman, a preacher affiliated with Wyclif in the 1370s but acquitted of heresy in 1382, included sermons by Bernard in a personal compilation of texts upholding priestly authority against the friars (Catto 893‐904). G. R. Owst notes numerous examples of surviving homiletic texts in which Bernard is quoted, echoed, or used as an exemplar, including the sermons from Royal 18 B. 23 (124, 387, 507,
533), John Bromyard’s Summa Predicantium (253, 265‐6, 268, 446), and the sermons of Robert Rypon and William of Rymington (79, 92, 268, 270‐2, 509‐10).
As an example of the importance of preaching to medieval—especially monastic—spiritual life, Angenendt points out that Bernard did not write a treatise on the Song of Songs, but a series of sermons (479). Given that two of the
Pearl poet’s surviving poems are homilies, he would almost certainly have studied Bernard’s homilies in preparing to preach. Jane Chance also argues that
Pearl follows the standard medieval model of a three‐point sermon that expounds the three spiritual senses of the text under consideration (31‐59), and
Jenny Rebecca Rytting compares and contrasts the Pearl poet’s treatment of the
11 Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard to that of surviving Middle English homilies in prose and verse.
Thus, whether or not the Pearl poet was a Cistercian himself,12 he had without doubt read some of Bernard’s work. Not knowing his identity, one might be hard pressed to argue that Bernard was his primary source or that, as his favorite theologian, Bernard functions in his poetry as Aquinas does in the
Divine Comedy. But the examination which follows here shows that just as
Bernard escorted Dante toward the Beatific Vision, so also his writings can usher us into a deeper understanding of the theological principles at work in these four poems.
The Scholarship Gap
Despite these influences, however, few Pearl scholars have thus far given
Bernard more than a passing mention. Keyword searches of Academic Search
Complete, the MLA International Bibliography, and WorldCat for the combination of phrases “Pearl poet” and “Bernard of Clairvaux” returned no results as of October 2008, while JSTOR gave only articles by Brown, Coolidge
Otis Chapman, and Ordelle G. Hill as slightly relevant results. Malcolm
Andrew’s 1979 annotated bibliography yields nothing helpful prior to 1977.
Robert J. Blanch’s annotated bibliography lists only four items written between
12 See Appendix C.
12 1978 and 1993 that give significant attention to Bernard; of these, the article by
Gregory J. Wilkin is most concerned with Gawain as a Templar, the dissertation by Martha Susan Aaron with the Pearl poet’s Victorine reaction against Jean de
Meun,13 and the very short article by Miriam Grove Munson with a tradition of interpretation of the Beatitudes.
Even fewer scholars attempt to explore the depth of Bernard’s influence in
Pearl, much less the other three poems. In The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages,
Ann Astell connects Bernard’s Sermones in Cantica Canticorum to Pearl to justify a
Jungian reading of the poem (119‐135), an approach to which David Aers objects without suggesting a better tack with regard to Bernard14 (64). Ian Bishop takes
Kean to task for using Bernard’s sermon on his brother’s death to discuss improper grief in Pearl without exploring the notion of consolation, either as a topos or as a genre (133). Bishop’s own interest lies in other examples of the consolatio, so he does not pursue the comparison himself. Kean, however, never delves into Bernard’s writings any more deeply than in her short discussion of grief (234‐7); she cites Sermones in Cantica, De conversione ad clericos, and De diligendo Deo as examples of certain kinds of imagery without considering any
13 Or so I gather from the abstract. I could not gain access to the dissertation itself.
14 He appreciates Astell’s treatment of Bernard’s sermon on his brother’s death (61), but he counters the Jungians’ inadvertent sexism by recommending “more attention to Galatians 3.28 and less to Jung or the dreamer’s fantasies” (64)—a sound response, but not particularly helpful in pursuing Bernardine connections.
13 further significance (37‐42, 49‐51, 61, 149, 156, 165). She may have felt that the quotations she provides speak for themselves, but no one appears to have followed up on the possible connections to discover what the poems look like when viewed through a Bernardine lens.
A Note on Intertextual Connections: Source, Influence, or Inspiration?
I should pause here to define the difference I see between sources and influences, especially as they relate to the Pearl poet’s works. A source appears plainly in a text through direct quotations, references to the book or author by name, or peculiar turns of phrase that mark a clear allusion; an influence does not appear so directly but is still evident in specifics of thought or structure.
Michael W. Twomey’s observation about Cleanness’ use of Peter Comestor’s
Historia scholastica exemplifies this distinction:
The poet of Cleanness abandoned the practice of citation, focused on select biblical narratives, and invented dialogue and action out of his own imagination. But when we look at individual episodes of Cleanness, the influence of Comestor’s method—the scholastic method of assembling various historical accounts into an expanded biblical narrative—is striking. (“Falling” 144)
Twomey further notes the poet’s penchant in Cleanness for creatively combining different versions of a story while crediting only one source, as seen in his rendition of the Parable of the Wedding Feast (146), and C. S. Lewis argues in The
Discarded Image that, whether or not the poets were aware of the process, the
14 medieval imagination was at its best and most original when it synthesized and reworked older auctours rather than simply citing them (1‐12, 198‐215; cf. Studies
18‐63). I thus think it more appropriate to discuss any authorities the poet might have used, other than Scripture and the Romance of the Rose, as influences rather than sources because they either remain implicit or appear in a transformed guise.
However, one ought not confuse indirect, uncited source‐influences with a more vague form of influence through general cultural exposure, which might better be called inspiration. Bernard was so popular in the Late Middle Ages that a poet treating religious themes could hardly help using language and imagery that echoed or reacted against Bernard, even without having actually read his work. If the original lyric behind Millett’s case study was indeed a loose translation of a Bernardine or pseudo‐Bernardine text, oral transmission appears to have loosened its connection even further, to the point that the exact identity of the inspiring text was lost; each of the four manuscripts that link the lyric with
Bernard appears to associate it with a different Latin text, and two make no specific reference to a source at all.15 A fourteenth‐century poet who heard or
15 Not having access to these manuscripts, I can judge only from Millett’s descriptions, and she does not always give the incipits of the Bernardine texts in question. However, “Qvanne I zenke one the rode” is clearly linked to a different text than is “Wose seye on rode,” and the latter text links to a completely different poem in the manuscript containing “Wenn Hic soe on rode idon” (Millett “Qvanne: MS,” “Wose: MS,” “Wenn: MS”).
15 read a variant of the lyric might well go on to incorporate its sentiment or its language into his or her own poem with a tweak of originality without knowing whence the commonplace came. Bernard could thus be said to have influenced this second poem, but only at third‐ or fifth‐hand.16
My concern is far less with the Pearl poet’s encounters with Bernard via popular culture, however, than with his probable first‐hand knowledge of
Bernard’s sermons, letters, and treatises. Scholars have been willing enough to acknowledge Bernard’s place in the culture at large and even his preeminence as a theologian, but few have attempted to find his place among the background texts of a poem like Pearl written by an educated preacher. Ideas, images, and turns of phrase found in popular works like Sermones in Cantica, the Flores
Bernardi, and the pseudonymous Meditationes Bernardi could become divorced from their source as easily as the term “spam” for junk email has been divorced from the Monty Python sketch that inspired its use (and may someday lose any connection with the canned “spiced ham” that was a staple during WWII).
However, there are specific associations and progressions of ideas that are
16 To take a modern example of the same process, many a college professor and Sunday school teacher has been bemused by students’ turning discussions of the Battle of Jericho to the use of purple slushies as defensive weapons by Jericho’s army, as portrayed by the French peas in the classic VeggieTales episode “Josh and the Big Wall.” (Philippe accidentally knocks the first slushie off the city wall during the initial parley, but as the march continues, the attacks progress to the use of a cement mixer to pour a heavy stream of slush on the umbrella‐toting Israelites’ heads.) The slushie gag is a funnier and much more wholesome version of the filthy but period‐ accurate defenses mounted by the French taunters at Castle Argghhh! in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which many young VeggieTales fans have never seen.
16 recognizably Bernardine only in light of the exact texts of his sermons and treatises, and establishing these connections is the goal of this project.
Toward a Deeper Reading
Simply acknowledging Bernard as a possible influence on these poems will not suffice. The rising generation of scholars has not received much encouragement to study medieval theology as part of the context of Middle
English literature, and the day may well come—if it is not already here—when such allusions are no longer clear. Stating the obvious is not always bad; sometimes it is vital. Moreover, glossing over Bernard’s presence in these poems causes us to miss registers of meaning that are less immediately obvious, such as the significance of readings for the dedication of a church in Pearl or of the exact progression of Gawain’s steadily growing pride. As a polarized lens eliminates glare and can reveal hidden patterns in a complex painting or composite photo,
Bernard’s writings can filter out modern misconceptions and reveal implicit lessons in these poems that most scholars have overlooked. Such insights will not negate all previous readings, but they can deepen, if not radically alter, our understanding of the poems.
17 An Overview of the Poems and Their Bernardine Angles
Taken by themselves, the poems contain the clues about the poet, his audience, and his intent that I have already described—his concern for purity of heart, his tendency to teach by negative example, and his use of imaginative writing both to remind his audience of what they should already know and to prompt them to apply certain truths to their own lives. While I will treat the question of audience in more detail in each section, any or all of the following generalizations could apply to the audience of all four poems:
• Undereducated people—whether laity, secular clergy, or religious—who
could not read Latin theological works even if they wanted to
• Novices and seminarians who could not yet synthesize arguments from
works they might or might not have read and apply those lessons to daily
life
• Educated people who would not read ‘boring’ theological works
• People who had read all the right books but paid no more than lip service
to their lessons
Bernard is an appropriate influence to consider not only because of his importance to late medieval thought, as outlined above, but also because he wrote to the same types of people on the same topics with the same (or at least similar) emphases, and he was quite capable of writing in an imaginative vein to
18 reach his intended audience. A summary of each poem and of my arguments about it will illustrate this point.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. When Camelot’s New Year celebration is rudely interrupted by the appearance of a giant green knight, Arthur’s nephew
Gawain agrees to a head‐cutting game with the stranger and duly beheads him.
Though the court is shocked when the Green Knight retrieves his severed head and rides away, Gawain sets out a year later to find the Green Knight and uphold his end of the bargain, only to find a deceptively delightful diversion during his stay in the merry court of Hautdesert. There his host, Bertilak, engages him in a three‐day exchange of winnings; Bertilak gives Gawain whatever spoils he gains during each day’s hunt, while Gawain returns the kisses he receives when Bertilak’s wife attempts to seduce him. However,
Gawain fails to give Bertilak a supposedly magical belt that his hostess had given him, which she had told him would protect him against the Green Knight’s axe.
Gawain wears the belt when he goes to meet the Green Knight, but after delivering two feints and a nick, the Green Knight stuns Gawain with a series of revelations: the Green Knight is Bertilak, disguised by the charms of Morgan le
Fay, and the nick is Gawain’s punishment for keeping the belt. Deeply ashamed,
Gawain denounces his own bad behavior and the deceitfulness of women, accepts Bertilak’s offer to keep the belt but declines to return to Hautdesert with
19 him, and returns to Camelot wearing the belt as a baldric as a token of his penance.
The poet sets up Gawain, Mary’s knight, as a mirror of her virtues, especially the humility that Bernard emphasizes repeatedly in his Marian sermons. The Green Knight’s appearance in Camelot does not catch Gawain as badly off guard as it does the other knights, but he fails to recognize and guard against the real spiritual danger that awaits him in Hautdesert. Tested by
Bertilak’s anti‐Marian wife, Gawain keeps his chastity but hurtles down the steps of pride set out in Bernard’s De gradibus humilitate et superbiae, abandoning the rest of his Marian virtues along the way. By constantly reaffirming Gawain’s status as the best of knights in spite of his very clear fall, the poet subtly reminds his audience to guard themselves constantly against temptation.
Patience. A lighthearted homily on the Beatitudes, Patience focuses on the virtue of patience, expanding its specific sense in the eighth Beatitude (“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake”) to the more general notion of long‐suffering. The poet links poverty and patience through the first and last
Beatitudes and discusses the pragmatic necessity of patience with an argument that reappears in Pearl: anger at adversity does not help anything, so patient endurance is more practical as well as more praiseworthy. This cheerful
20 resignation stands in contrast to the attitude of Jonah, whose tale the poet humorously retells.
Scholars tend to focus on the Jonah portion of Patience, but Bernard seldom writes on Jonah. He can, however, illuminate the discussion on patience earlier in the poem, since he often notes the need for patience in the monastic life.
Indeed, patience is one of the virtues specifically required in the Rule of Benedict.
Bernard’s discussions in the Sententiae on the connections between patience, poverty, and obedience clarify the poet’s argument based on the Beatitudes, and the explanation of monastic obedience in De praecepto et dispensatione shows that
Jonah makes theological and philosophical mistakes typical of a disobedient monk. Treating God like an unjust abbot, Jonah falls into confusion and contempt, showing why Benedict’s (and Bernard’s) injunctions for monks to be patient are worth following.
Cleanness. This verse homily examines the necessity of holiness, as seen in the sixth Beatitude (“Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God”), through a series of examples of God’s judgment on the impure. Chief among the
Scriptural tales are the Parable of the Wedding Feast, the Flood, Sodom and
Gomorrah, and Belshazzar’s feast, but others such as the Fall of Satan, the Fall of
Man, and Nebuchadnezzar’s madness provide further context. All of these failures are contrasted with the sinless life and purifying ministry of Christ. The
21 moral lesson driving the homily is that God is so holy and so willing to cleanse any heart that seeks Him that He is justly furious with anyone who deliberately continues sinning after entering His service.
The opening lines of Cleanness echo a portion of Bernard’s Sermone de conversione ad clericos, and other implicit and explicit textual clues indicate that the poet intended this homily for a clerical audience. While the poet clearly does not stick to only one source—Bernard seldom uses any of these Scriptural examples in De conversione and De consideratione—Bernard’s reform‐minded writings help to explain the tone and the tactics the poet uses to get his point across. The poet, echoing or borrowing from Bernard, underscores God’s justice in order to convict clerics who were prone to abuse God’s mercy and use the
Church for their own gain.
Pearl. A jeweler is wracked with inappropriate grief when his infant daughter, allegorized as a “precios perle wythouten spot,” suddenly dies.
Unable to accept comfort and move on with his life, he finally swoons on her grave and enters a dream garden, where he sees his now‐grown daughter standing on the other side of an impassable river, dressed in white robes embellished with pearls and bearing the Pearl of Great Price. The Dreamer is overjoyed at finding the Pearl Maiden again and declares his intention to cross the river and stay with her, but she berates him for his self‐centered, literal‐
22 minded misunderstanding of the vision and reveals that she is now a bride of
Christ and a queen in Heaven. In the ensuing argument, the Dreamer stubbornly clings to earthly notions of grace and salvation (his daughter had no merits), merit (she does not deserve to be made a queen right away), spiritual marriage
(she has somehow beaten out every other virgin), spiritual rank (she has usurped
Mary’s place), and community (she is all he needs). The Pearl Maiden patiently corrects all of these misconceptions until the Dreamer is capable of accepting a vision of the New Jerusalem, which appears exactly as John’s Apocalypse describes it. The Dreamer also sees a procession of maidens following the Lamb of God, and for the first time he expresses real love for God. Unfortunately, his eyes wander to the processing maidens and find his daughter again; he decides once more to cross the river and join her, but as soon as he tries, the vision ends.
Bemoaning his folly, the Dreamer determines to rejoin the sacramental life of the
Church and to let God make him as precious a pearl as the Pearl Maiden has become.
Drawing heavily on such precedents as Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and the Romance of the Rose, Pearl has been categorized as both a dream‐vision and a consolatio and displays characteristic elements of both genres, including an ignorant narrator receiving correction from a dream guide. But in such a carefully crafted imaginative context, long discussions on systematic theology
23 could prove as off‐putting as some readers (myself included) find the philosophical ramblings in Jean de Meun’s portion of Romance of the Rose.
Instead, the poet integrates Scripture, liturgy, and devotional and theological writings to create a dialogue that might plausibly be exchanged between a real distraught father and a vision of his dead daughter. Using Bernard’s sermons and treatises to negotiate this intricate tapestry helps us trace threads of discourse on grace, merit, and free will and discloses the patterns by which the
Dreamer overcomes his “wreched wylle” and ignorance of himself and of God to return to the right path of understanding and loving God.
A Possible Bernardine Arc
No evidence survives to explain why the poems appear in Cotton Nero
A.x. in the order they do. I have chosen to work through them in reverse order, however, because doing so reveals a Bernardine metanarrative: a shift from carnal pursuits through the desire for virtue toward the pursuit of God, our highest goal and best reward. Though this turn, outlined in such works as De diligendo Deo, figures into the details of Pearl’s plot, one can see the same process at work in the surviving poems as a group. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a romance based on the epic struggle of fallen man to persevere in virtue by being
“in the world but not of the world”; Patience and Cleanness remind their clerical audience that, far from simply being fire insurance, the vows of a monk or priest
24 obligate him to extra vigilance against temptation. But just as the knights of the
Round Table rest on their laurels until the Green Knight appears, someone who learns the lessons of these three poems may slide into the Dreamer’s merit‐based understanding of salvation until forced to confront a case like the Pearl Maiden’s message of salvation by grace alone. Bernard and the Pearl poet agree that while virtue may have its own rewards, it is not an end in itself; the clean of heart are blessed because they alone will see God, Who is the one true goal of our longing.
To see how the poet hoped to draw his audience deeper into true love for
God, then, we must ourselves delve deeper into his poetry. Bernard can show us the way. Will you join us?
25
PART ONE
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Battle for Virtue
Accordingly, let there be in our oblation [of ourselves] virile constancy, continence of the flesh, and humility of heart. Let there be, I say, in the will a manly purpose to persevere, in the flesh the purity of a virgin, and in the heart the simplicity and humility of a little child. Amen.
—Bernard of Clairvaux, Third Sermon for the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
… any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under the cover of romance without their knowing it.
—C. S. Lewis to Sister Penelope
±±±
Chapter Two Theology under Cover of Romance: De gradibus humilitate et superbiae in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 27
Chapter Three Nif Maré of Hir Knyʒt Mynne: Bernardine Marianism in Gawain 51
26
CHAPTER TWO
Theology under Cover of Romance: De gradibus humilitate et superbiae in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Scholars like David Fowler and Alan Markman have long maintained that
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is strictly a romance—one with theological overtones, to be sure, but not one that requires multiple layers of understanding like Sir Orfeo. This assertion requires the assumption that the poet could simply switch off the overriding concerns present in Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness to compose fantasy and that Gawain was preserved with the other three only because it is a delightful story. Reading the poem as a strict allegory truly does violence to the text, but reading it as a secular text with a sacred purpose can open new registers of meaning without force. This fact can be seen by exploring parallels between Gawain and Bernard’s treatise De gradibus humilitate et superbiae that show how Gawain falls from laudable humility into dangerous pride and why Gawain judges himself more harshly than do Bertilak and Arthur.
The Character of Gawain and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sometimes imitated but never bettered, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight bears eloquent testimony to the Pearl poet’s creativity and skill as both a poet and a teacher. J. R. R. Tolkien states that “we have in Sir Gawain the work of a man
27 capable of weaving elements taken from diverse sources into a texture of his own; and a man who would have in that labour a serious purpose” (Introduction
3). In fact, he probably had more than one purpose. A serious theological purpose, mostly hidden, becomes most evident in the subplot of the test of
Gawain’s truth and courtesy. Most scholars consider this portion of the tale to be an examination of Christian chivalry’s strengths and weaknesses—indeed,
Gregory J. Wilkin has argued that the specific ideal Gawain represents is that of the Knights Templar, whose rule and popularity were established by Bernard but who had by the late fourteenth century fallen into disrepute—but the poet may have wanted to address even more concerns than the problems of courtly culture. Much hinges on the highly speculative question of the original audience
(to which I will return later).
Gawain is, in any case, an example of what Walter Hilton and other late medieval theologians called the mixed life, a man with a secular vocation and temporal responsibilities who is still deeply devoted to the things of God. As such, his adventures test not only his physical prowess and chivalric honor but his spiritual health as well. The description of Gawain’s shield in Part Two explains that the pentangle, a symbol of perfection, showcases both his physical perfection and his spiritual strength (623‐39):
28 Fyrst he watz funden faultlez in his fyue wyttez. And efte fayled neuer þe freke in his fyue fyngres. And alle his afyaunce vpon folde watz in þe fyue woundez Þat Cryst kaʒt on þe croys, as þe Crede tellez. And quersoeuer þys mon in melly watz stad, His þro þoʒt watz in þat, þurʒ alle oþer þygez, Þat alle his forsnes he fong at þe fyue joyez Þat þe hende Heuen Quene had of hir Chylde. …………………………………………………… Þe fyft fyue þat I finde þat þe frek vsed Watz fraunchyse and felaʒschyp forbe al þyng, His clannes and his cortaysye croked were neuer, And pité, þat passez alle poyntez—þyse pure fyue Were harder happed on þat haþel þen on any oþer.
And first, he was faultless in his five senses, Nor found ever to fail in his five fingers, And all his fealty was fixed upon the five wounds That Christ got on the cross, as the creed tells; And whenever this man in melee took part, His one thought was of this, past all things else, That all his force was founded on the five joys That the high Queen of heaven had in her child. …………………………………………………… The fifth of the fives followed by this knight Were beneficence boundless and brotherly love And pure mind and manners, that none might impeach, And compassion most precious—these peerless five Were forged and made fast in him, foremost of men. (640‐7, 651‐5)
Gawain’s piety is further established by the poet’s statement that he had an image of Mary painted on the inside of his shield for inspiration in battle (648‐
50).
Gawain, as a knight, would not be expected to conform to the rigorous spiritual practices of a contemplative order; that would require him to shirk his
29 feudal responsibilities. Yet he would certainly hold himself to a higher standard as someone pursuing the mixed life than if he were content with the active life, receiving grace through the sacraments but not spending much effort pursuing the things of God (Hilton, Second Letter 1‐4). In crafting such a character, the
Pearl poet may well have looked to Bernard’s writings, especially given
Bernard’s patronage of the Knights Templar, and found the potential for a subplot in De gradibus humilitate et superbiae’s explication of the steps of humility outlined in the Rule of Benedict and the steps of pride that are inversely related to them (see Table 1).
The Steps in Gawain
The poet presents Camelot in ways that acknowledge High Medieval concepts but remain closest to the original Welsh stories, which should alert an audience steeped in Arthuriana that this poem is not a typical Anglo‐Norman romance. Arthur’s vassals are called Knights of the Round Table, but the Table itself makes no appearance; the Great Hall’s description is more in keeping with a normal medieval arrangement—king, queen, and honored guests at the high table on the dais, and all others seated at side tables (37‐9, 72‐84, 107‐15).
Gawain, not Lancelot, is the chief of Arthur’s knights; Lancelot, who first appeared in Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec and The Knight of the Cart and had become a major figure by the fourteenth century, is just another knight (109, 553; Lupack
30 Table 1 Benedict’s Steps of Humility and Bernard’s Steps of Pride Duodecim Gradus Humilitatis Superbiae Gradus in Descendendo 12. Corde et corpore semper humilitatem 1. Curiositas, cum oculis ceterisque sensibus ostendere, defixis in terram aspectibus. vagatur in ea quae ad se non attinent. 11. Ut monachus pauca et rationabilia verba 2. Levitas mentis, quae per verba indiscrete loquatur, non in clamosa voce. laeta vel tristia notatur. 10. Si non sit facilis aut promptus in risu. 3. Inepta laetitia, quae per facilitatem risus denotatur. 9. Taciturnitas usque ad interrogationem. 4. Iactantia, quae in multiloquio diffunditur. 8. Tenere quod communis habet monasterii 5. Singularitas: privata affectare cum gloria. regula. 7. Credere et pronuntiare se omnibus viliorem. 6. Arrogantia: credere se omnibus sanctiorem. 6. Ad omnia indignum et inutilem se confitere 7. Praesumptio: ad omnia se ingerere. et credere. 5. Confessio peccatorum. 8. Defensio peccatorum. 4. Pro oboedientia in duris et asperis 9. Simulata confession, quae per dura et aspera patientiam amplecti. iniuncta probatur. 3. Omni oboedientia subdi maioribus. 10. Rebellio in magistrum et fratres. 2. Propriam non amare voluntatem. 11. Libertas peccandi. 1. Timore Dei custodire se omni hora ab omni 12. Consuetudo peccandi. peccato.
The Twelve Steps of Humility The Descending Steps of Pride 12. Always to show the humility in one’s 1. Curiosity; when the eyes and the other heart, in one’s bearing, keeping the eyes senses attend to what is not one’s concern. lowered. 11. That a monk should speak few and 2. Levity of mind, known by words that reasonable words and with a moderate voice. bespeak unreasonable joy and sadness. 10. Not to be over‐ready to laugh. 3. Silly mirth, with over‐much laughing. 9. To keep silent till one is questioned. 4. Boasting and too much talking. 8. To keep to the common rule of the 5. Singularity, proud esteem of one’s own monastery. ways. 7. To believe and admit that one is less than 6. Self‐assertion; believing one is holier than others. others. 6. To confess and to believe that one is 7. Presumption: meddling with everything. unworthy and useless for anything. 5. To confess one’s sins. 8. Defending one’s sins. 4. To hold fast to patience amidst hard and 9. Hypocritical confession, which can be tested rough things for the sake of obedience. by harsh reproof. 3. To submit to superiors in all obedience. 10. Rebellion against superiors and brethren. 2. Not to love one’s own will. 11. Freedom in sinning. 1. In the fear of God to be constantly on the 12. The habit of sin. watch against sin. Source: Bernard of Clairvaux, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae, Sancti Bernardi Opera (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1963) III: 13‐14; trans. Ambrose Conway, Treatises (Washington: Cistercian Publications, 1974) II: 26‐7.
31 455‐6). Arthur and his knights have already won renown, but the Green Knight speaks of them as “berdlez chylder,” and the narrator describes Arthur as
“sumquat childgered” and states that “al watz þis fayre folk in her first age, / On sille” (54‐5, 256‐82). The joyful exuberance of youth characterizes the entire court.
Yet something is amiss at a deeper level than the conflicting traditions represented in the letter of the text. Other warning signs include the rush from the chapel to the feasting and merry‐making and Arthur’s boyish refusal to eat until he has seen some marvel (60‐106). The problem is further highlighted by the arrival of the Green Knight, a semi‐pagan figure associated with Arthur’s sorceress half‐sister and sometime enemy Morgan le Fay (2445‐55). The Green
Knight challenges Arthur and his knights in part because they have been resting on their laurels, and given the emphasis on mirth over a proper observance of
Christmastide, the court appears to be in a spiritual slump as well. In his third
Advent sermon, Bernard warns his hearers against the folly of allowing temporal festivities to displace the contemplation of Christ as the Reason for the season (ST
“In Adventu” 3.2‐3). The knights of Camelot appear to have fallen into just this kind of folly.
32 In this context, Gawain stands out as a paragon of virtue. He refuses to let
Arthur accept a challenge when any other knight could acquit the court’s honor just as well (348‐53). His speech even denigrates his station in the court:
‘I am þe wakkest, I wot, and of wyt feblest; And lest lur of my lyf, quo laytes þe soþe. Bot for as much as ʒe ar myn em I am only to prayse; No bounté but your blod I in my bodé knowe. And syþen þis note is so nys þat noʒt hit yow falles, And I haue frayned hit at yow first, foldez hit to me. And if I carp not comlyly let alle þis cort rych Bout blame.’
“I am the weakest, well I know, and of wit feeblest; And the loss of my life would be least of any; That I have you for uncle is my only praise; My body, but for your blood, is barren of worth; And for that this folly befits not a king, And ’tis I that have asked it, it ought to be mine, And if my claim be not comely let all this court judge in sight.” (354‐61)
Gawain keeps to the common rule of chivalry, esteems himself less than others, and admits that he is worthless. He thus appears to have reached Benedict’s eighth degree of humility (7).
