The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend (Arthurian Studies)

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ARTHURIAN STUDIES LXI

THE SCOTS AND MEDIEVAL ARTHURIAN LEGEND

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ARTHURIAN STUDIES ISSN 0261–9814 General Editor: Norris Lacy

Previously published volumes in the series are listed at the back of this book

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THE SCOTS AND MEDIEVAL ARTHURIAN LEGEND

Edited by Rhiannon Purdie and Nicola Royan

D. S. BREWER

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© Contributors 2005 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of the contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2005 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 1 84384 036 7

D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Scots and medieval Arthurian legend / edited by Rhiannon Purdie, Nicola Royan. p. cm. – (Arthurian studies, ISSN 0261-9814 ; 61) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-84384-036-7 (alk. paper) 1. Arthur, King–Homes and haunts–Scotland. 2. Scotland–History–To 1057–Historiography. 3. Legends– Scotland–History and criticism. 4. Britons–Kings and rulers–Folklore. 5. Scotland–Antiquities, Celtic. 6. Romances, Scottish–Sources. 7. Arthurian romances–Sources. 8. Scotland–In literature. I. Purdie, Rhiannon. II. Royan, Nicola. III. Series. DA152.5.A7S38 2005 398⬘.32941–dc22 2004019578

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

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Contents Acknowledgements

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Abbreviations

ix

Introduction: Tartan Arthur?

1

RHIANNON PURDIE and NICOLA ROYAN

Where Does Britain End? The Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth in Scotland and Wales

9

JULIETTE WOOD

The Testimony of Writing: Pierre de Langtoft and the Appeals to History, 1291–1306

25

THEA SUMMERFIELD

The Fine Art of Faint Praise in Older Scots Historiography

43

NICOLA ROYAN

The Roman de Fergus: Parody or Pastiche?

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TONY HUNT

Lancelot of the Laik: Sources, Genre, Reception

71

ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

Sir Lamwell in Scotland

83

PRISCILLA BAWCUTT

The Search for Scottishness in Golagros and Gawane

95

RHIANNON PURDIE

‘Of an uncouthe stede’: The Scottish Knight in Middle English Arthurian Romances

109

CORY J. RUSHTON

Dead Butchers and Fiend-like Queens: Literary and Political History in The Misfortunes of Arthur and Macbeth

121

ANDREW KING

Reinventing Arthur: Representations of the Matter of Britain in Medieval Scotland and Catalonia

135

SERGI MAINER

Appendix: The Principal Texts Discussed in this Volume

149

Index

151

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This book was published with the assistance of a generous subvention from the Vinaver Fund.

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Acknowledgements ‘Tartan Arthur’, as this project was first jokingly entitled, began as an idea we batted about while working in adjacent offices in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. Arthurian legend struck us as an interesting point of contact between our respective specializations of medieval romance and Scottish historical writing. Several of our contributors gracefully allowed themselves to be recruited to the cause at the bars of a handful of conferences, and this volume gradually took shape. The project could not have come to fruition without the support and encouragement of many people in addition to the contributors themselves, and this is our opportunity to thank them. We should begin by thanking our institutions for their financial and intellectual support. The Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Nottingham hosted its annual conference on the theme of ‘Tartan Arthur: The Scots and the Medieval Arthurian Legend’ in 2003, which enabled four of the contributors to present their papers. The Royal Historical Society further subsidized this conference, enabling postgraduate students to attend. The School of English, University of St Andrews, contributed to the costs of hosting a meeting of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society in 2003, at which two more papers from this volume were presented. The index was compiled by Simon Hamlet, and subsidized by a grant from the School of English at St Andrews. Both the editors are grateful to their colleagues for their support and (sometimes doubtless feigned) interest in this project. Without the contributors, of course, there would have been no collection at all, and we are grateful to them for their commitment and their patience with editorial foibles. In particular, we’d like to thank Thea Summerfield for joining the volume at short notice to provide a discussion of Edward I’s propaganda. We would also like to thank those who expressed their enthusiasm for the project, but were ultimately unable to contribute to the volume: Thomas Clancy, Alex Woolf, Sally Mapstone, Steve Boardman, Roger Mason and Arthur Williamson. Ray Barron offered us much appreciated guidance and encouragement and we are sorry that he did not live to see the volume completed; Philip Bennett provided some timely advice on Old French texts. Our greatest debt is to Sally Mapstone, who has not only been enthusiastic about the project from the beginning, but has generously lent her expertise to several of the papers in this volume, including those of both editors. We would like to thank Caroline Palmer, our patient editor at Boydell and Brewer. Finally, we must thank Derek, Neale and Isaac, who have allowed themselves to be lectured interminably on ‘Arthurian Legend and the Scots’ for the last two

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

years despite having done nothing to deserve this unkind fate. Even Isaac will, as he grows older, find passages of this volume eerily familiar. St Andrews and Nottingham April 2004

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Abbreviations BBIAS

Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society

EETS (ES/OS/SS)

Early English Text Society (Extra Series/ Original Series/Supplementary Series)

IMEV

Index of Middle English Verse

NLS

National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

OED

Oxford English Dictionary

SHR

Scottish Historical Review

SLJ

Scottish Literary Journal

SSL

Studies in Scottish Literature

SSR

Scottish Studies Review

STC

Short Title Catalogue

STS

Scottish Text Society

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Introduction: Tartan Arthur? RHIANNON PURDIE and NICOLA ROYAN

The fact that only two actual Scots Arthurian romances survive – Golagros and Gawane and the incomplete Lancelot of the Laik – gives an entirely false impression of how important Arthurian legend was for Scotland and the Scots. If romances are few, the engagements of medieval and early modern Scottish historiographers with Arthur are many and varied. As Nicola Royan observes in her essay here: ‘Arthur remains a contested figure, a point at which the relationship between the Scots and the English is examined.’1 As will become clear from the other essays in this volume, this statement holds equally true for English writers, and the reasons for this are not far to seek. Although Arthurian legend became popular throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and many of its more famous and influential proponents – such as Chrétien de Troyes and his continuators – were continental, the legends themselves are set in Britain and many of its principal characters are further localized to particular areas of Britain.2 Scotland can claim, among others, Gawain of Lothian and/or Orkney and, in the guise of Lailoken, Merlin.3 Arthurian legend clearly belongs both to and in Britain, but the devil is in the detail. What exactly is the relationship between Arthur’s world and the real territories of England, Wales and Scotland? Within the British Isles, Arthur’s status as a purported historical king who ruled the entire island of Britain has direct political implications, and these have been exploited by authors and power-hungry monarchs alike through the Middle Ages and beyond. A good example of the political import of Arthur even in the avowedly fictional world of romance can be found in the respective introductions to Chrétien

1 2

3

‘The Fine Art of Faint Praise’, p. 50 below. See for example Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, ‘The Celtic Tradition’, in The Arthur of the English: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval English Life and Literature, ed. W. R. J. Barron (Cardiff, 2001), pp. 1–9 (p. 5). Lailoken appears in association with the Scottish saint Kentigern in the twelfth-century Life by Joceline of Furness as well as in two independent Latin tales about this saint (in one of which he is cautiously identified with Merlin by the narrator): see Lives of S. Ninian and S. Kentigern, ed. A. P. Forbes (Edinburgh, 1874) and H. L. D. Ward, ‘Lailoken (or Merlin Silvester)’, Romania 22 (1893), 504–26. For discussion, see A. O. H. Jarman, ‘The Merlin Legend and the Welsh Tradition of Prophecy’, in The Arthur of the Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature, ed. R. Bromwich et al. (Cardiff, 1991), pp. 117–45 (pp. 121–6). Walter Bower adds a new chapter on Lailoken to his Scotichronicon, ed. D. E. R. Watt et al., 9 vols. (Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 1987–98), II, Book 3, 31, pp. 83–7.

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de Troyes’ Yvain and its fourteenth-century Middle English translation Ywain and Gawain: Li boins roys Artus de Bretaigne, La qui proeche nous ensengne . . . (lines 1–2) (The good king Arthur of Britain, who teaches us of prowess . . .) Arthure, the Kyng of Yngland, That wan al Wales with his hand, And al Scotland, als sayes the buke, And mani mo, if men wil luke . . . (lines 7–10)4

Chrétien’s Arthur ruled ‘Bretaigne’: if he ruled other places as well, it is apparently not worth mentioning. His English translator clearly had a version of Chrétien’s text before him (some of his lines match up exactly to lines in the French), but he ignores it here not only to make Arthur king of ‘Yngland’ but to specify that he had also conquered Wales and ‘al Scotland’. In this he is doing no more than following English chronicle accounts of Arthur, but Ywain and Gawain is the story of a lone knight who encounters magic fountains and befriends lions: it clearly has nothing to do with either history or politics. This insertion of a newly Englished Arthur’s conquests thus underlines the inevitable politicization of Arthur for audiences anywhere in the British Isles, whatever the context. Such ideas can be traced, like so much else, to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae of c. 1136. This is not to suggest that the figure of Arthur was unknown in Scotland before the dissemination of the Historia. Name-studies and the occasional ambiguous reference in early Celtic literature show that Geoffrey’s work found, in Scotland as elsewhere in Britain, an audience already very familiar with some version of Arthurian legend.5 However, the Historia Regum Britanniae was the first concerted attempt to outline a complete shared history for the realms of Britain: its interpretation was to be hotly contested for several centuries following, and nowhere more so than in Scotland. Between the appearance of the Historia Regum Britanniae and the accession of James VI in 1603 to the English throne as James I of Great Britain, the relationship of Scots and English as

4 5

Ywain and Gawain, Sir Percyvell of Galles, The Anturs of Arther, ed. Maldwyn Mills (London, 1992). See also Rushton, ‘ “Of an Uncouthe Stede” ’, p. 113–14 below. O. J. Padel analyses place-name and literary evidence for early knowledge of Arthur in Britain and concludes: ‘wherever a Brittonic language was or had lately been spoken, the legend of Arthur can be shown to have been current in the pre-Geoffrey period – in southern Scotland, southern Wales, the Welsh borders, south-west England, and Brittany. In most of these areas its main manifestation was his presence in the landscape in the form of placenames and legends’: ‘The Nature of Arthur’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 27 (1994), 1–31 (p. 14). Ken Dark argues that Arthur may have been an Irish hero transmitted into British culture via the Irish kingdoms of Dyfed in Wales and Dalriada in western Scotland, citing the six historical ‘Arthurs’ recorded for the sixth and seventh centuries amongst the Irish of Dyfed, Dalriada or the British kingdom of Strathclyde, and Tipperary: ‘A Famous Arthur in the Sixth Century? Reconsidering the Origins of the Arthurian Legend’, Reading Medieval Studies 26 (2000), 77–95 (pp. 81–3). On Scottish place-names with Arthurian associations, see also Steve Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, in Scottish History: The Power of the Past, ed. E. J. Cowan and R. J. Finlay (Edinburgh, 2002), pp. 47–72 (pp. 55–7).

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refracted through Arthurian legend is at its most turbulent and changeable. The present collection of essays ranges over those five centuries, exploring various sophisticated and nuanced responses to the Arthurian legend and its implications for the Scots. The British foundation myth as explained by Geoffrey holds that ‘Britain’ is named after Brutus, a great-grandson of Aeneas, who established the settlement and later divided it up amongst his sons. The eldest, Locrinus, received England (or ‘Loegria’); a second son, Albanactus, was given Scotland (‘Albany’ or ‘Albanac’). When Albanactus was killed in battle, his people turned to Locrinus for protection, uniting those realms under one leader. Ultimately, Arthur succeeds to the ‘crown of Britain’, claiming authority over the whole of the island both by inheritance and by conquest. The story was so well known that ‘Brut’ became a common term in the Middle Ages for a chronicle of British history. The implications of the legend are clear enough: the sovereignty of those who rule England extends over those who rule Scotland. This argument’s potential was realized in its full glory during the campaigns of Edward I; it is also a commonplace of many English chronicles.6 As a result, it is almost impossible for the Scots to adopt the French attitude and treat Arthur’s Britain as virtually fictional. Instead, in various ways, many of which are explored in this volume, Scots writers negotiate their way around this pervasive myth, while English writers who consider their northern neighbours – like Pierre de Langtoft, Malory and the Elizabethan playwright Thomas Hughes – continue to uphold it. Despite the difficulties experienced by the Scottish historiographers in dealing with Arthur, Arthurian legend remained popular in medieval and early modern Scotland. Even James IV famously disguised himself as ‘a knycht of King Arthuris brocht vp in the wodis’ in two wildly successful tournaments held in Edinburgh in 1507 and 1508 – the latter perhaps not coincidentally the year in which Chepman and Myllar printed Golagros and Gawane.7 A combination of political circumstances and changing historiographical practice caused Arthur’s political significance to fade in the seventeenth century,8 and this volume ends with the disappearance of the medieval figure. This is not, however, to suggest that the Scots lost interest in Arthur after this.9 There are records of Arthurian ballads in Gaelic from the seventeenth century;10 individual Scottish families such as the Campbells continued to try to manipulate Arthurian 6

7

8

9 10

See for example R. R. Davies, ‘Island Mythologies’, in The First English Empire: Powers and Identities in the British Isles 1093–1343 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 31–53. On Edward I, see Thea Summerfield, ‘The Testimony of Writing’, pp. 25, 33–5 below. See The historie of Scotland: wrytten first in Latin by Jhone Leslie, and translated in Scottish by Father James Dalrymple, ed. E. G. Cody and W. Murison, STS 5, 14, 19, 34 (Edinburgh, 1888–95), II, 128. For discussion of the tournaments, see Louise Olga Fradenburg, City, Marriage, Tournament: Arts of Rule in Late Medieval Scotland (Madison, WI, 1991), pp. 154, 158 and 225–34. A full summary of the developments in Arthurian and other historiographies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is not possible here, but for a useful discussion, see T. D. Kendrick, British Antiquity (Oxford, 1951). See for example the later circulation of Sir Lamwell as discussed in Bawcutt, ‘Sir Lamwell in Scotland’, pp. 84–91 below. Linda Gowans, ‘Arthurian Survivals in Scottish Gaelic’, The Arthurian Yearbook 2 (1992), 27–76, and her edition An bròn binn: an Arthurian ballad in Scottish Gaelic (Eastbourne, 1992).

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associations to their own advantage11 and some places in Scotland firmly retained their Arthurian associations.12 But for Scotland, the legend lost much of its political momentum when James VI became, as Arthur once was, ruler of the whole island.13 While much of this volume is concerned with the interpretation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version of British history with regard to Scotland, it should be noted that for the Scots there was an alternative approach: to adopt a different foundation myth altogether. The Scottish origin myth derives from the Irish myth, and is thus distinct from Geoffrey’s Brito-Norman account. In summary (it has many versions and recensions), Gathelos, an Athenian prince, leaves his homeland and travels to Egypt; there he marries an Egyptian princess, Scota. This Scota is the daughter of Moses’ pharaoh, and she and Gathelos are forced to leave Egypt when Pharaoh drowns in the Red Sea. They travel to Spain and settle, unusually deriving their name from their maternal founder. From Spain, there are various waves of invasion and settlement into Ireland; the leader of one of these, Simón Brecc, brings the Stone of Scone and places it at Tara. Sometime later, a descendant of these invaders, Eochaid Rothay, settles in the Hebrides, and gives his name to Rothesay, and finally one of his descendants, Fergus, son of Feredach or Ferchar, invades the mainland, accompanied by the Stone of Scone, and becomes the first king of the Scots in Scotland. Henceforth there is a line of kings, which is broken once, when the Scots are cast out of Scotland by the Britons. The Scots choose exile rather than conquest, and return in triumph, led by another Fergus, son of Erc, some years later. This reclaiming of their lands reinforces their right to them, and their possession remains unbroken thereafter. After this second foundation, the Scots remain unconquered, even by Edward I. As with so much else, the rival Scottish myth begins to make its presence felt as a part of patriotic ideology during the First War of Independence and its aftermath, particularly the Declaration of Arbroath. However, this appearance does not represent its creation, rather its first use beyond the Gaelic-speaking west. Its pedigree is far older and parts predate Geoffrey.14 The fourteenth-century versions simply naturalize the myth to Scotland, above and below the Forth, and also place it in a new context of Latin chronicle and letter. The exact detail of the generations who invade Ireland and the kings who rule the Scots is not consistent across the recensions; indeed, it becomes more elaborate in the sixteenthcentury versions of Hector Boece and George Buchanan.15 Nevertheless, its advantages remain constant. One petty advantage is that, in this version, the Scots are descended from the winners and indeed the wronged party in the Trojan war, 11 12 13 14

15

See for example W. Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition – Part One: Romances and Learned Lore’, Cambridge Medieval Gaelic Studies 3 (1982), 41–75. See above, note 5. See David Allan, ‘ “Arthur Redivivus”: Politics and Patriotism in Reformation Scotland’, Arthurian Literature 15 (1997), 185–204; also Wood, ‘Where Does Britain End?’ below. The most detailed account of the Scota legend and its development is to be found in Dauvit Broun, The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Woodbridge, 1999). See Roger A. Mason, ‘Scotching the Brut: Politics, History and National Myth in SixteenthCentury Britain’, in Scotland and England 1285–1815, ed. Roger A. Mason (Edinburgh, 1987), pp. 60–84.

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rather than the losers. Furthermore, if Gathelos’s reasons for leaving Greece were problematic, he was at least neither an adulterer, nor a possible traitor like Aeneas.16 Scota’s parentage links the narrative conveniently to the ultimate authoritative source, the Bible. Most importantly, however, the date given for the inauguration of Fergus son of Feredach is usually 330 BC, long before the Britons were said to have arrived in the British Isles. The Scots thus have a claim to their territory prior to any British invasion, and this in itself refutes their absorption into the Galfridian model. However, because omitting Geoffrey’s account of the British past entirely would leave unendurable holes in the historical fabric, many Scottish historiographers still relied on his work. As the chapters by Wood and Royan show, writers such as Andrew Wyntoun, Walter Bower and Fordun himself are thus embroiled in complex negotiations with Geoffrey’s text, keeping what they can but avoiding surrendering Scottish sovereignty. There are perhaps two main themes that can be shown to recur in Scottish responses to Arthur: the first is – unsurprisingly – sovereignty; a second is advice to princes. Both of these become most evident when comparing the Scottish material to other traditions. For instance, in ‘Where does Britain end?’, Juliette Wood explores the different handlings of Arthurian material in Wales and in Scotland, both realms subject to English invasion. She demonstrates that the Welsh are more comfortable identifying themselves with the Arthurian Britons: they come to identify themselves with the British settlement and ultimately, with the Tudor project. The Scots, on the other hand, are more resistant to such identification, and tend to expend their energy on subverting English claims to sovereignty by developing the superiority of their own. Even within Britain, then, the Scottish relationship to Arthur is a specific one. Arthur’s threat to Scottish sovereignty is strongly foregrounded by the propaganda campaigns waged at the time of the First War of Independence. One part of the English campaign is examined by Thea Summerfield in her discussion of the Anglo-Norman chronicler Pierre de Langtoft’s various works. After the Wars of Independence, the Scottish encounters with Arthur, particularly in historiography, move from the carefully negotiated to the openly confrontational. While the Scottish tradition is by no means monolithic, certain texts evidently circulated widely and inflected the writings of others. Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon, for instance, itself a rewriting of Fordun’s Chronica, lies behind the versions of The Scottis Originale and is also a major source for the humanist historiographers of the sixteenth century. Part of this pattern of development is traced by Nicola Royan in ‘The Fine Art of Faint Praise’, where she argues for a growing confidence in the treatment of Arthur by Scottish writers over the fifteenth century. A disconcertingly different view of Scotland’s place in Arthurian legend is shown by the thirteenth-century French writer Guillaume le Clerc, whose work

16

In the medieval period Aeneas was widely viewed as a co-conspirator with Antenor, partly thanks to Guido delle Colonne’s influential Latin Historia Destructionis Troiae of c. 1287 and its many descendants. See note to line 3 of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, 2nd edn, rev. Norman Davis (Oxford, 1967, rev. 1972), and also C. David Benson, The History of Troy in Middle English Literature (Woodbridge, 1980), pp. 82, 93 and 133.

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is discussed in Tony Hunt’s ‘The Roman de Fergus: Parody or Pastiche?’ Hunt shows that Chrétien’s romances are present in palimpsest all the way through Fergus, but that Guillaume juxtaposes Chrétien’s Arthurian world with Fergus’s precisely realized Scotland as part of a programme of humorous de-idealization. Such an approach is hardly flattering to the Scots and it comes as no surprise to find that there is no direct evidence for the circulation of this text in Scotland, however closely its author must have been connected to the country. The circulation of Arthurian romances within and outwith Scotland is the subject of the next two essays in this volume. In Elizabeth Archibald’s ‘Lancelot of the Laik: Sources, Genre and Reception’, the favourite Scottish theme of good kingship resurfaces in the use made by the Scottish author of Lancelot of the Laik of a section of the non-cyclic prose French Lancelot, a text apparently unknown (or at least unused) by any English Arthurian writer. Archibald shows among other things how its remodelling into the form of a mirror for princes seems to have been picked up by the compiler of its sole extant manuscript, where it is placed amongst many other advisory works both Scottish and English. Priscilla Bawcutt’s ‘Sir Lamwell in Scotland’ discovers that an apparently Scottish fragmentary version of the romance Sir Lamwell is actually a copy of a sixteenthcentury English print. Her discussion of the circulation of this little text goes some way to correct the impression one might get from some of the more virulently patriotic Scottish chroniclers (or indeed from the present volume) that ordinary Scots necessarily saw Arthur as contentious, and English Arthurian texts as unacceptable reading material. We return to the political with the next three essays by Purdie, Rushton and King. In studying the Scots and medieval Arthurian legend, there is always a danger of reading modern political sensibilities into very different medieval situations. Rhiannon Purdie’s ‘The Search for Scottishness in Golagros and Gawane’ carefully negotiates that weakness, and looks to identify features in this text – whose Scottish origins have always been assumed rather than proven – that might be deemed Scottish by their correspondence with other established Scottish writings. Purdie finds that this text’s Scottish origins are, once again, confirmed by the emphasis on the themes of advice to princes and the very particular issues surrounding sovereignty in Scotland. The unease felt by the Scots when dealing with the English was evidently reciprocated – a fact often forgotten by both medieval and modern Scottish writers on the subject. Cory Rushton, in ‘ “Of an Uncouthe Stede” ’, argues that Malory voices a deep and characteristic English suspicion of the Scots through his subtle elevation of the Scottish knights in his tales to a more central role in the destruction of Arthur’s kingdom. The fault is shown to lie in the Scottish faction’s ultimate unwillingness to either advise the king correctly where advice is needed, or fully acknowledge Arthur’s sovereignty over them. Andrew King, in ‘Dead Butchers and Fiend-like Queens’, suggests that such English unease about the Scots takes on new political significance in the light of the Elizabethan and Jacobean successions. Although the advent of humanist historiography may have reduced Arthur’s historical significance, by comparing The Misfortunes of Arthur and Macbeth, King argues that he still carried powerful symbolic weight in explorations of kingship and sovereignty.

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Sergi Mainer’s ‘Reinventing Arthur’ moves beyond the British Isles to compare Catalonian representations of Arthur. In modern eyes, Scotland and Catalonia – like Scotland and Wales – are often seen to be parallel, specifically in their relationships to their more dominant neighbours. Underpinning Mainer’s paper is the question of whether such a parallel is sustainable in discussions of the Middle Ages. What his exploration reveals is that both Catalan and Scottish traditions are differentiable from those of their larger neighbours, but that they are also different from each other. The geographical associations of Arthur with Britain mean that his primary significance for the Scots must be political and imperial, whereas for Catalan writers – freed from immediate political implications – the emphasis is on individual behaviour. This difference aside, however, both traditions notably exploit the didactic and exemplary potential of the Arthurian legend to a far greater extent than their French sources. It is clear that every nation and people has its own unique approach to Arthurian legend. There is already a strong critical tradition of examining Arthurian legend along national lines, but Scotland has hitherto rather missed out in this game. There is, for example, an excellent series of survey volumes currently in production by the University of Wales Press. At the time of writing, there is an Arthur of the Welsh, an Arthur of the Germans and an Arthur of the English, but there will not be an Arthur of the Scots. This is because discussion of explicitly Arthurian Scots texts was, with rakish political incorrectness, included in The Arthur of the English. It must be pointed out that this was an unavoidable consequence of dividing the material for the series on linguistic rather than national grounds, but it demonstrates nevertheless how readily the Scottish Arthurian tradition gets engulfed by the much more voluminous English tradition. The present collection of essays is an initial attempt to redress the balance for Scotland during the last five centuries of Scottish independence, before the significance of Arthurian legend begins its graceful descent from the acutely political to the harmlessly literary. Versions of some of these essays were read at the ‘Tartan Arthur’ conference held at the University of Nottingham on 21 June 2003, from which this introduction takes its title. The principal texts discussed in this volume are listed in approximate chronological order in an appendix at the end of this volume.

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Where Does Britain End? The Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth in Scotland and Wales JULIETTE WOOD

ˆ r wrote to the During his campaign to establish himself in Wales, Owain Glyndw Scottish king seeking his support against a common enemy. On the surface Owain had an impeccable argument. The three sons of Brutus were the basis for a native ˆ r’s letter provided a point of British alliance against an alien invader, and Glyndw contact between Welsh and Scottish branches of the Arthurian heritage as depicted in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. Unfortunately the letter never reached the Scottish king, and an opportunity for native British unity seemˆ r’s letter1 was not the only potential meeting ingly evaporated. However Glyndw of Welsh and Scottish interests in the political arena. Earlier, during the time of Edward I, later during the Wars of the Roses and again, at the beginning of the Stewart dynasty in England, circumstances brought them close together. Each time Geoffrey’s view of history provided a means to articulate their relationships with one another, and Arthur as king of Britain provided a focus for defining identity and difference within the parameters of a British world. ˆ r rebellion (1400–1415), the Welsh projected their Arthurian After the Glyndw hopes onto Henry Tudor, ironically the founder of an essentially English dynasty, as the mab darogan (son of prophecy) who would restore the unity of Britain. These hopes transferred to his granddaughter Elizabeth I as the Protestant uchelwyr, that is, the gentry of Wales, found a wider political and economic role within the developing British nation. Geoffrey’s Arthurian vision as a fulfilment of British destiny was sustained in poetry, particularly vaticination. Here it provided an important element in constructing the genealogies which linked gentry families to the ancient British kings of Geoffrey’s world. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a number of historical treatises synthesised Geoffrey’s view of history, together with other traditional sources, in a way which favoured the existence of Arthur, and, by extension, the interests of the Welsh gentry.2 In Scotland, which had a different kind of political cohesion and independence,

1

2

The text of the undelivered letter dated 29 November 1401 is given in The Chronicle of Adam of Usk, ed. and trans. by C. Given-Wilson (Oxford, 1997), pp. 149–52; T. Matthews, Welsh Records in Paris (Carmarthen, 1910), pp. 103–9. Glanmor Williams, ‘Prophecy, Poetry and Politics in Medieval and Tudor Wales’, in Religion, Language and Nationality in Wales: Historical Essays, Glanmor Williams (Cardiff, 1979), pp. 71–86; T. Jones, ‘Historical Writing in Medieval Welsh’, Scottish Studies 12 (1968), 15–27.

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medieval and early modern chronicles linked Arthur more directly to issues of kingship and sovereignty. These chronicles were also aware of Arthur as a figure in romance and as a folk-hero. The attitude to Arthur in Scottish sources is often ambivalent, and there was, in addition, an alternative origin myth, the Scota story.3 The politics to which Geoffrey’s mythic history applied was understood in different ways, and it is not without a certain irony that these factors should coalesce when James VI became James I. The interweaving of the pseudo-historical, romance and folklore aspects of Arthur helps clarify the contrasting reception of the tradition in Scotland and Wales. Spanning a period from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, Geoffrey’s vision of a nation united under the crown of Britain provided both countries with a powerful, and adaptable, image for defining themselves and their role in the wider geo-political world. It gave context to politics and culture, and, as the political realities changed, his vision provided the basis for less tangible notions of unity. Arthur was not a prominent figure in Welsh genealogical material before the appearance of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history. He seems to have been a legendary rather than an ancestor king. In Welsh poetry and prose he is predominantly a heroic warrior, while in the saints’ lives he is a pattern for tribal leadership opposing, and then accepting, the power of the saints.4 This situation changed during the twelfth century as a result of Anglo-Norman concerns in Wales (and in Britain generally), and the development of continental literary traditions. The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1136) articulates (some would say engineers) a new synthesis which sees the island of Britain as an ancient unity under a king whose power of office is symbolised by the crown of London, and Geoffrey places Arthur at the centre of this largely mythic history. In this new role, Arthur became a powerful emotional image with real political possibilities, and one which was exploited by Welsh poets and chroniclers in the service of Welsh, Plantagenet, Tudor and Stewart monarchs. This mixture of myth and politics was not without problems. Not all of Geoffrey’s contemporaries accepted his historical analysis, and some made the still relevant point that no validation for Arthur exists outside Geoffrey or his known sources.5 Later commentators, such as Polydore Vergil and Hector Boece, were also sceptical of these sources and further undermined the credibility of an historical Arthur. However the importance of Geoffrey’s Arthur as a pseudo-historical myth went unchallenged for many years, even among the historians who questioned his accuracy. The main elements of the Arthurian narrative, the power of kingship and how it is inherited, what gives

3

4

5

E. J. Cowan, ‘Myth and Identity in Early Medieval Scotland’, Scottish History Review 63 (1984) 111–35; Steve Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, in Scottish History: The Power of the Past, ed. E. J. Cowan and R. J. Finlay (Edinburgh, 2002), pp. 47–72; Nicola Royan, ‘ “Na les vailyeant than ony uthir princis of Britaine”: Representations of Arthur in Scotland 1480–1540’, SSR 2.1 (2002), 9–20. Brynley F. Roberts, Brut y Brenhinedd (Dublin, 1971), pp. 55–74; idem, ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia Regum Britanniae and Brut y Brenhinedd’, in The Arthur of the Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature, ed. Rachel Bromwich, A. O. H. Jarman and Brynley Roberts (Cardiff, 1991), pp. 97–116. Laura Keeler, Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Late Latin Chronicles 1300–1500 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1946) gives a summary of attitudes to Geoffrey’s historical reliability in chronicles, pp. 47–67, 71–4, 76–80.

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meaning to and sustains a national enclave and the exemplar of the leader who brings political order, were applied to the varied political and cultural interests of Welsh, Scottish and even English leaders. Arthur is of course only one aspect of Geoffrey’s historical vision. The unity of Britain is the key to stability, and anarchy, usually as the result of treachery, stems from denial of this concept. The sons of the Trojan Brutus, namely Locrinus, Kamber and Albanactus, together with their ally Corineus, are the eponymous founders of Britain, England, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall. Locrinus wears the crown of London as the eldest son and premier king, and his son Belinus controls England, Wales and Cornwall. Brennus governs the much less specific North. Considering that Geoffrey of Monmouth was writing from the Anglo-Norman power base of southern Britain, it is hardly surprising Scotland’s position in this world is less central than that of Wales. Geoffrey did not invent the Brutus myth. It already existed in one of his sources, Historia Brittonum (c. eighth century). Even the alliance of the Britons and the Scots as equals against a foreign invader, namely the Saxons, otherwise known as the men of Lloegr, had already appeared in Armes Prydein Vawr, a vaticination poem written prior to the twelfth century.6 The Annales Cambriae (c. tenth century) recorded the deaths of Arthur and Modred at the battle of Camlann, while the notion of Britain’s fall as the result of civil strife and bad faith is the theme of Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae (sixth century). However, Geoffrey, the master storyteller, personalises the narrative and makes Arthur’s failure the result of Modred’s treachery. Both the build-up and the failure of the Arthurian world is surrounded by providential imagery which allows for a future restoration, and it is this which sustains the compelling, humanised and coherent myth which Geoffrey created. The dominant image of Arthur in Scottish chronicles is that of an historical king embedded in the Galfridian myth of British unity. Modred’s Scottish connections are taken fully into account, and, as a result, the attitude to the Arthurian tradition varies significantly from the Welsh sources. The issue of Arthur’s legitimacy in relation to Scottish sovereignty was articulated first in the response to Edward I’s letter to the pope which claimed power in Scotland because Arthur had conquered and annexed it. Edward based his claim to sovereignty in Scotland on Historia Regum Britanniae. Baldred Bisset, one of the Scottish commissioners at Rome, countered this by questioning the propriety of Arthur’s claim as stated in Geoffrey’s account, on the grounds of his conception out of wedlock.7 Edward had imperial ambitions in Wales as well, and in both cases he utilised the symbolism of sovereignty to assert his claims. Edward

6 7

Roberts, Brut y Brenhinedd, pp. 55–74. ‘Processus Baldredi Contra Figmenta Regis Anglia’, Susan Kelly, ‘The Arthurian Material in the Scotichronicon of Walter Bower’, Anglia 97 (1979), 431–8 (p. 437 n. 21); Keeler, Geoffrey and Latin Chroniclers, pp. 51–4, 130; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. D. E. R. Watt et al., 9 vols. (Aberdeen, 1987–98), hereafter Bower, Scotichronicon volume number, book number, chapter number and page numbers. The letter is quoted at length in Bower, Scotichronicon VI, Bk 11, chs. 46–64 (pp. 133–89). See also the introduction in this volume, pp. 4–5; Royan, ‘The Fine Art of Faint Praise’, pp. 48–9, and Summerfield, ‘Testimony of Writing’, pp. 34–6 below.

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removed symbols of Scottish sovereignty such as the Stone of Scone, and his actions in Wales were similar. After the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282, the king’s crown and royal seals supposedly went to London along with his head.8 In some quarters, these actions were seen in Galfridian terms. An English version of Llywelyn’s epitaph calls him ‘of Trojan’s blood the dross and not the seed’, while a Welsh elegy mourns ‘Llas Llywelyn llafn greulyd/Llas Arthur ben adur byd’ (Llywelyn of the bloodstained blade has been killed/ Arthur has been killed, chieftain of the world).9 The most consistent feature of the Scottish chronicle material depends on the questionable legitimacy of Arthur’s claim to the crown of Britain, particularly when compared to that of Modred and Gawain, his sister’s (or sometimes aunt’s) children by the Scottish king, Loth. Later Scottish historians writing in a humanist tradition were also critical of the irrational nature of Arthur’s birth story, but the tone on the whole is pro-Scot, or anti-Geoffrey, rather than anti-Arthur.10 Despite his doubts about the reliability of Historia Regum Britanniae, John of Fordun’s Chronica Gentis Scotorum (c. 1385), the earliest Scottish chronicle to consider Arthur’s position, praises the king in language which paraphrases Geoffrey. While Arthur had no legitimate right, Fordun acknowledges that a mature king was better than the rightful heirs who had not reached majority. The inconsistency with regards to their mother, Anna’s, position in the Arthurian family is noted, and Fordun is at pains to maintain Modred’s legitimacy which is why he denies the charge of incest.11 In Andrew of Wyntoun’s account, Modred is closer to the treacherous figure of romance, but then Wyntoun claims he had a specific source which allowed him to side-step the controversies about Geoffrey.12 Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon, which expanded John of Fordun’s Chronica Gentis Scotorum in the 1440s, reflects further developments in the attitude to Arthur (and Geoffrey) in Scotland. Bower kept Geoffrey’s narrative frame, but was more explicit than Fordun on the subject of parentage. Arthur was illegitimate, a product of ‘inaudite arte merlini vatis’. Anna’s husband was Loth, Scots consul and ruler of Lothian; therefore the Scots had a right to the crown of London. Her sons, Modred and Gawain, were the rightful heirs, but too young, so Arthur was chosen.13 It is worth noting that Fordun, Bower and Bisset use Historia Regum Britanniae without having to alter the details of the story. According to the text, the seduction is extramarital, but since Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, does eventually marry 8

9 10 11

12

13

Llinos Beverley Smith, ‘Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and the Welsh Historical Consciousness’, Welsh History Review 12 (1984–85), 1–28; William Rishanger’s chronicle says that the Welsh surrendered the crown of Arthur after Llywelyn’s death: Keeler, Geoffrey and Latin Chroniclers, pp. 49–50, n. 7. Casgliad o Ddogfennau: A Collection of Documents (Aberystwyth, 1986), pp. 24 and 27. Kelly, ‘Arthurian Material’, 431–8; Keeler, Geoffrey and Latin Chroniclers, pp. 76–80. Johannis de Fordun, Chronica Gentis Scotorum, ed. W. F. Skene, trans. F. J. H. Skene, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1872; facsimile reprint Llanerch, 1998), I, 101–3; Kelly, ‘Arthurian Material’, pp. 434–5; Flora Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Scottish Attitudes to the Figure of King Arthur: A Reassessment’, Anglia 93 (1975), 28–34 (p. 20); Bower follows Fordun’s argument closely: Scotichronicon II, Bk 3, ch. 25 (p. 65). Andrew of Wyntoun, Original Chronicle, ed. F. J. Amours, STS 50, 53, 54, 56, 57 and 63, 6 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1902–14), IV, Bk 5, ch. 13, lines 4300–3; Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Scottish Attitudes’, pp. 20–1. Kelly, ‘Arthurian Material’, p. 433.

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Ygerne, Geoffrey does not question Arthur’s legitimacy. Neither Modred nor Gawain contest the throne, and Arthur leaves the country in the (by implication) appropriate hands of the legitimate elder nephew. Most Scottish chronicles accept that Arthur was chosen because Anna’s sons were too young, but the observation that Arthur was conceived out of wedlock sticks to him. And although John Mair exonerates Ygerne from blame in Historia Maioris Britanniae, he still undermines Arthur’s heroic status.14 The important element, more so than the degree to which chronicles are for or against Arthur, is his potential dynastic role in the legitimisation of a true monarch for Britain. Other images of Arthur, such as his standing as a romance figure and his function within folk narrative tradition, influence Scottish chronicles, and the attempts to balance these different and complex images are revealing. Fordun’s denial of the alternative genealogy found in romances that make Modred a child of incest15 preserves the basis on which Scots writers could claim independence; Arthur however, remains the heroic standard in Scottish Arthurian romances and other sources.16 An intriguing example of the complex handling of Arthur in Scottish sources is the way Boece and his translators compare the ‘gestes of Arthur’ and ‘vulgar’ traditions about Finn MacCool.17 It is all too easy to over interpret a slight reference such as this, but Finn and Arthur as leaders of warrior bands have something in common, and both are endowed with gigantic stature.18 While these references are too early for the concept of a Celtic world to provide a link for the two figures, Boece does seem to be pushing them to the outer margins of the political world he is writing about. As a result of the very different shading which the story receives in Scottish hands, Modred becomes more interesting in comparison with earlier Welsh sources, and, coincidentally, his character in Scottish chronicles moves closer to the pre-Galfridian figure. The Annales Cambriae says only that he and Arthur were killed in the battle of Camlann, while in the Black Book of Carmarthen poems (late twelfth/ early thirteenth century), Medrawd (Modred) is well-spoken and courteous.19 Geoffrey makes him an opponent to a rightful king, thereby transforming Arthur into an exemplum of the hero brought down by treachery. Scottish chronicles, not surprisingly given the Scottish connections of his parents, Anna and Lot, view the legitimate circumstances of Modred’s birth as a basis for

14 15 16 17

18 19

John Mair, Historia Maioris Britanniae (Paris, 1521), translated as A History of Greater Britain, trans. A. Constable, Scottish History Society 10 (Edinburgh, 1892), pp. 80–1. Fordun, Chronica I, p. 103. Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Scottish Attitudes’, pp. 19–20; Royan, ‘Representations of Arthur’, pp. 9–20. ‘Finn MacCool of whom be geste and rumours in the same sort as of arthure king of the Britons is frequent mention among the vulgar people more than among appriset authorities’: The Mar Lodge translation of the History of Scotland, ed. George Watson, STS 3rd series 17 (Edinburgh and London, 1946), Bk 7, ch. 12, p. 418; John Bellenden, The Chronicles of Scotland compiled by Hector Boece, ed. R. W. Chambers, E. C. Batho and H. W. Husbands, STS Third Series 10 and 15, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1936–41), I, Bk 7, ch. 11, p. 300 ‘gestis quhilkis ar rehersit of King arthure’. For a full study of the traditions of Finn MacCool see Joseph Falaky Nagy, The Wisdom of the Outlaw (Berkeley, 1985). Brynley F. Roberts, ‘Ymagweddau at Brut y Brenhinedd hyd 1890’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 24 (1971), 122–39.

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Scottish independence. The Scottis Originale brings matters to the mid-fifteenth century, and the antagonism appears stronger here. Arthur is characterised as ‘that tyrant’, ‘son of adultery’ and ‘hurisone’ whose birth was the result of the ‘devilry of Merlin’.20 There is a sense that Modred (as a legitimate heir) slew Arthur in a righteous quarrel, although even then the depiction is not without ambiguity. The sixteenth-century historians John Mair, Hector Boece, John Bellenden, William Stewart, John Leslie, and George Buchanan are more critical of Geoffrey as a source, but he is still very much a presence. For example, Boece’s translators use the phrase ‘crown of Britain’, Geoffrey’s symbol of a unified nation, to reflect both good and bad government. Caranius wears the crown of Britain as an example of good kingship, but so does Vortiger who ‘took the crown of Britain and did great cruelties against the Scots and the Picts.21 Merlin, who has become a renaissance necromancer, is asked to prophesy whether ‘the crown of Britain should be recoverit agane to the Britonis’.22 In general, the Scots were not so obviously enamoured of the ‘British’ project, at least prior to the Reformation. Instead, the Scota/Gathelus origin myth provided an alternative context for Scottish attitudes to nationhood. The chroniclers’ harsh judgements on Arthur’s dynastic claims are often balanced by this alternative myth of classical origin, which stated that the Scots descended from Gaedelus of Athens and an Egyptian princess Scota, rather than Albanactus son of Brutus. This gave Scotland an ancient heritage on which to base claims for an independence as old, or older than, that of ‘the island of Britain’ and to avoid being drawn into the list of Arthur’s conquests. The Scota myth was embedded in Scottish culture at an early period.23 Humanist historians, such as Boece and his translators, are not quite so offended by this material as they are by Arthur, but then, unlike the hints of supernatural and diabolic intervention that overshadow Arthur’s birth, the Scota story reads in a more conventionally historical way. Political expediency is the accepted basis for Arthur’s claim to the crown of Britain, and the Britons break their promise when they give the crown to Constantine, son of Cador of Cornwall. In this context there is some justification for Modred’s battle which takes place on the banks of the Humber. Afterwards, Guanora (Guenevere) is captured and held prisoner for the rest of her life.24 In depicting the Arthurian world, both Boece’s original text and the translations emphasise the equal alliance between the Britons and the Scots. Events are interpreted in a way sympathetic to Scotland, and new material, such as Guenevere’s capture is added. On the whole, the narrative itself is not questioned until much later in, for example, the work of George Buchanan, but even then Arthurian

20

21 22 23 24

Scottis Originale, in The Asloan Manuscript, ed. W. A. Craigie, STS New Series 14 and 16, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1923 and 1924), I, 190; quoted by Alexander, ‘Later Medieval Scottish Attitudes’, p. 21; Kelly, ‘Arthurian Material’, p. 433. See Bellenden, Chronicles of Scotland (STS) I, Bk 8, ch. 13, p. 341. The summary follows Bellenden’s rendition of events. See Bellenden, Chronicles of Scotland (STS) I, Bk 8, ch. 14, p. 345. Dauvit Broun, The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 119–24, 129. Bellenden, Chronicles of Scotland (STS) I, Bk 9, ch. 11, p. 380.

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material continued to appear. For instance, John Leslie, one of the later historians to consider Arthur’s relationship to Scotland, notes that he himself has seen the Round Table. There is an air of genteel tourism about his account. Nevertheless, he restates the case for Scottish independence and shifts the focus away from earthly kings to Anna and her links with the family of St Kentigern. Even this leads back to the British world of Geoffrey’s sources, since Kentigern, as St Cynderyn, had British connections.25 Another important element in the Arthurian tradition, the motif of the returning leader, is important in both the Scots and the Welsh tradition. Although Geoffrey is ambiguous on the matter of Arthur’s return, it features in romance accounts and became an important aspect of the Arthurian legend. It may be the importance of this episode as part of ‘the matter of Britain’ that influenced Scottish chronicles to include it.26 Bower notes ‘Superventurus est dispersos et profugos Britones ad propria restaurare’ (He is going to come again to restore the scattered and fugitive Britons to their rights).27 The Extracta e Variis Chronicis Scotie (1513) summarises Bower’s account of Arthur’s illegitimacy, illegal accession and battle with the rightful heir, Modred. It also describes the burial at Glastonbury with the epitaph, Hic jacet Arthurus Rex quondam atque futurus. The Glastonbury material may be there because of its curiosity value,28 but it is an odd thing to include in an otherwise pro-Scots portrayal of Arthur, and it too may reflect the popularity of the ‘matter of Britain’. In the Historia, John Mair doubts Arthur will return, but quotes Hic jacet Arthurus Rex magnus rex futurus all the same.29 Like Wales, Scotland also had its own returning hero stories attached to historical figures which circulated in times of conflict. Several such legends cluster at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries. Stories about the return of James IV circulated after his death at the battle of Flodden, ˆ r were while the outlaw, Owain Lawgoch (d. 1378), and the rebel, Owain Glyndw the subject of returning hero narratives in fifteenth-century Wales.30 However, associations between Arthur and other folklore figures are more varied across the traditions. In Welsh tradition, Arthur was originally a hero of legend without a clear genealogy. In so far as one can reconstruct Geoffrey’s working methods, he seems to have selected elements from, for example, Historia Brittonum which allowed him to present Arthur as historical and realistic. The material in the Mirabilia section concerning the supernatural boar hunt is omitted, while the Brutus material is expanded.31 Only with the giant Rhitta Gawr32 and the giant of Mont St Michel does Geoffrey incorporate legendary material in the Arthurian section, as far as can be seen. Giants traditionally oppose heroic figures 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32

John Leslie, Historie of Scotland, trans. J. Dalrymple, ed. E. G. Cody and W. Murison, STS First Series 19 and 34, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1889–95), I, 70–4 and 223–4; Kenneth H. Jackson, ‘The Sources for the Life of St Kentigirn’, in Studies in the Early British Church, ed. N. K. Chadwick et al. (Cambridge, 1958), 273–358. Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, pp. 47–72. Bower, Scotichronicon II, Bk 3, ch. 26 (p. 69). Kelly, ‘Arthurian Material’, 447–38, quoted nn. 22, 25, 26. Mair, History of Greater Britain, pp. 80–1. Elissa R. Henken, National Redeemer: Owain Glyndwˆr in Welsh Tradition (Cardiff, 1996), 57–88. Roberts, Brut y Brenhinedd, pp. 55–74. T. Gwynn Jones, Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom (Woodbridge, 1979), pp. 77–9.

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in folk narratives, and heroes themselves are depicted as larger than life. Encounters between the two are frequently localised at unusual landscape features.33 Suggestions about Geoffrey’s sources always contain an element of speculation, but biblical references to giants inhabiting the earth may be one reason why he included this material in an account which, on the whole, avoids unnatural events. Arthur is linked to giants in two medieval tales from the Mabinogion, ‘Culhwch and Olwen’ and ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy’. The former is the clearest expression of Arthur as a heroic figure before his transformation via the material in Geoffrey. Arthur and his men must perform a series of tasks set by a giant before Arthur’s nephew can marry the giant’s daughter, and one of these tasks involves killing another giant. In the second tale, Arthur and his men are depicted as the gigantic heroes of old looking askance at the littleness of modern men.34 The giants provide a validation for Arthur’s greatness, either as a measure for his own stature or by providing suitable opposition. It seems likely that Geoffrey shared this perspective of Arthur with traditions already well established in native Welsh lore. The use of folklore in works such as chronicles reveals a great deal about cultural attitudes and about the interpretations writers wish to convey.35 Boece apparently used traditional material to undermine the credibility of Geoffrey’s Arthur. For example, after listing Merlin’s prophecies concerning the king, he recounts a series of possession tales in a less than credulous manner.36 One of Boece’s most interesting uses of folklore is the odd tradition that Guenevere was captured by the Picts after Arthur’s death and held prisoner for the rest of her life. Her tombstone, a Pictish stone at Meigle depicting Daniel in the lion’s den, is associated with infertility and is therefore avoided by all women (Bellenden makes an exception for nuns).37 This is a striking inversion of a popular place legend concerning sites which promote fertility, and Boece may very well have heard some tale which he adapted.38 The rather snide reference to nuns wishing to avoid pregnancy is an interesting bit of anti-clerical propaganda, perhaps reflecting Bellenden’s humanist stance. The fact that Lot is earlier called King of the Picts and his sons are the ‘rightful’ heirs might provide a partial explanation

33 34

35

36 37

38

Chris Grooms, The Giants of Wales (Lampeter, 1993), pp. 79–110; O. J. Padel, ‘Some SouthWestern Sites with Arthurian Associations’, in The Arthur of the Welsh, pp. 229–47. Culwch ac Olwen: An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale, ed. Rachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans (Cardiff, 1992); Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, ‘Breuddwyd Rhonabwy and Later Arthurian Literature’, in The Arthur of the Welsh, pp. 183–208. Juliette Wood, ‘Folkloric Patterns in Scottish Chronicles’, in The Rose and the Thistle: Essays on the Culture of Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland, ed. Sally Mapstone and Juliette Wood (Tuckwell, 1998), pp. 116–35. Hector Boece, Scotorum Historia (Paris, 1527), Bk 8, fols. 154–5; Bellenden, Chronicles (STS) I, Bk 8, ch. 14, pp. 346–8. Boece, Scotorum Historia, Bk 9, fol. 171; Bellenden, Chronicles (STS) I, p. 380; John Bellenden, The History and Chronicles of Scotland, ed. Thomas Maitland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1821), II, Bk 9, ch. 12, p. 86. The reference to nuns only occurs in Bellenden’s manuscript translation, commissioned by James V; it does not occur either in the Latin original or in the printed translation. This is a productive and long-running legend linked to many sites with no obvious fertility associations. In the last few years there have been repeated traditions about chairs or bar stools which cause unexpected pregnancy (like Boece’s stone).

