Jottings on Beowulf and fragmentation of the body/nation

As I've not posted anything in a while, here's a note-form version of something I'm working on at the moment. This is the seminar paper I delivered a couple of weeks ago, and which I am currently working on expanding into a full-length paper (c. 20-22 pages, if I can keep it down to that length!). I'm keeping it in note form, because I am, sadly, beginning to get a little chary of copyright on the internet.

Not that I expect to publish this. I am not going to make my first major analytical publication on Beowulf.

A - General outline: Fragmentation or unity of the body as reflective of (and a site for exploring anxieties about) that of the nation.

- Lerer calls beowulf ‘a poem of the body’ (723). [1] Poem’s focus on the physical deeds and prowess of the warrior body often excludes the use of ornamentation, weaponry or armour. Every conflict with a monstrous opponent results in not merely the death of one party but in the fragmentation or destruction of their body: Grendel rends and eats his victims, Beowulf relies on muscle rather than weapon and tears off Grendel’s arm, Grendel’s mother tears off Aeschere’s head and discards it far from civilisation, Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother and cuts off Grendel’s head then displays head and arm as tokens of his victory. He cleaves the dragon in two; the sea monsters try to make a feast of him, but he scatters their bodies on the shore. All of the most dramatic moments of conflict with an outside force, Lerer concludes, draw attention to the maintenance of the intact body of the victor over the broken body of the defeated.

B - ‘Nation’ (for this purpose) as defined not by maps or land but as the people and culture.

- Spatial imaginaire, but not the physical boundaries on which Michelet[2] focusses. Not particularly useful for Beowulf (partly for reasons Hiatt points out, but also simply because the rest of the land is not very interesting, with the partial exception of its coast-boundaries).

- Instead, nation is centred on / symbolised by the vivid image of the hall and the bodies within - as Michelet does point out, it is the hall in each instance (whether human or monstrous) that is under the threat of invasion. The invasions into the hall (by Grendel or the dragon) lead to a breakdown in unified social function (Michelet 79).

- Within the hall, imagery is centred on the body and the cultural actions of the body, esp. re. gift-giving (and the throne, the centred position of the leader, is a particular point of threat from both Grendel and dragon). Proximity to the central figure as crucial element in ordered and functioning social space - cf movements of queen within hall bearing cup to guests, etc. (May not be spatial centre if one were to draw a floor plan, but is imagined/conceptual centre.) The absent leader provides space for his replacement with Grendel (Hroðgar leaves the hall in the night, Michelet 92). (note that the den of dragon and Grendel provide a negative image of this)

- Image of nation therefore as the body (esp. that of the leader) within the communal space.

- But centre and boundaries are defined against each other: centre implies boundaries, boundaries necessitate centre (Michelet 10, then 24). Anxiety about definition and establishment of secure boundaries, the point where in becomes out, us becomes them, at which they touch by necessity, the point farthest from centre. How do we define the boundaries? ... monsters!

C - Jeffrey Cohen’s work on the idea of the giant in Anglo-Saxon literature/mythology[3] as a starting point from which to examine the nature of the threat presented by Grendel and his mother. [Firstly: giant tears and eats, is a threat to the body, but also, in its violent exaggerated human form, a threat to unified society] Especially:

- The giant as inhabiter / transgressor of boundaries, of both society and human bodies. Cohen 1-2 re. giant as psychological and cultural delineator of boundaries - extend this to spatially, to the temporal boundaries of beginnings and endings, and also culturally taboo-boundaries like cannibalism: in each instance the physical body and its physical effects are important.

- The giant as originary or causative, particularly in their body, inhabiting some distant past on which the present is built. The broken body of the giant provides origins (cf Gog/Magog, who are thrown into the sea as the dragon is) (p. 9 for Ymir). The giants’ violent acts and boundary-breaking, the damage they visit on bodies and landscape (17), form the origin both of cultures (imaged in the body) and cultural space.

D - Fragmentation of that body

- By consumption or mutilation.

- Maintenance of the intact body = success, vs. consequences of defeat = dismembered body (Grendel, Aescere’s head, etc) - see Seth Lerer. What is at stake in the conflicts, then, is unity vs fragmentation, as conceived in terms of the body.

- He does not point out, however, that each conflict (even Beowulf vs. sea monsters) has one party transgressing the boundaries of the other’s space - one enters to the other and the result is a dismembered body within a violated space. The space itself often shows signs of this violence - the blood bubbling to the surface of the mere is an irrefutable sign of the violence within, and is read as such, although Hrodhgar’s men misread the results of that violence. Crossing the boundary is a defining moment that, like the passage of the Rubicon, commits the intruder to a battle for control of the integrity of the space and the body. Attention is thus drawn to the boundaries and the moment of breaking them.

- Therefore the body (society or the body of its leader) defined / celebrated by challenge to it.

E. Grendel and his mother inhabit and transgress the boundaries of body and nation and thus help to delineate them (Michelet 94-5). The image of the broken body of the giant + intact body of hero (alive or celebrated in his tomb) provides origin, projected back into the past?

- Cohen: fragments of Grendel’s body are elevated as symbols of “a public validation of the control and acceptance of structured society whose antitheses Grendel represents” (24). So the fragments are not only a result of victory, but a sign of it, signalling triumph over the other and a society (and heroic body) whose unity has been affirmed.

- Michelet points out that “The demon’s footsteps provide the spatial transition between the two places” (Heorot and the mere) (80) & treading the grounds defines the limited (107-08). He does not point out that Grendel’s footprints are not merely impressions in the dirt, but marked in blood, signs of the damage to his body and his consequent defeat. Cannot break the boundaries of his space until his body is broken - and once he does, Beowulf breaks his body again.

- Walkers in the wasteland: with their feet, especially the bloody footprints, they mark out and define the boundaries of civilisation.

In expanding this to a proper paper, I'd like to explore further the idea of temporal boundaries - the beginning and ending of nations / things / memory / knowledge. Beowulf and Wiglaf are the last of their people, Beowulf says, and this is signalled by the breakdown of society after Beowulf dies, as if his death and the sundering of social ties shown by the earls’ failure to help him signal the actual end of the Geats as a whole. Beowulf’s body, however, remains: he says that his cairn is to be a signal to later generations, or later ages, far into the future. But there is very little human history, only a few generations back, as if the past can only be accessed by the monsters.

Drawing again on Cohen: the hilt of the sword that Beowulf takes from the mere depicts the giants before the flood, which is where they’re usually found, in some legendary but foundational long-ago. They build, yes, and old stone ruins are often referred to semi-metaphorically in Anglo-Saxon poetry as ‘the work of giants’ (Cohen 11), but other landscape features are also attributed to them. They and their brute strength are used to explain the presence of mountains, lakes, ancient cities, broken rocks, changes wrought long ago before the human nation arrived. In Germanic cosmogonies they predate the material universe, which is fashioned from the corpse of one of them (7).

So giants are originary or causative, particularly in their body, inhabiting some distant past on which the present is built. The broken body of the giant provides origins - Gogmagog is dashed into a thousand pieces and thrown into the sea so that Brutus can found Britain. The dragon, incidentally, meets the same fate - but I don't think we can equate the dragon and the Grendelkin so easily. He seems to me to be a very different creature, especially in terms of how he relates to the beginnings and endings of human civilisations.

Grendel’s fragments possibly provide, for the poem’s audience, a similar imaginative origin in the defeat of the previous inhabitants of the land. The giants’ violent acts and boundary-breaking, the damage they visit on bodies and landscape (Cohen 17), form the origin both of cultures (imaged in the body) and cultural space, but they also demarcate a boundary in time that cannot be crossed by human knowledge: once again, they demarcate the unknowable.



[1] Seth Lerer, ‘Grendel’s Glove’, English Literary History 61 (1994): 721-751. (The glove Grendel wears – ie, the monster as symbolised by his hand and his mouth, Beowulf’s removal of these; Norse traditions of giants’ gloves; Beowulf is ‘a poem of the body’, and victory results in destruction of the body of the defeated.)
[2] Fabienne Michelet, Creation, Migration and Conquest: Imaginary Geography and Sense of Space in Old English Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. (Anglo-Saxon conceptions of space; Grendel’s mere and the dragon’s den compared and contrasted to Heorot, Beowulf’s hall, Beowulf’s cairn; demarcations of land boundaries in Beowulf.)
[3] Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ‘Old English Literature and the Work of Giants’, Comitatus 24 (1993): 1-32. (Figure of the giant in Old English literature; debts to Germanic and Latin/Old Testament traditions; psychological function of the monster; figure of Grendel within this tradition.)