Appearances can be deceiving, however, and like Camelot, Gawain may not be all that he seems. The explication of the pentangle on Gawain’s shield shows him as being practically perfect in every way, but the poet’s warnings scattered throughout the poem hint that Gawain is capable of forgetting just how fallible he is. Bernard cautions the man pursuing humility to “reflect that he has
33 nothing in this life which he cannot lose” and remember “men such as Adam, who lost paradise, and Solomon, who despite such profound wisdom, nonetheless erred” (Sent. 3.84).1 Gawain also sets forth on his errand arrayed in the best armor, finest silks and furs, costliest gems, and richest embroidery a knight could wear, which might accord with his station but contrast sharply with his insistence that he is the least worthy of all Arthur’s knights (566‐665). They also indicate that Gawain is susceptible to the three temptations Bernard allegorizes as women in the Sententiae: “the softness of our flesh, which is
Delilah, who tore out Samson’s eyes; the sweetness of worldly glory, which is
Jezebel, who killed Naboth; and despair of the future life, which is the daughter of Herodias, who carried off the head of the prophet” (Sent. 2.117). Where does
Gawain really stand? The poet provides few answers at first, although Gawain certainly measures up to the standards of the Christian knight in his journey away from Camelot, to the point of lamenting that he will not be able to celebrate the Christmas Mass if he remains lost in the wild (691‐776).
Gawain’s troubles begin slowly upon his arrival at a mysterious, beautiful castle in the middle of nowhere. The lord of the castle, whose name is later revealed to be Bertilak de Hautdesert (2445), welcomes him heartily (833‐900),
1 Adam and Solomon, incidentally, are the first two names Gawain mentions in his list of Biblical heroes beguiled by women (2415‐7). His third example, Samson, appears in Sent. 2.117, quoted below. These references might be only obscure inside jokes, but they do indicate that Gawain’s primary fault lies not in trusting Bertilak’s wife but in discounting his own fallenness.
34 and the servants hail him as someone concerning whom “alle prys and prowes and pured þewes / Apendes to hys persoun and praysed is euer, / Byfore alle men vpon molde his mensk is þe most” (912‐4). The atmosphere is similar to that of Camelot, but Gawain seems more willing to accept the accolades of his hosts than his previous modesty would lead a reader to assume. Moreover, the poet says something of Gawain during the feast that he has not said before: “Þat mon much merþe con make, / For wyn in his hed þat wende” (899‐900). Without the familiar faces of Camelot to hold him accountable, Gawain seems vulnerable to the pride he had previously eschewed, and his drunken giddiness indicates that he has let his guard down too far. Bernard states in the Sententiae that “The first fall—the first defection from the good—is negligence” (3.98), and Gawain certainly appears slack in his spiritual awareness at this point.
Only two stanzas later, Gawain falls into the first step of pride: curiosity.
Bertilak’s wife comes to meet him after Evensong, and Gawain believes her to be the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, even more beautiful than Guenevere
(941‐5). By gazing so intently at something—or, rather, someone—not rightfully his concern, he has allowed an unhealthy curiosity to take root (Bernard, De gradibus 10.28). Moreover, the lady is dressed in red and described as being fresh and bright (951‐2, 955‐6), and Gawain considers her “More lykkerwys [pleasing, delicious] on to lyk” than the withered old woman who accompanies her (968‐9).
35 The poet thus draws parallels between the lady and the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, frequently portrayed in medieval literature and iconography as an apple (“Apple” 50‐1). Eve is one of Bernard’s exemplars of what calamities curiosity can cause; since Eve knew she could not have the forbidden fruit, he argues, she should never even have looked at it (De gradibus
10.30). The same can be said of Gawain; while he presumably has no intention of going beyond the bounds of propriety in spending time with Bertilak’s wife, he pays more attention to her than perhaps he ought to give a married woman, especially when her husband is his host. Of their conduct at the Christmas feast the poet says:
Bot ʒet I wot þat Wawen and þe wale burde Such comfort of her compaynye caʒten togeder Þurʒ her dere dalyaunce of her derne wordez, Wyth clene cortays carp closed fro fylþe, Þat hor play watz passande vche prynce gomen, In vayres. Trumpez and nakerys, Much pypyng þere repayres. Vche mon tentes hys And þay two tented þayres.
But yet I know that our knight and the noble lady Were accorded so closely in company there, With the seemly solace of their secret words, With speeches well‐sped, spotless and pure, That each prince’s pastime their pleasures far outshone. Sweet pipes beguile their cares, And the trumpet of martial tone;
36 Each attends his affairs And those two tend their own. (1010‐9)
Their discourse might be innocent, but it leaves the door open for temptations later.
Levity of mind, giddiness, and boasting are closely related, and one is easily snared by them in an atmosphere of feasting and celebration. Bernard defines levity of mind as emotional instability that resolves itself into the “happy cloud‐land” of giddiness, evidenced by disinclination to sorrow and over‐ eagerness to laugh; eventually the giddy monk finds himself unable to keep from talking, and in talking too much he becomes a braggart (11‐12). As previously noted, Gawain has already exhibited some carelessness in this regard upon his first arrival, allowing the fire and wine to make him merrier than might befit the season (882‐900). His sober behavior on the evening of St. John’s Day, measured speech with his host, and insistence that he must leave to continue his errand are proper, but upon hearing that his destination is only two miles away, he becomes elated and laughs freely, and he boasts that he will do whatever Bertilak asks of him (1029‐82). In this state, he falls prey to Bertilak’s suggestion of the exchange game that will test his boast and his ability to keep the chivalric obligations between a visiting knight and his host (1088‐1113).
37 One of the conditions of the game is that Gawain will sleep late and enjoy the company of Bertilak’s wife while Bertilak rides out to hunt each day.
Ordinarily a knight would accompany his host on a hunt, but Gawain agrees to stay behind and relax (1096‐1102). In so doing, however, he leaves himself open to temptation by Bertilak’s wife, who comes to his room each morning and attempts to seduce him (1178‐1318, 1469‐1560, 1731‐1875). One of her lines of attack is to state that since Gawain is the best of knights, he ought to behave more in accord with her wishes (1226‐40, 1268‐1275, 1294‐1306, 1480‐97, 1520‐34,
1770‐3, 1813‐6). In both his willingness to abandon the common practice of knights and his eagerness to prove himself to the lady as the best of knights while putting off her amorous advances, Gawain displays the level of pride that leads in monks to what Bernard calls singularity. A singular monk takes great pains to appear better than others and “is very exact about his own particular doings and slack about the common exercises” (De gradibus 14). Gawain has also fallen for the soft life and worldly glory to which he has been treated at
Hautdesert, far deadlier temptresses than Bertilak’s wife in Bernard’s estimation
(Sent. 2.117). By the second day he even ceases to deflect the lady’s praises:
‘Ma fay,’ quoþ þe meré wyf, ‘ʒe may not be werned; Ʒe ar stif innoghe to constrayne with strenkþe, ʒif yow lykez, Ʒif any were so vilanous þat yow devaye wolde.’ ‘Ʒe, be God,’ quoþ Gawayn, ‘good is your speche ….’
38 “But none can deny you,” said the noble dame, “You are stout enough to constrain with strength, if you choose, Were any so ungracious as to grudge you aught.” “By heaven,” said he, “you have answered well….” (1495‐8)
Bernard would consider this acceptance of flattery a sign of at least self‐conceit and possibly self‐assertion (De gradibus 15).
On the first and second evenings, Gawain fulfills his end of the game as readily as Bertilak does, faithfully returning to him the kisses stolen from his wife (1365‐1401, 1619‐47). He also defends himself from the lady’s attempts at seduction without transgressing the rules of courtly love. He has thus maintained his image as a perfect knight. Yet he has slowly but steadily slid into a serious state of pride. In Camelot, he at least appeared to be at the eighth level of humility, keeping to the common rule of knighthood; now he has reached the sixth step of pride, self‐assertion. Given this underlying fault, the events of the third day come as no surprise.
Gawain does attempt to extricate himself from the situation and get back to his original errand by requesting permission to leave on New Year’s Eve.
Bertilak dissuades him, and Gawain stays (1670‐87), though he is perilously close to despair—and, in Bernard’s metaphor, to losing his head (Sent. 2.117)—over the coming confrontation with the Green Knight. Nightmares plague him, but the lady’s arrival after his restless night drives away his dark thoughts (1733‐65). Yet
39 the narrator reminds the reader that even her cheerfulness has a sinister edge:
“Gret perile bitwene hem stod, / Nif Maré of hir knyʒt mynne” (1768‐9). Gawain gently but firmly denies the lady’s advances, excuses himself from giving her any kind of gift, and refuses to accept the ring she offers him (1770‐1825). He also tries to turn down her girdle when she offers it (1827‐45). But one thing she says about the girdle catches his attention:
‘For quat gome is so gorde with þis grene lace, While he hit hade hemely halched aboute Þer is no haþel vnder heuen tohewe hym þat myʒt, For he myʒt not be slayn for slyʒt vpon erþe.’
“For the man that possesses this piece of silk, If he bore it on his body, belted about, There is no hand under heaven that could hew him down, For he could not be killed by any craft on earth.” (1851‐4)
Gawain immediately concludes that this gift is precisely what he needs to survive his encounter with the Green Knight, and he accepts, agreeing to conceal it from the host (1855‐65). In so doing, he has betrayed both his obligation to
Bertilak by not keeping his side of the game and his obligation of courtesy to the lady by pretending to accept the girdle out of love for her. He has decided to put himself and his own needs and desires ahead of the claims anyone else may have on him—a sign of the seventh step of pride, presumption (Bernard, De gradibus
16).
40 While the poet does not reveal any more of Gawain’s thought process once the lady takes leave of him, the reader can assume that Gawain has also dropped to self‐justification by rationalizing his perfidy (De gradibus 17). He does go to confession after Mass (1876‐84), but few readers can miss the deep irony in the statement that he has been shriven “so clene / As domezday schulde haf ben diʒt on þe morne” (1883‐4). Because he still intends to cheat in both the exchange game and the beheading game despite having “schrof hym schyrly”
(1880), Gawain’s false, hypocritical confession marks his descent to Bernard’s ninth step of pride (De gradibus 18). Although he does not openly defy Bertilak when the time comes for the exchange, his refusal to discuss the kisses that he does return and his lie that he has given everything smack of revolt against hospitality and freedom to sin (1932‐51; De gradibus 19‐20). Though the court continues to consider him a perfect knight, he has fallen far from the stage of humility at which he began the adventure, and he has broken both the knightly code of chivalry and the Christian law of love. At this eleventh step of pride,
Bernard says, a person “sets his feet on ways that seem to a man right, but which will lead him, if God does not block his way, to the depths of hell, to contempt of
God” (20.50, emphasis added). There is still hope for Gawain, but God will have to use drastic means to get his attention before that hope can be realized.
41 By the time Gawain arrives at the Green Chapel to receive his blow from the Green Knight, his combination of arrogance and cowardice has worked its way to the surface. He wavers between calling on God’s help and swaggering under the protection of the girdle (2156‐2258). He flinches at the first blow but becomes angry at the Green Knight’s taunts and jeers back when the second blow proves to be a feint, and when the third blow nicks his neck, he haughtily demands that the Green Knight not take another swing (2259‐2330). He is definitely at the eleventh stage of pride, but his conscience is not yet so damaged that he has descended to the twelfth, the habit of sinning (Bernard, De gradibus
20‐21). Gawain must, as Bernard says in De conversione ad clericos, “be on his guard against that terrible depth of which we read, ‘The wicked man, when he has come to the depths of sin, sneers.’ He can of course, be cured, but only by the most drastic remedy” (11.23)—and a drastic remedy is precisely what he receives. The Green Knight’s next words bring Gawain’s descent to a screeching halt as he reveals that each blow corresponds to one night’s exchange—and that he knows even more than Gawain thinks he does (2336‐57):
‘For hit is my wede þat þou werez, þat ilke wouen girdle. Myn owen wyf hit þe weued, I wot wel forsoþe. Now know I wel þy cosses and þy costes als, And þe wowing of my wyf. I wroʒt hit myseluen; I sende hir to asay þe, and sothly me þynkkez On þe faultlest freke þat euer on fote ʒede. ……………………………………………………………
42 Bot here you lakked a lyttel, sir, and lewté yow wonted; Bot þat watz for no wylyde werke, ne wowing nauþer, Bot for ʒe lufed your lyf—þe lasse I yow blame.’
“For that is my belt about you, that same braided girdle, My wife it was that wore it; I know well the tale, And the count of your kisses and your conduct too, And the wooing of my wife—it was all my scheme! She made trial of a man most faultless by far Of all that ever walked over the wide earth; …………………………………………………………… Yet you lacked, sir, a little in loyalty there, But the cause was not cunning, nor courtship either, But that you loved your own life; the less, then, to blame.” (2358‐63, 2365‐8)
Thus confronted, Gawain burns with shame and makes a full confession
(2369‐88). “He must mourn greatly,” says Bernard of the person pulling back from the brink of impenitence in De conversione ad clericos. “Let him consider that there is no good in his flesh and that the present evil age contains nothing but vanity and affliction of spirit” (11.23). In his sermon “On the Seven Steps of
Confession” in Sermones de diversis, Bernard states that confession “must be true, it must be candid, and it must be personal” to have any effect for remission of sin
(SD 40.6), and Gawain’s confession fulfills all three requirements. Although his earlier confession was hypocritical, he truly repents this time and shows his remorse first by returning the girdle to Bertilak, then by accepting it back from him to wear as a mark of shame (2376‐7, 2429‐38). His penance, too, adheres to
Bernard’s statement that useful penance consists of “contrition of heart,
43 confession by mouth, mortification of the flesh, chastisement in action, and perseverance in virtue” (Sent. 2.71; cf. 3.92). Bertilak does not assign Gawain any form of penance beyond accepting the cut from the final blow, but Gawain assigns himself the penance of displaying both scar and baldric and telling the whole truth whenever anyone asks him about it, especially when he returns to
Camelot (2389‐2406, 2484‐2512). He even states that he wants the baldric to remind him of the ease with which a knight can become proud—a statement made especially intriguing by charting his downward spiral according to
Bernard’s steps of pride (2434‐8). Arthur and the court of Camelot laugh over
Gawain’s story and wear green baldrics to honor him, clearly missing the point of his tale, but Gawain appears to have learned his lesson (2513‐21). In making his confession to Arthur, he shows that he has been restored to at least the fifth degree of humility (RB 7).
The Judgment of Gawain
Tolkien assumes that Bertilak’s statement in line 2368 that Gawain is less at fault for sinning out of fear for his own life is accurate, especially since the broken promise was made lightly and because the court at Camelot likewise laughs off his misdeeds (5‐6). Yet neither the court nor Bertilak is completely reliable when it comes to spiritual matters; as previously noted, all is not well spiritually in Camelot, and Bertilak is a willing participant in the schemes of
44 Morgan le Fay. Gawain, on the other hand, judges himself much more harshly.
This fact is understandable enough in light of Wilkin’s argument that Gawain is an example of the downfall of the Templar ideal, but given the parallels with De gradibus humilitate et superbiae, we might also do well to ask how Bernard would judge Gawain’s failure.
Bernard devotes the twelfth chapter of De gratia et libero arbitrio to the question of apostasy under threat of death, given the example of Peter’s denial of
Christ prior to the Crucifixion. Such a person does not want to deny Christ, but neither does he want to die. Thus the denial is forced to some degree by the free choice to yield to self‐love:
Quatenus ergo Christum diligebat, vim prorsus, quod negandum non est, passa est illa voluntas, ut contra se loqueretur; quatenus vero se, voluntarie procul dubio consensit, ut pro se loqueretur. Si Christum non amasset, non negasset invitus; verum si se amblius non amasset, non negasset aliquatenus.
Insofar, therefore, as he loved Christ, that will of his undeniably suffered violence to make it speak in spite of itself; but insofar as he loved himself, he freely consented to speak on his own behalf. Had he not loved Christ, his denial would not have been unwilling; but had he not loved himself even more, there would not have been any denial. (12.38)
Physical danger cannot force the will, which is by definition free, to change; it can only reveal the will’s weaknesses (12.40).
To borrow a phrase from Pearl, “þe grace of God is gret inoghe” to redeem such a one (660); Bernard closes De gradibus humilitate et superbiae with his belief
45 that God can restore even the impenitent if He so chooses (22.52‐56). Yet at no point does Bernard imply that sinning to save one’s life is less blameworthy than sinning for other reasons. Rather, because the act cannot come about by anything other than free choice, the guilt remains the same—though contrition and penance should follow rapidly upon recognition of that guilt, as is the case with Gawain and with Peter.
Stealing Past Watchful Dragons? The Audience of Gawain
Observing the parallels between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and De gradibus humilitate et superbiae raises an intriguing question: Exactly who was the intended audience for Gawain? Gawain’s behavior in the temptation scenes mirrors Bernard’s explanation of pride’s progress remarkably well—too well to be coincidental. Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience are all strongly theological and exhortational; were Gawain merely a romance, it would be wildly out of character for the Pearl Poet. Yet contemporary writings such as Walter Hilton’s Letters on the Mixed Life point to a segment of the knightly class that desired to pursue a deeper knowledge of God but could not abandon courtly life and needed direction to balance Christian and courtly ideals. The poet could well have written Gawain for just such an audience.
Using creative writing to teach theology was not uncommon in the Middle
Ages. A ninth‐century effort to explain the Gospel to the newly converted
46 Saxons resulted in the epic Der Heliand, which gives the life of Christ a distinctly
German slant (Demetz and Jackson 24). A canoness at the abbey of Gandersheim whose pen name was Hrosvitha worried that the novices were more interested in practicing their Latin on Terence than on Scripture, so she converted several saints’ lives into dramas so that they could have edifying tales to read. In so doing, she became the first dramatist after the fall of the Roman Empire (Scheid;
Frenzel and Frenzel 13‐14). And Bernard himself wrote a series of parables,2 which Michael Casey speculates might have been used to instruct young knights entering the monastery (11‐12).
So the notion that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was intended for a knight pursuing the mixed life is certainly plausible. Depending on his facility with Latin, such a person would have needed instruction in English, and Latin treatises like De gradibus humilitate et superbiae would have been beyond his grasp. Given the homiletic character of Cleanness and Patience, the poet seems to have enjoyed rendering his insights in verse, so he would be as likely to write a poem as a treatise or a translation. A romance might also be a better vehicle for conveying instruction to someone steeped in courtly culture at a time when the
Church was in serious need of reform. A knight might be more receptive to truth
2 Bell’s Cistercian Authors lists only a handful of British libraries that contained manuscripts of the Parabolae, so I have not attempted to build an argument for their influence on the Pearl poet. Nevertheless, they are one precedent for this kind of instruction.
47 as portrayed by Gawain than as expounded, however delightfully, by Bernard, even though Bernard’s connection to the Knights Templar would make him an ideal source of instruction for a godly knight. As C. S. Lewis explains about The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:
I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained‐glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could. (“Sometimes” 37)
Illustrating Bernard’s principles in the life of an ideal knight such as Gawain would have the same effect.
Another possibility, given that Cleanness appears to have been written for seminarians (see chapter 5), is that Gawain was also written for young priests or seminarians. Many fourteenth‐century priests knew barely enough Latin to conduct the Mass, and Walter Hilton considered priests to be part of the mixed life (Second Letter 4). Given the state of the Church in England at the time and the sternness of the exhortations to purity in Cleanness, there may also have been priests who were more interested in romances than in treatises. Gawain would be
48 an ideal means for communicating such truths as the importance of humility to a priest who could not or would not read Bernard for himself.
In any case, the pattern of teaching found in the other three poems holds here as well. As discussed in the next chapter, Gawain’s purity of heart lies in far greater danger than his chastity, and Gawain himself proves a negative exemplar by falling into pride through the kinds of temptations any knight might face
(though admittedly under highly unusual circumstances). If the best of knights is so vulnerable to sin, states the implied moral, no one should presume to be immune to it.
Conclusion
Comparing Gawain to De gradibus humilitate et superbiae does not detract from Gawain’s value as a romance; indeed, it does not account for many important aspects of the story, such as the skillfully woven parallel between the hunts and the temptations or Morgan le Fay’s involvement in the whole affair.
No fan of Arthuriana can deny the poem’s appeal as a story, moral or not.
Moreover, too little is known about the poet and the history of the romance for anyone to draw definitive conclusions about its original audience and intended message. But it does seem odd that Gawain should have survived in the same manuscript with Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness if, as Fowler and Markman claim, it were nothing more than a romance. Considering Dante’s “allegory of the
49 poets,” looking for serious theological content in a romance by a poet whose other works are intensely theological does not seem out of place.
50
CHAPTER THREE
Nif Maré of Hir Knyʒt Mynne: Bernardine Marianism in Gawain
The depiction of Gawain’s devotion to the Virgin Mary in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight may seem unusual to a reader accustomed to Malory or
Chrétien. Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron note that Geoffrey of
Monmouth assigns to Arthur a shield with Mary’s image painted inside (232), and David A. Lawton observes that the fluctuations in Gawain’s abilities, normally associated with the sun,1 are here transferred to his Marian devotion
(91). Though scholars do make mention of Gawain’s status as Mary’s knight, however, they seldom look beyond the tension between the example of Mary and the Eve‐like descriptions of Bertilak’s wife to explore what Gawain’s
Marianism means to his characterization and to the story.
Intriguingly, Chrysogonus Waddell calls Bernard “Mary’s faithful servant and knight errant” in his introduction to a translation of De laudibus virginis matris, due to Bernard’s propensity for defending Mary against what he thought were unnecessary innovations, like the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception,
1 In some Arthurian literature, Gawain is supposed to grow stronger as the sun rises toward noon and weaken as it declines toward sunset. So strong is this association that some scholars speculate that Gawain’s literary forebears include a Celtic sun god (Ford; Lewis, Studies 9‐10); Alan Lupack notes that the Vulgate Cycle attributes this trait to the prayers at his baptism and that Malory simply says it was the gift of a holy man to Gawain (445).
51 which came into vogue in his lifetime (xvii). Though Bernard did little to develop Marian doctrine, he presented traditional ideas with unparalleled beauty, and Henri Barré considered “as wholly justified Bernard’s claim to the title ‘Marian Doctor’ par excellence” despite his lack of originality (Waddell xvi‐ xviii). Karen Saupe points out that Bernard was “Mary’s most influential champion” in the twelfth century and that “his Marian meditations provided the models for many later works” (Introduction). Since Bernard’s name was virtually inseparable from Mary’s in the fourteenth‐century imagination,
Bernard’s writings on Mary, especially De laudibus virginis matris, provide greater insight as to how the audience should understand Gawain’s status as Mary’s knight—especially with regard to the virtues he exhibits—and how he fails to uphold that ideal when tested by Bertilak’s wife.
The Marian Symbolism of Gawain’s Shield
The poet’s description of Gawain’s shield makes some of its Marian symbolism very obvious: the fourth point of the pentangle on the outside of the shield represents the Five Joys of Mary, and the inside of the shield bears an image of Mary for Gawain’s eyes alone (644‐50). Valerie Allen notes that the connection between Gawain’s contemplation of Mary and his courage lies in the spiritual hope that Mary provides (182‐7). What scholars usually miss, however, is that Gawain’s use of the image to keep Mary foremost in his mind and thus
52 maintain his courage in times of danger is highly Bernardine. In a famous discussion of the popular notion of Mary as the “Star of the Sea” in the second sermon of De laudibus virginis matris, Bernard exhorts his readers to call on Mary when the storms on life’s sea are at their worst:
O quisquis te intelligis in huius saeculi profluvio magis inter procellas et tempestates fluctuare quam per terram ambulare, ne avertas oculos a fulgore huius sideris, si non vis obrui procellis! Si insurgant venti tentationum, si incurras scopulos tribulationum, respice stellam, voca Mariam. Si iactaris superbiae undis, si ambitionis, si detractionis, si aemulationis, respice stellam, voca Mariam. Si iracundia, aut avaritia, aut carnis illecebra naviculam concusserit mentis, respice ad Mariam. [. . .] In periculis, in angustiis, in rebus dubiis, Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca. Non recedat ab ore, non recedat a corde [. . .].
Oh, whosoever thou art that perceivest thyself during this mortal existence to be rather floating in the treacherous waters, at the mercy of the winds and the waves, than walking secure on the stable earth, turn not away thine eyes from the splendour of this guiding star, unless thou wishest to be submerged by the tempest! When the storms of temptation burst upon thee, when thou seest thyself driven upon the rocks of tribulation, look up at the star, call upon Mary. When buffeted by the billows of pride, or ambition, or hatred, or jealousy, look up at the star, call upon Mary. Should anger, or avarice, or carnal desires violently assail the little vessel of thy soul, look up at the star, call upon Mary. [. . .] In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from thy lips, never suffer it to leave thy heart. (2.17)2
2 Waddell says that at this point, “we feel almost as though no one before Saint Bernard had really understood what it means to call upon Mary as ‘Star of the Sea’” (Introduction xviii).
53 Those who would take Mary as their guide, Bernard adds, should “neglect not to walk in her footsteps” (2.17). We shall see what that command means for
Gawain and whether he succeeds in keeping it.
The five fives of the pentangle, combined with the circlet of diamonds on
Gawain’s helmet (615‐18), also echo language Bernard uses in his sermon for the
Octave of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There Bernard applies to
Mary Revelation 12, describing the woman clothed with the sun, and explains that the twelve stars in her crown represent twelve “grand prerogatives of grace” grouped in three constellations of four stars each (SS “Octavam Assumptionis”
7). The first constellation represents her life, the second her motherhood, and the third her virtues; the first two are unique to her, but the third should “be imitated as well as admired” (7‐10). Gawain’s five chivalric virtues—
“fraunchyse,” “felaʒschyp,” “clannes,” “cortaysye,” and “pité” (652‐5)—overlap the four virtues of the third constellation and have Marian connotations of their own, so they are worth examining together with Mary’s virtues.
The Four Marian Virtues
Bernard lists four virtues in which Mary uniquely excels: “her modest meekness, her devout humility, her magnanimous faith, her interior martyrdom”
54 (SS “Octavam Assumptionis” 10).3 He states that all Christians, and especially those who seek Mary’s patronage, need to follow her example in these four areas
(10‐15). To be Mary’s knight in truth, Gawain should—and at the beginning of the poem, does—reflect the same virtues.
Meekness of Modesty. Bernard notes the comparatively few occasions on which Mary is recorded speaking and her appearance at the end of lists like Acts
1:13‐14 as examples of her modesty. He also points out the occasions when she stood outside and requested an audience with Jesus rather than using her authority as His mother to interrupt Him (SS “Octavam Assumptionis” 10‐1).
While the silence of the other knights in the face of the Green Knight’s challenge implies their cowardice, Gawain keeps silent out of modesty and does not answer until Arthur rashly takes on the challenge himself. When he does speak, he claims for himself only the worth of being Arthur’s nephew and submits his request not just to Arthur, but to Guenevere and to the whole court as well (301‐
65).
3 Why, then, the switch to five fives? Apart from the poet’s preference for the number, as evidenced by its prominence in the structure of Pearl, it is a number of natural union—fitting for a knight in whom all natural virtues meet—as well as another number associated with Mary. The poet may have decided to rely on a different numerical scheme to mask his allusions to DVLM if his audience was inclined to dislike Bernardine thought that was not well integrated into an imaginative context. (Edward I. Condren has his own theories on this point, based on the fact that converting from base‐four to base‐five requires the application of ϕ, the Golden Ratio; but even as intricate as the poet’s craftsmanship was, the explanation for the shift in Gawain need not be quite so complex.)