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for making Guenevere their prisoner. Whatever the author’s actual intentions, this slight narrative involves complex traditional usage and is a reminder of just how multi-layered the figure of Arthur had become by this time. As mentioned earlier, in another ambiguous use of tradition, Boece and his translators referred to Finn MacCool as a giant and compared the narratives attached to him to tales of Arthur. Early in the seventeenth century, a prominent Welsh humanist scholar, John Davies of Brecon (Siôn Dafydd Rhys), also used folklore, but its purpose was to substantiate Geoffrey’s view of Welsh history. Siôn Dafydd Rhys was one of several Welsh antiquaries who responded to sceptical historians like Polydore Vergil and Hector Boece who challenged Geoffrey’s history and by extension, the position of Wales. Rhys defended Geoffrey by collecting references to giants from all over Wales. In this material Arthur himself is either a giant or a trickster/ giant-slayer. The stories in which Arthur acts as a trickster-cum-giant-slayer are examples of a common story-type in which someone outwits a supernatural being. Arthur’s character in these tales is unlike either the romance hero or the dynastic figure.39 By using references to giants in authoritative sources, such as the Bible, as a base, Rhys extends the positive use of gigantism in relation to Arthur and, in his view, these native giant tales support Geoffrey’s work as an authentic history of Wales. This does at least raise the possibility that the characterization of giants in Welsh folklore provided a positive view of Arthur in sources dating from before Geoffrey and continuing into the seventeenth century. The contrasting uses of Geoffrey’s myth of British sovereignty as a means to validate political power are effectively illustrated by the Scottish and Welsh responses to English invasion. Fordun was conscious of the damage Edward I had done to Scottish interests, and this makes him sympathetic to Welsh sufferings under the same king. Bower seems to have knowledge of Anglo-Welsh ˆ r’s supporters affairs and may have had direct contact with some of Owain Glyndw who fled to Scotland after the collapse of the rebellion. Adam of Usk says that the Welsh envoy to Scotland was captured and that Owain’s letter to the Scottish king ˆ r himself participated in the English campaign never arrived. Owain Glyndw against the Scots in 1385, and there is a tradition that Scottish envoys attended Owain’s inauguration as prince of Wales in 1400.40 Whatever the details of Welsh and Scottish contact, both Fordun and Bower show an awareness of a joint struggle by Welsh and Scots against an English king, and this affects the use of Arthur as a dynastic figure. Both stress the irregular circumstances of Arthur’s birth as recounted by Geoffrey. Bower describes the king as ‘natus in adulterio’ by ‘inaudita arte Merlini vatis’,41 and counters the Brutus story with Scota legend. The emphasis here is on the independence of the Scottish nation from English

39 40

41

Grooms, The Giants of Wales, pp. 241–316. Bower, Scotichronicon VIII, Bk 15, chs. 26–30 (pp. 95–111). R. R. Davies, The Revolt of Owain ˆ r (Oxford, 1995), pp. 187–9. For example, in 1401–1402, Hugh Eddouyer (Hywel Glyn Dw Edwer) undertook several diplomatic missions for Owain, and John Trefor, sometime bishop ˆ r’s cause in 1405, served on diplomatic missions to of St Asaph, who defected to Glyndw ˆ r Prince of Wales (Swansea, 1986; repr. 1996), p. 190. Scotland. Ian Skidmore, Owain Glyndw Bower, Scotichronicon II, Bk 3, ch. 34 (p. 65).

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overlordship, and Arthur’s story becomes synonymous with English domination. Bower specifically equates the Britons, ‘Britannici generis’, with the Welsh, but by including the correspondence between Edward I, the Scots and the Pope during the First War of Independence, he also acknowledges the Plantagenet self-identification with the British myth.42 The elastic nature of this mythic world was undoubtedly one of its strengths. The kind of politics and the nature of identity vary significantly within these sources. In both Wales and Scotland, the Arthurian heritage provided an image of the past that could be used to comment on contemporary affairs and define the nature of identity. Scottish interpretations rejected the notion that Arthur conquered Scotland, although as descendents of the sons of Brutus they could see themselves as inheritors of Arthur’s kingdom. Welsh interpretations stressed the fact that they, as the original Britons (and not the English), were the true heirs to Arthur’s kingdom. The famous elegy by Gruffudd ap yr Ynad Coch on the death of Llywelyn, the last native prince of Wales, does not allude directly to the crown of Britain, but calls him a crowned king (aur dalaith) whose death disrupts the cosmic order. Other poems invoke a more Galfridian world-view by calling him a ‘descendent of Beli’.43 There is a tradition that Llywelyn’s head was crowned with ivy when it was paraded through London, an act which mocked the prophecy which declared that Llywelyn would wear the crown of Britain.44 Edward I certainly took Llywelyn’s crown and an important relic, a piece of the Holy Cross, and destroyed his royal seals. From a symbolic point of view, these actions are more consistent with a denial of Christian kingship, rather than Geoffrey’s British myth. Nevertheless, Llywelyn had invoked Geoffrey’s division of Britain in his dealings with the English king when he asserted his rights as the heir of Camber. This implied that Edward, as the heir of Locrinus, had some primacy which Llywelyn was willing to acknowledge.45 This position contrasts sharply with the Scottish response to Edward’s letter which denied that Historia Regum Britanniae gave him any right to sovereignty in Scotland. After his death, Llywelyn does not ˆ r, seem to have attracted traditional material like his countryman, Owain Glyndw ˆ r was viewed as a returning hero, or William Wallace, a Scottish equivalent. Glyndw offering hope of eventual Welsh resurgence, while the response to Llywelyn’s death as expressed in bardic poetry evoked images of cosmic disruption and despair. However this view changed somewhat in Humphrey Llwyd’s Chronica Walliae, written in 1584. Llwyd adopted the timeframe of the medieval Welsh chronicle tradition of the Brut y Tywysogion which began with Brutus’s heir, Cadwaladr the Blessed, and his work integrated Llywelyn into Geoffrey’s world-view. Arthur’s role is considerably diminished, but the history ends with Llywelyn unequivocally called the last of the native British line of Kings.46

42 43 44 45 46

Bower, Scotichronicon V, Bk 9, ch. 56 (p. 171), ch. 61 (p. 185); VI, Bk 11, ch. 35–64 (pp. 99–189). ˆ r, 63–4, in Llawysgrif For example, Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch, 57–8, and Llygad Gw Hendregadredd, ed. J. Morris-Jones and T. H. Parry-Williams (Cardiff, 1933). J. Beverley Smith, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales (Cardiff, 1998), pp. 332–4. Smith, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, pp. 335, 380–1, 543–6. Humphrey Llwyd, Chronica Walliae (1584), ed. Ieuan M. Williams (Cardiff, 2002), pp. 66, 69 and 174.

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ˆ r at the beginning of the fifteenth century provided The revolt of Owain Glyndw another context for an alliance of Welsh and Scottish interests. The mysterious disappearance of the Welsh rebel allowed Owain to take his place alongside Arthur, and in many ways surpass him, as an important returning hero figure in Wales.47 Although Owain’s function as ‘mab darogan’ is not echoed in Scottish chronicles, they do record an attempt to establish diplomatic relations with the Scottish king, Robert III.48 At a time when Henry IV was attempting to suppress unrest in Scotland and Ireland, Owain offered an alliance against a common ˆ r’s forces at the time may be reflected enemy. The positive mood among Glyndw in the way Welsh bards interpreted the appearance of a comet in 1402. By invoking the Star of Bethlehem and the comet noted by Geoffrey of Monmouth which preceded Uther Pendragon, his son Arthur and the defeat of the Saxons,49 they ˆ r’s situated the Welsh cause within biblical as well as Galfridian history. Glyndw use of Geoffrey’s myth is inclusive, implying a ‘British’ heritage for the nonEnglish inhabitants. He sees himself as the heir to Cadwaladr, the last British prince according to Geoffrey, but he re-arranges the order of Brutus’s sons putting Albanactus first in the letter intended for the Scottish king. In 1405 Owain instituted the Tripartite Indenture which one historian has called ‘not worth the mis-apprehensions it was written under’.50 It was, however, an attempt to give political reality to Geoffrey’s vision of the ancient British kingdoms. A boundary was set at a village now called Six Ashes and may reflect a specific Galfridian prophecy, or at least one referred to by him, whose text occurs elsewhere.51 As late as the eighteenth century, the antiquarian Thomas Pennant claimed that Owain had been invoking Merlin’s prophecy that the eagle would muster a great army of Welsh to defeat the enemy at this place.52 Although the prophecy of the eagle and the eagle’s nest may not be identical, prophecy is an extremely malleable genre, and one associated closely with Wales at this time. However it is less clear whether such references to the influence of prophecy refer to popular prophecies or to a more formal bardic genre.53 Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon also refers to an eagle prophecy with a more Scottish slant. Possibly as a result of direct contact with ˆ r’s supporters in the aftermath of his rebellion, Bower quotes a prophecy Glyndw ‘The Britons friends of the Scottish race will rule/ the whole island will bear its ancient name. As the eagle speaking from the old tower proclaims the Britons along with the Scots will rule their ancestral kingdoms.’54 Here the Scots and the 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Henken, National Redeemer, pp. 57–88. ˆ r, Bower, Scotichronicon VIII, Bk 15, ch. 19 (pp. 65–7); R. R. Davies, The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dw pp. 189–90. ˆ r, pp. 75–9. Skidmore, Owain Glyndw ˆ r, pp. 137–9. Skidmore, Owain Glyndw M. E. Griffiths, Early Vaticination in Welsh (Cardiff, 1937), pp. 195–8, 197 n. 6; Davies, Revolt ˆ r, p. 169. of Owain Glyn Dw Griffiths, Early Vaticination in Welsh, p. 138. J. Wood, ‘Prophecy in Middle Welsh Tradition’, in The Seer in Celtic and Other Traditions, ed. Hilda Davidson (Edinburgh, 1989), pp. 53–5. Bower, Scotichronicon II, Bk 3, ch. 22 (pp. 58–9, 212–13): ‘ut refert aquila veteri de turre locuta/ cum Scotis Britones regna paterna regent./ Regnabunt parite . . .’; David Rees, The Son of Prophecy: Henry Tudor’s Road to Bosworth (Ruthin, 1997), pp. 106–9; R. R. Davies suggests that some of Owain’s supporters may have escaped from Ireland to Scotland, but he gives no speˆ r, pp. 157–8). cific evidence for this (Revolt of Owain Glyn Dw

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Welsh are equal allies (pariter), which echoes an earlier appearance of the ‘crown of Britain’ myth in the tenth-century Welsh prophecy Armes Prydein Vawr.55 Yet it is unlikely that this particular Welsh prophecy was known in Scotland; what seems to have been transmitted is the pre-Galfridian idea of a coalition between Scotland and Wales against a common enemy, the men of Lloegr (i.e. the Saxons), in which Arthur is not the unifying hero. In the Tripartite Indenture, Owain invoked the idea of ancient prophecy as one of the validations for his new government of Britain. It is interesting that this was perceived by later English chroniclers such as Edward Hall and Ralph Holinshed ˆ r’s superstitious belief in prophecy.56 This negative view as evidence of Glyndw which, as Fulton points out, is essentially a sixteenth-century English language construct, undermined Wales’s status as a nation relative to England and ˆ r which contributed to a popular, and long-running, characterization of Glyndw appears most famously in Shakespeare’s history plays. All factions used prophecy as a formal genre of propaganda and recognised its validating influence both at the level of political discourse and in the arena of popular culture. The former is perhaps easier to quantify as attitudes to Arthur and to Geoffrey’s view of Britain shifted to accommodate changing political circumstances. However, attitudes to Arthur and to prophecies about the fate of Britain had a more subtle impact as well in that they provided a way of understanding the uncertainties of the present by reference to a mythic past. This aspect may be reflected in the complex laws and prosecutions aimed at controlling them and in the fact that they remained so popular for so long despite this.57 If Armes Prydein Vawr was not known directly to the Scottish prophetic tradition, both Fordun and Bower were familiar with Galfridean prophecy. Rightly or wrongly, Bower, drawing on Fordun, says that the eagles in Loch Lomond flocked together to prophesy, and he links this to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Bower even tries his hand at vaticinatory poetry when he paraphrases a version of a hope of Britain poem composed in 1307 which encouraged Scots and Welsh to resist the English. ‘The posterity of Briton allied with the Scots will press hard on the Anglian kingdoms.’ Elsewhere he mentions Cadwaladr, the prophecies of the eagle, and Merlin’s prophecies to Arthur. ‘Yet the Welsh say they can never recover their rights in full without the help of the ally long ago the people of Scotland.’58 Always, however, the Welsh and the Scots are characterised as equal allies against the English. Henry VII appointed a commission to chronicle his descent from British Kings and named his eldest son Arthur.59 Whatever its actual political significance in the

55 56

57 58

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Armes Prydein Vawr, ed. Rachel Bromwich (Dublin, 1958). See, for example, Edward Hall’s Chronicle, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1809), p. 28, quoted by Helen ˆ r and the Uses of Prophecy’, paper read at the International Celtic Fulton in ‘Owain Glyn Dw Congress, Aberystwyth 2003. Sharon L. Jansen, Political Protest and Prophecy under Henry VIII (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 16–19, 39–48. Bower, Scotichronicon VIII, Bk 15, ch. 30 (pp. 110–11, 198); Griffiths, Vaticination in Welsh, ˆ r and the War of Independence in the Welsh Borders pp. 197–8; Geoffrey Hodges, Owain Glyn Dw (Logaston, 1995), pp. 120, 126. Ralph A. Griffiths and Roger S. Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty (Stroud, 1993), pp. 193–8, contains a summary of Henry VII’s attitude to his Welsh connections, in particular his links with the British line of kings.

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developing British nation, the British line of kings was a prominent topos in Welsh poetry in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There was an expectation of a high leader of ancient lineage who would fulfil the prophecies. Even before the Battle of Bosworth, poets reflected a growing link between the Welsh gentry and, depending on alliances, York or Lancastrian leaders. Welsh poets praised the ancient British heritage of Edward IV. The poet, Lewis Glyn Cothi (1447–1486), traced Edward’s descent from Gwladys Ddu, the daughter of Llywelyn Vawr, and beyond that to Cadwaladr, Arthur and Brutus. Indeed he equates Edward with Arthur.60 Later, this fusion of historical and Galfridian genealogy became a means of expressing loyalty to both Tudor and Stewart monarchs and still retain the idea of Arthur as a redeemer. Dafydd Llwyd of Mathafarn addressed Henry Tudor in a paraphrase of the Glastonbury epitaph, ‘Harri was, Harri is, Harri will be.’61 The reception of Geoffrey’s history and its continuance as a validation for kingship during the Wars of the Roses created a link with Henry VII that developed into an Act of Union with his son.62 Foremost for the Welsh patrons of these poets were their own political interests in both Tudor and Stewart Wales. Whatever the long-term consequences for Welsh identity, at the time it was a way of creating a cultural identity in which Wales had an ancient primacy, but also functioned within a nation which included old allies such as the Scots, and traditional enemies, such as the Saxons.63 This awareness of nationhood survived during the Tudor period in Wales, but was transferred to the concept of a unified government. In the words of Humphrey Prichard, addressing Queen Elizabeth in 1592, ‘What is more praiseworthy and more honourable to see different nations divided by different languages brought under the rule of one prince?’64 During this time, and later during the Stewart period, a new image of Welsh cultural identity emerged, namely a Cambro-British political identity in the context of a wider nation state as Welsh writers attempted to adopt modern historical techniques and still retain the world-view in Geoffrey’s Historia.65 This applied essentially to the gentry, for whom the term distinguished them from other Britons, the descendants of the Saxon invaders. It was an identity based on language, culture and antiquarian interests that highlighted an inheritance from an illustrious British past,66 and the term ‘Great Britain’ began to be applied to a unified realm composed of all Geoffrey’s ancient kingdoms. 60

61 62 63

64 65 66

E. D. Jones, ‘Lewis Glyn Cothi’, in A Guide to Welsh Literature, ed. A. O. H. Jarman and Gwilym Rees Hughes (Swansea, 1979), pp. 250–1; E. D. Jones, Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi (Cardiff and Aberystwyth, 1953). Griffiths and Thomas, Making of the Tudor Dynasty, p. 198; Dafydd Llwyd of Mathafarn, ed. E. Roberts (Chester, 1981). See David Starkey, ‘King Henry and King Arthur’, Arthurian Literature 16 (1998), 171–96 for contrasting uses of Arthur in Scotland and England during the reign of Henry VIII. Peter Roberts, ‘Tudor Wales, National Identity and the British Inheritance’, in British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain 1533–1707, ed. B. Bradshaw and P. Roberts (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 8–42 (pp. 20–1, 38); Davies, Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwˆ r, p. 124. J. Gwynfor Jones, ‘The Welsh Gentry and the Image of the “Cambro-Briton”, c. 1603–25’ Welsh History Review 20 (2000/01), 620–7, 628. Juliette Wood, ‘Perceptions of the Past in Welsh Folklore Studies’, Folklore 108 (1997), 93–9; Roberts, ‘Ymagweddau at Brut y Brenhinedd’, pp. 130–9. Wood, ‘Perceptions of the Past’, pp. 95–7.

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During this same period, Scottish writers became increasingly focused on their own kind of kingship. If ever Geoffrey’s vision approached reality, it was under James VI, particularly before the death of his son Henry, Prince of Wales.67 James VI brought the kingdoms of Scotland and England and the Principality of Wales into a single political unit and the idea of Britain seemed poised to become a political reality at last. Huw Machno (1606) addressed James with the traditional honorific phrase, ‘son of prophecy’ and ‘king of Great Britain’.68 Not surprisingly, the Arthurian myth was still viable in this new context. The Venetian envoy observed ‘It is said that the king disposed to abandon the titles of England and Scotland and to call himself King of Great Britain like that famous and ancient king Arthur.’69 James himself was more prosaic. Speaking before parliament in 1603, he commented, ‘hath not the Union of Wales to England added to greater strength thereto? Which tho it was a great principality was nothing comparable in Greatness and power, to the ancient and famous kingdom of Scotland.’70 Wales here is a junior partner, no longer the equal ally alluded to in medieval and Renaissance Scottish chronicles. Nevertheless, the concept of the Cambro-Briton influenced a number of antiquaries, Welsh humanist scholars and bards who continued to defend Geoffrey during the seventeenth century and viewed James’ accession to the throne through a Galfridian perspective.71 For example, the MP Sir William Maurice, squire of Clenennau, in a Commons speech in 1609 addressed James as ‘king of Great Britain’. In support, he cited Welsh prophecies, such as the ‘coronage vabanan’, a Welsh version of the prophecy of the crowned child, and other ‘prophecies in Wealshe w’ch foretolde his comings to the place he nowe most rightfullie enjoyeth’.72 In 1604, George Owen Harry compiled a Genealogy of the High and Mighty Monarch James . . . King of Great Britayne. Such writing, of which this is only one example, demonstrated an interest in the early history of Scotland, but stressed common lineage of Welsh and Scots with prime status accorded Welsh, exactly the opposite of the king’s own view.73 Increasingly, language became a marker of identity. Although there had always been an acknowledged division between the speakers of Gaelic and Scots, evident in Scotichronicon as in later texts, George Buchanan was among the first to see links between Welsh and Gaelic.74 For example, the epigrams of John Owen referred to four languages spoken in James’s empire.75 Robert Holland’s preface to his Welsh translation of Basilicon Doron (1604)

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68 69 70 71 72 73 74

75

Jenny Wormald, ‘James VI, James I and the Identity of Britain’, in The British Problem c. 1534–1707: State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago, ed. B. Bradshaw and J. Morrill (London, 1996), pp. 148–71. Jones, ‘Welsh Gentry’, pp. 621–2, 649. See Jones, ‘Welsh Gentry’, p. 623. Jones, ‘Welsh Gentry’, p. 622. G. J. Williams, ‘Leland a Bale a’r Traddodiad Derwyddol’, Llên Cymru IV (1956–7), 21–4; Jones, ‘Welsh Gentry’, pp. 631, 642–3, 645. Williams, ‘Leland a Bale a’r Traddodiad Derwyddol’, pp. 21–4; Jones, ‘Welsh Gentry’, pp. 631, 642–3, 645. Jones, ‘Welsh Gentry’, pp. 645, 648. Bower, Scotichronicon I, Bk 2, ch. 9 (p. 185); George Buchanan, Historia Rerum Scoticarum (Edinburgh, 1582), Bk 2, fols. 14–26. See also John Collis, ‘George Buchanan and the Celts in Britain’, in Celtic Connections: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Celtic Studies, ed. R. Black, W. Gillies and R. Ò. Maolalaigh (East Linton, 1999), pp. 91–107. Jones, ‘Welsh Gentry’, p. 651.

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describes his countrymen as ‘the very remnant of the Britains’ and thus he wishes to translate the king’s work into ‘the true British tongue’, that is Welsh.76 This pattern of ‘Galfridian thinking’ in Welsh and Scottish sources, only a fraction of which have been covered here, extended back several centuries in both countries. For Wales, this view of history, culminating in Arthur, was a means for ˆ r’s inclusion and alliance in a larger geo-political world. Although Owain Glyndw revolt presented a brief opportunity for real political power, the British world which Arthur represented became increasingly linked to language and antiquarianism. The providential nature of Geoffrey’s vision meant that even Arthur’s failure to conquer Rome or Cadwaladr’s final abandonment of Britain held out the possibility of eventual success for the Welsh nation. Medieval prophecy and poetry exploited this idea as did numerous historians writing during the Tudor and Stewart periods. An important dimension to this vision was the assumption that unity brought stability under a legitimate king. For this reason, and despite the significant differences in the reception of Geoffrey in Wales and Scotland, Arthur’s role is pivotal in both countries. In Scotland, there is a greater concern with the nature of the good ruler and with Scottish sovereignty and independence. Concern for the latter helps explain the ambivalent and sometimes contradictory attitudes to Arthur in Scottish chronicles. Here Geoffrey’s vision could provide a basis for inclusion and alliance or, by contrast, form the basis for exclusion and a unique independence. The figure of Arthur gives coherence to a genealogical narrative which starts from Brutus and gives legitimacy to British kings by creating an ancestry and an unbroken continuity.77 Arthur is the point at which Scottish chronicles can claim an independent genealogical coherence because of Arthur’s illegitimacy, although they never reject the figure outright. Indeed once James VI governs both nations, the Arthurian lineage becomes his own. However, Arthur is also the ancestor which the English kings such as Edward I used to define their relationship with their Scottish and Welsh neighbours and to assert their authority over Geoffrey’s British kingdom. The interpretation of Geoffrey’s myth could be further refined by the use of alternative traditions such as the Scota legend, literary traditions such as the Nine Worthies or with folklore images of giants and heroes. The fluidity of Geoffrey’s vision provided an image of identity which could encompass different kinds of unity, whether based on such diverse factors as language, geography or loyalty to a legitimate ruler. Myth and reality are, however, not very good bedfellows, and the emergence of a British nation which unified the ‘ancient kingdoms’ actually undermined the individual identities of Scotland and Wales. Nevertheless, the figure of Arthur formed a bridge between the changing political worlds of medieval Britain and more modern views of the meaning of nationhood. If the reception of Geoffrey’s view of history was a means of legitimising the conflicting interests of Welsh, Scottish and English identities, it also created an arena in which historians could articulate the discrepancies and contradictions inherent in the British nation.

76 77

Robert Holland, Basilikon Doron by King James I: Fragment of a Welsh Translation (1604), ed. J. Ballinger (Cardiff, 1931), unpaginated preface. Howard Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies: a Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages (Chicago, 1983), pp. 81–2.

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The Testimony of Writing: Pierre de Langtoft and the Appeals to History, 1291–1306 THEA SUMMERFIELD

In his account of the reign of King Edward I, towards the end of his AngloNorman Chronicle, Pierre de Langtoft indulges in jubilation. At last, he exclaims joyfully, all problems with the Scots, who for many years had so unwisely and treacherously resisted Edward’s insistence on English overlordship, have been solved. Merlin’s prophecy that one day the two nations will be united has finally been fulfilled; Arthur himself never did better: Ha, Deus! Ke Merlyn dist sovent veritez En ses prophecyes, [si] cum ws les lisez! [. . .] Ore sunt les insulanes trestuz assemblez, Et Albanye rejoynte à les regaltez Des quels li rays Eduuard est seygnur clamez. [. . .] Rays n’y ad ne prince de tuz les countrz Fors le ray Eduuard, ke ensi les ad joustez; Arthur ne avayt unkes si plainement les fez. (Ah, God! how often Merlin said truth/ In his prophecies, if you read them!/ . . . Now are the islanders all joined together,/And Albany reunited to the royalties/ Of which King Edward is proclaimed lord./ . . . There is neither king nor prince of all the countries/ Except King Edward, who has thus united them;/ Arthur had never the fiefs so fully).1

In the first part of his work, Langtoft had emphasized the importance of Merlin’s prophecy of insular unity by the use of Latin, the language also in which the prophecy to the same intent by the goddess Diana is given.2 The author’s

1

2

Thomas Wright, The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, in French Verse from the Earliest Period to the Death of King Edward I, 2 vols. (London, 1866), here II, 264–6. Also, Jean-Claude Thiolier, Edition Critique et Commentée de Pierre de Langtoft: Le Règne d’Edouard Ier, vol. I (Créteil, 1989), here lines 1161–77. Thiolier’s edition has an extensive discussion of all known manuscripts. All translations are Wright’s, unless otherwise stated. All references to Thiolier’s edition are to his ‘Rédaction II’. For a discussion of Thiolier’s arguments concerning the two redactions, see Thea Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives: The Design of Past and Present in the Early Fourteenth-Century Verse Chronicles by Pierre de Langtoft and Robert Mannyng (Amsterdam, 1989), pp. 23–7. Langtoft states explicitly that Merlin’s prophecies are an integral part of the Chronicle: ‘Le Latyn est escriz de sa prophecye/ En la fyn del livre, ke l’em ne l’oblye’ (The Latin of his

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overriding concern, unity in Britain under one king, Edward I, is thus made clear from the beginning of this lengthy verse chronicle, which lists the kings of England in chronological order, and judges them on the efficacy of their relations with the Scots. Of all these kings, it is King Arthur who provides a perennial example. The statement, quoted above, that unity between England and Scotland has been achieved, is remarkable as at the time of writing, c. 1305–1307/8, the problems with the Scots that had dogged Edward I after the death of King Alexander III of Scotland in 1286 were anything but solved. Langtoft, a politically astute and well-informed chronicler especially on Anglo-Scottish relations, must have been aware of this. King Arthur is associated in the Chronicle with a number of monarchs, but never more prominently and frequently than with Edward I, although ultimately not always favourably.3 The string of references provides focus and structural coherence, as do similar referential sequences: to a triad of saints, among whom St John of Beverley, and to Bishop Anthony Bek, much admired by Langtoft and possibly the person at whose instigation the work was written. Langtoft’s habit of interpolating material in a language that is different from his usual Anglo-Norman (Latin or English) and in a different form (prose, a deviant rhyme scheme) also serves to highlight those episodes in England’s history that provide historical evidence in support of King Edward’s claim to overlordship in Scotland, and of persons involved in that struggle. At the time of writing, the war with Scotland had long been fought on two fronts and in two ways: through diplomacy as well as battle, and by looking for a solution for the future in the past. In this article I shall suggest that the use of King Arthur and the other extraordinary features in Langtoft’s Chronicle that provide focus and emphasis were inspired by Edward’s searches in 1291 and 1301 for written evidence, ‘the appeal to history’, to establish the relative status of England and Scotland. Although, with hindsight, it was done surprisingly tentatively, it was in the resulting ‘testimony of writing’ (testmoigne d’escripture), to use Langtoft’s phrase, that the link between King Arthur and the claim to Scotland that was to become so conventional found expression.4 Langtoft’s Chronicle is an alternative ‘appeal to history’, a vernacular text offering evidence on the same subject as the official records, but in an entertaining way, suitable for declamation, performance and dissemination, while incorporating many of the distinctive aspects of the official Latin records and correspondence and exploiting the possibilities offered by legendary history. In what follows, the little that is known about this author’s career, and the way his much-copied chronicle has been studied, will be surveyed. Next, the appearance of King Arthur in Edward’s first

3

4

prophecy is written/At the end of this book, that it may not be forgotten; Wright I, 114). For Diana’s prophecy, see Wright I, 12. See Thea Summerfield, ‘The Arthurian References in Pierre de Langtoft’s Chronicle’, in Text and Intertext in Medieval Arthurian Literature, ed. Norris Lacy (New York, 1996), pp. 187–208. Towards the end of the Chronicle Arthur is used to criticize Edward; this part of the Chronicle was probably written in the early months of the reign of Edward II. Langtoft’s translation of the letters written by Pope Boniface VIII, Edward I and the Barons of c. 1300, known as the Political Letters, is included in the editions by Wright (as Appendix I) and Thiolier, (as Appendix III). Here: Wright II, 387; Thiolier, p. 459, line 8.

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‘appeal to history’ of 1291 and Langtoft’s translation of the papal correspondence of 1301 following the second appeal will be discussed. Finally, I will suggest that a particular section of Langtoft’s Chronicle that is rich in Arthurian references was presented on an occasion at which all the main players in the Scottish game – the king, his son, his friends and counsellors – were gathered.

I Pierre de Langtoft’s Chronicle begins with a summary of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, followed by information derived from the major Latin histories of his day, such as Florence of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon and William Malmesbury, supplemented by records of northern histories which are no longer extant, and personal knowledge.5 It ends with a lament on the death of Edward I in July 1307. The Chronicle was widely read; it survives in the relatively large number of twenty manuscripts, nine of which have the complete story from Brutus to Edward’s death. All of these are of northern origin, while six of them are dated before 1350.6 The work has been regarded variously: as a generally reliable historical source on the affairs of Scotland in Edward I’s reign;7 as an instance of ‘romance historiography’ due to its author’s inclusion of the Brutus foundation legend;8 as a plea for the reinstatement of Bishop Anthony Bek of Durham in royal favour;9 as evidence of Langtoft’s Scotophobia, manifested in abusive asides and a large number of virulently anti-Scottish songs,10 and as proof of Edward’s interest in King Arthur.11 All of these views of Langtoft’s Chronicle have their merits, and are ‘true’, as they are closely connected. There is not a great deal of evidence about Pierre de Langtoft’s life and career. What is certain is that he belonged to the Augustinian priory at Bridlington in East Yorkshire, founded in 1113 by Walter de Gaunt.12 He appears to have been trained as a lawyer, and there is some evidence that he was absent from Bridlington regularly. He may have been one of the many capable men in the reign of Edward I whose career was divided between Westminster and the service of the king, and Durham and the service of Bishop Anthony Bek, the most powerful prelate in the realm at this time, and a motive force in the matter of Scotland.13 Certainly the northern interest evident in Langtoft’s Chronicle and his use of northern sources suggest a position somewhere near the

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, Vol. I: c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), p. 483. Wilhelm Tischbein, ‘Ueber Verfasser und Quellen des zweiten Teiles der altfranzösischen Reimchronik Peter Langtofts’ (diss. Göttingen, 1913). See also Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives, p. 90 and p. 230, n. 20. Thiolier, Le Règne d’Edouard Ier, pp. 35–153; for a summary, see Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives, p. 22 and notes. Michael Prestwich, Edward I (London, 1988), p. 364. Gransden, Historical Writing in England I, pp. 476–86. Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives, pp. 84–98. M. D. Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters (Edinburgh, 1950), p. 71. R. S. Loomis, ‘Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast’, Speculum 28 (1953), 126–7. John W. Lamb, A Guidebook to Bridlington Priory (Bridlington, 1976), p. 6. Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives, pp. 16 and 82.

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northern centres of power. Comments in his Chronicle such as ‘novel avoms oy, entre compaygnouns’ (we have heard news, among [our] companions) and information not found elsewhere also suggest that he is near first-hand official sources of information.14 Whether through personal knowledge or hearsay, it is certain that Anthony Bek made an enormous impression on Langtoft, who always presents the bishop’s efforts in the Scottish question as indispensable. The bishop and Edward I and his family had almost all their lives been very close friends. The king and queen mother had been present at Bek’s consecration ceremony, and the bishop had attended Edward’s second marriage in 1299.15 He had arranged marriages for Edward’s children, interceded in the many conflicts between father and son, and was to conduct Edward’s funeral service on 27 October 1307.16 Bek was also a powerful diplomatic and military ally, much missed when, following a conflict with the prior of the convent of Durham, he spent a great deal of time stubbornly fighting his case at the Curia, rather than at the king’s side as his trusted counsellor. It led to a bitter quarrel between the two men that lasted for some years.17 The men were reconciled towards the end of Edward’s reign, when, as we shall see, the bishop again played an important ceremonial part in Edward’s family. Anthony Bek appears to have been a motive force when, in 1291, the first ‘appeal to history’ was organised. According to Langtoft, it was Bek’s idea to hold a conference, and to hold it at his castle in Norham in Northumberland, reasonably near the Scottish border, and as such convenient for both parties. In his usual sycophantic fashion Langtoft writes: A Norham s’en va, chastel ben garnye, Et fet la venir de abbeye, de priourye Tutes les cronycles de launcesserye. La gest examyine, trop been certyfye Qe sire Edward ad dreyt a la seygnorye. Ceo fist le eveske Autoyne, par sen e grant vaidie; Beneyt pusse il estre de Deu le filz Marye! (He goes to Norham, a castle well furnished,/ And there causes to be brought from abbey and priory/ All the chronicles of our forefathers./ Examines the history, very clearly ascertains/ That sir Edward has right to the sovereignty./ That did bishop Anthony by sense and great subtlety;/ Blessed may he be by God the son of Mary!)18

14

15 16 17 18

Wright II, 362 (Thiolier, line 2343); similarly, Wright II, 340 (Thiolier, line 2081); Wright II, 356 (Thiolier, line 2271); Wright II, 362 (Thiolier, line 2343); Wright II, 124; Wright II, 336 (Thiolier, line 2031). Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 203 and 521. Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 320–1, 361 and 558; C. M. Fraser, A History of Anthony Bek (Oxford, 1957), p. 63. Fraser, A History of Antony Bek, pp. 153–75; Summerfield, The Matter of Kings’ Lives, pp. 70–81. Thiolier, lines 253–9; Wright II, 190; E. L. G. Stones calls Langtoft a ‘hero-worshipper of Bek’: E. L. G. Stones and Grant G. Simpson, Edward I and the Throne of Scotland, 1290–1296: An Edition of the Record Sources for the Great Cause, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1978), II, 297, also I, 82 (henceforth referred to as Stones and Simpson).

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II Consultation of les cronycles de launcesserye, ‘the chronicles of our forefathers’, was to solve the problems that had arisen after the death of the sole successor to the Scottish throne. After Alexander III of Scotland had died so tragically and unexpectedly in 1286, all hopes for the continuation of the Scottish royal line had lain in the survival of a little girl, Alexander’s granddaughter Margaret. Sadly Margaret did not survive the voyage from Norway to Scotland in the autumn of 1290, thus making the proposed alliance between England and Scotland through her marriage with Edward’s eldest son impossible. Guidance was sought in documents. In March 1291 requests were sent out by Edward and his advisers to abbeys and cathedrals in England to search their archives for any material ‘touching in any way our realm and the rule of Scotland’ (regnum nostrum et regimen Scocie qualitercumque contingencia).19 Replies were to be sent post-haste to Norham. The conference on what came to be called the ‘Great Cause’ would be held at the beginning of May. Possibly the assistance of St John of Beverley, whose nameday is 7 May, was invoked. This saint, who is associated with victory over the Scots in the reign of Athelstan, features prominently in the resulting documents, as he does in Langtoft’s Chronicle.20 In all, some thirty monastic houses in England were sent the request; Scottish monasteries seem to have been excluded.21 Some twenty reactions (‘returns’) to Edward’s request survive. Some are brief and were sent as letters; others were longer and more elaborate, with illuminated capitals and rubrications. Some monastic houses sent delegates bearing (complete?) chronicles; some may have supplied both extracts and complete chronicles. In general, Edward’s vaguely worded request was interpreted as requiring a response focusing on the relative status of the English and Scottish kings as apparent from homage done on past occasions from the time of Edward the Elder onwards, less frequently on the importance of Anglo-Scottish marriages. The material was studied, and a brief survey, rather resembling a modern ‘management summary’, was made, based on the returns as well as some chronicles. It is referred to by Stones and Simpson as a compendium, and covers Anglo-Scottish relations from AD 901 to 1252.22 Each entry states its sources by

19

20

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Stones and Simpson I, 139. The request was worded variously, but it always concerned the relative status of the two countries. See E. L. G. Stones, ‘The Appeal to History in Anglo-Scottish Relations between 1291 and 1401: Part I’, Archives 9 (1969), 11–21, here p. 12. Stones and Simpson (II, 308, n. 6) note that ‘the prominence given to the Beverley legend is not a result of Edward I’s well-known personal devotion to Saint John of Beverley. In fact he first visited the shrine in August 1291, after this survey [i.e. John of Caen’s Great Roll, see below] was prepared. It is, indeed, possible that he became attached to Saint John as a result of hearing the legend during the Great Cause.’ Stones and Simpson I, 147, n. 2 and I, 148, n. 2. Printed by Francis Palgrave, Documents and Records illustrating the history of Scotland and the transactions between the crowns of England, preserved in the Treasury of Her Majesty’s Exchequer (London, 1837), pp. 134–7.

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referring either to the institution that had sent that particular information, or to the chronicle from which it has been derived. Returns or chronicles that had been consulted but had not yielded new information were marked as ‘nihil novum invenitur’, nothing new was found, or similar terms. At a later date a final, official survey was made on the basis of this compendium by John of Caen and inserted in his Great Roll.23 Following the compendium, it deals with Anglo-Scottish relations from AD 901 to 1252, scrupulously stating the provenance of the information, be it a particular monastic house, as in ‘Hoc invenitur in cronicis monasterii de Brydelintone, et in multis aliis’ (This was found in the chronicles of the monastery of Bridlington and in many others’) or a chronicle author. The names most often encountered are Marianus Scotus (i.e. the continuation by Florence of Worcester),24 Howden, Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Ralph de Diceto. In addition, the text of the Treaty of Falaise and a long extract from a vita of St John of Beverley was included among the information.25 Thirteen extant returns sent to Norham in response to Edward’s request were not included in the compendium. Three were rejected as duplicating material already received,26 leaving ten returns unaccounted for, some of which are very elaborately executed.27 Two of these returns are of special interest here, as they supply evidence from legendary history not found in any of the other returns.28 They warrant closer inspection.

23 24 25

26

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Stones and Simpson I, 141–6. Michael Prestwich points out that the earliest reference to Caen’s Great Roll dates from 31 May 1297 (Edward I, p. 364). See Stones and Simpson I, 149, n. 2. The text is printed by Stones and Simpson II, 296–306; the Treaty of Falaise in E. L. G. Stones, Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174–1328: Some Selected Documents (London, 1965), pp. 1–8; the vita of St John of Beverley in Acta Sanctorum, 7 May. A summary of the vita is given by Stones and Simpson II, 308. It concerns the returns from Bath, Burton and Evesham, the latter remarkable for having been sent in a French as well as an English version. Palgrave, Documents and Records, pp. 56, 67, 89). These are the returns from the Abbey of Sawtry and from the canons of St Mary’s, Huntingdon. Palgrave, Documents and Records, pp. 123 and 98. James Carley has drawn attention to a ‘return’ from 1291 copied into the Great Cartulary of the monastery at Glastonbury stating that Arthur subjugated Scotland by murdering Hoel, king of Scotland. Although this would appear to represent a third return containing legendary history, the ‘return’ in question is not a response to Edward’s request for documents of March 1291; no such letter was sent. Glastonbury, as Stones and Simpson point out, was one of several of ‘the greatest and most venerable houses’, such as Bury St Edmunds, Durham and Westminster, which were asked to send delegates to Norham, rather than respond by letter. For that reason no returns are extant from any of the great houses. In fact this ‘return’ is a letter from Edward I, dated 9 July 1291, requesting that conclusions reached at Norham be entered into the monastery’s records. It should be noted that it concerns a copy here, written almost fifty years later (c. 1340), by which time references to legendary history in these matters had almost become de rigueur. Stones and Simpson I, p. 144. James P. Carley and Julia Crick, ‘Constructing Albion’s Past: An Annotated Edition of De Origine Gigantum’, Arthurian Literature 13 (1995), 41–114 (pp. 63–64 and notes); James P. Carley, ‘Arthur in English History’, in The Arthur of the English: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Life and Literature, ed. W. R. J. Barron (Cardiff, 1999), pp. 47–57 (pp. 51–2); R. A. Griffiths, ‘Edward I, Scotland and the Chronicles of English Religious Houses’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 6.4 (1979), 191–9.

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Two abbeys, Waltham Abbey which formed part of the diocese of London, and Faversham Abbey in Kent, sent returns in which examples of Anglo-Scottish relations were given in the time of Brutus and King Arthur. Both documents are badly damaged, and Palgrave’s edition is full of gaps, but there can be no doubt that the person in charge of documents in these abbeys considered legendary history and events in the reign of King Arthur as important as support for Edward’s claim as later instances of homage. Both begin their account with the story of Brutus’ extermination of the giants. The return sent by Waltham Abbey starts by relating that ‘in quodam libro qui dicitur Brut’ (the book that is called the Brut) Brutus expelled the giants, reigned twenty-four years, and divided the land among his sons: Locrinus, Camber and Albanactus, who received Anglia, Wales and Scotland respectively. Intermediate information having been lost, the return continues by referring to Malcolm’s subjection to William the Conqueror.29 The return from Faversham Abbey is better preserved. It refers to a hystoria Britonum and Brutus as the first person to reign in Britain. Despite the gaps in the narrative a tentative reconstruction of the surviving text is possible, as the text appears to have been copied verbatim from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae. This is apparent, for example, in the following passage. Humber, King of the Huns, fights and kills Albanactus, whose people flee to Locrinus. The latter, with Kamber his brother, attack Humber, who is forced to retreat, falls in the river Humber and is drowned.30 Locrinus igitur audito rumore associauit sibi kambrum fratrem suum & collegit totam iuuentutem patrie & iuit obuiam regi hunorum circa fluuium quod nunc uocatur humber. Inito ergo congressu compulit. humbrum in fugam. Qui usque ad fluuium diffugiens submersus est infra fluctus & nomen suum flumini reliquit.

The entry then states that they have not been able to find more (‘nichil amplius’) about the kingdom of the Scots (de Regno Scocie). This is correct, as what follows in the Historia Regum Britanniae is an account of Locrinus, his wife and his love-affair. The next item continues with the story of Marius, 728 years after Brutus, who is attacked by Rodrych de Cychya (Sodric of Scythia), king of the Picts, from the sea. However, Marius is victorious in battle and kills Sodric. To

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Palgrave, Documents and Records, p. 105; the return also refers to the Itinerarium Regum Ricardi (p. 106). Text according to Acton Griscom (ed.), The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth (Geneva, 1977) (henceforth HRB), p. 254. Words not found in the Faversham return are in italics; this is mostly the result of damage; the following variants in the return should be noted: ‘rumore audito’; ‘collegavit’; ‘qui’ instead of ‘quod’; ‘humber uocatur’. Palgrave, Documents and Records, pp. 92–3. Trans. Lewis Thorpe, Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain (Harmondsworth, 1966), p. 75: ‘As soon as Locrinus heard the news [. . .] he called up all the young men of his own country and went out to meet the King of the Huns somewhere near the river which is now called the Humber. When the two forces made contact, Locrinus forced Humber to flee. Humber retreated as far as the river and was drowned beneath the waters, giving his name to the stream.’

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commemorate the victory a stone is erected. Again, the Historia Regum Britanniae is quoted verbatim: Deinde erexit lapidem in signum triumphi sui in provincia que postea de nomine suo wistmaria dicta fuit in quo inscriptus titulus memoriam eius usque in presentem diem testatur.31

The return next specifies that Marius later owned the entire island in peace, and continues by stating that ‘what we have found about the time of King Arthur follows’. This is a much longer passage, which has also been lifted directly from the Historia Regum Britanniae. As is the case where the information offered about Locrinus and Marius is concerned, the extract is germane to the issue of English overlordship in Scotland. It states that Arthur had a claim by rightful inheritance to the kingship of the whole island, and is therefore fighting for a just cause (‘tocius insule monarchiam debere jure hereditario’). He called together all the young men and marched on York. Colgrim gathers Saxons, Scots and probably Picts (the return is damaged here; they are mentioned in the Historia Regum Britanniae). There is a battle next to the river Douglas, in which Arthur is victorious. The scribe then announces that he has skipped some of Geoffrey’s text and that what follows is from a slightly later passage in the second chapter: ‘Et paulo post capitulo secundo’. Next we learn that Scots and Picts besiege Arthur’s nephew Hoel, who is lying ill in the city of Alclud. Then, after a gap, Arthur forces the armies of his opponents to take refuge on the islands of Loch Lomond (‘in insulas Lumonoy’). The king of the Irish arrrives ‘cum maxima barbarossa copia classe’ with a fleet and a huge horde of pagans; they are cut to pieces mercilessly (sine pietate) by Arthur. The bishops and the clergy, barefoot and bearing the relics of their saints, beg the king for mercy, which he grants (‘Rex veniam donavit’).32 On this note of subjugation the entry for Arthur ends. When John of Caen copied and elaborated the returns sent to Edward in his Great Roll, he began, as had the compendium, with history from Edward the Elder onwards. However, when, later still, in the reign of Edward II, Andrew Tange, a notary who had been in the service of Durham Cathedral priory since 1291, made a new version of the Great Roll, the legendary matter was inserted and made to merge with later history as recorded by John of Caen.33 Before we proceed to Edward’s second appeal to history of 1301 and the use of the Arthurian legend, we must address the question why the returns from Waltham and Faversham were not used, or, putting it more generally, why Geoffrey of Monmouth’s legendary history was ignored. After all, the Historia Regum Britanniae

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Text according to HRB, p. 327; Palgrave, Documents and Records, p. 93. Variants: ‘victorie’; ‘Westmarya’; ‘hodiernum’; Griscom notes that the Bern manuscript also has ‘hodiernum’. Trans. Thorpe (p. 123): ‘In token of his triumph Marius set up a stone in the district, which was afterwards called Westmorland after him. The inscription on it records his memory down to this very day.’ Palgrave, Documents and Records, p. 94; HRB, p. 442; trans. Thorpe, p. 220. Stones and Simpson II, 298–300. On Tange, see Stones, ‘The Appeal to History’, p. 18.

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was well known and widely disseminated. According to N. F. Ker’s list, there was a copy in Langtoft’s house in Bridlington, which sent a return dealing with England’s early history from Edward the Elder onwards.34 It might also be argued that the references to Arthurian precedent would have appealed to King Edward I, for wasn’t he, as has so often been stated by twentieth-century scholars, ‘an Arthurian enthusiast’? The non-inclusion of the return from Waltham Abbey can safely be attributed to delays. The abbey was in the diocese of the bishop of London, where responses to Edward’s request were collected by a clerk and sent to Norham as one batch. As none of these returns have been used, we may assume that the consignment arrived too late for inclusion. No such reason can be construed for the Faversham return. There is nothing in the content of the Arthurian passage that might have given offence: it provides proof of Scotland’s subordinate position and in this respect was no different from the majority of the returns. If it was received in good time, this kind of information clearly was not considered relevant. As we shall see below, it is by no means unlikely that this was the case. The more general question why legendary history was not used at this point is more complex. First of all, it is important to realise that, although Edward’s interest in the exhumation and translation of Arthur’s bones in Glastonbury is manifest, Edward’s enthusiasm for things Arthurian has probably been overstated in the past. In his now classic and much quoted article ‘Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast’ of 1953, R. S. Loomis built a case from a large number of hypotheses that Edwardian society was heavily influenced by Arthurian literature.35 Later scholars turned the hypotheses into so many hard facts. However, as Michael Prestwich has shown, many of Loomis’s assumptions are not borne out by the evidence. Edward’s only known reference to Arthurian literature is to an unsavoury fabliau; there is no evidence that the ‘Round Tables’ held by the Edwardian court involved any sort of Arthurian pageantry; swearing oaths on birds, as was done by Edward and his son in 1306, or on other objects, was common knightly practice and not particularly ‘Arthurian’, and there is nothing to give substance to the idea that the Edwardian fancy-dress banquet described by a chronicler in the Low Countries in 1314 ever took place.36 From a modern point of view the use of Arthurian legend for the purposes of official legitimation, and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history as record evidence, hardly seems startling: anyone acquainted with medieval history has learned to accept it as a commonplace, if peculiar, feature of medieval historiography.

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N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (London, 1964–87), p. 12. Bridlington is mentioned by name both in the compendium and in John of Caen’s Great Roll. R. S. Loomis, ‘Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast’, pp. 114–27. Michael Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience (New Haven, 1996), pp. 227–9 (swans, Round Tables, re-enactment); pp. 230–1 (fabliau). The chronicler from the Low Countries was Lodewijk van Velthem; I have argued elsewhere that he wrote his legendary account of Edward I as a veiled warning for the members of the court of the duke of Brabant: Thea Summerfield, ‘Simon de Montfort, Edward I en koning Arthur in Velthems Voortzetting van de Spiegel historiael’, Tijdschrijft voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 114 (1998), 1, 1–16. An extended, English-language version of this article is in preparation.

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However, the extensive use of the Historia in later chronicles like the English Prose Brut, John Hardyng’s Chronicle, or Trevisa’s translation of the Polychronicon may well have a foreshortening effect on our perspective. For although, as E. D. Kennedy shows, kings prior to Edward I had been interested in the Arthurian legend for a variety of reasons, the use of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia and King Arthur as support for Edward’s policy as regards Scotland clearly had not suggested itself or been acceptable to the archivists of the many monastic houses that received Edward’s request.37 This seems to have been the case not only in 1291, but even when, in 1301, King Edward instituted a new search for record evidence in connection with his claim to Scottish overlordship. Neither legendary history nor King Arthur played any part in it at all at the beginning. It is to this second ‘appeal to history’ and Langtoft’s part in it that we must now turn.

III The second request for documents and chronicles from abbeys and cathedrals took place in 1301, when Edward convened a parliament in Lincoln. It is worthy of note that this conference, too, was held in the domain of one of Edward’s closest friends and counsellors, Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln. Like Bek, de Lacy had fought side by side with Edward in Falkirk in 1297 and had been asked to arrange the marriage of Edward of Caernarfon and Isabella of France. He, too, had the trust of Edward of Caernarfon, and even of Piers Gaveston.38 The document resulting from the request this time took the form of a letter, a response to Pope Boniface’s bull which had been read out to Edward and the magnates by Archbishop Winchelsey on his return from the Curia. The news was not good: the pope had been swayed by Scottish arguments, and a counteroffensive needed to be started. This took the form of two letters, one by the king, another by the barons.39 Like the document of 1291, Edward’s long letter lists numerous occasions when Scottish kings did homage for Scotland to the English king. However, there are a number of significant differences. First, legendary history, which, for whatever reason, had not been included in 1291, is now introduced to substantiate the claim. It is important to note, however, that this was not the intention originally. As Professor Stones has pointed out, ‘It may be remarked that the original French draft of the letter shows that the passage before 901 was an afterthought, inserted later in the draft.’40 However, a passage from Geoffrey of Monmouth was used in the final version of the letter, which begins with the

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See Edward Donald Kennedy, ‘Introduction’, in King Arthur: A Casebook, ed. E. D. Kennedy (New York, 1996), pp. xiv–xxi; Lister Matheson, ‘King Arthur and the Medieval Chronicles’, in King Arthur through the Ages, ed. Valerie M. Lagorio and Mildred Leake Day (New York and London, 1990), pp. 249–74. Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (London, 1885), pp. 373–5. See Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 490–2; Prestwich suggests the letter from the barons was actually written by royal clerks and was probably never sent (p. 492). E. L. G. Stones, ‘The Appeal to History’, p. 20.