Word made flesh #1

Now this is interesting.

The story is that of the Levite’s concubine from Judges (King James and Latin Vulgate): 

Judges 20.4: I came into Gabaa, of Benjamin, with my wife, and there I lodged: 5 And behold men of that city, in the night beset the house wherein I was, intending to kill me [volentes me occidere], and abused my wife with an incredible fury of lust [incredibili libidinis furore], so that at last she died. 6 And I took her and cut her in pieces, and sent the parts into all the borders of your possession: because there never was so heinous a crime, and so great an abomination committed in Israel. 7 You are all here, O children of Israel, determine what you ought to do.

According to the earlier narrative, the men who came to the house desired not to murder him but to rape him.  The host, reminiscent of Lot, offered his virgin daughter and his guest’s wife rather than the guest: “I will bring them out to you, and you may humble them, and satisfy your lust: only, I beseech you, commit not this crime against nature on the man” (“educam eas ad vos ut humilietis eas et vestram libidinem conpleatis tantum obsecro ne scelus hoc contra naturam operemini in virum”, Judges 19.24).  When she returned to the host’s house and fell dead on the threshold, her husband took her and cut her into twelve pieces, which he sent “into all the borders of Israel” (Judges 19.29.  The outrage summoned the Israelites, whom he addressed as above; and war was the result[1]. This is an image of the key scene from a 13th century Bible Moralisée (sadly blurry):

Österreicheische NationalBibliotecke Codex Vindobonensis 2554 fol. 65v, copied from Caviness 148.

The upper two images are of the corpse being brought home on an ass, and then being divided for distribution.  The lower two are of Jerome and Augustine helping Lady Philosophy  down from the ass of paganism, then giving the twelve books of the Patriarchs to the apostles.

But note the very deliberate visual parallels.  The corpse and Philosophy are helped down from the ass, Philosophy drooping in a way that imitates the inertia of the corpse.  As the corpse is dismembered into twelve parts for demonstrative distribution about the land, Philosophy is fragmented into twelve books to be distributed via the apostles.  Even the divided body parts are very flat and square, resembling images of the parts than the parts themselves, and lacking the curves that usually mark the feminine.

So the books are directly glossed as the dismembered body parts, which are themselves implicitly converted to relics and offered for idolising perusal, their femininity negated.  The female body of Philosophy, meanwhile, appears to have been constructed entirely of the books into which she is fragmented (and she has no more agency of her own, even when intact, than does the corpse). Word is made flesh – just as the words in the books are written on the dismembered flesh of the sheep who kindly donated the parchment.

This also raises the question of the female body as text.  It is not an autonomous text, however, but glossed, interpreted and directed by men – and the written word itself is essentially a male-dominated medium, so in converting to words the body that had temporarily escaped the Levite’s control, he reasserts his ownership and control. It becomes a commodity to be distributed according to the gift and will of its owner, with no more meaning than he chooses to assign it.  The woman’s experience of rape is not heard, only the man’s experience of theft.

Nevertheless – the woman has become Philosophy, and distributed to the inspiration of men’s intellect.  Grammatically feminine, of course, so she must be depicted by a woman, but it’s not a bad reincarnation for a gang-raped concubine, surely?


[1]   Which I’m sure was a great comfort to her.




Cited: Caviness, Madeline H. Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle, and Scopic Economy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

Sir Launfal and the ubiquitous Veiled Homosexual Reference

So, I have been quiet again, for real life is intruding - in a good way, this time! The arrival of my formal offer letter from Ottawa University has precipitating a little fluffy of Things To Do, which leave little time for creative thought. Fortunately, one can still manage the more mathematical work of grammatical study and translation - so in addition to Latin, I am now having a lot of fun (re)teaching myself modern French[1], and trying not to get distracted by Anglo-Norman spelling patterns.

But we were reading through Sir Launfal today (using this online edition) and one thing struck me particularly.

For background: Guenevere, in this poem, is the traditional Evil Predatory Scheming Evil Seductive Evil Emasculating Threatening-Homosocial-Bonds Evil Female. She has already managed to get Launfal sent away from Camelot in shame (severing him from his masculinity, or at least the ideal proof of it, as Evil Predatory Scheming Females are wont to do). Now he has returned in glory, she tries another trick in the traditional repertoire of the Evil Predatory Scheming Female. She tries to seduce him - and when he (being a noble and virtuous knight, and also in love with someone else) refuses her, she goes to Arthur and cries rape[2]. However, before stalking off in a huff, she resorts to insult:

Sche seyde, "Fy on the, thou coward!
Anhongeth worth thou hye and hard! [Thou art worthy to be hanged high and hard]
That thou ever were ybore!
That thou lyvest, hyt ys pyté! [Probably, both 'that thou's should be read as dependent on 'it is pity'.]
Thou lovyst no woman, ne no woman the -
Thou were worthy forlore [to be lost/damned]!" (485-490)

Obviously, if one cannot lust after the beautiful Guenevere, one cannot lust after any woman, or so her logic seems to run. Certainly, given the consequent beauty contest, physical attractiveness (presumably as a metaphor for other noble/virtuous qualities) is at issue here. Launfal's reply confirms this:

The knyght was sore aschamed tho;
To speke ne myghte he forgo
And seyde the Quene before,
"I have loved a fayryr woman
Than thou ever leydest thyn ey upon
Thys seven yer and more! (491-496)

What concerns me here is the terms of her accusation. Firstly, she calls him a coward - a sore insult for a knight, but her phrasing suggests it's merely a throw-away line, subsidiary to and dependent on what follows. The primary accusation - which she holds as strong enough to damn him - is that he loves no woman, and no woman loves him.

The editors of this edition read this, without a 'maybe', as a barely-veiled accusation of sodomy. The equivalent tale by Marie de France has, at this point, a much more open accusation: Launfal prefers boys to women. Yes, dramatic, shocking, scandalous, and most delectably convenient to modern sensibilities. But..?

That's not what she says. I don't deny that the accusation of homosexuality[3] is present, or the threat of theological damnation for the act (or preference) of sodomy. But I feel that her primary concern is with exactly what she says: Launfal is apparently opting out of the intricate social game of courtly love. Whether that be in the interest of celibacy or chasing pretty boys is beside the question. Guenevere is out to emasculate Launfal; and, in this poet's view, stepping out of that ultimate knightly game of courtship and stylised self-elevating self-degradation, the theoretically bloodless game with its rules as intricate as those of any tournament sport, is as damning in social terms as sodomy itself may be in theological ones. This accusation is, and should be, enough. If Launfal cannot prove his manhood in courtly love - not because he fails in it, but because he chooses to avoid it - then there is no man to be proven. The potency of the venom lies in the central accusation, which is exactly what she says: "Thou lovyst no woman, ne no woman the".

The occasional (or habitual) act of sodomy may be a corollary to this, but I think it is imposing modern sensibilities too far to say that this is the heart of Guenevere's accusation. Rather, she is accusing him of opting out of the primary activity[4] of the homosocial network that proves his knighthood (or masculinity, if you prefer), thereby revealing himself to be less than a man[5].

And Launfal, tellingly, responds to the accusation in kind. He protests not that "I love a woman, she is definitely female, so there", but "I love a woman more beautiful than you have seen in seven years" (or possibly "I have loved a woman for seven years who is more beautiful than any you have ever seen"). Like Guenevere, he ties the issue back to feminine beauty - which is, of course, one of the most potent points-scorers in the Courtly Love game (along with Difficulty Of Attaining Maiden, Brutishness Of Beast Threatening/Wooing Her, Length Of Years Spent Wandering In The Wilderness / Locked In A Dungeon Before Attaining Her and Mystical Virtue-Affirming Objects Attained In The Process). Is there any solemn tale of courtly love in which the beauty of the objet desire (object in every possible sense, of course) is not extolled above all others[6]? Launfal replies in the terms of the game, asserting that not only does he participate, but he excels - as, of course, the subsequent contest will prove. Women are scorepoints, the higher the better; and the player who doesn't bother moving his little character across the screen to chase the points won't end up on the high score table.

I've nothing against reading gay theory into literature, of course. It's certainly necessary, and we've an awful lot of re-writing to do over centuries of phobia and repression. But it does concern me that it becomes a fad and an obsession - that we see OMG GAY SEX and focus on that to the exclusion of what might actually have been meant. It's as if, at work, I were to see two women or two men walk in hand in hand, and be too busy jumping over the counter to say I AFFIRM YOUR RIGHT TO HAVE SEX WITH EACH OTHER, GO TO IT, HOORAY FOR NON-HETEROSEXUAL CHOICES to hear them say, "Um, hey, actually, I just wanted a latte".