55 A further token of Gawain’s modesty is his very devotion to Mary,
Mediatrix between man and Christ (SS “Octavam Assumptionis” 2). Protestants, citing such verses as Hebrews 4:164 and John 16:26‐27,5 see no reason not to address petitions directly to God the Father in Jesus’ name. Bernard has a very different audience in mind when he clarifies Mary’s role as Mediatrix in his sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Because people are too afraid to approach the Father, he states, God provided Christ as a Mediator, but some are still overawed by Christ’s divinity. For them, Mary is an appropriate human mediatrix, an aqueduct of grace, and petitions for grace may safely be addressed to her (SS “De aquaeductu” 3‐8). Moreover, Bernard cautions those whose hands may be “‘full of blood’ (Is. i. 15) or dirtied with bribes” to submit their gifts to God through Mary’s pure hands (18). Most of Gawain’s recorded prayers before his arrival at Hautdesert are addressed in part or in full to Mary rather than to Christ alone (754). Such a virtuous knight could not be accused of taking bribes, but as a warrior, his hands are certainly bloodied; his recourse to
Mary thus accords with Bernard’s recommendations.
4 “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (NIV).
5 “In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (NIV).
56 Humility. Mary’s humility is the quality Bernard emphasizes above all others in his sermons about her. In his sermon for the Octave of the Assumption, he notes that her humility is evident in her speech as well as in her silence, pointing to her responses to the praises heaped on her by Gabriel and Elizabeth
(SS “Octavam Assumptionis” 12). He elaborates on this point in the fourth sermon of De laudibus virginis matris:
Quae est haec tam sublimis humilitas, quae cedere non novit honoribus, insolescere gloria nescit? Mater Dei eligitur, et ancillam se nominat: non mediocris revera humilitatis insigne, nec oblate tanta gloria oblivisci humilitatem. Non magnum esse humilem in abiectione; magna prorsus et rara virtus, humilitas honorata.
Oh, how sublime is the humility here manifested, which knows not how to yield to honour or to be elated with glory! She is chosen to be the Mother of God, and she calls herself His handmaid! Assuredly it is a sign of a more than common humility not to forget humility in the presence of such glory. To be humble in abjection is nothing very great; but it is great virtue indeed, and as rare as great, to be humble in the midst of honours. (4.9)
This humility made her a fitting vessel to be filled with grace, he states in the third sermon for the Annunciation (SS “In Annuntiatione” 3.8‐9). He also claims in the first sermon of De laudibus virginis matris that Mary’s humility is even more crucial to imitate than her virginity. The latter was important to her becoming the Mother of God, but it would have been worthless without her deep humility
(DLVM 1.5‐6). As discussed in the previous chapter, Gawain appears to be at
57 Benedict’s eighth degree of humility when he first speaks, professing himself to be less than the others and keeping to the common rule of the court.
Faith. Mary’s “heroic faith” does not contradict her humility, Bernard states; instead, the two complement each other most fully in her response to the
Annunciation. While retaining the humblest possible understanding of herself, she accepted Gabriel’s announcement, which even he could not fully explain, without any doubt that God would fulfill His promise (SS “Octavam
Assumptionis” 13; cf. DLVM 4.3, 11). In the fourth sermon of De laudibus virginis matris, Bernard notes the contrast between Mary’s and Zechariah’s reactions to
Gabriel; Zechariah’s incredulity received immediate punishment, but Gabriel had no reason to reprove Mary (4.6). The Pearl poet never explicitly describes
Gawain’s faith, but his overwhelming desire to attend Matins on Christmas Day speaks volumes about his character (740‐62).
Martyrdom. Bernard explains that the sorrows Mary experienced through
Jesus constitute an internal martyrdom. For example:6
6 This section of the sermon is frequently quoted in connection with the Feast of the Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary, now the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (Sermons for the Seasons 3: 277 note; Bainvel). The feast was not officially acknowledged by Rome until after the Reformation and did not extend to the entire Church until the nineteenth century (Holweck), and I have not found evidence of its inclusion in the Sarum calendar. Given the Pearl poet’s clear Marian sensibilities, however, he would almost certainly have encountered this sermon, and Bernard’s other Marian writings, in some form even without official liturgical use.
58 Vere tuam, o beata Mater, animam gladius pertransivit. Alioquin non nissi eam pertransiens, carnem Filii penetraret. Et quidem posteaquam emisit spiritum tuus ille Iesus,—omnium quidem, sed specialiter tuus—, ipsius plane non attigit animam crudelis lancea, quae ipsius, nec mortuo parcens, cui nocere non posset, aperuit latus, sed tuam utique animam pertransivit. Ipsius nimirum anima iam ibi non erat; sed tua plane nequibat avelli. Tuam ergo pertransivit animam vis doloris, ut plus quam martyrem non immerito praedicemus, in qua nimirum corporeae sensum passionis excesserit compassionis affectus.
Truly, O blessed Mother, truly did the iron pierce thy soul (Ps. civ. 18), for it could not otherwise pierce the Flesh of thy Son. After the death of thy Jesus—thy Jesus, I say, because although common to all of us he is in an especial manner thine—His Soul could not be wounded by the cruel lance that opened His side—not sparing Him even in death Whom it was no longer capable of hurting—but thy soul, O Mary, it could and did transpierce. For His Soul no longer occupied His now lifeless Heart, whence thy soul could by no means be withdrawn. Consequently thy soul was transfixed with the violence of sorrow, so that thou art justly proclaimed to be more than a martyr, since the sufferings thou didst endure from the force of thy compassion far exceeded all the pains that could have been inflicted on thy flesh. (SS “Octavam Assumptionis” 14)
He goes on to describe her sorrow at the Passion as a “death of sympathy” (15).
Gawain’s five fives include devotion to Mary’s Five Joys, not her Seven Sorrows
(which would be anachronistic), but they also include devotion to Christ’s Five
Wounds, which fall among Mary’s sorrows as part of the Passion (Holweck).
Gawain does not shrink from the possibility of a kind of martyrdom when
Arthur’s life is on the line; indeed, he is the only knight to offer his life to save his king’s. Part of the test he faces in both the beheading game and the events at
Hautdesert is his willingness to persevere in martyrdom.
59 Gawain’s Chivalric Virtues
The four aforementioned virtues are hardly the only ones associated with
Mary. In his third sermon for the Annunciation, Bernard calls Mary “the treasury of God” and points out that Jesus filled her “with singular gifts of his gratuitous grace,” and he notes in the fourth sermon for the Feast of the
Assumption that “all the various virtues which appear to be common to many are really singular in Mary” (SS “In Annuntiatione” 3.1, 7; “In Assumptione”
4.6). He also treats her possession of the cardinal virtues in the sermon “De
Sancta Maria” in Sermones de diversis (52). While Bernard never speaks specifically of courtesy in relation to Mary, Andrew and Waldron note that cortaysye can figuratively refer to virtue and grace generally (311), and the Pearl poet repeatedly calls Mary “quen of cortaysye” in Pearl (431‐56). Unsurprisingly, then, the other chivalric virtues assigned to Mary’s knight also have Marian connotations.
Fraunchyse. Andrew and Waldron translate fraunchyse as “generosity” or
“liberality” (319). The word easily summarizes Bernard’s description of Mary as
Mediatrix in the sermon for the Octave of the Assumption:
Omnibus misericordiae sinum aperit, ut de plenitudine illius accipiant universi, captivus redemptionem, aeger curationem, tristis consolationem, peccator veniam, iustus gratiam, angelus laetitiam, denique tota Trinitas gloriam, Filii persona carnis humanae substantiam, ut non sit qui se abscondat a calore eius.
60 To all she opens wide the bosom of her mercy so that all may receive her fullness (John i. 16): captives deliverance, the sick health, the sad consolation, sinners pardon, the just grace, the angels joy, the whole Blessed Trinity glory, and the Person of the Son the Substance of His Human Nature: so that “there is no one that can hide himself from the heat” of her charity (Ps. xviii. 7). (SS “Octavam Assumptionis” 2)
Gawain’s generosity does not show itself in the poem in ways a modern reader might expect, such as kindness to widows and orphans. However, Hautdesert bears a striking resemblance to the remarks Bernard makes in his Apologia about
Cluny, where “laxity is labeled discretion, extravagance generosity, talkativeness sociability, and laughter joy” (8.16).7 Mary’s knight ought to be able to distinguish true generosity from mere extravagance or returning of favors; the exchange of winnings will test that ability.
Felaʒschyp. In this context, felaʒschyp refers not simply to “fellowship” in its modern sense but to philia or brotherly love (AW 317). One of the best examples of Mary’s philia is her visitation of St. Elizabeth. Bernard makes several mentions of the alacrity with which Mary went to Elizabeth, not just to chat, but to serve her kinswoman (SS “In Assumptione” 2.8, “Octavam Assumptionis” 9).
In the fourth sermon of De laudibus virginis matris, Bernard even speculates that this meeting was the intended outcome of Gabriel’s announcement of Elizabeth’s condition (4.6). Her philia is also evident in her patronage: “Why should human
7 See also Appendix C.
61 fragility fear to have recourse to Mary? In her is found nothing austere, nothing to terrify; everything about her is full of sweetness. For all she has only the sweetness of milk and the softness of wool” (SS “Octavam Assumptionis” 2).
The general sorrow in Camelot over Gawain’s departure speaks not only of the high regard Gawain has earned as a knight but also of the number of knights who consider him a true friend.
Clannes. As used by the Pearl poet, clannes connotes a variety of forms of purity—chastity, purity of heart, purity of deed, etc. By any definition, the word applies to Mary; though Bernard opposed the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception, he certainly viewed her as free from everything but original sin (cf.
SS “In Assumptione” 2.8). Most scholars focus on the obvious connections of clannes to chastity, which Ronald Tamplin notes is not normally considered
Gawain’s chief virtue in Arthurian literature (417). However, Catherine S. Cox incorrectly asserts that Mary’s primary function in the temptation scenes is to guard Gawain’s chastity (380‐1).8 Tamplin’s assessment, that chastity is important but not central to the story (417), accords better with Bernard’s statements about Mary’s virginity and humility in De laudibus virginis matris,
8 Cox is hardly the only scholar to note the Eve/Mary struggle present in the temptation scenes and its connection to the sexual tension created by Bertilak’s wife throwing herself at Gawain, but her comment about Mary’s role being chiefly concerned with chastity has been contradicted by other scholars like Tamplin and Allen and ignores the Bernardine influence treated here.
62 wherein he cautions virgins against becoming proud of their virginity (1.5‐6).
There is no reason to doubt that Gawain lives up to the Marian ideal of purity in as many ways as a knight possibly can.
Pité. Andrew and Waldron note that this word means both “pity,” in the sense of compassion, and “piety” (232). Though they define piety only in the
Roman sense of pietas as devotion to knightly or civic duty, citing references to
Aeneas, one would be hard pressed to argue that a knight with a devotional image inside his shield does not also fulfill the modern definition of piety as devotion to God. Here, too, all three definitions of pité apply to Mary, whom
Bernard calls the Queen of Mercy in his first sermon on the Assumption and whose compassion culminates in her interior martyrdom during the Passion (SS
“In Assumptione” 1.2, “Octavam Assumptionis” 14‐15). “She is a virgin,” he also says in De laudibus virginis matris, “and a virgin conspicuous for sanctity, for prudence, and for piety” (1.6). Both meanings of piety are evident in the second sermon on the Assumption, where Bernard argues that Mary’s actions in Luke 1 and 2 fulfill the active and contemplative roles of both Mary of Bethany and her sister Martha in Luke 10:38‐42 (SS “In Assumptione” 2.8).9 Gawain’s adventures provide few opportunities to observe his pity in action, but his piety, in both
9 Bernard does recognize the historical distinction between Mary of Bethany and Mary of Nazareth, but because the passage from Luke 10 is the Gospel reading for the Feast of the Assumption, he applies it allegorically to the life of the Virgin (cf. Sermons for the Seasons 3: 221 note).
63 senses, is clear in his journey to Hautdesert, both in his desire to fulfill the duty enjoined by the beheading game and in his near despair over finding someplace to hear Matins on Christmas Day.
Testing Mary’s Knight
Having set up Gawain as a paragon of virtues with specific Marian connections, the poet proceeds to test his character precisely in his reputation as
Mary’s knight. Gawain’s Marianism holds up well against the dangers he faces on his journey away from Camelot. His chief concern on Christmas Eve is finding a place to observe Mass the next day, and thus he prays to both Christ and Mary and “cryde for his mysdede” as he rides (740‐62). His first sight of
Hautdesert seems to come in answer to this request. Hautdesert, however, is not all it seems, especially given the prominence of the beldame who turns out to be
Morgan le Fay. Because Gawain does not inquire the old lady’s name, he does not know to be on his guard, which leaves him open to grave danger. He also fails the first test of his ability to emulate Mary in his failure to remain humble in the midst of honors. As noted in the previous chapter, Gawain is much more ready to accept the honor of a strange court than that of Camelot, where people know his true nature.
Bertilak claims that he devises the test of Gawain’s virtue (2361‐3), but
Gawain’s presence at Hautdesert is due entirely to Morgan’s plot to “assay þe
64 surquidré [pride]” of Camelot (2456‐7). Directly or indirectly, then, Morgan orchestrates the testing of Gawain, so its devilish nature comes as no surprise.
Perhaps the most appropriate way to test Mary’s knight is through a parody of the Annunciation, which is precisely what Bertilak’s wife enacts. Dennis D.
Martin notes that her language inverts Mary’s and that Gawain uses Mary’s speech appropriately (180‐1), but comparison with Bernard’s third sermon in De laudibus virginis matris shows that the inversions run deeper still.
Bernard speculates that Mary was in her bedroom praying with the door locked to keep out temptations when Gabriel came to her with the blessed tidings, locked doors being no impediment to spirits. He found God already with her, however, because in His love for her He had, like the Bridegroom in
Song of Songs, outrun His messenger. Bernard also notes that Mary was troubled by Gabriel’s greeting because she was always wary of any attempted assault on her virtues (DLVM 3.1‐3). Every time Bertilak’s wife comes to his room, by contrast, Gawain is sleeping late, not awake and praying or otherwise attending to his duty as a Christian knight. Whether or not he locks his bedroom door each night—the text is unclear as to how the lady gets in, though Gawain hears “a little dyn at his dor” on the first morning (1183)—he has left open a door of opportunity for her by not maintaining his humility in the midst of honors and
65 by paying attention to her during the Christmastide celebrations when he ought to have kept his mind on the sacred solemnities at hand.
As an emissary of “Morgne þe goddes” (2452), therefore, Bertilak’s wife inverts by her actions not only Mary’s humble acceptance of God’s will but also
Gabriel’s mission and God’s spiritual love for and espousal of Mary. Her words are an assault on both his chastity and his humility. Indeed, she pins him to the bed and sets a trap with her speech much as the two wicked elders entrap
Susannah in Daniel 13, which also appears in Bernard’s third sermon on the
Annunciation (SS “In Annuntiatione” 3.4). The lady’s words and actions do trouble Gawain as Gabriel’s salutation does Mary (1195‐7)—but only on the first day. He welcomes her “worþyly” on the second day (1476); on the third she interrupts his nightmares about his impending doom (1746‐56), and he welcomes her “worþily with a wale chere” (1759).
Scholars tend to view the poet’s comment at this point—“Gret perile bitwene hem stod, / Nif Maré of hir knyʒt mynne” (1768‐9)—as referring to the threat to Gawain’s chastity, but that is not his greatest peril; in fact, it is the only test he passes. Rather, the chastity test serves as a red herring, blinding Gawain to the far subtler ways in which Bertilak’s wife tests his other virtues, especially through the gift of the belt. Allen notes that Gawain’s courage is especially vulnerable because he has ceased to think of Mary in his distress (190). He can
66 no longer bear even the thought of martyrdom. He has also fallen well away from Marian humility, as seen in the previous chapter, as well as modest meekness. Gawain’s presumption in taking the belt—a selfish act of false courtesy and false friendship that displays pité only for himself—overrides all his chivalric virtues and the remaining Marian virtue of faith. He claims to have yielded himself to God’s will as he goes to the Green Chapel (2156‐9), but he has actually put his trust in the belt. No longer does he humbly address his petitions to Christ or request grace of Mary; instead, though he swears by other saints and gives traditional parting blessings, his only semblance of a prayer before meeting the Green Knight is “Let Gode worche!” (2208). Though Gawain appears for the final exchange of winnings as “Mary’s knight in Mary’s colors,” as Louis
Blenkner observes (374),10 he has taken his eyes off the Star of the Sea,11 and his spiritual vessel is heading into rough seas indeed.
Yet the poet states that great peril awaits Gawain if Mary forgets him, not because he has forgotten her. This distinction is crucial. Bernard’s exhortation to think of Mary in De laudibus virginis matris explains the effect of Mary’s patronage:
10 See also Hoffman 71‐82, which includes some intriguing observations on the ambiguity of Mary’s presence in this part of the poem.
11 So far as I can tell, line 1769 is the only time in all four poems that the poet uses the spelling “Maré”; there seems to be no reason for it unless the poet is deliberately evoking the Star of the Sea connection by using the same spelling as the Latin mare “sea.”
67 Ipsam sequens non devias, ipsam rogans non desperas, ipsam cogitans non erras. Ipsa tenente non corruis, ipsa protegente non metuis, ipsa duce non fatigaris, ipsa propitia pervenis [. . .].
With her for guide, thou shalt never go astray; whilst invoking her, thou shalt never lose heart; so long as she is in thy mind, thou art safe from deception; whilst she holds thy hand, thou canst not fall; under her protection, thou hast nothing to fear; if she walks before thee, thou shalt not grow weary; if she shows thee favor, thou shalt reach the goal. (1.17)
Gawain has ceased to invoke Mary and has withdrawn his mind and hand from her, leaving himself open to deception and capable of faltering. But Mary, the
Queen of Mercy, has not necessarily withdrawn from him. Physically he has nothing to fear save a nick for failing to deliver the belt with the kisses; he does reach the goal without growing weary. He has not avoided spiritual danger, but even there Mary guards him—mercy limits the price of his pride to the humiliation he receives at Bertilak’s hands at the Green Chapel. As soon as
Gawain has relearned the other virtues Mary’s example provides, he may once again deserve to be called her knight.
Conclusion
Bernard states in his first sermon for the Feast of St. Victor that “to aspire to glory without first practicing virtue [. . .] betrays not an upright but a perverted heart. [. . .] Virtue is the ladder whereby we must mount to glory.
Yea, virtue may be called the mother of glory” (Sermones varii “In Natalis S.
68 Victoris” 1.1). Depending on the intended audience for Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, however, Mary may have been a more familiar model of virtue than someone like St. Victor,12 so that simply designating Gawain as Mary’s knight would have told the audience even more about his character and ideals than does the explanation of the “five fives” of the pentangle—certainly more than most scholars recognize. Bernard’s descriptions of Mary and admonitions to her followers provide insight into the character of Mary’s knight and the depth of his contrition when he realizes just how far he has strayed from his ideal. Insofar as he imitates Mary’s virtues of modest meekness, unwavering humility, heroic faith, and interior martyrdom, Gawain is the best of knights and deserves the glory he receives from everyone he meets. Yet just as nobody expects the
Spanish Inquisition, Gawain hardly expects his host’s wife to parody the defining moment of Mary’s life in a test of all his Marian and chivalric virtues at once. He therefore fails to keep his focus on Mary’s example and falls short in almost every way, keeping his chastity but forfeiting the glory of his other virtues in the process. His only chance at restoration lies in humbling himself through penance, even when all Camelot insists that he has done nothing wrong.
12 I have not been able to find information about St. Victor’s patronage; he seems to be primarily associated with the diocese of Troyes.
69
PART TWO
Patience and Cleanness: Obligations of Religious and Secular Clergy
I have often warned you, brothers, that in Paul’s opinion, godliness contains the promise of the life which now is as well as of the life to come…. So let us embrace holiness because it is good, because its end is life without end. Let us strive for the holiness and the peace without which no one shall see God.
‐‐Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in Ps. XC 17.1
The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred—like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.
‐‐C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
±±±
Chapter Four Þaʒ Hit Displese Ofte: Patience and Bernard’s Writings on Monastic Obedience 71
Chapter Five Confourme Þe to Kryst: Clerical Reform in Cleanness and Bernard’s Writings to the Clergy 90
70
CHAPTER FOUR
Þaʒ Hit Displese Ofte: Patience and Bernard’s Writings on Monastic Obedience
Patience spends just fifty‐six lines introducing its subject, summarizing and commenting on the basic Scriptures on the virtue of patience, and setting up the negative example of the highly impatient Jonah, a jump that has startled many a scholar. Though Charles Moorman recognizes the importance of the frame to the homiletic structure of the poem (91), Lorraine Kochanske Stock notes that most Patience scholarship focuses on the Jonah section not only because it forms the bulk of the poem but also because it is such a puzzling, unexpected choice (163). After all, Jonah is best known for refusing to go to
Nineveh to prophesy its doom, spending three days in the belly of a whale receiving an attitude adjustment, and having a temper tantrum when Nineveh repented and God relented. In selecting Jonah as his exemplar, the Pearl poet was probably influenced by commentators like Philip of Harveng, who uses
Jonah as an example of disobedience in his treatise On Silence (Gehl 171‐6).
Bernard seldom writes about Jonah. Yet the opening lines of Patience provide a great deal more context than might be obvious without examining the roles of patience, poverty, and obedience in medieval monastic life, as seen in such
71 works as Bernard’s De praecepto et dispensatione. Once this context is clear, viewing the Jonah section through a Bernardine lens against the backdrop of the
Rule of Benedict shows why Jonah works as the negative exemplar and how the poet ties Jonah’s disobedience to his lack of patience.
Patience in the Rule of Benedict
In writing on patience in monastic life, Bernard often refers to the Rule of
Benedict. Benedict mentions the exercise of patience in adversity only six times in the Rule, but he always does so in a way that highlights its importance. A key statement for Patience is the last sentence of the Rule’s preface:
Processu vero conversationis et fidei, dilatato corde inenarrabili dilectionis dulcedine curritur via mandatorum Dei, ut ab ipsius numquam magisterio discedentes, in eius doctrinam usque ad mortem in monasterio perseverantes, passionibus Christi per patientiam participemur, ut et regno eius mereamur esse consortes.
But as we advance in the religious life and faith, we shall run the way of Godʹs commandments with expanded hearts and unspeakable sweetness of love; so that never departing from His guidance and persevering in the monastery in His doctrine till death, we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ, and be found worthy to be coheirs with Him of His kingdom.
Benedict lists the patient endurance of injury as one of the instruments of good works found in Scripture (4), and of his twelve steps of humility, the fourth is “if hard and distasteful things are commanded, nay, even though injuries are inflicted, he accept them with patience and even temper, and not grow weary or
72 give up” (7).1 Patient persistence is one of the few qualifications for entry as a novice (58), and patience with the sick is a sign of virtuous zeal (36, 72).
Bernard’s Sententiae offer a number of reflections on the importance of patience. With humility and charity, patience is one of the virtues by which unity is preserved (1.32, 3.38), and with wisdom and charity, it is one of the weapons of the faithful (2.86). Allegorically, it is one of the gates of heaven and the rampart of Zion (2.41, 3.24). Christ’s suffering is our chief example, and by emulating His patience and drinking from the cup of His suffering, we can achieve salvation, beatitude, and eternal life (Sent. 3.108, 119; QH 17).2 This patient endurance, he adds elsewhere, should be combined with contemplation, so that those who bear Christ in their body understand their honor (QH 7.4; cf. 1
Cor. 6:20).
Patience for Bernard, as evidently for Benedict, is not the highest of the virtues. For example, in De conversione ad clericos he distinguishes between the pacified man “who repays good for good [. . .] and wishes harm to no one,” the patient man who is “even able to bear with the man who hurts him,” and the peacemaker (18.31). Patient endurance leads to salvation, but peacemaking is
1 Bernard’s paraphrase in the outline of RB 7 at the beginning of De gradibus humilitate et superbiae is “To hold fast to patience amidst hard and rough things for the sake of obedience” (Treatises 2: 26).
2 The English patience, of course, comes from the Latin patientia, derived from the verb patior “to suffer,” so the ideas of patience and suffering were inextricably linked for authors who knew Latin well. (Thanks to D. Thomas Hanks for reminding me of this fact.)
73 still preferable (Sent. 2.186). Bernard also subordinates patience to obedience in one discussion and both obedience and patience to wisdom in another (Sent.
3.126; SD 2.4). Still, he lists patience among the eight virtues that defend the soul and among the treasures of the brethren, and he argues that patience is the chief display of wisdom (Sent. 3.91, 110, 126). The combination of patience and peacemaking is all the more important for prelates who must rule the wicked as well as the innocent, as Bernard warns the newly elected archbishop of Rouen
(Epistolae 27). He also frequently pairs patience with charity, greatest of the theological virtues, when listing virtues that support obedience (Sent. 3.53, 121).
However, Bernard notes that impatience is good, even praiseworthy, when its object is persistent sin in ourselves or injustice in others. “Who among us,” he asks in De conversione, “is so strong and so patient that if he should happen to see his flesh suddenly becoming white as if sick with leprosy [. . . he] could remain calm and give thanks to his Maker?” (3.4). As leprosy is to the skin, so is sin to the soul: the cure may be hard and slow, but there is no reason to put up with a curable disease (3.4‐4.5, 5.7). He also writes to Pope Eugene III, then so swamped with judging frivolous appellate lawsuits that his other pontifical duties were hampered, “Sometimes it is more commendable to be impatient. [. . .] It is not the virtue of patience to permit yourself to be enslaved when you can be free,” especially when slavery only serves the vices of others
74 and does not win souls for Christ (De cons. 1.3.4‐1.4.5). Similarly, he writes to a monk following a fugitive abbot, “It is in the nature of true patience to suffer and act against self‐will, but not in excess of what is lawful” (Epistolae 7.11). God is patient with sinners and thus deserves our love (Sent. 2.161, 3.113), and we ought to be merciful to ourselves and to others once we have begun the pursuit of righteousness (Sent. 3.3; De conv. 16.29); but we should not tolerate habitual sin in ourselves or allow others to make us complicit in their crimes.
Bernard on Patience, Poverty, and Obedience
Poverty, says Bernard, is “the foundation of the other virtues” as the first
Beatitude (3.126). The Pearl poet does not distinguish between poverty of spirit and temporal poverty in lines 35‐45, as Bernard often does (e.g. Sent. 2.87), but he does speak of his condition as one of necessary poverty (Patience 35), which
Bernard states should be patiently endured by the poor in spirit (Sent. 3.2).
Bernard sees sudden poverty, especially after a period of prosperity, as a prime test of patience. He warns Eugene that “it is the sign of a most perverse heart if you find yourself impatient in your own troubles and without compassion for those of others” (De cons. 2.12.21). Murmuring against God in such trials is a sign of idolizing riches, but refraining from grumbling is a sign of a baptized tongue
(Sent. 3.34, 87, 108). Voluntary poverty, however, is better still (3.2). In a letter that might have influenced the description of the crew’s attempt to lighten the
75 boat and save Jonah by throwing their luxuries overboard (Patience 157‐60),
Bernard heaps praises on Suger, the famous abbot of St.‐Denis, for reforms above and beyond what anyone had suggested to him, including the rejection of temporal power and wealth (Epistolae 78). Likewise, as will be discussed in the next chapter, Bernard frequently harangues those clerics who use the Church for personal gain, and he notes in another letter that “whether a secular person should hold property or not is a matter of indifference; but for a monk it is wholly evil, for he is not permitted to hold any property at all” (7.4).