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episode in which Locrinus, eldest son of Brutus, becomes overlord of his two brothers Kamber and Albanactus, who held Wales and Scotland respectively. Whether one of the ‘old’ returns containing this information was used or whether it was derived directly from the Historia Regum Britanniae it is impossible to say, the more so as, unlike in the compendium and John of Caen’s Great Roll, no sources are mentioned in the letter. Having related the subjugation of Scotland under Dunwallo, Belinus and Brennius, King Arthur’s claim on Scotland is outlined, not by referring to the surrender of the Scots during the king’s campaign there, but by describing the procession at Arthur’s coronation. On that occasion, the letter says, all the kings subject to Arthur had been present, among them Angusel, king of Scotland, ‘who manifested the service due for the realm of Scotland by bearing the sword of King Arthur before him; and in succession all the kings of Scotland have been subject to all the kings of the Britons’.41 Next, by means of the phrase ‘succeeding kings of England enjoyed both monarchy and dominion in the island’ the letter jumps to Edward the Elder, after which John of Caen’s Great Roll is used in an abbreviated form. The inclusion of the sword-bearing episode is tendentious, as the Historia Regum Britanniae does not in so many words relate the bearing of swords to a subject status: Geoffrey only states that four kings, of Albany, Cornwall, Demetia and Venedoti (i.e. South and North Wales) precede Arthur at his coronation, as was their right (‘quorum ius id fuerat’), bearing before him four golden swords. The next statement simply concerns the next group in the procession (chanting clerics).42 However, as it concerns the kings of four subject parts of Arthur’s realm, the more explicit meaning given to the bearing of the swords suggests itself readily. Finally, the letter also differs from the earlier documents by extending into the present, stating John of Balliol’s homage to Edward, and details of the terror exercised by the Scots in the North of England and the atrocities committed there. It concludes with the assertion that, through this letter, it has been made ‘perfectly clear and well known’ (‘evidenter et notorium’) that the realm of Scotland belongs to the king of England.43 The entire correspondence – the papal bull, Edward’s response and the letter from the Barons – was subsequently translated by Pierre de Langtoft. Whether Langtoft was asked to translate the Latin correspondence into a form suitable for reading aloud in company, or whether he undertook this task at his own initiative is unknown. Langtoft begins his translation with a short introduction of his own composition, in which he appears to praise Geoffrey of Monmouth and stresses the importance of writings about the distant past for present purposes: if the works, including prophecies, of our ancestors (‘les overes des ancestres’) were not put in writing for people to ‘read and see’, ‘the memory of the ancient history would perish’: ‘Des gestes aunciens memorie perireit’. The next few lines

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E. L. G. Stones, Anglo-Scottish Relations, pp. 97–8. HRB, p. 455; trans. Thorpe, p. 228. Stones, Anglo-Scottish Relations, p. 108.

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indicate a concrete use for these gestes aunciens: ‘Pur nostre rei Edward puit home vere coment/ Testmoigne d’escripture puit valer sovent,’ (In the case of King Edward may be seen how/ Testimony of writing may often be of worth).44 After the short prologue the translation follows the source text faithfully, barring the addition of an occasional show of temper and exasperation. John Balliol especially is the target of much abuse. Where the papal bull vaguely refers to ‘the man to whom you are said to have committed the rule of the kingdom’, Langtoft translates that they had given the country to a madman, ‘à un fous doneient’.45 The hatred becomes almost tangible in his translation of Edward’s reply. Balliol and his supporters are called ‘fous et felouns’ (madmen and felons), ‘fu et fole’ (insane and mad), ‘cum fous’, whose ‘folie’ cannot be checked, who commit ‘fetz de felon’ and come from a country ‘tant plein de mal’ (full of evil).46 Similar feelings of hatred and contempt of Balliol are also found in Langtoft’s Chronicle. Langtoft is one of only three chroniclers to record the terms of Balliol’s homage, and to do so in prose, using the difference in form and the official language to make this passage stand out among his laisses.47 Here, as when Langtoft included in his Chronicle the prophecies by Merlin and Diana about unity in Britain under one crown, the deviant form (prose) and language of the actual words used in the translation of the Letter signals its importance and gives it weight. Towards the end of the Chronicle Langtoft includes a derisive song about the unfortunate Balliol for which he once again uses a different form and language (see below). It is one among several violently anti-Scottish songs and comments.48 Whether the documents drawn up after perusal of the evidence produced by the monastic houses in 1291 were read out to the assembly, and in what form, is uncertain.49 Similarly, it is unknown if, and how, the Latin text of the letter to the Pope was disseminated. What we can be certain of is that Langtoft’s translation of both the Political Letters and the Chronicle were written to be read aloud: this is obvious from repeated injunctions to ‘listen’, ‘escotez’.50 The use of Chronicle and Letters may have been restricted to the provision of informed entertainment to limited audiences in the lord’s chamber, as

44 45 46 47

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Wright II, 386–7; Thiolier, p. 459, lines 7–8. Wright II, 394; Thiolier, p. 464, line 116. Stones, Anglo-Scottish Relations, p. 84. In the order quoted: Wright II, 416–48, Thiolier, p. 481, line 267 and p. 482, lines 281, 288, 291, 297. Wright II, 192–4; Thiolier, p. 257. Although ‘many chronicles report the actual act of homage, none of them save Rishanger, Trevet and the versifier Langtoft give the very words used’: Lionel Stones, ‘English Chronicles and the Affairs of Scotland, 1286–1296’, in The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to R. W. Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis and J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford, 1981), pp. 323–48. Thea Summerfield, ‘The Political Songs in the Chronicles of Pierre de Langtoft and Robert Mannyng’, in The Court and Cultural Diversity: Selected Papers from the Eighth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, 1995, ed. Evelyn Mullaly and John Thompson (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 139–48. Stones and Simpson I, 146–8. In the Political Letters, for example: ‘dit l’apostoile’, ‘dit Boniface’ (Wright II, 388; Thiolier, p. 460, lines 5, 15); ‘Escotez ore coment . . .’ (Wright II, 394; Thiolier, p. 464, line 123); in the Chronicle I, 344; I, 368; II, 28; II, 334, Thiolier, line 2009; II; 338, Thiolier, line 2052; II 342, Thiolier, lines 2096–8; II, 346, Thiolier, 2163, etc.

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recommended to the esquires of the household of a later reign: ‘to help occupy the court and acompany [sic] straungers’ by ‘talkyng of cronycles of kinges and other polycyez, or in pypyng, or harpyng, synging, or other actez marciablez’.51 The twenty surviving manuscripts of Langtoft’s Chronicle certainly suggest, if not direct use, at least widespread interest in its blend of legendary history and contemporary politics, the sustained interest in the work being helped, of course, by the persistence of the Anglo-Scottish conflict. However, there is one section of Langtoft’s Chronicle that is suitable for a larger stage than the ‘lordez chambrez within courte’. This is the extraordinary section praising king Edward by invoking Merlin and King Arthur repeatedly in the emphatic environment of a different rhyme and metre. It is the section where the hieratic mode of historical argument in Anglo-Norman is peppered with rude songs voicing the popular hatred of the Scots in northern dialect. What better occasion to present this riotous ‘mini appeal to history’ than a banquet attended by all the men directly involved: the king and his son, Anthony Bek, Henry de Lacy and some three hundred new knights, all united in their commitment to impose English overlordship on Scotland, not by means of the written word, but by military force.

IV In the spring of the year 1306 English frustration as a result of Scottish provocation had reached an all-time high. Robert Bruce had been crowned king of Scotland in Scone at the end of March, and it was clear that the Scottish rebellion had not ended with the capture and execution of William Wallace the previous year. The only option was to go to Scotland once again, and with as large an army as could be mustered. It was with the prospect of new, perhaps finally decisive campaigns in Scotland that at Whitsun, 1306, an unprecedented number of men was knighted, and festivities, geared to the purpose of the event, were held. Not least among the new forces was the king’s son, Edward of Caernarfon, who so far had shown an alarming tendency to be interested in pursuits that had little to do with the war in Scotland, and who would need guidance if, or when, Edward I, who had been ill for many years, died. Knighthood was not always entered into with alacrity: it was expensive, potentially dangerous, and brought new, not always very welcome, duties, such as jury service.52 However, in 1306 the obstacle of the expense of being made a knight was overcome by a measure which illustrates the king’s ‘military shrewdness as well as his insight into human nature’: the necessary equipment was to be provided ‘from the King’s Wardrobe and at his gift’.53

51

52 53

The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478, ed. A. R. Myers (Manchester, 1959), cited in Malcolm Vale, The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe 1270–1380 (Oxford, 2001), p. 57. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages, p. 16. Constance Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo: Minstrels at a Royal Feast (Cardiff, 1978), p. xv.

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The ceremonial knighting at Whitsun 1306 may be regarded as a peaceful variant of being knighted on the eve of battle. Instead of the entourage of tents, grass and horses, and the prospect of imminent danger and possible death on the morrow, here there was companionship, shelter and an abundance of food, drink and entertainment. Nevertheless, the proceedings were as much part of the enforcement of Edward’s claim to Scotland as the conferences at Norham in 1291 and Lincoln in 1301 had been. In addition, the ceremony offered a chance to ensure the continuance of the military campaigns after Edward I’s death and the future guidance of his son by the king’s oldest friends and counsellors. According to Constance Bullock-Davies and Hilda Johnstone, who both based their work on what seemed to be the only source on the subject, the Annales Londoniensis, the prince was knighted by his father, who ‘with his own hands . . . girded him with belt and sword’, while the earl of Lincoln, Henry de Lacy, and the earl of Hereford, Humphrey de Bohun, who had married young Edward’s sister Elizabeth in 1302, each fastened on a gilt spur.54 However, other evidence, from an environment close to the earl of Lincoln, suggests that, rather than Humphrey de Bohun, it was Bishop Anthony Bek who officiated on this occasion. A parchment roll, kept in the British Museum as Campbell Charters XXI.4, which belonged to the abbey of Thornton on Humber in Lincolnshire, has the following entry for the year 1306:55 Anno Domini .M.occc.mo sexto, ad festum Pentecostes, dominus rex Edwardo filio suo, principi Walliæ, dedit terram Wasconiæ, et eundem dominum Edwardum in eodem festo Pentecostes, apud Westmonasterium cinxit nobiliter cingulo militiæ, et calcaria sibi imposuerunt dominus patriarcha Ierusalem et dominus Henricus comes Lincolniæ, et tunc erat .xxij. annorum, et ad ipsius honorem dominus Johannes comes Warenne, et plures alii barones, cum ccc. armigeris de elictis totius Angliæ, arma susceperunt militiæ cum magna lætitia et honore, ipsius domini regis sumptibus, et cum eodem domino rege et principe statim versus Scotiam contra inimicos Angliæ viriliter profecti sunt.56 (In the year 1306, at the feast of Whitsuntide, the Lord King Edward gave his son, the prince of Wales, the country of Aquitane, and at this feast of Whitsun, at Westminster, Lord Edward girded him honourably with the belt of knighthood, and the Lord Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Lord Henry, earl of Lincoln placed on him the spurs, and at that time he was twenty-two years old, and in his honour Lord John, earl of Warenne, and many other barons, with three hundred armigeres [squires] chosen from the elite of the whole of England,

54 55

56

Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo, p. xxvi; Hilda Johnstone, Edward of Carnarvon 1284–1307 (Manchester, 1946), p. 108. The roll records events from the year 1148, after an imperfect beginning, with the information that Robert, bishop of Lincoln, founded the religious house of Mirival (near Leicester) and ends in 1314 with the information that Philip, king of France, died, badly injured, as result of a fall from his horse. The entries between these years show a general interest in the major political events, at home and abroad, including the births and deaths of royal personages, as well as matters concerning the English church in general and Lincoln in particular. Thomas Wright, Feudal Manuals of English History, a Series of Popular Sketches of our National History (London, 1872), pp. 88–124. Wright, Feudal Manuals, p. 121; my trans. With many thanks to Professor Arpad Orbán for his help.

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received the arms of knighthood with much joy and honour, at the king’s own expense, and with this King and Prince at once bravely departed for Scotland against the enemies of the English.)

There are good reasons for giving this account full credence, quite apart from the fact that it originates from a Lincolnshire source. We have seen that both Henry de Lacy and Anthony Bek were on intimate terms with Edward I and his family, and at the same time had always been active in ensuring English overlordship in Scotland, both by active service in the field, and, of course, in the two appeals to history. There had been irritation, even fury, about the conduct of Anthony Bek – the more severe probably precisely because this was such an old friend and ally – but by the time of the 1306 festivities the two men were reconciled. Giving Anthony Bek, friend to both father and son, the honour of fastening one of the spurs surely makes sense. The festivities after the banquet were also marked by the coming campaign. Vows were made on two swans that were brought in, an event which since has been so much discussed that it has rather obscured the fact that the appearance of the swans can hardly have been the only entertainment, and that we know nothing about this.57 When did the one female performer, Matilda Makejoy, a favourite with Edward’s children, perform her tricks?58 What music was played by the many minstrels attached to the attending nobility and clergy?59 Could historical narratives of a rousing nature have been recited? The lack of detailed information about royal festivities in contemporary records and chronicles of the early fourteenth century, is unfortunately the rule, not the exception, as Nancy Freeman Regalado has shown.60 Chroniclers (and their patrons and audiences) seem to have been content with a few commonplaces.61 Langtoft is no exception: although he devotes twenty-three lines to the festivities of Whitsun 1306, his information mainly concerns the aristocratic weddings that took place at the same time, the fact that there was ‘jeu et joe assez’ (game and joy enough) as well as great ‘solempnetez’, and that such nobleness had not been seen anywhere since ‘sire Arthur’ was crowned at Caerleon in ancient times.62

57

58 59 60

61

62

Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo, xxix–xxxviii; recently Malcolm Vale, The Princely Court, pp. 218–20, argued that swans were chosen as they were considered to be harbingers of death. This seems too morbid to be true, and ill fits the festive occasion. See also Loomis, ‘Edward I, Arthurian Enthusiast’, pp. 119–23, and especially Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, pp. 220, 233–4. Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo, p. 137. Bishop Bek had brought Guilleme Le Harpour to Westminster: Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo, pp. 95–7. Nancy Freeman Regalado, ‘The Chronique métrique’ and the Moral Design of BN fr. 146: Feasts of Good and Evil’, in Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music and Image in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS français 146, ed. Margaret Bent and Andrew Wathey (Oxford, 1998), pp. 467–95. A famous but extreme case is the chronicler of St Albans who ‘described’ the festivities after Edward I’s second marriage by copying a long section from the Historia Regum Britanniae: see Laura Keeler, ‘The Historia Regum Britanniae and Four Medieval Chroniclers’, Speculum 21 (1946), 27–31. Wright II, 368–9; Thiolier, lines 2425–7.

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Although it requires a stretch of the imagination, it is worth considering the possibility that, in the presence of all those who were so closely involved in both the diplomatic and the military offensive, a performance took place of the section from Langtoft’s Chronicle in which the plea for unity, the perfidy of the Scots, and the historical sanction by Merlin and Arthur come together in a mixture of elevated laisse and crude song.63 The assembled company would have heard, embedded among the Chronicle laisses and in sequence, a song deriding King Edward for helping with the digging in Berwick, neatly turned around to mock the Scots, followed first by the Chronicle account of the slaughter at Hexham and Lanercost, and then by a long stanza in direct speech in which John Balliol tells his men to break the truce and capture Dunbar castle, culminating in a song expressing the Scottish point of view to the effect that England had to be destroyed and that Northumberland would be the prize. Having thus incited to rage and indignation, two scathing alliterative stanzas in English describe Balliol’s men as goats, and glory in the defeat of the massacred Scots. Then, after all the emotion, follows a triumphant address to the king: ‘Ore ad le rays Eduuard Escoce enterement/ Cum Albanak le avayt al comencement’ (Now has king Edward Scotland entirely/ As Albanak had it at the beginning). But the king is also warned not to be too lenient, for only then will Merlin’s prophecy, quoted at the beginning of this article, be fulfilled and ‘Arthur ne avayt unkes si plainement les fez’ (Arthur had never the fiefs so fully). John Balliol is ridiculed once more, in English, as the man whose ‘tabard is tom’ (his surcoat is empty).64 Then, as a resounding finale, a song stating that now that all the enemies have been defeated, all that needs to be done is to go ‘over there’ with the barons, that John (of Beverley), Thomas (Becket) and St Cuthbert will come to the aid of the party, and again, that this has been prophesied by Merlin. It is a dazzlingly clever piece of manipulative literature, and, having heard the ridicule of the Scots, the praise of their king, and the sanction of the saints and ancient history, it can hardly have failed in its purpose of evoking a unanimous desire to go north and take action, or, at least, to vow then and there to do so. Although Langtoft’s exact position in the northern corridors of power in the years between 1291 and 1306 remains obscure, his translation of the Political Letters and in particular the content and construction of his Chronicle show the influence of official records brought to bear on the problem of the Scottish succession and Edward’s imposition of overlordship. More easily understood by its choice of the vernacular, and more entertaining in form than the Latin chronicles of his day, Langtoft supplied a contemporary aristocratic and clerical audience with an ‘appeal to history’ that incorporated many of the elements of the records of 1291 and the correspondence with Pope Boniface of 1301: the evidence yielded by the major Latin chronicles of his day which had also been produced at Norham, the sanction of carefully chosen saints, among whom St John of

63 64

On the songs, their authorship and the way they have been embedded in the Chronicle, see Summerfield, ‘The Political Songs’, pp. 139–48. See R. James Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland: Historical Narrative in Medieval Scotland (Lincoln, NB, 1993), p. 46.

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Beverley, associated with the first conference, the prominence of Anthony Bek in the proceedings, and the calculated effect of dwelling on Scottish atrocities and the use that might be made of legendary history in general and King Arthur in particular from Edward’s letter to Pope Boniface. The extent to which Langtoft’s widely disseminated Chronicle, with its repeated invocations of King Arthur, who had so hesitantly been introduced in Edward’s letter to the Pope and ignored in the records of the Great Cause, accelerated the use of legendary history for political purposes in future centuries cannot the quantified. What is certain is that in future writings the legendary king would be invoked time and time again, not to afford a vague sense of aggrandisement through association with Arthur’s rich and courtly entourage, but to justify the unification of England and Scotland under one, English, king through an appeal to the ‘testimony of ancient writings’.65

65

See Kennedy (ed.), ‘Introduction’, King Arthur: A Casebook, pp. xiii–xlvii (p. xx). Kennedy points out that ‘as late as the early seventeenth-century James I claimed descent from Arthur to help justify the union of Scotland and England under one king’.

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The Fine Art of Faint Praise in Older Scots Historiography* NICOLA ROYAN

Arthur was conceived in adultery and thus being illegitimate should not have acceded to the British throne. There were legitimate heirs to the throne, namely Modred and Gawain, sons of Uther’s legitimate daughter, Morgause, by her marriage to Lot of Lothian and Orkney. However, through a misguided desire to have a king of their own people, the Britons chose Arthur instead. This is the version of Arthur’s origins current in much late medieval Scottish historiography, and although various mitigating factors are offered to support the Britons’ choice, such as the youth of Lot’s sons or Arthur’s personal valour, Arthur’s illegitimacy infects his behaviour.1 With the Scots particularly, he fails to keep his promises, so that ‘nor neuer stranger rang on ws nor had dominacioun of ws, Supposs Arthur þat tyrand maid weir on ws aganis his faith and promyss . . .’.2 This quotation, from the Scottis Originale, highlights two essential features in this peculiarly Scottish approach: firstly, Arthur appears in the context of a statement regarding Scottish independence, and secondly he is immediately introduced as a ‘tyrand’. In English narratives, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pervasive presentation of Arthur as successful imperialist had been used to underpin English propaganda campaigns regarding their alleged sovereignty over the Scots as well as the rest of the British Isles.3 Therefore, in order to maintain the * 1

2 3

The writer would like to thank Dr Sally Mapstone and Dr Steve Boardman for their helpful comments on this chapter. For Latin narratives of Arthur, see John of Fordun, Chronicle of the Scottish Nation, trans. F. J. H. Skene and ed. W. F. H. Skene, Historians of Scotland 4 (Edinburgh, 1872), pp. 101–3; Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. D. E. R. Watt et al., 9 vols. (Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 1987–97), II, ed. John and Winifred MacQueen (Aberdeen, 1989), Bk 3, chs. 24 and 25 (pp. 63–7); John Mair, Historia Maioris Britanniae (Paris, 1521), Bk 2, chs. 5–6, fols. 28–9 (more accessible in The History of Greater Britain, trans. A. Constable, Scottish History Society [Edinburgh, 1892], pp. 78–85); and Hector Boece, Scotorum Historia a prima gentis origine (Paris, 1527), Bk 9, fols. 160–72. For comment, see Flora Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Scottish Attitudes to the Figure of King Arthur: A Reassessment’, Anglia 93 (1975), 17–34; Karl Heinz Göller, ‘King Arthur in the Scottish Chronicles’, trans. E. D. Kennedy in King Arthur: A Casebook, ed. E. D. Kennedy (New York and London, 1996), pp. 173–84, and Nicola Royan, ‘ “Na les vailyeant than ony uthir princis of Britane”: Representations of Arthur in Scotland 1480–1540’, SSR 3.1 (2002), 9–20. The Scottis Originale, in The Asloan Manuscript, ed. J. Craigie, STS New Series 14 and 16, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1923–4), I, 185–96 (p. 189). See Summerfield, ‘The Testimony of Writing’, and Wood, ‘Where Does Britain End?’, pp. 31–6 and pp. 11–12 above for further discussion.

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Scottish claim to independence, and to preserve their presentation of an unbroken line of sovereign kings lasting nearly a millennium, Scottish historiographers needed to undermine Arthurian claims. However, to omit Arthur and to ignore the Galfridian narrative altogether leaves rather too many holes in the chronological pattern. Rather than remove the hero completely, therefore, these accounts use Geoffrey’s narrative, but challenge his conclusions, firstly by stressing the less salubrious aspects of Arthur’s ancestry and secondly, in common with other English chroniclers, by denying Arthur’s imperial success while acknowledging some of his success against the Saxons. What results is a curious mixture of praise and condemnation, evident in Latin chronicles from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. In resisting English claims of sovereignty derived from the British myth by asserting the Scottish myth in its place, Latin historiography is arguably acting defensively. Recently, however, a distinction has been drawn between vernacular historiographical material and the Latin tradition. Of this work, one of the most detailed engagements with the material of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is by Stephen Boardman.4 Boardman perceives a difference in the treatment in the ‘Matter of Britain’ by the Latin prose accounts, written for the learned, and the vernacular accounts, often in verse, written primarily for a secular and less learned audience. Of this less learned audience, the most significant part would be the ‘armigerous class’ for whom ‘the literary heroes of the “British” past seem to have retained a deeper emotional resonance and a more immediate relevance to their ambitions and lives as members of a cosmopolitan martial elite’ than the Scottish myths of origin and early history.5 This much is straightforward, but it points forward to a subversive political dynamic. Whereas the Latin tradition is defensive, the vernacular acceptance of a ‘British’ sovereignty leaves open a claim for the Scots kings to be the true heirs to authority over the whole of the island of Britain. The deployment of this claim through the figure of Arthur is the subject of this essay. The questions to be addressed are: how Arthur is used in vernacular historiography and historiographical romance; whether the treatment changes over the course of the fifteenth century and whether the claim of Scottish sovereignty over all Britain is maintained; and finally, whether there really is a boundary between the vernacular and the Latin tradition. Four texts are to be interrogated; these deliberately cross genre and time. Vernacular historiography is represented by Andrew Wyntoun’s Original Chronicle (c. 1412) and the anonymous Scottis Originale (c. 1513). The historiographical romances, where the actions of national heroes are fitted to the demands of romance, sometimes in the teeth of historical evidence, are John Barbour’s Bruce (c. 1375) and Hary’s Wallace (c. 1485). Their

4

5

Steve Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, in Scottish History: The Power of the Past, ed. E. J. Cowan and R. J. Finlay (Edinburgh, 2002), pp. 47–72. For a broader account of Scottish national identity around the same time, see also Roger A. Mason, ‘Chivalry and Citizenship: Aspects of National Identity in Renaissance Scotland’, in Kingship and the Commonweal: Political Thought in Renaissance and Reformation Scotland (East Linton, 1998), pp. 78–103 (pp. 81–92). Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, pp. 50–1.

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presentation of Arthur suggests his place in the wider consciousness of the Scots, both as a figure of heroism and also a figure of sometimes problematic sovereignty. The looming presence of a fifth text should also be noted: although I will not discuss Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon (c. 1449) at any length, its authoritative Latin narrative inflects both the Wallace and the Scottis Originale. Andrew Wyntoun’s Original Chronicle is an extraordinary poem, contextualising the history of the Scots in the history of the world.6 Written while Wyntoun was prior of the Augustinian house on Loch Leven, it frequently presents a very different perspective on the Scottish past from that revealed by Scotichronicon, even though Wyntoun and Bower used the same sources, kept at St Andrews. Although being rather overshadowed by Bower’s work in later centuries, the Original Chronicle seems to have been well enough read: nine manuscripts survive, mostly from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, more than any other Scottish text, apart from the Scotichronicon.7 Wyntoun records the British myth of foundation as well as the Scottish one, and appears to accept the British chronology, namely that the Britons arrived in Britain before the Scots and the Picts.8 But Wyntoun’s inclusiveness also shows a reluctance to commit to a particular version. As he says himself, For I fynde in discripcion Þat I fynde sich discrepans That I am noucht of sufficians For to gere þaim all accorde; Bot sympilly for til racorde Withe in þe eyldis þat þat fel And nane oþir termys tel (2.10. 898–904)

Such evasiveness contrasts with his attitude to biblical material or indeed to Barbour’s Bruce, both of which are, as far as Wyntoun is concerned, unassailable authorities.9 As a result, his recording of the British myth may not reveal him to be a strong believer in the Brut tradition, but rather ambivalent regarding the accuracy of the sources in front of him, whether British or Scottish.

6

7

8 9

The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun, ed. F. J. Amours, STS First Series 50, 53, 54, 56, 57 and 63, 6 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1902–14). All quotations will be taken from the edition of BL, MS Cotton Nero D. XI, and references by book, chapter and line numbers will be included in the text. R. James Goldstein, ‘ “For he wald vsurpe na fame”: Andrew of Wyntoun’s Use of the Modesty Topos and Literature Culture in Early Fifteenth-Century Scotland’, SLJ 14 (1987), 5–18 (p. 5). Wyntoun, Original Chronicle, 3.3. 499–602. See, for example, Wyntoun, Original Chronicle 2.9. 769–70, 8.2. 177–8 and 8.7. 1441–50 for Wyntoun’s attitude to Barbour and 1.8. 489–90 and 2.3. 223–6 for biblical references. It is also possible that Wyntoun’s respect for Barbour may have influenced his presentation of the Brutus narrative, since references to one of Barbour’s lost works suggests that this also favoured the British origin myth over the Scottish one. See Matthew P. McDiarmid, ‘Barbour’s “othir werk” ’, in Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Matthew P. McDiarmid and J. A. C. Stevenson, STS Fourth Series, 12, 13 and 15, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1980–85), I, 17–22, and Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, pp. 59–60. For more discussion in the context of the reign of Robert II, see Stephen Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert III (East Linton, 1996), pp. 58–61. See also R. J. Lyall, ‘The Lost Literature of Medieval Scotland’, in Bryght Lanternis: Essays on the Language and Literature of Medieval Scotland, ed. J. D. McClure and M. R. G. Spiller (Aberdeen, 1989), pp. 33–47 (p. 39).

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Wyntoun’s anxiety about his sources is clear in his account of Arthur in Book 5 of the Original Chronicle. This account at first glance offers a favourable presentation, opening with a statement of Arthur’s victories: . . . Kynge of Brettan was Arthoure Þat wan al Frawnsse and Lumbardy, Gyan, Gasgkoyn and Normanday, Burgon, Flanderis and Brabande, Henaude, Holande and Goutlande, Sweys, Swetheryk and Norway, Denmark, Irland and Orknaye. (5.13. 4258–65)

This Arthur goes on to win ‘worschip and honoure of France’ and he suffers ‘tressoune’ at the hands of Mordred as his ‘sister sone’ (his nephew, not his son). It would be misguided to read Wyntoun’s account as unequivocal, however, particularly in its attitude towards Arthur’s relationship with the Scots. Firstly, Wyntoun is keen here, as in the earlier parts of the narrative, to stress his position as a mediator, and to focus attention on his source. Out of the three hundred and three lines devoted to Arthur, some fifty-three are concerned with the reputation of that alleged source, Huchon. Wyntoun recommends that ‘Huchon of þe Aule Realle/ I til his Gest Historyalle/ has tretyt þat mater cunnandly/ mar sufficiande þan to pronowns can I’ (5.13. 4279–82). While Wyntoun regularly cites sources, here such reference seems more pointed, since his discussion of Huchon concerns his reliability. In particular, Huchon calls ‘Lucius Hiberius’ emperor of Rome, whereas the other sources call him ‘procurator’ (5.13. 4283–326). Wyntoun kindly attributes this misleading choice of title to the demands of metre, but in drawing attention to the inaccuracy, he questions Huchon’s reliability, especially in comparison to others, such as Vincent of Beauvais. By undermining his source, Wyntoun seems to subvert the authority of Arthur’s narrative without directly challenging the myth itself. Our appreciation of this passage is diminished by the fact that we do not know who Huchon is. Wyntoun’s editor, F. J. Amours, suggests that he is Huw of Eglinton, a figure mentioned in Dunbar’s poems ‘I that in heill wes and gladnes’. He converts Wyntoun’s list of works into surviving poems whose provenance is, however, now known to be northern English rather than Scottish: the Alliterative Morte Arthure (‘The gret Gest of Arthur’), The Awntyrs of Arthur (‘The Awntyr of Gawane’) as well as the ‘Pistill of Suet Susane’.10 None of these ascriptions is now accepted,11 but I want briefly to dwell on one of Amours’ other assertions. He is convinced that the Alliterative Morte Arthure is a source for Wyntoun, specifically the list of realms which Arthur is said to have conquered. Of primary interest here, however, is not Amours’ claim, but rather the effect of bringing the lists together. The crucial lines in the Alliterative Morte are: When that the king Arthur by conquest had wonnen Caseles and kingdomes and countrees many, And he had covered the crown of that kith riche

10 11

See Amours in Wyntoun, Original Chronicle I, pp. 43–5. See Lyall, ‘The Lost Literature of Medieval Scotland’, p. 39.

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Of all that Uter in erthe ought in his time: Argayle and Orkney and all these oute-iles, Ireland utterly, as Ocean runnes, Scathel Scotland by skill he skiftes as him likes, And Wales of war he won at his will . . . (lines 26–33)12

When this extract of the Alliterative Morte is compared to the extract from Wyntoun above, the absence of Scotland from Wyntoun’s list is striking, not least because it would supply the natural transition from Ireland to Orkney. Such an omission must be significant rather than stylistic, and if significant, then there are two ways of interpreting it: either Scotland is to be understood as incorporate in ‘Brettan’ or it is to be understood as excluded from Arthur’s conquests. The latter is the easier solution, implying the separation and the continued autonomy of the Scots. However, ‘Brettan’ is an inclusive term when Wyntoun uses it to describe the land at the beginning of the poem.13 Following this reasoning, it would seem that the former solution is more likely – that the Scots should be included with the Britons in Wyntoun’s ‘Brettan’. The implicit association of the Scots with the success of Brettan’s most illustrious leader allows the possibility that any subsequent claims of authority over the whole island were – ideologically at least – as open to the Scots as to other purported successors to Arthur. Such a suggestion is further supported by the description of the Stone of Scone, rather than lamenting its removal to Westminster by Edward I, Wyntoun records the words written on the Stone: “Bot gif þat werdis failheande be, Qwhar euir þat stane [he] segit se, Þar sal þe Scottis be regnande, And lordis hail our all þat lande.” (3.9. 1085–9)

Wyntoun does not draw any firm conclusion or make any outright claim based on this inscription. Instead, he allows the prophesied threat of Scottish sovereignty over England and the rest of Britain to stand without comment. Similarly, Wyntoun never actually asserts Arthur’s sovereignty over the Scots,14 so even if the Original Chronicle records Arthur as hero-king, it does not allow that Arthur’s conquests gave anyone else rights over the Scots. There remains the threat symbolised by the Stone of Scone. Wyntoun attributes to the Stone the symbolic value of the unbroken line of kings so essential to the

12

13 14

Alliterative Morte Arthure, in King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Alliterative Morte Arthure, ed. Larry D. Benson, rev. Edward E. Foster (Kalamazoo, MI, 1994). Given that there is only one surviving manuscript copy of this poem (Lincoln Cathedral MS 91), Amours’ assertion offers interesting comment on the poem’s circulation in Scotland. See also Purdie, ‘The Search for Scottishness’, pp. 99–101 below. ‘Brettane’ is described at Wyntoun, Original Chronicle 1.13.1331–14.1400. ‘Les Bretanne’ appears at 5.13.4224, meaning Brittany. There is an interesting divergence between the Wemyss and the Cottonian manuscripts this point, where the Wemyss version says that Arthur ‘maid thaim [his conquests] fre/ but tribut till his ryalte’ (9.4291), implying that Arthur did not demand tribute from his conquests. The Cottonian version stresses the difference between being subjected to the crown of Britain and the authority of Rome (5.13. 4267–74).

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Latin chroniclers’ view of national identity: both guarantee the Scots’ permanent existence and future sovereignty.15 By favouring the Stone, Wyntoun asserts the ultimate superiority of the Scots, notwithstanding intermittent absorptions into a British realm. As a result, therefore, in the Original Chronicle the Scots as a people can be included in Arthur’s success, as part of his original kingdom rather than as a conquered addition, and such inclusion does not compromise their future succession to Arthur’s mantle implied by the Stone of Scone. Although tolerant of the British myth, by its omissions Wyntoun’s account of Arthur manages to conserve Scottish sovereignty and equality. At the same time as Wyntoun was composing the Original Chronicle in the priory on Loch Leven, Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, was writing the Scotichronicon, the great medieval Latin chronicle of the Scots. Although Bower shared many sources with Wyntoun, he had a markedly different attitude towards Arthur, namely the hostile one outlined at the beginning of this article.16 Bower’s account became authoritative and in consequence his views inflect many later engagements with the figure of Arthur, in both Latin and the vernacular. The Scottis Originale, ‘a short piece derived from Fordun or Bower on the origins of the Scots’, demonstrates this inflection very well.17 Its intent is to defend the antiquity and independence of the Scots in the face of the British origin myth and English appropriations of it. It does this by using Bower’s material and exaggerating his attitude, and by transferring both into Scots. Although by no means a translation of the whole of Scotichronicon, the Scottis Originale nevertheless indicates the thorough permeation of Bower’s text into the Scots historical consciousness. There are three versions of the Scottis Originale, all anonymous. There is one in the Asloan Manuscript (Edinburgh, NLS, 16500) and another in the Dalhousie Manuscript (part of the Dalhousie Papers lodged in the National Archives of Scotland, RH 4/74); these versions will be considered here. The third is at the end of a manuscript of Wyntoun’s Original Chronicle (London, British Library, Royal 17 D. xx).18 None of the copies of this text is earlier than

15

16

17

18

For further discussion, see Marjorie Drexler, ‘Fluid Prejudice: Scottish Origin Myths in the Later Middle Ages’, in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Joel Rosenthal and Colin Richmond (New York, 1984, Gloucester, 1987;), pp. 60–74, and Roger A. Mason, ‘Scotching the Brut: Politics, History and National Myth in Sixteenth-Century Britain’, in Scotland and England 1285–1815, ed. Roger A. Mason (Edinburgh, 1987), pp. 60–84 (pp. 64–5). Bower’s and Wyntoun’s shared sources are discussed briefly in Stephen Boardman, ‘Chronicle Propaganda in Fourteenth-Century Scotland: Robert the Steward, John of Fordun and the “Anonymous Chronicle” ’, SHR 76.1 (1997), 23–43 (pp. 25–8). There is currently no extended comparison of the Original Chronicle and Scotichronicon. Sally Mapstone, ‘The Scotichronicon’s First Readers’, in Church, Chronicle and Learning in Medieval and Early Renaissance Scotland, ed. Barbara E. Crawford (Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 31–55 (p. 40). For more details on the Asloan manuscript, see I. C. Cunningham, ‘The Asloan Manuscript’, in The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History and Culture Offered to John Durkan, ed. A. A. MacDonald, Michael Lynch and Ian B. Cowan (Leiden, 1994), pp. 107–35, and C. van Buuren, ‘John Asloan and his Manuscript: An Edinburgh Notary and Scribe in the Days of James III, IV and V (c. 1470–c. 1530)’, in Stewart Style: Essays on the Court of James V, ed. J. Hadley Williams (East Linton, 1996), pp. 15–32. For discussion of the Scottis Originale, see Cunningham, p. 110; van Buuren, pp. 24–5. For the Dalhousie manuscript, see Mapstone, ‘Scotichronicon’s First Readers’, pp. 40, 49–50 n. 48 and 51 n. 67; Mapstone calls the manuscript

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about 1460; the Asloan and the Royal versions are both sixteenth-century. All the manuscripts contain a run of historical and political material, suggesting a conscious inclusion or commission of the Scottis Originale. The Arthur of the Scottis Originale is an illegitimate ‘tyrand’, Merlin is a devil; and Mordrede and Gawain have a far better claim to the throne than their uncle. Arthur’s imperialist achievements are minimised: his thirty ‘kinrikis’ are dismissed in the light of the Saxon invasions, and it is emphasised that without the support of the Scots, Arthur would not even have been able to maintain his realm. Both the Asloan version and the Dalhousie version are insistent that Arthur does not conquer the Scots, even reporting that the Scots king, Gorane (Dalhousie: Sorane), provided troops for Mordred’s conquest.19 This is clearly not Wyntoun’s careful negotiation and delayed fulfilment; this is outright and strident refutation. The stridency derives in part from the connection between past events and present circumstances. The consistent use of ‘we’ and ‘our’ indicates clearly the identification of both the speaker and the audience with the Scots, but it is the description of the alliance between the Scots and the Britons that foregrounds the link between past and present. This alliance was adopted after the Britons, despite being aided by the Romans, had failed to defeat the Scots over a period of three hundred years. The Dalhousie version describes the alliance in this way: Bot with the help of God we and the pechtis agaynistud thame [the Britons] sa and the Romanis, that the Romanis war fayne for to leve thame, quhen thai and thai had maid were on us iiic here. Sa that the Britonis war our naturale inymyis unto the tyme that thai made allye with us, quhilk this Arthur brak; bot efter his dede it was ever hit wele kepit, and trew frendschip to this day.20

In contrast, the Asloan version refutes this assertion of perpetual alliance: . . . Arthur falsly agane his allya and band maid betuix ws and him maid weir on ws. For fra we had maid him in pece of his enemys he with þe Brettanis raiss apon ws and wald haue put ws out of our cuntre with þe suple þat he had of Romanis. Bot throu helpe of God we and þe Pictis resistit þaim all in sic a wyss þat þai war fayne to cess and quhen þai had maide weir on ws three hundreth here þai saw þai couth not wyn at ws. Thai was fayne till ally þaim with ws, and the quhilk allia was lang tyme weile consseruit kepit vnto þe tyme þis Arthur brak it and sen syne to þis hour quhatsumeuer band we had of þaim it was never wele kepit.21

This discrepancy may be textual: each version may depend on a different Latin recension. It is also tempting to speculate that the political circumstances at the

19 20 21

the Dalhousie manuscript, while Cunningham and van Buuren refer to it as the Panmure manuscript. The text can be found in The Bannatyne Miscellany III, ed. T. Thomson, Bannatyne Club 19 (Edinburgh, 1855), pp. 35–42, under the title ‘The Chronycle of Scotland in a Part’. For the copy in the Royal manuscript, see Mapstone, p. 51, n. 67. Asloan Manuscript I, 190; Bannatyne Miscellany III, 39. Bannatyne Miscellany III, 39. Asloan Manuscript I, 191. The punctuation is mine.

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time of copying may also have had an influence. The Dalhousie Manuscript has been dated roughly to the second half of the fifteenth century.22 Although much of this was a period of minority government for the Scots, it also saw a time of rapprochement with the English, as both Yorkists and Lancastrians sought alliances; hence perhaps a more favourable attitude in Scotland to alliances within Great Britain. In contrast, Asloan’s copy was apparently written after the heavy Scottish defeat by the English at Flodden.23 From the Scots perspective, this battle occurred as a result of Henry VIII’s failure to respect the Treaty of Perpetual Accord of 1503; his association with Arthur is perhaps strengthened by the Tudor self-styling as British kings.24 In such circumstances, the hostility expressed in Asloan’s copy is hardly surprising. At the same time, though, the possibility of Scottish inheritance of the English throne was particularly strong during the early years of the sixteenth century, for James IV’s marriage to Margaret Tudor produced several male heirs, including one that survived, while Henry VIII’s to Katherine of Aragon did not.25 For Asloan and his readers, therefore, Wyntoun’s prophecy of the Scots power following the Stone of Scone had real political potential. For that reason, the Scottis Originale’s insistence that Modrede and Gawain are Scots dependent on and subject to Scottish royal authority is striking. That they are Scots is the reason for their rejection by the Britons; this is not simply a matter of their foreignness, but also their alternate loyalties, whereby their duty to their king precedes that to their subjects. Such fears were all too familiar to the Scots, since throughout the Middle Ages, English monarchs had argued their feudal superiority to the Scottish monarchs, often using the British origin myth as one of their justifications. Here, obliquely, that fear is turned upside down: a man who owed loyalty to the Scots king had a greater entitlement to the British (read English) throne. Such entitlement, moreover, rests on the deposition of Arthur, the national hero. Throughout late medieval Scottish historiography and into its early modern successors, Arthur remains a contested figure, a point at which the relationship between the Scots and the English is examined. Clearly, historiographers such as Wyntoun, Bower and the anonymous writers of the Scottis Originale are concerned with a particular set of arguments around the origin myths. Yet similar care in handling Arthur is evident in other historiographical material. For Barbour and Hary, Scottish sovereignty is an essential theme; their eponymous heroes, Bruce and Wallace, are direct rivals to Arthur as national heroes. Rather than exclude such a rival from their texts, however, each engages with the figure and deploys him to support their stars.

22 23 24

25

See Mapstone, ‘The Scotichronicon’s First Readers’, p. 40. Asloan Manuscript I, p. 189; Cunningham, ‘The Asloan Manuscript’, p. 131; van Buuren, ‘Asloan and his Manuscript’, p. 25. For the importance of Arthur at the early Tudor courts, see Sydney Anglo, ‘The British History in Early Tudor Propaganda’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 44 (1961), 17–48, and David Starkey, ‘King Henry and King Arthur’, Arthurian Literature 16 (1998), 171–96; for a brief discussion of the court of James IV, see Louise O. Fradenburg, City, Marriage, Tournament: Arts of Rule in Late Medieval Scotland (Madison, WI, 1991), pp. 155–6. Norman Macdougall, James IV (East Linton, 1997), pp. 258–9.

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On a first reading, Barbour’s approach seems straightforward. Much like Arthur, Bruce’s success rests on his character, his ability and his undertaking to do what is right; although Bruce has a good claim to inherit the throne, he achieves the realm by reconquest rather than genealogy.26 Despite these similarities, though, Barbour only uses Arthur once as a comparison for Bruce, in contrast to his more frequent deployment of Hannibal and Alexander.27 Arthur’s sole appearance occurs towards the beginning of the narrative, at the end of a disquisition on the problem of treachery and treason (1.521–69). Arthur concludes the list of those betrayed: Troy, Alexander, Caesar. The list is arranged to move towards Bruce, chronologically, geographically and perhaps also personally, since it is only in Arthur’s case that Barbour stresses the intimacy of the betrayal. Bruce was also betrayed by a close comrade, and that of course intensifies the crime.28 Barbour portrays Arthur as a great king, albeit one whose success is undermined: Als Arthur yat throw chevalry Maid Bretane maistres & lady Of [tuelf] kin[rikis] yat he wan, And alsua as a noble man He wan throw bataill Fraunce all fre And Lucis Yber wencuyst he Yat yen of Rome wes emperour, Bot heit for all his gret valour Modreyt hys syster son him slew And gud men also ma yen inew Throw tresoune and throw wikkitnes, Ye Broite beris yaroff wytnes. (1.549–60)

By placing Bruce in such exalted company, this list stresses the epic nature of the narrative. Simultaneously, it points up the difference between the individuals cited: Bruce is a warrior, but he is not a conqueror of other realms – stressed for Alexander, Caesar and Arthur – nor does his betrayal occur at the high point of his career. Rather, of them all, Bruce’s position is most like the defenders of Troy, only innocent of any offence to compare with the rape of Helen.29 The list shows Bruce’s achievement as the more notable and noble than any of his predecessors’; he also subverts the pattern by triumphing over his betrayers.

26

27 28

29

For Bruce’s genealogical claim, see Barbour’s Bruce II, Book 1, 42–68 (all future references to this work will be made in the form of book number and line numbers). For brief discussion, see also Boardman, Early Stewart Kings, pp. 58–61, and R. James Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland: Historical Narrative in Medieval Scotland (Lincoln, NB, and London, 1993), p. 333 n. 42. See, as examples, references to Hannibal in Bruce 3.207–66; references to Alexander, Bruce 3.61–93 and 10.706–22. For Bruce’s betrayal by John Comyn, see Bruce 1.477–2.90. For discussion, see G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland, 3rd edn (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 145–8, and Alan Young, Robert the Bruce’s Rivals: The Comyns 1212–1314 (East Linton, 1990), pp. 184–210. Such a link might tally with the comparison of James Douglas to Hector: Bruce 1.381–406.

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For the writers of the Scottis Originale, Arthur represents the English threat. Barbour does not make that connection, even though Edward I had used Arthur as part of his propaganda, and does not condemn or criticise him. Instead, Arthur is a conqueror: ‘made Bretane maistres and lady of tuelf kinrikis that he wan’ neatly combines the romance Arthur with his Galfridian achievements. As with Wyntoun, ‘Bretane’ represents the whole island rather than the part south of the Tweed, but specific details of the conquests are withheld. Apart from Rome, the conquered kingdoms are noticed only in quantity not in name. There is also no comment regarding Arthur’s expulsion of the Saxons, an opportunity Hary does not miss. Instead, the contrasts of motive, of achievement and of point of betrayal are held in equilibrium with the praise of heroic deeds. Barbour does not directly deploy Arthur as a figure of national identity in the Bruce; he appears, rather, as a figure of romance heroism, secondary to Alexander. His primary purpose seems to be to demonstrate Bruce’s fantastic career and to support implicitly Bruce’s contested place as an additional Worthy. Hary, in contrast, uses the figure of Arthur specifically to address issues of sovereignty and right kingship. In so doing, he shows a debt both to the Bruce and the Scotichronicon. Hary’s deployment of Arthur is concentrated in Book 8 of the poem, where Hary returns three times to Arthur within two hundred lines, each time in the specific context of fighting the English.30 Book 8 describes a period when Wallace is successful in his campaigns against the English, so much so that he is able to take the war across the border. On the first occasion, Wallace engages in battle: Than stud the Sotheroun in a felloun dout. Wallace knew weill the Inglishmen wald fle For-thi he preyst in the thikkest to be, Hewand full fast on quhat sege that he socht. Agaynys hys dynt fyn steyll awailheit nocht. Wallace off hand sen Arthour had na mak; Quhom he hyt rycht was ay dede off a strak. That was weyll knawin in mony place, and thar Quhom Wallace hyt he deryt the Scottis no mar. Als all his men did cruelly and weyll At com to strak – that mycht the Sotheroun feill! (8.840–50)

In many ways, this is a standard piece of fighting from the Wallace. The question is why Hary uses Arthur here, when there were so many romance heroes from which to choose. Part of Arthur’s appeal lies in the rhetoric that Hary applies to the English: they are the ‘Sotheroun’, specifically identified at the opening of the text as ‘cummyn of Saxonys blude’ (1.7, 159 and 8.1613).31 The Saxons are also Arthur’s major enemies: they are pagans and they are invaders. Arthur thus becomes crusader rather than imperialist. Wallace too has a divine mission: his enemies are also entirely Other in Hary’s presentation. In this context, ‘rycht’ becomes ambiguous: is it referring to technique or to a just cause?

30 31

Hary’s Wallace, ed. Matthew P. McDiarmid, STS Fourth Series 4 and 5, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1968–69). All references will be by book and line numbers. For a more extended discussion of this, see Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, pp. 215–49.

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The next reference to Arthur comes from Wallace’s own mouth. After a successful battle, the nearby town sends a deputation to offer a ransom if they are left alone. Wallace ansuerd, ‘Off your gold rek we nocht. It is for bataill that we hydder socht. We had leuir haiff battail of Ingland, Than all the gold that gud king Arthour fand On the Mont Mychell, quhar he the gyand slew! Gold may be gayn bot worship is ay new. Hour king promyst that we suld bataill haiff. His wrytt tharto wndyr his seyll he gaiff. Letter nor band he se may nocht awaill. Ws for this toun he hecht to gyff bataill. Me think we suld on his men wengit be; Apon our kyn mony gret wrang wrocht he, His dewyllyk deid, he did in-to Scotland’ (8.883–95)

If the previous allusion was suggestive of a reconfiguring of the English as Arthurian enemies, a similar position is taken here. The comparison figures the English town as Mont St Michel, inhabited by a monster, presumably those of English blood. This allusive comparison is continued when Wallace invokes his right of revenge, since Arthur, particularly in later versions of the story, is motivated in part by revenge for harm to his kin, symbolised by Hoel’s niece.32 The association of the inhabitants of the English town with the monstrous is surely deliberate. Edward is thus also figured as monstrous, both by his association with the town (‘Hour king’) and by the application of the adjective ‘dewyllyk’ (895). The third and final reference to Arthur is the most complex of the three. At men off wit this questioun her I as, Amang the noblis gyff euir ony that was, So lang throw force in Ingland lay on cas Sen Brudus deid, but bataill, bot Wallace. Gret Iulius, the Empyr had in hand, Twys off force he was put off Ingland. Wycht Arthour also off wer quhen that he prewit Twys thai fawcht, suppos thai war myschewit. Awfull Eduuard durst nocht Wallace abid In playn bataill, for all Ingland so wid. In London he lay and tuk him till his rest And brak his vow. Quhilk hald ye for the best? (8.961–72)

Its complexity lies in the change of perspective in the extended comparison. In the wider narrative, Edward is at this point refusing to meet Wallace in open field: Wallace has thus been able to remain in England for an extended period of time. Indeed, Hary claims by his opening question that Wallace has been the

32

The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth, I: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS 568, ed. Neil M. Wright (Cambridge, 1985), x.3.