[1] My modern French is weird and erratic. I can read an academic article with no trouble, needing little more concentration than I do to read Italian - but then, the thought pattern for reading that form of writing is familiar, and the English vocabulary for formal writing is largely French/Latin-derived anyway. I'm lost in a French chat forum, where you'd expect the language to be simpler. And I can read a letter to a neighbour in Anglo-Norman, eye an unfamiliar verb with an odd collection of vowels and say "that looks like an early form of the French equivalent of this verb, and that is either the subjunctive or the imperfect, third person plural", which makes it very easy to locate the right form in a verb table to cross-check. But ask me to form the subjunctive or imperfect of any given verb in any form of French and I'd be stumped. It's all intuitive leaps and no recitable verb tables. And of course, my accent is terrible and my ear is quite untrained in following a modern French speaker at normal conversational pace.

So: I have the vocabulary, and the instinct, and just need to cement my grammar and build my aural skills. Easily done - that is, after all, what online resources are for!


[2] Actually, what she says is 'he propositioned me, and ALSO HE INSULTED MY BEAUTY, HE MUST DIE'.

[3] Or homosexual preferences, or homosexual acts. Caveat lector, homosexuality being an anachronistic concept, etc, though I'd dispute the absolute generalisation that sexuality was completely defined by the act in the middle ages and that there was no concept of sexual preferences - witness this accusation, if nothing else. If one reads this passage as being primarily concerned with OMG GAY SEX, as the modern reader is conditioned to, Guenevere does appear to be referring to an established preference: a lifestyle choice, in modern terms. But I think that is only secondary to her main point.

[4] Well, yes, there's also fighting. But this is courtly romance we're talking about, and the hero is always good at fighting: it's the courtly-love half of the two primary strands of knighthood that causes the problems and requires most intricate and difficult proof.

[5] And earlier in this scene, she actually stepped between him and Gawain, thereby symbolically cutting him off from the epitome of English knighthood and manliness! The wiles of women know no end. He should just hand her a cleaver and be done with it. And then go and exchange sob stories with Erec and Yvain about losing his precious Gawain because of a woman.

[6] The Grail legends may, at this point in the argument, be read as a tale of courtly love, if you so desire, or the courtly love paradigm read as a metaphor for the Grail hunt. Either works. The Grail is shiny and pretty.

A verray, parfit gentil king (part 2): The comparative bit.

Part the second of a three-part post on The Perfect King and his Eyes of Flash.
Part one.
Part three.

Following on from this post, there are a few points I want to pick out with regards to the construct of the perfect king in the passages I quoted (the scene with the Roman ambassadors in the alliterative and Malory’s Morte d’Arthur; Theseus’ condemnation of Palamoun and Arcite and the women’s intervention in The Knight’s Tale; Edward III’s reception of the burghers of Calais at the end of Froissart’s account of that siege). Each of these stories follows the same pattern, with a few – but remarkably few – variations. Within that pattern, details recur: the effect of the king’s eyes, and his criticism of the words of his opponents, for example. But there are three threads in this story (and it is, essentially, one story) that I find particularly interesting in their reflection on contemporary notions of kingship.

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Firstly, in each case the voice of the narrator or the king takes pains to keep us from sympathising too much with the king’s opponents, placing him on a higher moral plain. There is a particular emphasis on making us feel that he is acting justly in responding with anger to the challenge, especially in the two instances when this leads to death sentences.

In the Mortes, the king takes no action and says not a word against the messengers: he merely glares, and their cowering reaction both elevates him (in the power of his gaze) and diminishes the messengers, that they would respond with grovelling terror to a look. Sympathies and admiration shift firmly towards the king – of whom, after all, an unjust and insulting tribute is being demanded (at least from our partisan perspective). Linking this symbolic victory to moral qualities, the king highlights the difference between his behaviour and that of the messengers when he characterises their words as “brym”, but denies their ability to affect his decision. In considering his response to the demand, he declares (in Malory) that he “woll nat be to over-hasty” and he will take “avysement”, implying both careful judgement and proper consultation with trusted advisers. In the alliterative version this becomes a less open reprimand which nevertheless contrasts his judgement with their discourtesy: “Thow has me somonde... and said what the lykes; / Ffore sake of thy soueraynge I suffre the the more”. This Arthur also goes on to say that he will consult with his nobles before reaching a decision. In courtesy, his behaviour is more proper to the situation than that of the representatives of his rival power, while the skin-saving emphasis of those representatives on the emperor’s “commaundement” gives the impression of a far less consular and more tyrannical model of royalty at the foreign court than at Camelot.

In the Mortes, the king’s anger serves as a deserved rebuke, but the spectre of physical punishment is evoked only by the fearful ambassadors when they plead that he “misdoo no messangere”. In Froissart and Chaucer’s stories, however, he passes a sentence of death himself. The balance of sympathy is therefore more easily tipped towards the victims, and as a result the king’s justice in this particular instance is emphasised, rather than his superior adherence to social codes of behaviour overall. Both stories allow the legitimacy of sympathy towards the condemned – in fact, they dramatise it. The “tears of pity” of the nobles in Froissart, and of the ladies in The Knight’s Tale, heighten the emotional stakes and encourage a stronger engagement with the eventual outcome.

Theseus, however, seems to have no personal emotional involvement in the situation. In the only instance in these examples devoid of eye-flashing, the duke pronounces a dispassionate “conclusioun”, in which “youre owene mouth, by youre confessioun” is the instrument of the sentencing. The unemotional precision of his response is his legitimacy as a just ruler[1]. It characterises him in this moment as the stern, clear-headed judge, looking down from his horse on the two sweating, bleeding, sulking young men whose emotions rule their judgement. To condemn to death two men who have previously been banished on pain of the same and discovered again in the country forbidden them is perfectly logical, and the duke determinedly keeps it on a logical footing until the ladies unbalance it with their emotional pleas. The only reference to the kingly wrath so emphasised in the other three extracts is the narrator’s “at the last aslaked was his mood”: previously, we had not been aware that he had a mood to slake.

By contrast, in the second extract, the king’s reaction is justified entirely by his anger against the citizens of the town in question. “He hated” them, we are told, and he looks at them with his heart “bursting in anger”. Hardly an impartial judge, to modern eyes; but the reason for his hatred? “Because of the losses they had inflicted on him at sea in the past”, the narrator tells us, and the king himself says “The people of [this town] have killed so many of my men that it is right that these should die in their turn”. This is not, then, the anger of a man on a private vendetta, but the righteous wrath of the king of sword and sceptre, defending his people and enforcing justice. In retrospect, this is probably the ‘mood’ that we are meant to understand was “aslaked” in the duke.

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The second, and perhaps the most important point that I want to pull out of these pieces is the importance of balancing justice with compassion – and vice versa. If the king did not make a display of anger and authority in each case – and I call it a display though there is no indication in any of the texts that the king is insincere in making it – his power and image would be significantly lessened. In two Mortes, he would be losing face diplomatically, in an international negotiation; in The Knight’s Tale and Froissart’s account, the power at stake is the king’s ability to enforce internal justice in his realm (despite the fact that the defendants in both cases are foreigners). In any of these cases, he could have his opponents put to death. We have seen the authors justifying the king in each case, and it would take little effort to exaggerate the behaviour of the messengers in the Mortes so that even the execution of diplomats wouldn’t be viewed too harshly by the audience. Even more so in Froissart and Chaucer, the king/duke would be well within his rights to pursue justice and the full extent of the law – but he does not.