The poet also notes here, as he does in Pearl,3 that grumbling about poverty amends nothing (Patience 50). This statement echoes Benedict’s chapter on obedience, which states that a monk who obeys grudgingly “acquireth no reward; rather he incurreth the penalty of murmurers” (RB 5). It also reflects
Bernard’s observations in his sermon “On Obedience, Patience, and Wisdom” about the inevitability of suffering and the difference between willing and unwilling obedience (SD 2.1‐3). For Bernard, poverty and obedience work together to refine the soul. He states in the Sententiae that “when the word of
God—or a commitment to life under a rule—is situated in the heart of an honestly poor, perfectly obedient person between the harshness of poverty and the strong discipline of obedience, it elicits keen perceptions of divine and
3 See chapter 7 for a discussion of this argument in Pearl.
76 spiritual understanding [. . .] with which it refreshes the souls of the faithful”
(3.119). Obedience and spiritual poverty, combined with penance, also make up the spiritual house of God, and obedience is upheld by humility, contempt for the world, and patience (3.53; cf. 3.126). So the poet’s jump in lines 45‐56 from patient poverty to patient obedience makes perfect sense:
Thus pouerté and pacyence arn nedes playferes. Syþen I am sette with hem samen suffer me byhoues; ………………………………………………………………… Ʒif me be dyʒt a destine due to haue, What dowes me þe dedayn, oþer dispit make?
Thus Poverty and Patience are playfellows, I find; Since I am beset by them both, it behooves me to suffer. If a destiny is dealt me and duly comes round, What avail my vexation and venting of spleen? (45‐6, 49‐50)
Drawing on Benedict’s definition of acceptable obedience as that which is quick, cheerful, and uncomplaining (RB 5), Bernard holds that true obedience cannot exist without patience (Sent. 3.87, 121). He notes in “On Obedience,
Patience, and Wisdom” that “it is not the obedience of lepers that is commended to us, nor the patience of dogs”; we pray that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven because heavenly obedience is voluntary and thus more blessed
(SD 2.3). Yet as wholesome and necessary as both patience and obedience are, they are “most unpalatable” unless seasoned with the wisdom that comes from justice, cheerfulness, and humility (2.4‐5)—or, as the poet puts it, “Pacience is a
77 poynt, þaʒ hit displese oft” (1). Obedience and patience undertaken pridefully, grudgingly, or for reasons other than the sake of righteousness are as displeasing to God as they are to us (SD 2.5).4 Moreover, obedience requires both knowledge of the truth and love of the good to avoid mistaking good for evil and vice versa
(De praecepto 14.35‐41).
One aspect of obedience that the Pearl poet mentions is the possibility of being sent by a superior to Rome (51‐6). Advising Eugene about the sort of men who should make up the Curia in De consideratione, he mentions that good men are obedient in such errands: “Whenever necessity arises and they are commanded to be ambassadors for Christ, they do not refuse; but they do not strive for such office when they are not commanded to do so. They do not obstinately reject what they modestly refuse” (De cons. 4.4.12). He also notes to a wayward monk that “if under obedience I am absent in body from Cîteaux, yet by a fellow devotion, by a life in all things the same, I am always there in spirit”
(Epistolae 7.16). This kind of patient obedience also covers the possibility that circumstances could make such a journey difficult or impossible. Benedict recommends that anyone who cannot fulfill a command explain the situation to
4 If the poet drew ideas for Patience from this sermon, this last point may have suggested the Beatitudes as his base text; the fact that he mentions hearing the passage “on a halyday, at a hyʒe masse” in line 9 indicates that the poem was not written for All Saints’ Day, the one liturgical use of Matthew 5:1‐12, but for some other occasion. See also the discussion of All Saints’ in chapter 6. (AW suggest a connection to the Feast of St. Boniface [185], which uses the Common of One Martyr—but unlike the 1970 US Roman Missal, the Sarum Breviary does not use Matt. 5:10 in that Common, and it would hardly be a “hyʒe masse” like All Saints’.)
78 the abbot calmly and humbly, but should the abbot insist, the monk must do his best and assume that the abbot intends his good (RB 68). As the poet notes, however, Benedict commands several times that “if anyone is found to be obstinate, let him be punished” (RB 71).
Fugitive Monks and De praecepto et dispensatione
Because of the number of wayward monks who roamed the countryside in Benedict’s day, one of the vows he enjoins in his Rule is stability; monks were not to leave the monastery without the abbot’s permission, and the abbot was not to admit monks who had fled from other monasteries if he was familiar with the monastery they had left (RB 1, 58, 60‐61). This fact did not prevent monks from fleeing when they could not resolve disputes with their abbots, however. The collection of Bernard’s surviving letters contains numerous examples of his attempts to persuade fugitive monks (and fugitive abbots!) to return to their monasteries and resolve their problems in accordance with Scripture and the
Rule. Sometimes, as when Bernard’s nephew Robert left Clairvaux for Cluny, the source of unrest was within the monk, making him unwilling or unable to adhere to the custom of an order that seemed too strict (Epistolae 1). In other cases, the problem was genuinely with the abbot, as when a monk of Flay fled to
Clairvaux because Flay’s abbot was exploiting his medical skills (67‐8). An abbot’s honest attempt at reform might provoke the wrath of the whole
79 community, and a monk’s genuine desire for a stricter life might lead him astray for a time; both happened at St. Nicholas‐aux‐Bois (87‐8). Sometimes the truth was clear to none but God.
Benedict gives specific criteria for the character of an abbot in his Rule, as well as repeated admonitions to remember that the abbot has to account to God for his own actions as well as those of his monks (RB 2, 64). Unfortunately, many abbots remembered only the statement that monks should obey the abbot’s commands as if they were God’s and gave orders that, at least in the monks’ opinion, did not align with the Rule. In one such case, two monks from Saint‐
Père‐en‐Valée near Chartres, attempting to feel out the limits of their obedience to an abbot they did not like, pestered Bernard with letters until he finally responded through the proper channels with the treatise De praecepto et dispensatione. This explication of the nature of obedience and of precepts provides vital background for the portrayal of Jonah in Patience.
In De praecepto, Bernard explains to the dissatisfied monks that while their vow of obedience is made according to the Rule, not at the pleasure of the abbot or terminable with his death, they need to distinguish carefully between precepts that are voluntary (not vowed) and those that are necessary (vowed), as well as discerning among necessities that are stable (to be changed only by superiors), firm (to be changed only by God), and fixed (completely unchangeable) (1.1‐5.11,
80 18.55). Virtues have fixed necessity because they are always good and should never be rejected (3.7). The necessity of obedience and the seriousness of disobedience depends on whether the command is light (no talking) or serious
(no murder), and some commands that may safely be omitted bring reward if obeyed, while others cannot be omitted but bring no reward if obeyed; perfect obedience both prioritizes properly and receives commands in the spirit in which they are given (6.12‐8‐17, 15.42). The abbot is not above the Rule and cannot simply follow his own will, but he should also be guided by the higher rule of charity and dispense with the Rule when charity requires it (4.9). God’s precepts are always more important than those of any man, including the abbot, and when the two are in conflict, a monk should always follow God’s laws first (9.19‐
22). However, questioning every order is a sign of imperfection, and despairing over the impossibility of keeping every precept shows that one does not understand God’s mercy (9.22‐13.32). One breaks the vow of obedience only by impenitence, so “it is senseless for us who have professed this Rule to complain of impossibility; to pretend we cannot help but sin; that the just commands of religious superiors come not from God, but only from men, and may therefore be set aside” (13.34). With regard to stability, these facts mean that while one cannot be obligated to stay in an ill‐regulated house where his soul is in genuine danger, the vow “rules out henceforth any feeble relapse, angry departure,
81 aimless or curious wandering, and every vagary of fickleness,” and neither the unsuitability of the abbot for his position nor the gentleness of the customs of the house provides sufficient grounds for leaving (16.44, 18.55‐6). Here Bernard notes Benedict’s warning that anyone who violates his vows “will be condemned by God, whom he mocks” (18.55; cf. RB 63).
The Example of Jonah
These connections between patience, poverty, obedience, and stability carry the poem naturally from the general discussion of patience into the rollicking retelling of the book of Jonah that follows. Stock has argued that the descriptions of Jonah’s attitude and habits make him an example of sloth (acedia), the vice traditionally opposed to patience and condemned as the “noonday devil” of Psalm 91 (163‐75).5 Bernard, however, defines the noonday devil as the method by which Satan attempts to trap the virtuous: vice disguised as virtue
(QH 6.6). He explains further in Sermones in Cantica Canticorum that the victim of such temptation, “unless the Sun from heaven shines into his heart with noontide brightness,” will end up wasting his efforts in overzealous pursuit of the wrong goals and abandoning, or losing sufficient energy and health to pursue, the right goals (33.9‐10). By choosing to flee to Tarshish to save his own
5 Among the texts she examines is the Tractatus de ordine vitae, which the late Middle Ages erroneously attributed to Bernard (Migne 374).
82 life rather than immediately obeying God’s command to warn Nineveh of His impending wrath, Jonah falls into precisely this kind of trap, and his subsequent actions only lead him deeper into sin.
Jonah as a Fugitive Monk
Jonah’s problem is not simply sloth leading to neglect; his pride causes him to despise God’s command, an attitude which Bernard states is always sinful
(De praecepto 8.18). The extent of Jonah’s pride becomes evident in comparing his behavior with De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae.6 He openly rebels against his
Superior, and his laziness on the boat speaks of freedom in sinning; he is thus well past the ninth stage of pride, hypocritical confession, which is opposed to patient endurance (cf. De gradibus 18‐20). His flight to Tarshish is typical of a monk in the advanced stages of pride who can no longer remain in the monastery and who re‐enters the world (20); but the poet thus further aligns
Jonah with Bernard’s metaphor in which “the world is the belly of the whale.
Anyone who loves the world and the things that are in it is comparable to [. . .] the endangered Jonah” (Sent. 3.92).
Furthermore, Jonah makes a number of wrong assumptions and category mistakes that let him justify his behavior. His first mistake is treating God like an unjust abbot, complaining about His commands and assuming that fleeing to
6 See chapter 2 for details.
83 Tarshish, as Robert fled to Cluny, would remove him from both God’s presence and His jurisdiction (74‐88). The abbot may be God’s representative in the monastery, but God is not an abbot bound by cloister walls (115‐24). Jonah’s second mistake comes in believing that his life is more important than God’s command (75‐96). Though Bernard allows for degrees of guilt depending on the motive for disobedience in De praecepto et dispensatione, he holds that contempt for God’s precepts is always serious (8.13‐18, 10.24‐12.30); in De gratia et libero arbitrio, he also states emphatically that sinning to avoid death and persecution does not lessen the guilt of the sin (12.38‐40), and he notes in the Sententiae that
Peter, his example in De gratia, “denied Christ through impatience” (3.38).7 A third, repeated mistake Jonah makes regards kinds of precepts. As a prophet,
Jonah is obligated to obey God’s command to go to Nineveh, but he reacts as if it were a voluntary precept that he has not vowed to follow. Only his time in the whale corrects this misunderstanding. Once he finally delivers the prophecy, however, he seems to regard it as having fixed necessity, whereas from God’s perspective, it has at best firm necessity and ought to be set aside for charity in light of the Ninevites’ genuine repentance. Even Jonah’s petulant “Hit is not lyttle” when God confronts him about his inappropriate attachment to the woodbine that briefly shaded him shows that he is confused to the point of
7 For further discussion, see the section titled “The Judgment of Gawain” in chapter 2.
84 calling good evil and evil good (493). Thus, both his flight and his muddled understanding mark Jonah as a stereotypical fugitive monk.
Penance in the Belly of the Whale
The poet sets up the encounter with the whale as more than simple punishment. He explicitly states that Jonah gets into this mess because he is not willing to suffer (113‐4, 241)—but Jonah’s earlier anachronistic statements of fear of crucifixion (“naked dispoyled, / On rode rwly torent”) make it clear that he is especially unwilling to share Christ’s sufferings (94‐5), which both Benedict and
Bernard hold to be the monastic ideal. The three days in the whale thus become both a prefiguring of Christ’s three days in the tomb—“An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet,” Jesus says several times in the Gospels (Matt. 12:38, 16:4; Luke
11:29)—and a supreme example of God’s poetic justice. Even his slide down the whale’s throat, “a rode þat hym þoʒt” (270), has echoes of the Passion. Rode, according to the Middle English Dictionary,8 can mean “ride,” “reckoning,” or
“rood”; Jonah does have a wild ride into a place where he must give account of himself to God, but his trip is allegorically the Rood as well, leading as it does to the tomb. This passage also allows a moral reading for monks, whose life
8 AW define rode in this context as “road” (342), but that sense does not fit the concepts in play here nearly as well as do the homonyms offered by the MED.
85 Bernard calls a second baptism partly because its goal is to “mortify the earthly side of our nature, so that we may be more and more clothed with Christ, being thus again ‘buried in the likeness of his death’” (De praecepto 17.54). Passing not only through the waters but into a nearer likeness of Christ’s death than anyone else has yet undergone, Jonah should remind monks of the implications of their own profession.
The poet also tweaks the Scriptural narrative slightly by having Jonah pray twice, at the beginning and at the end of his imprisonment (282‐8, 305‐36).
As previously noted, Jonah has reached and surpassed the ninth stage of pride, which is marked by hypocritical confession; Bernard notes that the abbot should correct such an attitude with severe penance, which will reveal whether or not the repentance is sincere (De gradibus 18). Though Jonah’s first prayer might be heartfelt, immediate mercy would not teach him the lessons he needs to learn.
Three days in the belly of a whale, “ay þenkande on Dryʒtyn, / His myʒt and His merci, His mesure þenne” and listening to the sea outside while trying to stay out of the worst of the filth (289‐302), is harsh penance indeed, and it appears to do the trick. Jonah’s second prayer, translated from Jonah 2, also meets
Benedict’s requirement that a brother seeking reinstatement should “first promise full amendment of the fault for which he left” (RB 29). He has clearly thought long and hard about his plight and has recognized both God’s might
86 and His mercy, and his pledge “Soberly to do Þe sacrafyse when I schal saue worþe / [. . .] And halde goud þat Þou me hetes” indicates a genuine desire to make satisfaction for his misdeeds (334, 336). God sees Jonah’s heart more clearly than an abbot could know the heart of a returned fugitive, but He sets an example for abbots by delivering Jonah from the whale, thus ending his penance, and reinstating him as a prophet with a renewed command to go to Nineveh.
Though he needs a final nudge, Jonah does follow through on his promise—at least for a time (345‐70).
Playing by the Rules
Malcolm Andrew observes that Jonah is at his most Christ‐like when he finally delivers God’s message to Nineveh, prompting the people’s repentance
(“Jonah” 231‐2). One would be hard pressed to argue that Jonah could have prefigured Christ’s ministry without first sharing and prefiguring His suffering.
But as Bernard points out in De conversione ad clericos, old mental habits and self‐ will die hard (6.8‐8.14, 11.22‐12.24), and Jonah quickly falls back into his previous thought patterns about God and His dispensations.
As noted above, Jonah thinks the necessity of God’s promises to him, whether it be the fulfillment of a prophecy or the provision of shelter in the
Assyrian desert, outweighs the fixed necessity of charity toward anyone who does penance. Though Jonah’s harangue in lines 413‐28 comes directly from
87 Jonah 4:1‐3, the context makes him sound like an unstable monk using a good abbot’s charitable dispensation from the Rule as an excuse for his instability, much like the recipients of De praecepto et dispensatione seemed to Bernard to be looking for a pretext to break with their unpopular abbot (18.56). Jonah’s complaint about the woodbine, too, portrays God as an abusive and unjust
Superior; “neuer Þou me sparez,” he whines (483‐8). But he has not tried to reason humbly with God, nor has he displayed the slightest ability to endure injuries, actual or perceived, without complaint. He may have accepted the penance of staying in the whale for three days for what it was, but there his perceptiveness ends, and his lack of wisdom and charity makes him unable to appreciate patient obedience when it is required of him. God’s final rebuke tells
Jonah that the fault lies entirely in him, not in God: “Wer I as hastif as þou heere, were harme lumpen; / Couþe I not þole bot as þou, þere þryued ful fewe” [Were
I as hasty as you here, much harm had been done; / Should I forbear no better than you, few souls would be safe] (521‐2).
Conclusion
Whether the Pearl poet intended Patience for an audience of novices, fugitives, or mutinous monks, understanding Jonah as a foolish, rebellious fugitive monk underscores the points that both the poem and Bernard make about patience, poverty, and obedience as necessary virtues, especially in a
88 monastic context. As Jay Schleusener notes, Jonah has no way of understanding the implications of his refusal to suffer or of his actions (960), yet neither the
Biblical book nor the poem was written for Jonah’s edification, but for the audience’s (cf. Davis 274). The reader is left to conclude whether Jonah’s silence at the end of the narrative indicates sullen impenitence or shame‐filled consideration, but only the latter is the response the poet desires in his audience.
89
CHAPTER FIVE
Confourme Þe to Kryst: Clerical Reform in Cleanness and Bernard’s Writings to the Clergy
If the first step toward breaking out of a destructive habit or lifestyle is admitting one has a problem, a concerned friend or pastor may need to apply considerable force to elicit that admission. One effective strategy for such interventions requires relentlessly proving how wrong the old way is before providing new rules and positive examples for the offender to follow. An analogous approach appears to be the organizing principle of Cleanness, a verse homily that uses multiple negative examples from Scripture to warn clerics to clean up their personal lives before they incur God’s wrath. Though the poet does provide positive examples of righteousness, especially the life and ministry of Christ, the bulk of the poem hammers home the seriousness of any kind of habitual sin, sexual or otherwise, in someone who has committed his life to
God’s service. Such a message was seldom more necessary than at the end of the fourteenth century, when wise and holy clerics were far outnumbered by the corrupt churchmen who presented Chaucer and Langland with such prime targets for satire.
90 Cleanness presents myriad sticking points for the modern critic. Those who move past the structure, style, and textual cruxes often get hung up on the discussions of sexuality and the severity of the poet’s emphasis on God’s justice
(Foley 324‐5, 328‐34; Metcalf 368‐71).1 A handful see the value of source and/or influence criticism for interpreting the poem; Michael W. Twomey, for example, makes a good case for reading Cleanness in light of Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica, especially with regard to the poet’s rearranging, rephrasing, and even rewriting his sources (“Falling” 141‐65). Very few acknowledge the probability that the poem was intended for a clerical audience or the importance of that context to the content.2 However, comparing the text with Bernard’s De conversione ad clericos and De consideratione, among other reform‐minded texts, reveals that the poem’s target is the same as its audience: corrupt clergy.
Though Bernard is not the only author whose works form the background for
Cleanness, the poem’s paraphrases and applications of Bernard’s writings to the clergy offer reasons why the Pearl poet approaches the clergy of his day as he
1 Even Jeremy J. Citrome’s study of the medicinal metaphors in Cleanness dwells heavily on sex (260, 263‐7, 273‐6). Michael Calabrese and Eric Eliason summarize critical attitudes thus: “Those willing to overlook the poem’s apparent lack of unity and confusing organization have had to confront its judgmental morality” (247).
2 Allen J. Frantzen is the earliest critic I have found who touches on the subject, but he seems to take a clerical audience for granted (452). However, Lynn Staley argues for an anti‐ clerical reading as if the case had not been made before (5‐15).
91 does to remind them that purity of heart is not just a nice‐sounding phrase but something God demands of them daily.
Textual Evidence of a Clerical Audience
In speculating that the Pearl poet might have been a member of John of
Gaunt’s retinue and that Cleanness might be part of the royal family’s 1370s attempt to reform the scandalously lax canons of St. Paul’s, Lynn Staley notes that the poem “announces its focus on clerical impurity in the seventh line, where the poet denounces priests who ‘handle’ and ‘use’ God’s body but
‘conterfete crafte and cortaysye wont’” (5‐15). Whether or not her hypothesis about the poem’s occasion is accurate, she is certainly correct that the poem clearly targets the clergy. The opening lines do call out those secular clerics “As renkez of relygioun þat reden and syngen, / And aprochen to Hys presens, and prestez arn called” [As men of religion that read and that sing, / And approach to
His presence, and priests are called] for their failures (7‐8),3 and later passages similarly address the clergy—for example, “war þe now, wyʒe þat worschyp desyres / In His comlych courte þat Kyng is of blysse” [ware you now, man who worship desires / In the comely court of the King of bliss] (545‐6), referring to the
3 The Middle English Dictionary lists “rinkes of religioun” as an epithet for churchmen. Line 7 could also refer to a clerk ordained in the minor orders, including lectors or cantors (see e.g. Boudinhon). It is worth noting at this point that the strict sense of the term “clergy” in the Catholic Church includes only those who have entered the ecclesiastical hierarchy through receiving the tonsure, not monks (Fanning).
92 kind of cleric whom Bernard frequently accused of treating the Church as a means of social advancement. But contrary to the interpretations of scholars like
Allen J. Frantzen, who sees Cleanness as a penitential guide for priests trying to deal adequately with the sins of their parishioners (452), no vocation other than the clergy is singled out for condemnation within the poem. Indeed, ordinary believers like Noah, Daniel, Abraham, and Lot appear only as positive examples.
A wayward clerical audience would also explain the heavy emphasis on untrawþe, especially the breaking of vows. Twomey notes that most of the poet’s condemnations deal with reneging on a vow or breaking a covenant with God, which would be unforgivable disloyalty in a feudal setting (“Sin” 117‐8, 121‐31,
134‐5); clergy who disregard their vows are guilty of the same sin. Furthermore,
Michael Casey reminds us how many young knights became churchmen regardless of their actual beliefs (11‐12), and those who entered the priesthood for lack of inheritance still tended to view themselves as part of the City of Man rather than the City of God. Twomey’s observation of the feudal portrayal of covenants in Cleanness suggests an audience that could not or would not understand the seriousness of clerical vows unless the topic were framed as a matter of chivalric loyalty (“Sin” 119).
93 Two passages of Scripture that do not appear explicitly in Cleanness but still inform the poem are Psalms 15 and 24, which deal with the necessity of holiness in one who would dwell in God’s presence:
Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? or who shall rest in thy holy hill? He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice: He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours. In his sight the malignant is brought to nothing: but he glorifieth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his neighbour, and deceiveth not; He that hath not put out his money to usury, nor taken bribes against the innocent: He that doth these things, shall not be moved for ever. (Ps. 15 [14]:1‐5)
Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord: or who shall stand in his holy place? The innocent in hands, and clean of heart, who hath not taken his soul in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour. This is the generation of them that seek him, of them that seek the face of the God of Jacob. (Ps. 24 [23]:3‐6)
The poet does quote both psalms in Pearl,4 and elements of both can be seen throughout Cleanness; for example, the reverse of many of these virtues can be found in the list of vices in lines 181‐8, including monsworne (perjury), trichcherye
(treachery), and fals famacions (defamation/slander). Both psalms have a variety of liturgical uses, but in the Cistercian Breviary, the occasions on which they are
4 See note 6 in chapter 7.
94 read together are almost always commemorations of saints who were clerics.5
Moreover, during the rite of tonsure, which precedes ordination to any of the clerical orders, Psalm 24 is recited with verse 5 as an antiphon (Lamb 126;
Martène 228). Cleanness could thus have been originally aimed at any cleric who needed to be reminded of his vows or specifically at seminarians who did not yet understand the demands of the ministry they were about to undertake.6
The twelfth century saw as much need for clerical reform as did the fourteenth, and Bernard and his associates worked vigorously to uproot corruption at every level of the church. Jean Leclercq states that “Bernard was a reformer not only in the monastic sphere but in every sphere of the Church’s life because he loved the Church and wanted to see her ever more worthy of being loved, served with love” (qtd. in Saïd 16). Bernard was also acutely aware that
God holds clergy to a higher standard than that applied to the laity7 (De conv.
20.36), and the more so the higher their rank: “It is a monstrous thing,” he writes to Pope Eugene III, “for the highest office to be filled with a man of the lowest character” (De cons. 2.14). Chief among his concerns was clerics’ failure to practice what they preached, and his writings are full of pointed comments on
5 The feasts are St. Vincent, St. Benedict, Nativity of St. John the Baptist, St. Lawrence, and All Saints’, as well as the Common of a Martyr Pope and the Common of a Confessor Pope (434, 464, 493‐4, 525, 569, 608, 622).
6 David Lyle Jeffrey has suggested the latter possibility to me.
7 Cf. Jas. 3:1 and 1 Tim. 3:1.
95 the necessity of personal holiness for a priest or bishop. To cite only one example, from Sermones in Cantica Canticorum:
Ad haec boni sollicitique pastores impinguare pecus non cessant bonis lectisque exemplis, et suis magis quam alienis. Nam si alienis et non suis, ignominia est illis, et pecus ita non proficit. Si enim, verbi causa, ego, qui videor inter vos pastoris gerere curam, vobis apposuero Moysi mansuetudinem, patientiam Iob, misericordiam Samuelis, David sanctitatem, et si qua sunt eiusmodi exempla bonorum, immitis ipse et impatiens, atque immisericors et minime sanctus, sermo, ut vereor, minus sapide veniet, et vos minus avide capietis.
Therefore good and faithful shepherds never cease to feed their flock with good and choice examples—from their own lives rather than from other people’s. If they offer those of other people and not their own, this is to their discredit, and their flock will not profit. I, for example, apparently carry the responsibility of being your shepherd. Now if I hold up to you as examples the compassion of Moses, the patience of Job, the mercy of Samuel, the holiness of David, and so on, but if I myself remain without compassion, impatient, unmerciful, and anything but holy, my exhortations would, I fear, be unpalatable and you would not be keen to listen. (SC 76.9)
Similar passages can be found in the Sermo ad abbates, De consideratione, and the
Epistolae, and the preface to the Vita sancti Malachiae is primarily a lament that
Malachy’s sanctity is all the more noteworthy because of its rarity among bishops. For Bernard, mediocrity was not an option (Leclercq 20).
What becomes clear in reading Bernard’s reform‐minded polemics is that clergy needed the concept of God’s justice hammered home because they were
96 prone to abuse His mercy.8 Arnold Angenendt credits Bernard with being the first major medieval voice to argue the necessity of understanding Christ not simply as Righteous Judge but as loving and merciful, yet mercy is not license to sin (98, 136‐7, 730). And Bernard was quick to remind his fellow clergy of that fact; Leclercq notes that Bernard “speaks in prophetic accents, inspired by
Christ’s maledictions, of all those who abuse their power, urging God’s ministers to constant purification” (qtd. in Saïd 16). “We are going to render account to
God regarding three things,” Bernard says in Sententiae 3.27:
de eo quod homines sumus rationales, scilicet ne in vano acceperimus animam nostram; de eo quod christiani sumus, ne nomen Domini in vanum assumpserimus; de eo quod in aliquam partem sortis sanctorum vocati sumus qua dicimur clerici vel monachi, scilicet ne in vacuum gratiam Dei recipiamus.
as a result of the fact that we are rational beings, that we have not received our soul in vain; by reason of the fact that we are Christians, that we have not taken the name of the Lord in vain; and because we have been called to some part of the duty of saints in that we are called clerics or monks, that we have not received the grace of God to no purpose.
8 In this context, the inclusion of Sarah’s laughter in the setup for Sodom and Gomorrah makes even more sense than simple parallelism would suggest. The incident seems like an extremely minor example of uncleanness, which might explain why the poet adds an explicit dismissal of the subject (“bot let we hit one”) to God’s “No, but you did laugh” in Genesis 18:15 (669‐70). The most obvious reason for retaining it in the poem is that it is an integral part of God’s rewarding Abraham for his faithfulness and hospitality, with Sarah’s good work and reasonable disbelief contrasted with the general shrewishness of Lot’s wife. But it also subtly reflects a point the poet makes a few lines earlier and Bernard makes in De conversione: sinners tend to believe that God does not see their misdeeds or know their thoughts (581‐7; De conv. 20.36).
97 In Sermones in Ps. XC he laments the number of men who enter the clergy for their own gain and warns his audience that such people “offend the Lord of hosts instead of thanking him when he bore among us so very much in order to impress on us the likeness of his own holiness” (QH 6.7, 14.5). Michael Calabrese and Eric Eliason object that “Cleanness is not a tolerant poem” (275), but
Bernard’s writings to the clergy reveal why that intolerance is both necessary and salutary.