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most successful and least opposed invader of England since Brutus. The first comparisons bring Wallace together with previous invaders, for he is more successful than Caesar and equal to Brutus. The terms of the comparison then change. Arthur is the cited figure, yet he is not an invader but a defender of England, so initially a comparison with Wallace seems inappropriate. But Arthur here stands as a contrast to Edward, named in the following lines as refusing battle to the invaders. The comparison thus runs: invader, invader, defender, defender. That pattern, however, is only evident reading backwards. In the first instance, the arrangement of the comparison links Wallace to Arthur more strongly than to Edward, supported by the repetition of ‘twys’. If Edward is not-Arthur, then that leaves space for Wallace to be Arthur, to be a better defender of his realm than Edward. Such a pattern of association is supported by the previous references to Arthur in Book 8. This is significant for two reasons. Firstly, the association of the Scottish leader with Arthur contradicts any of Edward’s self-association with Arthur. Secondly, more positively, the references to Arthur seem to permit, even encourage, a reading of Wallace as the champion of Britain and the true heir of Arthur and indeed Brutus, while Edward and the English are Saxon invader and illegitimate power. Far more strongly than Barbour or Wyntoun, Hary challenges the whole assumption of English authority based on Arthurian conquest; here the true heir of Arthur is a Scot. From this analysis, it appears that familiarity breeds confidence, for the later engagements with Arthur, be they in romance or in historiography, are far bolder in their manipulation of the figure. Hary’s renegotiation of the relationship between Arthur and his self-styled English successors goes far beyond Barbour’s comparison between Arthur and Bruce, as the Scottis Originale is forthright where Wyntoun is subtle. Such developments may be in response to Scotichronicon’s increasingly dominant narrative, particularly in its assertion of Mordred’s claim to the British throne over Arthur’s. All the texts are aware of the political capital invested in Arthur. Barbour and Hary use the figure to support their heroes; the historiographers use him to redefine the relationship between Scottish and British. Although the myth of Gathelos becomes dominant in the overarching Scottish narrative, nevertheless the idea of the Scottish claim to sovereignty over Britain through Arthur does not disappear entirely. Rather its implications remain available throughout the fifteenth century and beyond, and to justify assertions of authority, whether they be on behalf of the doomed Wallace, or the triumphant James VI.

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The Roman de Fergus: Parody or Pastiche? TONY HUNT

Fergus,1 or Le Chevalier au biel escu, ‘The Knight of the Splendid Shield’ (see lines 7008 and 6700), alternatively Fergus et Galiene, according to whichever of the precedents furnished by Chrétien de Troyes is taken as a model, is a romance about Scotland and two of its fairest inhabitants transposed to the Arthurian world established by Chrétien’s five romances. The hero is thought to reflect the historical figure of Fergus of Galloway (d. 1161, ultimately descended from the sixth-century Fergus Mor), and his sweetheart Galiene has been linked to Galiena, wife of Philip de Mowbray and relative of the lords of Lothian.2 No secure dating has been provided for the French text or, for that matter, the Middle Dutch adaptation,3 though a date in the first third of the thirteenth century seems to invite few objections. The action of the romance is firmly anchored in the topography of Southern Scotland (Geltsdale, Jedburgh, the Lammermuir hills, Glasgow, Argyll, Galloway, Carlisle, Lothian, Liddel Castle [later Newcastletown] in Roxburghshire, Dunnottar Castle in Kincardineshire, Edinburgh, Queensferry, Dunfermline, Roxburgh, Melrose and the nearby Eildon Hills, Tweeddale – some

1

2 3

The only modern edition is by Wilson Frescoln, The Romance of Fergus (Philadelphia, 1983). Very useful are the translations by D. D. R. Owen, Guillaume le Clerc, Fergus of Galloway: Knight of King Arthur (London and Rutland, VT, 1991) – earlier published in Arthurian Literature 8 (1989), 79–183 – which has excellent notes and appendices, and R. Wolf-Bonvin, La Chevalerie des sots. Le roman de Fergus. Trubert, fabliau du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1990). For convenience all references to Chrétien’s works are to the texts which appeared in the Lettres Gothiques series and are reprinted by Michel Zink, Chrétien de Troyes: Romans, Classiques Modernes, La Pochothèque (Paris, 1994): including Erec et Enide; Cligès; Le Chevalier de la Charette (or Le Roman de Lancelot); Le Chevalier au Lion (or Le Roman d’Yvain); Le Conte du Graal (or Le Roman de Perceval). All translations are taken from Owen, Fergus, and Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans. D. D. R. Owen (London and Rutland, VT, 1987; rep. 1991). See Owen, Fergus, pp. 162–69 and his articles referred to below. The oldest of the Dutch romances, it is generally attributed to two authors, the first following the version now offered by the Chantilly manuscript of Fergus, and the second (lines 2593–5604) working from memory. See Dutch Romances vol. 2: Ferguut, ed. D. F. Johnson and G. H. M. Claassens (Cambridge, 2000), who suggest (p. 6) a date for Fergus of the first quarter of the thirteenth century. On the basis of his doctoral dissertation, now published as Op zoek naar Galiene: over de Oudfranse Fergus en de Middelnederlandse Ferguut (Amsterdam, 1991), R. M. T. Zemel suggests that Fergus may even date from as early as c. 1200. No comment on dating is made by B. L. Spahr, ‘Ferguut, Fergus, and Chrétien de Troyes’, in Traditions and Transitions: Studies in Honor of Harold Jantz, ed. L. E. Kurth et al. (Munich, 1972), pp. 29–36. The unique manuscript of Ferguut is dated to the middle of the fourteenth century: see Ferguut and Galiene: A Facsimile of the only extant Middle Dutch manuscript, University Library Leiden, Letterkunde 191, with an introduction by M. J. M. de Haan (Leiden, 1974).

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eighteen locations in all) with a glance north of the Forth to Escoche proper (cf. line 2589, ‘En Eschoce u en Lodïen’). The journey times indicated are realistic and the narrator offers a number of apparently informed comments on local customs. The ‘Scottishness’ of Fergus is thus firmly established and is to be taken seriously.4 Arthur’s seat at ‘Carduel en Gales’, usually taken to be Carlisle, is familiar from many of the romances as is the region of Strathclyde in general. The originality of the Fergus author is to have abandoned the more conventional Scottish toponymy for places, like Galloway, with a much less reassuring reputation, thereby extending Scotland’s appearance in romance literature. There have been several attempts to interpret the work as in some sense an ‘ancestral romance’, whether written for Alan of Galloway (d. 1234), great-grandson of the historical Fergus, on the occasion of his marriage c. 1209, or John of Balliol (a stepson of Alan) and his wife Devorguilla in the period 1234–41 to strengthen the claim of their eldest son Hugh to the Scottish throne.5 There has even been an attempt to identify the author with William Malveisin, a royal clerk of French stock, who ended his career as bishop of St Andrews (1202–1238).6 Such researches, speculative though they must remain, justify the inclusion of Fergus in any history of literature in Scotland,7 though it might be said that if any of them were true, it would be puzzling that the author did not give clearer clues to his identity or political purpose.8 The Scottish connection need not, however, mean that the work was actually written in Scotland or composed by a writer resident there – a writer who calls himself simply ‘Guillaume le clerc’ (line 7004). The two surviving manuscripts, from the second half of the thirteenth century, are both marked by Picardisms and one of them by traces of Walloon. So far as the poet’s own dialect is concerned, he seems to be writing in the more or less standard literary French of northern France.9 One of the manuscripts is the famous collection of continental Arthurian texts MS Chantilly, Musée Condé 472 from which Fergus was edited by both Ernst Martin (1872) and Wilson Frescoln (1983),10 and the other is Paris, BNF fr. 1553, a vast collection of fifty-two items including the Roman de Troie, the

4 5

6

7 8

9

10

Cf. P. Rickard, Britain in Medieval French Literature 1100–1500 (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 113–15, and for a more negative picture of Scotland in medieval French literature, pp. 206–20. For a clear summary of the arguments see B. Schmolke-Hasselmann, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance: The Verse Tradition from Chrétien to Froissart, trans. Margaret and Roger Middleton (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 251–67. See D. D. R. Owen, ‘The Fergus-Poet’, in Medieval Codicology, Iconography, Literature, and Translation: Studies for Keith Val Sinclair, ed. P. R. Monks and D. D. R. Owen, Litterae Textuales (Leiden, 1994), pp. 233–39. Surprisingly, Fergus was accorded almost no place at all in R. L. Graeme Ritchie, The Normans in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1954). It is perhaps significant that Neil Thomas, ‘The Old French Roman de Fergus: Scottish miseen-scène and Political Implication’, Parergon 11 (1993), 91–101, despite his title and his allusion to ‘powerful historical resonances’ never succeeds in identifying what these resonances are. See A. Stefan, Laut- und Formenbestand in Guillaume li Clerc’s Roman ‘Fergus’ (Klagenfurt, 1893). It is probably wrong to seek to make anything out of his allusions to Namur (line 2884) and Dinant (line 3327), though both are rare in Arthurian romance, for the identity of the second is not secure. See The Manuscripts of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. K. Busby et al., vol. II (Amsterdam, 1993), pp. 39–41, where T. M. Nixon gives a date of mid-thirteenth century and localizes it to Flanders/Hainault. See Fergus, ed. E. Martin (Halle, 1872).

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Roman de Violette, didactic and hagiographical pieces, lais and fabliaux, of which Fergus was edited by Francisque Michel (1842) for the Abbotsford Club on the strength of the Scottish connection.11 Neither manuscript includes insular compositions and it is difficult to envisage an audience in the British Isles with the detailed textual knowledge of the romances of Chrétien which, as we shall see, Fergus undoubtedly requires. The importance of Fergus is literary rather than political. It is anything but a roman à thèse or a roman à clef. In addition to its notably benign humanity and intelligent humour, elements of realism mark it as not so much epigonal as revisionist,12 although they are always subsidiary to the literary, and ludic, design which aims at renovating inherited motifs by giving them an original, comic twist or application. Guillaume rejuvenates the motifs of his model, Chrétien’s Perceval, and scales down its ambition by substituting the search for the resplendent shield (bel escu, escu flamboiant) for Perceval’s grail quest and by linking it, less loftily, to the recovery of Galiene whom Fergus has neglected in favour of adventure, which so often eludes him.13 Guillaume avoids writing a mere roman d’aventures with a superfluity of episodes by restricting his hero’s quests to two: the adventure at Nouquetran on the Black Mountain where he obtains the horn and wimple he sought, to the neglect of Galiene, and the winning of the resplendent shield at Dunnottar which a dwarf predicts will enable him to win her back. That Perceval provides the principal instigation of Guillaume’s creative ‘make-over’ is clearly suggested by the frequent use he makes of it and the two Continuations (see Owen’s translation Appendix A), but he is careful not to name Chrétien or to make any source references,14 preferring to rely on the alertness of the cognoscenti who must have constituted a significant part of the audience of his remarkable work. Perhaps for this reason it is less widely known than it deserves to be, despite having been the subject of a number of penetrating studies.15 11

12

13

14

15

See Y. G. Lepage, ‘Un recueil français de la fin du XIIIe siècle (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 1553)’, Scriptorium 29 (1975), 23–46, who suggests a date of 1285–90 for the production of the manuscript and localizes it to Picardy. See Le roman des aventures de Fergus, ed. F. Michel (Edinburgh, 1842). For an example, see P. Le Rider, ‘A propos de costumes . . . De Giraud de Bari au Conte du Graal et à Fergus’, Le Moyen Age 107 (2001), 253–82, who observes concerning the description of Perceval’s clothing: ‘La juxtaposition, dans ces descriptions, des références au passé littéraire et de la reproduction du réel est instructive. Elle laisse percevoir une volonté de modifier les représentations traditionnelles du paysan. Elle montre par ailleurs quel rôle essentiel a joué dans la première forme médiévale du roman d’apprentissage, de Perceval à Fergus, la chanson de geste d’Aiol’ (p. 281). See, for example, lines 2546 ff. His conception of aventure, lines 2722–25, resembles that of Calogrenant in Yvain who sees it simply as a means of confronting an opponent to test his courage and prowess. The exceptions are an unenlightening oral formula ‘si com j’ai oï conter’ (line 1206: ‘as I have heard tell’) and the description of the resplendent shield which the narrator says he cannot improve on: ‘Ne porroie je mius trover/ De sa biauté comme j’en sai,/ Por ce qu’en escrit trové l’ai’ (lines 4078–80: ‘I could find nothing better to say of its beauty than what I know of it from having found it in writing’). See particularly, M. A. Freeman, ‘Fergus: Parody and the Arthurian Tradition’, French Forum 8 (1983), 197–215; B. Schmolke-Hasselmann, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance, pp. 158–69 (‘The Principle of Variation: Fergus as a new Perceval’); K. Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois: Transgressive Parody in French Literature of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Lincoln, NB,

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Unquestionably, Fergus occupies a significant position in the history of medieval romance writing. This is mainly on account of three factors. First, it is a major, indeed indispensable, piece in the jigsaw of Chrétien de Troyes’ reception in the Middle Ages.16 Not only does its author have apparently complete textual recall of Chrétien’s romances,17 but a remarkable facility for recontextualizing the details he found there. What under examination may at first resemble a mere cento of the champenois poet’s writing soon emerges as an invigorating and creative set of ingenious variations on themes furnished by Guillaume’s predecessor with the added attraction of stimulating the audience’s powers of recognition.18 Fergus is hence first and foremost a literary game, that is, a work of pastiche rather than parody.19 Critics who have regretted a lack of psychological development in the hero – a complaint which might apply equally to the Yvain – have thus missed the point. Whilst honouring his predecessor’s achievement, Guillaume does not lose sight of the fact that he is dealing with literary themes and, indeed, takes pleasure in puncturing some of the idealizing features of his model and subjecting them to a more realistic or down-to-earth treatment. So we may also see him as a witty commentator on idealizing romance. This aspect of his activity often takes the form of revelations or observations touching on the psychology of his characters – reflections, motives, causes – elements which are often absent from Chrétien. Consistent with the tendency to realism or de-idealization is the author’s penchant for humour, which is a third reason to accord his work a place of honour in the development of medieval romance. The Scottish location of the whole work and the density of the place-names are probably a humorous attempt at demystifying the ideal landscape of Chrétien’s romances, an attempt inspired perhaps by references to Scotland in the Perceval,20 thus, once more, varying a trait drawn from the source. The Welsh knight Perceval becomes the Scottish knight Fergus.

16

17

18

19

20

and London, 1989), pp. 20–50 (‘Fergus: the Courtois Vilain’); D. D. R. Owen, ‘The Craft of Guillaume Le Clerc’s Fergus’, in The Craft of Fiction: Essays in Medieval Poetics, ed. L. A. Arrathoon (Rochester, MI, 1984), pp. 47–81, and ‘The Craft of Fergus: Supplementary Notes’, French Studies Bulletin 25 (1987–88), 1–5 (on Guillaume’s debt to the Perceval Continuations). It is astonishing that it receives so little mention, as far as one can tell in the absence of an index, in The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. N. J. Lacy et al., 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1987/88). There is a reference in I, 145. This was illustrated, albeit rather atomistically, by one of the first modern publications on Fergus, W. Marquardt, Der Einfluss Kristians von Troyes auf den Roman ‘Fergus’ des Guillaume Le Clerc (Göttingen, 1906). The nearest parallel is Huon de Méry’s Tournoiement Antéchrist. Here too the essential borrowings from Chrétien had been recognized in an early German dissertation (by Max Grebel, Leipzig, 1883), but have only quite recently been examined for the artistry with which they have been recycled: see K. Busby, ‘Plagiarism and Poetry in the Tournoiement Antéchrist of Huon de Méry’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 84 (1983), 505–21. For the distinction of the terms parody, pastiche and burlesque, which Owen tends to use interchangeably, see T. Hunt, ‘La Parodie médiévale: le cas d’Aucassin et Nicolette’, Romania 100 (1979), 341–81 (pp. 347–50). There are references in Chrétien to a Scottish king Aguisel (Erec line 1966), Carduel (Erec line 5724, Yvain line 7, Perceval lines 330 and 797), Cototatre (Perceval line 3613 ⫽ Firth of Forth), Danebroc (Erec lines 2127 and 2133 ⫽ Edinburgh), Scotland (Erec lines 1966, 5223 and 6638; Cligès lines 1473 and 2386), Galloway (Perceval lines 6522, 8301 and 8560; Erec lines 6089 and 6821), Orcanie (Perceval lines 8741, 8941, 8995 and 9023). See R. L. Graeme Ritchie, Chrétien de Troyes and Scotland, The Zaharoff Lecture for 1952 (Oxford, 1952).

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And yet, although Fergus is often approached as a roman d’apprentissage with a neo-Perceval as hero21 – Marquardt already showed there were more debts to the Perceval than to any other of Chrétien’s romances – the context of the whole work is unmistakably inscribed in the cadre of Yvain, the paradigm of medieval romance which seems to have been ever present in Guillaume’s mind. The pastiche begins with the details of the mise en scène. The opening incident of Yvain takes place ‘aprés mengier, par mi les sales’ (line 8) echoed in ‘Mais es sales se sejornoient/ Aprés mangier . . .’ (Fergus lines 19–20), but whereas in Chrétien the guests talk together of ‘recent happenings’ (nouveles, line 12) and love (amours, line 13), and then Calogrenant begins to relate an adventure notable for being to his discredit, Fergus isolates two members of the court, Gauvain and Yvain, compares them loftily with Achilles and Patroclus, and then with calculated bathos reveals that they talk merely ‘d’unes et d’autres’ (line 33: ‘of this and that’) and ‘disoit cascuns son voloir’ (line 37: ‘each said whatever he pleased’), thus trivializing the theme of court conversation. A signal inversion of the source occurs when the two friends are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the king (‘Li rois se laisse entr’els caoir’, line 38), whereas in Yvain it is the queen who interrupts (‘Se fu laissie entr’eus queoir’, line 66; Arthur is asleep), the interruption causing Gauvain and Calogrenant respectively to spring to their feet (‘Si est errant sailli en piés’, Fergus line 41; ‘Sali en piés contre li sus’, Yvain line 68). Arthur is far from drowsy, but bored and bent on action: ‘je vel orendroit errer./ Li sejorners pas ne me plest:/ Je vel cachier en la forest’ (Fergus lines 46–48: ‘I’ve a mind to set out straight away! Loafing around is not to my taste: I wish to go hunting in the forest’). The audience is thus invited to appreciate the reworking of a celebrated romance opening. Closing is no less intertextual, both in its assurances of the lovers’ perfect union and in the insistence on textual boundaries: Sires et rois est apielés Et ele apielee roïne. Cil [l’]aimme com s’amie fine Et ele lui comme ami fin. Guillaumes li clers trait a fin De sa matere et de sa trove. Car en nule terre ne trove Nul homme qui tant ait vescu Del chevalier au biel escu Plus en avant conter l’en sace. Ici met la bonne et l’estace; Ici est la fins del roumans. Grans joie viegne as escoutans. (lines 7000–12)22

21 22

See, in particular, R. Zemel, ‘The New and the Old Perceval: Guillaume’s Fergus and Chrétien’s Conte du Graal’, BBIAS 46 (1994), 324–42. Cf. Yvain lines 6794 ff: ‘Qu’il est amés et chiers tenus/ De sa dame et ele de luy/ . . ./ Del chevalier al lion fine/ Crestïens son romant issi/ . . ./ Onques plus dire n’en oï,/ Ne ja plus n’en orés conter’ (‘For he is loved and cherished by his lady, and she by him . . . Thus Chrétien concludes his romance of the Knight with the Lion; for I never heard any more of it told, nor will you ever hear more of it related’).

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(He is hailed as lord and king, and she as queen. He loves her as his tender sweetheart and she him as her noble lover. Guillaume Le Clerc comes to the end of his subject and his composition. For in no land does he find any man who has lived long enough to be able to tell anything further of the knight with the splendid shield. Here he plants the boundary-stone and post: this is the end of the romance. May great joy come to those who hear it !)

The textual closure is one thing, but is the durability of the lovers’ union any more convincing than in Yvain? Guillaume plays a clever trick: he precedes this conclusion with an unmistakable echo of Gawain’s advice in Yvain which was the very cause of the marital rift! Mesire Gavains li cortois Acole et baisse com plus pot Son compaingnon et sel congot Et se li amoneste et prie Qu’il ne laist pas chevalerie Por sa feme, que n’est pas drois. ‘De pluissors gabés en serrois.’ Fergus bien li afie et jure, Ja n’ora parler d’aventure Qu’il n’i aille, s’il a santé. (lines 6986–95) (The courtly lord Gawain embraces and kisses his companion as much as he can, making a fuss of him and urging and begging him not to abandon knightly deeds for his wife, since that is not right. ‘For many you’d be a laughing stock!’ Fergus swears and gives him his firm assurance that he will never hear of an adventure without heading for it, given good health.)

For good measure, we recall Fergus’s response to Galiene’s impassioned approach (‘Tenés et ma mort et ma vie’, line 1960: ‘You hold both my death and my life’): ‘Pucele, je vois el querant/ Que amors ne que drüerie’ (lines 1962–63: ‘Maiden, my quest is for something other than love and its pleasures’). On the other hand, we recognize that a coronation has taken place and Fergus and Galiene are now king and queen. This is a clear interference from Erec. But the coronation takes place on the feast of St John the Baptist – June 24 – (Fergus lines 6885, 6944 and 6965),23 the same feast on which Fergus begins (line 1), unlike Erec which opens with Easter, the substitution coming from Yvain. The interweaving of elements from both Yvain and Erec is from the outset a feature of Guillaume’s exploitation of intertextuality. The White Stag adventure with which Fergus (in imitation of both Erec and the Second Continuation of Perceval)24 then gets underway is a ‘false start’, a sort of préaventure, which, as unequivocally as the details drawn from Yvain, establishes

23 24

See Ph. Walter, La Mémoire du temps: fêtes et calendriers de Chrétien de Troyes à ‘La Mort Artu’ (Paris and Geneva, 1989), pp. 269–74; 489–92; 652–53. See Erec lines 36 ff., and The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. William Roach, 5 vols. (Philadelphia, 1949–83), vol. 4: The Second Continuation, sections 4–5, lines 20263–316: translated in Owen, Fergus, pp. 130–31.

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detailed knowledge of the works of Chrétien de Troyes as a prerequisite of the audience’s entrée en jeu, a constitutive element of its evolving ‘horizon d’attente’, and a conspicuous factor in its appreciation of intertextual resonance. Arthur’s holding court at Cardigan in Erec (line 28, cf. Fergus line 2) prompts Chrétien’s narrator to list those who join the assembly to listen to the king’s deliberations on the hunt of the White Stag. The attendance list already becomes the subject of a humorous variation by Guillaume who loses no time in showing the narrator flexing his muscles as he first declares that there are at the king’s court many knights whom he could easily name ‘se entremetre m’en voloie’ (line 6: ‘if I wished to take the trouble’), but a few lines later aborts the list he started with the excuse ‘et maint autre que je ne sai/ Nomer, que pas apris ne l’ai’ (lines 17–18: ‘and many another whose names I cannot give because I have not learnt them’). This move from ‘will not’ to ‘can not’ is a caveat aimed at an audience which must be on its toes throughout in what emerges as a sort of literary hide-and-seek. In fact, the White Stag adventure, for all its excitement, leads nowhere. It simply serves two functions: to introduce the figure of Perceval, not yet a member of Arthur’s court, and to indicate to the audience the importance of Chrétien’s romances which, en filigrane, are so crucial to the appreciation of the author’s project of metabiosis. In addition, the joy of the hunt is transformed into a dysphoric narrative which graphically interweaves the huntsmen’s disappointment, the stag’s distress, the matter-of-fact conduct of Perceval who ‘captures’ it by the mere fact of finding the stag dead (lines 233–34), and the narrator’s ironic comment on the drowning beast ‘Or puet il boire s’il a soi!’ (line 216: ‘Now it can drink, if it is thirsty!’). With the introduction of Perceval, the romance begins all over again. Having ‘taken’ the White Stag Perceval receives a golden cup (‘coupe doree’) which he presents to Gawain in a manner reminiscent of the way in which Cligès presents his. In this section (lines 281–627) allusions to the Perceval abound,25 but they are all given a humorous twist so that the audience realizes that the author is engaged in a literary contest of wits and not mere slavish imitation of an acknowledged master. Whilst Chrétien’s Perceval is the youngest of three sons of an impoverished and then deceased knight, in Fergus he is the eldest of three offspring of a paradoxically wealthy vilain (‘rice villain Soumeillet’, line 353),26 boorish, but married and obedient to a woman of noble stock on account of which she tells him it is not surprising that their son has set his heart on a life of prowess: ‘Car il a maint bon chevalier/ En son lingnage de par moi./ Si i retrait, si com je croi’ (lines 499–501: ‘For he has many fine knights in his family on my side. So it’s my belief he is taking after them’). These details reverse the situation depicted in Chrétien, yet the mother displays similar grief at her son’s departure in both poets. Guillaume can still have a dig at Chrétien, for, whilst emphasizing

25 26

Carefully noted by Owen throughout his translation. In Appendix A he translates relevant passages from the two Perceval Continuations. The name is usually taken as a transformation of Somerled, lord of the Isles (i.e. the Hebrides; Perceval’s parents came from the ‘illes de mer’), who was a Scottish chieftain who was frequently at war with the king of Scotland, but this appears to have no special significance in the romance where Fergus’s father has no special role to play.

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the prosperity of the family, the nobility of the mother, and the handsome physique of the sons, he adds: ‘Se il fuissent fil a un roi,/ Si fuissent il molt biel, je croi,/ Et chevalier peüssent estre’ (lines 331–33: ‘Had they been a king’s sons, they would have looked the part well, I think, and might easily have been knights’) – Chrétien’s heroes are usually of royal blood! After the multiple reminiscences of Yvain, Erec and Perceval and their creative manipulation, Guillaume duly turns his attention to Cligès which inspires the love dialectic of Galiene’s monologue at lines 1806 ff.,27 with its regular interrogative reprise of a key word as part of the argument: ‘Ohi Fergus, bel amis ch[i]er! Amis? Fole, ke ai je dit? (lines 1806–7) Ja nel savra se ne li di. Jel die? Or ai dit folage (lines 1834–35) Mes pere me veut marïer A un roi, qui riches hom est, Plus biel, espoir, que cis nen est. Plus biel? Or ai ge dit folie (lines 1842–45) Jamais ne m’ameroit, je cuit. Amer? Ne tant ne quant ne m’aimme.’ (lines 1850–51) (‘Oh Fergus, my dear handsome love! – My love? Fool that I am, what have I said? . . . He will never know unless I tell him. – Tell him? Now I’ve said something foolish . . . My father wants to marry me to a king, a powerful man and perhaps a more handsome one than this. – More handsome? Now I’ve spoken nonsense . . . I’m sure he would definitely not love me. – Love? He doesn’t love me in the least.’)

The style is unmistakably that of courtly ratiocinatio, in the manner of Soredamors: Ensi la pucele travaille. (cf. Cligès, line 881) Primes se[n]glout et puis baaille; (Cligès, lines 882–83) Dejete soi et puis tresaut, (Cligès, line 879) A poi que li cuers ne li faut. (Cligès, line 880) Un[e] eure dist, [l’]autre desdit; Un[e] eure pleure, l’autre rit. Puis torne son lit a rebors; Itel sont li cembiel d’amors. (lines 1871–78) (Such is the maiden’s suffering. First she sobs, then she yawns; she tosses and turns, then gives a start and almost loses consciousness. At one moment she says something, at the next denies it, now weeping, now laughing. Then she turns her bed upside down, so violent are the joustings of love.)

27

The other great rhetorical debate is provided by Galiene in lines 5658 ff.

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Guillaume has now produced sequences of motifs drawn from four of Chrétien’s romances.28 Thereafter such motifs pullulate, as Owen records in his translation. In Fergus a hospitable royal chamberlain plays the role of Gornemant de Gohort (lines 1110 ff.); Kay and the jester imitate their parts in Perceval (lines 1463 ff.); Galiene’s approach to Fergus (lines 1890 ff.) imitates Blancheflor’s nocturnal visit to Perceval’s bed; the inanimate guardian of a chapel (lines 2129 ff.) is inspired by the Second Continuation, as are the white lion and the horn and wimple; the year-long wanderings of Fergus in a wild state (lines 2806 ff. and 3655 ff.) are suggested by the case of Yvain; the knight in the tent episode comes largely from the Second Continuation; Fergus’s encounter with fifteen feasting robbers (lines 3243 ff.) travesties an episode in the First Continuation; the siege of Roxburgh (lines 4412 ff.) is inspired by that of Belrepeire in Perceval; the fight with the giant (lines 4523 ff.) evokes the example of Harpin de la Montaigne in Yvain;29 Galiene’s rash promise to find a champion (lines 5258 ff.) recalls a similar action by Lunete (Yvain); the resulting mission of her maiden Arondele (lines 5339 ff.) reflects the quest of the damoisele who seeks help for the younger sister of Noire Espine in Yvain; Galiene’s near suicide attempt (lines 5768 ff.) recalls a similar temptation of Enide; the arrival of the besieging king at Arthur’s court (lines 6149 ff.) is modelled on Clamadeu’s surrender at the royal court in Perceval; Galiene’s consultation of her barons (lines 6344 ff.) with a view to finding a husband who will defend her lands is an obvious reminiscence of Laudine in Yvain.30 These features, and many more, reveal the density of Guillaume’s borrowing and the close patterning of the resulting mosaic in which the tessara form new and inventive combinations whilst clearly displaying their origins. Fergus is quite evidently a literary pastiche, but it is not merely a pastiche. Guillaume is an author of marked, one might fittingly say in a Scottish context pawky, individuality and this emerges not only in a significant difference of texture from that of his predecessor as a result of his attention to psychological detail, but also in a comic reslanting of inherited motifs in a spirit which announces ‘this is only literature, after all’. The following may serve as two illustrations of humorous individuality, which may be designed to represent a Scottish ‘down-to-earthness’ in contrast to an idealizing French fashion. Fergus taunts the Black Knight after his lance has split: ‘Dius vos salt, sire chevalier! Mastier aviés [or] de saingnier; Jel voi molt bien a vostre sanc Qui pert deseur cel hauberc blanc. Il sainne trop; gardes vos, viaus! 28 29

30

Borrowings from the Lancelot are rare, see Marquardt, pp. 40–42. Cf. Fergus lines 4640–41: ‘Ne fesist mie tel escrois/ Uns cainnes se il fust versés’ (‘Had an oak tree been toppled, it would not have made such a crash’), and Yvain lines 4239–40: ‘Et se uns grans chaisnes cheïst,/ Ne cuit gregnor escrois feïst’ (‘Were a great oak tree to fall, I think it would make no louder crash’). Cf. Fergus lines 6366–67: ‘Se cascuns li contredesist,/ Si alast ele malgré lor’ (‘If they had each opposed her, she would still have gone despite them’), and Yvain lines 2113–14: ‘Otroie ce qu’elle feïst/ Ce chascun li contredeïst’ (‘She agrees to what she would have done even if everyone opposed her’).

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Car li sainnieres est nouvials, Si ne sot pas coissir la vaine. Je criem que vos n’en aiés painne Et dolor de ceste sainnie. Je cuic que vainne i a trenchie; S’eüssiés mestier d’estancier.’ (lines 2401–11)31 (‘God save you, sir knight! Now you’re in need of a bleeding, as is very clear to me from the sight of your blood on that shining hauberk. It’s flowing too freely: do at least be careful! For the blood-letter’s a novice and didn’t know how to pick the right vein. I’m afraid you may have some trouble and pain from this blood-letting: I think a vein’s been severed, and you really need to have it staunched.’)

The sarcasm falls on deaf ears, for ‘Li chevaliers ne prisse un gant/ Quantques Fergus li vait dissant’ (lines 2417–18: ‘The knight does not think all of Fergus’ talk worth a glove’). So much for ‘down-to-earthness’! In combat with the tent knight, who is also bleeding, Fergus observes: ‘Foi que do[i] cele clere lune,/ Orendroit resanblés Fortune,/ Qui ens el front [est] chavelue,/ El haterel deriere nue’ (lines 3041–44: ‘By the faith I owe that bright moon, now you look like Fortune, who has hair on the front of her head, but is bald at the back’; cf. Perceval lines 4578–79)32 only to meet with the retort: ‘Tels en est or[e] la maniere’ (line 3048: ‘That’s the current fashion’). The arrow of love is also given an eccentrically ‘down-to-earth’ treatment by being portrayed as a crossbow bolt. This at once provokes the figure of anteoccupatio (anticipation of an objection): Amors l’aperçoit et coissist; Durement s’atorne et apreste. Met un quarriel en s’arbaleste, Arbaleste di je a troul. La pucele fiert parmi l’eul D’un quarriel . . . ... Mais se de ço nus me reprent Que j’aie mesdit ne mesfait Por ço que di que Amors trait

31 32

Gravdal, pp. 45 ff., notes comparable bloodletting jokes in the Roman de Renart. Fortune, a common motif in the romances, may have considerable importance for the interpretation of the protagonist’s activities. In the whole of Chrétien there are no more than half a dozen examples, including a particularly interesting case in Erec which leaves the reader uncertain whether God and Fortune are in unison or not: see T. Hunt, ‘The Christianization of Fortune’, Nottingham French Studies 38 (1999), 95–113 (pp. 97–98). A beneficent Fortune leads Fergus to the magic fountain (lines 3690–96) and henceforward he relies on her (lines 3924–26), following her lead (lines 4056–65), but it is God who saves him in his fight against the dragon (lines 4276–78) and specifically in conjunction with Fortune: ‘Mais petit i eüst duree/ Fergus contre le satanas,/ Fors por ce que Dius ne vaut pas,/ Et fortune qui garandist/ Que li jaians [ne] l’ocesist’ (lines 4538–42: ‘Yet Fergus would not have lasted long against that demon were it not for God not wishing the giant to kill him and Fortune protecting him’). Frescoln never uses the capital letter. See M.-L. Chênerie, Le Chevalier errant dans les romans arthuriens en vers des XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Geneva, 1986), p. 234.

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D’arbaleste ne d’arc manier, J’en proverai aucun cuidier Que on le devra creanter; Amors fait son quarriel passer La u il veut tot a droiture. ... Mais tant i a, ses dars est tels Que la pointe n’est pas mortels; Cil qui en traient les haschies N’en ont pas les vainnes trenchies. (lines 1646–70) (Love notices and keeps his eye on her. He busily prepares and makes ready, then fits a bolt to his crossbow (a crossbow with a windlass, that is). He hits the maiden right in the eye with a bolt . . . But if anybody accuses me of having said or done anything wrong by claiming that Love shoots with a crossbow and not a long-bow, I shall justify such a belief, for it is worthy of credit. Love makes his bolt pass directly wherever he wishes . . . But at least his missile is such that it does not inflict a mortal wound; the veins of those who suffer its agony are not severed by it.)

There is an equally aberrant account of Fergus’s breaking in a horse with an apple-wood stick: Fergus trove un fust de pumier Gisant a ses piés, si le prent. Vers le ceval vient erranment, Si l’a si fort el front feru Que il l’abat tot estendu; Fiert et refiert sor les costés. Ainc mius chevals ne fu matés Com Fergus a cestui donté Del baston de pumier quarré. Li cevals se jut longement. Par les regnes qui sont d’argent Le saissist Fergus et il saut; Mais il nel trova pas si baut Com il avoit devante esté, Si bien l’avoit il ja donté. Fergus le vit si prent a dire Et en son cuer molt fort a rire: ‘On doit avant felon donter Qu’il ait p[o]oir de reveler’. Li chevaus s’escost et hennist. (lines 4710–29) (Fergus finds an apple-wood stick lying at his feet and picks it up. Going straight to the horse, he hits it so hard on the forehead that he knocks it flat. He strikes it again and again on the flanks: never was a horse better broken in than this one was tamed by Fergus with that massive applewood stick! The horse remained lying down for a long time. Fergus took hold of it by the reins, which were of silver, and up it jumped. But he did not find it as frisky as it had been before, so well indeed had he tamed it.

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Seeing that, Fergus remarks, having a good laugh to himself: ‘It’s best to tame a rogue before he has the ability to rebel.’ The horse gave a prance and a neigh.)

Guillaume can also find a nice turn of phrase for everyday events. The friendship of Gauvain and Fergus is reaffirmed at the end in a prolonged embrace causing the narrator to remark: ‘Bien quatre trais a un arcier/ Peüst on aler tot le pas/ Ains que de baissier fuissent las’ (lines 6816–18: ‘You could have walked slowly for a good four bowshots before they tired of their kissing’). Who but Guillaume would find room in a description of wedding and coronation festivities for the detail ‘Durement fument ces cuisines’ (line 6950: ‘Smoke is seen pouring out of the kitchens’). In conversation with his host at Liddel Castle Fergus has his mind on Galiene, whilst the host is thinking of the forthcoming combat and the Black Knight, so that there is a delicate hint of their being at cross purposes: ‘Li ostes d’un, cil respont d’el’ (line 2628: ‘The host speaking of one thing, he replying at cross-purposes’). As a final illustration of Guillaume’s creative independence as well as of his creative borrowing, we may give a few instances of the adjustments he brings to his models through attention to psychological detail. Before the speechless (because inanimate) churl at Nouquetran Fergus almost goes out of his mind with both fear and anger at what he considers to be the churl’s contemptuous impassivity, comically increasing his frenzied assault – ‘Et li vilains ne se remuet’ (line 2214: ‘And the churl does not budge’). The narrator reveals Fergus’s human foibles by explaining his vulnerability (to shame): Lors honte en a, si se repent De ço qu’a batu si viument Cose qui ne se puet movoir. Il ne vauroit por nul avoir Qu’a la cort le roi fust seüe; Ce serroit grans desconneüe. Ja, s’il puet, n’en oront noviele. (lines 2215–21) (Then he is ashamed and sorry to have struck so violently something that cannot move. He would not at any price want that to become known at the royal court: it would be a great scandal. They will never get to hear of it, if he can help it.)

In the combat between Fergus and the Black Knight when the latter’s sword snaps, the narrator explains the thoughts and calculations that pass through both men’s minds (lines 2443 ff.), just as he describes the tent knight’s hope of mercy (lines 3063 ff.), the fleeing robber’s fear of further blows (lines 3160 ff.) in an incident which recalls Yvain’s combat with Esclados, and the besieging king’s apprehension on his defeat by Fergus (lines 5954 ff.). Then on the other side we are given insights into Fergus’s own emotions as he enters the boat crewed by robbers (lines 3986 ff.), attacks the dragon at Dunnottar (lines 4239 ff.) or fights with the giant (lines 4556 ff.). Memorably expressed are the lively exchanges between the fifteen feasting robbers and Fergus (lines 3316 ff.) and the wonderful trading

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of insults between Arthofilaus and Galiene, who gives the former a clear message for his lord: . . . ‘Vasal, mangié avés U vos beüstes a enjun Mon ensïent, vos estes l’un Des [trois] mesages Wasselin. Mal ait qui vos donna le vin Dont vos estes si enivrés. En’ estes vos acoustumés Que vins fust a si grant marchié? Certes i[l] fist molt grant pechié Li rois qui ça vos envoia Qu’ançois dormir ne vos laissa. Alés vos un poi reposer; Puis si vos revenrés fabler De vos novieles par amor, Conment est a vostre signor. Ce cuic jo que il set piecha Nonbrer quantes chevilles a Ens es portes de cest manoir. Par grant loissir le puet savoir Et conter s’il i velt muser. Bien li doins congié de penser Et de raler quant il vaura; Ja mar por moi i remanra.’ (lines 5216–38) (‘Vassal, you’ve eaten or drunk on an empty stomach. I fancy you’re one of Wasselin’s three messengers.33 A curse on whoever gave you the wine that’s made you so drunk! Aren’t you used to wine being so cheap, then? Indeed, it was very wrong of that king who sent you here not to have let you sleep instead. Go and rest a little; and then you’ll be good enough to come back to spin us some of your yarns! How is your lord? I think he’s been able to tell for some time how many bolts there are in the gates of this residence. He has plenty of opportunity to know, and count them if he wishes, to while away his time. I gladly give him my leave to think about it, and to go back when he wants to. He has no need to stop on my account.’)

Finally, the careful notation of psychological detail and the verbal virtuosity of the tirade are combined in the attention Guillaume gives to the Kay-jester-hero complex. Kay’s contemptuous greeting of Fergus when he first comes to Arthur’s court (lines 749–93) earns him a sharp reproof from Gawain, followed by a comment from the narrator: ‘Mesire Kes de honte alume,/ Mais n’en ose sanblant mostrer/ Por ço qu’il se crient de meller/ A monsignor Gavain le sage./ S’ire a celee en son chorage’ (lines 812–16: ‘My lord Kay burns with shame but does not dare to let it show for fear of crossing my wise lord Gawain. He hid his anger and kept it to himself’). Similarly, Arthur later criticizes the seneschal for depriving him of

33

Owen acknowledges that ‘The reference to Wasselin and his messengers is obscure’ (Fergus, p. 126).

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Fergus, the jester predicts that Kay will suffer for his behaviour, and the narrator once more explains: ‘Mesire Kes por poi n’esrage/ S’on ne li tornast a viutage,/ Tout eüst le sot defroissié/ Et ens enmi le feu lancié,/ Mais por honte le laisse atant,/ Onques n’en vaut faire sanblant’ (lines 1477–82: ‘My lord Kay goes almost beside himself with rage. Had it not been for the shame he would have incurred, he would have given the jester a sound drubbing and hurled him right into the fire. However, for the shame of it he leaves him on this occasion, not wanting to let his feelings show’). In response to a later piece of sarcasm from Kay, Gawain tells him: ‘Vous parlés trop pour gent deduire. Vous par estes tant fort jaingleres; Se m’en creoit li enpereres, Tos jors mais vïele averiés. Sevials non, si l’en serviriés, Quant Mesire[s] sa cort tenroit, Et cascuns de nos vos donroit Cape u mantiel por vo service.’ (lines 3434–41) (‘You talk too much just to amuse people, terrible tattler that you are. If the Emperor took my advice, you’d always carry a fiddle from now on: at least you’d serve him with that when my lord held his court. Then each of us would give you a cloak or mantle for your service!’)

Arthur is also subject to analysis, when in the absence of Fergus, he again feels anger towards Kay: Li rois a dol et grant pesance, Et nel tenist on a enfance, Ja endroit se mellast a Koi, Qui par outrage et par desroi Li a le plus vaillant tolut, Qui ainc baillast armes n’escut. Mais por ce ne se veut meller, Quar moult doutot a vilener; A painnes s’en est retenus. (lines 3621–29) (The king is very sad and dejected, and, but for the fear of being thought childish, he would there and then have tackled Kay who, by his outrageously scurrilous talk, has robbed him of the most gallant man who ever bore arms or shield. He did not, however, want to start a quarrel, since he was very afraid of behaving unworthily; so with difficulty he restrained himself.)

Arthur may sometimes be conciliatory, but in the next dispute rebukes Kay (lines 6235 ff.) for his throwing a knife at the jester, but Kay takes no notice. To round off the treatment of this sub theme, Fergus delivers a wonderfully mocking tirade after finally defeating Kay and knocking him into the marsh: ‘Or puet li rois bien tornoier; A plenté ara a mangier,

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Au soir poisson se vos pöés. Ne puet estre mal conreés Nus hom qui ait tel connestable. De vostre brongne avés fait sable*. [Chantilly MS ⫽ nasse] Mervelles estes envoissiés; Bien sai que pas ne volïés Que l’anguille passast la maille. Quanqu’avés fait, metés en taille Que riens n’i remaingne aprés vos. Vos par estes trop couvoitos Qui en tot prendre metés cure; Mes sevials non a noreture En deverïés vos laissier, Quant uns autres vauroit peschi[e]r, Qu’aucune cose i puist trover.’ (lines 6467–83) (‘Now the king can carry on with the tournament. He’ll have plenty of fish to eat this evening, if you can manage it! No man with such a steward can be badly provided for. You’ve made an eel-trap with your byrnie! It’s a wonderful time you’re having! I know you didn’t want the eel to get through the mesh. Keep a reckoning of whatever you’ve caught, and don’t let there be anything left when you’ve finished. You’re extremely greedy in your anxiety to take everything, but you should leave at least some food, so that when somebody else wants to fish he’ll be able to find something.’)

Here the seneschal gets his verbal come-uppance for his malicious tongue. On one level Fergus is a composite rewriting of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes cast in the mould of Perceval and its Continuations. In addition it reflects a variety of Old French stylistic traditions.34 The inherited motifs35 are inflected with a quizzical zest. There seems little doubt of this in Fergus. Guillaume remains a most striking witness to the reception of Chrétien within half a century after his death, to the creative possibilities of re-writing, and to the power of Scotland to command the imaginative adherence of an intelligent and entertaining writer.

34

35

Other literary allusions exist: to Roland lines 898 and 5324: ‘sens vaut molt mius quë estoutie’ (‘common sense is far better than recklessness’), with various examples of epic diction (as in Chrétien): ‘Or li estuet que mire qui[e]re!’ (line 3028: ‘Now he will need to look for a doctor!’), ‘N’eüst jamais mestier de mire’ (line 4158: ‘He would never have had any use for a doctor’), including the sort of epic irony expressed in Fergus’s comment on his killing Arthofilaus: ‘Jo li ai commandés les prés;/ Jo l’en ai fait garde et messier’ (lines 5938–39: ‘I’ve put him in charge of the fields and made him guardian of them and their crops’). Fergus also demonstrates a powerful punch which recalls that for which Guillaume d’Orange, in the epics associated with him, is famous (line 4657). Then there is the conferral of names on horses, a traditional epic device. Allusions to Tristan include his slaying of the dragon (line 4216) and, concerning Galiene’s temptation to throw herself off the tower, an implicit allusion (lines 5751–54) to the effect of the wind in his clothes when Tristan leaps from the chapel in Beroul’s Tristran (lines 945 ff.) and Governal’s hanging up the head of his slain victim also in Beroul (lines 1735 ff.). On conventional elements such as the crossroads, the hospitable host, the Nature topos (applied to both Fergus and Galiene), the Spring topos, Love’s revenge etc., see Ph. Ménard, Le Rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au moyen âge (1150–1250), (Paris, 1969) and Chênerie, Le Chevalier errant. Proverbs are found at lines 1761–62, line 1775, lines 2671–75, lines 2680–82, line 3288.

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Lancelot of the Laik: Sources, Genre, Reception ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

Tony Edwards has recently discussed at some length the problem of Middle Scots romance: is there such a thing, and how should it be defined?1 As he points out, it seems to have developed fairly late in the Middle Ages, and was obviously influenced by both English and French romances. There is considerable evidence for the circulation of the French Arthurian prose cycles in late medieval England; we do not have comparable evidence for Scotland, but presumably they were well known there too, given the close contacts with France.2 Lancelot of the Laik is closely based on a French prose source (as is the non-Arthurian Clariodus, though its Scots author also used an English version).3 The LL poet clearly assumes that his readers both know and care a good deal about the Arthurian world. There were certainly other Arthurian romances circulating in Scotland. Golagros and Gawane represents what may well have been a larger body of Scottish Gawain romances, since Gawain was ‘a home-town boy made good’, as Martin Schichtman puts it.4 Wyntoun’s Chronicle names Huchon of the

1 2

3

4

A. S. G. Edwards, ‘Contextualising Middle Scots Romance’, in A Palace in the Wild, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen, A. A. Macdonald and S. L. Mapstone (Leuven, 2000), pp. 61–73. On the French cycles in England see Helen Cooper, ‘The Cycle in England: Malory and his Predecessors’, in A Companion to the Vulgate Cycle, ed. Carol Dover (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 147–62 and in the same volume, Roger Middleton, ‘Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales: Some Books and Their Owners’, pp. 219–35 and Elizabeth Archibald, ‘Lancelot as Lover in the English Tradition before Malory’, in Arthurian Textual Studies in Honour of P.J.C. Field, ed. Bonnie Wheeler (Cambridge, 2004) pp. 199–216. On the circulation of French and English books in Scotland see Priscilla Bawcutt, ‘English Books and Scottish Readers in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, Review of Scottish Culture 14 (2001–2), 1–12 (pp. 8–9), and David Ditchburn, ‘The Cultural Bonds’, ch. 3 of Scotland and Europe: The Medieval Kingdom and its Contacts with Christendom, c. 1245–1545, Vol. 1: Religion, Culture and Commerce (East Linton, 2000), pp. 93–137 (p. 125). As Edwards points out (‘Contextualizing’, p. 69), there has been no updating of Janet M. Smith’s seminal study The French Background of Middle Scots Literature (Edinburgh, 1934). All references to Lancelot of the Laik (abbreviated hereafter as LL) are taken from the normalized edition of Alan Lupack, Lancelot of the Laik and Sir Tristrem, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo, 1994); I have also consulted the editions of W. W. Skeat, EETS OS 6 (London, 1865; 2nd edn, 1870; rpt. 1965), and Margaret M. Gray, STS New Series 2 (Edinburgh and London, 1912). The poet shows some tendency to use English forms; it is described as ‘an English poem’ in the seventeenth-century manuscript in which it is preserved. On Clariodus see Rhiannon Purdie, ‘Clariodus and the Ambitions of Courtly Romance in Later Medieval Scotland’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 38.4 (2002), 449–61. Martin Schichtman, ‘Sir Gawain in Scotland: A Hometown Boy Made Good’, in King Arthur through the Ages, ed. Valerie Lagorio and Mildred Leake Day, 2 vols. (London, 1990), II, 234–47.