To make a point, I shall quote (slightly anachronistically) a political tract written for the education of princes which was written in 1365, but not translated into English until the mid 1400s:

Mercy is a vertue greetly necessarye to every man, ffor it is a vertue that moch causeth the sauftie of the werkys of oure lorde God... And the wise man seith that mercy with oute justise is no verrey mercy, but rathir it may be seid folye and symplesse. And also justise with oute mercy is crueltie and felonye, and therfore it is convenient that these II vertues be ever ensembled, soo that the oon may at alle tymes attempre the othir. [2]

In all four passages, and particularly the ones in which the possibility of death is raised by the king himself, this tension between mercy and justice is played out. Where punishment is deserved, it must be a real possibility: the king cannot grant justice immediately and without deliberation, or he gives in to “folye and symplesse”. But nor can he carry out the sentence in all cases with no possibility of reprieve and – perhaps more importantly – without heeding the advice of his court and the voice of compassion, or he turns to “crueltie and felonye”. Mercy must therefore be hard-won, but won nonetheless. To this end, the voice of compassion is externalised – and feminised. The call for clemency is led in both these instances by the women. This does not represent a disowning of that aspect of royal power – on the contrary, there is a repeated emphasis on how well it befits a king. I believe that it has more to do with the developing role of the queen in embodying that royal power[3]. To allow her to intercede visibly (as Philippa does with Edward III) is not to set her up against the authority of the king, but within it. She is performing within a formalised role, embodying the mercy of the crown in her own (movingly pregnant, and thus extra-feminine) body, allowing the king to concede while retaining his authority and the fear aroused by his wrath. The queen, then, becomes the feminine embodiment of mercy to the king’s masculine justice, marriage keeping them “ever ensembled” as the above passage recommends, while the separation across two bodies prevents either from eroding the other.

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Nevertheless – and this is the third point I wanted to make – note the flourish with which each passage ends. Rather than petering off in clemency, the king takes another step and provides a demonstration which combines (feminine?) generosity inextricably with a politically advantageous display of power. In the Mortes, the ambassadors are treated with extravagant hospitality, no “spycerye” is spared, and the representatives of the rival power find themselves cowed by merely by the spread of expensively exotic dishes on Arthur’s table. Edward III presents each burgher with new clothes, “an ample dinner”, a large noble entourage and the means to set himself up in some comfort and style in Picardy. And Theseus, of course, subsumes the petty personal duel of Palamoun and Arcite in a massive monument to his own wealth and power, in the dual form of the physical structure of the arena and the international social significance of the tournament.

So, a good king is one who can act with force and decision in the interests of his kingdom, but knows how to listen to advice, and can turn a challenging situation to a resounding demonstration of his own power. And above all, he knows how to make a good show. Acting out the drama of justice and mercy before the court, cowing messengers with a glare, positioning himself to be physically as superior as he (would like to prove that he) is morally, casting himself as the bastion and centre of civilisation, from which he may distribute mercy or more physical tokens of generosity... it’s all about the PR. And that is what I will consider tomorrow!


[1] Although, of course, one can’t take Theseus as a pure and sincere representation of the perfect monarch without acknowledging the presence or proving the absence of Chaucerian irony. Theseus has reasons selfish as well as disinterested for acting as he does; but setting the question of sincerity aside, Chaucer is using a standard trope here, and audience expectations formed by previous settings of similar scenes do play a part in how we are to understand, if not the private motivations, at least the public behaviour of the characters involved.
[2] “The III Consideracions Right Necesserye to the good governaunce of a prince.” Four English political tracts of the later middle ages. Ed. Genet, Jean-Philippe. Camden fourth series 18. (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977). 100.
[3] I know I've read an article putting forward the idea of this gendered division of royal power in the reign of Richard II, but can't quite work out where. I blame this on being in Adelaide with my parents for Christmas, hampered by my inability to check sources. My hunch is that it was one of the chapters in Cullum, P. H., and Katherine J. Lewis (eds), Holiness and masculinity in the Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005).

Notes for a PHD proposal

So, in between busily scribbling bits of thesis, I somehow have to find brain space to think about next year and PHD possibilities. Here's my current thoughts.


Gentle words: choosing the non-violent approach.


Summary

In the final book of Malory's Morte Darthur, a desperate and bereaved Gawain tries to provoke Lancelot into battle with accusations of adultery, falsehood and betrayal. In failing to defend himself, Lancelot risks validating the accusations and attracting the additional charge of cowardice - and yet he, the best of Arthur's knights, deliberately chooses not to take up arms against his friend and his liege lord, even if this choice undermines his very being as a knight. I propose to explore literary and cultural perceptions of the choice of non-violence in the changing world of England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Considering the centrality of violence and force to both the chivalric ethos and to an effective justice system, I will also examine the effect such a choice might have on the formation of masculine identity and power. By studying literature such as political tracts, anonymous romances and saints' lives in addition to the more consciously constructed literature of writers such as Chaucer, Froissart, Malory and the Gawain-poet, I mean to examine the way in which the latter engaged with and rewrote cultural assumptions and constructs evident in the former.


Points to consider:

- The language of the formal university or theological disputatio was dominated by terms drawn from combat and physical dispute. Karras details the culture of masculine formation in late medieval universities and the transferral of aggressive response patterns from the physical military setting to the verbal university debate[1]. How was the non-violent choice depicted in this less literal setting? Did the virtual absence of women from the scene and the ban on marriage (where applicable) change the dynamic by depriving men of one possible way to prove their masculinity?

- Given the lower visibility of women in literature and the greater passivity of the female role in society and the home, can we determine to what extent these precepts were applied in the construction of feminine identity?

- Legends of saints' lives often celebrate the choice of non-resistance, the decision to suffer martyrdom unresisting for one's faith. This is one instance in which the author almost invariably commends the character unequivocably for the decision, though other characters in the narrative may mock or chide the saint for it. But is non-violence in the name of God an act of challenge and combat in itself? To what extent is the peaceful option as endorsed by religion used as an extenuating circumstance or justification for choosing to avoid violence in other situations?

- A fourteenth century political tract on good kingship would have it that "mercy with oute justise is no verrey mercy, but rathir it may be seid folye and symplesse. And also justise with oute mercy is crueltie and felonye, and thefore it is convenient that these II vertues be ever ensembled"[2]. This emphasis on judicious balance is paralleled by literary moments such as Theseus' careful retention of the power of both justice and mercy in The Knight's Tale and Froissart's depiction of a suspiciously similar Edward III during the siege of Calais. How do writers in the thirteenth and fourteenth century express concern with the upsetting of the scales of mercy and justice, or use their writing to explore and impose a more acceptable ideal?




That's all that springs to mind for now. It's a first draft, of course, and will probably be rewritten substantially. Of course, it would help if I knew what a PhD proposal is meant to look like... but finding out would involve research, which means time!



[1] Karras, Ruth Mazo. From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in late medieval Europe. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2002. 67-108.
[2] "The III Consideracions Right Necesserye to the good governaunce of a prince". Ed. Genet, Jean-Philippe. Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages. Camden Society, 4th Series (1977), 18. 200.

Everyone needs a besotted biographer!

It seems I have posted very little lately, and that usually about Gawain. Given I've finished my Edward II essay now and the submission date for my thesis is little more than a month away, I'm focussing entirely on that now, so perhaps it isn't surprising that my mind has really only got one track.

Still. Posting should happen, because, if nothing else, "castration" is still the top of the list of most discussed topics in this blog, which is slightly disturbing. I am granting myself the evening off thinking about Gawain, because I've done a lot of writing in the last two days, scribbled plenty of notes for what I want to do with other parts of the thesis, re-read the whole of the first book of Troilus and Criseyde for today's seminar, rewritten and revised the Edward essay (just to be sure!) and provided lunch for the class today because my poor supervisor who was going to bring lunch is sick. And also I have an aglich headache (there is another Gawain-word we should bring back!).

So, for something completely different, which certainly does not involve castration: Henry VI!

For those who don't know him: the lad succeeded his manly warrior dad Henry V (he of the battle of Agincourt and "Once more unto the breach!" fame) in 1421 at the tender age of 8 months. He was a precocious child - that is, he was so pious that at the age of two he threw a tantrum when his mother tried to put him in a carriage. Nowadays we might consider that just was what kids do during the 'terrible twos', but at the time they understood that the lad simply had such a strong sense of what is right that he refused to travel on a Sunday.

Unfortunately, having been brought up with older, more capable people running the country, and being of a mild and compliant disposition, his approach to government seems to have consisted largely of "sign anything they put in front of me". Once, he granted the same position to two different men, the Earl of Devon and William Bonville. These two men just happened to be were very powerful figures (and rivals) in Cornish politics and who had been just looking for an excuse to start a miniature civil war in that part of the country. They took the excuse.

He was quite devout and seems to have been very concerned with piety and living a virtuous and holy life, but that's about all he managed to do successfully. Eventually one thing led to another and then to the Wars of the Roses, Henry lost his father's conquests in France and his own claim to that crown, went mad for a while, was used as a figurehead by various factions, was deposed, kept in prison, restored, deposed again, killed in 1471, and replaced by Edward IV, who was much more effective at actually governing.