De conversione ad clericos and the Clergy’s Need for Personal Holiness
A verse that recurs throughout Cleanness is the sixth Beatitude, Matthew
5:8: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.”9 Though Bernard wrote on the Beatitudes several times, one of his most influential sermons on that text is Sermo de conversione ad clericos, delivered to a gathering of secular clerics in
Paris in 1139 or 1140 and later expanded. Bernard took the opportunity to argue
(effectively, according to Geoffrey of Auxerre) against the rampant presumption and ambition that plagued the church at the time (Saïd 12‐3). The Pearl poet may have intended Cleanness as a partial paraphrase of De conversione, given the phrasing of his first attack on corrupt clergy:
9 AW note lines 29‐30, “As so saytz, to þat syʒt seche schal he neuer / Þat any vnclannesse hatz on, auwhere abowte,” as the poet’s inversion of this verse (112), but Hebrews 12:14 makes the same point: “Follow peace with all men and holiness: without which no man shall see God” (emphasis added [NASB: “the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord”]; cf. QH 17.1).
98 For wonder wroth is þat Wyʒ þat wroʒt alle þinges Wyth þe freke þat in fylþe folʒes Hym after— As reknez of relygioun þat reden and syngen, And aprochen to Hys presens, and prestez arn called; Thay teen vnto His temmple and temen to Hymselven, Reken with reuerence þay richen His auter, Þay hondel þer His aune body and vsen hit boþe. If þay in clannes be clos þay cleche gret mede; Bot if þay conterfete crafte and cortaysye wont, As be honest utwyth and inwith alle fylþez, Þen ar þay sinful himself, and sulpen altogeder Boþe God and His gere, and Hym to greme cachen.
For wondrous wroth is the One who wrought all things With the folk that in filth follow Him after— As men of religion who read and who sing, And approach to His presence, and priests are called; They teem to His temple and take oaths to Him, With worthy reverence they arrange his altar,10 They handle His own body and use it as well. If they are clothed in cleanness, they achieve great reward; But if they counterfeit skill and courtesy want, As seem honest outside and inside are all filth, Then are they sinful themselves, and defile altogether Both God and His gear and provoke Him to anger. (5‐16)
This passage, through line 32, paraphrases much of the expanded portion of De conversione, in which Bernard blasts the depth of corruption he sees in clerics of his day:
Filioli, QUIS DEMONSTRAVIT VOBIS FUGERE AB IRA VENTURA? Nemo enim magis iram meretur quam amicum simulans inimicus. [. . .]
10 This line is difficult to peg because multiple meanings of several words appear equally applicable. “Rekenly with reuerence” appears as an adverbial phrase elsewhere in Cleanness and similarly in Gawain, with “rekenly” bearing the sense of “worthily” or “nobly,” but reken can also mean “to cover” or “to deceive.” Rychen, likewise, could mean “arrange” or “enrich.” The poet might well have intended the ambiguity to make the audience think twice about the actions and attitudes being described.
99 Nec tu Deum putes, quae in magna domo sua a vasis irae aptis in interitum sustinet, approbare. Multi quidem veniunt, sed considera quis vocetur. [. . .] Mundicordes utique vocat Pater caelestis, qui non quaerunt sua sunt, sed quae Iesu Christi, nec quod sibi utile est, sed quod multas. [. . .] Vae filiis irae, qui se ministros gratiae profitentur! [. . .] Quid de munditia cordis loquar? Utinam non illud oblivioni dedisset tamquam mortuus a corde! [. . .] Utinam esset vel quod deforis est mundum, nec ea, quae corporalis est, maculata tunica inveniretur, ut oboediret vel haec in parte dicenti: MUNDAMINI, QUI FERTIS VASA DOMINI. [. . .] Curritur passim ad sacros Ordines, et reverenda ipsis quoque spiritibus angelicis ministeria homines apprehendunt sine reverentia, sine consideratione. [. . .] Ingrediuntur cum hac macula tabernaculum Dei viventis; inhabitant cum hac macula templum, sanctum Domini polluentes, iudicium multiplex accepturi, quod et tam gravissimas conscientias gerunt, et nihilominus sese ingerunt in sanctuarium Dei. Tales enim non modo non placant Deum, sed et magis irritant, dum videntur in cordibus suis dicere: NON REQUIRET. Irritant plane, et infensum reddunt sibi, vereor ne et his quibus eum propitiare debuerant.
Little children, ‘who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ No one deserves greater wrath than the enemy who pretends to be a friend. [. . .] Do not suppose that God approves all this, who in his great home endures the vessels of wrath fit for destruction. Many come, but consider who are called. [. . .] The heavenly Father calls pure of heart those who do not look to their own interests but those of Jesus Christ, those who do not seek their own advantage, but that of many. [. . .] Woe to the children of wrath who set themselves up as ministers of grace! [. . .] What shall I say about purity of heart? How I wish that it were not forgotten, as if dead at heart. [. . .] How I wish what is outside were clean, and what is physical were not found to be a soiled garment, so that purity of heart could say, ‘You have been purified, you who bear the Lord’s vessels.’ [. . .] People rush into holy orders all over the place, and, without awe, without stopping to think, men appropriate for themselves the ministry which awes angelic spirits. [. . .]
100 Stained like this, they go into the tabernacle of the living God. They dwell in the temple with these stains, profaning the Lord’s holy place, calling down upon themselves manifold judgment because no matter how weighed down they are with an overburdened conscience, they push themselves into the sanctuary of God. Not only do such men fail to please God, they irritate him far more, for in their hearts they say, ‘He will never see it.’ Of course, they irritate him, they enrage him against themselves, I am afraid, through the very things by which they ought to placate him. (19.31‐20.34, 20.36)
Though in the sermon as delivered, Bernard explicitly refused to cite examples of God’s wrath toward the worldly (3.4), here he does cite such examples as Sodom, both as a general reference to God’s judgment and as a thinly veiled reference to clerics being guilty of sodomy (20.34‐5). He also points out that marriage is preferable to holy orders for one who cannot remain celibate:
“It would without doubt have been better to marry than to burn, to be saved in the humble ranks of the faithful than to live less worthily in the lofty ranks of the clergy [. . .]. They abstain from the remedy afforded by marriage and give themselves up to all forms of vice” (20.36). This combination of observations would explain why the poet adds a passage to the Sodom narrative in which
God, echoing Song of Songs,11 endorses the delights of married love (697‐708); clerics grappling with any kind of sexual temptation need to be reminded of both
11 AW do not note this fact, but lines 707‐8 (“‘Luf‐lowe hem bytwene lasched so hote / Þat alle þe meschefez on mold moʒt hit not sleke’”) evokes Song of Songs 8:6b‐7a: “for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it.”
101 God’s plan of marriage and His judgment of anyone who takes sex outside the bounds He ordained.
Bernard’s purpose in De conversione is not simply to condemn, however; he does want to exhort his audience to genuine purity. Early in the sermon he quotes Ezekiel 18:23: “Is it my will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live?” (1.1). The bulk of the sermon deals with the ways in which the converted soul progresses through the Beatitudes toward true virtue (5.7‐18.31), and he intersperses the discourse with such warnings as “Let us steer clear of evil works then, let us not, confident of being in the net, willingly be derelict within the Church” (10.20). Though the
Pearl poet seems to prefer teaching by negative example, the same positive emphasis appears in the transitional sections, both in cautionary “war þe” statements and in repetitions of Matthew 5:8. Like Bernard’s calls to penance, the descriptions of the untouchables whom Jesus healed and of the ease with which one can clean a tarnished pearl are allegorical indicators of God’s desire to save sinners and of the relative ease with which one can maintain purity of heart through penance (1093‐1132; cf. De conv. 5.7, 21.37‐8). Those who are “willingly derelict within the Church” are thus without excuse and deserve the judgment typified by the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Babylon.
102 The Negative Exemplars
All of the Pearl poet’s other surviving poems focus on one major negative exemplar: Gawain, the Dreamer, and Jonah. By contrast, Cleanness goes through the whole of salvation history, pitting a host of negative exemplars against the positive example of Jesus’ earthly ministry. In De conversione, Bernard calls
Scripture “a beam of light, both informing men of their transgressions and bringing to light things hidden in darkness” (2.3); apparently the poet felt the need to increase his homily’s candlepower by multiplying examples. Precisely why he chose to expound on so many Scriptural narratives on uncleanness at once is anyone’s guess, but Bernard’s writings reveal common threads among the exemplars regarding impurity and punishment that show how they reinforce the need for purity of heart.
To be sure, Noah, Abraham, Lot, and Daniel can serve as both positive examples and allegorical figures of the three types of Christians (virgins, the continent, and the married faithful) set in contrast to the evil societies that surround them, but such a reading captures too little of the poem’s complexity.
Another possible basis for the poet’s approach is in Book Five of De consideratione, where Bernard points out that God is “no less the punishment of the perverse than the glory of the humble; for he is, so to speak, the spiritual principle of equity, unalterable and uncompromising, indeed, pervading
103 everywhere” (5.12.25). No matter how the wicked struggle against God’s will and pursue evil, they can never overcome God or achieve the goals of their desires, nor can they hide from God or from themselves (5.12.25‐6). Bernard does not use the examples seen in Cleanness, but they can be easily fitted into
Bernard’s pattern:
• The Parable of the Wedding Feast (51‐160). The man in foul clothes cannot
hide his disgraceful state from himself or from the king, and he is
confounded and shamed just by the king’s rebuke. He fears that any
attempt to defend himself will result in punishment, but his silence does
not save him from being cast out and tormented (149‐52). Apart from his
statements about the torture of being unable to hide from God or from
oneself, Bernard also argues that part of the eternal suffering of Hell is the
everlasting memory of past sins and awareness of guilt without the
possibility of penance (De cons. 5.12.25‐6; De conv. 4.5‐5.7, 10.20).
• The Fall of Satan (205‐34). Few Biblical figures illustrate the utter futility of
sin as well as Satan does. Not only does he fail in his ambition to “be lyke
to þat Lorde þat þe lyft made,” but he loses his position and his beauty,
the original grounds of his pride (205‐28). Now, clinging to his pride and
refusing to request pardon (230‐2), he proves the eternal validity of
Bernard’s rhetorical question: “What is so punishing as always to will
104 what will never be and always to oppose what will always be[?]” (De cons.
5.12.25).
• The Fall of Man (235‐48). The poet gives only the barest outline of Genesis
3, but his audience would assuredly have known the rest of the story.
Though the penalty God pronounces for breaking His commandment is
death (246), its first painful symptoms are loss of communion with God,
awareness of nakedness and guilt, and inability to hide. Much like the
man in foul clothes, Adam and Eve learn the hard way that their clothing
is in a sad state, unfit for the presence of the King, and their attempts to
defend themselves do not save them from being cast out of Eden and
receiving the promised sentence of death.
• The Flood (249‐544). “What is so condemned,” Bernard asks, “as a will
given over to this compulsion to desire and aversion so it no longer
experiences either except perversely and, therefore, wretchedly[?]”
(5.12.25). Antediluvian society certainly matches this description; “all the
thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times,” states Genesis 6:5,
and the poet adds, “vch freke forloyned fro þe ryʒt wayez” [each man
turned from the right way] (282). Unlike the Ninevites in Patience, Noah’s
neighbors do not seem to connect the coming disaster with their
105 misdeeds, so God has no reason to honor their pleas for mercy, making
their end all the more wretched.
• Sodom and Gomorrah (600‐1051). Scholars have long noted the poet’s skill
in retelling the Sodom narrative in a way that highlights the justice of
“[t]he righteous Lord our God, who deals perversely with the perverse”
(De cons. 5.12.25; cf. e.g. AW 28). The angels’ thwarting of the Sodomites’
attempted gang rape by making their eyes as blind as their hearts is only
one example (833‐92). Another is Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of
salt for disobeying both the command not to look back and the command
not to serve the angels salt (817‐28, 979‐84); the latter is the poet’s
invention, but it emphasizes her inability to hide her sour attitude from
God. “It is completely just,” states Bernard, “that he who is never
attracted to what is right should never attain what pleases him” (De cons.
5.12.25).
• The Downfall of Judah (1157‐280). Perhaps the poet’s best description of
God’s ability to punish sinners by frustrating their expectations comes in
His reaction to Judah’s faithlessness: “And þat wakned His wrath and
wrast hit so hyʒe / Þat He fylsened þe faythful in þe falce lawe / To forfare
þe falce in þe faythe trewe” [And that wakened His wrath and wrought it
so high / That he aided those faithful to the false law / To ruin those false
106 to the true faith] (1166‐8). These lines might remind the audience of
Habakkuk’s struggle to understand why God would purge the impure
idolatry of Judah with the extreme, gratuitous violence of the Babylonians
(Hab. 1:12‐17; Cleanness 1233‐303). But Nebuzaradan’s sack of Jerusalem is
only one part of God’s plan. As He promised Habakkuk (2:4‐19), the
Babylonians receive their comeuppance just a few hundred lines later.
• Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness (1281‐332, 1651‐708). Though Daniel in
Cleanness does not remind Belshazzar of Nebuchadnezzar’s first attempt
to make himself a god (Dan. 3),12 he does remark that Nebuchadnezzar
had known God and had forgotten Him in his pride (1651‐60; cf. 1313‐14).
God had not forgotten Nebuchadnezzar, however, and immediately
pronounced and executed judgment on him when the king blasphemed
again (1661‐80). His madness taught him the same lesson God would later
teach one Saul of Tarsus, of which Bernard reminds Eugene: “‘It is hard
for you,’ he says, ‘to kick against the goad.’ That is, it is not hard for the
goad, but for the kicker” (5.12.25).
• Belshazzar’s Feast (1149‐56, 1333‐1804). A man to whom nothing is sacred
save his own will, Belshazzar is accustomed to treating his gods like his
subjects, honoring those that appear to give him success and destroying
12 The poet does, however, list Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael—alias Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—among the Hebrew prisoners in line 1301.
107 the idols of those that fail him (1340‐56). Desecrating the Temple vessels is
part of the same pattern of behavior (1425‐1500), but Belshazzar has finally
crossed the one God truly capable of poetic justice; he is “struck by a
righteousness which knows not how to yield since it is also fortitude” (De
cons. 5.12.25). The divinely‐directed Persian invaders beat him to death
just as he has beaten his gods (1787‐96).
Similar analysis follows from Bernard’s twofold definition of purity of heart in De moribus et officio episcoporum: “it seeks both the glory of God and the advantage of one’s neighbor; that is to say that the bishop in all he does and says seeks nothing of his own, but only the honor of God, his neighbors’ salvation, or both together” (3.10; cf. De conv. 19.32). Satan and Nebuchadnezzar seek to usurp God’s glory for themselves, while Belshazzar and the kings of Judah give glory to idols instead of God, and the poet would reasonably expect his audience to know that part of Satan’s deception of Eve was the lie “you shall be as Gods
[sic]” (Gen. 3:6). The societies of both Sodom and the pre‐Flood world explicitly sought the disadvantage of neighbors, especially through sexual perversion.
Likewise, Adam and Eve both fail to look out for their neighbors’ salvation, Eve by tempting Adam and Adam by eating the fruit “Þat enpoysened alle peplez
þat parted fro hem boþe” [That poisoned all people that descended from them both] (242).
108 Other portions of Bernard’s reform‐centered writings may have influenced the Pearl poet’s choice of exempla for Cleanness. In De conversione, for example, Bernard argues that just as no one who discovers filth on his clothes hesitates to change out of them, anyone who discovers filth in his soul should be ill at ease in that state (3.4); he does not cite the Parable of the Wedding Feast, but the connection would be easy to make. The comparison of the shriven soul to
“parchmen shaven” in line 1134 also echoes De conversione; Bernard compares the memory to “cheap, flimsy parchment” that has been soaked through with the ink of sin and states that only God can keep the memory intact while erasing the stains so that even those bad memories can work together for our good (15.28).
And myriad sermons, letters, and treatises that do not deal specifically with clerical reform also include discussions of major and minor points included in
Cleanness; to cite only one example, the inclusion of “bobaunce and bost and bolnande priyde” among the catalogue of vices recalls several of the stages of pride in De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (179).
Conclusion
Whatever the actual spiritual state of the clerics to whom Cleanness was originally addressed, both the history and the literature of the period provide ample evidence that the poet had a right to worry that they were Christians in name only. Bernard had the same concern when one Ardutio, a man of dubious
109 character, was elected bishop of Geneva, so he wrote Ardutio a letter with the following caution: “If holiness has not preceded your election, at least see that it follows after it. [. . .] But if, on the other hand, you take pleasure in being more haughty than holy, I shall expect not your reward but your fall” (Epistolae 27).
The Pearl poet offers the same hope and the same caution in Cleanness, but just as
Bernard had to come down hard on his audience in De conversione ad clericos, the poet uses the negative exemplars in the bulk of the poem to drive home the seriousness of the matter. Those who abuse God’s mercy and are “willingly derelict within the Church,” he states, will find themselves on the receiving end of God’s poetic justice.
110
PART THREE
Pearl: The Pursuit of God
What else but a thief is he who would steal your soul, the precious pearl of Christ?
‐‐Bernard of Clairvaux to Fulk, later Archdeacon of Langres
One way or another the thing had to die. Perpetual springtime is not allowed. You were not cutting the wood of life according to the grain. There are various possible ways in which it cd. have died tho’ both the parties went on living. You have been treated with a severe mercy.
‐‐C. S. Lewis to Sheldon Vanauken
±±±
Chapter Six Saf by Ryʒt?: Merit and Grace in the Narrative of Pearl and Bernard’s Sermons and Treatises 112
Chapter Seven My Lemman Swete: The Dreamer, the Pearl Maiden, and Bernard’s Degrees of Love for God 136
Chapter Eight Vnavysed, Forsoþe: The Dreamer’s Ignorance and Bernard’s Discussions of Knowledge, Reason, and Will 152
111
CHAPTER SIX
Saf by Ryʒt?: Merit and Grace in the Narrative of Pearl and Bernard’s Sermons and Treatises
One advantage to using the dream‐vision genre as a teaching tool is that the dreamer is invariably clueless about something important. Boethius proved the effectiveness of this style of presentation, and later medieval writers eagerly followed his lead. Fourteenth‐century poets like Langland and Chaucer took the didactic allegorical dream‐vision to new heights, but Pearl is unusual in its technical intricacy and in its ability to present truth in a compelling form without heavy‐handed allegory. The character of the grief‐stricken Dreamer, who refuses any and all comfort and whose muddy thinking about life, love, and other mysteries drives his confrontation with the vision of his deceased and glorified daughter, is drawn so realistically that many scholars have concluded that the poem is at least partly autobiographical.
Whatever real‐world events may or may not have prompted the composition of Pearl, the Dreamer definitely serves as a negative exemplar, set against the didactic but positive exemplar of the Pearl Maiden. The Dreamer also appears to be the sort of layman whose only exposure to Scripture and theology is through the liturgy, and the poem is shot through with Scripture references
112 with specific liturgical ties. Perhaps it was written for someone much like the
Dreamer, who would receive correction more readily through a poem than from a treatise or sermon. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermones de tempore, Sermones de sanctore, and Sermones xvii in Ps. XC “Qui habitat,” bolstered by his Sententiae and the treatises De gratia et libero arbitrio and De baptismo, provide explanations for the Pearl poet’s use of Scripture passages that, in a homiletic setting, explain key points about merit, grace, and salvation that the Dreamer consistently gets wrong.
The Grace/Works Dichotomy and Bernard’s De gratia et libero arbitrio
A man beset by mistaken, earth‐bound assumptions, the Dreamer finds his unexamined belief in salvation by works challenged by the Pearl Maiden’s repeated assertions that “þe grace of God is gret inoghe” (601‐660). Modern readers may be surprised at how heavily Bernard emphasizes God’s grace in his writings. In fact, one of the most widely influential medieval works on grace is
Bernard’s treatise De gratia et libero arbitrio, later cited favorably by such major authors as Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas (McGinn 3, 14, 18‐19, 39‐50).
This treatise is thus the most logical place to begin exploring the fundamental flaws in the Dreamer’s thought.
113 Bernard begins his treatise by relating a conversation he once had on the subject. His interlocutor objected to Bernard’s reliance on grace as seeming to exclude the possibility of merit. Bernard set him straight thus:
«Ubi ergo», ait, «sunt merita nostra, aut ubi est spes nostra?» ‐‐ «Audi», inquam: «NON EX OPERIBUS IUSTATIAE QUAE FECIMUS NOS, SED SECUNDUM SUAM MISERICORDIAM SALVOS NOS FECIT. Quid enim? Tu forte putaveras tua te creasse merita, tua posse salvari iustitia, qui nec saltem Dominum Iesum dicere potes nisi in Spiritu Sancto? Itane oblitus es qui dixerit: SINE ME NIHIL POTESTIS FACERE? et: NEQUE CURRENTIS, NEQUE VOLENTIS, SED MISERENTIS SET DEI?»
“Where, then,” said he, “are our merits, or where our hope?” – “Listen,” I replied, “He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of His own mercy. What? Did you imagine that you create your own merits, that you can be saved by your own righteousness, who cannot even say ‘Jesus is Lord’ without the Holy Spirit? Or have you forgotten the words: ‘Without me you can do nothing,’ and ‘It depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy’?” (1.1)
The will of any rational creature, he argues, is by definition capable of free choice because it cannot be coerced; however, because of the Fall, man is no longer able not to sin or to feel sorrow, and while he is free to will, he lacks the power to will the good. Grace enables man to will the good and to accomplish it, but it does not force anyone to will the good. The will’s consent to work with grace is the only ground for merit and for salvation (6.16‐18, 8.26, 11.36, 13.42‐45, 14.46‐47).
Viewed through this lens, the Dreamer’s discourse reveals two major problems in his understanding that the Pearl Maiden must push him to repair.
First, he lacks a proper understanding of grace, especially with regard to the
114 operation of the will. His self‐centeredness blinds him to the fact that his merits, such as they are, exist only because God’s grace enabled him to will the good.
Second, he tends to blame everyone but himself for his inordinate, self‐ destructive grief in the early parts of the poem. He states that “Þaʒ kynde of
Kryst me comfort kenned, / My wreched wylle in wo ay wraʒte” (55‐6), almost as if his will were beyond his control. Bernard argues rather that the will cannot be forced by anything but itself, consenting to love something else more than God
(12.39). Following Augustine, Bernard would diagnose the Dreamer’s “wreched wylle” as a symptom of disordered loves; he states in the Sententiae that when love “moves itself beyond proper measure—toward those things which it ought not to desire—it is called avarice” and that “it is the fact that one loves badly which is evil” (3.26). He further notes that “we offend not in having [emotions like grief] but in employing them badly” and that Paul “warns us that a brother can be consumed by too much grief” (3.86), statements which clearly apply to the
Dreamer.
De gratia et libero arbitrio only partially illuminates the Dreamer’s errors, however. The bulk of the poem deals with his inability to accept the exalted status of the Pearl Maiden because she possessed no merits of her own when she died. Bernard does state in that infants cannot will because they do not fully control their reason (2.5), but his discussion is mostly concerned with the state of
115 competent adults; applied to Pearl, it highlights the ways in which the Dreamer misunderstands himself. Other sermons and sentences give better insight into his misunderstanding of his daughter.
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
The most prominent Scripture passage in Pearl, and the heart of the Pearl
Maiden’s lecturing of the Dreamer, is the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard from Matthew 20:1‐16, in which day laborers hired at different times throughout the day all receive the same wage, much to the dismay of those who were hired first. In most Roman uses, including those of Sarum and York, this parable is the
Gospel reading for Septuagesima, which marks a turn away from the festivities of Christmastide and toward the penitential solemnities of Lent. James P.
Oakden has highlighted a number of echoes of the Septuagesima liturgy throughout Pearl (343‐7). Cistercian Use also uses this reading multiple times for
Septuagesima (Waddell 206‐208). However, Bernard does not use it in the
Septuagesima sermons preserved in his Sermones de tempore; rather, it appears obliquely in the ninth sermon of the Lenten series Sermones xvii in Ps. XC “Qui habitat” as Bernard expounds on the verse “Because you, O Lord, are my hope: you have made the Most High your refuge.”
116 Bernard distinguishes the “penny” in the parable, which he reads as representing eternal life, from the difference in merit made plain at the resurrection:
Sit ergo, licet electis pariter omnibus, unus idemque denarius vitae reddendus aeternae, et in ipsa tamen sicut differt stella a stella in claritate, et alia claritas solis, alia claritas lunae, alia claritas stellarum, sic erit et resurrectio mortuorum; et quamvis domus una, diversae tamen in ea sunt mansions, ut videlicet quantum quidem ad aeternitatem et sufficientiam, et qui parum, non minoretur, et qui multum, non abundet, quantum ad eminentiam vero et discretionem meritorum, unusquisque accipiat secundum suum laborem, ne quid omnino pereat quod in Christo sit seminatum.
In this way, all those chosen will together receive the one same penny of eternal life. And yet, just as star differs from star in glory, and just as the brightness of the sun is one thing, the brightness of the moon another, and the brightness of the stars yet another, so it will be with the resurrection of the dead. And although there is one house there are in it many rooms, so that as regards eternity and sufficiency, he who has gathered much will have nothing over. But with regard to preeminence and the distinction of merits, each shall receive according to his labors, so that nothing whatever which has been sown in Christ may be lost. (QH 9.4)
However, Bernard’s larger point in this sermon is that no one in this life can presume to know what reward he will receive in the next. Even the martyrs were not completely pure of heart, he notes, and the only true basis of hope and reward is Christ. “Someone else,” he says, “may pretend to have merit, he may pride himself on having borne the burden and heat of day, he may say he has fasted twice a week, and finally he may boast that he is not like other men. But
‘for me it is good to cling to my God; to place my hope in the Lord my God’”
117 (9.5). He makes the same point in a number of other sermons, such as those for the Feast of All Saints, and in his Apologia to William of St. Thierry:
Nam etsi fulgebunt iusti sicut sol in regno Patris eorum, alii tamen aiis ampulis, pro diversitate meritorum. Quae sane merita sciendum non sic in tantum opera videantur, illic etiam corda nihil impediat intueri. [. . .] Et de operibus quidem saepe incerta, et ob hoc periculosa sententia fertur, cum multoties minus iustitiae habeant, qui magis operantur.
All the saints will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom, yet because of differences in merit, some will shine more than others. In the present age, of course, merits cannot be judged, but in the next, men will be able to judge them easily enough. [. . .] Judgment passed on the basis of works alone is risky, since it is liable to error; it often happens that those who do the most work have the least virtue. (Apologia 4.9)
Moreover, in a letter to his friend Bruno when the latter was weighing whether to accept consecration as Archbishop of Cologne, Bernard names the thief on the cross, Mary Magdalene, Ambrose, and Paul as individuals who received extraordinary grace and were suddenly elevated from the depths of sin to the heights of sanctity; because these cases were clearly exceptional, they cannot serve as exemplars of any sort of rule (8.2‐3).
Carleton Brown identifies a number of other patristic and medieval treatises that likewise admit grades of reward, all of which apparently stand in stark contrast to the Pearl Maiden’s supposedly egalitarian commentary on the
118 parable (132‐7).1 Even if Brown’s reading is correct, the greater point of
Bernard’s sermon still applies: the Dreamer has been putting his hope in earthly treasures and earthly deeds, not in Christ. Other scholars contradict Brown’s reading, however. For example, contrary to Brown’s understanding of the Pearl
Maiden’s insistence on equality of reward in the New Jerusalem, Malcolm
Andrew and Ronald Waldron read lines 569‐88 as meaning equality of salvation
(80). This interpretation makes sense of the Pearl Maiden’s assertion in the same passage that she has more happiness and glory by right than anyone could hope to earn by merit because she is an innocent. The Dreamer’s understanding of merit cannot apply to innocent children; they are a special class, like the exceptions Bernard mentions to Bruno.