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Aule Realle as the author of ‘a gret Gest of Arthure’ and ‘the Awntyr of Gawane’.5 The Complaynt of Scotland includes an allusion to a ‘lancelot du lac’ (this could be in French, Scots or English), and a mysterious ballad-like couplet of unknown origin about ‘Arthour knycht’.6 It is curious, as Edwards notes, that there are no Scottish prose romances: ‘French sources are largely accommodated into older, predominantly English literary models in ways that underscore the cautiously derivative nature of the Scottish form.’7 Lancelot of the Laik is indeed closely derived from its French prose source, yet it manages to seem quite different in both content and intention, in part because of its English models. It does not strike me as cautious; though certainly derivative, it is also rather eccentric. It has attracted a good deal of negative critical comment. Margaret M. Gray remarks in the introduction to her edition: ‘It must be admitted that of all the Scottish writers who admired and imitated Chaucer, none have succeeded in producing such colourless and characterless results as are found in Lancelot and the Quare of Jelusy . . .’.8 According to Helaine Newstead, the main failing of the poem is ‘the unsuccessful attempt to combine politics with the love story of Lancelot and Guenevere’.9 It cannot be denied that LL has its longueurs, yet it raises interesting questions about Scottish culture and the Arthurian legend in terms of its sources, genre and reception. The plot is a fairly close rendering of an episode in the thirteenth-century noncyclic Prose Lancelot concerning the war between Arthur and the French prince Galiot (Galehaut), and the development of the love affair of Lancelot and Guenevere.10 The only extant copy of the poem, probably made about 1490, is incomplete, and ends in mid-sentence in Book III; it is estimated that the original

5

6

7 8 9

10

The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun, ed. F. J. Amours, STS First Series 50, 53, 54, 56, 57 and 63, 6 vols. (Edinburgh, 1902–14), IV, 23 (lines 4310–12). Edwards notes Priscilla Bawcutt’s reminder that there is no evidence that Huchon was a Scot (‘Contextualizing’, p. 63, n. 17), but these texts were evidently known in Scotland. See Edwards, ‘Contextualizing’, pp. 63 and 65; The Complaynt of Scotland, ed. James A. H. Murray, EETS ES 17 (London, 1872), pp. 63–4, and the more recent edition by A. M. Stewart, STS Fourth Series, 11 (Edinburgh, 1979), p. 50. Edwards, ‘Contextualizing’, p. 69. Purdie notes that ‘prose came relatively late to Scotland, and prose romance seems never to have arrived at all’ (‘Clariodus’, pp. 451–2). Gray, p. xxxvi. Helaine Newstead, ‘Arthurian Legends’, in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500, gen. ed. J. Burke Severs and Albert E. Hartung, 10 vols. (New Haven, 1967–98), I, 38–79 (pp. 50–1). For recent commentary on the poem, see Flora Alexander in The Arthur of the English, ed. W. R. J. Barron (Cardiff, 1999), pp. 146–50, and, for a more enthusiastic reading and an interesting comparison with Malory, Sally Mapstone, ‘The Scots, the French, and the English: An Arthurian Episode’, in The European Sun: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature, ed. G. Caie, R. J. Lyall, S. Mapstone and K. Simpson (East Linton, 2001), pp. 129–44. See also Mapstone’s brief discussion of LL in ‘Kingship and the Kingis Quair’, in The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for Douglas Gray, ed. Helen Cooper and Sally Mapstone (Oxford, 1997), pp. 51–69 (pp. 60–62). Lancelot do Lac, The Non-Cyclic Old French Prose Romance, ed. Elspeth Kennedy, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1980), I, 275–319, trans. Corin Corley in Lancelot of the Lake (Oxford, 1989), pp. 226–85; see also Kennedy, Lancelot and the Grail: A Study of the Prose Lancelot (Oxford, 1986). There are significant differences in the version of this episode in the Vulgate Cycle version: see Lancelot: roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, ed. A. Micha, 9 vols. (Paris, 1978–83), VII and VIII.

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may have been up to a third longer (about 3000 lines – perhaps it even ran to five books, like Chaucer’s Troilus, and also Clariodus). In Book I, Arthur is at Carlisle, where he has disturbing dreams. He rejects a demand for tribute from Galiot. Gawain distinguishes himself in the ensuing battle. Lancelot is imprisoned by the Lady of Melyhalt, who allows him out to fight in red armour against Galiot’s army. Unimpressed by Arthur’s forces, Galiot arranges a year’s truce. Lancelot returns to Melyhalt, where the Lady admires him as he sleeps. In Book II Arthur is lectured at length on good kingship and good government by his elderly adviser Amytans, who also interprets his dreams. Lancelot refuses to tell the Lady his name; eventually she agrees to release him to fight, this time armed in black. In Book III, Gawain is wounded in battle. When Lancelot arrives incognito to fight, the Lady of Melyhalt recommends that the court ladies send him an encouraging message, but the queen refuses to be included. Lancelot is clearly unhappy, but fights well. On Gawain’s advice the queen sends him a message of praise; he is inspired and fights even better, winning Galiot’s admiration. The poem breaks off as Gawain and Galiot are urging on their respective forces. It is clear from the Prologue that the poem was intended to end with a meeting between Lancelot and the queen, and the declaration of their love, as described in the source. The Scottish poet’s decision to translate this particular section of the Prose Lancelot is surprising.11 There is no other Arthurian text in English or Scots dealing with the exploits of the young Lancelot and the early stages of his love for the queen. The two extant English texts that focus on Lancelot, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur (c. 1400) and Malory, both deal with his death and the fall of Camelot, and both are based on the Vulgate Cycle, not the non-cyclic Lancelot.12 Malory does tell much of the earlier history of Arthur and his knights, but although Lancelot is his main hero, he does not choose to use all the stories available in French about his birth, his stay under the lake with the fairy, and – most importantly – the beginning of his affair with Guenevere.13 As far as we know, no earlier English writer had described any of this either. It has been argued that English readers in the later Middle Ages did not approve of romances of adultery, and either knew little of Lancelot, or did not care to hear too much about him.14 Perhaps the LL poet wanted to fill this gap; Scottish readers

11 12

13

14

I am assuming that it was his (or her) decision, though there could have been an English source, as was probably the case with Clariodus. King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morte Arthure and Alliterative Morte Arthure, ed. L. D. Benson, rev. Edward E. Foster, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo, 1994); for discussion see The Arthur of the English, pp. 100–11. Malory, Works, ed. E. Vinaver, 3rd edn, rev. P. J. C. Field, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1990); references will be given by page and line number (pagination is continuous through the three volumes). Both writers seem to assume that their readers know something of Lancelot and his love for Guenevere; see Archibald, ‘Lancelot as Lover’. At the beginning of the ‘Tale of Sir Lancelot’, he gives a terse and tantalizing summary of the situation (253/15–19): Lancelot is Top Knight, therefore the queen loves him, and so he performs great deeds for her. The first kiss is illustrated in a number of French Lancelot manuscripts, and the Vulgate account of it famously inspired the fatal love of Dante’s Paolo and Francesca (Inferno, V, 127–38). See Cooper, ‘The Cycle in England’, p. 153, and Archibald, ‘Lancelot as Lover’.

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might have been less disturbed by the cuckolding of Arthur, since his reputation in Scotland was somewhat ambivalent.15 An explanation for the choice of topic is given in the elaborate Prologue, though it also raises further questions. The Prologue is drawn from a very different literary world, that of the Chaucerian dream vision. The narrator describes how on a May morning he wandered out into a garden, lamenting his suffering in love (1–80). He sees a flower which is Alceste (this recalls Chaucer’s Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, though the daisy motif was used by other writers too).16 In LL as in the Legend, the daisy heralds criticism from Cupid of the narrator’s despair and blasphemies, administered this time by a green bird (lines 81–156). The bird frequently sounds like Pandarus, pointing out first that the narrator’s lady knows nothing of his pain, and so cannot cure him (lines 99–106; see Troilus I, 806–12), and then, more encouragingly, that all ladies give in eventually to worthy lovers who serve them sincerely (lines 127–34; Troilus I, 981–7). The God’s advice is that if the lover cannot declare his love in speech, he should write his ‘plant’ [complaint] in verse (lines 135–40), and attach ‘sum trety’, some unfamiliar narrative about love or arms or anything reminiscent of his lady, something ‘Qwich soundith not oneto no hevyness/ Bot oneto gladness and to lusteness’, and which will please her (lines 142–53). With some anxiety the poet decides to accept this advice, regardless of possible criticism of his ‘febil negligens’ (line 179, expanded in the following lines). Chaucer’s narrators do claim to be incompetent, but they do not usually spell out their inadequacies quite so frankly. They also tend to describe themselves as incompetent lovers, unlike this poet, though he submits himself to ‘the correccioune/ Of thaim the quhich that is discret and wyss/ And enterit is of Love in the service’ (lines 184–6). This recalls the beginning of Troilus where the narrator refers several times to Love’s servants (I, 15 and 48), and appeals to those who are happy in love to pray for those who are unlucky (I, 29–46).17 The next thing for the narrator to do is to find ‘sum wnkouth mater’ (line 197). He chooses something he had seen before which includes both love and arms: ‘Was of o knycht clepit Lancelot of the Laik,/ The sone of Bane was, King of Albanak,/ Of quhois fame and worschipful dedis/ Clerkis into diverss bukis redis . . .’ (lines 201–4). There follows a very long passage of occupatio in which the poet lists all the parts of Lancelot’s story that he will not recount: his birth, the death of his parents, his raising by the Lady of the Lake, how he became a knight though no one knew his name, how he entered Love’s service because of Guenevere, and many further adventures. Finally (line 299) he comes to the episode he will recount: Arthur’s wars against Galiot, Lancelot’s part both in the fighting and in reconciling the two princes, and his reward, his lady’s favour. The Prologue ends with an enigmatic appeal to the unnamed ‘most compilour’

15 16 17

On attitudes to Arthur see Flora Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Scottish Attitudes to the Figure of King Arthur: A Reassessment’, Anglia 93 (1975), 17–34. All references to Chaucer are to the Riverside Chaucer, ed. L. D. Benson (Oxford, 1987). There are further echoes of Chaucer in the main text. For instance, the queen, like Pertelote, tells the king to pay no attention to his dream; in the French source her comment is indirect, but in the Scots poem we actually hear her speak (lines 381–2).

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and ‘Flour of poetis’ not to mock his rhymes (lines 318–31). Though this poet is said to write in Latin, Chaucer seems a more appropriate candidate than Ovid or Virgil; unlike them, he used rhyme, and the final lines of the LL Prologue (lines 333–4) echo Troilus I, 19–21. This encomium to an unnamed poet seems excessive, and inappropriate to the romance that follows. Is it a Chaucerian tease? The Prologue is certainly a long preamble of a tale, to quote Chaucer’s Friar, and it is most unusual for an Arthurian romance. A parallel has been noted in the prologue to the Avowis of Alexander, the second part of the Buik of Alexander, which begins with a May morning when the poet is suffering from unrequited love.18 The Avowis prologue is very brief, though, and the translation exercise is to be therapy for the poet, rather than a way of winning over his lady. The LL prologue shows that the poet knew Chaucer well, but it is also reminiscent of Boccaccio’s frame to the Filostrato, the source of Chaucer’s Troilus: Boccaccio tells the story of Troilus to remind his absent lady of his pain at their separation. This seems inauspicious, since Troilus’ love affair ends so badly – he never sees Criseyde again after her departure. Telling a story of Lancelot and Guenevere is also problematic for the Scots poet: even though he says that he will end with Lancelot’s reward for his prowess, in the form of the queen’s love, this can hardly be described without some awareness of the unhappy end of the affair, and its disastrous effects.19 Helen Cooper speculates that LL would have ended with the acknowledgement of love and the first kiss, and kept clear of the murky waters of adultery:20 Stopping short with the kiss would accord with its concern with the fashioning of the wise king, the deep British disquiet with adultery, and also the author’s proclaimed purpose of winning his lady’s heart: continuing into the affair would have warned her rather to lock her door against him.

Going beyond the kiss might also have introduced a pessimistic note about the long term success of their love, given the well known ending of Lancelot’s and Guenevere’s story. The extant LL offers only a very faint hint of the tragedy to come early in the poem when the clerks are interpreting Arthur’s disturbing dream: they tell him not only that all his earthly honour will be lost, but also that ‘them the wich ye most affy intyll/ Shal failye yow, magré of their will’ (lines 499–500). This might well refer to the disasters caused by the love affair; it can hardly be an allusion to Mordred, who was determined to betray Arthur. If the decision to write about the love of Lancelot and Guenevere is surprising, so is the decision to introduce it with a Chaucerian dream-vision prologue, since Chaucer seems to have been far from keen on the Arthurian legend, and singles out Lancelot in particular for damning with faint praise in the ‘Squire’s Tale’ (CT 5, 283–7) and the ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ (CT 7, 3211–13). The Nun’s Priest

18 19 20

Avowis of Alexander, ed. R. L. Graeme Ritchie in The Buik of Alexander, STS New Series 12, 17 and 21, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1921–27), II, 107 (lines 1–28). Compare Chrétien’s unfinished Lancelot; some critics think that he could not find a way to end his account of the beginning of the love affair without acknowledging its consequences. Cooper, ‘The Cycle in England’, p. 155.

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swears his tale is as true ‘As is the book of Launcelot de Lake,/ That wommen holde in ful gret reverence’. Perhaps the LL poet took this passage too seriously in choosing to write about Lancelot in the hope of pleasing his lady. Unlike the Nun’s Priest, he apparently sees it as a virtue that women like Lancelot’s story, whereas Chaucer seems to be putting Arthurian stories at the level of presentday Mills and Boon or Harlequin romances.21 Some fourteenth- and fifteenth-century English writers cited Lancelot as an example of great knighthood, and thought his story worth reading as an inspiring example.22 There is no criticism of him in Middle English as harsh as that in Lindsay’s Squyer Meldrum (c. 1550):23 I wait Sir Lancelote du lake Quhen he did lufe King Arthuris wyfe Faucht neuer better with sword nor knyfe For his Ladie in no battell, Nor had half so just querrell. The veritie quha list declair, His Lufe was ane Adulterair, And durst not cum into hir sicht Bot lyke ane Houlet on the nicht ... I think it is no happie lyfe Ane Man to jaip his Maisteris wyfe, As did Lancelote: this I conclude, Of sic amour culd cum na gude. (lines 48–56 and 61–4)

Of course, Lindsay was writing in the period when Arthur’s historicity was being seriously challenged and Arthurian stories were being widely criticized; Felicity Riddy describes this passage as ‘humanist moralism given a deliberately bourgeois cast’.24 Doubtless attitudes to Lancelot and other Arthurian characters varied in Scotland as in England. These hostile comments do suggest, however, that the story of the love affair was well known. The LL poet was apparently not disturbed by adultery, and was clearly interested in chivalry, since he described Lancelot’s and Gawain’s battles with great brio; presumably he assumed that his readers would share his tastes. But what has attracted the most critical attention is his interest in good kingship. The section of the Prose Lancelot that he has chosen to retell includes the long passage of advice on kingship given to Arthur by Amytans. The LL poet expands his source here, drawing on Gower and also on the Secreta Secretorum.25 This scene between

21 22 23 24

25

For further discussion of these passages see Archibald, ‘Lancelot as Lover’ pp. 208–10. See my comments on references in Gower and Hoccleve in ‘Lancelot as Lover’ p. 210. Sir David Lindsay, Squyer Meldrum, ed. James Kinsley (London and Edinburgh, 1959). Riddy, ‘Squyer Meldrum and the Romance of Chivalry’, Yearbook of English Studies 4 (1974), 26–36 (p. 27). I shall have more to say about sixteenth- and seventeenth-century attitudes to the Arthurian legend at the end of this essay. See Joanna Martin’s discussion of the circulation of the Confessio Amantis in Scotland and of Lancelot of the Laik in chapters 4 and 5 of ‘Readings of John Gower’s Confessio Amantis in Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century Scotland’ (unpublished D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford, 2002), pp. 76–94 and 139–74.

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Arthur and Amytans takes up most of Book II. In the view of many critics, it turns the poem from a love story into a poem in the Mirror for Princes tradition which was so popular in late medieval Scotland, a tract on good kingship with a secondary plot about love. Some critics think Amytans’ advice is aimed directly at the contemporary Scottish situation, either at James III or James IV, but Rod Lyall has argued convincingly that it is in fact conventional, and that no specific contemporary reference need be sought here.26 It is unusual in the British tradition for an Arthurian story to be used as a vehicle for extensive general political and ethical advice in this manner. It does happen to some extent in the late fourteenth-century Alliterative Morte Arthure, where Arthur is admired as a great ruler but also criticized for his imperialist expansionism.27 The early fifteenth-century Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn includes both spiritual and political warnings: the ghost of Guenevere’s mother warns her daughter to avoid pride and be charitable, and warns Gawain that Arthur’s hunger for new conquests will lead to disaster.28 But in both these poems the criticism and advice clearly refer to the traditional ending of the legend, in which Arthur’s invasion of the continent is immediately followed by Mordred’s treachery and the end of Camelot. The discourse on good kingship in the Prose Lancelot and LL is not connected to the traditional ending, and seems disproportionate to the immediate context. Yet its length and its central position in LL (as far as we can tell) mark it as very significant, even though it has nothing to do with the declared subject, Lancelot’s prowess and his love for Guenevere (Lancelot is himself a king, but never functions as one). There was a well known precedent available to fifteenth-century authors for the insertion of such advice into a text which is apparently about love: Book VII of Gower’s Confessio Amantis, which is largely devoted to the education of Alexander and advice on good behaviour and governance for princes.29 Macaulay argues in the introduction to his edition for the crucial importance to the whole work of this apparent digression, and Mapstone makes the same sort of argument for LL: ‘While Lancelot assumes a greater prominence in its third book, what continues to take dominant narrative shape is the account of how Arthur is allowed to redress his faults and work towards more positive control of his people.’30 But the argument cannot be so straightforward, it seems to me. It works well in the Confessio, where the account of the Seven Deadly Sins eventually leads to the Lover’s rejection of love, and acknowledgement of his own old age; good government is a theme at the beginning in political terms, and at the end in personal terms. But in LL it is hard to see how the advice to Arthur

26

27 28 29 30

Bertram Vogel, ‘Secular Politics and the Date of Lancelot of the Laik’, Studies in Philology 40 (1943), 1–13; Douglas Wurtele, ‘A Reappraisal of the Scottish Lancelot of the Laik’, Revue de l’Université d’Ottawa 46 (1976), 68–82; R. J. Lyall, ‘Politics and Poetry in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Scotland’, SLJ 3 (1976), 5–29 (p. 25); Mapstone, ‘The Scots, the French, and the English’, pp. 137–8. Ed. Mary Hamel (New York and London, 1984); also ed. Benson in King Arthur’s Death. For discussion see The Arthur of the English, pp. 90–100. Ed. Ralph Hanna III (Manchester, 1974); see The Arthur of the English, pp. 150–55. John Gower, Confessio Amantis, ed. G. C. Macaulay, 2 vols., EETS ES 81–2 (London, 1900–1). Macaulay, pp. xxi–xxii; Mapstone, ‘The Scots, the French, and the English’, p. 141.

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could have been linked to the announced finale of Lancelot’s rewarding by Guenevere; the two seem morally incompatible. The advice on good government does not seem to be intended as an implicit critique of the love story, unless this point was to be made in the lost ending. But surely the emphasis on appropriate governance must have worrying implications for Lancelot as a lover: he is not governing himself properly when he nurtures a passion for his king’s wife. However, this contradiction did not concern the poet, apparently. Allowing for our ignorance of how the poem ended, it might be argued that LL is an unusual account of the love affair because it emphasizes the positive side of it – the inspiring effects of love on Lancelot and his success in creating peace between Arthur and Galiot. Indeed, Sally Mapstone argues that LL is a strikingly positive account of the Arthurian world in general: ‘Lancelot of the Laik shows a greater belief in the potential for effective kingship than was achieved in Malory’s narrative, or more especially its last parts . . . Arthur is a redeemable ruler and Lancelot is still working for the harmony of the Arthurian kingdom.’31 Flora Alexander argues that the king is not criticized as harshly here as in the French text, his illegitimacy is not stressed as much, and in general he is presented more sympathetically (Scottish writers sometimes described Arthur as a bastard with no claim to rule over Scotland, and showed considerable sympathy for Mordred as the rightful heir).32 However, Mapstone shows that in contrast to Malory’s version, ‘Arthur’s inadequacies are here highly politicized’.33 He is redeemable, but he is also shown to have many faults, and it is his problems as a ruler, rather than as a husband, that threaten the stability of his kingdom. If the emphasis of LL is so political, what of its declared purpose, to please the poet’s lady? What was she to make of Book II? No doubt medieval ladies had a greater tolerance for ethical tracts than we do, just as they apparently relished elaborate details of battle scenes. Nonetheless, the poem does seem to lose sight of its main theme and purpose for long sections, especially in Book II in the Amytans episode. If it is argued that the advice on kingship is in fact the main theme of the poem, then why introduce it with such a long prologue about love? There has even been speculation about whether the prologue was tacked on as an afterthought.34 While this is not impossible, the main part of the poem does include a number of passages describing Lancelot’s feelings for the queen, not all of which are derived from the French source. At lines 699–718, he laments his suffering in love in four five-line stanzas, possibly modelled on Clanvowe’s Book of Cupid. At lines 1011–28 he falls into a love reverie on the battlefield, addressing first Love and then his own heart. At lines 3047–52 his declaration that he is the queen’s devoted knight is longer and more elaborate than

31 32

33 34

Mapstone, ‘The Scots, the French, and the English’, pp. 143–4. See Royan, ‘The Fine Art of Faint Praise’, above, and Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Scottish Attitudes’, p. 25. Alexander points out that it was in the sixteenth century that attitudes to Arthur became more hostile; see also David Allan, ‘Arthur Redivivus: Politics and Patriotism in Reformation Scotland’, Arthurian Literature 15 (1997), 185–204. Mapstone, ‘The Scots, the French, and the English’, p. 141. Sally Mapstone has pointed out to me, in private correspondence, that in the manuscript ‘there is a real difference in ink between the end of the prologue and the beginning of Liber I on fol. 5v . . . which might suggest some break in transmission of the parts of the work’.

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the brief sentence in the French source.35 At lines 3269–88 he strengthens himself on the battlefield by thinking of his lady. The vital but unanswerable question, of course, is how the LL poet brought his version to a close. Would he have stopped at the kiss, as Cooper suggests? Would there have been any reference to the tragedies to come? Would the poet have returned to the frame and mood of the prologue, and addressed his lady again? One can only speculate on these tantalizing questions, but I want to end with some discussion of the reception of the poem. From one point of view there is little to be said, since there is only the one incomplete manuscript, preserved in Cambridge, University Library, Kk.1.5 as part of a miscellany which seems to have been bound together in the late sixteenth-century (though the Scottish material may have been compiled a little earlier). The collection was acquired by Cambridge University Library from the estate of Richard Holdsworth, Master of Emmanuel College, who died in 1649, and has now been separated into its constituent parts (LL is part 7).36 LL is copied in a late fifteenth-century hand – it was probably written about 1490 – and the same scribe seems to have written the group of texts immediately preceding it, beginning with ‘The Craft of Dying’. The contents of the miscellany are:37 1. The Body of Polycye, the only known manuscript copy of the English translation of Christine de Pisan’s Livre du corps de policie 2. Sir Philip Sidney, The New Arcadia [dated 1584] 3. Part of the laws of Scotland of King David (Regiam Magestatem) 4. Roll of Ulerioun [Oleron] and judgement of the laws of the sea 5. The law of Burch made by King David and St Margaret 6, 7, 8. Prophecies in verse 9. A Scots/English version of the ‘Tribulation of the Six Doctors’ 10. Scots metrical paraphrase of Bernardus de cura rei familiaris with the Latin text in red ink between verses 11. ‘The Craft of Dying’ 12. Chaucer’s ‘Ballad of Truth’ 13. Dicta Salomonis 14. Ratis Ravyng 15. ‘The foly of fulys’ 16. ‘The Wise Man’s Advice to his Son’ 17. ‘The thewis off gud women’ 18. Prose treatise on ‘The Virtewis of the Mess’ 19. Lancelot of the Laik 20. Extract from laws of Regiam magestatem 21 & 22. Proceedings of Parliament of Scotland under James III

35 36

37

Lancelot do Lac, ed. Kennedy, p. 313; trans. Corley, p. 277. This manuscript is discussed by Sally Mapstone in ‘The Advice to Princes Traditions in Scottish Literature, c. 1450–1500’ (unpublished D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford, 1986), pp. 140–50. I am grateful to her for discussing her views with me in recent correspondence. See A Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1858), III, 558–63.

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23–25. Documents relating to legal practices 26. Fragment relating to ‘Brevis of Mortancistri’ 27. Text relating to ‘falsing of domys’ 28. Extract from King David’s Statutes 29. Extract from King Robert’s Statutes 30. Extract from King William’s Statutes 31. ‘The feis of the king’s officers’ Gray states firmly that ‘in subject the pieces have no connection with one another.’ 38 Guddat-Figge describes LL as an unexpected addition to a religious miscellany beginning with ‘The Craft of Dying’.39 But one could also describe this section as containing not so much religious as ethical advice about good government in personal terms; and this theme is continued in the rest of the collection in terms of both public and private. In this context LL seems to fit perfectly well, since much of what survives of it concerns proper behaviour for rulers and knights. Other texts in the manuscript also deal with this theme: Christine de Pisan’s Body of Polycye is in three parts, of which Book I is a mirror for the prince, Book II a chivalric manual for knights, and Book III a treatise on the estates that describes the responsibilities of the other social classes.40 Bernard’s De cura rei familiaris, a treatise on good behaviour for the household, is addressed to ‘Raymwnde knycht of chewalry’.41 But the juxtaposition to which I want particularly to draw attention is that of LL with the New Arcadia.42 There are a number of suggestive parallels between the two texts in terms of both details and broader themes. Sidney’s Pyrocles spends much of his time as the prisoner of a lady, Cecropia (though she is not interested in him personally). Musidorus fights disguised in black as the Forsaken Knight. Lovers break into song at intervals. But this is not just a romance focusing on individual knights finding love; a dominant theme is the tension between the behaviour of the lovers and their public responsibilities, and the effect of private passion on public life. This is true of both versions of the Arcadia. Blair Worden describes the Old Arcadia as ‘among other things a political allegory’; he considers it more ‘politically biting’ than the New Arcadia, but emphasizes that the later version is still much concerned with politics, though with a stronger stress on chivalry and courtesy.43

38 39

40 41 42

43

Gray, pp. vii–viii. Gisela Guddat-Figge, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romances (Munich, 1976), pp. 103–5 (p. 104). This group of texts is printed in Ratis Ravyng and Other Early Scots Poems on Morals, ed. R. Girvan, STS Third Series 11 (Edinburgh, 1937). Diane Bornstein, Introduction to The Middle English Translation of Christine de Pizan’s Livre du corps de policie (Heidelberg, 1977), p. 10. See ‘Bernardus de cura rei familiaris’ with some Early Scottish Prophecies, ed. J. Rawson Lumby, EETS OS 42 (London, 1870). Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (The New Arcadia), ed. Victor Skretowicz (Oxford, 1987). Space does not permit an extended discussion of the juxtaposition of these two texts, which deserves further investigation. Blair Worden, The Sound of Virtue: Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Elizabethan Politics (New Haven and London, 1996), pp. 6 and 15–16; see especially Part 5, ‘Love and Politics’. Contemporaries read the Arcadia as a political text; for instance, Greville makes no mention of the love theme in the New Arcadia (see Worden, Appendix A, pp. 355–69).

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In the Cambridge manuscript both the Arcadia and LL are unfinished; both end in mid-sentence.44 Katharine Duncan-Jones assumes that Sidney did intend to finish his revised version: ‘Clearly he hoped eventually to return to the Arcadia and to find some resolution to the deadlock in which he had left his principal characters, but there was no time.’45 Henry Woudhuysen takes a bleaker view: ‘He left the work unfinished not because, as is often imagined, he had to rush off to fight the Spanish, but because what he had created in the third book meant he could not finish it . . . One way of interpreting the evidence would suggest that Sidney wanted to keep the New Arcadia very close because of its dark and pessimistic view of human nature and its recoiling from the tragedy and violence of battle – for the same reasons which stopped him from finishing it.’46 It is tempting to wonder if the poet of LL also abandoned his poem unfinished; Wurtele suggested many years ago that perhaps ‘the poet, having made certain vital points about rulership, then lost interest in the story.’47 However, this argument ignores the frame story of the appeal to his lady, and the manuscript evidence of the final catchphrase. To modern readers, politics and love make strange bedfellows in this poem; but perhaps we are too concerned with consistency and single focus, and underestimate the medieval delight in tales which combine ‘sentence and solas’. It is often said that interest in Arthur waned dramatically in the Renaissance, when humanist historians began to throw serious doubt on his existence and to criticize the romance emphasis on ‘open manslaughter and bold bawdry’, in Ascham’s famous phrase. But David Allan has shown that there was renewed interest in Arthur in Scotland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; James VI even thought of adopting the name Arthur, and wanted to emulate Arthur in uniting England and Scotland.48 Allan argues that Arthur and Merlin ‘had become naturalized and accepted as the common currency of the greater part of the Jacobean political and cultural establishment’, because they offered Scotsmen ‘a new and relevant way of thinking about their own complex political realities, particularly with regard to changing relations with England’.49 Wurtele argued that LL could be seen as an early attempt at the kind of courtesy book produced later by Castiglione, Ascham, Elyot and of course Spenser.50 To this list we can add Sidney. Whether or not the poem was ever finished, and whether or not it was aimed at an historical king and a specific political situation, it clearly struck the compiler of CUL Kk.1.5 as a useful Mirror for Princes.

44

45 46 47 48 49 50

But the poem ends at the end of a quire, and the catchphrase at the bottom of the final folio suggests that at least one more quire has been lost. Not only is the poem unfinished, but also the rubrication, which is curiously random; in the second half there are many spaces where red capital letters should have been added, though after many gaps six red letters appear in the space of forty lines at lines 3230–67. Katharine Duncan-Jones, Sir Philip Sidney, Courtier Poet (London, 1991), p. 266. H. R. Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts 1558–1640 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 354–5. Wurtele, ‘A Reappraisal’, p. 70. Or is this another aspect of homage to Chaucer? Allan, ‘Arthur Redivivus’ (see note 32 above). Allan, ‘Arthur Redivivus’, pp. 202 and 204. Wurtele, ‘A Reappraisal’, p. 74.

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He was apparently not disturbed by the absence of the original ending with its love scene between Lancelot and Guenevere. Like the New Arcadia, the incomplete romance had much to offer a reader with a strong interest in ethics and government. Yet again, we see how the flexibility of the Arthurian legend, its openness to such a variety of readings and interpretations, contributed to its long life on both sides of the border.51

51

I am grateful to Professor Priscilla Bawcutt, Professor Helen Cooper, Professor John Burrow, Dr Sally Mapstone, Dr Joanna Martin, and the editors of this volume for giving me valuable references and sending me copies of relevant materials. My colleague Dr Lesel Dawson and the participants in the Nottingham ‘Tartan Arthur’ conference made helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay.

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Sir Lamwell in Scotland PRISCILLA BAWCUTT

An intriguing fragment of the Arthurian romance known as Sir Lamwell is preserved in a Scottish manuscript in Cambridge University Library (Kk.5.30). Unfortunately much confusion surrounds this text, as A. S. G. Edwards indicates in his recent discussion of Middle Scots romances: ‘Though obviously related to the English romance Sir Launfal, Sir Lamwell appears to be Scottish, but its fragmentariness makes further analysis difficult.’1 Nonetheless, despite some undoubted difficulties, I consider it possible to carry scholarly investigation further, and to dispel some of the confusion, if not to solve all the problems posed by this text. The fragment is not part of an independent Scottish romance on the Launfal theme, but derives from an English work, first printed in the early sixteenth century, which has been lightly Scotticized in style and language. This may seem disappointing, since the corpus of surviving Scottish romances is very small. But the fragment has considerable textual importance, and demonstrates that interest in Arthurian topics was still very much alive in Scotland at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The manuscript in which the fragment occurs also provides small but interesting clues to the literary tastes of the Scottish copyist and his family during this period.

I Lamwell, who is probably better known as Lanval (in Anglo-Norman) or Launfal (in Middle English), was a knight of the Round Table, and his adventures formed one of the most popular stories belonging to the Matter of Britain. The earliest extant version is Lanval, the twelfth-century lai composed by Marie de France. In Middle English there were two tellings of the story, the longer and more complex of which is Sir Launfal, written in the late fourteenth century by Thomas Chestre, in twelve-line tail rhyme. Today this is by far the best known of the English versions: it is available in several editions, much discussed by scholars, and generally (if not universally) admired.2 The other Middle English version, Sir Landevale, is shorter, 1

2

See ‘Contextualising Middle Scots Romance’, in A Palace in the Wild: Essays on Vernacular Culture and Humanism in Late-Medieval and Renaissance Scotland, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen, A. A. MacDonald and S. L. Mapstone (Louvain, 2000), pp. 61–73 (p. 73). References are to Thomas Chestre, Sir Launfal, ed. A. J. Bliss (Edinburgh, 1960), which also contains texts of Marie de France’s Lanval and Sir Landevale. Sir Launfal is also included in several anthologies: see The Breton Lays in Middle English, ed. Thomas C. Rumble (Detroit,

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written in octosyllabic couplets, and in some respects closer to the French lai. Less familiar today than Thomas Chestre’s poem, Sir Landevale seems in its own time and for several centuries to have been more popular – or at least more widely disseminated.3 Composed in the fourteenth century, and preserved in a manuscript belonging to the second half of the fifteenth century (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C86), it was printed at least twice in the sixteenth century. Several references to ‘Sir Lamwell’ (as the hero was now known) occur in this century: Lamwell is listed with other knights of the Round Table in Thomas Feylde’s Controversy between a Lover and a Jay (?1522), and figures also in Captain Cox’s famous collection of ‘stories’, mentioned in Robert Laneham’s Letter (1575).4 Sir Lambewell, a much altered version of the romance current in the mid-seventeenth century, survives in Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript (London, British Library, Additional 27879).5 It is to this latter tradition of the story, widely diffused in time and place, that the fragment in Cambridge University Library belongs. The bulk of MS Kk. 5. 30 comprises a Scottish copy of Lydgate’s Troy Book, which was written in the late fifteenth century or very early in the sixteenth century. The textual history of this part of the manuscript is complicated: the text of The Troy Book was recognized to be defective by the original scribe, and contains two distinctive supplementary sections, sometimes known today as ‘the Scottish Troy Book’ or ‘the Scottish Troy Fragments’, whose authorship was attributed by the scribe to a Scottish poet called ‘Barbour’ (not now thought to be the author of the Bruce).6 Over a century later a second attempt was made to remedy the defects in The Troy Book. The manuscript was then owned by James Murray of Tibbermuir, in Perthshire, who records that in 1612 he added to the original manuscript a ‘supply’, or supplement, copied from the 1555 print of The Troy Book. At the end of this, he writes: Finis. Sic explicit Liber 5us et ultimus. All quhilk befoir it vantet yis 40 heiris ago now latlie eikit addit and copeit out off ye print ye beginning and end yar off yis holl storie as ye breik beareth be me James Murray with my hand in all hest

3

4

5

6

1965); Middle English Verse Romances, ed. D. Sands (New York, 1966); and Of Love and Chivalry: An Anthology of Middle English Romance, ed. Jennifer Fellows (London, 1993). For some recent criticism, see Myra Stokes, ‘Lanval to Sir Launfal: A Story Becomes Popular’, in The Spirit of Medieval English Romance, ed. Ad Putter and Jane Gilbert (Harlow, 2000), pp. 56–77; and A. C. Spearing, ‘The Lanval Story’, in his The Medieval Poet as Voyeur: Looking and Listening in Medieval Love-Narratives (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 97–119. For a summary account, see Mortimer J. Donovan, ‘Breton Lays’, in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, ed. J. Burke Severs (New Haven, 1967), I, 138–40, 295–6. Quotations from Sir Landevale are taken from the text in Bliss’s edition of Sir Launfal. See the Roxburghe Club reprint of The Controversy between a Lover and a Jay (London, 1818), B iv; and Captain Cox, His Ballads and Books, ed. F. J. Furnivall (London, 1871), p. xiii. On the changes in the name, cf. A. J. Bliss, ‘The Hero’s Name in the Middle English Versions of Lanval’, Medium Aevum 27 (1958), 80–85. Printed in Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript, ed. John W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall (London, 1867), I, 142–64. For discussion of this text, see Gillian Rogers, ‘The Percy Folio Manuscript Revisited’, in Romance in Medieval England, ed. Maldwyn Mills, J. Fellows and C. M. Meale (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 39–64 (pp. 45–6). For further information, see A Catalogue of the MSS. Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 1867), pp. 600–603; Lydgate’s Troy Book, ed. Henry Bergen, EETS ES 97–126 (1906–35), IV, 48–50; and Angus McIntosh, ‘Some Notes on the Language and Textual Transmission of the Scottish Troy Book’, Archivum Linguisticum new series 10 (1979), 1–19.

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that for ye present hes ye samyn of my father Ihone Murry off Tibbermuir most Iustlie anno 1612 ye 24 of Maij (fol. 71r).

It has been suggested that later in the seventeenth century the manuscript was acquired by the duke of Lauderdale.7 This supplement, which consists of eighty-two additional leaves, contains in addition to the Lydgate material, a number of other poems and extracts from poems. One of these (on fols. 11r–11v) is Sir Lamwell. As the fragment is short, consisting only of the first ninety lines, and the copy published by F. J. Furnivall is not wholly accurate or easily available,8 I print below my own transcript (p. 91–3 below) in an Appendix. The original spelling is retained, but the light punctuation and line-numbering are editorial. It is by no means clear why James Murray broke off, mid-line and mid-page, when the romance had barely started. Dr Sally Mapstone has suggested to me, however, that he might have intended to write more of the poem. There would have been space to do this, since fourteen folios were left blank between this point and the beginning of the ‘Supply’ to The Troy Book (fol. 26r). As it is, the tantalizing half-line with which Murray ends – ‘Ewrie pom [-]’, – can best be explained by recourse to Sir Landevale, lines 81–2: ‘Eche pomell of that pavilion/ Was worth a citie, or a towne.’ Other small details in the Scottish text can likewise be traced, ultimately, to the medieval Sir Landevale. But its most immediate relationship is undoubtedly with the more recent versions of the romance, now known as Sir Lamwell, printed in England in the sixteenth century: one of these was issued by John Mychell in 1548, and a second by John King in 1560.9 There is some evidence that this romance may also have been printed by Wynkyn de Worde earlier in the century. Julia Boffey and Carol Meale have pointed out that the woodcut of a knight on horseback which figures on the mutilated title page of the first of these editions features in copies of other romances published by de Worde; they also note ‘the presence in de Worde’s printing house, some time after his death, of a copy of “Sir Lamwell, knight” ’.10 Unfortunately these English prints, like the copy in the Scottish manuscript, survive only in fragmentary form: one (King, 1560) consists of a single leaf (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce II.95); the other (Mychell, 1548) consists of two perfect leaves and six imperfect ones (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Malone 941). Since this print (i.e. Malone 941) contains the beginning of the poem, it is the more valuable for purposes of comparison with the Scottish text. None of the lines, however, is now complete: the text on 1 verso lacks the first half of lines, the text on 2 recto lacks the end of lines. This mutilated text was reprinted by Hales and Furnivall in the

7

8 9 10

See Cambridge Catalogue of MSS., p. 600; and cf. the sale catalogue of the duke of Lauderdale’s manuscripts, printed in London, 1691–2; reprinted in Bannatyne Miscellany II, [ed. David Laing] (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 155, no. 46: ‘History of the Grecian and Trojan Warrs, in old English Verse’. See Captain Cox, His Ballads and Books, p. xxxi. STC, nos. 15187 and 15187. 5. See ‘Selecting the Text: Rawlinson C. 86 and Some Other Books for London Readers’, in Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. Felicity Riddy (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 167–8.

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Appendix to vol. I of their edition of Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript (pp. 521–32). Furnivall there says of it: ‘some of the lost part [is] filled up in italics, by guess and by comparison with the text of the Folio [i.e. the Percy Folio] and the Douce leaf’.11 More will be said later of Furnivall’s additions. Readers interested in the textual relations of the various versions of this romance are still commonly referred to G. L. Kittredge’s article ‘Launfal’, published in the American Journal of Philology as long ago as 1889.12 Kittredge’s article is detailed and scholarly, and he clearly recognized the similarities between the Scottish text, which he called F (⫽ Fragment), and the print, which he called H (after J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, who had presented the work to the Bodleian). Unfortunately, however, he was not aware that the poem had been added long after the original manuscript was written. Following the ‘opinion’ of Furnivall, he pronounced: ‘The MS is catalogued as of the fifteenth century, and may be confidently referred to 1460–70.’ Somewhat later in the article, this dating has slipped by a decade, and he speaks of ‘the Scotch fragment preserved in a MS of 1470–80’. Although he recognized the close connection between F and H, he therefore concluded: ‘It is impossible to suppose that H is derived from F, not only on account of the extraordinary dialect of the Scotch fragment, but also because F contains some errors which H avoids. F is of course not from H; dates forbid.’ But the dates, of course, do not forbid. It is quite possible, from what we know of their respective chronology, that F should derive from H. It is thus unnecessary to follow Kittredge in his further hypothesis about their relationship in the stemma that he constructs: ‘Our safest course is to assign H and F to a common source w.’13 The closeness of the Scottish manuscript to the English print may be obscured but cannot be disguised by occasional small differences of idiom and Scotticized spellings, such as the following: ‘quhyll’ for ‘whyle’ (line 3); ‘quhair’ for ‘where’ (line 6); ‘mekill off micht’ for ‘of moche myght’ (line 19); and ‘forsuith he hecht’ for ‘forsothe he hyght’ (line 20). The narrative sequence is the same in the two texts; and, apart from some small divergences in lines 69–70 and 83–4, the rhyme-scheme is virtually identical, if one allows for the Scottish spellings in the manuscript, and the fact that some sections of text in the print are now missing. There are several examples of ‘shared error’, or what appear to be either modernizations or misunderstandings of the medieval text. One instance is the substitution, in both manuscript and print, of straunge for vncuth in Landevale, line 27: ‘And I am here in vncuth londe.’ (This is, unfortunately, obscured in Furnivall’s transcript of the equivalent line (31) in the manuscript as: ‘And I am far in ane ferang land.’) Another instance is the replacement of the archaic word vnderntyde in Landevale, lines 37–8: The sonne was hote yat vnderntyde He lyght adowne & wolde abyde.

11 12 13

I, 521. ‘Launfal’, American Journal of Philology 10 (1889), 1–32; and cf. Launfal, ed. Bliss, p. 48. See Kittredge, ‘Launfal’, pp. 4, 15 and 16.

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The time has shifted from noon or mid-morning to evening in both the Scottish fragment of Lamwell, lines 41–2: The sone vas then at eveningtyd: He lichtit doun & wald abyd.

and the English print of Lamwell, lines 41–2: The sonne was atte the euyn [. . .] He lyghted there down an [. . .]

Any readers interested in the sixteenth-century prints of Sir Lamwell are likely to first encounter them in the Appendix to the Hales and Furnivall edition of the Percy Folio. They should be aware therefore that the existence of the Scottish fragment makes it possible to fill in some gaps in the print more accurately, or more plausibly, than did Furnivall. The most striking instance of this is the very first line, which in Furnivall’s reconstruction reads: I sing of kin] . . . ges by the dayes of Arthur.

Furnivall’s conjectural incipit is accepted in standard reference works, such as The Index of Middle English Verse (no. 1367.1). Yet the print’s fragmentary half-line ‘. . . ges by the dayes of Arthur’ tallies exactly with the first line of the poem in the manuscript: Listine Lordings by the dayis off Arthure.

‘Listine Lordings’ is an opening highly characteristic of romances, far more so than Furnivall’s conjectural ‘I sing of kinges’.14 A few other cases may be mentioned where more letters of the print survive than is indicated by Furnivall, and where its text may be reconstructed more satisfactorily, in the light of the Scottish manuscript’s readings. One couplet appears thus in Furnivall: For he was hote in the we [ther fayre, He toke his mantell and [lapped hym there, (lines 43–4)

It is, in fact, possible to read two more letters of the truncated line 44, which ends: ‘and fo [. . .]’. In the manuscript lines 43–4 read: For he vas hait in the wather, He tuik his mantill and fald togidder.

The rhyme in the manuscript, although disguised by spelling, is clearly either on weather: together, or weder: togeder. It is plausible to conclude that the print rhymed similarly on ‘wether’ and ‘folded together’. There is thus no need to insert the epithet ‘fayre’. Another couplet is presented by Furnivall as: Weleaway than is my [case With sore wepynge his [heart did pase

14

See IMEV, nos. 1886, 1888 and 1890.

(lines 53–4)

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In line 53 it is still possible to read the letter s after my, which rules out the conjectured case, and agrees with song in the Scottish fragment. This, in turn, suggests that line 54 in the print ended with a rhyme similar to that in the manuscript: wrong. Behind both these English and Scottish texts lies the reading in Sir Landevale: ‘Alas! Alas!’ was his songe: Sore wepyng his hondis he wronge. (lines 49–50)

II It may well be asked what is known about the man who preserved this fragment of Arthurian romance, and whether other Scottish readers in this period, apart from James Murray, showed an interest in Sir Lamwell. At the turn of the seventeenth century the name of Arthur himself retained great imaginative potency in Scotland. James VI was delighted to be hailed by the poetaster Walter Quin, in several languages, as ‘Arthur . . . of Bretain King’.15 Journeys to the Otherworld and beautiful fairy mistresses, what is more, figure in several Scottish ballads, such as ‘Thomas the Rymer’ and ‘Tam Lyn’. The only piece of evidence known to me, however, which might suggest that this late romance had entered the Scottish ballad tradition is somewhat tantalizing. This is an item of music in a seventeenth-century manuscript miscellany, formerly in the Panmure collection, and now in the National Library of Scotland (MS 9450). This manuscript was compiled by Robert Edward (b. 1617), minister of Murroes in Angus, and the item (no. 34) bears the title ‘Sir Lamuel’, but is unfortunately not accompanied with words.16 Helena Shire, in a brief discussion of the music, considered that it was in the style of a sixteenth-century dance tune, and noted that the tune would fit the octosyllabic couplet, if an alternating refrain were added. She continued: ‘His [Robert Edward’s] “Sir Lamuel”, then, may indicate a “romance” sung in the sixteenth century to an up-to-date dance tune or a verse narrative meeting a current piece of dance music and remodelled “to its tune” – a process known to have marked the making of many a broadside ballad.’ Kenneth Elliott followed up this suggestion, and printed a modernized and ‘reconstructed’ form of the music. Unfortunately the text that he used (and ‘reconstructed’) is from Sir Launfal, not Sir Lamwell.17

15

16

17

For an account of this episode, see P. Bawcutt, ‘James VI’s Castalian Band: a Modern Myth’, SHR 80 (2001), 251–9 (p. 258). Quin’s verses are printed in Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots 1547–1603, vol. XII (1595–97), ed. M. S. Giuseppi (Edinburgh, 1952), pp. 79–86. For information about Robert Edward, see H. Scott, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae (Edinburgh, 1866–71; revised edn 1915–50), vol. V (Edinburgh, 1925), pp. 367–8. On the manuscript, see National Library of Scotland, Catalogue of Manuscripts Acquired since 1925, vol. VII (Edinburgh, 1989), pp. 160–61; and P. Bawcutt, ‘Manuscript Miscellanies in Scotland from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century’ (forthcoming in English Manuscript Studies, vol. 12). See ‘Robert Edwards’ [sic] Commonplace Book and Scots Literary Tradition’, Scottish Studies 5 (1961), 43–9 (pp. 47–8); and ‘Robert Edwards’ Commonplace Book and Scots Musical History’, ibid., 50–56 (p. 54).

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James Murray, a minor landowner, belonging to the Murrays of Perthshire, is unfortunately a shadowy figure. Scottish records, such as The Register of the Great Seal and The Register of the Privy Council, indicate that he was a knight, sat on assizes, and in 1607, shortly before he made his additions to this manuscript, was described as the eldest son and apparent heir of John Murray of Tibbermuir.18 But it is the father John rather than his son James who emerges most vividly and rather cantankerously from the records – failing to pay his debts, quarrelling with neighbours, and refusing to allow the bailies of Perth to use material from the quarry on his lands to build a new bridge.19 The family was related to the wealthier and more powerful Murrays of Tullibardine, one of whose members, Sir William Murray of Tullibardine, owned an important copy of The Flyting of Montgomerie and Polwart.20 The only evidence, however, as to the literary tastes of the Tibbermuir Murrays, and of James in particular, is provided by this manuscript. The careful preservation of Lydgate’s Troy Book and the lengths to which James Murray went in order to have a complete text are particularly noteworthy. Some twenty years earlier (1592) Duncan Campbell, seventh laird of Glenorchy, whose Perthshire estates were not far distant from those of the Murrays, took great pains to establish his ownership of a fine manuscript of The Siege of Thebes.21 Interest in Lydgate lasted a long time in Scotland, even to the early seventeenth century, when he, like Chaucer, had begun to seem oldfashioned. Three other shorter pieces of poetry, in addition to Sir Lamwell, were copied by James Murray himself (fols. 1–6). The first is an extract from Hary’s Wallace: the twelve lines correspond to VIII, 1183–94 in the modern edition based on the manuscript, but are most likely to have been copied from one of the printed editions of the work, possibly that published by Andro Hart in 1611.22 The choice of text is interesting, a slightly aureate dawn description, which begins ‘The mirrie day sprang from the Orient’. The two poems which follow differ strikingly from these medieval texts. The first, entitled ‘Inglishe Dyare’, is a Scotticized copy of a melancholy but extremely popular Elizabethan poem, usually attributed to Sir Edward Dyer: ‘He that his mirth hes lost, quhais confoirt is dismaid’. A poem composed by Murray himself follows, beginning: ‘Thou irksume bed quhairin I tumble to and fra/ and restles rollis boith wp and doune may witnes veill my vae’. Its title, ‘Murrayis Dyare’, suggests that it is modelled on that of Dyer, and this is evident in its use of the same metre, and despondent tone. ‘Dyer’ or ‘dyar’ seems around this time to have become a generic literary term in Scots for a love complaint, written in ‘poulter’s measure’,

18

19 20

21 22

See Register of the Great Seal of Scotland 1609–1620, ed. John Maitland Thompson (Edinburgh, 1892), no. 59; and Register of the Privy Council of Scotland 1604–1607, vol. VII, ed. David Masson (Edinburgh, 1885), p. 690. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland 1592–1599, vol. V, ed. David Masson (Edinburgh, 1882), pp. 531–2. On possible literary links between these branches of the Murrays, see Sally Mapstone, ‘Invective as Poetic: The Cultural Contexts of Polwarth and Montgomerie’s Flyting’, SLJ 26 , no. 2 (1999), 18–40. Cf. P. Bawcutt, ‘The Boston Public Library Manuscript of John Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes: Its Scottish Owners and Inscriptions’, Medium Aevum 70 (2001), 80–94. See Hary’s Wallace, ed. Matthew P. McDiarmid, STS Fourth Series 4 and 5, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1968–9).