That wasn't the end of the Wars, of course. The trouble with civil wars is that they tend to keep on going, and it isn't very pleasant for anyone involved. This is probably part of the reason for the nostalgia-cult that sprang up (during the reign of Richard III, unsurprisingly) that considered Henry to be a saint.

John Blacman, who was Henry's personal chaplain for part of his life, wrote his Memoires of him probably during Richard's reign (1483-85). He is unashamedly, unabashedly writing the man up to be a saint - "He was, like a second Job, a man simple and upright, altogether fearing the Lord God, and departing from evil. He was a simple man, without any crook of craft or untruth, as is plain to all. With none did he deal craftily, nor ever would say an untrue word to any, but framed his speech always to speak truth." (p. 26) Though his writing has little literary merit and probably even less of the historical, it's worth the read for the anecdotes that might be partly true, for what his emphases tell us about perceptions of masculinity and holiness at the time, and not least for the amusement value.

Here are some of my favourite Blacman moments:

His chastity.
This king Henry was chaste and pure from the beginning of his days. He eschewed all licentiousness in word or deed while he was young... he begat but one only son, the most noble and virtuous prince Edward; and with her and toward her he kept his marriage vow wholly and sincerely, even in the absences of the lady, which were sometimes very long: never dealing unchastely with any other woman. Neither when they lived together did he use his wife unseemly, but with all honesty and gravity. (29)

Abstinence - not really a useful virtue when you're a hereditary monarch without brothers. What happened to 'an heir and a spare'? As it turned out, they could have done with the spare. Young Edward (so "noble and virtuous" that when he was eight he talked of nothing but chopping people’s heads off) was killed during the wars - but then, so were most other claimants to the throne, so perhaps it was just as well.

Hence it happened once, that at Christmas time a certain great lord brought before him a dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to dance in that guise before the king, perhaps to prove him, or to entice his youthful mind. But the king was not blind to it, nor unaware of the devilish wile, and very angrily averted his eyes, turned his back upon them, and went out to his chamber, saying:
Fy, fy, for shame, forsothe ye be to blame. (30)

Poor girls. Though I'm sure the lord knew what the reaction would be and thought it'd be a good laugh. Perhaps it was a dare!

At another time when the executors of his uncle, the ... bishop of Winchester came to the king with a very great sum, namely £2000 of gold to pay him, for his own uses, and to relieve the burdens and necessities of the realm, he utterly refused the gift, nor would not receive it by any manner of means, saying: ‘He was a very dear uncle to me and most liberal in his lifetime. The Lord reward him. Do ye with his goods as ye are bound: we will receive none of them.’ The executors were amazed at this his saying, and entreated the king’s majesty that he would at least accept that gift at their hands for the endowment of his two colleges... This petition and gift the king gladly accepted... (32)

It's a lovely story, and very characteristic of Henry. Characteristic of Blacman is that he doesn't mention how far in debt the royal treasury was at the time and just how useful that money would have been. I daresay the executors knew, hence their amazement, but I wouldn't be surprised if Henry hadn't really noticed! Blacman gives another lovely example of his attitude to government:

... the Lord King himself complained heavily to me in his chamber at Eltham, when I was alone there with him employed together with him upon his holy books, and giving ear to his wholesome advice and the sighs of his most deep devotion. There came all at once a knock at the king’s door from a certain mighty duke of the realm, and the king said: ‘They do so interrupt me that by day or night I can hardly snatch a moment to be refreshed by reading of any holy teaching without disturbance.’ ... (37-8>

But other times, he just wanders off into legend:

Again, once when riding in a street which lay outside the graveyard to the east of a certain church, wherein the pyx that hung over the altar did not contain the sacrament of the Eucharist, he on that account did not bare his head, as he was wont always at other times to do most reverently in honour of the sacrament; and when many of his lords and nobles wondered thereat, he gave them his reason, saying: ‘I know that my Lord Jesus Christ is not there for me to do so in his honour.’ And it was found to be so as he had said. Nay, those who were his privy servants say that the king often saw our Lord Jesus presenting Himself in human form in the sacrament of the altar in the hands of the priest. (35-6)

... And once there, he stays there!

Also in the extreme pressure of his wars in the parts of the North, it is told by some who came from that region, that when there was for a time a scarcity of bread among his fellow-soldiers and troops... bread was so multiplied by his merits and prayers that a sufficiency and even a superfluity was forthcoming for all... (43)

Jesus really should have thought to get the copyright on that trick.

Henry the Sixth: A reprint of John Blacman's Memoir. Ed. and trans. James, M. R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1919.

Redefining masculinity: Pierre Abelard

To continue with the theme of men losing their bits!

I'm opening the discussion in our seminar today, which is on male bodies and defining masculinity, specifically the body of Pierre Abelard and his attempts to rewrite himself in his Historia Calamitatum after he was castrated by a rampaging mob of respectable uncles[1]. So here are my rough notes for the occasion!

For those who might not know, Abelard was a 12th century philosopher/scholar/theologian, one of the most brilliant men of the age. While attending university, he earned his keep by teaching Heloise, a young woman who was possibly more brilliant than he was. They had a passionate affair, until they were unfortunately found out, the uncle got rather annoyed and Abelard married her to placate him (though interestingly, Heloise didn't seem too pleased with that course of action). Unfortunately, it didn't work. After the spot of mob violence, he packed his wife off to a convent and (later) became a monk himself, while continuing his rather obnoxiously intellectual career and making many enemies. His Historia is actually a letter to a friend, written many years later, telling the story of his life to date in the vein of "stop whining, mate, see how much worse off I'VE got it".

The other two readings are "Separating the Men from the Beasts: Medieval Universities and Masculine Formation", by Ruth Mazo Karras in her From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002; and Martin Irvine's "Abelard and (Re)Writing the Male Body: Castration, Identity and Remasculinization" in Bonnie Wheeler and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, eds, Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.

I shall work on the daring assumption that everyone has (mostly) read the readings and therefore not summarise them: instead, I'll explain and pose three questions which I at least think are interesting and hope might lead to discussion!

- Was marriage also a type of castration for Abelard?
Irvine talks of two 'castrations' in Abelard's life - the physical one, and the intellectual one later at his trial for heresy. But was there a third, before all this?
- Karras talks about the effect of young men being brought up in what she calls "the university model of masculinity", and the necessity to prove yourself within it. Abelard seems to have begun his formal schooling, if not his university life, very young, and explicitly says that he renounced the school of Mars - the traditional field of masculine proof and endeavour - for that of Minerva. He's undeniably a very competitive and proud man, and presumably not going to look well on anything which got in the way of his advancement as a man in the world of intellectuals. Marriage wasn't really compatible with a career in holy orders or the university - and Abelard tells us that eunuchs can't have a position in the church either.
- Karras discusses how women were considered to fit into university life - only as a vehicle for sexual release, not for marriage or emotional involvement. "Courtly ideas of love played little role" (Karras 227) - but much of Abelard's early poetry to Heloise uses courtly language. Was it perhaps easier for both of them to pretend it wasn't happening if she was characterised as a prostitute? Later in her first letter, Heloise says she'd prefer the name of whore to wife.
- But how much of this is Abelard reconstructing his past from a distance, with the instinctive Pavlovian response to getting castrated after marriage that says "God smote me for this, IT WAS BAD we must not think any good of it at all"?


- Why did Abelard's enemies take such savage advantage of his castration to deny him even grammatical masculinity?
- It's tempting to take Abelard's story as an exaggeration here and there, with his emphasis on his own cleverness and everyone's adulation of him, and also the degree of persecution from his enemies. But see Irvine's quoting of the letters of his enemies to him (92-93), containing jibes like Roscelin's "a noun of masculine gender, if it falls away from its own gender, would refuse to signify its usual thing... since the part that makes a man has been removed, you are to be called not "Petrus" [a masculine noun] but "imperfectus Petrus"".
- Consider the metaphors of fencing within the elaborate scholarly disputatio. Fencing or jousting is a traditional way of physically proving oneself against one's (masculine) opponents, but is usually meant to be in game rather than earnest. But of course, sometimes, people would cross the line, or take something too seriously, or just see red, and it would pass into anger and people really getting hurt. Is this sort of vicious professional rivalry a reflection of that? the need to seriously injure your opponent before he could come back at you with a stronger attack?
... or was he just that unpleasant a man to have to argue with that people really did hate him?