A further complication of Brown’s reading arises when one looks at another sermon in which Bernard alludes to this parable: Sermon 31 of Sermones in Cantica Canticorum. Here, the penny represents the Beatific Vision, which no one may receive in this life but all the redeemed will receive equally in eternity
(SC 31.1). Similarly, in De diligendo Deo, he states that in Heaven, and especially after the Resurrection, God Himself becomes the reward of love for His beloved
(15.39‐40). He elaborates further in the Sententiae:
Ipse Deus qui meta fuit et dux itineris eorum, merces est operis, praemium laboris, corona certaminis. Ibi plena et tota securitas,
1 But see the notes on patristic sources in AW 77‐84.
119 vita sub Deo, vita cum Deo, vita in Deo, vita ipse Deus. Unus denarius, unum bravium, eadem gloria omnium Deus est, participatus nec divisus, communis et singularis nec usu deficiens, nec tempore veterascens, nec participatione decrescens.
God himself, who was their goal and the director of their journey, is the reward for their effort, the payment for their work, their crown of victory. There is complete and total assurance—life under God, life with God, life in God, life which is God himself. God is the single coin, the sole prize, the same glory for all. He is participation without division, common to all yet utterly unique, not lessened by others’ enjoyment of him and not growing old in time or decreasing because of their possession of him. (3.91)
The Pearl Maiden’s ability to love God is still a special gift of grace, but this line of thinking would explain her statements that heavenly rewards are given in full, whether little or much, and without rank or measure (Pearl 493, 601‐4).
Holy Innocents and the Fate of Infants
For most of the poem, the Dreamer must grapple with the fact that the
Pearl Maiden has gained direct admittance into Heaven without having attained any merits beyond the regeneration of baptism. One of the prayers for the burial of a baptized infant might have suggested this debate—and, indeed, the plot of the entire poem:
Omnipotens et mitissime Deus, qui omnibus parvulis renatis fonte Baptismatis dum migrant ad saeculo, sine ullis eorum meritis, vitam illico largiris aeternam, sicut animae hujus parvuli hodie credimus te fecisse: fac nos, Domine, per intercessionem beatus Marias semper Virginis et omnium Sanctorum tuorum, hic purificatis tibi mentibus famulari, et in paradiso cum beatis
120 parvulis perenniter sociari. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Oh Almighty and most merciful God, who dost immediately grant eternal life to every little child who goeth forth from this world after being born again in the baptismal font, without any merit of his own, even as we believe Thou hast done this day for the soul of this little child; grant we beseech Thee, Oh Lord, through the intercession of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, and of all Thy saints, that we may serve Thee with clean hearts and be united with these blessed children for ever in heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (Oakden 340‐1)
Given the Dreamer’s inability to heed even the “kynde of Kryst” (Pearl 55), his rejection of the Church in this regard is unsurprising. What may surprise the reader, however, is the fact that the readings for the burial of a child have no bearing on the narrative (Thurston; Oakden 340, 342). Instead, several plot points hang on the readings for the Feast of Holy Innocents (Sarum Breviary), especially Revelation 14:1‐5:
And I beheld, and lo a lamb stood upon mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty‐four thousand, having his name, and the name of his Father, written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the noise of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder; and the voice which I heard, was as the voice of harpers, harping on their harps. And they sung as it were a new canticle, before the throne, and before the four living creatures, and the ancients; and no man could say the canticle, but those hundred forty‐four thousand, who were purchased from the earth. These are they who were not defiled with women: for they are virgins. These follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were purchased from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb: And in their mouth there was found no lie; for they are without spot before the throne of God.
121
Why would the poet favor Childermas over the burial rite in crafting his storyline?
Ian Bishop’s Pearl in Its Setting provides a good explication of the association between the Pearl Maiden and the Holy Innocents (104‐112), as does
Oakden’s “The Liturgical Influence in Pearl” (348‐50), although neither goes into detail about the reasons the association is necessary to the plot. If the occasion were a real event, the child’s age would naturally have suggested the link.
However, Bernard’s homily for the Feast of Holy Innocents makes the connection between the death of baptized infants and the slaughter of the Innocents without reference to specific cases. Bernard discusses the three types of martyrdom experienced by St. Stephen (by will and act), St. John the Evangelist (by will without act), and the Holy Innocents (by act without will), and in acknowledging the debate over infants’ lack of merit, he asserts that anyone who believes that the Innocents are not martyrs must also deny that baptized infants are saved (ST
“De Ss. Stephano” 1‐2). He also states that the Innocents are “truly and in a special sense Thy martyrs, O Lord, because the power and excellence of Thy grace Thou hast clearly manifested in them, in whom neither men nor angels could discover any merit” (2, emphasis added). The Dreamer has badly misunderstood
122 the sheer gratuity2 of the Innocents’ salvation, which has been extended to the
Pearl Maiden. Bishop and Oakden both point out that the Innocents received the rewards of martyrdom in place of the grace bestowed by baptism (Bishop 108‐9,
144 n. 22; Oakden 348); Bernard clarifies that “the martyrdom they endured for
Christ’s sake was sufficient to sanctify them, just as circumcision sufficed for the salvation of other infants at that time, and as baptism suffices now, without any voluntary co‐operation” (ST “De Ss. Stephano” 2). While maintaining the importance of both willing and doing meritorious acts (3), Bernard’s focus here and in his other sermons is on God’s mercy and grace, without which neither act nor intent counts for anything. He underscores this point again in his first sermon for Palm Sunday:
[Q]ui parvulus natus est et primam elegit aciem parvulorum, ‐‐ Innocentes loquor‐‐, hodie quoque parvulos a gratia non excludit, quia nec pietati incongruum, nec maiestati eius difficile est, ut suppleat munus gratiae quod minus in eis habet natura possibile.
He who was born for us as a Little One (Is. ix. 6) and Who chose as His first fruits a throng of little ones,—I speak of the Holy Innocents—does not now exclude the little ones from grace, because it is in accordance with His mercy and certainly within the range of His Omnipotence to supply in them by grace for the incapacity of nature. (ST “In Ramis Palmarum” 1.3)
2 Free, gracious, grace‐based, and gratuitious—not required by logic or law. (The Oxford English Dictionary considers the definition of “gratuity” as “divine favor” to be obsolete, but I have seen it with some regularity in Modern English commentaries on medieval theological texts, such as Michael Casey’s introduction to the seventh of Bernard’s Parabolae [86].)
123 In a note on Bernard’s reference to circumcision in the sermon for Holy
Innocents, quoted above, the Priest of Mount Melleray directs the reader to a letter‐treatise commonly known as De baptismo (1: 419). This letter to Hugh of St.
Victor in answer to an unnamed theologian’s questions further explores the ideas of salvation he addresses in the Holy Innocents sermon. Bernard begins by making a series of points about the possibility of salvation by faith alone (sola fides) when sacraments are unobtainable before death (Ep. 77.1‐8). He then acknowledges that children under a certain age cannot experience “the faith which comes from a conversion of the heart to God” but states that baptized children are saved through the faith of others; “[i]t is entirely right, and a reflection of God’s loving‐kindness, that grace should allow those to whom age denies faith of their own to benefit from that of others. [. . .] It cannot be doubted that the stain contracted from others can and should be cleansed by those others’ faith” (77.9). Catholic practice at the turn of the twentieth century generally regarded the age of reason as seven (Delaney), but even if the medieval definition differed, it certainly would not have been as low as two.
Hugh’s letter that prompted De baptismo has not survived to reveal the precise nature of the controversy, but the Dreamer’s opinions likely align him with the unnamed but worrisome theologian.3 Moreover, his demeanor and
3 Emero Stiegman suggests that the name Hugh withheld was Peter Abelard (90).
124 obstinacy fit Bernard’s assessment of his opponent: “someone who finds it irksome to share the general view [. . .] in what he thinks and says, he either does not know how to keep within the bounds of moderation, or he feigns not to” (Ep.
77.11). David Aers comments at length on the Dreamer’s singularity and refusal of community, especially in terms of the Church (57‐60, 64‐66, 68‐73); Bernard would see this state as a dangerous level of pride (De gradibus 14).4 However, the depiction of the Pearl Maiden as being like the Holy Innocents, wholly without merit but saved by grace and admitted into the New Jerusalem, gives the lie to the Dreamer’s works‐based understanding of salvation. As an innocent, she is
“saf by ryʒt” (661‐720), just as Bernard argues from both God’s justice and His love that young children are saved by the faith of others (Ep. 77.9). Another of her refrains asserting the gratuity of her salvation also echoes Bernard’s assertions about infants’ fate in both the sermons and De baptismo: “For þe grace of God is gret inoghe” (612). The text never clarifies whether the Dreamer has been active in the sacramental life of the Church prior to his vision, but his harping on the Pearl Maiden’s lack of sacramental experience indicates that he has not been meeting the grace mediated by the sacraments with the faith
Bernard argues is necessary to make them effective; the Pearl Maiden, on the
4 Aers focuses on the Dreamer’s loneliness and individualism as major features of the poem. He does not use the word “singularity” that I can find, but that is Bernard’s term in De gradibus for the behavior of monks who are more concerned with their own behavior than with actively living in community. (See the discussion of Gawain’s singularity in chapter 2.)
125 other hand, has received the gift of grace through the faith of others at her baptism, grace that is “gret inoghe” to overcome her lack of years and acknowledge her lack of guilt.
The New Jerusalem, the Church, and the Bride of Christ
Another reading from John’s Apocalypse informs the end of the poem: the description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22. When the Pearl
Maiden leads the Dreamer to a point where he can see her home, he states repeatedly that it looks exactly like John’s description, which the poet paraphrases (973‐1080). Critics frequently note that illuminated copies of the
Apocalypse were popular devotional tools in the late fourteenth century, but the state of the Dreamer’s library is never mentioned in the poem. In both the Sarum
Rite and the York Rite, the liturgical use of Revelation 21 was limited to the celebration or commemoration of the dedication of a church. Still, Bernard’s fifth sermon for such a feast shows other possible reasons for the connection between the Pearl Maiden and the New Jerusalem than the most obvious ones.
All of Bernard’s sermons for the feast of a dedication of a church emphasize the spiritual nature of the Church—the individual as the temple of the
Holy Spirit, the community as the Church and as the Body of Christ, and the building of the Church as a spiritual house for God that will be completed in
Heaven (ST “In Dedicatione Ecclesiae” 1‐6). Having repeatedly made these
126 connections, Bernard goes on in his fifth sermon from Revelation 21:2 to “the fact that the spouse of Christ signifies the same thing as the city of God, that both are identical with the temple and again with the house [of God]” (5.1). After explaining that the soul in itself is worth nothing but in God is of incomparable worth (5.2‐7), he adds:
Ex hoc iam in illa superiori specula vel paululum immorantes, quaeramus domum Dei, quaeramus templum, quaeramus civitatem, quaeramus et sponsam. Neque enim oblitus sum, sed cum metu et reverentia dico: Nos sumus. Nos, inquam, sumus, sed in corde Dei; nos sumus, sed ipsius dignatione, non dignitate nostra. Non usurpet quod Dei est, ut non apponat homo magnificare seipsum; alioquin quod illius erat faciens Deus, exaltantem se humiliabit. Quod etsi nos puerili animositate gratis salvari volumus, merito non salvamur. Excludit miseriae dissimulatio miserationem, nec dignatio locum habet, ubi fuerit praesumptio dignitatis; provocat vero compassionem humilis confessio passionis.
Let us now take our stand for a little while upon our lofty watch‐ tower and see if we can thence discover the house of God, the temple of God, the city of God, yea, the spouse of God. [. . .] I affirm confidently, yet with fear and awe, that we ourselves are that house, that temple, that city, that spouse. We are all these, I repeat, but in the heart of God and by His gracious condescension, not through any merit of our own. We must not usurp what belongs to God, “so that man may no more presume to magnify himself upon earth” (Ps. x., juxta H. 18), otherwise God will make us descend to our own level, since He humbles such as exalt themselves (Luke xiv. 11). But if through silly pride5 we refuse to be saved “freely by His grace,” we shall not be deemed worthy of salvation at all. For by dissembling our misery we exclude mercy, by presuming on our merits we leave no room for grace. On the other hand, the humble
5 “Childish pride” is an even better translation of puerili animositate.
127 acknowledgment of our wretchedness draws down upon us the compassion of God. (5.8)
In other words, the New Jerusalem is both a promised place and an allegorical representation of the Church, the Bride of Christ, made up of many different members who are all equally important to God. The Pearl Maiden thus does not simply live in the New Jerusalem; as a bride of Christ baptized into the Church, she and the city represent each other on a host of allegorical levels.
For most, if not all, of Pearl, the Dreamer cannot make the kinds of allegorical jumps Bernard’s writings demand. He objects to the Pearl Maiden’s identification of herself as a bride of Christ and a queen in Heaven, assuming that this merit‐less infant has somehow dethroned Mary and entered into a literal marriage with Christ (409‐92, 589‐600, 745‐92). He also fails to grasp the distinction between the earthly Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem (913‐60), and in trying to cross the river to be with the Pearl Maiden again, he attempts to usurp what is God’s (283‐8, 961‐5, 1147‐64). Moreover, he suffers from exactly the sort of childish pride Bernard warns against; he does presume on his merits, and one could argue that he dissembles his real misery by harping on his grief—
“Sir, ʒe haf your tale mysetente,” the Pearl Maiden chides, but she does not identify the purpose of the distortion (257). Though he claims that “Crystes mersy and Mary and Jon, / Þise arn þe grounde of alle my blysse” (383‐4), he clearly understands neither mercy nor grace, even as he benefits from both
128 through the very vision that challenges him. Aers points out that the Dreamer’s ability to see exactly what John saw is itself an instance of the grace he misconstrues (67). The text never indicates whether the Dreamer’s recollection of
John’s description of the New Jerusalem includes the city “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2), but even if the Dreamer cannot connect the dots, the poet may well have expected the audience to understand the link between the Pearl Maiden as a bride of Christ, the bride‐like New Jerusalem, the Church as the Bride of Christ, and even Bernard’s own explication of the image. 6
The Pearl Maiden’s spiritual status as a bride of Christ has implications far beyond the allegorical connections between her and the New Jerusalem, however. As I have mentioned elsewhere, Bernard writes of God’s spiritual espousal of Mary in De laudibus virginis matris and uses the wedding imagery in
Song of Songs to represent the delights of contemplation in Sermones in Cantica
6 This connection also argues against the idea put forth by Priscilla Martin that the Pearl poet believed that the elect include only the 144,000 virgins of Revelation 14 (319; cf. Pearl 613‐708, 786‐7, 846‐7). If the New Jerusalem is a representation of the Church, then all who are within the Church will be allowed entrance into the city after death; the Dreamer cannot enter simply because his life on earth is not yet over (315‐24). In fact, Bernard either states or implies several times in his sermons for the Feast of All Saints that all believers are included in the procession that follows the Lamb (SS “Omnium Sanctorum” 1‐5). Moreover, Revelation 7, which the Sarum and York Breviaries prescribe to be read multiple times on All Saints’ Day, includes both the sealing of the 144,000 redeemed from Israel and the innumerable multitude redeemed from the Great Tribulation, neither of which appears to be identical with the 144,000 virgins of Revelation 14.
129 Canticorum, but he also remarks on salvation as spiritual marriage in the
Sententiae:
Tres sunt species nuptiarum: prima, reconciliationis per fidem, in qua sunt tria fercula: peccatorum ablutio, gratiae consecutio, naturae reformatio; secunda, adoptionis per devotionem, in qua etiam sunt eloquii divini consolatio, alimoniae caelestis communio, dulcedinis internae praelibatio; tertia est glorificationis per caritatem: cuius fercula sunt aeterna incorruptio, vera glorificatio, perennis Dei visio.
There are three kinds of weddings. The first is the marriage of reconciliation through faith, in which there are three banquet courses: the remission of sin, the effect of grace, and the reformation of nature. The second is the marriage of adoption through devotion, in which are served the consolation of divine eloquence, the sharing of heavenly nourishment, and a libation of internal sweetness. The third is that of glorification through love, whose courses are eternal incorruptibility, true glory, and the endless vision of God. (Sent. 2.65)7
Though the Pearl Maiden has not experienced much of the first and second weddings on earth, as the Dreamer should have, the third features prominently in her initial dialogue with the Dreamer. Far from being lost in death, she is “in cofer so comly clente [. . .] / Hereinne to lenge for euer and play, / Þer mys nee morning com neuer nere” (259, 261‐2), her soul thus preserved incorruptible.
Once she has drawn him out of his initial bewilderment, she goes on to further explain her station:
[‘]Þou wost well when þy perle con schede I watz ful ʒong and tender of age;
7 Cf. Sent. 3.115, applying this scheme to John the Baptist.
130 But my Lorde þe Lombe þurʒ Hys godhede, He toke myself to Hys maryage, Corounde me quene in blysse to brede In lenghe of dayez þat euer schal wage; And sesed in alle Hys herytage Hys lef is. I am holy Hysse. Hys prese, Hys prys, and Hys parage Is rote and grounde of alle my blysse.’
‘Your pearl you know you did resign When in young and tender years was she; Yet my Lord, the Lamb, through power divine Myself He chose His bride to be, And crowned me queen in bliss to shine, While days shall endure eternally. Dowered with His heritage all is she That is His love. I am wholly His: On His glory, honour, and high degree Are built and founded all my bliss.’ (411‐20)
Though the true nature of heavenly glory (see below) and the reward of the
Beatific Vision take some driving home for the Dreamer, the fact remains that the
Pearl Maiden’s spiritual marriage matches Bernard’s description nicely.
All Saints’ Day and the Community of Believers
Andrew and Waldron note that the Pearl Maiden’s discussion of who is
“saf by ryʒt” in lines 675‐84 contains allusions to the Beatitudes (85), a passage that also appears in lines 403‐6. Matthew 5:1‐12, which contains the Beatitudes, is the Gospel reading for the Mass on All Saints’ Day and forms the basis of
Bernard’s first sermon for the feast. His explanation of the Beatitudes in connection with the saints highlights the lack of these virtues in the Dreamer,
131 and his discussions of the communion of saints and of kinds of sanctity in his third and fifth sermons for All Saints’ also speak to the Dreamer’s confusion.
The Pearl Maiden refers specifically to the blessings of the meek (v. 4:
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land”; Pearl 403‐6) and of the righteous or pure in heart (v. 8: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see
God”; Pearl 675‐84).8 Bernard says that meekness is a necessary virtue for the poor in spirit, so that they do not give way to grumbling, and possessing the earth refers to self‐control (SS “Omnium Sanctorum” 1.9); although the Pearl
Maiden’s point has more to do with the saints’ rejection of pride—“Maysterful mod and hyʒe pryde, / I hete þe, arn heterly hated here” (401‐2)—the Dreamer’s lack of self‐control and propensity for grumbling prove him to be in need of meekness by Bernard’s definition as well as the Pearl Maiden’s. Purity in heart,
Bernard says, comes through prayer and confession, but only God can make these remedies effective (SS “Omnium Sanctorum” 1.13). The Pearl Maiden likewise points out the need for both grace and contrition for salvation of the sinful man (661‐4); since the Dreamer is still sinful and cannot return to that state of innocence she says is “saf by ryʒt,” he must abandon his faulty view of merit and work with God’s grace to achieve righteousness.
8 See also the discussions of the Beatitudes in Patience and Cleanness in Part Two.
132 The fifth sermon for All Saints’ also shows the folly of the Dreamer’s misconceptions of heavenly glory. Bernard points out that “All Saints” refers to the angels, saints who have died, and saints who remain alive and whose sanctity has not yet been revealed (SS “Omnium Sanctorum” 5.1). The victorious dead, glorified by God, are now beyond any possible temptation to pride, “[f]or there is no room for vanity in minds that are wholly filled with truth” (5.3‐4). For the living, however, giving reverence to departed saints should prompt a desire to join the community of saints in Heaven (5.4‐11). The Dreamer seems incapable of understanding that his earthly categories do not apply in Heaven, especially with regard to glorification and community. The Pearl Maiden has to explain three times that she is a queen in Heaven, not the Queen of Heaven, and that ambition has no place among the saints (401‐2, 433‐96, 601‐22, 781‐792).
Glory there is not the zero‐sum game the Dreamer tries to make it:
‘Of more and lasse in Godez ryche,’ Þat gentyl sayde, ‘lys no joparde, ……………………………………………… Among vus commez nouþer strot ne stryf, Bot vchon enlé we wolde were fyf— Þe mo þe myryer, so God me blesse! In company gret our luf con þryf, In honour more and neuer þe lesse.[’]
‘Of more and less in God’s domains No question arises,’ said that maid, …………………………………………… ‘No grudge or grievance do we bear,
133 But for each one five we wish there were. The more the merrier, so God me bless! Our love doth thrive where many fare In honour more and never less.’ (601‐2, 848‐52)
Indeed, so great is her desire to share her bliss with her father that she prays for, and God grants, the opportunity to speak with him in this dream, correct his faulty theology, and give him a glimpse of the joy he will forfeit if he continues in his error (965‐8).
Bernard highlights the saints’ longing for the living to achieve perfection in several of his sermons for All Saints’ and points out in his third sermon that while the saints are “without spot,” they are not yet “without wrinkle” (cf. Rev.
14:5, Eph. 5:27); their joy is not yet complete, partly because they have not yet received their glorified bodies and partly because they have not been reunited with their loved ones remaining on earth (SS “Omnium Sanctorum” 3). The
Dreamer is so persistent in his misunderstanding of his “precios perle wythouten spotte” that he cannot see what Bernard would call the remaining wrinkle in her happiness. Not until his rash behavior jolts him out of the dream does he begin to understand the dangers of his quibbling over merit and grace and to desire to become like the Pearl Maiden so that he can be reunited with her in truth.
134 Conclusion
Bernard’s sermons for the feasts of All Saints, Holy Innocents, and the dedication of a church highlight the mistaken notions of merit and grace that the
Dreamer in Pearl must reject if he wants to join the Pearl Maiden in the New
Jerusalem, while the Sententiae, De baptismo, and De gratia et libero arbitrio expose the depth of the theological errors involved. The Dreamer’s pride has led him to believe that his ability to jump through the liturgical hoops of the Church has earned him salvation and heavenly glory, things that, like “his” pearl, cannot be grasped; the “severe mercy” of his loss is but the first step in his divinely‐ directed recovery of spiritual health. Whether his encounter with the merit‐less but glorified Pearl Maiden and his vision of both the communion of saints and the New Jerusalem—all brides of Christ, though in different modes—completely succeed in correcting his understanding remains unclear at the end of the poem, but he has at least learned the hard way that “by presuming on our merits we leave no room for grace,” which alone can save.
135
CHAPTER SEVEN
My Lemman Swete: The Dreamer, the Pearl Maiden, and Bernard’s Degrees of Love for God
The debate between the Dreamer and the Pearl Maiden on the question of merit and grace highlights a deeper problem: the Dreamer does not love God as he ought and needs to grow toward the kind of love for God that the Pearl
Maiden, as a bride of Christ, already tastes. However, the Pearl Maiden does not spend much time lecturing the Dreamer about the way he ought to love Christ.
Rather, she demonstrates her unshakeable charity and guides the Dreamer toward right love for God by refusing to accept the Dreamer’s erroneous theology and disordered love for her. Bernard’s writings contain no fewer than three schema of the soul’s growth in love that, taken together, allow the reader to understand the Pearl Maiden’s mature love of God and the process by which the Dreamer must achieve the same maturity.
Bernard’s Degrees of Love for God
Bernard often describes the Christian life as a process that perfects the soul by degrees and prepares her1 for eventual union with God in Heaven. One area of particularly slow, steady growth is love for God. When asked why and
1 Following medieval convention, I will treat the soul (anima) as grammatically feminine.
136 how God should be loved, Bernard replied, “My answer is that God himself is the reason why he is to be loved. As for how he is to be loved, there is to be no limit to that love. Is this sufficient answer? Perhaps, but only for a wise man”
(De diligendo 1.1). God deserves our love without limits because He loved us first and because no finite measure of love can possibly be adequate when its object is infinite (6.16). But most people find such a level of love difficult to achieve in this life, so Bernard frequently describes the stages by which a soul moves away from carnal, worldly love to full‐fledged caritas. Though the different analyses he provides rest on different Scriptural bases and appear at different points in his life, these complementary descriptions provide a clear depiction of caritas in its fullness, which the Pearl Maiden possesses, and a picture of the individual’s progress toward caritas, which explains the path the Dreamer must travel.
The Major Descriptions of Love from De diligendo Deo and Sermones in Cantica Canticorum
Bernard’s treatise De diligendo Deo leads the reader through four stages by which an individual grows into the kind of love God desires and deserves: loving all things for the self’s sake, loving God for the self’s sake, loving God for
His own sake, and loving all things—even the soul—for God’s sake. Love is a natural passion, but its default mode in a natural man is carnal and self‐centered,
137 so progress toward fully loving God must begin by rightly ordering carnal love
(De diligendo 8.23‐25, 15.39). As Bernard notes elsewhere:
Incipit enim homo diligere Deum, antequam proximum; sed quia illa dilectio non potest perfici, nisi nutriatur et crescat per dilectionem proximi, poprtet ut proximus diligatur. Sic ergo dilectio Dei praecedit ut incipiens, et praeceditur a dilectione proximi, ut illa nutrienda.
A person begins to love God before loving his neighbor; but because that love cannot be perfected unless it is nourished and expanded through love of neighbor, it is necessary for him to love his neighbor. Thus the love of God both precedes that of neighbor in its original form and is preceded by love of neighbor in terms of its necessary development. (Sent. 1.21)
In order to love God correctly, therefore, the Dreamer must first learn to love the
Pearl Maiden correctly. Lines 50‐6 indicate that he may have once had some understanding2 of rightly ordered loves, but his “wreched wylle” rejects the comfort that the “kynde of Kryst” offered, and Bernard remarks that “A soul which dismisses the consolation of God will at once be drawn to some other form of comfort” (Sent. 3.124); in this case, the Dreamer’s grief warps his love for his daughter into avarice that provides false comfort when he sees her again in his dream (cf. Sent. 3.26).
Loving one’s neighbor as oneself begins to restrain natural love and make it social. Likewise, one’s need directs his attention to God. The more often a person calls out to God in distress and sees his prayers answered, the more he
2 I deal more with the Dreamer’s corrupted memory, reason, and will in the next chapter.
138 begins to love God for His provision (De diligendo 8.23‐25, 15.39). Self‐interest persists but motivates alterations in behavior to please God and keep His favor.
Repeated experiences of God’s grace teach the young Christian more about himself and about God’s character; he discovers far more to love about God than the benefits He bestows, and he comes to love God freely for who He is. This love changes all his other loves and makes God’s commandments easy to obey, and over time, the Christian’s love for God and for everything else begins to reflect Christ’s love for us (9.26, 15.39).
In his letter to the Carthusians excerpted in De diligendo Deo, Bernard distinguishes between these first three stages of love with the following analogy:
Est qui confitetur Domino quoniam potens est, et est qui confitetur quoniam sibi bonus est, et item qui confitetur quoniam simpliciter bonus est. Primus servus est, et timet sibi; secundus mercenarius, et cupit sibi; tertius filius, et defert patri. Sola quae in filio est caritas, non quaerit quae sua sunt.
A man can acknowledge that the Lord is powerful, that the Lord is good to him, and that the Lord is simply good. The first is the love of a slave who fears for himself; the second is that of a hireling who thinks only of himself; the third is that of a son who honors his father. [. . .] Charity is found only in the son. It does not seek its own advantage. (12.34)
He uses the same analogy in the Sententiae to explain a second, three‐stage description based on Deuteronomy 6:5: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength” (Sent.
3.92). Only when one is capable of fully keeping this commandment—which the
139 Dreamer is not but the Pearl Maiden is—can he proceed to love all things for
God’s sake (De diligendo 10.29); only then can one experience and love things as they truly are (SC 50.6‐8). Aside from the Sententiae, Bernard uses this analysis in
Sermones de diversis 29 and Sermones in Cantica 20.