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a then very popular metre, consisting of alternate lines in twelve and fourteen syllables. The term also appears in the titles of poems by James VI and Robert Ayton.23 Steven May suggests that the particular poem by Dyer which Murray copied ‘was recognised as a model complaint and was termed a “Dyer” in recognition of both its authorship and the hopeless plight of its speaker, one who dies of unrequited love’.24 Later members of the family followed James Murray in employing other blank pages (fols. 71v–82v), at the end of the ‘Supply’, to record sonnets, short poems, and extracts from long ones. They are in various unidentified hands, though the name ‘Marie Moorray’ occurs on fol. 74v. The authors of the poems are not named in the manuscript, but some are by Scottish poets, such as Alexander Montgomerie, James VI, and Alexander Hume. There is also a famous sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney (‘Leve me o love quhilk rechis bot to dust’) and a much-copied poem by Campion (‘Quhat gif a day or a nycht or a heir’).25 More valuable than these for the purpose of this article, since it reveals James Murray’s own reading, is a short Catologus [sic] Librorum Jacobi Murryi (fol. 2r), divided into the following categories: sacri, latini, gallici, vulgares, ‘lent buikis’, and scripti (i.e. manuscript). Their precise identification is sometimes difficult or impossible, because of the vagueness of description or sheer illegibility of the hand, but a few of the more interesting works will be mentioned here. Among the sacred works are an Explicatio Sacramentorum, a Latin Old and New Testament, George Buchanan’s very popular metrical translation of the Psalms (numerous editions appeared between 1556 and 1610),26 and an as yet unidentified work by the scholar Fulvius Ursinus. The Latin section is confined to classical authors, such as Virgil, Seneca, and Martial. The Gallici, or French, section, contains only two works. One is Institutiones, probably Calvin’s Institutions de la religion chrestienne (first published in 1559). The other is Esopi fabula gallica; disappointingly, Murray makes no mention of Henryson’s Morall Fabillis of Esope. Among the sixteen vulgares, or vernacular, items are listed a Virgil, which is most likely to be the Aeneid, in the translation of either Gavin Douglas (first printed 1553) or Phaer and Twyne (1573); and Ovid’s Epistles, which presumably signifies George Turberville’s popular translation: The Heroycall Epistles of Ovid (first printed 1567). Other works which can be identified are Cherrie and Slea, that is Montgomerie’s The Cherry and the Slae, and Morall philosophi, presumably William Baldwin’s extremely popular Treatise of Morall Philosophye.27 Aristotles

23

24 25

26 27

See The Poems of King James VI, ed. James Craigie, STS Third Series 22 and 26, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1955–8), II, 74; and The English and Latin Poems of Sir Robert Ayton, ed. Charles Gullans, STS Fourth Series 1 (Edinburgh and London, 1963), nos. 2 and 5. A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue does not record this word. Steven May, The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: the Poems and their Contexts (Columbia, MO, 1991), p. 67; for the text of Dyer’s poem, see pp. 290–94. This aspect of the manuscript requires much fuller investigation. See, however, Alexander Montgomerie: Poems, ed. D. Parkinson, STS Fourth Series, 28 and 29, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 2000), nos. 21, 51 and 60; and Poems of James VI, II, 118, no. 32 (this text was not apparently known to Craigie). Cf. John Durkan, Bibliography of George Buchanan (Glasgow, 1994), pp. xi–xii, and nos. 75–112. On Baldwin’s popularity in Scotland, see P. Bawcutt, ‘English Books and Scottish Readers in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, Review of Scottish Culture 14 (2001–2), 1–12 (3).

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Apothegmes is more problematic; it may perhaps refer to the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemes of Aristotle, of which an edition was published at Edinburgh in 1595. Another intriguing title is The Post of the Varld, for which the most likely candidate seems The Post for Divers Partes of the World (1576), a work translated from the German by the Catholic antiquary Richard Verstegan. Towards the end are listed a Phisiognomie, also a hors buik and a halk buik, which clearly belong to the category of ‘Practical Books for the Gentleman’.28 Treatises on horses and hawking were then so plentiful that it is impossible to identify such vague titles, but the first might have been Gervase Markham’s A Discourse of Horsemanshippe (1593), which was particularly popular in the seventeenth century. This small collection of books cannot compare with the great libraries built up around this time by highly learned Scots, such as Bishop Adam Bothwell or William Drummond of Hawthornden.29 But James Murray clearly valued his books, and his range of reading was wide. The partial copy that he made of Sir Lamwell co-exists with the names of books and authors usually considered characteristic of Renaissance taste. It is to be regretted that there is no obvious mention of Arthurian material or other medieval romances in the vernacular section of his catalogue. But its category of ‘lent buikis’ reminds us of the social aspects of book ownership. James Murray was likely not only to have lent books to his friends, but also to have borrowed them. Was an English print of Sir Lamwell on short-term loan to him, and perhaps recalled too soon, before he could complete his copying of it? The brief fragment of Sir Lamwell in Cambridge University Library MS Kk.5.30 prompts this and other tantalizing questions concerning the romance’s Scottish circulation and readership. From the wider European perspective, however, it is valuable, because it testifies to the long-lasting popularity of the Lanval story, supplying a small, precisely dated link in a literary chain stretching from the twelfth century to the middle of the seventeenth century, and through France and England to the central Highlands of Scotland.

Appendix The text is printed with the permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Listine Lordings by the dayis off Arthure Was Britan in grett honoure, For in his tyme as he ane quhyll He sojurneit att coomelie carlille & hed with him monie ane aire

28 29

5

See the chapter so entitled in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. III (1400–1557), ed. Lotte Hellinga and J. B. Trapp (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 470–94. Cf. D. Shaw, ‘Adam Bothwell, a Conserver of the Renaissance in Scotland’, in The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland, ed. Ian B. Cowan and D. Shaw (Edinburgh, 1983), pp. 141–69; and R. H. MacDonald, The Library of Drummond of Hawthornden (Edinburgh, 1971).

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As he hed oftymes els quhair, Off his round table the knychtis all With muche mirthe in boure & hall. Off evrie land in World so wyd Thar came to him in eich syd Houng knichtis & sqyyers eik, & bald baichlers came him to seik For to sie the great Nobilnes That was into his court alwayis, For he geve rich gifts & treasour To men of wair & gret honour. With him ther was ane baicheleir, And hed beene ther monie ane heir, Ane houng knycht mekill off micht. Sir Lamuell forsuith he hecht. This Lamuell geve gifts michtilie, & spaireit not bot geve lergelie, & so librallie he it spent Miche moir nor he hed in rent, & so onvyselie he itt fett That he came mekill into daitt. And quhen he sau weill all was gaine Then he began to mak his meane. Alas, he said, vo is that mann That na gud heth nor na gud cann. And I am far in ane strange land And na gud hes, I onderstand. Men wald me hald for ane wrache Quhair I be puir certes ne riche. He lapp upon ane fair coursoure Withouttin Chyld or hit squyoure, And raid so furth in great murning To dryve away his soir langing. His way he tuik tovard the west, Betuix ane vater and ane forrest. The sone vas then at eveningtyd: He lichtit doun & wald abyd. For he vas hait in the wather, He tuik his mantill and fald togidder And laid him doune the knycht so free, Onder the shadou off ane tree. Alace, he said, na gud I heve Nor quhair to go so god me saiff. And all the knichts with ther feires, Off the round table that be my peeres, Eich on to heve me vas full glaid, Nou will thai be off me full sadd.

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

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Nou, wallaway, this is my song. With soir weiping his hand he wrang. With sourou and cair he did hell, Till hevie on a sleip he fell & all to soipeit and forweipt. Quhen he vaknit out off sleip Tuo off the fairest maids sau he That ever he did sie with ee Come out off the forrest & to him drau. Fairer befoir he never sau. Kirtils thay hed of purple sendill, Small laceit, setting fall ane weill. Mantils thai hed of rid welvet, Frenheit with gold, ful veill was sett. Thai vaire abowe that, over all, Upon ther heds a joilie curnall. Ther faces as the snou was quhyt, With lufesum cullor off gret delyt. Fairar befoir he never did sie. He thoght them Angels off hevins he. The on buir ane goldin baiseing, The uther ane touall off alifyne. Thai came him both tovarid twaine, He vas courtess, vent them againe. Welcume, he said, Madams so frie. Sir Knycht, thai ansereit him, velcum be he. My ladie, that is brigt as floure, The grathethe, Sir Lamuell, paramour. Sho preyith the cum & speik with hir, Giff it be nou thy plesor, sir. I am full faine with hou for to fair, For troulie such as hou so rair On the ground sau I never go. Washit his face and hands also, & with the maids did glaidlie gang, As merie as marle in hir song. Within the forest ther did sie Ane rich Pavillione ther picht ful hie. Ewrie pom [-] .

55

60

65

70

75

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The Search for Scottishness in Golagros and Gawane RHIANNON PURDIE

Golagros and Gawane is a translation of part of a French romance: so two recent surveys (of ‘Middle Scots Romance’ and Scotland’s ‘Alliterative Revival’ respectively) inform us without further qualification.1 This is an unpromising start for anyone looking for a distinctive Scottish contribution to medieval Arthurian literature, but fortunately it is extremely misleading. Although the basic elements of its narrative have indeed been borrowed from part of the First Continuation of the Old French Perceval, the end result is so different that some early scholars missed the debt entirely, while others were convinced that the narrative of Golagros must represent parallel development rather than direct descent.2 The fifteenth-century3 Golagros and Gawane cuts a much more individual figure in the world of medieval Arthurian romance than the dismissal of it as a ‘translation’ implies.4 It does not necessarily follow, however, that the peculiar character of Golagros and Gawane is a function of its Scottishness. What would ‘Scottishness’ consist of in a literary text, and how would we distinguish it from the quirks of an individual author? I am not referring here to such superficial factors as language of composition or manuscript and circulation history: an English text copied by a Scottish scribe can give almost as strong an impression

1

2

3

4

A. S. G. Edwards, ‘Contextualising Middle Scots Romance’, in A Palace in the Wild: Essays on Vernacular Culture and Humanism in Late-Medieval and Renaissance Scotland, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen, A. A. MacDonald and S. L. Mapstone (Leuven, 2000), pp. 61–73 (p. 69); Felicity Riddy, ‘The Alliterative Revival’, in The History of Scottish Literature, Vol. I: Origins to 1660, ed. R. D. S. Jack (Aberdeen, 1988), pp. 39–54 (p. 46). The early history of Golagros scholarship is summarized in Paul John Ketrick, ‘The Relation of Golagros and Gawane to the Old French Perceval’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Washington Catholic University of America, 1931), pp. 5–14. The only extant copy of Golagros is the 1508 Chepman and Myllar print (NLS Advocates Library H.30.a) and all external references to the tale postdate this: see Scottish Alliterative Poems, ed. F. J. Amours, STS First Series 27–38 (Edinburgh, 1897), p. x (all citations will be from this edition). Golagros was composed sometime between the early fifteenth century (once the alliterative Morte and the Awntyrs to which it owes much were in circulation) and 1508. There is no evidence for a more precise date although it is sometimes given as c. 1470, reflecting the tendency of scholars to assign any undated Scottish text with a political slant to the troubled reign of James III (on which tendency see R. J. Lyall, ‘Politics and Poetry in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Scotland’, SLJ 3 [1976], 5–29 [p. 5]). Two important studies of this poem are: W. R. J. Barron, ‘Golagrus and Gawain: A Creative Redaction’, BBIAS 26 (1974), 173–85, and R. D. S. Jack, ‘Arthur’s Pilgrimage: A Study of Golagros and Gawane’, SSL 12 (1974–5), 3–20.

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of Scottishness as a one originating in Scotland.5 If reliable national character is to be found in a literary text, it seems we must look past its language to less readily altered aspects such as outlook, theme(s), and the cultural frames of reference embedded in it. One important reason for suspecting that Golagros and Gawane might owe some of its unique character to its Scottishness, as opposed to simply its author’s personal taste, is the fact that Scotland in the fifteenth century was a politically distinct realm, and Scottish literary culture in this period is likewise recognizably distinct from its English counterpart, despite the clear influence of the latter upon it. It seems reasonable to assume that such cultural distinctiveness would manifest itself in individual literary productions. A second reason is the everpresent political potential of King Arthur, supposed conqueror of the whole of Britain, in a text composed anywhere within the British Isles. Scotland’s chronicles engage with Arthurian legend in such a distinctive (if not uniform) way that one suspects the Scottish Arthurian romances may do likewise, even though romance does not traditionally involve itself with contemporary politics so directly.6 Golagros’s portrayal of a grasping, imperialistic Arthur attempting to subdue a proudly independent lord looks very much like Scottish nationalist criticism of the aggressive policies of successive English monarchs, who themselves cited Arthur’s supposed conquest of Scotland as a precedent for their own actions.7 But Arthur is also fiercely criticized for his destructive pride and greed in two English Arthurian poems – the alliterative Morte Arthur and The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn – and these poems were almost certainly known to the Golagros-poet:8 what looked at first like unmistakable Scottish national bias may, confusingly, owe more to English literary influence. A more methodical approach is clearly needed if we are to identify anything in Golagros and Gawane that can be called Scottish beyond the mere accident of composition in Scotland. The first step is to establish exactly what material we have to work with: in other words, which aspects of Golagros and Gawane are attributable to the Scottish author rather than to his source? Having established the Scottish author’s own contribution through a comparison of his text to the Old French Perceval Continuation, we then need some means of gauging the potential Scottishness of

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Sir Lamwell, as discussed by Priscilla Bawcutt above, is a prime example. See also Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, ‘Bodleian MS Arch. Selden. B. 24 and the “Scotticization” of Middle English Verse’, in Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority and the Idea of the Authentic Text 1400–1602, ed. T. A. Prendergast and B. Kline (Columbus, 1999), pp. 166–85. See Royan, ‘Fine Art of Faint Praise’, above, as well as ‘ “Na les vailyeant than ony uthir princis of Britane”: Representations of Arthur in Scotland 1480–1540’, SSR 3 (2002), 9–20. See also Steve Boardman, ‘Late Medieval Scotland and the Matter of Britain’, in Scottish History: The Power of the Past, ed. E. J. Cowan and R. J. Finlay (Edinburgh, 2002), pp. 47–72; Flora Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Scottish Attitudes to the Figure of King Arthur: A Reassessment’, Anglia 93 (1975), 17–34. See Summerfield, ‘The Testimony of Writing’, above. Thematic parallels are discussed below. Golagros probably also owes its complex thirteenline rhymed alliterative stanza to the Awntyrs, which is the earliest example of this form although it later became popular in Scotland. See Thorlac Turville-Petre, ‘ “Summer Sunday”, “De Tribus Regibus Mortuis”, and “The Awntyrs off Arthure”: Three Poems in the Thirteen-Line Stanza’, Review of English Studies new series 25 (1974), 1–14 (pp. 13–14).

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his alterations. The important step here is to identify and discard those elements that Golagros shares with English Arthurian tradition, which we know to have been a key influence. This will leave us with a few key aspects whose presence remains to be explained. A source for these elements will be sought, and found, amongst the trends and preoccupations of fifteenth-century Scots writings. It is these embedded elements of Scottish literary culture that make Golagros and Gawane not just an unusual text within the Arthurian canon, but a uniquely Scottish contribution to Arthurian literature.

Golagros and Gawane and the First Continuation of Perceval9 The two episodes borrowed from the First Continuation are known as the ‘Kay and the Spit’ episode, and the longer ‘Chastel Orguelleus’ episode:10 both feature Gawain as hero. Golagros begins with Arthur and his knights setting out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but in the Perceval there is no pilgrimage. Instead, Arthur is suddenly overcome with sorrow at a feast and reveals one of his knights, Girflet le filz Do, has spent the last three years imprisoned in a castle. He is ashamed to have failed in his kingly duty to care for his men, and the quest to attack the Chastel and rescue Girflet thus becomes a means of re-establishing his honour and virtue. With the omission of this initial motivation, the Scottish author converts his text into a narrative in which Arthur, engaged in an honourable journey to Holy Land, gets dishonourably distracted by a desire to conquer lands he happens to pass along the way. The Scottish and Old French narratives unite as Kay is sent to a castle to obtain provisions, where his rudeness and consequent failure must be remedied by Gawain. However, where the lord of the castle in Perceval is overjoyed to see Gawain and receives Arthur without further delay, the Scots text inserts an extended diplomatic negotiation between the two (lines 136–56). When the lord refuses permission to buy goods in his town, Gawain respectfully acknowledges his right to do so: ‘ “That is at your avne will,” said wourthy Gawane;/ “To mak you lord of your avne, me think it grete skill” ’ (lines 146–7). Unexpectedly,

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Ketrick demonstrates that Golagros is most closely related to a French prose version of Perceval printed in Paris in 1530, itself obviously too late to be the direct source (‘The Relation of Golagros and Gawane to the Old French Perceval’, pp. 86–107). There does not seem to be any evidence for his assertion that the Scottish poet used a no-longer-extant fifteenth-century prose antecedent of the Paris print (pp. 120–1), and there is no inherent improbability in a fifteenth-century Scottish author working from an early thirteenth-century French verse exemplar. The author of the fragmentary Scots romance Florimond of Albany, writing some time before the middle of the sixteenth century, sometimes translates the couplets of the twelfth-century French Florimont verbatim. (On Florimond, see my forthcoming edition of Shorter Scottish Medieval Romances for the Scottish Text Society.) The edition used here of the relevant Perceval Continuations (those of the same family as the 1530 prose print) is The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, Vol. II: The First Continuation, Redaction of MSS E M Q U, ed. William Roach and Robert H. Ivy Jr (Philadelphia, 1950). In this edition, the ‘Kay and the Spit’ episode is lines 12,922–13,283 and the Chastel Orguelleus episode is lines 15,182–16,614. The relevant section of the 1530 print (Roach and Ivy’s MS G) is fols. 103v–118v.

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however, the lord then reveals that he is Arthur’s vassal and ‘cousing of kyn’ (line 191): ‘all the wyis I weild are at his avne will’, he explains: he cannot sell to Arthur because Arthur already owns everything. What appeared to be a demonstration of resentful independence turns out, in the Scottish text only, to be an elaborate recognition of feudal duty. Golagros takes the Old French text’s contrast between Gawain’s use of courtesy and Kay’s failed attempt to use force and extends the principle to Gawain’s respective dealings with this first anonymous lord and Golagros. The anonymous lord is ready to serve Arthur because of feudal and familial ties which give the king privileges in his land: Arthur has no such connections to Golagros, so he is implicitly wrong to expect the attendant privileges. The Scottish author thus carefully prepares for the introduction of a brand new cluster of themes: the nature of sovereignty; the delicate balance between lordly rights and lordly obligations, and the extent to which anyone may ever count himself ‘lord of his own’. This episode is followed in the Old French by a lengthy digression, totally excised from Golagros, of Gawain’s affair with the sister of the knight Bran de Liz. In the Old French, the episode of Gawain’s affair ends with Bran de Liz himself accompanying Arthur to the nearby Chastel Orguelleus, where he identifies its lord as the Riche Soudoier and advises Arthur on local customs. In Golagros, Bran de Liz’s role is taken, and extravagantly expanded, by the otherwise unknown knight Spynagros, who will be discussed at greater length below. As well as adopting Bran’s role as tour-guide, Spynagros chastises Arthur sharply for his pride in demanding homage from Golagros; recommends the sending of diplomatic envoys; lectures the envoys on how to behave courteously, and finally, advises Gawain on how best to fight Golagros. Among the many things which Spynagros reveals about Golagros is that he holds his lands ‘but legiance . . ./ As his eldaris has done’ (lines 263–4). Arthur seems outraged that such a situation could exist at all: ‘how happynis this thing?/ Herd thair euer ony sage sa selcouth ane saw!’ (lines 265–6). The question of whether the Riche Soudoier has an overlord never comes up, but Golagros’s lordlessness becomes the axis upon which the entire narrative turns: not only does it provoke Arthur to attack him (neatly replacing the French motivation of rescuing a prisoner), but it confirms the poem’s new focus on the nature of sovereignty. Another crucial change undergone by the Riche Soudoier in his transformation into Golagros is his motivation for wishing to appear victorious on the battlefield. The Riche Soudoier has an amie who will die of mortification if she believes he has been defeated: Gawain’s feigned surrender allows the amie to be safely removed before the embarrassing truth is revealed. Golagros merely seems to want to talk to his men before surrendering: this rather unexciting substitution will again be discussed further below. The theme of sovereignty and Arthur’s lesson on the evils of pride are neatly united in the final scene where Arthur spontaneously releases Golagros from his newly formed feudal obligation. Needless to say, this too is a complete change from the Old French, where the Riche Soudoier simply attaches himself gratefully to Arthur’s retinue. Clearly, the Scottish author has contributed a great deal in the transformation of these sections of the First Continuation into the independent romance Golagros

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and Gawane, but we are not yet any closer to answering the question of whether there is anything particularly Scottish about these alterations.

English Arthurian Romance Although direct influence of at least two English romances on Golagros is very probable, the more important issue for present purposes is simply whether a given aspect of Golagros occurs at all in English Arthurian tradition, because if it does then it must necessarily be discounted as a sign of Golagros’s distinctive Scottishness. There is strong evidence for the influence of the great alliterative Morte Arthure, not only in several minor textual echoes,11 but in more thematically relevant elements such as Golagros’s allusion to Fortune’s Wheel and the Nine Worthies (of whom Arthur, ironically, is one) when he is facing defeat by Gawain (lines 1220–45). In several texts, Arthur himself dreams of Fortune’s wheel (symbol of the vanity of earthly pride) on the eve of disaster,12 but only in the alliterative Morte is it combined with the topos of the Nine Worthies (lines 3230–393). More generally, the presentation of worldly pride as the potentially disastrous flaw in Arthur’s character is a feature that Golagros shares with a few English Arthurian romances. The term used by Spynagros in scolding Arthur is ‘surquidry’: ‘spekis na succeudry, for Cristis sone deir!’ (line 278). Arthur is told in the alliterative Morte that he has caused great destruction ‘sakeles, in cirquytrie’ through his attempts to conquer the whole of Europe (line 3399). The Green Knight of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight twice says that it was the ‘surquidry’ of Arthur’s court that he came to test.13 The Awntyrs off Arthure does not use the actual word ‘surquidry’, but the message is the same: when Waynour (Guenevere) asks the ghost, ‘What wrathes God most at þi weting?’ the ghost replies ‘Pride with þe appurtenaunce, as prophetez han tolde’ (lines 238–9).14 When Gawain asks how knights involved in martial conquest should conduct themselves, the ghost replies: ‘Your king is to couetous, I warne þe sir kniht./ May no man stere him with strength while þe whele [i.e. of Fortune] stondes’ (lines 265–6), and it goes on to prophesy a version of Arthur’s fall that corresponds quite specifically to the narrative of the alliterative Morte.15 In the

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E.g. ‘the king turnit . . . towart Tuskane’ (line 2) recalling the alliterative Morte’s ‘into Tuskane he tournez’ (line 3150). For discussion of other specific parallels between the texts discussed here, see Thomas Hahn’s notes to the text of Golagros in Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo, 1995). Cf. the fourteenth-century English stanzaic Morte (lines 3168–91), Malory’s Morte Darthur, and the Old French source for both of these, La mort le roi Artu. See King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morte Arthure and Alliterative Morte Arthure, ed. Larry D. Benson, rev. Edward E. Foster, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo, 1994); Malory: Complete Works, ed. E. Vinaver, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1971), Bk XXI, p. 711; and La mort le roi Artu: roman du XIIIe siècle, ed. Jean Frappier (Paris and Geneva, 1964), ch. 176 (pp. 226–7). On Arthur and Fortune, see Karl Josef Höltgen, ‘König Arthur und Fortuna’, Anglia 75 (1957), 35–54, translated in King Arthur: A Casebook, ed. and trans. E. D. Kennedy (New York and London, 1996), pp. 121–37. Ed. J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1967; rev. 1972), lines 311 and 2457. The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn, ed. Ralph Hanna III (Manchester, 1974). See Hanna, The Awntyrs off Arthure, pp. 40–2.

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second part of the Awntyrs Gawain finds himself doing battle with Galeron, whose Scottish lands were confiscated by Arthur (in an apparent display of the covetousness noted by the ghost) and awarded, embarrassingly, to Gawain. Galeron relinquishes his claim to the victorious Gawain, but Arthur steps in to reinstate him in his Scottish possessions and award Gawain alternative lands. The situation of Arthur eventually stepping in to right his own wrongs provides a strong general parallel with Golagros at exactly the point where the Scottish text diverges from the Perceval narrative. However, in the Awntyrs there is no Spynagros to condemn Arthur’s initial actions, nor is there any indication that Arthur has learned to recognize another’s rights to sovereignty: for all we know, the alternative lands he awards to Gawain may have been confiscated from yet another unfortunate.16 Galeron and Golagros surrender to Gawain in tellingly similar terms: Now wil I be obeyand, And make the manrent with hand, As right is, and skill. (Golagros, lines 1217–19) And, byfore thiese ryalle, resynge the my righte; And siþen make the monraden with a mylde mode. (Awntyrs, lines 641–2)

This echo is important to note because without it, the ‘manrent’ promised by Golagros might have been picked up by sharp-eyed modern Scottish historians as an example of specific cultural translation for a Scottish audience. The term ‘manrent’ was rare outwith Scotland by the fifteenth century, but within Scotland it came to express a particular quasi-legal type of allegiance in which the emphasis was on the bonded man’s duty of life-long service in return for the lord’s protection, as opposed to a grant of land.17 This context would have made Golagros’s declaration particularly meaningful to a Scottish audience, but Galeron’s speech demonstrates that this too is a sign of Golagros’s debt to an English text, rather than evidence for Scottish origins. Since all three of the English romances mentioned above examine the ambiguous role of pride within the chivalric ethos, and turn to Gawain for at least a partial solution,18 this aspect of Golagros is clearly very much a part of its English inheritance, however strongly it may resonate with some Scottish nationalist views of Arthur. It might be observed at this point that the careful identification of Galeron’s Scottish territories in the Awntyrs (they include the Ayrshire districts

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See Rushton, ‘ “Of an uncouthe stede” ’, below, for the significance of the lands granted to Gawain in compensation. Jenny Wormald traces the development of this specific usage of ‘manrent’ in Scotland to the middle of the fifteenth century, observing that ‘the loyalty of those who made bonds of manrent was far more assured than the loyalty of vassals who did homage for their lands’, because while a vassal might do homage to several lords for lands held, ‘it was extremely rare for men to give their bonds [of manrent] to more than one lord’: Lords and Men in Scotland: Bonds of Manrent 1442–1603 (Edinburgh, 1985), pp. 14–33 (p. 27). See also the OED entry for ‘manrent’. I am indebted to Sally Mapstone for pointing out the significance of ‘manrent’ in Scotland. While the alliterative Morte is not centred on Gawain, it is his death that brings about Arthur’s too-late repentance.

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of Cunningham, Kyle and Carrick and the town of Cumnock, line 419) implies some local knowledge on the part of both author and audience: this incidental evidence for cultural interchange between Scotland and the north of England means that we have to be doubly careful in attempting to characterize any aspect of Golagros as distinctively Scottish. Golagros’s assertion that a man should be respected as ‘lord of his own’ likewise turns out to be widespread in English Arthurian tradition: it is the main point of The Turke and Sir Gawain and the two versions of the Carle of Carlisle, and a key component of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and its humble descendant, The Greene Knight.19 A minor difference is that the lesson in the English romances is never directed at the king himself, but Golagros is nevertheless participating in what is clearly an English tradition in this respect too.20 English Arthurian tradition is, however, unable to account for two of the most striking aspects of the Golagros-poet’s additions: the creation of the haranguing advisor Sir Spynagros, and the rhetoric of freedom combined with the poem’s new thematic focus on the nature of sovereignty. It is here that our search for Scottishness in Golagros and Gawane finally begins to bear fruit.

Contemporary Scottish Literature The transformation of Bran de Liz into Spynagros is remarkable and, on first reading, inexplicable. There is an analogue in the lecturing ghost of the Awntyrs off Arthure, but there the ghost speaks only to Guenevere and Gawain, and certainly does not provide a running commentary throughout the narrative. Set within the strong Scottish tradition of Advice to Princes literature, however, Spynagros’s presence becomes understandable. Much work has been done in recent years – particularly by Sally Mapstone – on Scotland’s enormous interest in the Advice to Princes tradition during this period.21 All national literatures include examples of such literature, of course, and since the romance genre is particularly receptive to didactic intentions, especially where they relate to noble conduct, it is unsurprising to find a romance that has absorbed something from it. However, Golagros is one of at least three Scottish romances which have been dragged much more firmly into the realm of the Advice for Princes literature by the insertion of chunks of explicit advisory material. In Lancelot of the Laik, the clerk Amytans’ role of advising Arthur has been much expanded from that of the anonymous clerk in the French source, and Gilbert Hay’s Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour contains several passages of advice not present in his known

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All but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are edited in Hahn, Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. In the Scottish romance Rauf Coilhear, Charlemagne himself gets a lesson in ‘courtesy’ from a collier. Rauf had apparently been copied next to Golagros in a now-lost section of the Asloan manuscript (now NLS MS 16500), and they share many other parallels. For Asloan’s original table of contents, see The Asloan Manuscript: A Miscellany in Prose and Verse, ed. W. A. Craigie, STS New Series 14 and 16, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1923–4), pp. xiii–xv. ‘The Advice to Princes Tradition in Scottish Literature, c. 1450–1500’ (unpublished D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford, 1986). See also Lyall, ‘Politics and Poetry’.

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source material, as well as having has a clear general debt to the pseudoAristotelian advice treatise, the Secreta Secretorum. Hay’s romance probably dates from the 1460s, so these three texts could conceivably be contemporary with each other.22 The interest in advisory material shown by Hay is unsurprising since he was also responsible for the prose advisory works The Buke of the Law of Armys, The Buke of the Order of Knychthede and The Buke of the Governaunce of Princis (a version of the Secreta Secretorum), all translated from French.23 These latter works were commissioned by William Sinclair, earl of Orkney and Caithness, but the fact that some of Hay’s advisory works apparently once formed part of the manuscript of the Edinburgh notary John Asloan (copied c. 1513–30) shows that such Advice to Princes literature had far wider appeal than just to members of the ruling classes.24 The scribal colophon to the Buik of King Alexander, written in 1499, highlights the Scottish taste for specific advice on how to rule within a romance when it describes that romance as one ‘Quhilk treittis of wisdome and of guide governance,/ How kingis and princeis and nobleis sould þame bare/ Baith in the tyme of peace and tyme off ware’ (lines 19339–41).25 One distinctive feature of the Scottish fifteenth-century Advice to Princes tradition is its ultimately positive view of the king: Mapstone observes that it is characterized by ‘an abiding optimism about the potential of misguided monarchs for reform,’ and that this contrasts with the outlook of much late medieval English political writing.26 Roger Mason has argued persuasively that the loyalty shown by the Scots to the Stewart royal line throughout the turbulent fifteenth century, despite some atrocious royal behaviour, may be the unexpected legacy of the disastrous Bruce–Balliol wars in the previous century: this again stands in marked contrast to events south of the border.27 Certainly, Golagros offers an optimistic resolution of the problem of Arthur’s pride in a way

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Mapstone, ‘The Advice to Princes Tradition’, pp. 45–6. See Gilbert of the Haye’s Prose Manuscript (AD 1456), ed. J. H. Stevenson, STS First Series 44 and 62, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1901–14); also The Prose Works of Sir Gilbert Hay, ed. Jonathan A. Glenn, STS Fourth Series 21 (Edinburgh, 1993). On the problem of exactly which of Hay’s works might have appeared in the missing portion of Asloan (the original table of contents includes ‘þe document of Sir Gilbert Hay’ followed by ‘þe regiment of kingis with þe buke of phisnomy’), see Sally Mapstone, ‘The Scots Buke of Phisnomy and Sir Gilbert Hay’, in The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History and Culture offered to John Durkan, ed. A. A. MacDonald, M. Lynch and I. B. Cowan (Leiden, 1994), pp. 1–44. On Asloan himself, see Catherine Van Buuren, ‘John Asloan and his Manuscript: An Edinburgh Notary and Scribe in the Days of James III, IV and V (c. 1470–1530)’, in Stewart Style 1513–1542, ed. Janet Hadley Williams (East Linton, 1996), pp. 15–51. Sir Gilbert Hay, The Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour, ed. John Cartwright, STS Fourth Series 16 and 18, 3 vols. (only II and III published) (Edinburgh, 1986 and 1990). ‘Kingship and the Kingis Quair’, in The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for Douglas Gray, ed. H. Cooper and S. Mapstone (Oxford, 1997), pp. 51–69 (pp. 60–1). See also the discussion of the king in The Thre Prestis of Peblis in Lyall, ‘Politics and Poetry’ (p. 12) and Mapstone’s discussion of Lancelot of the Laik in ‘The Scots, the French, and the English: An Arthurian Episode’, in The European Sun: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature, ed. G. Caie, R. J. Lyall, S. Mapstone and K. Simpson (East Linton, 2001), pp. 129–44. ‘Kingship, Tyranny and the Right to Resist in Fifteenth-Century Scotland’, SHR 66 (1987), 125–51 (pp. 143–4).

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that the Awntyrs and the alliterative Morte do not. The Scottish emphasis on a king’s reformability, rather than his infallibility, can be seen another fifteenthcentury Scottish text copied by Asloan, The Talis of the Fyve Bestes: Or gif a kyng has said or done amyss That to Iustice oucht grevand Is It Is more worschipe till his hie estait ffor to revoke þan to be obstinat (lines 361–4)28

This moral comes from the end of the ‘Baris Tale’ (‘The Boar’s Tale’) in which Alexander the Great receives a lesson on covetousness in return for his demand for tribute from the people of Lapsat. Alexander accepts the advice, abandons the attempt and returns to his role as an ideal ruler, much as Arthur eventually does in Golagros. Interestingly, Spynagros initially tries to dissuade Arthur from demanding fealty of Golagros by invoking the precedent of Alexander: ‘the myghty king of Massidone, wourthiest but wene,/ Thair gat he nane homage’ (lines 282–3).29 The ‘Baris Tale’ is one of the tales told by the Horse, Hart, Unicorn, Boar and Wolf to the Lion King. At the end of the poem, the first four figures are allegorized as the king’s own cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Magnanimity and Continence (lines 409–10), who help to ward off the vice of Covetousness as represented by the Wolf. This notion of a king interacting with his own externalized virtues brings us back to our poet’s creation of Sir Spynagros. The name ‘Spynagros’ is not recorded elsewhere apart from an unrelated Epynogrys/Espinogres in Malory and his French sources.30 Spina is of course Latin for ‘thorn’ or ‘prick’: this was a popular metaphor for the Conscience, as in the hugely popular fourteenthcentury advice manual The Prick of Conscience. Within the Scottish tradition of a king whose eventual reform springs from his own innate virtue, what better name for Arthur’s advisor than one which recalls the conscience like this? The Talis of the Fyve Bestes is also relevant to Golagros in the context of the rhetoric of freedom. The terms in which the people of Lapsat refuse Alexander’s

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The Asloan Manuscript, ed. W. A. Craigie, 2 vols., STS New Series 14 and 16 (Edinburgh and London, 1923–4). This may allude to a more famous tale known as the Iter ad Paradisum, in which Alexander receives a reproof for covetousness after demanding tribute at the Gates of Paradise. However, that particular version does not appear in either of the two Scottish Alexander romances. See Mary Lascelles, ‘Alexander and the Earthly Paradise in Mediaeval English Writings’, Medium Aevum V (1936), 31–47, 79–104 (pp. 83–7 and 96–104); on Alexander in exempla warning against greed generally, see George Cary, The Medieval Alexander, ed. D. J. A. Ross (Cambridge, 1956; repr. 1967), pp. 146–52. Le roman de Tristan has a minor character Espynogre who is the son of the king of Northumberland, as is Malory’s Epynogrys: see Le roman de Tristan en prose, vol. 5, ed. D. Lalande with T. Delcourt (Geneva, 1992), chs. 38–9. In the Manessier continuation of Perceval, an (Es)Pignogres beheads his Cornish mother, thus setting a deadly curse on the Chapel of the Black Hand: see The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chretien de Troyes, vol. 5: The Third Continuation by Manessier, ed. William Roach (Philadelphia, 1983), lines 33,026–55. Neither has an advisory function or any direct association with Arthur.

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demand for tribute in the ‘Baris Tale’ are strongly reminiscent of Golagros’ refusal to bow to Arthur:31 That quhill we leif we will þis tovne defend In sic fredome as our antecessouris Has left till ws and till þis tovne of owris Erar’ we cheiss with worschipe for to de Than for to leif in subiectioun to be (‘Baris Tale’, lines 302–6) Quhill I may my wit wald, I think my fredome to hald, As my eldaris of ald, Has done me beforne. (Golagros, lines 450–53)

The ‘Baris Tale’ is preceded by the fragmentary ‘Hart’s Tale’, which tells of the heroism of William Wallace: Thar was na force mycht gar him fald Na hit reward of warldly gud Bot scotland ay defend he wald ffra subiectioun of saxonis blud Thus for his realme stedfast he stud (‘Hart’s Tale’, lines 111–15)

The audience has thus been prepared to recognize nationalist overtones in the speech of the Lapsat defenders even while it is clear that Alexander himself represents, not England, but an idealized king who learns from his mistakes. Golagros’s self-conscious use of the term ‘freedom’ would seem to mark it as a Scottish text even more strongly than its clear associations with the Scottish branch of the Advice to Princes tradition. ‘Freedom’ was a key component of the Scottish self-image throughout this period,32 and Golagros’s speech resonates with several contemporary texts that deal directly with Scottish nationhood. Golagros’s response to Arthur’s demand begins thus: Had euer leid of this land, that had bene leuand, Maid ony feute before, freik, to fulfil, I suld sickirly myself be consentand, And seik to your souerane, seymly on syll. (lines 430–33)

This parallels the widely held Scottish belief in an unbroken line of independent Scottish kings stretching back to antiquity:33 ‘þar was neuer land nor Is no land

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This statement is not found in its analogues and Latin sources: see Sally Mapstone, ‘The Talis of the Fyve Bestes and the Advice to Princes Tradition’, in Scottish Language and Literature, Medieval and Renaissance, ed. D. Strauss and H. W. Drescher, Scottish Studies 4 (Frankfurt, 1986), pp. 239–54 (p. 247). See G. W. S. Barrow, ‘The Idea of Freedom in Late Medieval Scotland’, Innes Review 30 (1979), 16–34; Alexander Grant, ‘Aspects of National Consciousness in Medieval Scotland’, in Nations, Nationalism and Patriotism in the European Past, ed. C. Bjørn, A. Grant and K. J. Stringer (Copenhagen, 1994), pp. 68–95; Roger Mason, ‘Aspects of National Identity in Renaissance Scotland,’ in Kingship and the Commonweal: Political Thought in Renaissance and Reformation Scotland (East Linton, 1998), pp. 78–103 (especially pp. 87–8). See ‘Introduction: Tartan Arthur?’, above, pp. 4–5.

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nor nacioun so fre bygane of all þe warld nor has standing so lang tyme in fredome as we scottis in scotland’ boasts the mid-fifteenth-century chronicle the Scottis Originale, which is also peppered with the terms ‘free’ and ‘freedom’.34 Golagros continues: Sen hail our doughty elderis has bene endurand, Thriuandly in this thede, vnchargit as thril, If I, for obeisance or boist, to bondage me bynde, I war wourthy to be Hingit heigh on ane tre (lines 434–8)

The determination to remain ‘vnchargit as thril’ recalls a passage in Barbour’s Bruce: And thryldome is weill wer yan deid, For quhill a thryll his lyff may leid It merrys him body and banys, And dede anoyis him bot anys. (I, 269–72)35

Golagros’s courtesy does not desert him, and he makes a compensatory offer: Bot sauand my senyeoury fra subiection, And my lordscip vn-lamyt, withoutin legiance, All that I can to yone king, cumly with croun, I sall preif all my pane to do hym plesance. (lines 441–5)

This too mirrors a statement in what is now one of the most famous documents of Scottish nationalist feeling, the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath: ‘We are sincerely willing to do anything for him [the English King], having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.’36 The stirring climax of Golagros’s speech recalls not just the sentiment of the Declaration but even its phraseology: Bot nowthir for his senyeoury, nor for his summoun, Na for dreid of na dede, na for na distance, I will noght bow me ane bak for berne that is borne; Quhill I may my wit wald, I think my fredome to hald, As my eldaris of ald, Has done me beforne. (lines 447–53) . . . for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.37

34 35

36 37

Quoted from the Asloan manuscript version, fol. 97a (ed. Craigie). Barbour’s Bruce, ed. M. P. McDiarmid and J. A. Stevenson, STS Fourth Series 12, 13 and 15, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1980–85). Hary’s Wallace shares these sentiments, but not the exploitation of the term ‘freedom’. Sir James Fergusson, The Declaration of Arbroath (Edinburgh, 1970), p. 9. Fergusson, Declaration, p. 9.

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With the deployment of the loaded term ‘fredome’, the Golagros-poet unleashes – for a Scottish audience – the full torrent of emotion and national pride perhaps most famously encapsulated in The Bruce’s apostrophe to freedom: A, fredome is a noble thing, Fredome mays man to haiff liking, Fredome all solace to man giffis, He levys at es yat frely levys. A noble hart may haiff nane es Na ellys nocht yat may him ples Gyff fredome failhhe, for fre liking Is hharnyt our all oyer thing. (I, 225–32)

Scottish context is equally crucial in explaining why Golagros, in the absence of a neurotic amie to save, still wants Gawain to feign defeat. As one critic puzzles: ‘Is Golagros so uncertain of his people’s loyalty that he feels he has to ask them whether they prefer him alive and defeated, or dead with honour? Since they will know that he has been defeated as soon as he tells them, how does Gawain’s action save him from disgrace in their eyes?’38 Taken in isolation like this, the narrative logic of the Scottish version does seem inferior. What the Golagros-poet is making space for, however, is an imagined reaction amongst Golagros’s men such as that described, once again, in the Declaration of Arbroath: Yet if he [Robert Bruce] should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King . . .39

In giving his men the opportunity to renounce their ties to him before he vows fealty to Gawain, Golagros acknowledges his people’s right to political freedom. In return, his people respond with a heart-warming and, one could argue, equally Scottish medieval trait of loyalty to their own royal line ‘for chance that may cheif’ (line 1193).

Conclusion It has been observed that ‘the stories of Wallace and Bruce were more central to the Scottish imagination than were the stories of Arthur’.40 The Golagros-poet’s treatment of his Arthurian material seems to bear this out. In ‘scotticizing’ his 38

39 40

Gillian Rogers, ‘ “Illuminat with lawte, and with lufe lasit”: Gawain gives Arthur a Lesson in Magnanimity’, in Romance Reading on the Book: Essays on Medieval Narrative Presented to Maldwyn Mills, ed. J. Fellows, R. Field, G. Rogers and J. Weiss (Cardiff, 1996), pp. 94–111 (p. 111, note 13). Fergusson, Declaration, p. 9. Elizabeth Walsh, ‘Golagros and Gawane: A Word for Peace’, in Bryght Lanternis: Essays in the Language and Literature of Medieval and Renaissance Scotland, ed. D. McClure and M. R. G. Spiller (Aberdeen, 1989), pp. 90–103 (p. 92).

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French material, he not only aligns it with Scotland’s particular branch of the Advice to Princes tradition, but he transforms his source material’s demonstration of courtesy into a subtle study of the nature of sovereignty and the practical role of courtesy in maintaining it, deliberately invoking the stories of Bruce and Wallace and the national sovereignty that they stand for in Scottish eyes. By giving Arthur the curious dual role of exemplary well-advised king and greedy attacker of a noble independent nation, Golagros satisfies fans of the most anglophobic of the Scottish chronicles, as well as those (and they may be the same people) who prefer their Arthur as a representative of ideal kingship. The revised ending, in which Arthur returns Golagros’s lands, vindicates both Arthur’s pre-eminence and virtue and Golagros’s claims to sovereignty. Given that part of Arthur’s role in this text is to represent the English monarchy, we may detect here a faint shadow of the uncomfortable dance of negotiation and compromise performed by Scotland and England throughout this period, resulting in, among other things, the marriage of James IV to Margaret Tudor in 1503. Far from merely translating a French Arthurian romance or tamely following English Arthurian tradition, the author of Golagros and Gawane weaves together international Arthurian tradition with local Scottish interests to cover the entire spectrum of Scotland’s uniquely complex reception of Arthurian legend.

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‘Of an uncouthe stede’: The Scottish Knight in Middle English Arthurian Romances CORY J. RUSHTON

When Malory’s Aggravayne and Mordred are recruiting a few good men to help them trap Lancelot in the queen’s bedchambers, they find willing allies among one particular group, the Scottish: Than sir Aggravayne and sir Mordred gate to them twelve knyghtes and hyd hemselff in a chambir in the castell of Carlyle. And these were their namys: sir Collgrevaunce, sir Mador de la Porte, sir Gyngalyne, sir Mellyot de Logris, sir Petipace of Wynchylsé, sir Galleron of Galoway, sir Melyon de la Mountayne, sir Ascamore, sir Gromeresom Erioure, sir Curselalyne, sir Florence, and sir Lovell. So thes twelve knyghtes were with sir Mordred and sir Aggravayne, and all they were of Scotlonde, other ellis of sir Gawaynes kynne, other [well]-wyllers to hys brothir. (1164.8–17)

Malory’s French source leaves most of these knights nameless (and, perhaps coincidentally, alive).1 For Malory, however, naming these knights and associating them with the Scots seems to be important; bound to Gawain and Aggravayne by ties of blood and friendship, Aggravayne’s twelve allies divide Arthur’s court through precisely that kind of loyalty, suggesting that ethnic divisions are a greater concern for Malory than they had been for the anonymous author of the French prose Mort Artu. This concern with ethnic division, and particularly with the Scots at Arthur’s court, colours Malory’s portrayal of a number of traditional characters and events. Malory seems to have believed that the Scots were the greatest threat facing the English in the fifteenth century; in direct contrast with English opinion during the reign of Edward I, Malory saw the Scots as neither despicable nor easily conquered. They were dangerous.

1

All references to Malory are from The Works of Thomas Malory, ed. Eugène Vinaver, rev. P. J. C. Field, 3rd edn, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1990). Malory’s secondary source, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, also depicts Lancelot slaying everyone but Mordred, but leaves the majority of the knights (including Lancelot’s first victim) unnamed (Stanzaic Morte Arthur, 1840–63), cited from Larry D. Benson, King Arthur’s Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Alliterative Morte Arthure, rev. Edward E. Foster, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo, 1994). References to the Mort Artu and related texts are from Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation, gen. ed. Norris J. Lacy, 5 vols. (New York, 1993–96). Malory uniquely allows Lancelot to wound Mordred.

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Conflict along the shifting border between England and Scotland was endemic and pervasive, and often linked with the larger world of medieval Europe through the Scottish alliance with the French. English political theory insisted upon the historical unity of the British islands, a stance which led to numerous attempts at annexing Scotland, some more violent than others.2 Scottish resistance to English domination, even in the face of military defeat, gave rise to their reputation as dishonest and treacherous neighbours, prone to unreasoning violence and a stubborn insistence on their perceived rights. The Luttrell Psalter (London, British Library, Additional 42130), created for Lincolnshire knight Geoffrey Luttrell sometime before his death in 1345, graphically illustrates this reputation. Scottish warriors are portrayed engaging in the vilest acts: stabbing unarmed men from behind, hitting widows over the head with clubs, slicing infants into pieces (BL Add. 42130, fol. 169r). Luttrell himself had seen service in Scotland no less than thirteen times on behalf of Edward I, and there can be little doubt that these treacherous men are Scottish; the middle figure’s face is painted blue, woadpainting being an activity associated with the Scots by their English neighbours. The Luttrell Psalter places the Scottish people alongside the Saracens as significant threats to English well-being. Literary sources share this fear and disdain of the Scots. For Luttrell’s fellow Lincolnshireman Robert Mannyng, the Scots were the most pressing problem facing England, their intractability and unwillingness to adhere to the oaths of allegiance they had sworn time and again to the English kings a sign of their treacherous nature.3 Although over a century separates Luttrell and Mannyng from Malory, Scotland remained a thorn in the side of the English kings and their ambitions for a kingdom uniting the island. If anything, the Scottish threat was now seen as intractable, and possibly permanent. A London chronicler contemporary with Malory, referring to a treaty of 1464, expressed hope that the peace would hold but found it ‘harde for to tryste unto hem, for they byn evyr founde fulle of gyle and dyssayte’.4 One of Malory’s sources, John Hardyng’s chronicle, insists on the justice and necessity of conquering the Scots; Hardyng himself seems to have spent a career forging various documents proving that the Scottish kings had submitted to the English again and again.5 Scottish resistance to English dreams of insular unity is cast as treachery and guile, and English inability to

2

3

4 5

R. R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identity in the British Isles 1093–1343 (Oxford, 2000), has an extended discussion of English attempts to unify the island and construct mythologies justifying these attempts, see esp. pp. 4–54. Cynthia J. Neville, Violence, Custom and Law: The Anglo-Scottish Border Lands in the Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1998), is a useful introduction to the legal and social consequences of this conflict. For a more literary treatment of the same theme, see Patricia Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies: Arthurian Fantasy and the Making of Britain (Philadelphia, 2001). Michael Camille, Mirror in Parchment (London, 1998), pp. 284–88; on Mannyng, see Thorlac Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature and National Identity 1290–1340 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 100–102; and Thea Summerfield, The Matter of King’s Lives (Amsterdam, 1998). ‘Gregory’s Chronicle’, in A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, Vol. II: c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1982), p. 224. Edward Donald Kennedy, ‘John Hardyng and the Holy Grail’, Arthurian Literature 8 (1989), 185–206 (pp. 188–91).