- Did the existence of comparable social roles, like "eunuch" and (to a lesser extent) "Jew" have an effect on how Abelard could define his masculinity?
- We'd tend to understand him today as a man who'd had an unfortunate accident, suffered a loss to his symbolic masculinity perhaps, but still a man. But they had a third social 'gender', which we don't have anymore: eunuchs. Not terribly prevalent, but here and there, usually outside society, with specific roles. Similarly, the partial eunuch, the circumcised Jew (see Irvine 100), very much a social pariah. "Truncating this member is the height of foulness" and "no woman would give her consent" to be had by such a man.
- Both historians mention eunuchs, in passing, but neither of them really discusses their possible effect on Abelard's understanding of his own social position. Abelard tells us that eunuchs can't take up a position in the Church, and is repulsed by the idea of St Origen's self-castration. The use of castration as a punishment can't have helped this negative view of eunuchs. (Admittedly, as a punishment it's usually as part of execution, see Hugh Despenser!)
- Perhaps the existence of these social groups who weren't properly a part of ordinary society increased the stigma or shame of being castrated?

[1] Alright, one respectable uncle. But he brought his friends along!

Essay on Edward II

Edit: This is now the second draft of my essay on Edward II, for the course The Mediaeval Body at Melbourne University. The inspiration came from a post by Alianore, and she was also kind enough to point me to a few very useful sources - thank you!

Still a little editing and proof-reading to do, of course, but it's much tidier than it was. And, of course, I need to double-check everything to make sure I'm not entirely misrepresenting what actually happened. Since I'm not used to writing history essays (I'm usually more of a literature person), this is all an exciting and unfamiliar process for me.

To that end, those of you who have spent a good deal more time than I have studying Edward, feel free to tell me where I've gone wrong, in large ways or small!

------------------------



The rise of queer and gender criticism has led to a tendency to regard certain historical figures and events primarily from that point of view. Reinterpreting the reign of Edward II in the light of these critical views does help us to understand certain aspects of his life. However, it is possible to overstate this angle, to use suggestive phrases in the later chronicles to reconstruct the story of the barons’ objections to Gavaston and Despenser as a protest against transgressive sexual relations with the monarch. There are, in fact, very few hints that his relationships with Gavaston and Despenser were perceived as sexual in nature prior to 1326, or even the question was considered particularly important. It was not until Isabella and Mortimer invaded England that these accusations began to circulate. The propaganda used to involve the populace in deposition and the resulting popular perception of Edward used sodomy as an allegory for other kinds of transgressive behaviour. He had disrupted public order, the tiers of rank and the natural flow of the economy, largely to aid his favourites. In doing so, he had subverted the accepted social metaphor of the king as head of his country, the man as head of his wife. The graphic imagery of Edward’s body as subject and object of the realm’s disorders multiplied in the wake of his deposition to retrospectively narrate the country’s experience. His undeniable weakness as a monarch, together with depictions like Geoffrey le Baker’s chronicle and Marlowe’s play, encouraged later generations to characterise him as a sodomitical rex inutile – the perfect subject for enthusiastic re-examination by proponents of queer criticism. But whether Edward’s relationships with Gavaston and Despenser contained a sexual element is not, ultimately, historically important. What is beyond doubt is the strength of Edward’s emotional attachment to each of these men, and it is that, together with contemporary perceptions of these relationships, that had the greatest effect on events.


Piers Gavaston: hot-headed young Gascon knight, doubtless devilishly handsome, exiled by Edward I to keep him away from the future king, recalled three months later as soon as the old king died, far preferred by Edward II to his mere wife, recipient of lavish gifts by the king (including the earldom of Cornwall), denied nothing he asked for, with a habit of swaggering about the court and giving the other earls insulting nicknames, exiled twice more at the insistence of the earls, recalled each time by Edward, finally arrested and murdered on the orders of the most powerful earl in the country, leaving his corpse unburied for years as Edward swore revenge on his dear friend’s murderers – it has all the ingredients of the best star-crossed love stories. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that the earls were acting out of homophobia or righteous defence of a neglected queen. Despite elaborately public displays of affection, in defiance of his father and the opinion of his court, contemporary records have left us no whisper of sodomy. On returning to England with his new bride early in 1308, Edward’s first action on disembarking is said to have been an enthusiastic and demonstrative greeting of Gavaston, kissing and embracing him in front of the crowd, his young wife and her royal brothers and uncles1. The same man received the most prominent role in his coronation (dressed in royal purple and pearls, “non regis sed gloriam propriam quaerens”, according to the Annales Paulini (262)), Edward’s constant attention throughout the coronation feast, and all Edward’s wedding gifts – even those from his bride’s father, the king of France (AP 262)2. Not surprisingly, Isabella’s brothers are said to have stood up, shouted angrily at Edward and stormed out of the hall. Within four months the English barons had forced Gavaston back into exile. By anyone’s standards, this is a gross failure of tact and international diplomacy, and the reactions of the French representatives and English earls are understandable even if they read the relationship as remaining emotionally within the bounds of normal male-male friendship.


Most of the evidence from the earlier part of Edward II’s reign suggests the earls’ quarrel with Gavaston was on quite different grounds – not least the insulting nicknames. The official records of the Articles against Gavaston in 1308 and the Ordinances of 1311 agree with the Vita in their assessment of Gavaston. The Articles state that he “disinherits the crown... puts discord between the king and his people, and he draws to himself the allegiance of men by as stringent an oath as does the king, thereby making himself the peer of the king and so enfeebling the crown” (English Historical Documents 526). The twentieth Ordinance accuses him of “drawing to himself royal power and dignity”, and goes into more detail about specific acts of offence, such as “causing blank charters under the great seal of the king to be sealed to the deceit and disinheritance of the king and of his crown” (EHD 532). These documents are, by their nature, unlikely to contain more than veiled allusions to a suspected sexual relationship, but that isn’t really an issue. The extensive list of objections to Gavaston shows just how destructive his relationship with Edward was perceived to be in the public sphere. There was no need for the earls to turn to the private sphere to explain the necessity to be rid of Gavaston. In fact, the first sentence of the Articles explains the political advantage of dwelling on the public, judicial failures of the king:

Homage and the oath of allegiance are more in respect of the crown than in respect of the king’s person and are more closely related to the crown than to the king’s person; and this is evident because, before the crown has descended to the person, no allegiance is due to him. (EHD 525)

Having described the objections to Gavaston and the dilemma that results when the king, as head of the judicial system, is partial and “will not right a wrong”, the articles conclude that “he cannot be judged or attainted by an action brought according to law, and therefore... the people rate him as a man attainted and adjudged, and pray the king that... he will accept and execute the award of the people” (EHD 526). In this way, the disastrous effect of Gavaston’s influence over Edward was turned to advantage, allowing “the people” (a euphemism for the barons, at this stage) to concoct distinctions between the traditional ‘two bodies’ of the king, deny the authority of his mere physical manifestation and take matters into their own hands.
Chronicle and other evidence suggests that the public perception of the situation was a simplified version of the barons’ understanding. The Vita Edwardi Secundi - almost certainly written before 1326, and so not coloured by knowledge of those events - suggests that the reason Gavaston was universally hated was twofold: arrogance, and monopolising the king’s ear (Vita 27-29). Less analytical, the Annales Paulini gives a similar picture but attributes Gavaston’s unpopularity to events such as the Wallingford tournaments, rather than breaking these events down into ongoing frictions (AP 259). Even allowing for the unmentionable nature of sodomy, it seems that at this point the barons did not need that string in their bow, with the result that there were no widely known rumours about Edward’s sexuality.


When Piers Gavaston threw his weight about, it affected the nobility. When Hugh Despenser started to throw his about, it affected all of England. More ambitious than Gavaston, more ruthless, unquestionably more cruel, Despenser “wretchedly disinherited many, forced some into exile, extorted unjust ransoms from many, [and] collected a thousand pounds’ worth of land by means of threats” (Vita 195). He was canny at accumulating money, but neither he nor Edward had the knack of spending it well. The economic distress of the country, coupled with Edward’s extravagance in spending money on himself and his friends, eventually prompted the pope to write urging financial moderation and care (Saaler 89-90). During this period, all of Edward I’s advances into Scotland were lost to the determined leadership of Robert Bruce, who also took over much of Ireland. Powicke points out the emphasis on military failures in the reasons given for Edward’s deposition. The seriousness of this in mediaeval notions of kingship is suggested by warrior-saint allegories like Lydgate’s story of St Edmund, whose virginity – ie, the preservation of the integrity of his physical body – was closely linked with his military success, and therefore his ability to maintain the analogous integrity of England (Lewis). Law and order deteriorated, even as Edward and the Despensers tightened their hold on the upper levels of society in order to maintain their position. The beginning of famine can hardly have helped. In a society whose belief system included the image of the king as figurative head of the country, and a vengeful God not averse to punishing the whole body for the sins or inadequacies of that head, the universal human instinct to blame authority figures for crises must have manifested itself even more strongly than usual.