Bernard connects the sweet, tender love of the heart to carnal affection, by which “a person is first seized by a certain attachment to the sweetness of earthly things. That sweetness will not be expelled unless another surpasses it; and the sweetness of Christ exceeds it and does away with it. It is like a nail being removed with another nail” (Sent. 3.92). Carnal love needs to be directed toward contemplation of the Incarnation, Christ’s life on earth, and the Passion to overcome the lust of the flesh. Neither fear of Hell nor hope of Heaven can induce the heart to love God as readily as can the revelation of God’s love for us in the humanity of Christ; indeed, a major reason God willed the Incarnation was to reach carnal men who could not come to love Him by any other means.
Devotion to Christ’s humanity is a gift of grace and not to be despised or treated lightly, but it is only a starting point and is dangerous without wisdom. The wise, rational love of the soul is aided by careful study of Scripture and of the mysteries of faith, attuning the reason to faith so that it does not stray into heresy through curiosity, and moves one beyond simple devotion to Christ’s humanity toward a love that embraces Him as a Spirit. Strong love relies on fortitude and
140 is steadfast in all circumstances, truly “strong as death”; in this life, it appears most plainly in the martyrs. It is also a fully spiritual love enabled by the Holy
Spirit (SD 29; SC 20; Sent. 3.83, 92‐3). Grief like the Dreamer’s can destroy carnal love, and prosperity harms rational love, but nothing can damage strong love
(Sent. 3.92‐3).
The Christian’s love for God finally becomes so complete that he no longer loves even himself except as he is in God. Very few people achieve even a taste of this kind of love in this life due to the cares of the flesh, and none can experience it fully prior to the resurrection because of being without a glorified body. Still, this love is the bliss that awaits the redeemed in eternity, where God
Himself will satisfy every longing (De diligendo 10.27‐11.33, 15.39‐40), and as will be shown below, it is the love with which the Pearl Maiden sings the praises of her “Lemman fre” (796).
The Three Kisses in Sermones in Cantica
A third method of tracing the soul’s development in love comes from
Bernard’s sermons on Song of Songs, one of the Scriptures that underlies Pearl but does not appear verbatim. Reading Song of Songs tropologically3 as a love song between Christ and the soul, Bernard meets a challenge in explaining the
3 The three spiritual senses of Scripture are often conflated under the term “allegory,” but allegory properly deals with Christ and the Church, tropology with the soul, and anagogy with last things. See Vol. 2 of Henri de Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis for an in‐depth study.
141 very first clause: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth” (1:1a). The kiss of
Christ’s mouth, Bernard concludes, must follow two other kisses that prepare the soul for spiritual intimacy:
Tria sunt oscula, reconciliatorium, remuneratorium, contemplatorium. Primum ad pedes, secundum ad manum, tertium ad os sumitur. In primo accipitur remissio peccatorum, in secundo munus virtutum, in tertio cognitio secretorum. Vel ita: osculum doctrinae, naturae, gratiae.
There are three kinds of kisses: those of reconciliation, those of reward, and those of contemplation. The first kind of kiss is given to the feet, the second to the hand, the third to the mouth. Through the first is received remission of sins, through the second the gift of virtues, and through the third a perception of hidden things. Or to put it another way: they are the kiss of doctrine, of nature, and of grace. (Sent. 1.8)
To sinners, Christ is Lord and not yet Bridegroom, but they can draw near to
Him through repentance (SC 3.2). The kiss on the feet indicates humility, which opposes the pride of the sinful nature (4.2). Christ’s feet also signify His sovereign but invisible interaction with the world, His humanity, His mercy, and
His justice; kissing them imparts the first stages of wisdom to the soul (6.3‐8).
Conscious of God’s grace and grateful for His mercy, the redeemed soul proceeds to kiss Christ’s hands by glorifying Him and not herself (3.3, 4.3). As the soul grows in grace, she falls in love with Christ Himself; eventually, He will grant her the kiss of His mouth, which is a special revelation of Himself through the Holy Spirit in contemplation. Bernard holds that though few receive such a
142 kiss in this life, God will not deny it to anyone who seeks it in the proper way
(3.1, 3.5‐6, 7.2‐3, 8.2‐9).
The Dreamer and the Pearl Maiden
Among her other functions in the poem, the Pearl Maiden exemplifies the degree of love for God toward which all Christians should strive. Though
Bernard would argue that she has not yet attained the fullest experience of divine love because she has not yet received her glorified body,4 she has clearly reached the highest degree of love in all of Bernard’s schematics. She readily acknowledges that her worth lies only in the grace she has received and assigns all the glory to God (411‐20, 757‐68), but she and the other Innocents love each other, and every other redeemed soul, equally well in Him (845‐64). Her initial rebukes of the Dreamer’s attitude are based primarily on attitudes Christ will or will not accept, not on her own feelings; of the Dreamer’s sudden meekness, for example, she says first that “þy speche is to me dere” and then clarifies that “My
Lorde þe Lamb louez ay such chere, / Þat is þe grounde of alle my blysse” (397‐
408). As a bride of Christ, she speaks freely of Him as “my Lemman fre” (757‐
840), implying the spiritual intimacy bestowed by the kiss of Christ’s mouth.
Her expressions of love are tender, but she demonstrates the wisdom of her love
4 However one views the Pearl Maiden, Bernard holds that the soul is not rehoused until the general resurrection at the end of time (cf. De diligendo 15.39‐40; SS “Omnium Sanctorum” 3).
143 by answering the Dreamer’s specious arguments and its strength by refusing to let him disturb her peace (e.g., 253‐408). Her state, and not just her presence, is a goal toward which the Dreamer must learn to strive.
The Dreamer cannot draw any conclusions about his own journey from her experience, however. Not only is the Pearl Maiden dead, she died an innocent, a state the Dreamer left behind long ago. Bernard notes in Sermones in
Cantica 5:
Hic si mihi obiciatur de parvulis regeneratis, quod absque scientia rerum corporalium exeuntes de corpore, ad beatam nihilominus vitam transire credantur, breviter respondeo hoc illis conferre gratiam, non naturam. Et quid ad me de miraculis Dei, qui de naturalibus dissero?
If one of you will object that baptized infants who die before acquiring a knowledge of the material creation are believed nevertheless to enter heaven, I shall reply briefly that this is a gift of grace, not a reward of merit. For the moment this discussion deals with normal processes, not with the special interventions of God. (SC 5.1)
No short‐cuts are available to the Dreamer, as he learns when he tries to cross the river at the end of the poem and is summarily thrown out of the dream. His path to the New Jerusalem must follow the established route—and he has a long road ahead.
Several points in the first thirty stanzas of Pearl indicate that the Dreamer has barely begun to love God at all (or, by a more charitable reading, has been seriously thrown off course by his grief). His repeated reference to “my precios
144 perle wythouten spot” shows how profoundly self‐centered his love is (48, emphasis mine).5 His inordinate grief for his daughter likewise proves that he has not progressed to loving God with his whole heart:
Alioquin si carnis meae quamlibet consanguinitatem vel voluptatem forte praefero carni Domini mei, [. . .] quae in carne manens verbo et exemplo me docuit, nonne liquido constat, quod toto nequaquam diligo corde, cum id divisum habens, partem impendere videar carni eius, partem intorquere ad propriam?
If I prefer to the humanity of my Lord someone joined to me by ties of blood [. . .] this would obviously prove that I do not love with my whole heart since it is divided between its own interests and the love of the one who taught me as a man, both by his words and examples. Would I not seem to give my love partly to him and partly to my own? (SC 20.7)
The Dreamer cannot overcome his “wreched wylle” long enough to heed the
“kynde of Kryst” and accept His comfort, so the problem is more than mere seeming. One might argue that whole‐hearted love is difficult with a broken heart, but the Dreamer’s problem is deeper still. As the Pearl Maiden puts it, he
“demez noʒt bot doel‐dystresse” and rails fruitlessly against God when he ought to love Him in spite of the circumstances; “Þy mendez mountez not a myte, / Þaʒ
þou for sorʒe be neuer blyþe” [The relief amounts to not a mite, / Though gladness your grief may never end] (337‐60). Even if he had at some point loved
God both tenderly and wisely, he lacked the strength to continue in that love.
5 See my 2007 In Pursuit of Truth article for a further examination of the implications of this statement, especially when the desire is compared to that for another object known as “my Precious.”
145 His anger that God “hatz hyder my juel vayned, / And don me in þis del and gret daunger” also shows that he is unwilling to accept the grace that comes from humbly kissing the Bridegroom’s feet in repentance (249‐50).
The Pearl Maiden’s rebuke that finally gets through to the Dreamer is, as
Bernard would expect, eminently practical: in times of trouble, hating God changes nothing, but loving Him may move Him to mercy (341‐60). The
Dreamer responds that “I do me ay in Hys myserecorde” (366). How deep the
Dreamer’s change of heart goes is questionable at this point, but he does at least acknowledge that he has said things that could offend God—“Ne worþe no wrathþe vnto my Lorde, / If rapely I raue, spornande in spelle” (362‐3)—and attempts to shift the basis of his happiness from the Pearl Maiden’s presence to
“Crystes mersy and Mary and Jon” (383). The conversation that follows is primarily about merit and grace, as discussed in the previous chapter, but its effect is to ease the Dreamer more firmly into the second degree of love, wherein he can love God for His benefits. The Pearl Maiden’s innocence may entitle her to certain eternal rewards that no adult could earn, but she receives them only through the grace and love of Christ. If the Dreamer’s will works with God’s grace, God will reward him both with eternal riches of the sort the Pearl Maiden has received and with eternal reunion with the Pearl Maiden herself. Who could not love such a Benefactor? Bernard points out that carnal, mercenary love of
146 this kind is certainly inferior to spiritual love, but it is still worthwhile because it overcomes love for the world (SC 20.8‐9).
By the time the Pearl Maiden has finished explaining the nature of her cohort and of the Lamb in line 900, the Dreamer has gained a clearer understanding of his need for genuine humility beyond the seeming humility of line 382—“I am bot mol and manerez mysse”—that conceals the intellectual pride that leads him to reject her royal estate just a hundred lines later (“That
Cortayse is to fre of dede, / Ʒyf hyt be soth þat þou conez saye,” 481‐2). He couches his next question in terms that acknowledge her spiritual superiority
(901‐12). Though he has not yet reached the point of kissing Christ’s feet and his heart is still divided, he has certainly made progress toward the humility he needs to repent of his idolatry. His request to see the Pearl Maiden’s dwelling place could be a sign of humility—less bold than asking to see Christ Himself— were it not for the lingering hints that his love for the Pearl Maiden is still out of order:
‘Motelez may so meke and mylde,’ Þen sayde I to þat lufly flor, ‘Bryng me to þat bygly bylde And let me se þy blysful bor.’ Þat schene sayde: ‘Þat God wyl schylde; Þou may not enter withinne Hys tor; …………………………………………… Vtwyth to se þat clene cloystor Þou may, but inwyth not a fote….’
147 ‘O spotless maiden kind!’ I cried To that lovely flower, ‘O lead me there, To see where blissful you abide, To that goodly place let me repair!’ ‘God will forbid that,’ she replied, ‘His tower to enter you may not dare. …………………………………………… From without on that precinct pure to stare, But foot within to venture not….’ (961‐6, 969‐70)
Whether the unwarranted Marian language or the request to see her bower alerts the Pearl Maiden that the Dreamer’s heart is still not right, she rightly suspects that he will transgress in trying to reach her again.
However, by granting the Dreamer’s request to see the city, the Pearl
Maiden nudges him closer toward loving God for His own sake. The vision of the New Jerusalem, following Revelation as closely as it does but carefully accommodated6 to one who “leues wel þat he sez wyth yʒe” and “leues our
Lorde wolde make a lyʒe” (302, 304), both verifies the truth of Scripture and brings the Dreamer to a vision of the Lamb. Even though the Dreamer cannot see Christ as He truly is, seeing the Lamb with his own eyes and experiencing, even at a distance, the “gret delyt” of loving Him to the fullest gives the Dreamer a taste of loving God for His own sake, and seeing His wounds moves him to a more whole‐hearted love than he was previously capable of feeling: “Alas, þoʒt
I, who did þat spyt? / Ani breste for bale aʒt haf forbrent / Er he þerto hade had
6 See the discussion of accommodation in the next chapter.
148 delyt” [Alas! thought I, who did that spite? / His breast should have burned with anguish sore, / Ere in that deed one took delight] (1093‐144).
Had the Dreamer kept his eyes on the Lamb, his love for God might have grown even greater. Unfortunately, trying to study the procession of Innocents brings the Pearl Maiden back into his line of sight, and he promptly falls back into his old “luf‐longyng”—and out of his moment of grace (1145‐76). Bernard notes in De diligendo Deo that the rational mind constantly searches for that which truly satisfies in its perfection, which only God can provide; for worldly men, this desire translates into the ceaseless pursuit of a given material good—power, wealth, women, etc.—that ultimately proves fruitless and disqualifies them from heavenly bliss (7.18‐21). This last point derives from Psalm 24, which the Pearl
Maiden quotes to the Dreamer in lines 677‐88,7 and the Dreamer himself comes to the same conclusion after his impetuous pursuit of the wrong love ends his vision: “Bot ay wolde man of happe more hente / Þen moʒte by ryʒt vpon them clyuen” (1195‐6). His reason still appears to need some work, but at least he has experienced the consequences of continuing to love his daughter in the wrong way.
7 AW note that this passage could paraphrase either Psalm 15:1‐3 or Psalm 24:3‐6 (85), which ask the same question and answer in very similar ways. The word order here is closer to that of Psalm 24, especially line 687, “Þat takez not her lyf in vayne,” which translates 24:4b in the medieval Vulgate, “qui non accipit in vano animam suam” (St. Albans Psalter 114; cf. De diligendo 7.20). However, the Pearl Maiden does use Psalm 15 to describe the Innocents in lines 896‐900. The same concept informs Cleanness; see chapter 5 for further discussion.
149 The Pearl poet wisely does not allow his Dreamer to awaken in a state too far removed from the one in which he fell asleep. For him to return with as high a degree of love for God as is possible this side of Heaven would stretch the reader’s credulity too far, and any possibility of the poem’s serving a didactic purpose would be lost. Like a real‐life muddle‐headed man, then, the Dreamer comes to himself in the lower degrees of love. His vision has moved him to repentance, and while he may not yet understand God’s character well enough to love Him for His own sake, he does seem to have tamed his carnal love enough that he can rightly love the Pearl Maiden, which puts him much closer to loving God with all his heart—“For I haf founden Hym, boþe day and naʒte, / A
God, a Lorde, a frende ful fyin” (1175‐212).
Conclusion
By Bernard’s standards, the Dreamer still has significant room for growth in his love for God at the end of Pearl; the kiss of Christ’s mouth and love of all things for Christ’s sake remain a distant goal. But he has learned enough about
God and about himself to love Him better than he had in the depths of his grief.
The purely selfish loves he expresses early in the poem have given way to an ability to love God for His benefits and a desire to please Him, and he has begun to find elements of God’s character that are worth loving beyond any personal benefit. As long as he continues to pursue his love for Christ and heeds
150 Bernard’s warning about the grief that destroys love not bolstered by wisdom and fortitude, he is well on his way toward regaining the Pearl Maiden, whom he can love rightly only for the sake of her Lamb.
151
CHAPTER EIGHT
Vnavysed, Forsoþe: The Dreamer’s Ignorance and Bernard’s Discussions of Knowledge, Reason, and Will
One of Long Will’s goals in Piers Plowman is to attain “kynde knowyng” of
God. The same is true of the Dreamer in Pearl, except that the Dreamer knows as little about what he ought to know as he does about what he ought to love. To cite a commonplace attributed to Augustine, one cannot love what one does not know,1 and the Dreamer’s dialogue reveals how very little he knows God.
Though ignorance is a standard characteristic of dreamers in the dream‐vision genre, the Dreamer’s ignorance is unusual in that it endangers his very soul.
Moreover, his memory, reason, and will work against each other, hampering his ability to apply what little knowledge he does have. His only hope of reconciling his faculties and overcoming his ignorance lies in the gracious revelations provided by the Pearl Maiden. Bernard’s discussion of knowledge and ignorance in Sermones in Cantica 31‐38 reveals just how pernicious the Dreamer’s ignorance is, and combined with his allegories on restoring the fallen soul in De conversione ad clericos and the Sententiae, the sermons clarify the Pearl Maiden’s
1 See, for example, Aquinas’ Summa Theologica II‐I.27.2, where the Augustinian source is given as De Trinitate 10.1‐2. Given Augustine’s treatment of the proposition in De Trinitate, however, I suspect that it is older still.
152 attempts to steer her father toward knowledge of God through information about herself.
Bernard on Knowledge in Sermones in Cantica
The ultimate goal of the Dreamer’s vision is to correct his faith so that he can someday truly rejoin his daughter in the New Jerusalem. But faith, Bernard argues in the Sententiae, is inseparable from knowledge and right reason:
Nota tres gradus in fide: primum qui est in naturali rationis cognitione, iuxta illud: INVISIBILIA IPSIUS PER EA QUAE FACTA SUNT INTELLECTA CONSPICIUNTUR; secundum quem non revelat caro et sanguis, quem nec sensus nec naturalis ratio invenit, sed ad eum solus Spiritus Sanctus perducit. Quis enim mysterium humanae redemptionis intelligeret, nisi hoc Spiritus Sanctus revelasset? [. . .] Tertius gradus quanto obscurior tanto altior et a sensu humanae cogitationis remotior.
Note that there are three stages in faith. The first consists in the natural knowledge of reason, according to the words: ‘The invisible aspects of God are perceived through the understanding of the things which he has made.’ The second stage is that which flesh and blood do not reveal, nor sense power nor natural reason discover, but to which the Holy Spirit alone leads. For who can comprehend the mystery of human salvation, unless the Holy Spirit has revealed it to him? [. . .] The third stage of faith is far more difficult to grasp, since it is far more exalted and removed from the power of human comprehension. (Sent. 3.50)
Whatever knowledge of God and of himself the Dreamer once had is lost.
“Forgetfulness is the death of the soul,” says Bernard in the Sententiae (Sent. 2.19).
Both the Dreamer’s faith and his memory need to be corrected through the Pearl
153 Maiden’s revelations before he can achieve salvation and the blessing of understanding:
Hominem iustificant fides et memoria, angelum beatificant intellectus et praesentia. Et quia homines quandoque perducendi sunt ad aequalitatem angelorum, necesse est ut interim iustificentur per fidem, et per fidem proficiant ad intellectum. Scriptum est enim: NISI CREDIDERITIS, NON INTELLIGETIS. Itaque fides via est ad intellectum; nam fide mundatur cor, ut intellectus videat Deum. Similiter et memoria Dei, via est ad praesentiam Dei. Qui enim hic habet mandatorum eius, ut ea faciat, memoriam; hic merebitur quandoque, ut eius quoque videat praesentiam. Habeant igitur intellectum et praesentiam angeli Dei in caelo; habeamus et nos eius fidem et memoriam in mundo.
Faith and memory justify the human being, while understanding and the presence of God bless the angel. Because humans must somehow be brought to equality with the angels, it is necessary that in the meantime they be justified by faith, and through faith proceed to understanding. For it has been written: ‘Unless you have believed, you will not understand’. And so faith is the road to understanding, for the heart is purified by faith so that the intellect may see God. Similarly, the memory of God is the road to God’s presence. For one who remembers his commandments here, so that he observes them, will also deserve someday to behold his presence. Let the angels, then, possess the understanding and presence of God in heaven; let us maintain faith in him and remembrance of him on earth. (Sent. 1.12)
Bernard spends eight sermons in Sermones in Cantica on the topic of knowledge as it relates to the Bride’s question and the Bridegroom’s2 answer in
Song of Songs 1:6‐7:
2 This attribution is Bernard’s; the Vulgate, like the Hebrew, does not distinguish the speakers from one another. Most modern English translations that give division headings agree with Bernard’s reading, though the NIV assigns verse 7 to the Bridegroom’s friends.
154 Show me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest in the midday, lest I begin to wander after the flocks of thy companions. If thou know not thyself,3 O fairest among women, go forth, and follow after the steps of the flocks, and feed thy kids beside the tents of the shepherds.
No one in this life can see God as He truly is, as such a vision requires the stillness of eternity; that will be the “penny” received by each of the redeemed equally in Heaven (SC 31; cf. Matt. 20:1‐16 and Pearl 501‐624). However, God does show Himself to those whom He loves in such forms as their minds can bear (SC 31). To those who desire Him most earnestly, He will at times present
Himself as the Bridegroom; to those whose souls are sick, as a Physician; to minds wearied with study, as the Word; to courageous hearts who seek higher things,4 as a Father (SC 32.2‐4, 8‐10). He both hides and reveals Himself in
Scripture, the Eucharist, and the mysteries of faith, but the soul that truly desires
God will find limited delight in such encounters (SC 33.3‐4). The Bridegroom’s rebuke in verse 7 responds to the Bride’s insufficient knowledge of herself,
3 The Vulgate for this phrase, “Si ignoras te,” leaves the object of ignorance ambiguous, and the Douay‐Rheims’ word order preserves this ambiguity. Bernard understands the reflexive to mean that the Bride does not know the truth about herself; most modern English versions, working from the Hebrew, understand it to mean that she should already be able to answer her own question. However, as shown below, Bernard’s reading makes sense in the context of Pearl.
4 The descriptions in 32.8—“those whose hearts are high as they approach him,” etc.— echo chivalric virtues, especially the Germanic concept of “hohen muot” (Frenzel and Frenzel 25), thus accommodating the younger monks who grew up in the courtly culture (cf. Casey 11‐12).
155 desiring what is reserved for the pure of heart before she is ready to receive it
(SC 38.3, 5).
Bernard identifies two types of ignorance that result in damnation, ignorance of God and of self; the latter leads to pride, the former to despair (SC
35.9, 37.6‐7, 38.1). He also notes two stages in ignorance of self, self‐deception that overlooks the fact that we are dust and ignorance that persists after punishment (SC 35.6‐9). Knowledge of self is the first priority because it leads to humility and repentance and thence to knowledge of God (SC 36.1‐6, 37.1‐2).
True humility, mingled with joy and patience, is an absolute requirement for receiving graces like the knowledge sought by the Bride. Sometimes God refuses requests for greater spiritual experience in order to allow humility to take deeper root in the soul first (SC 34). Christ turns the soul who lacks self‐knowledge away from the deep things of the Spirit back to the cares of the flesh, but true sorrow born of self‐knowledge receives the consolation of the vision of God (SC
35.1‐2, 36.6, 37.2‐4). Elsewhere Bernard notes that knowledge, especially self‐ knowledge, stands opposed to lust because it reveals the emptiness of earthly desires, prompts desire for heavenly things, and helps the soul avoid the
Bridegroom’s rebuke (Sent. 3.4, 3.89).
156 Overcoming the Dreamer’s Wretched Will
Knowledge, of course, does little good if the will refuses to listen to reason. The Dreamer seems to realize, however dimly, that he is in this state:
A deuely dele in my hert denned, Þaʒ resoun sette myseluen saʒt. ……………………………………… Þaʒ kynde of Kryst me comfort kenned, My wreched wylle in wo ay wraʒte.
A hopeless grief on my heart was laid. Though reason to reconcile me sought, ……………………………………………… Be comforted Christ Himself me bade, But in woe my will ever strove distraught. (50‐1, 55‐6)
In the Sententiae, Bernard divides the fallen faculties of the soul into memory, reason, and will. Memory, he says,
infirmata est tribis modis, videlicet per cogitationes affectuosas, onerosas et otiosas. [. . .] Ratio tribus modis excaecata est, quia saepe recipit vera pro falsis et e converso, licita pro illicitis et e converso. Voluntas tripliciter foedata est: per concupiscentiam carnis, per desiderium oculorum et ambitionem saeculi.
is weakened in three ways—that is, by thoughts which are either emotional, burdensome, or idle. [. . .] Reason is blinded in three ways, because it often takes what is true for what is false (and the reverse), or what is permitted for what is not (and, again, the reverse). The will, moreover, is disgraced in a similar threefold fashion: through the longing of the flesh, through the desire of the eyes, and through an ambition for worldly things. (Sent. 1.25)
Though we do not see the Dreamer experiencing especially burdensome or idle thoughts, his emotions have clearly weakened his memory. Like Jonah in
157 Patience, he has also confused the nature of God’s precepts and misunderstood
His love, and despite the longing of his flesh and the desire of his eyes being for the glorified Pearl Maiden, his blinded reason makes his ambition to reclaim her a worldly desire, further disgracing his “wreched wylle.”
Bernard also describes the will as wretched in De conversione ad clericos when he discusses the struggle between reason and will when a new convert tries to turn away from sin and pursue righteousness.5 After vividly describing the will as a “crazy old hag” of an invalid (De conv. 6.10)—the kind of woman who makes great comedy in Jane Austen but is a terror in real life—Bernard urges the new convert to press on through the sorrowful struggle until his mourning is rewarded with comfort and a clearer glimpse of eternity (De conv.
6.11‐11.23). In a similar passage in the Sententiae, Bernard describes the beginning of the journey with the painful discovery of poverty of spirit: “To reason, in this pain and consternation, comes another divine response: ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth’, as if to say: Master the will, and you will take charge of the land which is your body” (Sent. 3.2). Reason mourns as it learns its limitations and begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness,
5 Marie‐Bernard Saïd notes that “conversion” in this context referred to entering the monastery (13‐4), and both the Pearl poet and his audience likely read the sermon in that light; that sense may underlie the Pearl Maiden’s advice to “forsake þe worlde wode” (743). However, Bernard’s remarks can apply to anyone attempting to leave a life of habitual sin—especially when fighting an addiction or, as in the Dreamer’s case, an obsession.
158 which brings it to a glimpse of the paradise of virtues (Sent. 3.2; cf. 3.15). This vision, most vividly described in De conversione, sounds remarkably like the
Dreamer’s:
Inveniet enim locum tabernaculi admirabilis, ubi panem angelorum manducet homo; inveniet paradisum voluptatis plantatum a Domino; inveniet hortum floridum et amoenissum; inveniet refrigerii sedem, et dicet: «O si audiat vocem meam misera illa voluntas, ut ingrediens videat bona, et visitet locum istum! Hic nimirum inveniet requiem ampliorem, et me quoque eo minu inquietabit, quo minus inquietabitur ipsa». [. . .] [D]onec inter loquendum inducens alia pro aliis, opportune aliquando inferat, dicens: «Inveni hodie hortum pulcherrimum et ameonissimum locum. Bonum esset illic nos esse; nam et tibi nocet in hoc lecto agritudinis, in hoc doloris strato versari, in hoc cubili tuo gravi corde compugni.» [. . .] Excitabitur desiderum voluntatis, et non modo videre locum, sed et introire paulatim, et mansionem inibi facere concupiscat.
He shall then discover the place of the wonderful tabernacle, where man shall eat the bread of angels; he shall discover the paradise of pleasure6 planted by the Lord; he shall discover a flowering and thoroughly lovely garden; he shall discover a place of refreshment and he shall exclaim: ‘Oh! if only this wretched will of mine would heed my voice, that she might come here and visit this place. Here surely she would find great rest, and she would be less troublesome to me, being herself less troubled.’ [. . .] [W]hile they are chatting, let him seize a suitable opportunity and say: ‘Today I have found a very beautiful garden, a really lovely place. It would be good for us to be there; it is not good for you to lie on this sick‐bed, tossing about on this mattress in pain and eating your heart out in grief in your room.’ [. . .] The will’s desire shall be stirred not only to see the place, but even to go in a little way. And she will long to make her home there. (De conv. 12.24, emphasis mine)
6 This sermon was written roughly a century before Guillaume de Lorris’ portion of Roman de la Rose, but as clearly as Pearl draws on the Roman for its descriptions of gardens, it also bears a striking resemblance to Bernard’s allegorical garden in De conv. 12.24‐13.25, which in turn draws heavily on Song of Songs and other Scriptures.