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bring the Scots to heel leads to a sense of pessimism, despair and resentment. The insular unity which eluded the English monarchy in reality asserted itself in Middle English romance, among other texts.6 Malory’s Morte Darthur is particularly haunted by Scottish intractability. Scotland is one of Malory’s most confusing kingdoms, and it would be pointless to attempt to reconcile all of his references to this kingdom and its neighbours in the north. When Malory provides an overview of the political situation in Arthur’s day, he confidently states that Wales had two kings, Cornwall and the West had two kings, Ireland had two or three kings, but the North had ‘many kynges’, most of whom were particularly hostile to Arthur (371.10–19); early in the Morte Malory declares that Sir Brastias ‘was maade wardeyn to wayte upon the Northe fro Trent forwardes, for it was that tyme the most party the kynges enemyes’ (16.34–37).7 King Lot of Lothian and the Orkneys is the strongest of these early enemies, a man whom the text cannot imagine surviving alongside Arthur, despite the fact that many Middle English texts posit exactly this outcome.8 Knowing that the battle between Lot and Arthur is inevitable, Merlin must make a decision: ‘And well Merlion knew that one of the kynges sholde be dede that day; and lothe was Merlion that ony of them bothe sholde be slayne, but of the tweyne he had levir kyng Lotte of Orkeney had be slayne than Arthure’ (76.16–20).9 In other words, the island is not big enough for both of them; further,

6

7

8

9

Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies, pp. 2–3; Davies, The First English Empire, pp. 10–12 and 31–53. For example, in the ballad The Greene Knight: He [Arthur] had all att his leadinge The broad ile of Brittaine; England and Scottland one was, And Wales stood in the same case (lines 3–5; Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, ed. Thomas Hahn, TEAMS Middle English Texts [Kalamazoo, 1995]). Further, the anonymous author of the Middle English Ywain and Gawain adds the following to his rendering of Chrétien’s Yvain: Arthure the kyng of Yngland That wan al Wales with his hand (And al Scotland als sayes the buke, And mani mo if men will luke) . . . (lines 7–9; quoted from Ywain and Gawain, Sir Percyvell of Galles, The Anturs of Arther, ed. Maldwyn Mills [London, 1992]). Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies, pp. 200–201. Although Ingham locates Arthur’s early enemies entirely in Scotland (naming ‘Orkney, Scotland, Gore and Garloth’ as his primary opponents), this ignores the enmity of Northumberland, Ireland and Cornwall. Lot appears as a member of Arthur’s court in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, lines 382–94 (and he dies in Arthur’s battle against Mordred, line 4266); Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carelyle, line 41, ed. Hahn; Ywain and Gawain, line 3644, ed. Mills; The Awntyrs of Arthure, line 595 (The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn, ed. Robert J. Gates [University of Pennsylvania, 1969]: all Awntyrs quotations will be from this edition); and in Layamon, where Arthur assists Lot in his struggle for the Norwegian throne, lines 11528–612 (Layamon’s Arthur, ed. and trans. W. R. J. Barron and S. C. Weinberg [University of Exeter, 2001]). In the Post-Vulgate Merlin Continuation from which Malory ultimately derives this scene, Merlin does not show any particular concern for Lot: ‘He [Merlin] helped King Arthur so much because he preferred that Arthur be whole and healthy, and that King Lot be killed. And he knew that one of them would die there if they fought together’ (Lacy, IV.197). Andrew Lynch writes that Malory’s ‘text often betrays some anxiety about a good knight’s

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Merlin finds it regrettable that either king must die. Choosing between a powerful Scottish border-king and an English monarch may not be an enviable task, but the result is inevitable: Merlin, servant of both destiny and Arthur, must choose the English king to rule the whole island. Lot’s sons, foremost among them Gawain, seem to inherit this troubling status from their father; certainly, the main motivation for their disruptions of the pax Arthuriana is rooted in their desire to avenge Lot’s death even as they claim allegiance to his conqueror, Arthur. Even when Arthur does have complete control, Malory’s anxiety concerning the Scottish remains an important theme. No longer external enemies, the Scottish now divide the kingdom from within, an intractable and unabsorbable people who continually resist England’s self-proclaimed manifest destiny. Although Gawain is normally depicted as a member of Arthur’s court and thus a political insider inhabiting the centre and not the margins, his own association with the border regions of Galloway and Scotland is early and well attested. William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Regum Anglorum records that ‘Walwen’ was the exiled ruler of Walweitha, usually identified as Galloway.10 Although the story of Gawain’s expulsion seems to disappear from the tradition, it is worth noting that Gawain also loses Galloway in The Awntyrs off Arthure, although here he holds Galloway by conquest and not hereditary succession (discussed further below). The association between Gawain and Scotland ran deep enough that later Scottish chroniclers, faced with English aggression from the reign of Edward I onwards, could begin claiming Gawain and Mordred as their own particular heroes, the legitimate heirs to Britain as well as Lothian.11 Thomas Hahn has summed up the importance of political geography in the Middle English Gawain corpus, noting that Carlisle, a city in Cumbria on the border with Scotland, is the ‘indispensable endplace’ for most of Gawain’s adventures, which almost inevitably involve bringing a Celtic realm under control: Yet, as fantasies of limitless monarchical control, these poems do not take an undifferentiated view of conquered kingdoms, but instead offer a precise,

10 11

defeat, through expressions of pity, exclamations and appeals to proverbial wisdom’: Andrew Lynch, Malory’s Book of Arms (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 39–41. This uneasiness manifests itself in Lot’s story, in part because Malory consistently portrays Lot’s political obstinancy as heroism; for Malory, it is important that the idea of knights fighting well be preserved even when their defeat is necessary. The result is a surprisingly positive portrait of a Scottish king, and an equally unexpected admission that the Scottish could historically have dominated the island rather than the English. Keith Busby, Gauvain in Old French Literature (Amsterdam, 1980), pp. 31 and 47 n. 5. On the Scottish chroniclers, see above: ‘Introduction: Tartan Arthur?’ pp. 4–5, Wood, ‘Where Does Britain End?’ and Royan, ‘The Fine Art of Faint Praise’; on the reign of Edward I, see Summerfield, ‘The Testimony of History’, above. Arthur’s illegitimacy and the subsequent royal claims of Lot’s sons first appears on John of Fordun’s Chronica Gentis Scotorum (c. 1385), although Alexander notes that true Scottish hostility to Arthur only appears in the c. 1460 Cronycle of Scotland in a Part, a work contemporary with Malory: Flora Alexander, ‘Late Medieval Attitudes to the Figure of King Arthur: A Reassessment’, Anglia 93 (1975), 17–34 (p. 21). See also Karl Heinz Göller, ‘König Arthur in den Schottischen Chroniken’, Anglia 80 (1962), 390–404 (reprinted and translated in King Arthur: A Casebook, ed. E. D. Kennedy (New York and London, 1996), pp. 173–84), and Martin Shichtman, ‘Sir Gawain in Scotland: A Hometown Boy Made Good’, in King Arthur Through the Ages, ed. Valerie Lagorio and Mildred Leake Day, 2 vols. (New York, 1990), pp. 234–47 (pp. 236–37).

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undeviating agenda for just which lands require subduing and colonization: all are Celtic territories that make up the periphery of England – Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Brittany. Their peripheral location defines a symbolic geography, and their conquest consequently enhances the myth of England’s centrality and political domination.12

The characters and kingdoms which occupy this Celtic fringe threaten Arthur’s court before being inevitably absorbed. It might well be important that Aggravayne’s trap is laid at Carlisle in Malory, near to the Scottish knight’s major source of allies.13 Gawain is thus a figure both essential and marginal, and potentially troubling; in many Middle English texts, Gawain comes from the fringes of Arthur’s world to become its leading figure, the outsider who defends the centre from other outsiders, but who carries with him a potential claim to greater power in his own right. The absorption of the Celtic fringe and its knightly representatives is never more complete than when Malory himself raids other Middle English texts to flesh out the narrative he finds in his French sources. A longer look at Malory’s list of Aggravayne’s ‘well-wyllers’ who attempt to ambush Lancelot is illuminating. Malory finds most of these names within the larger, nebulous Middle English Gawain tradition, as Benson noted.14 Gyngalyn, Florence and Lovell are Gawain’s sons, the first from the poem Lybeaus Desconus, the latter apparently from other sources.15 Collgrevaunce appears in Chrétien de Troyes’ Le Chevalier au Lion and its English translation Ywain and Gawain as Ywain’s cousin (and thus as Gawain’s kinsman as well). Mador de la Porte had appeared earlier in Malory’s book as the accuser of the queen in the murder of his cousin Sir Patrise, an Irish knight; he has a possible grudge against Lancelot that extends beyond ethnicity, as the latter defeated him to clear Guenevere of that murder.16 Melyon de la Mountayne is reminiscent of Menealfe of the Mountayn, a knight defeated and brought into the Round Table by Gawain in The Avowyng of Arthur, while Gromer appears in both The Wedding of Sir Gawain

12

13

14

15

16

Hahn, ‘Introduction’, in Sir Gawain, pp. 29–32. This statement is largely but not entirely accurate; Gologras and Gawain, for example, takes place by the Rhône in France (line 1345), and most of the Alliterative Morte Arthure takes place on the continent. Hahn, ‘Introduction’, p. 31. It is never directly stated in the Stanzaic Morte whether this scene takes place at Carlisle or not, although Lancelot later returns Guenevere to the king’s court at Carlisle; it is implied that Carlisle is near Joyous Garde (lines 2348–51), a detail Malory reiterates. The Mort Artu states that the vague Camelot is the location for these scenes. Larry D. Benson, Malory’s Morte Darthur (Cambridge, MA, 1976), pp. 41–43; see also Hyonjin Kim, The Knight Without the Sword (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 84–90. Kim has noted that Priamus, Gawain’s conquest from the Roman War, is a surprising omission from any list of his ‘wellwyllers’ (pp. 87–88), although not if Malory was deliberately building a Scottish faction. Kim further notes that there ‘also lingers some faint note of treachery and defection’ concerning Mador, who arguably owes Lancelot some gratitude for the latter’s mercy during their duel (p. 89); see below for further discussion of Mador. Florence appears in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, where he refers to Gawain as his father; see my ‘Absent Fathers, Unexpected Sons: Paternity in the Morte Darthur’, Studies in Philology 101.2 (2004), 136–52 for more details. Mador is specifically mentioned in the Vulgate Mort Artu as one of Arthur’s counsellors following the flight of Lancelot and Guenevere (Lacy, IV.126).

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and Dame Ragnell and The Turke and Sir Gawain; in the latter, he becomes king of the Isle of Man after the death of the ‘heathen soldan’ who ruled the island previously (lines 129–30, lines 329–31). Malory clearly knows his Middle English romance, and is further able to make the imaginative leap necessary to find correlations between characters which appear in them; in other words, if a knight appears in a Gawain romance, for Malory he must later be counted among Gawain’s party. I have reserved one particular knight for deeper consideration. Galleron is a major figure in The Awntyrs of Arthure, a poem with northeastern associations: he also appears as Galeron de Gales in the Prose Tristan, one of Malory’s sources.17 In both Malory and his source, Galleron is a wounded knight who assists Tristram and Palamedes, albeit in an unusual manner. The two rivals have met for yet another of their interminable battles (although this will be the last); Tristram is unarmed, but fortunately Galleron, here already a knight of the Round Table, lies wounded nearby and agrees to lend Tristram his arms and armour to facilitate the battle. Galleron is described as ‘a noble knyght and had done many dedys of armys; and he was a large knyght of fleyshe and boone’ (843.10–12). Galleron subsequently accompanies the combatants to the nearby ‘suffrygan of Carlehylle’, who baptizes Palamedes; Galleron is one of ‘hys two godfadyrs’, appropriate given his role in the Saracen’s final pre-baptism battle (845.10–15). Galleron also appears in the Urry episode, in company with many of the future ‘well-wyllers’ (1148.12–20), but plays a greater role in Malory’s narrative than his companions. The date of Awntyrs is uncertain, but is generally agreed to be early fifteenthcentury. The poem is divided into two distinct halves, and the second section (the fight between Galleron and Gawain) is often treated as a gloss on the first section (the ghostly visitation of Guenevere’s mother before Gawain and Guenevere at Tarn Wadling). Galleron describes himself as a knight whose lands have been stolen unjustly by Arthur (whose land-acquisitiveness is the major focus of the ghost’s criticism in the first section): ‘Mi name is Sir Galaron, withouten eny gile, Þe grettest of Galwey of greues and gylles, Of Connok, of Conyngham, and also of Kyle. Of Lomond, of Losex, of Loyan hilles. Þou has wonen hem in were with a wrange wile And geuen hem to Sir Gawayn – þat my hert grylles.’ (lines 417–22)

Not all of the place-names have been confidently identified, partly due to scribal corruption manifest in the four extant (and differing) manuscripts of the poem; however, those places which have been identified are all in Scotland, especially clustered in and around Ayrshire. Galleron’s Scottish pedigree is assured, at least in the English tradition associating him with the region. That the poem wishes us to take his claims seriously is indicated by the bizarre assertion that Gawain

17

Benson, Malory’s Morte, p. 43.

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was born in Burgundy (line 30).18 Gawain’s Burgundian origins are not attested elsewhere, and are likely not based in any tradition at all; rather, if Gawain is from Burgundy, then he has no rightful claim to Galloway. He is an outsider, an interloper given Galloway by a conqueror who himself has no inherent claim to the region; Galleron’s claims are given the narrative equivalent of a green light. Galleron’s Scottishness should not be taken to indicate that the poem itself is Scottish in origin; the poem has clear features (specifically language and metre) indicating a northwest provenance, but Cumberland rather than Scotland is considered the likeliest region of origin. Patricia Ingham has recently argued that Scotland acts as a ‘metaphor for regional concerns’ in the Awntyrs; she believes that the poem’s central concern is with empire-building and its consequences, and not directly with Scotland.19 Given the ghost’s warnings about Arthur’s ambitions, it is difficult to disagree: Arthur restores his lands, but compensates Gawain by awarding him further lands: ‘Here I gif Sir Gawayn, with gerson and golde, al þe Glamergan londe with greues so grene, Þe worship of Wales at wil and at wolde, With Criffones Castelles curnelled ful clene; Eke Vlstur Halle to hafe and to holde, Wayford and Waterforde, wallede I wene; Two baronrées in Bretayne with burghes so bolde, Þat arn batailed abouht and bigged ful bene (lines 664–71)

Hahn argues that ‘these fringe territories’ act as signifiers of the king’s power, and further that since ‘the time of Edward III . . . the eldest son of the king was created Prince of Wales by the monarch to signify his status as heir to the throne’.20 Hanna tried to find English place-names to fit these lines, arguing that the ‘difficulties involved in scribal transcription and editorial location of proper names should be apparent from reading’ the passage; for example, he suggests a link between Waterford and Water Fulforde near York, but thankfully does not try to relocate Ulster or Brittany (140).21 Both critics marshall their evidence for much the same reason. If the lands mentioned are in England proper, or Gawain is named Arthur’s heir, the poem ends on a much more optimistic note: Arthur has learned from the ghost of Guenevere’s mother, and has acted to stabilize his realm and its borders through generosity and an emphasis on proper, controlled succession.

18

19 20 21

Hanna believes that ‘Borgoyne’ (present in all four manuscripts) is a scribal error for ‘Orkney’, arguing that the author added a ‘B’ to the name for alliterative purposes, creating the form ‘Borkeney.’ This word was later transformed into a recognizable place-name by subsequent scribes. Madden and Amours contented themselves with declaring that it was Gawain’s horse, not Gawain himself, that was Burgundian by birth: The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn, ed. Ralph Hanna III (Manchester, 1974), p. 100. Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies, pp. 187–88. Hahn, ‘Introduction’, p. 224, nn. 664ff. Hanna, Awntyrs, p. 140; he does note that none of these ‘suggestive’ place-names fits comfortably within the ‘worship of Wales’. Thornton, Lambeth and Ireland all have variant readings: ‘Husters haulle’ (T), ‘Hulkers home’ (I) and ‘Hulster al holy’ (L). ‘Bretayne’ appears as ‘Burgoyne’ in T, while D records that Waterforde is specifically in Wales rather than ‘wallede’ (it is recorded as ‘Wakfelde’ in T).

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However, with the possible exception of Wales, most of the lands mentioned were either contested or beyond English power by the time of the poem’s likely composition; Wales itself was periodically a place of unrest, most recently under Owain Glyndw ˆ r (c. 1415). Ulster was not under English control until 1609, although the other towns possibly mentioned were English settlements. Brittany had not been an English possession since 1203. Arthur emphasizes the fortified nature of his gifts, not their wealth or prestige: they are all ‘curnelled ful clene’ or ‘wallede’ or ‘batailed abought’. As Ingham notes, ‘Gawain may be forced to fight over and over again for the land Arthur promises.’22 The poem thus seems to promise perpetual war for Arthur’s followers and neighbours, a state which Ingham argues may well suit Arthur’s purposes.23 Galleron does not represent a specific ethnicity so much as he signifies resistance to centralized authority and a deeply held interest in ever-elusive security and peace. The Scots are simply the people who have managed to hold out against English (southern) domination more successfully than most. While the Galleron of Awntyrs joins Arthur’s court, the questions his challenge raised have by no means been answered. In Malory, Galleron does not openly resist Arthur’s authority; he acts from within Arthur’s court, not from its fringes, and in the ostensible interests of the king. On one level, the Scottishness of Galleron and his fellow knights makes Malory’s narrative more complex as he ascribes a motive beyond simple envy for their actions. It seems clear from Malory’s narrative that Aggravayne’s gang is actually defending the interests of their faction, despite the fact that Gawain, a man who is notionally their leader and the most powerful Scot at Arthur’s court, disapproves of their plan.24 The king is increasingly dependent on this Scottish faction throughout the final books as Gawain and his brothers replace all other sources of advice and counsel for Arthur, a phenomenon I have explored elsewhere.25 A curious incident in the Tristram illustrates just how early in Malory’s book Arthur becomes associated with a strong Scottish faction. Orkney knights fight as a group at Lonazep, where they seem to have Arthur’s ear: Arthur is anxious that some of his Round Table knights (including Tristram and Palomedes) are fighting against him in the tournament. He is approached by Edward and Sadok, kinsmen of Gawain: ‘And they asked of kynge Arthure that they myght have the fyrste justis, for they were of Orkeney’, and Arthur replies that he is pleased to do so (733.11–13). This episode parallels Gawain’s dubbing earlier in the book. Arthur’s stated rationale for knighting the untried Gawain is their kinship: ‘. . . for I muste be reson ye ar my nevew, my sistirs son’ (99.10–14). Already at the beginning of Arthur’s reign

22 23 24

25

Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies, p. 189. Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies, pp. 190–91. While we are told that Aggravayne and Mordred act because of their ‘prevy hate’ for Lancelot and Guenevere (1161.9–13), we are not told this of their twelve allies; loyalty and friendship are the reasons Malory cites for their participation in the ambush. The Mort Artu, by contrast, declares that the ambushers are all motivated by jealousy of Lancelot’s prowess. Cory Rushton, ‘Talk is Cheap: Political Discourse in Malory’s Morte Darthur’, Disputatio 5 (2002), 67–85 (pp. 74–76). During the Roman War, Arthur receives counsel from many sources, and this counsel is generally unanimous and in accord with the king’s own wishes; Lancelot is in a similar position from the moment he returns to his own followers after fleeing the queen’s chambers. By the final book of the Morte, however, Malory’s Arthur has no counsellors besides the Orkney faction, who generally give him inadequate advice.

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we have evidence of his unquestioning trust in kinship, and with this kinsman in particular; this trust seems to extend to Gawain’s people, the knights of Orkney. This trust leads to trouble, for Arthur’s other followers increasingly feel threatened by a Scottish faction protected by the king even when they are acting treacherously. An earlier tournament in Surluse contains an episode highlighting the actions of the untrustworthy Scots. Lamorak, prince of North Wales and rival to Gawain, is ambushed and killed by the Orkney brothers after he leaves the tournament; the ambush seems to be an open secret, but Lancelot’s attempt to convince Lamorak to seek Arthur’s protection is rejected because the king apparently cannot be trusted to effectively intercede against his own kin (670.13–21). Lamorak’s death has further implications for Arthur’s kingdom. Lancelot’s French faction in the final wars is bolstered by a number of Welsh and Cornish knights: ‘Than there felle to them, what of Northe Walys and of Cornwayle, for sir Lamorakes sake and for sir Trystrames sake, to the numbir of a seven score knyghtes’ (1170.26–29). Later, when Benwick is besieged by Arthur’s forces, Malory again mentions the northern Welsh: ‘Than spake seven brethirn of Northe Walis whych were seven noble knyghtes, for a man myghte seke seven kyngis londis or he myght fynde such seven knyghtes’ (1212.9–12). These knights follow Lancelot out of loyalty to the deceased Lamorak (the most prominent victim of Scottish treachery), and it is clear that Malory wishes us to see that the divisions rupturing Arthur’s court run along ethnic lines. We also see that Lancelot is successful in building and maintaining a multi-ethnic following, something which Arthur has ultimately failed to do and Gawain does not seem interested in trying to do; as Kim notes, ‘Lancelot has united three of the four greatest Arthurian affinities under his leadership.’26 The affinity which resists unity is, of course, the Scots; further, the Scottish themselves are partially responsible for the united front presented by their enemies. Whenever the Orkneys kill a rival, that rival’s followers seem drawn to Lancelot’s company, and because they are all joined together in mutual admiration for Lancelot and distaste for the Scots, their alliance lasts. In other words, any alliance that does not contain a significant Scottish faction is likely to survive. The treacherous nature of the Scottish may help to illuminate another episode in the Morte, although on this occasion Malory omits a character’s Scottish identity to make his point. In the ‘Poisoned Apple’ episode, we are told that Pinel of Carbonek wishes to poison Gawain in retaliation for his cousin Lamorak’s death; unfortunately, he chooses a dinner party hosted by Guenevere as the location of his revenge, and a poisoned piece of fruit ends up in the mouth of an Irish knight, Sir Patryse (1049.6–12). Patryse’s cousin Mador de la Porte accuses the queen of murder. We thus have an Irish knight who is the unwitting victim of a North Welsh knight’s attempt to murder a Scot. However, Malory’s English source, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, imagines this event quite differently.27 In the

26 27

Kim, Knight Without the Sword, p. 91. Malory’s French source, the Mort Artu, is again not interested in ethnicity at this point, although Mador learns the manner of his brother’s death from an unnamed Scottish knight (Lacy, IV.112); both Malory and the Stanzaic author deliberately use ethnicity as a method of understanding this story.

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poem, an unnamed (and ethnically indeterminate) squire wishes to kill Gawain for reasons known only to himself; the poisoned apple is eaten by an equally anonymous Scottish knight, said to be especially ‘dere’ to Guenevere, who sits between victim and intended victim (lines 835–79). Mador de la Porte is here said to be the Scottish knight’s brother, and is thus a Scot himself (lines 880–83). The squire places the apple near to Guenevere, believing that she would offer it to Gawain, but instead she gives it to the Scot, for ‘he was of an uncouthe stede’, a foreign place (lines 848–51). A Scottish knight is therefore slain in an attempt to kill a more famous knight, the latter also associated strongly (but not here specifically) with Scotland. This game of shifting ethnic identities suggests that both the Stanzaic poet and Malory find something of particular interest here beyond the obvious forward progression of the plot. The poem’s dead Scottish knight is clearly portrayed as an innocent victim who had absolutely nothing to do with whatever conflict existed between Gawain and the unnamed squire; furthermore, unlike Malory, the Stanzaic poet never mentions Mador de la Porte again.28 His reconciliation with Lancelot is genuine and lasting, as far as we are told. Ingham argues that in the end Scottish foreigner and Welsh intimate are interchangeable because both are equally complicit in the ‘murderous intrigue’ that ultimately undoes the Round Table. Ingham’s argument actually applies with greater force to Malory, who deliberately takes this opportunity to emphasize again the factional nature of Arthur’s court by reminding the reader of the animosity between the North Welsh followers of Lamorak and the Orkneys. For Malory, a Scottish knight cannot be seen as an innocent victim, and so his ethnic identity must be displaced at least temporarily; if Patryse remained Scottish, his death might well be seen as a logical or even just consequence of the Orkney–de Gales feud. For the Scottish knight, there is always someone who needs to be avenged or destroyed, whose reputation needs to be defended or undermined. The Scots are never innocent or unwitting, and they seem incapable of fully participating in Arthur’s society, instead pursuing a programme of ambition and aggression, continually agitating to gain and maintain superiority over other factions within the court. It may be relevant that while Malory drops Patryse’s specifically Scottish identity, his Mador de la Porte remains linked with the Scottish faction led by Aggravayne and Mordred in their ill-advised attempt to trap Lancelot, even if he is simply one of the other ‘well-wyllers’ and not ethnically a Scot. Towards the end of his book, Malory suddenly insists that Lancelot’s English holding, Joyous Garde, was either Alnwick or Bamborough (1257.24–28), both places near the Scottish border and intimately associated with the defense of the north against the Scots (and further with the troublesome nature of the more independent lords of Northumbria, the Wardens of the March, represented in Malory by Brastias). Malory, like Geoffrey Luttrell, had likely experienced

28

Ingham declares that the Stanzaic text makes a substitution of the Scottish knight for Gawain, ‘displacing the murder and victimization of a member of the court onto the murder of a Celtic visitor’; she sees this as proof that a ‘fourteenth-century audience might view Gawain and his brothers as not entirely English’ and thus ‘whether Welsh or Scots, as interchangeable’; Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies, pp. 149–51.

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military service in the north, specifically at these castles, then held by the Lancastrians with Scottish assistance.29 Alnwick and Bamborough, like Gawain, normally defend the realm to the south, but can be used against the English as well. The final tragedy of the Morte, whatever else might prompt it, is inextricably linked in Malory’s mind with the problem of the Scottish. Throughout Malory’s book, the Scots have troubled Arthur’s efforts at building and maintaining a kingdom: they are central to the early rebellions; they are portrayed throughout the ‘Tristram’ as jealous and murderous; they refuse to join the wider chivalric fellowship on anything but their own terms. By linking the motivations of the ‘well-wyllers’ so completely to their identity as Scots, Malory invokes Scottish treachery as an important factor in the downfall of Arthur’s kingdom. Aggravayne may be full of ‘prevy hate’ and mischief, but he is also a Scot, and for Malory these traits seem inextricably linked.

29

P. J. C. Field, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 129–30.

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Dead Butchers and Fiend-like Queens: Literary and Political History in The Misfortunes of Arthur and Macbeth ANDREW KING

The Misfortunes of Arthur, written by Thomas Hughes and seven other members of Gray’s Inn for performance before Queen Elizabeth in 1588 and printed in the same year, offers a uniquely complicated synthesis of Scottish and Arthurian interests. The Scottishness resides in the play’s representation of Elizabeth’s handling of the Mary Queen of Scots crisis in the previous year; however subliminal, this political context instigates and transforms the Arthurian narrative, providing more than background. The ‘Scottishness’, or Scottish interest, of this Arthurian text is therefore fundamental, even if masked. Criticism of the play, however, frequently erodes this connection.1 The emphasis has tended to fall either on Misfortunes as a political allegory relating to the Scottish Queen or on the thematic and narratological innovations of the play within the context of the Arthurian tradition. This essay seeks to uphold a stronger sense of connection between the play’s Scottish interest and its Arthurian subject-matter. Why is the Arthurian world particularly apposite for a play exploring Anglo-Scottish politics of the Elizabethan period? How does Scottish political theory, in particular the writings of George Buchanan, provide a context for examining the play’s focus on sovereignty, enacted through Mordred’s challenge and Arthur’s fall? Central to the connections between The Misfortunes of Arthur and its Anglo-Scottish historical and political context is the notion of inheritance, specifically royal succession, and it is therefore appropriate that this essay concludes with a play that seems in itself the ‘heir’ to Hughes’ play – Macbeth. Although not Arthurian, Macbeth is connected

1

[Thomas Hughes et al.], The Misfortunes of Arthur: A Critical, Old-Spelling Edition, ed. Brian Jay Corrigan (New York and London, 1992). A facsimile exists: Thomas Hughes and others, The Misfortunes of Arthur, ed. John S. Farmer, Tudor Facsimile Texts 51 (n.p., 1911). Recent critical interest is: Richard McCabe, Incest, Drama, and Nature’s Law, 1550–1700 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 124–6; Elizabeth Archibald, ‘ “The Price of Guilt”: The Incest Theme in Thomas Hughes’s The Misfortunes of Arthur’, Poetica 49 (1998), 63–75; Yuri Fuwa, ‘Metaphors of Confusion: Incest and Illegitimacy in Thomas Hughes’s The Misfortunes of Arthur (1588)’, Poetica 49 (1998), 77–95. Older studies are: Evangelina H. Waller, ‘A Possible Interpretation of The Misfortunes of Arthur’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 24 (1925), 219–45; Gertrude Reese, ‘Political Import of The Misfortunes of Arthur’, Review of English Studies 21 (1945), 81–91; William A. Armstrong, ‘Elizabethan Themes in The Misfortunes of Arthur’, Review of English Studies 7 (1956), 238–49.

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at deeper levels with Misfortunes, extending the political and contextual concerns of Misfortunes into the next generation of Mary’s son, James VI and I. James’ absence from Misfortunes is as significant as Mary’s failure to appear in Macbeth’s vision of Banquo’s descendants. Brought into critical dialogue, the two plays complete each other through the extension of their links with an historical narrative that bridges two generations.

‘Former guilte . . . [and] future doom’: The Senecanization of the Arthurian World in The Misfortunes of Arthur The action of Misfortunes begins near the end of Arthur’s reign, when he is returning to Britain from his wars with the Emperor Lucius of Rome in an effort to salvage his kingdom. Mordred, his illegitimate and incestuously conceived son, has usurped the crown and taken Guenevora (Guenevere) as his consort; the play ends with the deaths of Arthur and Mordred.2 What is initially striking about Misfortunes is its Senecan character. With remarkable ingenuity, Hughes has created Senecan tragedy out of the inherited Arthurian narrative. An interest in Senecan tragedy as a dramatic form was aided by the publication of Jasper Heywood’s and others’ translations of Seneca’s tragedies in 1581.3 However, literary form cannot be separated from political import: for a play so responsive to the figure of Mary Queen of Scots and the issue of sovereignty, Senecan tragedy carries particular meaning. Given the context of Mary Queen of Scots, a crucial figure for this politicization of Senecan tragedy is the Scots political theorist George Buchanan. Buchanan was perhaps the chief architect of the English and Protestant view of Mary as evil, and his advocacy of limited sovereignty rested heavily on her putative crimes. Like other humanists interested in limited sovereignty and classical republicanism, Buchanan turned to Seneca, whose plays embody anxiety concerning hereditary and absolutist sovereignty.4 Buchanan drew upon Seneca’s portrayal of corrupt and tyrannical kingship in Thyestes for his Dialogus de iure regni apud

2

3 4

The broad outlines of the story, as well as certain details such as the incest and Arthur and Mordred personally slaying each other, clearly derive from Malory. Hughes must have drawn also on text/s in the ‘historical’ Galfridian tradition – not least because, unlike Malory, he follows the Roman wars with the final catastrophe. A facsimile edition is Seneca, His Tenne Tragedies, intr. T. S. Eliot (Bloomington and London, 1966). On the political implications of Senecanism in the Early Modern period in general, see further: Gordon Braden, Renaissance Tragedy and the Senecan Tradition: Anger’s Privilege (New Haven and London, 1988), p. 107; J. H. M. Salmon, ‘Stoicism and the Roman Example: Seneca and Tacitus in Jacobean England’, Journal of the History of Ideas 50 (1989), 199–225 (p. 206); Markku Peltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 127; and Malcolm Smuts, ‘Court-Centred Politics and the Uses of Roman Historians, c. 1590–1630’ and David Norbrook, ‘Lucan, Thomas May, and the Creation of a Republican Literary Culture’. The last two essays are in Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, ed. Kevin Sharpe and Peter Lake (Houndmills, 1994), pp. 21–43 and 45–66 respectively. For its place in Scotland, see David Allan, Philosophy and Politics in Later Stuart Scotland: neo-Stoicism, Culture, and Ideology in an Age of Crisis, 1540–1690 (East Linton, 2000).

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Scotos (1579) – a work advocating limited and morally responsible sovereignty.5 Seneca’s own death, through the cruelty of Nero, threw into sharp relief for humanists such as Buchanan the importance of the anti-absolutist themes that his plays offered. Because Buchanan’s writings on Mary, such as Ane Detection of the Duinges of Marie Quene of Scottes (1571),6 have left such a deep impression on Misfortunes, the play’s Senecan form is not only political but, mediated through Buchanan, ‘Scottish’. It is not just Mary, but also Elizabeth – the intended audience of the play – to whom the politics of Senecanism apply at the outset. Here the application of Senecanism to the specifically Arthurian world is crucial. The Arthurian narrative was an established ‘mirror-world’ for the Tudor dynasty, as The Faerie Queene and numerous other texts demonstrate; in Misfortunes, Arthur says that ‘our endes [are] a mirror to the worlde’ (V.i.120). Mirrors can be unflattering, and the Senecan transformation wrought on a world so aligned with the fashioning of Tudor identity will ensure that this is the case. Striking innovations to the received narrative intensify the violence, sexual lust, and fatalism of this Arthurian world, aligning it with the character of Senecan tragedy. Like the vengeful spirits of Agamemnon and Thyestes, Gorlois’ ghost opens the tragedy, determining retribution for his cuckoldry and death at the hands of Uther: ‘Mordred shalbe the hammer of my hate’ (I.i.51). Similarly, Guenevora’s lust for Mordred – in her words, ‘force of woontlesse flames’ (I.ii.65) – drives her to intend (at least initially) to murder Arthur upon his return from the wars: That very houre, that he shall first arriue, Shall be the last, that shall aforde him life. (I.ii.22–3)

Hughes’ Guenevora parallels the Senecan Clytemnestra, who has taken her lover Mordred/ Aegisthus, while her husband Arthur/Agamemnon has been at war. Just as Agamemnon returns from a defeated Troy to his death, so Arthur has conquered Rome, the city founded by Aeneas out of the ruins of Troy, and now potentially returns to his death. And foremost among these Senecan elements is the emphasis the play gives to Arthur’s incest.7 Arthur knows that

5

6

7

On De iure and the republican tradition, see David Norbrook, ‘Macbeth and the Politics of Historiography’, in Politics of Discourse: The Literature and History of Seventeenth-Century England, ed. Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker (Berkeley and London, 1987), pp. 78–116 (pp. 90–2). See also J. H. Burns, The True Law of Kingship: Concepts of Monarchy in Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 1996). I. D. MacFarlane, Buchanan (London, 1981) is the most comprehensive study of Buchanan’s life and works. His principal writings concerning Mary have been collected as The Tyrannous Reign of Mary Stewart: George Buchanan’s Account, trans. and ed. W. A. Gatherer (Edinburgh, 1958). James Emerson Phillips, Images of a Queen: Mary Stuart in Sixteenth-Century Literature (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), is useful, though it omits mention of Misfortunes. The 1571 edition of Ane Detection was in fact a London-produced translation of Buchanan’s Detectio, masquerading in pseudo-Scots dialect. This edition is germane to this study because of the London provenance of Misfortunes. Archibald, ‘ “The Price of Guilt” ’ notes that no other Arthurian text gives so much emphasis to incest.

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his tragedy is generational – both inherited from his father and passed on to his son: The price of guilt is still a heauier guilt. For were it light, that eu’n by birth my selfe Was bad, I made my sister bad; nay were That also light, I haue begot as bad. Yea worse, an heire assignde to all oure sinnes. (III.iv.18–23)

At the heart of Senecanism is the notion of sins intensifying as they are inherited by the next generation. Incest in particular has political implications precisely because it delegitimizes the notion of inheritance, implicitly questioning hereditary sovereignty in the process of revealing the more obviously corrupt forms that inheritance can take. Gorlois aptly says: ‘Let th’ofsprings sinne exceede the former stocke’ (Appendix A; I.i.23). Given the links between Tudor self-fashioning and the Arthurian world, the contribution of incest to the Senecan transformation is especially provocative. Incest haunted Tudor authority – in particular Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII.8 The Senecan nature of the Arthurian world in Misfortunes therefore adumbrates an equally doom-laden narrative for the Tudors, with Elizabeth cast as the ‘heire assignde to all oure sinnes’. The Senecanization of the Arthurian narrative is in itself politically significant in relation to the Tudor dynasty, but it is also apt for Scottish concerns. Buchanan’s account of Mary’s career and the supposed murder of her husband bears an immediate resemblance to the most Senecan plot-elements in Misfortunes, in particular the play’s developed analogy of the Arthurian world to the Agamemnon– Clytemnestra–Aegisthus triangle. According to Buchanan, in 1567 Mary instigated her lover, the earl of Bothwell, to murder her husband, Lord Darnley. After marrying Bothwell, Mary was forced to abdicate and flee. She remained captive in England for the next twenty years, and during that time she was, directly or indirectly, involved in a number of Catholic plots aimed at deposing Elizabeth and installing herself on the throne. Despite constant pressure from her Privy Council, bishops, and Parliament, Elizabeth resisted executing Mary until 1587. From the time of the Proclamation of Sentence against Mary until after her death, a previous English ban on works defaming her was lifted. Thus in the year before the performance of Misfortunes, many works, in addition to Buchanan’s writings, reiterated the image of Mary as a figure of duplicity and murderous intent.9 Before the ban, furthermore, a number of works and historical utterances promoted the Senecan image of the Scottish queen as Clytemnestra, providing an important background to the conjunction of Clytemnestra and Mary in the Guenevora of the play’s first scene.10 However, Misfortunes is pervaded with a sense of ongoing and

8 9

10

Phillips, Images, pp. 109–10 and 172–7. See further McCabe, Incest, pp. 124–6. Satirical Poems of the Time of the Reformation, ed. James Cranstoun, STS First Series 20 and 30, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1890 and 1893), I.35 (lines 143–4). See further: Phillips, Images, pp. 119–22. Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots 1547–1603, Volume II: 1563–1569, ed. Joseph Bain (Edinburgh, 1900), p. 329 (item 507). In the Parliament of 1572,

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intensifying calamity, and that is particularly interesting given that the threat of Mary had been removed at the time of its performance. Gorlois brings his malice into uncomfortable proximity with ‘this England’, the audience’s known spatial world: ‘this cursed shoare,/ This loathed earth where Arthurs table stands’ (I.i.5–6). From the outset of the play lurks a fear that London’s frequently cited identity as Troynovant will be realized in tragic terms: like Troy, London will fall. This sense of ongoing threat is particularly Senecan, and the source of this perceived future calamity is most obviously Scottish. James VI was the likely successor to ‘Arthur’s’ throne, and as the son of a father murdered by his mother and her lover (according to Buchanan’s account) he is a natural ‘Orestes’ – Agamemnon’s revenge-seeking son. John Pikeryng’s Horestes (1567) exploited the parallel in the immediate aftermath of Darnley’s murder. The inherited Arthurian narrative, however, does not offer Hughes a clear parallel for the Orestes-figure, so James VI remains ‘offstage’ in Misfortunes. Yet the play is dark with the fear of a ‘future doom’, and James’ absence from the play must be an expression of the anxiety surrounding the succession after Elizabeth. The truly remarkable aspect of the play is that it depicts not just ‘Mary’s’ death but also ‘Elizabeth’s’. Arthur dies without promise of a magical healing and return; one of the most redolent and mythopoeic aspects of the Arthurian narrative is significantly omitted. The introductory address to Elizabeth presents the tragic implications of the play as safely contained within the notion of theatre, unable to threaten or challenge the queen: ‘since your sacred Maiestie/ In gratious hands the regall Scepter held/ All Tragedies are fled from State, to stadge’ (Intro., 131–3). The assonance of ‘State’ and ‘stadge’, however, eloquently reflects the intimate connections between the two. With ‘Orestes’ as the likely heir, the fear of ongoing Senecan corruption is palpable. The anxiety played out in Misfortunes is real as well as ‘theatrical’.

‘What Kings may doe’: Sovereignty in The Misfortunes of Arthur At the heart of Misfortunes’ response to Anglo-Scottish politics in the context of the Arthurian world is a debate concerning sovereignty, centred on the character of Mordred. After Guenevora’s initial outburst against Arthur, Mordred becomes the main representation of Mary in the play. Thus the play moves from Mary the murderer of her husband to Mary the conspirator against Elizabeth. The following speech, in which Mordred expresses his determination to fight Arthur, both reflects Mary’s manner of death and also agrees with the portrait of her in The Copie of a Letter to the Right Honourable Earle of Leycester (1586) as ‘obdurate in malice’ against Elizabeth, ‘a most impacient competitor’ determined ‘to enioy your Crowne in possession’ (7). Mordred says: What? shall I stande whiles Arthur sheades my bloode? And must I yeelde my necke vnto the Axe? . . .

Richard Gallys MP likened Mary to Clytemnestra, a description which indicates a popular or established basis for aspects of Mary’s Senecan transformation in Misfortunes; see J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, 1559–1581 (London, 1965), p. 250.

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We cannot part the Crowne: A regall Throne Is not for two: The Scepter fittes but one. But whether is the fitter of vs two, That must our swordes decerne: and shortly shall. (II.ii.43–53)

Mordred is thus identified with Mary, and the question for Arthur, as for Elizabeth, is what to do with him. For Buchanan, the Marian crisis justified limited sovereignty – specifically that it is lawful to depose a tyrannical or incompetent ruler: Let the maiestie of royall name auayle hir. How mikle it ought to auayle to hyr preseruing, hyr selfe hath shewit the example. May we commit our safetie to hyr quho a sister hath butcherly slaugherit hyr brother, a wief her husband, a Quene her King[?] May we committe our safetie to hyr, quhome neuer shame restrayint from vnchastitie, womankinde from cruelty, nor religion from impietie?11

Elizabeth, however, delayed in passing judgement over Mary precisely because she saw such an act as an attack upon the inviolability of sovereignty.12 Mordred’s character and situation offer a fascinating response to this political debate. On one level, he is a usurper rather than a legitimate king, and thus Elizabeth can comfortably accept his downfall without sensing an affront to her sovereignty. Mordred’s claim that his crown ‘of it selfe . . . drawes a full defence’ (II.ii.90) is effectively countered by one of his counsellors: that is true for ‘a iust, and no vsurped Crowne’ (II.ii.91). Nevertheless, the play in several ways supports Mordred’s claims to legitimacy; this view, followed through, produces a more challenging reading for Elizabeth. For one, the ‘Epilogus’ to Misfortunes makes no distinction between Arthur and Mordred when it notes that they were ‘the mightiest Monarches in this age’ who were ‘both supprest and vanquished by themselues’ (Epil., 20–21). Furthermore, Arthur’s actions throughout the play involve inconsistencies that challenge the idea of the special sanctity or legitimacy of his kingship. His defiant attack on the sovereignty of the Emperor Lucius of Rome – Turne to your foes, Where you may bath in blood, and fight your fill. Let courage worke: what can he not that dares? (II.i.24–6)

– is dangerously similar to Mordred’s view: ‘Now let him seeke and winne it with his Sword:/ The Fates haue laide it open in the field’. The irony of Arthur’s position is suggested when Cador remarks ‘Since Arthur thus hath ransackt all abroade,/ What meruaile ist, if Mordred raue at home?’ (III.i.26–7). Another perspective that prevents an easy dismissal of Mordred as a usurper is the underlying notion that Mordred is a representation of Mary. In this view, Mordred’s illegitimacy – both as a bastard and a usurper – must be interpreted symbolically rather than literally; it is first of all a symbol for Mary’s Catholicism, 11 12

Buchanan, Ane Oratioun, with Declaration of Euidence Against Marie the Scotish Quene (London, 1571), N.iiii.[v]. See further: Calendar of the State Papers, vol. II, ed. Bain, p. 366 (item 577).

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in Protestant eyes an illegitimate faith.13 More generally, Mordred’s illegitimacy is a symbol, rather than a reason, relating to Mary’s personal unworthiness to be a monarch. In other words, Mordred’s status as a bastard and usurper is not, as Elizabeth would have it, a safeguard that justifies his demise without questioning the sanctity of kingship; rather, his illegitimacy is in itself a critique of sovereignty, a symbol of the vulnerability and moral accountability of all monarchs – even queens such as Mary who are legitimate by birth and descent. The strongest sense, therefore, in which Mordred becomes illegitimate lies in his ruthless despotism. In his own words: Tis my happe that Brytain serues my tourne, That feare of me doth make the Subiects crouch, That what they grudge, they do constrayned yeeld. If their assents be slowe, my wrath is swift, Whom fauour failes to bende, let furie breake. If they be yet to learne, let terrour teach, What Kings may doe, what Subiects ought to beare. Then is a Kingdome at a wished staye, When whatsoeuer the Souereigne wills, or nilles, Men be compelde as well to praise, as beare, And Subiects willes inforc’d against their willes. (II.ii.71–81)

In this portrait of the tyrant, Misfortunes gives powerful support to Buchanan’s call for limited sovereignty and also justifies the execution of the Scottish queen. In doing so, of course, Misfortunes opposes Elizabeth’s own interest in the inviolability of sovereignty. Mary and the perceived violence of the Scottish throne are used to curtail Elizabeth’s power – appropriately, since she supported Mary’s sovereignty and thus cannot distance herself from its mismanagement. But, in the portrait of Arthur the play digs deeper, criticizing Elizabeth’s putatively weak and self-centred response to the threat of Mary and intimating that disaster may still be consequent. Hughes’ Arthur is painfully aware that his sins have deprived him of his crown, life, and son. When looking on the dead Mordred, he laments: I see (alas) I see (hide, hide againe: O spare mine eyes) a witnesse of my crimes: A fearfull vision of my former guilte: A dreadfull horror of a future doom. (V.i.98–101)

Crucially, Arthur speaks here of future woes; Conan also fears that ‘our Childrens Children’ will read of this tragedy and ‘thinke they heere some sounds of future facts,/ And not the ruines olde of pompe long past’ (IV.iii.29–32), and other passages emphasize the relevance of these events to ‘future men’ (IV.ii.8).14 The play’s Introduction entertained a criticism of ‘poetrie’, or fiction–that it leads ‘the minde/ Abroade to auncient tales from instant vse’ (Intro., 71; my emphasis) – but clearly 13 14

Alison Findlay, Illegitimate Power: Bastards in Renaissance Drama (Manchester and New York, 1994), pp. 72–80. See also IV.iii.13–16, 44–9; IV.Chorus.43–7.

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this ancient tale recalls us to instant use, or to a sense of the tale’s urgent application to the Elizabethan present – the future spoken of by the ancient Britons. The historical allegory involving Mary has already cast Arthur as Elizabeth, and these references to future calamities and the king’s culpability therefore seem to threaten her. How exactly do Arthur’s experiences and identity relate to Elizabeth? As with Mordred, two readings are possible – one easy and safe, the other more subtle and disturbing. In the first instance, Misfortunes is very clear that Arthur is not Elizabeth’s direct ancestor; how could he be since he dies without legitimate heirs? Arthur says: O heauie wretched lotte: to be the last That falles, to viewe the buriall of my Realme. (V.i.72–3)

On one level, Elizabeth can take comfort in Arthur’s death. Clearly she is not his descendant, and thus she will not bear the Senecan curse of his progeny. However, the references to a future doom remain, and they lead us to consider how Arthur in fact is Elizabeth, rather than separated from her. His prominent reluctance in Misfortunes to kill Mordred has no precedent in the medieval sources, and it reflects Elizabeth’s own hesitancy, also portrayed in the Mercilla episode of The Faerie Queene. Arthur says: To spoile my sonne were to dispoile my selfe: Oft, whiles we seeke our foes, we seeke our foiles. Let’s rather seeke how to allure his minde With good deserts: deserts may winne the worst. (III.i.89–92)

His justification is deeply ambiguous: paternal affection or political self-interest? Elizabeth’s reluctance, ostensibly based on kinship but equally evolving from her desire to protect her own sovereignty, was widely perceived as a great danger to the nation, as the tragic outcome of Misfortunes makes abundantly clear. And the danger remained even after Mary’s death because of the chief resemblance uniting Arthur and Elizabeth – the lack of direct heirs and the hope that they provide for prolonged stability. When Arthur prefers his son Mordred to the safety of the realm a Counsellor admonishes: ‘Your Realme destroide is neere restord againe,/ But time may send you kine and sonnes inough’ (III.i.47–8). That prospect was in fact closed to the fifty-four-year-old English queen. She is, as Arthur describes himself, ‘a Sonnelesse Sire’ (V.i.118). The most likely heir is, in an ironic twist worthy of Seneca, the son of her greatest enemy. The darkest, most Senecan corner of Misfortunes is the implication that Elizabeth’s succession crisis is the result of some sin, either personal or, like her crown, inherited.

Macbeth in the shadow of Misfortunes Despite its tragic closure, The Misfortunes of Arthur is an unresolved play, adumbrating a ‘future doom’. As ‘heir assign’d to all our sins’, James VI and I inherited the ongoing political implications of Elizabeth’s conflict with the Scottish Queen. James’ reburial of his mother in the same precinct as her executioner Elizabeth

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was a defiant assertion of Mary’s royalty – and hence his own legitimacy – no matter that James had previously accepted Elizabeth as his ‘mother’. At that historical moment, James’ belief in the absolute sovereignty of monarchs seems related to the previous attack on his mother. Her reburial in Westminster Abbey is an implied refutation of the Buchanian political themes of Misfortunes, and James not surprisingly banned the writings of Buchanan, who was in fact his old tutor – potentially a Seneca to his Nero. James’ call for Spenser’s punishment for his depiction of the trial of Mary in Book V of The Faerie Queene is well known, and he must have had the same response to Misfortunes, if he knew it.15 Interestingly, Misfortunes survives in the Jacobean era as a palimpsest in Macbeth, and Shakespeare’s Scottish history demands to be seen in the light of the Arthurian play. Strong verbal echoes both in Macbeth and in other of his plays argue for Shakespeare’s familiarity with Misfortunes. The resemblances between Lady Macbeth, poised to act in Duncan’s murder, and Guenevora, in her initial Clytemnestra-like resolution to murder her husband Arthur, are particularly striking: Come, you Spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood, Stop up th’access and passage to remorse; That no compunctious visitings of Nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murth’ring ministers. (Macbeth, I.v.40–8) Come spitefull fiends, come heapes of furies fell, Not one, by one, but all at once: my breast Raues not inough: it likes me to be filde With greater monsters yet. My hart doth throbbe: My liuer boyles: some what my minde protendes, Vncertayne what: but whatsoever, it’s huge. So it exceede, be what it will: it’s well. (Misfortunes, I.ii.39–45)16

15

16

Calendar of State Papers Relating to Scotland, 1589–1603, ed. M. J. Thorpe (London, 1858), II.723. On James’ reburial of Mary in Westminster Abbey, see Jonathan Goldberg, James I and the Politics of Literature: Jonson, Shakespeare, Donne and their Contemporaries (Baltimore and London, 1983), pp. 16–17. Behind both passages is Seneca’s Atreus, though the syntactic and verbal parallels between the two English plays argue against co-lateral descent. See: Thyestes, trans. Heywood, p. 63. Another verbal echo is Macbeth’s speculation: ‘If Chance will have me King, why, Chance may crown me,/ Without my stir’ (I.iii.144–5). Compare this passage: Mordred: . . . Chaunce hath made me king. Gawain: As Chaunce hath made you King, so Chaunce may change. (II.iii.44–5) Furthermore, the witches’ phrase ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’ (I.i.11), though proverbial, neatly picks up the Chorus’s injunction in Misfortunes: ‘Seeke not the faire, that soone will turne to fowle’ (II.Chorus.2). Resemblances between Misfortunes and other plays by Shakespeare are: (1) Mordred: . . . either thou, or I, or both shall die. (Misfortunes, II.ii.11) Romeo: Either thou or I, or both, must go with him [i.e. die]. (Romeo and Juliet, III.i.29)

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The fact that Guenevora is here at her most ‘Marian’ is especially provocative – whether that association is in Shakespeare’s intention or not. The Senecan character of Macbeth – complete with Banquo’s ghost, an addition to the sources – intensifies the sense of continuity between Misfortunes and Macbeth, and that continuity is created and enforced as much by the historical context and source materials as it is by literary borrowing. Coming in the wake of Misfortunes, Macbeth adds weight to the political character of Senecan form even as it invites its audience to recall suppressed cultural memory: the mother of the current king. More so than Misfortunes, Macbeth generates unresolved ambivalence in relation to sovereignty. On the one hand, much in the play supports a Royalist reading, one that would accord with James’ own theoretical writings, such as The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598). In this reading, Macbeth is a usurper and no king, the author of an act that violates the natural order. James accepted that a usurper should be expelled from his throne, but he rejected deposing a tyrant who is a legitimate king: a wicked king is sent by God for a curse to his people and a plague for their sins; but that it is lawful for them to shake off that cause at their own hand, which God hath laid on them, that I deny and may do so justly.17

As a usurper, Macbeth is properly expelled. And the fact that the legitimate king, Duncan, is not, unlike Hughes’ Arthur, sinful and weak underscores the wickedness of his murder.18 An oppositional reading, however, would focus instead on those aspects that question the predominance of natural, providential order in the world of the play.19 Banquo, for example, contemplates Macbeth’s accession to the throne and wonders what that implies in relation to his own prophecy from the witches: If there come truth from them – As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine – Why by the verities on thee made good, May they not be my oracles as well And set me up in hope? (III.i.6–10)

The same authority that proclaims the succession of the Stuart dynasty also proclaims that Macbeth will be king; the distinction between the legitimacy of one succession and the illegitimacy of another may seem fragile in the light of their

17 18 19

(2) Chorus: He feeles the fatall sword imbrue his breast. (Misfortunes, IV.Chorus.46) Flute: Come, blade, my breast imbrue. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V.i.338) (Flute is playing Thisbe in the mechanicals’ play of Pyramis and Thisbe. It is therefore notable that the word ‘imbrue’ appears in Misfortunes in the 1588 print on the same page that has the play’s only mention of the name Pyramis [V.Arg.20]). See further ‘Appendix A’ in Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. Kenneth Muir, The Arden Shakespeare (London, 1987) p. 175. All citations are to this edition. James I, True Law, ed. Fischlin and Fortier (1996), p. 77 (on deposition of usurpers), pp. 80–1 (source of quotation). On Shakespeare’s complex handling of his source materials, see Norbrook, ‘Macbeth’, passim. See, for example: Alan Sinfield, ‘Macbeth: History, Ideology and Intellectuals’, in New Historicism and Renaissance Drama, ed. Richard Wilson and Richard Dutton (London and New York, 1992), pp. 167–80.