The rebellion and subsequent call for Edward’s deposition were handled with a keen eye to public support. Isabella’s mourning weeds, her care to keep her adulterous relationship with Mortimer out of sight and to identify her cause with that of Lancaster (Thomas of Lancaster, killed in 1322 for rising against Edward and Despenser, was now widely regarded as a saint), to visit shrines as she travelled “quasi peregrinando” (AP 314), to stay on the right side of the populace and to present herself as a rejected wife anxious to save the country and set her son on his rightful throne, formed masterful and effective propaganda. It was now, as it became necessary to engage the people in the momentous business of overthrowing and deposing an inadequate king, that the metaphor of sodomy became a useful shorthand for other forms of cultural transgression. Ormrod hints that it also worked to obscure Isabella’s own contraventions of marital and gender rules – usurping royal power with her lover – by laying similar charges against Edward (Ormrod 27). The idea of Despenser subverting the proper relationship between the king and his lawful wife, first invoked by Isabella when she refused to return from France on Edward’s command (Vita 243), was repeated in various speeches and proclamations. The judgement on Hugh Despenser, for example, is a long catalogue of abuses of power, containing several references to “notre treshonurable dame la Roigne”, and the “descord” Despenser had created between her and her husband as well as “entre notre seignour le Roie et entre les autres gentz du Roialme”, to the “grant deshonur de lui et de son people” (Holmes 265-7).


Even at this time, however, the focus of criticism was not any one action of Edward or Despenser, but their disruption of the proper order. The necessity to simplify events to provoke popular sentiment led to a telescoping of blame. Financial, military and judicial failings, offences against the church and social order, were simplified to the result of “evil counsellors”. The evil counsellors were represented in the person of Hugh Despenser (and, to a lesser extent, his father), while his influence over Edward was, ultimately, sodomy. For example, Isabella’s proclamation against Despenser claimed that he had “usurped royal power against law and justice and his true allegiance... And we... have long been kept far from the goodwill of our said lord the King through the false suggestions and evil dealings of the aforesaid Hugh”3. The rabble-rousing sermons of Orleton, Stratford and Reynolds4 picked up the themes of transgression and misuse and explicitly applied them to Edward’s body – and, by extension, the metaphorical body of England. Preaching on texts like “I will put enmity between thee and the woman” [?ERC], “Vae terrae, cujus rex puer est”, “Cuius caput infirmum, caetera membra dolent”, “Caput meum doleo” and “Rex insipiens perdet populum suum”5, they emphasised Edward’s weakness, puerility and inability to properly manage or care for his “body”. Orleton went further and called Edward a “tyrant and a sodomite” (Haines King Edward 42), claiming that Edward had threatened in his rage to kill his wife if he should see her again (Mortimer “Sermons” 51). This attractively scandalous and memorable simplified the issues at stake almost to the point of parable. Its contrast with the complex precision of the official articles of deposition suggests the political necessity at this point of engaging popular opinion.


Most chronicles stress the role of the crowd in the decision to depose Edward. Valente writes that “for most contemporaries, the decision of the magnates, though perhaps of greatest weight, did not fully constitute the deposition. The approval of the rest of the assembly was certainly of practical utility, since it spread the burden of guilt, but it may have been considered legally necessary as well” (“Deposition and Abdication”, 865). This would account for the eagerness of the post-invasion propaganda to emphasise Despenser’s crimes against the country, and the king as its representative, contrasting to the tone of the articles against Gaveston which complained of specific acts that irritated the barons and reduced the king’s honour. That the chronicler of the Annales Paulini6 relates that Despenser was accused of “multis criminibus et transgressionibus erga populum regni Angliae” (AP 318) suggests that this tactic was generally successful. No calling earls childish nicknames for Hugh Despenser – he was to be a proper villain on a national scale.


The death and popular afterlife of Edward and each Despenser also reflected the political needs of the moment. The judgements on the Despensers detail very precisely the relation of punishment to crime. The relentless repetition of “E pur ceo qe vous... e pur ceo qe... e pur ceo...” in the judgement of the elder Despenser is matched by “qe vostre teste seit mene a Wynchestre... qe vous seietz pendu en une cote quartile de vos armes, et seint les armes destruz pur touz jours” (AP 318). The younger Despenser’s sentence uses the same formula at much greater length, ending chillingly, “Et pur ceo que vous fustes tot tempts desloyaut ... si enserrez vous debouwelle, et puys ils serront ars” (Holmes 265-66). It’s worth noting that this official judgement does not include castration, though some later chroniclers (most notably Froissart) state this did occur before he was disembowelled7. Whether the detail was thought up by his executioners or rumour-mongers, it was probably regarded as an appropriate punishment for his perceived sexual transgressions. Though this care to explain the relation of punishment to the crime is in no way unusual in passing sentences at the time, the emphasis on the almost allegorical significance of each act is striking. It suggests a care to be seen to visit the results of each crime back on the body of the perpetrator, to enact on him the physical manifestation of the damage he had done to society. In addition to satisfying visibly and bloodily the public drive for vengeance, this meticulous turning-back of each act against social order suggests a visible re-establishment of that order – despite the dubious legality of the executions themselves. The same popular urge to see an appropriate punishment visited on the physical body of the tyrant may be present in the various ‘anal rape’ accounts of Edward’s death that started to circulate in the 1330s, and eventually gained such currency as to still be accepted by many people today. Ian Mortimer (“Sermons of Sodomy”) argues that these stories both strengthened and vindicated people’s perceptions that Edward had in fact been a sodomite, and that this was the reason for his poor leadership. By comparison with the physical purity of the virgin St Edmund, the image of Edward’s body being sexually violated by another man functions as a metaphor for the damage he brought to his country in many different spheres. By the time Froissart narrated the events, the view seems to have been sufficiently widespread for him to cautiously attribute the younger Despenser’s castration to his sexual relationship with Edward.


In a culture where the story-telling (and theological explanation of day-to-day life) is saturated with allegory, symbolism and parable, what counted was the symbol, to be shaped by the needs of the moment. This was not necessary in the first half of his reign, when Gavaston’s sins largely consisted of stepping on barons’ toes and there was no real question of deposition. In fact, there never seems to have been much use of stories of sodomy in the upper levels of political events, among people who actually knew him. The barons, being closer to the action, seem to have seen a more detailed and nuanced version of events, and (being personally affected or irritated by him) found the real reasons sufficient to move against Gavaston. When it came to narrating reasons for objection to the populace and engaging their support, these nuances and personal experiences became secondary to rabble-rousing. Invoking common ideas of the king’s body and its relationship with his country helped to simplify, vilify, and turn real life into a parable.



Footnotes.
1 Foedera, Conventiones, Literae et cujuscumque generis Acta Publica, or Rymer’s Foedera, 1066-1383, ed. Rymer, Thomas, 1704-35; ed. Clarke et al, Records Commission, London, 1816-69, cited in Weir (29).
2 Chaplais does suggest that at this time Gavaston may have been acting more or less officially as Edward’s chamberlain, and that in this case it would be logical and respectful for Edward to give the gifts into his care (Chaplais ?).
3 Foedera, cited in Weir (30).
4 Respectively the Bishops of Hereford and Winchester, and Archbishop of Canterbury.
5 Lanercost Chronicles, Historia Roffensis, cited in Haines (169-71)
6 The Annales Paulini seem to rely largely on gossip and, being the annals of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, may be taken as more or less representative of popular opinion in London at the time.
7 Alison Weir states that “until 1326, the penalty for treason had not included castration”, and suggests that this detail was included on Isabella’s vengeful instructions (243). In fact, William Wallace had been castrated as part of the formal traitor’s execution in 1306, and Simon de Montfort was castrated posthumously as a traitor in 1265. Whether other traitors had received similar punishments since, it seems to have still been unusual enough for Froissart to comment on it, and to read it as symbolic judgement for his crimes of sodomy, “even, it was said, with the King, and this was why the King had driven away the Queen on his suggestion” (44).