159
Due to his will’s confusion and his reason’s lack of understanding, the Dreamer has to enter both the literal garden in which his daughter is buried and the dream garden in which the Pearl Maiden speaks to him before his will’s desire is stirred to abandon grief for a time and see into the paradise of the New
Jerusalem.
But as Bernard cautions in his further description of the allegorical garden of contemplation, this taste of Heaven is not even close to the eternal life that the
Pearl Maiden already knows. “That is wisdom,” says Bernard, “and man does not know its price. [. . .] Not learning but anointing teaches it; not science but conscience grasps it. He is holy, they are pearls, and he will not do what he forbade us to do when he began to do and to teach” (De conv. 13.25). The river that lies between the Dreamer and the Pearl Maiden serves to prevent the unworthy Dreamer from attempting to enter eternal life too soon. Rather, the purpose of this revelation of the Pearl Maiden’s true state is to prompt the
Dreamer to hunger and thirst after righteousness. In this effort, too, the Pearl
Maiden is a fitting guide as a Holy Innocent: “At the gate of paradise a voice is heard whispering an utterly sacred and secret plan which is hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to little ones” (De conv. 14.26). Contrary to
160 Jungian readings of the Pearl Maiden as the Dreamer’s anima,7 therefore, she functions as an external agent of grace, correcting his reason so that it “not only grasps, but happily transmits to the will” the divine knowledge that he so desperately needs (De conv. 14.26).
Overcoming the Dreamer’s Ignorance
Parallels between Pearl and other dream‐visions like the Roman de la Rose are most obvious in stanzas 6‐15, at the beginning of the dream section. The
Dreamer reacts to the bejeweled dream landscape with the confusion and amazement typical of the genre, and he has to stare at the Pearl Maiden for quite some time before he recognizes who she is. But the tone changes markedly after he declares both his joy at finding ‘his’ pearl again and his intention to stay with her (277‐88). Though the Pearl Maiden cautions him earlier that his self‐pitying description of his sorrow is “mysetente” (257), this outburst draws the stinging rebuke that he is crazy and has no clue what he is saying:
‘Þou says þou trawez me in þis dene Bycawse þou may with yʒen me se; Anoþer, þou says in þys countré Þyself schal won with me ryʒt here; Þe þrydde, to passe þys water fre: Þat may no joyful jueler.
7 In Jungian psychology, the anima is the feminine side of a man’s soul, often represented in literature as a female foil to the protagonist; he must recognize her as part of himself if he is to remain sane (Mulder 243, 245). David Aers objects to neo‐Jungians like Ann Astell reading the Pearl Maiden as the Dreamer’s anima largely because such an approach ignores the crucial point that she is not ‘his’ pearl (64).
161
‘I halde þat jueler lyttel to prayse Þat leuez wel þat he sez wyth yʒe, And much to blame and vncortoyse Þat leuez oure Lorde wolde make a lyʒe, Þat lelly hyʒte your lyf to rayse, Þaʒ Fortune dyd your flesch to dyʒe. Ʒe setten Hys wordez full westernays Þat leuez noþynk bot ʒe hit syʒe….’
“You believe I live here on this green Because you can with eyes me see; Again, you will in this land with me Here dwell yourself, you now aver; And thirdly, pass this water free: That may no joyful jeweller.
“I hold that jeweller worth little praise Who well esteems what he sees with eye, And much to blame his graceless ways Who believes our Lord would speak a lie. He promised faithfully your lives to raise Though fate decreed your flesh should die; His words as nonsense ye appraise Who approve of naught not seen with eye….” (295‐308)
This situation is far more serious than those of the comically dense narrators of
Chaucer’s dream‐visions; the salvation of a character’s soul is at stake. The
Dreamer clearly does not know God, his daughter, or himself in any significant way. He does not even know what questions he ought to be asking or of whom.
The Pearl Maiden, however, can truthfully include herself in the statement “We
[brides of Christ] þurʒoutly hauen cnawyng” (859; cf. 1 Cor. 13:12). She also understands principles the Dreamer mangles, and she rejoices in the presence of
162 God. She can thus readily see where the Dreamer’s knowledge is lacking and deftly guides him to the information he does not realize he needs through her revelations about herself.
Ignorance of Self
The Dreamer’s misunderstanding of merit, grace, love, and any number of other topics stems from a serious level of ignorance about himself. The Pearl
Maiden chides him for calling his “Wyrde”—the Anglo‐Saxon word for fate, sometimes conflated with the will of God (Murphy 20, 132‐3, 157, 178, 188)—a thief, noting that He “oʒt of noʒt hatz mad þe cler” (273‐4). Unfortunately, the
Dreamer fails at this point to recognize that he is naught without God’s grace; he is too caught up in his self‐centered need for the Pearl Maiden even to realize that she has taken him to task for his bad attitude. Instead, he rejoices that she has spoken to him and declares his intent to stay with her (277‐88). When she points out how badly mistaken he is, he complains once more about his cruel fate
(289‐336). It takes a third rebuke for him to acknowledge, even in passing, that he is “bot mol and manerez mysse” and in need of God’s mercy (337‐84).
Though the Pearl Maiden accepts his change in rhetoric, she reminds him that
“Maysterful mod and hyʒe pryde [. . .] arn heterly hated here” (396‐402), a fact that he quickly forgets.
163 The superficiality of the Dreamer’s humility becomes apparent in his indignant reaction to the Pearl Maiden’s explanation of her state. Though he frames his questions in requests that she not be angry with him if he is wrong, his failure to understand the truth of eternal things, and especially to understand how a meritless babe can be made a queen straightaway, leads him to imply that someone Upstairs is actually in the wrong (421‐492). By the time the Pearl
Maiden has finished her commentary on the Parable of the Workers in the
Vineyard, he has dropped all pretense of humility: “Me þynk þy tale vnresounable,” he tells her bluntly (590). Something in her eminently reasonable discourse on innocence and righteousness, however, causes him to realize that he is no longer talking to a toddler and that he might be in the wrong. Precisely what causes this change of heart is unclear, but his wonder is almost audible in his questions in lines 745‐56:
‘O maskelez perle in perlez pure, Þat berez,’ quoþ I, ‘þe perle of prys, Quo formed þe þy fayre fygure? Þat wroʒt þy wede he watz ful wys; Þy beauté com neuer of nature— Pymalyon paynted neuer þy vys, Ne Arystotel nawþer by hys lettrure Of carped þe kynde þese propertéz; Þy colour passez þe flour‐de‐lys, Þy angel‐hauyng so clene cortez.
164 Breue me, bryʒt, quat kyn offys8 Berez þe perle so maskellez?’
‘Immaculate Pearl in pearls unstained, Who bear of precious pearls the prize, Your figure fair for you who feigned? Who wrought your robe, he was full wise! Your beauty was never from nature gained; Pygmalion did ne’er your fave devise; In Aristotle’s learning is contained Of these properties’ nature no surmise; Your hue the flower‐de‐luce defies, Your angel‐bearing is of grace so great. What office, purest, me apprise Doth bear this pearl immaculate?’
She answers with loving praise of the Lamb, and by the time the Dreamer speaks again in line 901, his humility has become genuine. His understanding is still muddled, but compared to “so ryche a reken rose,”9 he has at least come to view himself as “bot mokke and mul among” (905‐6), an expression very similar to
Abraham’s description of himself in Cleanness as one “þat mul am and askez,” unworthy to press God for the favor of sparing Lot’s life (736). With a better knowledge of himself, the Dreamer is capable of receiving more knowledge of
God.
8 However one reads the last word of line 755—offys, ostriys, oftriys, or of triys (AW 89; Stanbury n. 755)—the stanza leaves the Dreamer open to further revelations, now that he has humbled himself enough to know that he, not the Pearl Maiden, is the confused one.
9 In addition to the myriad connotations surrounding the rose in courtly culture and Christian iconography, Bernard compares “consistent justness in action” to a rose in a discussion of Song of Songs 6:1 in Sent. 3.122. The Pearl Maiden is indeed consistently just, especially when describing Christ in lines 757‐68 and 781‐900, so the comparison to a rose works on this level as well as on the many other levels scholars have already identified.
165 Ignorance of God
For the first half of the poem, the Dreamer seems to think that he knows
God fairly well, certainly better than the Pearl Maiden does. But his speeches show how much he has forgotten about God’s nature. He ignores the fact that the “kynde of Kryst me comfort kenned” and asks “What Wyrde hatz hyder my juel vayned” [What fate hath hither my jewel borne] upon seeing the Pearl
Maiden in his dream (55, 249). He does not know enough at this point to know what he truly lacks, but the Pearl Maiden sees the problem immediately and guides the conversation to reveal God to the Dreamer’s understanding once again. In pursuing knowledge of God, Bernard states, one should constantly seek to know three things: His righteousness, His judgment, and His dwelling place (SC 33.1). These points turn out to be key elements of the Pearl Maiden’s discourse.
Though the Dreamer’s conscious goal is to learn about the Pearl Maiden’s state in Heaven, the shocking revelation that she is a queen and a bride of Christ prompts him to question God’s righteousness and judgment at the same time: “I may not traw, so God me spede, / Þat God wolde wryþe so wrange away” (487‐
8). He is, of course, thinking purely in terms of material reward and social rank, and he is not likely to accept the idea that God Himself is reward and crown enough for all. So the Pearl Maiden makes a simple statement about God’s
166 character—“al is trawþe þat He con dresse, / And He may do noþynk bot ryʒt”
(495‐6)—that leads into an explanation of His judgment in her case based on the
Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. When the Dreamer objects to her reasoning, she responds with the requirements of righteousness, which no mortal can keep all his life by his own efforts, and the reasons God may reward the innocent child ahead of a hard‐working adult (605‐744).
The Dreamer still cannot quite take his focus off the Pearl Maiden, but his next questions provide the opening she needs to teach him more about her
Bridegroom’s judgment and righteousness. As quoted above, he first asks who made her as she now is (745‐56), and when she describes her marriage to the
Lamb in terms that echo Song of Songs, he asks, “Quat kyn þyng may be þat
Lambe / Þat þe wolde wedde vnto Hys vyf?” [Of what kind can he be, the Lamb you name, / Who would you His wedded wife declare?] (771‐2). After setting him straight again about her non‐unique status, the Pearl Maiden launches into a description of “My Lombe, my Lorde, my dere Juelle, / My Joy, my Blys, my
Lemman fre” based on Isaiah 53, which emphasizes His own righteous innocence and the loving judgment that caused Him to sacrifice Himself for all humanity (781‐844).
167 Once the Dreamer finally accepts the knowledge of God that the Pearl
Maiden has attempted to impart to him, he asks her the same question the Bride asks the Bridegroom in Song of Songs 1:6:
Haf ʒe no wonez in castel‐walle, Ne maner þer ʒe may mete and won? …………………………………………… So cumly a pakke of joly juele Were euel done schulde lyʒ þeroute, …………………………………………… If þou hatz oþer bygynges stoute, Now tech me to þat myry mote.
No home in castle‐wall do ye share, No mansion to meet in, no domain? …………………………………………… For jewels so lovely ‘twould not be well That flock so fair should have no fold! …………………………………………… If elsewhere you have stout stronghold, Now guide me to that goodly spot! (917‐8, 929‐30, 935‐6)
This question comes partly from fatherly concern, partly from his persistent misconception of her state—a queen needs a palace, after all—and partly from his lingering idolatrous feelings toward her. But since he has finally humbled himself enough to receive the answer with the reverence it deserves, the Pearl
Maiden functions as the flock the Bridegroom tells the Bride to follow in order to find his midday resting place. Herself a bride of Christ, the Pearl Maiden directs the Dreamer’s attention to the New Jerusalem and leads him to it, thereby both answering the question he asked and drawing him to the One of whom he ought
168 to have asked it. She freely admits that this vision is the reason she asked God to allow her to contact her father in a dream (967‐8).
Bernard notes that the Bridegroom’s dwelling place is also the place where his sheep may graze freely without his constant care; it is “a place of rest, of security, of exultation, of wonder, of overwhelming joy” (SC 33.2). And such a place is exactly what the Pearl Maiden shows the Dreamer—her own abode, true, but also that of her “Lemman fre,” who is both Lamb and Bridegroom. The
Innocents’ resemblance to the Lamb allows the procession to reflect both
Revelation 14 and Song of Songs 1:6‐7, as the Lamb’s lambs frolic around His throne (1095‐150). Likewise, the Dreamer’s musings on the lack of sun and moon echo Bernard’s description of Heaven as possessing the true noonday, during which the Bridegroom rests, the Bride finds Him, and His sheep are fully fed
(Pearl 1043‐76; SC 33.4‐7). Here at last the Dreamer has found what, despite his ignorance, his soul truly desired.
However, as mentioned in the previous chapter, this vision is accommodated to the Dreamer’s understanding. He has identified himself as a jeweler and views the world in terms of jewels, so not only does the New
Jerusalem sparkle with the gemstones described in Revelation, the Innocents and the Lamb Himself appear gem‐like to him. The Dreamer calls Christ “þat gay
Juelle” and declares, “Best watz He, blyþest, and moste to pryse, / Þat euer I
169 herde of speche spent” (1124, 1131‐2). Not until this point in the poem can the
Dreamer understand and respond to the Passion, given the startling appearance of a wound in the otherwise flawless Jewel (1135‐43). Though he does not dwell on the insight, it apparently sparks an element of love that, as noted previously, remains with the Dreamer and enables him to relinquish his claim to the Pearl
Maiden.
The Bridegroom’s Rebuke
Bernard, speaking as the Bridegroom, cautions the Bride that she cannot have the fullness of her heart’s desire while she remains an unfinished, imperfect mortal (SC 37.5). The Pearl Maiden, likewise, cautions the Dreamer several times that he cannot cross the river to join her while his mortal body remains alive. As long as he keeps his focus where it should be, on the Lamb and the New
Jerusalem, the Dreamer seems content to abide by this rule and to learn all he can. No sooner does he take his eyes off the Lamb, though, than he spots the
Pearl Maiden again, and his ignorance reasserts itself:
Delyt me drof in yʒe and ere, My manez mynde to madding malte; ……………………………………………… I þoʒt noþyng myʒt me dere To fech me bur and take me halte, And to start in þe streme schulde non me stere, To swymme þe remnaunt, þaʒ I þer swalte.
Delight there pierced my eye and ear,
170 In my mortal mind a madness reigned; ………………………………………………… I thought that naught could interfere, Could strike me back to halt constrained, From plunge in stream would none me steer, Though I died ere I swam o’er what remained. (1153‐4, 1157‐60)
As soon as he touches the riverbank, however, he incurs God’s wrath, and the dream ends (1161‐70).
Both common sense and narrative sense dictate that the Dreamer would have to wake up at some point. Nor would he escape disappointment even under good circumstances. Bernard notes that in this life, every glimpse of the
Bridegroom is short and any fleeting experience of the fourth degree of love is interrupted at once by the cares of the flesh (SC 32.2; De diligendo Deo 10.27). His friend William of St. Thierry similarly lamented that his contemplative visions were invariably cut off just when he was reaching for some glorious new insight or experience (38‐9). However, the Dreamer’s sudden rejection of everything he has learned in favor of a final attempt to reclaim the Pearl Maiden makes the abrupt ending of the dream a clear punishment. The Dreamer has not known himself, so he must go forth into the world again. Unlikely to encounter Christ once more in this life as the Jewel, he must allow himself instead to perceive the vision of Him presented daily in the Eucharist (1174‐1212).
171 To his credit, however, the Dreamer accepts the humiliation he has brought on himself. He may not know himself as well as he ought, but at least he recognizes that he needs God’s help to become better than he was. The
Dreamer’s remark in lines 1189‐91 that he might have received greater insights
“To þat Pryncez paye hade I ay bente, / And ʒerned no more þen watz me geuen,
/ And halden me þer in trwe entent” [To please that Prince had I always bent, /
Desired no more than was my share, / And loyally been obedient] echoes
Bernard’s admonition to the Bride: “Be aware of what you are, do not hanker after truths that are too high for you, nor for experiences beyond your power to bear” (SC 38.5). By rejecting the ignorance that persists despite rebuke, the
Dreamer takes the first step toward his stated desire to please God and regain the joy he tasted in his dream.
Conclusion
With regard to correcting and consoling the ignorant Dreamer, the Pearl
Maiden’s role may be similar to that of Boethius’ Lady Philosophy, but Bernard’s sermons show how and why her methodology differs from Lady Philosophy’s rehearsal of concepts the character Boethius already knows and has not truly forgotten even in his misery. Unlike Boethius, the Dreamer does not know enough to know where his understanding fails or what he has forgotten, and his
“wreched wylle” and grief‐addled memory only make the problem worse by
172 refusing to work with reason. The Pearl Maiden therefore answers his questions about her life in such a way as to underscore his own shortcomings and reveal vital information about himself and God that he will not accept in any other form. Though the Dreamer still has much to learn by the end of the poem, he has learned enough to be able to follow his daughter to the Bridegroom’s dwelling in more than just his dreams.
173
CHAPTER NINE
Conclusion
The conclusion of Patience is suspiciously tidy. Not only is the transition from God’s voice to the narrator’s unclear, as Malcolm Andrew and Ronald
Waldron note (206), but the last four lines do little more than restate the major points of the first fifty‐five lines. As a homily, the poem does need some sort of conclusion, so the poet cannot simply leave the audience hanging as the book of
Jonah does; but as we have seen by comparing it to Bernard’s writings, far more is at work in the example of Jonah than appears in the conclusion of the poem.
By refusing to restate any points he has not already made explicitly, the poet requires the audience to work out the implications for themselves. We cannot know whether Jonah has learned his lesson, but we do not need to—the purpose of the story, both in Scripture and in the poem, is to prompt the audience to apply its lessons to their own everyday lives. The same is true of the other three poems. Cleanness frequently restates its point, but the myriad examples highlight how broadly purity of heart must be defined; Pearl directs its rhetoric to the audience only in the closing prayer, but its challenge to a works‐based understanding of salvation undergirds the whole narrative; and Sir Gawain and
174 the Green Knight, a rollicking good romance, still presses for a deeper understanding of virtue than is commonly held at Hautdesert and Camelot.
Adam Brooke Davis observes that the Pearl poet’s surviving poems display the poet’s interest in teaching and learning as activities (268), but our understanding of the poems is impoverished if we do not consider precisely what they attempt to teach. Perhaps the best summary of this overarching concern is the one verse that appears in Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness and can also apply to Gawain: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Matt.
5:8; Pearl 675‐84; Cleanness 27‐8; Patience 23‐4). Gawain illustrates the difficulty of maintaining a pure heart without relying on God’s grace; Patience and Cleanness show that purity of heart, required of religious and clerics, requires more than lip service to ideals like patient poverty and chastity; and Pearl underscores the folly of presuming on one’s merits. All four poems are designed to capture the imagination with what Sir Philip Sidney would call “that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy” (51), conveying truths about purity of heart to an audience that could not or would not read and learn from Latin theological or devotional writings. In this approach, the poet shares Bernard’s reforming zeal, doing his best to turn his audience away from carnal misconceptions toward the
Way, the Truth, and the Life by meeting them where they are.
175 One might reach these conclusions about the poems without pursuing the possibility of Bernard’s influence, but most scholars have not reached them at all.
Too often, critics have relied primarily on modern theology and psychology and lamented their inability to cross the divide between their worldview and the poet’s. While we cannot know with certainty what the Pearl poet may have read,
Bernard’s importance for fourteenth‐century theology is indisputable, and the fact that his writings are still very accessible makes them a good reference point to bridge the gap between late modern and late medieval modes of thought.
Moreover, Bernard’s writings form such an integral part of the intellectual context for these poems that we can hardly understand the poet’s dialogue with his times without considering his probable use of Bernard in an imaginative setting that neither needed nor was conducive to a refrain of “Saynt Bernard says.”1
Of course, Bernard is clearly not the only theological influence on these poems. Michael W. Twomey’s use of Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica to examine Cleanness and David Aers’ comparison of Pearl to Augustine’s
Confessions provide two more examples of potential influences that enable scholars to observe more about the poems than modern critical theories alone may allow. Detailed analysis of the sort I have pursued here, based on the
1 Cf. e.g. The Pricke of Conscience and Piers Plowman, which cite Bernard explicitly.
176 writings of other theologians, ought to yield yet more heretofore undiscovered insights into these rich and deeply spiritual poems—yes, even into Gawain.
The challenge is to be willing to engage the orthodox, reform‐minded medieval Christian worldview honestly, without prejudging how a medieval author ought to think, and to state the obvious when necessary. To be sure, some scholars have found this approach less challenging than others, but even when it is hard, it is worthwhile. Like Gawain, let us take up the task even when it leads us out of our comfort zones.
Now þat bere þe croun of þorne, He bring vus to His blysse! Amen.
May He that was crowned with thorn Bring all men to His bliss! Amen. (Gawain 2529‐31)
177 APPENDICES
178
APPENDIX A
Fourteenth‐Century British Libraries Housing Bernardine Manuscripts
Compiled from Bell, Cistercian Authors 19‐31, 41‐7, 57‐152, 161‐71; Cistercian Libraries 45‐8
Aberdeen Dunkeswell Aldgate Holy Trinity Durham Athelney Easby St. Agathaʹs Battle Evesham Bodmin Exeter Bordesley Eynsham Bradenstoke Farleigh Brinkburne Flaxley Buckfast Forde Buildwas Fountains Burton‐Upon‐Trent Furness Bury St. Edmunds Gisburn Butley Glasgow Byland Glastonbury Cambridge Peterhouse Gloucester Cathedral Cambridge St. Catherineʹs College Goldcliff Cambridge University Hailes Canterbury Cathedral Hexham Canterbury Christ Church Holyrood Canterbury St. Augustineʹs Hulne Cirencester Jervaulx Coggeshall Kelso Colchester St. Johnʹs Kenilworth Combe Kirkstall Crowland Lanthony Croxden Leicester Dieulacres Lenton Dore Lewes Dover Benedictine Priory Lincoln Cathedral Church of BVM Dover St. Radegund Lindisfarne
179 Loch Leven Rufford London Hospital of BVM near Salisbury Cripplegate Sibton London St. Paulʹs Southwick Louth Park Spalding Margam St. Albans Meaux St. Andrews Melrose St. Benet Hulme Merevale St. Neots Merton Stanley Much Wenlock Stoneleigh Muchelney Stratford Langthorne Newminster Thurgarton Northampton St. James Titchfield Oseney Twynham Christchurch Oxford Canterbury College Waltham Oxford Durham College Waverley or St. Paulʹs Oxford Lincoln College Welbeck Oxford Merton College Westminster Oxford New College Whalley Peterborough Whitby Pipewell Winchester Quarr Witham Ramsey Woburn Reading Worcester Rievaulx York Austin Friarsʹ Robertsbridge York St. Maryʹs Rochester
180
APPENDIX B
Bernardine Titles Commonly Held in Fourteenth‐Century British Libraries
Compiled from Bell, Cistercian Authors 19‐31, 41‐7, 57‐152, 161‐71; Cistercian Libraries 45‐8
Opera omnia and collections of unidentified works Apologia Contra quaedam capitula errorum Petri Abelardi De baptismo De consideratione De diligendo Deo De gradibus humilitatis (et superbiae) De gratia et libero arbitrio De laude novae militiae De moribus et officio episcoporum De praecepto et dispensatione Epistolae ‐‐ Collections Epistolae ‐‐ Individual letters Flores Bernardi Homiliae quatuor super “Missus est angelus Gabriel”/De laudibus virginis matris Sententiae, Excerpta, and Compilationes Sermones ‐‐ Collections Sermones ‐‐ Individual sermons Sermones in Cantica Canticorum Sermones xvii in Ps. 90 Vita sancti Malachiae
181
APPENDIX C
Could the Pearl Poet Have Been a Cistercian?
John Burrow argued in 1965 that the Pearl poet was associated with the
Cistercian abbey of Basingwerk, while several other scholars have argued that the descriptions of topography and place names given in Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight place Hautdesert on the grounds of Dieulacres, a Cistercian abbey that held extensive lands in Chester and Staffordshire (Wilkin 114; “Houses” n. 53;
Twomey, “Arthur’s Sisters” 105‐107; Twomey, “The Gawain‐Poet” 274). Little information survives about Dieulacres, other than that there were only seven monks there in 1377 and eleven in 1381; that the abbey frequently entered into land disputes with neighboring ecclesiastical and secular landowners; and that the abbot kept armed bands, notorious for their thuggish behavior, to patrol the abbey’s lands (“Cistercian Abbeys”; “Houses” 230‐235). According to David N.
Bell’s indexes, the only book by a Cistercian known to have been in Dieulacres’ library, other than the abbey’s chronicle, was a copy of Bernard’s Super cantica canticorum (Cistercian Libraries 238; Cistercian Authors 22, 43).
If the courts in Gawain are intended as allegories of monasteries, however,
Hautdesert sounds less like an ideal Cistercian house and more like Bernard’s
182 satirical description of Cluny in his Apologia. The court’s reception of Gawain and their ‘fasting’ seafood feast in lines 815‐927 especially echo Bernard’s condemnation of Cluny’s attitudes and meals:
Ecce enim parcitas putatur avaritia, sobrietas austeritas creditur, silentium tristitia reputatur. Econtra remissio discretio dicitur, effusio liberalitas, loquacitas affabilitas, cachinnatio iucunditas, mollities vestimentorum et equorum festus honestas, lectorum superfluus cultus munditia [. . .]. Nobis autem convenientibus in unum, ut verbis Apostoli utar, IAM NON EST DOMINICAM CENAM MANDUCARE. Panem quippe caelestem nemo qui requirat, nemo qui tributat. Nihil de Scripturis, nihil de salute agitur animarum; sed nugae, et risus, et verba proferuntur in ventum. Inter prandendum quantum fauces dapibus, tantum aures pascuntur rumoribus, quibus totus intentus, modum nescias in edendo. Interim autem fercula ferculis apponuntur, et pro solis carnibus, a quibus abstinentur, grandia piscium corpora duplicantur. Cumque prioribus fueris satitatus, si secundos attigeris, videberis tibi necdum gustasse pisces. Tanta quippe accuratione et arte coquorum cuncta apparantur, quatenus, quatuor aut quinque ferculis devoratis, prima non impediant novissima, nec satietas minuat appeititum.
Abstemiousness is accounted miserliness, sobriety strictness, silence gloom. On the other hand, laxity is labeled discretion, extravagance generosity, talkativeness sociability, and laughter joy. Fine clothes and costly caparisons are regarded as mere respectability, and being fussy about bedding is hygiene. [. . .] As for us, when we come together, to use the Apostle’s words, it is not to eat the Lord’s supper. Nobody asks for the heavenly bread, and no one distributes it. There is nothing about the Bible or the salvation of souls. Jokes and laughter and chatter are all we hear. At table, while the mouth is filled with food the ears are nourished with gossip so absorbing that all moderation in eating is forgotten. Meanwhile course after course is brought in. Only meat is lacking, and to compensate for this two huge servings of fish are
183 given. You might have thought that the first was sufficient, but even the recollection of it vanishes once you have set to on the second. The cooks prepare everything with such skill and cunning that the four or five courses already consumed are no hindrance to what is to follow, and the appetite is not checked by satiety. (Apologia 8.16, 9.19‐20)
Even so, these descriptions prove little about the poet’s profession. Dieulacres may well have been one of the Cistercian houses that had fallen into Cluniac excess by the late fourteenth century, in need of a gentle reminder—from within or without—of Bernard’s objections to such a lifestyle, but the poet could just as easily have intended to warn his brothers—from Dieulacres or another monastery—to be especially on their guard when visiting a lax house.
Could the Pearl poet have been a monk or lay brother at Dieulacres or one of its neighboring Cistercian houses? The evidence is inconclusive, but the possibility exists. However, even if scholarly opinion is correct in identifying the poet as a layman in Richard II’s retinue of Chester intelligentsia in London, he would probably still have had access to Bernard’s writings; the library at
Westminster Abbey had a number of Bernard’s works, as did several other libraries in the greater London area (Bell, Cistercian Authors 161‐71).
184
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