Incomplete bibliography because I am too lazy to redo it for this version of the draft:

Ed. Trans. Childs, Wendy R. Vita Edwardi Secundi. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.
Ed. Eckhardt, Caroline D. Castleford's Chronicle, or, The Boke of Brut. Oxford: EETS, 1996.
Froissart. Ed. Trans. Brereton, Geoffrey. Chronicles. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.
Holmes, G. A. "Judgement on the Younger Despenser, 1326". The English Historical Review 70 (1955): 261-267. 1955
Ed. Maxwell, Sir Herbert. Scalacronica: The Reigns of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III as recorded by Sir Thomas Gray. Glasgow, 1907.
Ed. Stubbs, William. Chronicles of the reigns of Edward I and Edward II. Rolls series 76, 1882-3.
Ed. Thompson, E. Maunde. The chronicle of Adam of Usk, A.D. 1377-1421. Felinfach: Llanerch Enterprises, 1990.

Ed. Betteridge, Tom. Sodomy in early modern Europe. New York: Manchester UP, 2002.
Chaplais, Pierre. Piers Gaveston, Edward II's Adoptive Brother. Oxford, 1994.
Ed. Cullum, P. H. and Lewis, Katherine J. Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
Cuttino, G. P. & Lyman, T. W. "Where is Edward II?" Speculum 53 (1978), 522-3. 1978.
Ed. Dodd, Gwilym & Musson, Anthony. The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives.
Dunham, William Huse & Wood, Charles T. "The Right to Rule in England: Depositions and the Kingdom's Authority, 1327-1485". The American Historical Review 81 (1976): 738-761. 1976.
Edwards, Kathleen. "The Political Importance of the English Bishops during the reign of Edward II". English Historical Review, 59 (1944): 311-47. 1944.
Haines, R. M. The Church and Politics in Fourteenth Century England: The Career of Adam Orleton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1978.
Johnstone, Hilda. "The Eccentricities of Edward II". English Historical Review, 48 (1933): 264-7. 1933.
Mortimer, Ian. The greatest traitor: the life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, Ruler of England, 1327-1330. London: Johnathon Cape, 2003.
Mortimer, Ian. The Perfect King: the life of Edward III, father of the English nation. London: Jonathon Cape, 2006.
Mortimer, Ian. "A Note on the Deaths of Edward II". Ian Mortimer: http://www.ianmortimer.com/EdwardII/death.htm April 2008. Accessed August 2008.
Powicke, Sir Maurice. "The English Commons in Scotland in 1322 and the Deposition of Edward II". Speculum 35 (1960): 1-15. 1960.
Saaler, Mary. Edward II 1307-1327. London: The Rubicon Press, 1997.
Valente, Claire. "The Deposition and Abdication of Edward II". The English Historical Review 113 (1998): 852-881. 1998.
Valente, Claire. "The "Lament of Edward II": Religious Lyric, Political Propaganda". Speculum 77 (2002), 422-439. 2002.
Weir, Alison. Isabella: She-wolf of France. London: Ballantine Books, 1995.

The Love-making of Sir Gawain

Poor Gawain. Everyone imposes expectations on him - the Lady of Hautdesert, Bertilak, the Green Knight, the audience, even critics!

On his quest to seek out the Knight of the Green Chapel to receive the return blow of the axe, Sir Gawain finds himself alone in the wilderness on Christmas Eve. After a solemn prayer to the Virgin to let him find some place to celebrate Christmas as he ought, and crossing himself three times, a castle mysteriously appears between the trees. Entering in that castle, he is welcomed by a jovial, ruddy-cheeked, "bever-hwed" lord (845), his beautiful young wife, and a terribly ugly old matron.

He celebrates Christmas there duly, much to the delight of the castle's inhabitants when they find they have the great and courteous Gawain as a guest, then reluctantly insists that he must press on, to find the Green Chapel by New Year's Day. But - a stroke of luck! - the lord laughs, and tells him that he needn't worry himself for that. The Green Chapel "is not two myle henne" (1078), and Gawain may stay and laze about in bed until the morning of New Year, have a pleasant early-morning ride as far as the Chapel (and there, presumably, lose his head bloodily all over the snow).

So, Gawain sleeps in for three days, while the lord of the castle goes hunting. They make a compact - everything they win during those days, they will exchange at nightfall. Every day the lord goes out hunting, and hands over to Gawain at night the spoils of the hunt. And every morning, the lady of the castle creeps into Gawain's room, in increasingly provocative garments.

A challenge to any hot-blooded young male, one would imagine, and one to which a knight of Gawain's reputation would readily rise in more ways than one. In the large body of French Arthurian literature, with which the Gawain-poet's audience was familiar, Gawain was courteous and loverly to the point of a fault - highly susceptible to the ladies, and not above rape occasionally. So the audience is probably as surprised as the lady when Gawain pulls the blankets up to his chin, feigns sleep, then pretends a complete lack of understanding at her ever-more-explicit little invitations. Finally, she is driven to tease, "Bot that ye be Gawain, hit gos not in mynde" - it is hard to believe that you are Gawain, for the real Gawain would never be closeted alone so long with a lady "bot that he had craved a cosse [a kiss], bi his cortaysye, / bi sum towch of summe tryfle at sum tales ende" (1293-1301).

"By some touch of some trifle at some tale's end" - what an exquisitely, insufferably smooth lover! This Gawain, however, hastily refutes that by protesting that he will kiss at her commandment, invoking the proper mistress/servant relationship of courtly love - and more insistently later when the lady suggests he'd be perfectly in his right to force any woman who would be so "vilainous" as to refuse him his way with her (1495-97). He is devoted to women and exquisite in his courtesy, but for him, this is a public virtue. His courtesy does not allow of fornicating with his host's wife under his very roof.

And of course, there is the tiny detail that Gawain is under verbal contract to return everything he wins during the course of these three days to his host, Bertilak. So he does - almost. One kiss on the first day, two on the second, three on the third, bestowed "as comlyly as he couthe awyse" (1389) in the great hall, and Bertilak makes merry capital out of this. He speaks of the value of the kisses and other winnings in almost capitalistic (yet simultaneously bawdy!) terms. The queer and gender critics, of course, make a good deal more of it. These are the only moments in the poem that can be milked for homoerotic undertones, and they certainly have been milked. Gawain dodges the first implication by insisting on the firm letter of their contract and changing the subject, and effectively repudiates the second by being innocently oblivious to it. The poet leaves very little leeway for a queer reading of the poem. Our innocent young Gawain leaves absolutely none.

So, it's off to the Green Chapel for our hero, hiding the one thing he concealed from his host - the green girdle which the lady gave him on the third day, with the promise that it could save his life. He meets the Green Knight, who feints twice with the axe before delivering the blow - which only nicks his neck. The test is over, but Gawain's near-hysterical relief is short-lived. The Green Knight is revealed to be Bertilak himself in disguise, and the three blows are analogues of the three days in which Gawain did not even know he was being tested. The nick at his neck is due to the one minor (according to Bertilak) point in which Gawain failed - keeping back the girdle that he received from Bertilak's sexy accomplice.

At this point, Gawain completely flies in the face of our expectations. Stunned and ashamed, he flings the girdle at the feet of the still-green giant, and launches into a virulent tirade against the "wyles of wommen", through which so many good men have been "wonen to sorwe":

For so was Adam in erde with one begyled,
And Salamon with fele sur, and Samson eftsones -
Dalyda dalt hym hys wyrde - and Davyth therafter
Was blended with Barsabe, that much bale tholed...
And all thay were biwyled
With wymmen that they used.
Thagh I be now bigyled,
Me think me burde be excused [I ought to be excused]. (2416-428)

This is hardly gallant, particularly not the reasoning of the final two lines. Critics have, of course, hastened to excuse or condemn Gawain for this speech, and there are many explanations as to his behaviour, and as many expressions of puzzlement over it. Reading it on a purely character-driven level, however, I don't think this is at all out of line with Gawain's previous views on women. For him, they are the other - to be protected, served, to play pretty love games with, but not true companions, never to be truly understood like men. Courtly love is, on one level, the positive expression of this foreignness, this sense of the mysterious distant female being. But is it any wonder if, at a moment of great stress, after he's been pulled to and fro in such violent emotions over the past ten minutes, he should burst out in a speech that expresses the other side of it, betraying his veneer of manners and all social expectations in his agitation?

All quotes are taken from J. J. Anderson's 1996 Everyman edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited together with the other three poems from the single manuscript in which the poem survives, Cotton Nero A.x - Pearl, Purity (or Cleanness) and Patience.