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shared origins in a common prophecy. Although Banquo is sure that Macbeth ‘played . . . most foully’ for the crown (III.i.3), he acknowledges that the witches’ prophecies are ‘made good’ (III.i.8) in Macbeth – not only enacted but, apparently, morally unproblematic. To James’ ancestor, there is no doubt that Macbeth truly is king, however he got there – ‘Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all’ (III.i.1) – and Banquo seems logically bound to endorse Macbeth’s kingship if he is to hope that his own related prophecy will be fulfilled. From the start, the Stuart line appears to be not just factually but morally entangled with Macbeth’s means of succession. What Mordred says to Guenevora about moral complicity in crime fits well here. Guenevora tries to lay all blame on Mordred, since he is the main beneficiary of his usurpation: ‘His is the crime, whom crime stands most in steede’ (I.iv.53). Mordred notes, however, that ‘They, that conspire in faults offend a like:/ Crime makes them equall, whom it iointly staines’ (I.iv.54–5). James’ complicated negotiations of loyalty to both his mother and Elizabeth obviously offer a comparable situation to that faced by his ‘ancestor’. Another area of tension that is not easily contained within a Royalist reading of the play is Macduff’s reaction to Malcolm’s (fabricated) catalogue of personal vices.20 Malcolm, the son of Duncan and legitimate heir to the throne, asks Macduff if he is ‘fit to govern’ despite a long list of pretended crimes (IV.iii.101). Macduff’s response, which seems to be the main point of the scene, is emphatic: ‘Fit to govern? No, not to live’ (IV.iii.102–3). Macduff resolves to leave Scotland; though he does not intend to depose Malcolm or remove him from the succession, he clearly rejects James’ notion that ‘a wicked king is sent by God for a curse to his people and a plague for their sins’ – and thus in effect he rejects the providential theory of kingship in favour of an emphasis on the personal integrity of the monarch. Although Malcolm is, in Macduff’s words, ‘the truest issue’ of the throne, he ‘stands accursed’ because of his alleged sins (IV.iii.106–7). Finally, the omission of James’ mother, Mary Queen of Scots, from the succession of eight Stuart kings in the witches’ vision presented to Macbeth seems to be, like Macduff’s rejection of Malcolm, an implied deposition (IV.i.111–23). Although Mary was ‘the truest issue’ of the throne, she is effectively delegitimized in the witches’ vision, as she was in Misfortunes. The notion of ‘Caesarean’ birth can be playfully connected with James’ experience, for to become ‘Caesar’ of England he must be, in the play’s view, not ‘of woman born’: his mother, for so long England’s greatest fear, needs to be removed from his ancestry. Where Macbeth differs from the Buchanian Misfortunes, then, is in the force of its ambivalence. Shakespeare’s play is sustained by two great and contrary emotional pressures: Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s ineluctable sense of the sanctity of kingship and their consequent guilt; and the portrayal through Macbeth’s reign of the horrors of tyranny. The first view allows kingship as absolute and the second promotes desire for limited monarchy. Macbeth does not see the irony when he complains that the ‘unlineal hand’ of Banquo’s heirs will snatch the ‘sceptre’ from him (III.i.61–2). At this stage, he clearly views himself as king, 20

See further: Sally Mapstone, ‘Shakespeare and the Scottish Kingship: A Case History’, in The Rose and the Thistle: Essays on the Culture of Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland, ed. Sally Mapstone and Juliette Wood (East Linton, 1998), pp. 158–89.

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though he must resort to tyranny to sustain that view. Mordred is more self-aware when he comparably observes: Weake is the Scepters hold, that seekes but right . . . The Sword must seldome cease: a Soueraignes hand Is scantly safe, but whiles it smites. Let him Vsurpe no Crowne, that likes a guiltless life. (I.iv.98–106)

We have the choice of responding to Macbeth as a usurper or as a tyrant – or, indeed, both. Malcolm and Macduff interestingly speak of him as a tyrant; the question of legitimacy is not broached: Each new morn, New widows howl, new orphans cry. (IV.iii.4–5) I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds. (IV.iii.39–41)

James’ notion in True Law that the king is ‘overlord of the whole land . . . having power over the life and death of every one of them’ (p. 71) is an appropriate epitaph for the play, both indicating the emotional importance attached to kingly status and also (less consciously) suggesting the nightmare possibility of tyranny. As Mordred says: ‘The Lawes doe licence as the Soueraigne lists . . ./ Imperiall power abhorres to be restrainde’ (II.ii.25–7). Or Lady Macbeth, if only in her dreams: ‘What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to accompt?’ (V.i.35–7). Finally in relation to Macbeth’s complex treatment of sovereignty, usurpation, and tyranny, it is hard to believe that audiences experiencing Shakespeare’s play, noting its concern with James as well as a Scottish regicide by a couple, could avoid thinking about Mary Queen of Scots, the mother of their monarch, and her and Bothwell’s murder of Darnley, king of Scotland. Mary Queen of Scots was still an issue for Spenser in 1596, and the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 must have recalled that the murder of Darnley, who was after all James’ father, was accompanied by an explosion. Thomas Dekker’s The Whore of Babylon (pr. 1607), directed towards the Gunpowder Plot, is an important link. Mary is just under the surface of this play, which represents the Faerie Queene Titania/Elizabeth’s defeat of her Catholic enemies, chief among whom is the Whore of Babylon. Because of the ‘faerie’ element in the play, Spenser’s Duessa, who is identified with the Whore of Babylon from Revelation in Book I of The Faerie Queene (I.vii.16), is the inevitable intertext against which we read or see Dekker’s Whore. In Book V of Spenser’s work, Duessa, arraigned at Mercilla/Elizabeth’s palace, is a representation of Mary Queen of Scots, as James VI saw.21 Furthermore, at her trial in Book V she is accused of conspiring with Paridell (V.ix.41), who is also a character (representing Dr Parry) in Dekker’s play. Dekker’s Whore is described as a figure of ‘inveterate malice’,22 echoing the phrase ‘obdurate in malice’ that is ubiquitous in 21 22

Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A. C. Hamilton (London and New York, 1977), V.ix.37–50. See further: Goldberg, James I, pp. 1–17. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1955), II, 497.

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the anti-Marian texts of 1586, and the play also alludes to the Casket Letters (IV.ii.168–70). Clearly, audiences watching The Whore of Babylon c. 1606 and guided by the Spenserian influence would be led to view the Whore as a representation of the Scottish queen. The possibility that Lady Macbeth might also be viewed in that light, however obliquely, deserves consideration. If Mary has been taken out of the panegyric vision of royal ancestors (giving James his ‘Caesarean’ birth), she has been relocated in her ‘historical’ role as conspirator in the murder of a king. Could Jacobean audiences have seen Mary in Lady Macbeth?23 Buchanan’s description of Mary’s and Bothwell’s murder of Darnley is important because it represents the existing narratives that an audience would bring to viewing Macbeth. The resemblances between this passage and Shakespeare’s play are persuasive. What is at stake here is not the possibility that Shakespeare used this passage or even intended its influence, but rather that it represents a cultural memory that, given the context of the play’s interest in James’ ancestry, regicide, and sovereignty, was inevitably recalled. Lady Macbeth instructs her husband that ‘He that’s coming/ Must be provided for’ and insists that he put ‘This night’s great business into my dispatch’ (I.v.66–8). In Buchanan’s account, Mary and Bothwell, ‘the partenaris of the conspyracie’, ensure that ‘all thingis were redy preparit for perfourming this cruell fact’.24 Macbeth’s notion that ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well/ It were done quickly’ (I.vii.1–2) resonates with Mary’s and Bothwell’s desire for rapid achievement: ‘fearyng lest lang delay shauld eyther bring some impediment to thair purpose, or disclose thayr counselles, [they] determynit to dispatch it in hast’. Lady Macbeth counsels dissimulation and the imitation of leisure: ‘to beguile the time,/ Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,/ Your hand, your tongue’ (I.v.63–5). On the night of Darnley’s murder, Mary similarly was ‘determinit to shew him all the tokens of reconciled gude will’, spending ‘certaine houres in his company, with countenance and talke mikle familiar than she had vsid in sixe or seuen monethis befoyr’. Continuing with Buchanan’s account, when the ‘king’ (Buchanan’s term for Darnley) had retired, Bothwell ‘went forwart thorow the watch to execute hys intendit trayterous fact’. Bothwell returns ‘efter the dede was ended that he went for’; Macbeth returns with the utterance, ‘I have done the deed’ (II.ii.15). Bothwell, ‘as if he had ben ignorant of al that was don . . . got him to bed’. Mary, ‘in greit expectation of the success, how finely sche played hir part . . . it is maruell to tell’. She ‘nat anes stirred at the noise of ye house, quilk shooke the hale towne, nor at the fearfull outcryis that followit, & confused cryes of the pepill . . . till Bothwell fayning hymselfe afrayde, rose again out of his bed and came to hir with the Erles’. Lennox’s description of the night of Duncan’s murder comes to mind: This night hath been unruly: where we lay Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, 23

24

Arthur E. Kinney, Lies Like Truth: Shakespeare, Macbeth, and the Cultural Moment (Detroit, 2001), p. 50, entertains this question. I encountered Kinney’s book after first presenting the notion of the palimpsest of Mary in Lady Macbeth in a paper at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, in 2000. This current essay obviously bases its answer on the mediating role of Misfortunes, which Kinney does not mention. Buchanan, Ane Detectioun of the duinges of Marie Quene of Scottes (London, 1571), [D.ii.v–E.i.v].

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Lamentings heard i’th’air, strange screams of death, And prophesying with accents terrible Of dire combustion . . . . . . Some say the earth Was feverous and did shake. (II.iii53–60)

The sense of ‘blown down’ can allude to the Gunpowder Plot; but it can also invoke the manner in which James’ father was killed, accompanied by an explosion. Buchanan writes that ‘the kyngis ladging was euin from the very foundation blown vp into the ayre, & the kyng him self slayne’. Lady Macbeth’s cry – ‘What’s the business, that such a hideous trumpet/ Calls to parley the sleepers of the house?’ (II.iii.79–81) – is a different strategy from Mary’s feigned sleep, but both are performances that in different ways respond to the texts’ shared emphasis on the noise and disruption. Like Macbeth in the moment that he kills the sleeping grooms, Bothwell was ‘baith doer, iudge, inquirer, and examiner’. Despite this threat, ‘the hale multitude in generall . . . by bukes set out, & by pictures, and by cryes in the darke night . . . [ensured] that the doers of the mischeuous fact might easily vnderstand that those secretes of thairs were come abrode’. As the Doctor says in Macbeth: ‘Foul whisp’rings are abroad’ (V.i.68). Guenevora’s links with Lady Macbeth as well as the overall Senecan character of Macbeth mediated through the Arthurian text result in a highly complex interaction of texts, historical contexts, and the audience’s cultural memory. Lady Macbeth is not ‘about’ Mary in the way that Guenevora is. But Mary is, more plausibly, part of Lady Macbeth’s textual and cultural resonance for a Jacobean audience in the context of c. 1606. What this means above all is that the kind of oppositional, or anti-absolutist reading of Macbeth that has featured in much recent criticism can be deepened through an appreciation of the play’s inevitable cultural associations for a Jacobean audience. Even as James’ ancestry is apparently praised, one of its most alarming and (for Britain) threatening episodes is recalled. And the subliminal quality of Mary’s presence in the play seems in itself a chilling reminder of royal repression, such as James’ attempts to punish Spenser or ban Buchanan’s works. ‘Scottish’ Arthurian literature here casts a long shadow – from Mary, through Guenevora, and onto Lady Macbeth, where we still have at the end vestiges of the Scottish queen.

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Reinventing Arthur: Representations of the Matter of Britain in Medieval Scotland and Catalonia1 SERGI MAINER

Yo vull seguir la manera d’aquells cathalans qui trasladaren los llibres de Tristany e de Lançalot, e tornaren-los de lengua francesa en lengua cathalana.2 (I will follow the style of those Catalans who translated the books of Tristan and Lancelot, and transformed them from the French language into the Catalan language.)

This well-known passage from Curial e Güelfa not only alerts the reader to the existence of Catalan translations of Arthurian romances, but it highlights their importance as literary models for later writers in Catalan.3 This combined debt to the French Arthurian corpus (from which thematic and stylistic elements are borrowed) and to an emerging local literary tradition is also evident in the Scottish Arthurian texts. Historically, during the Middle Ages both nations were establishing the bases of their otherness in opposition to their more powerful neighbours. These social circumstances are reflected to some extent in their respective literatures. In both cases the adaptation of romances from the dominant French tradition goes further than mere translation: it alters the character of the Arthurian myth. Notably, the Scottish makars select passages in which the nature of kingship and the independence of one’s territories can be debated. Both Catalan and Scottish writers highlight the moral and spiritual aspects of courtly and knightly behaviour even more emphatically than their French counterparts. This spiritual vision of knighthood may come from Catalan author Ramon Llull’s influential Llibre del Orde de Cavalleria, which was also a very important manual of chivalric behaviour in late medieval Scotland due to Gilbert Hay’s translation (see the discussion below). Both traditions reduce the long French disquisitions on cortesia and fin’amors, and as a result limit the 1

2 3

I would like to thank R. D. S. Jack and Cordelia Beattie for commenting on drafts of this article, Josep Pujol and Philip Bennett for giving me useful references on Catalan and French materials, and Rosa Ferreres for helping find obscure articles. I am also indebted to Rhiannon Purdie and Nicola Royan for their invaluable editorial suggestions. Curial e Güelfa, ed. R. Aramon i Serra, 3 vols. (Barcelona, 1931–33), II, 7. In Catalonia, the influence of French literature is evident all through the late Middle Ages. It was not until the second half of the fifteenth century that some authors started to use Castilian literary models: Isabel de Riquer, ‘Les Poèmes narratifs catalans en noves rimades des XIVe et XVe siècles’, Revue des Langues Romanes 96 (1992), 327–50 (p. 344).

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significance of female characters. Despite the great differences in culture between the two small European nations of Scotland and Catalonia, this comparative study of their reception of the Matter of Britain through the medium of French literature will turn up surprising correspondences. It provides us with a useful perspective on the methodology of the Scottish adaptations and helps us to understand how and why both traditions change the thematic focus of French romances within their historical contexts. First we must examine the Arthurian tradition in Scotland, and, because it is less well known, the whole cultural context of the romances in Catalonia. In Scotland, the two surviving Arthurian texts in Middle Scots – Golagros and Gawane and Lancelot of the Laik – were composed during the fifteenth century. Whether earlier Arthurian romances existed in Scots is not known.4 The fact that these two works were written in the specific political and historical context of the century after the Wars of Independence, when the figure of King Arthur had been reshaped by the kings of England to accommodate their claims over Scotland, may underlie their ambivalent attitude towards the legendary monarch.5 While politically he is a very problematic character, in literary terms he is still one of the major heroes of late medieval romance, deployed as a speculum principis as in most European literatures.6 The fact that the first successors of the much-praised Robert I – David II and Robert II – were rather weak sovereigns might explain why later Scottish literature shows such a developed interest in discussions of good kingship. When the Scottish makars adapt passages from the extensive French romances Lancelot do Lac and the First Continuation of Perceval, certain elements, which in the original works are important but not essential developments of the plot, become central. Each poet selects passages in which the nature of kingship and the independence of a king’s territories could be debated, and this approach generates tensions absent from the French texts. In Catalonia, Arthurian romances were composed in a courtly milieu. Four Catalan and Occitan texts have survived in their entirety: the Occitan Jaufre (c. 1170 – c. 1225), Blandín de Cornualla (late thirteenth or early fourteenth century), Guillem de Torroella’s Faula (c. 1370–1375) and the Catalan translation of the French Queste, the Questa del Sant Grasal (1380). Mossèn Gras’s Tragèdia de Lançalot (late fifteenth century) is partially preserved; it lacks its ending.7 Apart

4

5

6

7

The Old Icelandic Karlamagnús Saga provides evidence for the existence of at least one lost romance in Scots, which implies the existence of others. In the Prologue to Olif and Landres, the author claims that: ‘Lord Bjarni Erlingsson of Bjarkey found this saga written and told in the English language, in Scotland, when he stayed there during the winter after the death of King Alexander.’ Karlamagnús Saga: The Saga of Charlemagne and his Heroes, trans. C. B. Hieatt (Toronto, 1975), p. 178. On Scottish chroniclers’ response to Arthur, see Wood. ‘Where Does Britain End?’ and Royan, ‘The Fine Art of Faint Praise’, above. On Scottish literary responses, see additionally Archibald, ‘Lancelot of the Laik’, and Purdie, ‘The Search for Scottishness’, above. The Roman de Fergus, whose Scottishness is too complicated to examine here, was written in a completely different historical context with very different literary intentions. See Hunt, ‘The Roman de Fergus’, above. The two problematic texts are Jaufre and Blandín de Cornualla. The former is written in Occitan but dedicated to the king of Aragon and count of Barcelona. Although arguments have been

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from these works, it is known from several scattered folios and allusions in historical records that there also existed translations of the prose Tristan and of all the books that comprise the Arthurian Vulgate.8 Owing to geographical and cultural proximity, the French romances on the Matter of Britain were circulating in Catalonia as early as the last third of the twelfth century.9 Nevertheless, this did not result in a mimetic redaction of the French tradition. Like the Scottish works, the Catalan texts can be regarded as autochthonous approaches to the Arthurian tradition.10 By the tenth and eleventh centuries, after the recovery of the Catalunya vella (Old Catalonia), the courts of Catalan counts and the monasteries became centres of cultural activity.11 This picture is characteristic of many European realms of the time. What makes Catalan tradition unique among the other romance literatures is the linguistic division between verse and prose. While the prose works, both literary and non-literary, were written in Catalan from an early stage, poetic texts, either short lyric pieces or narrative romances, were composed in Occitan or in an occitanized Catalan up to the fifteenth century.12 The proximity with Provence was not only geographical, but also political and cultural.13 Historically, the marriage of Ramon Berenguer III and Dolça of Provence

8

9 10 11 12 13

made for the Catalan or Occitan origins of the author, the question remains open. Blandín is composed in a catalanized form of Occitan. This has led some to believe that the author was Catalan: see Arseni Pacheco, ‘El Blandín de Cornualha’, in Catalan Studies: Volume in Memory of Josephine de Boer, ed. J. Gulsoy and J. M. Sola-Solé (Barcelona, 1977), pp. 149–61 (p. 149). However, the Catalan origin of this work still presents problems: see Stefano Asperti, ‘Banicetti e berroviere: Problemi di lessico e di datazione nel Blandin de Cornoalha’, in Studia in honorem prof. M. de Riquer, 5 vols. (Barcelona, 1986), I, 11–35. Yet, as Badia urges, one should concentrate on the ‘coherence and tending unity’ of both literary traditions in those times rather than fighting over the authors’ nationality. Lola Badia, ‘De la Faula al Tirant passant pel Llibre de Fortuna e Prudencia’, in her Tradició i modernitat als segles XIV i XV. Estudis de cultura literària i lectures d’Ausiàs March (València and Barcelona, 1993), p. 96 (note). For an exhaustive record of the material see María Rosa Lida de Makiel, ‘Arthurian Literature in Spain and Portugal’, in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative Study, ed. Roger Sherman Loomis (Oxford, 1959), pp. 406–18; Pere Bohigas, ‘La Matière de Bretagne en Catalogne’, Bulletin Bibliographique de la Société International Arthurienne 13 (1961), 81–98. For the edition of the two fragments from the Catalan Lançalot, see Matheu Obrador, ‘Notícia de dos manuscripts d’un Lançalot català’, Revista de Bibliografia Catalana 6 (1903), 5–25; Pere Bohigas, ‘Un nou fragment del Lançalot català’, Estudis Romànics 10 (1962), 179–87. For the surviving fragments of the Catalan Tristany, see Agustí Duran i Sanpere, ‘Un fragment de Tristany de Leonís en català’, Estudis Romànics 2, Biblioteca Filològica de l’Institut de la Llengua Catalana 9 (1917), 284–316; Ramon Aramon i Serra, ‘El Tristany català d’Andorra’, in his Estudis de llengua i literatura (Barcelona, 1997), pp. 415–29. Martí de Riquer, Història de la literatura catalana, 4 vols. (Barcelona, 1964), II, 13; I. de Riquer, ‘Poèmes narratifs’, p. 327; Bohigas, ‘Matière de Bretagne’, p. 82. Vicent Martines, Els cavallers literaris: Assaig sobre literatura cavalleresca catalana medieval (Madrid, 1995), p. 81. Joan Ruiz Calonja, Història de la literatura catalana (Barcelona, 1954), p. 4; David J. Viera, Medieval Catalan Literature: Prose and Drama (Boston, 1988), p. 1. Ruiz Calonja, Història, p. 5; M. de Riquer, Història, I, 13–14; Anton M. Espadaler, Literatura catalana (Madrid, 1989), p. 11. Linguistically, the closeness between Catalan and Occitan permitted Catalan authors to write in the prestigious language of the troubadours without much effort. This also helped the arrival of Occitan poets at Catalan courts to the extent that some texts are very difficult to catalogue as Occitan or Catalan.

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in 1112 strengthened the already existing links between both countries.14 During Pere III the Ceremonious’s reign (1319–87), humanism was promoted at the Catalan court. The Cancelleria Reial (Royal Chancery) dictated the linguistic norms that official and literary Catalan should follow according to the stylistic tropes of Classical authors. These standardized criteria, known as the King’s Catalan, were maintained up to the end of the Middle Ages.15

Fin’amors Originally, the French roman courtois adopted the refinement of cortesia and fin’amors as essential components of its narrative. As Auerbach observes: Love in the courtly romances is already not infrequently the immediate occasion for deeds of valor. There is nothing surprising in this if we consider the complete absence of practical motivation through a political and historical context. Love, being an essential and obligatory ingredient of knightly perfection, functions as a substitute for other possibilities of motivation which are here lacking.16

In the Catalan Arthurian romances, however, there is none of the French texts’ profuse development of fin’amors despite the large numbers of female characters, and in this they resemble their Scottish counterparts. Scottish literature as a whole shows relatively little interest in such matters so their absence from the romances is unsurprising, but Catalan literature has a rich love lyric corpus thanks to the troubadours and their successors. In this context, their determination to alter the focus of the French texts is all the more striking. Only the Occitan Jaufre expands on the feelings and sufferings of Jaufre and his beloved Brunissen. Its early date of composition, which coincides with the highpoint of troubadour poetry, and its place of composition (either Occitania or Catalonia) help account for the inclusion of the lovers’ disquisitions on love.17 Significantly, the main reason for Brunissen to fall in love with Jaufre is not his proeza or his manly beauty but his command of language: E Brunesentz, cant l’au parlar Tan jen e tan ben razonar, Es de sa ira refrenada; Car amor l’a al cor nafrada De son dart . . . (lines 3651–55) (And when Brunissen hears him speaking and reasoning so vehemently, her wrath disappears; since her heart is hurt by love’s arrow . . .) 14 15 16 17

Espadaler, Literatura catalana, p. 11. Ibid., p. 24. Eric Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, 1953), p. 141. As mentioned earlier, the romance is dedicated to a Catalan count-king. Jaufre in Rialc, Repertorio informatizzato dell’antica letteratura catalana (accessed 1 February 2003), lines 61–70.

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That Jaufre’s rhetoric makes Brunissen fall in love situates the birth of their passion even more clearly within the troubadour tradition, in which the troubadour persona’s persuasive use of language was the tool to reach the domna’s heart, rather than chivalric deeds of arms as happens more usually in romances. The later Catalan romances, however, do not centre on the vicissitudes of fin’amors. Mossèn Gras’s Tragèdia de Lançalot was dedicated to the count of Iscla, which indicates the courtly context of the work.18 Gras reworks the first sixtyseven chapters from the Mort Artu to create a sentimental Renaissance prose romance (novel·la) whose main aim, as Gras relates in his introduction, is to warn ladies not be misguided by apparent infidelity (‘ab falsa credulitat’, p. 3) and to persuade knights to persevere so as to be rewarded in love (p. 4). The features of fin’amors which are underlined are those involving the suffering of the lovers, since Mossèn Gras’s exemplary message focuses on the dangers of jealousy. The direct speech of Guenevere’s lamentation in the French, when she ascertains that Lancelot was wearing the Lady of Scalot’s sleeve in the tournament, is enlarged and transformed into reported speech. The queen’s sorrow is expressed in more detail and her desire for revenge is added: she felt ‘tanta ira e desdeny que nenguna rabiosa venjança li paria prou egual punició a tan culpable defalliment’ (‘. . . so much wrath and disdain that no furious revenge seemed to her as painful as [Lancelot’s] culpable betrayal’, p. 13). The psychological components of her behaviour are thus more clearly expounded at the same time as her thirst for vengeance contributes to Mossèn Gras’s moral and narrative theme. This thematic relocation, which displaces the love plot and accentuates a moral message, is also present in Lancelot of the Laik. In the prologue, the makar reviews the passages in the French that he does not intend to relate. Significantly, one of the episodes the author omits is: . . . how that he was tak By love and was iwondit to the stak And throuch persit to the hart That al his tyme he couth it not astart; For thare of Love he enterit in service Of Wanore throuch the beuté and franchis, (lines 225–30)19

This exclusion of how Lancelot fell in love and entered its service relocates the focus of the love story: Lancelot is already a knight in love. The fin amant’s progression from chivalric deeds to attaining the queen’s heart in Lancelot do Lac is absent, or rather simply reduced to the war against Galiot, and his feelings do not evolve. Fin’amors is present but static. Like in the Tragèdia, the main theme is replaced by a moral one; in the case of Lancelot of the Laik, by Amytans’ ethical lesson. Blandín de Cornualla represents an original Catalan response to the Matter of Britain.20 While Blandín and Brianda are said to be genuinely in love, the author

18 19 20

Mossèn Gras, Tragèdia de Lançalot, ed. M. de Riquer (Barcelona, 1984), p. 3. Lancelot of the Laik and Sir Tristrem, ed. A. Lupack, TEAMS Medieval Texts (Kalamazoo, 1994). Although the romance does not directly mention the Arthurian legend, Blandín’s elements, plot and motifs are clearly borrowed from the Matter of Britain: Pacheco, ‘Blandín de Cornualha’, pp. 149–50.

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is more interested in relating active feats of arms than psychological approaches to fin’amors. Although Brianda and Yrlanda (Guillot’s bride-to-be) are rather passive figures,21 the female characters in the romance have a very important function: women operate as the catalyst of most avantures. Blandín’s first deed is precipitated by two damsels: Dis l’una a l’autra: Bell cavalier dorm lai dessot aquell pomier; prec-te que l’anem reisidar, car si nos podia conquistar d’aicel gegant que aissí nos ten nós l’amaríem de bon talent.22 (p. 29) (One says to the other: ‘a handsome knight is sleeping under that apple tree; I beg you to wake him up, since if he could defeat that giant that holds us captive we would truly love him.’)

The damsels know what is to be expected from them and from a knight according to romance tradition. The ironic comment in which a character tells the audience what other characters must do, following pre-established literary roles, disassociates love from any kind of idealisation. Nevertheless, these sporadic humorous digressions on the nature of the genre do not make the text an exclusively comic romance. Despite the functionality of amors, in a more serious context Blandín’s cortesia to female and male figures also serves to contrast with Guillot’s less socially acceptable demeanour. Blandín is represented as the perfect knight both on the battlefield and at court: he is the chivalric example to imitate. Golagros and Gawane’s suppression of female characters and the love plot is even more evident than in any other of the romances examined. In the First Continuation, the scene of Gawain’s feigned defeat is slightly but significantly different: the reasons why the Riche Soudoier prefers death to surrender situate the work in a distinctively courtly context: his defeat will bring about his beloved’s death through grief (lines 6375–78). Fin’amors and the feminine stand as central aspects of the First Continuation. However, these are totally absent from the Scottish version; rather, the Scottish makar’s reworking of the passage accentuates the political debate on good kingship. The reasons for the suppression of fin’amors in Golagros and Gawane, however, are not exclusively political. The other fin’amors – or simply amors – scene obliterated in the Scottish text elucidates a different sort of motivation.23 In the First Continuation, Gawain has to face a set of accusations, including the deflowering of the Damoisele de Liz. Previously, the seduction scene was presented as an irrelevant ‘geus d’amors’ (line 1700),24 where Gawain displayed his courtly and

21 22 23

24

Martines, Cavallers literaris, p. 95. Blandín de Cornualla i altres narracions en vers dels segles XIV i XV, ed. A. Pacheco (Barcelona, 1983). In the French romance, this excised section stands between the two episodes that are used in the Scottish text. See Purdie, ‘The Search for Scottishness’, pp. 97–9 above, for a more detailed summary of the relationship of Golagros to the First Continuation. Première Continuation de Perceval, ed. W. Roach (Paris, 1993).

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seductive manners. When he promised to return for her, it was not clear whether he was telling her what he was supposed to say according to the norms of cortesia or whether he really meant it. Gawain cannot be the incarnation of the perfect knight. He moves dangerously into the domain of amor mixtus (aiming at the consummation of sexual desire without the spiritual fulfilment of fin’amors), which also connotes lack of mesura. This suggests a second reason why the author of Golagros and Gawane suppresses this passage. Not only was this amors episode irrelevant in terms of the martial and political focus of romance, but its inclusion would have damaged Gawain’s archetypal image of knightly excellence as exemplified by the North Midland romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The makar could not allow his main hero to undergo such a devastating criticism. Moreover, the long narrative of the French text permits the author to regenerate Gawain, whereas the Scottish work, as a comparatively short romance, could never have devoted so many lines to the redemption of Gawain.

The Chivalric Code As for the martial construction of romances, the two Scottish Arthurian works and most of the Catalan texts share a transcendental perception of the chivalric code and its values. In Scotland, the advisory manuals for knights and kings, contemporary with the Arthurian romances (and later the Wallace) corroborate this idealization of the knight’s role in society. One example is the prose works of Sir Gilbert Hay. Mapstone observes that ‘all these works [Hay’s] are highly idealistic, and all are constructed on a firm Christian basis’.25 That one of them, the Buke of Knychthede, though translated from French, was originally composed by the Catalan philosopher, writer and mystic Ramon Llull may explicate this shared understanding of chivalry in both nations: Offici de cavayler és mantenir e deffendre la sancta fe cathòlica, per la qual Déu lo Pare tremès son Fil pendre carn en la verge gloriosa nostra dona sancta Maria . . . Enaxí lo Déu de glòria ha elets cavaylers qui per forsa d’armes vensen e apoderen los infels, qui cade die punyen en lo destruïment de la sancta Sgleya. On, per açò, Déu té honrats en est món e en l’altre aytals cavaylers qui són mantanidors e deffanadors de l’offici de Déu e de la fe per la qual nos avem a salvar.26 (In Hay’s version: ‘And first and formast, knychthede was ordanyit to manetene and defend haly kirk, and the faith, for the quhilk God the fader of hevyn send his Sone in this warld to tak in him oure humanitee, fleschly inumbrit, and incarnate in the glorious vergyne Mary . . . Rycht sa the hye glorious God chesit knychtis tobe his campiouns, sa that the unworthy mystrowaris and rebellouris agaynis his faith mycht be throu thame chastisit, be force of armes to vencus and ourecum his inymyes, . . . [these knights] ar callit

25 26

Sally L. Mapstone, ‘The Advice to Princes Tradition in Scottish Literature’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford, 1986), p. 64. Ramon Llull, Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria (Barcelona, 1988), p. 173.

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his knychtis of honour in this warld and in the tothir, that defendis the haly kirk and the Cristyn faith quhilk is oure saule hele and salvacioun.’)27

Although in Blandín de Cornualla chivalric and knightly practices are not re-codified on the spiritual level, the anonymous author does contrast good selfless chivalry, as represented by Blandín, with the egocentric singled-minded quest for glory, as epitomized by Blandín’s friend, Guillot. From the beginning, this opposition is not without humour as shown in their first adventure: Ço dis Guillot: Què menjarem? car pauca vianda nós tenem. Respon Blandín: Passarem-nos alegrement parlant d’amors, e deman nós en trobarem, (p. 33) (Guillot says this: ‘What shall we eat? Since we have little food.’ Blandín answers: ‘We shall spend the time gladly talking about love, and tomorrow we shall find some [food].’)

This humorous opposition between the matter-of-factness of Guillot’s necessities of the body and Blandín’s necessities of the soul introduces the two chevaliers errants’ understandings of chivalry. Guillot is ruled by his human appetites and impetuousness, whereas Blandín finds the balance between warlike virtues and courtly demeanour, both of which are necessary for him to become a perfect knight. In the second episode of the romance, the inadequacies of Guillot’s selfish search for exclusively personal fame are further revealed. While his fight with, and killing of, the Cavaller Negre (Black Knight) can be justified insofar as the latter is, by implication, cruel and evil (pp. 42–44),28 Guillot’s later encounter with the dead knight’s family demonstrates obstinacy and foolhardiness rather than any kind of knightly conduct. His dismissal of a hermit’s counsel, who begs him not to confront such a large number of knights, projects a very negative image of Guillot. On the one hand, his pride makes him fail as a Christian knight; on the other, his lack of mesura and excessive proeza precipitate his defeat on the battlefield where he is taken prisoner (pp. 47–48).29 Blandín’s constructive knighthood is completely different. His combats always aim to benefit those in need. Either when he liberates ladies from captivity (pp. 36–37) or from a spell (pp. 57–62) or when he jousts to set Guillot free (pp. 73–75), the wellbeing of others is prioritized over his own. The same tension between praiseworthy and inadequate knightly practice is explored in Golagros and Gawane. Gawain is portrayed as the chivalric example, whereas Kay shows a lack of both knightly and courtly manners. Gawain’s sense of cortesia and knighthood is tested when Golagros asks Gawain to feign defeat for his own sake and that of his vassals. Gawain is very moved by the fact that

27 28 29

Gilbert of the Haye, Gilbert of the Haye’s Prose Manuscripts, ed. J. H. Stevenson, STS First Series, 44 and 62, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1901–14), II, 18–19. Pacheco, ‘Blandín de Cornualha’, p. 156. In Scottish literature, Edward Bruce in The Bruce represents a very similar vision of knighthood.

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Golagros prefers death to dishonour: ‘The sege that schrenkis for na schame, the schent might hym schend,/ That mare luffis his life than lois upon erd’ (lines 1077–78). Gawain’s subsequent question intermingles his cortesia with a deep humane feeling: ‘How may I succour the sound, seemly in sale,/ Before this pepill in plane, and pair noght thy pris?’ (lines 1092–93). His acceptance of Golagros’s strange and dangerous petition to accompany him to his castle, feigning defeat, goes beyond standard cortesia. According to Jack, ‘Gawain sacrifices the appearance of a victory . . . for spiritual reasons and offers genuine mercy to his opponent.’30 Therefore, in the Scottish text, Gawain’s courtly and knightly behaviour is never questioned. In the same way as Blandín, Gawain, as in most late medieval Northern romances written in the British Isles,31 emerges as the incarnation of the perfect knight. A similar moral and ethical approach to knighthood is found in Lancelot of the Laik, re-codified within a political discourse. Where Lancelot’s desire to retain Guenevere’s love through heroic action is his main reason for fighting, rather than Arthur’s cause, other thematic and structural components relocate the import (or lack of it) of the love story: Than curag, strenth encresing with manhed, Ful lyk o knycht oneto the feld he raid, Thinking to do his ladice love to have, Or than his deth befor hir to resave. (lines 3169–72)

While the locus communis of amor et militia is evidently taken from the French Prose Lancelot, the particular contextualization of the Scottish work allows for a different set of implications in which the epic discourse forces the courtly one into the background. The makar transforms the more markedly chivalric milieu of the French text into a new (but typically Scottish in context) re-interpretation. Lancelot’s proeza and knighthood are at the service of the liberation of Arthur’s realm. Within the boundaries of this romance, this will be the one and only touchstone of Lancelot’s recognition as the best knight and his last step towards Guenevere’s heart. The absence of previous encounters between the two fins amants concentrates the entire love story in this epic adventure. The makar thus constructs a thematic framework which minimizes the dominance of fin’amors and cortesia and makes them subservient to Arthur’s preservation of his kingdom. Vogel attempted to read this concern with good government in Lancelot of the Laik as a political allegory of James III’s misgovernance of the country, as a result of which he offered a date of c. 1482 for the romance.32 Although Vogel’s theory may be regarded as too precarious, it is interesting to note that other scholars have tried to do something similar with the Catalan texts. Regarding La Faula, Espadaler argues that Guillem de Torroella’s political discourse is not generic criticism of the

30 31 32

R. D. S. Jack, ‘Arthur’s Pilgrimage: A Study of Golagros and Gawane’, SSL 12 (1974–75), 3–20 (p. 16). In northern English romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Awntyrs off Arthure Gawain is also portrayed as the main hero. Bertram Vogel, ‘Secular Politics and the Date of Lancelot of the Laik’, Studies in Philology 40 (1943), 5–10.

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bad rule and censurable behaviour of monarchs and nobles, but a denunciation of the lack of a king in his contemporary Majorca after the death of Jaume the Unfortunate in 1349.33 Again, Badia objects that there is not enough evidence in the text to claim a connection to the political circumstances of fourteenth-century Majorca.34 While neither Vogel’s nor Espadaler’s affirmations can be proved, it is worth noting how, in both traditions, the mythological Arthurian world could be reinterpreted within Catalonia’s and Scotland’s concrete historical context. In the Faula, an interest in the purity of knighthood is present. Guillem de Torroella,35 through the voice of Arthur, also denounces the decadence of chivalric values.36 The Faula is a fascinating Mediterranean response to the Arthurian myth. Not only is Avalon geographically relocated to Sicily following an existing tradition,37 but the Faula also operates as a continuation of the otherwise conclusive version of the end of the Arthurian dream, the Mort Artu. With his extraordinary knowledge of the Matter of Britain together with his literary skills, Torroella alters those passages of the Mort Artu in order to maintain the argumentative congruence of the Faula. Nevertheless, it is not just a straightforward dismissal of the episodes in Mort Artu, but an intertextual game of erudite dexterity where imagination is not devoid of humour.38 The Guillem persona, who is a character within the story, as a good connoisseur of the Arthurian legend, doubts whether this man in the island is King Arthur inasmuch as the latter’s story is not completely consistent with the Mort Artu (lines 919–28). This mistrust irritates Arthur (lines 929–36), who then becomes the authorial voice which refutes the inaccuracies of the French romance. But he does not simply regard the teller of the Mort Artu as a liar; the literary device deployed is much more ingenious. When Guillem complains that Excalibur was thrown in the lake (lines 957–59) and that Arthur was interred in a beautiful chapel (lines 975–82), the monarch explains why the Mort Artu states both things: the tomb was built in order for him not to be sought (lines 1041–47) and he recovered Excalibur because it is the tool to regenerate the fallen world (lines 1009–13). The last answer links to the moralizing message of the poem and its social critique.39 Guillem’s final question refers to Arthur’s apparent youth after three hundred years (lines 1055–1072). Arthur, sighing before such an incredulous guest, affirms that it is because of the Holy Grail (lines 1074–100). The Arthur/author persona brings veracity to Torroella’s poem by changing but not dismissing the Mort Artu.

33 34 35 36 37 38

39

Anton Espadaler, ‘El meravellós com a luxe i pedagogia’, in El món imaginari i el món meravellós a l’Edat Mitjana (Barcelona, 1986), p. 144. Badia, ‘De la Faula’, p. 97 (note). Guillem de Torroella was a nobleman from Majorca who also wrote in a courtly context: M. de Riquer, ‘Història’, II, 26. I. de Riquer, ‘Poèmes narratifs’, p. 332; Badia, ‘De la Faula’, p. 98. See H. Bresc, ‘Excalibur en Sicilile’, Medievalia 7 (1987), Estudios dedicados al profesor Frederic Udina Martorell, I, 7–21. This intertextual game is different from that of the Scottish romances. Whereas Torroella tries to integrate his work within the logic of the Vulgate, the Scottish texts function as independent adaptations of the originals. A. Martínez Pérez, ‘En torno a las transposiciones intertextuales de la tradición artúrica en La Faula de Guillem de Torroella’, Revista de Literatura Medieval 6 (1994), 133–45 (pp. 137–38); I. de Riquer, ‘Poèmes narratifs’, p. 332; Martines, Cavallers literaris, p. 30.

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Badia argues that the poet sets the action in the Arthurian world simply because his message would otherwise become rather banal.40 Yet textual evidence seems to suggest an interpretation in which the spirituality of knighthood is stressed. The story follows the allegorical structure typical of a dream vision: the intentional contrast between the paradise-like landscape of the island and the gloomy state of Arthur elevates the literary intentionality of the text to the realm of higher truths. When Guillem arrives on the island, he encounters an archetypal image of a locus amoenus in a marvellous pseudo-mythological Christian Other World. The exquisite splendour of the landscape is repeated three times before Guillem reaches Arthur’s castle (lines 126–61, 200–17, 411–37). The insistence on idealized descriptions should not be regarded as unnecessary figural ornamentation, but as the author’s device to invest his alter ego persona’s journey with allegorical significance: numerologically, the number three – number of the Trinity – substantiates the allegorical reading of the poem and the Christian element in this post-Arthurian Garden of Eden. One of the traits which is common to these three loci is the harmonious singing of birds. This luminous world of peace and happiness abruptly changes when Guillem enters Arthur’s castle. It is so dark that he cannot even see the king, who is accompanied by his two sisters, two ladies significantly dressed in black, Amours and Valors (lines 716–45). This juxtaposition of the perfect outside world and the dolour and gloom of the inside of the castle is also symbolically linked by the benevolent Morgan’s previous description of Arthur’s sadness: que per nulha xousa que gelh fassa, ne pour xanter ne pour arper, ne pour estoyres recompter, pour art ne pour anchantament ne puix tolhir son mal talant,41 (lines 535–36) ([because] There is nothing I [Morgan] can do to heal his poor state: neither sing nor play the harp nor tell stories, nor through art or sorcery.)

The ineffectiveness of Morgan’s magic implies that there are superior forces that prevent the sorceress from healing Arthur. Morgan also refers to activities that are not characteristically associated with her sorcery: singing and playing the harp. In the spiritual context of the paradise island, Morgan’s actions should not only be interpreted literally as her attempts to amuse the king through festive pastimes. In the same way as the singing birds operate as the bringers of harmony between the earthly and the mysterious world, the harp as the instrument of angels and maximum exponent of the harmony of the spheres through music seems to be used by Morgan to restore the lost perfection of Arthur’s paradise.42

40 41 42

Badia, ‘De la Faula’, p. 99. Guillem de Torroella’s Faula, in Rialc, Repertorio informatizzato dell’antica letteratura catalana (accessed 1 February 2003). It is noteworthy that in other works, such as the late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century French La Bataille Loquifer, the vision of Avalon is much more sensual and suggestive than the rather spiritual one of the Faula. Similarly, in less spiritual texts such as the Tristan romances, harps and singing are also associated with the world of the senses.

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Magic and the supernatural, which were commonplace in the French Arthurian corpus, tend to be absent from the Scottish representations of the Matter of Britain. Even the potentially otherworldly nature of Golagros’s castle in Golagros and Gawane is rationalized by the realistic background against which the action is developed. The two Scottish texts’ concern with good kingship seems to impose a pragmatic representation of events. In the Faula, the referential interplay between the human and the pseudodivine worlds justifies Morgan’s resorting to Guillem. The sadness of Arthur is a result of what is happening in the earthly world. Arthur and Morgan, being enclosed on this island, cannot help or directly intervene in worldly affairs. As a consequence, they need an interlocutor. When Arthur tells Guillem what keeps him so sad, the crisis of chivalric values becomes palpable.43 Although the king’s words are somewhat cryptic, the image transmitted is of those who love (or are loved by) Valour being held in chains so their will cannot be imposed on the world (lines 1154–83). In this context, the decadence of the chivalric order, which should rule the earthly world, affects and alters the balance of the spheres in God’s ordering of the universe. The significance of chivalry and knighthood is transmuted into the territory of the sacred. This conception of chivalry is central to the development of the story in Golagros and Gawane. Arthur no longer represents ideal chivalric practice for the audience to try to emulate; on the contrary, the author warns against the gratuitous use of authority, whose consequences can only bring about death and destruction: Thus thai faught upone fold, with ane fel fair, Quhill athir berne in that breth bokit in blude. Thus thai mellit on mold, ane myle way and maire, Wraithly wroht, as thei war witlese and wode.44 (lines 570–73)

Chivalric ideals are absent from these scenes. Jousting is not a celebration of courtly refinement, as in the First Continuation, but the obnoxious result of the monarch’s thirst for earthly power. This deliberate alteration consciously subverts the idealization of the First Continuation, questioning the validity of violence in the late medieval world. Terrestrial knighthood for its own sake is censured. From the first joust between Gaudifeir and Galiot (lines 545–83), there is a gradual escalation of bloodshed and desolation which the monarch cannot fail to see. Spynagros’s warning is confirmed: ‘Mony ledis salbe loissit, and liffis forlorne’ (line 277). Only after several setbacks will Arthur begin to doubt the correctness of his policies and experience a gradual spiritual awakening.45 In the king of Britain’s regeneration process, these displays of meaningless violence operate as an allegorical sequence of self-discovery which teaches Arthur the true significance of the order of chivalry.

43 44 45

Badia, ‘De la Faula’, p. 98. Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, ed. T. Hahn, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo, 1995). Jack, ‘Arthur’s Pilgrimage’, p. 15.

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In Catalonia and Scotland, then, the Matter of Britain is deeply rooted in the French tradition from which their material is drawn. Despite their differences, the two Scottish texts offer a more organic approach in which the evaluation of kingship takes a prominent role. This highly politicized fifteenth-century redefinition of the Matter of Britain is unique in the literatures of medieval Europe. In Catalonia, the temporal spread of the texts allows for a more diverse response to the Arthurian legend both thematically and formally. In the representations of knighthood and chivalry, both traditions engage in a profoundly moral and spiritual representation of knightly life. The ethical/political instruction of Lancelot of the Laik matches Gras’s moralistic lesson to damsels and knights in the Tragèdia, whilst the learning process of Arthur in Golagros and Gawane locates the import of knighthood on the same spiritual level as Guillem de Torroella’s denunciation of the lost order in the Faula and the Questa’s emphasis on the religious aspects of knighthood. As for cortesia, the Scottish tradition pushes the social interchanges between knights and ladies into the background, preferring to focus on the instructive message the works want to convey. In Catalonia, although cortesia is not so ornamented as in the French romances, Jaufre, Blandín and the Tragèdia still have room for displays of social interaction and fin’amors. The contributions of Scotland and Catalonia to the European Arthurian corpus thus present responses to the Matter of Britain which are heavily inflected by their own local literary traditions. Despite the geographic and cultural distance between these two small but determinedly independent nations, the parallels between their reception of Arthurian legend are mutually illuminating.

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Appendix: The Principal Texts Discussed in this Volume DATE 6th century early 9th century 10th century 10th century c. 1136

c. 1170–1225 c. 1215–20

Anon. Anon.

c. 1250 early 13th century (before Fergus) early 13th century late 13th–early 14th century 1301 c. 1305–8 1320 c. 1370–75

Anon. Anon.

TITLE De Excidio Britanniae Historia Brittonum Annales Cambriae Armes Prydein Historia Regum Britanniae Erec et Enide; Cligès; Le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot); Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain); Le Conte du Graal (Perceval) Jaufre Lancelot do Lac (the noncyclic prose Lancelot) Black Book of Carmarthen First Continuation of Perceval

Guillaume le Clerc Anon.

Fergus of Galloway Blandín de Cornualla

Old French Occitan

Baldred Bisset Pierre de Langtoft

Processus Chronicle The Declaration of Arbroath Faula

Latin Anglo-Norman Latin Occitan

The Bruce Questa del Sant Grasal Chronica Gentis Scotorum The Alliterative Morte Arthure The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn Originall Chronicle Scotichronicon Golagros and Gawane The Scottis Originale/ The Chronicle of the Scots in a Part Morte Darthur The Wallace Lancelot of the Laik

Older Scots Catalan Latin Middle English Middle English

c. 1170–85

c. 1375 1380 c. 1385 late 14th century early 15th century (before Golagros) c. 1412 c. 1449 15th century c. 1460–1513 c. 1470 c. 1480 second half 15th century

AUTHOR Gildas Anon. Anon. Anon. Geoffrey of Monmouth Chrétien de Troyes

Guillem de Torroella John Barbour Anon. John Fordun Anon. Anon. Andrew Wyntoun Walter Bower Anon. Anon. Thomas Malory Hary Anon.

LANGUAGE Latin Latin Latin Welsh Latin Old French

Occitan Old French Welsh Old French

Older Scots Latin Older Scots Older Scots Middle English Older Scots Older Scots

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APPENDIX: PRINCIPAL TEXTS

late 15th century 1513

Mossèn Gras

1521 1527 1531/1540 (date of manuscript version for James V/ assumed date of first printing) 1535

John Mair Hector Boece John Bellenden

1500–1560 (dates of printing) 1571

Anon.

1578

John Leslie

1582 1588 1604

George Buchanan Thomas Hughes George Owen Harry Robert Holland William Shakespeare

1604 1606

William Stewart

George Buchanan

Tragèdia de Lançalot Extracta e Variis Chronicis Scotie Historia maioris Britanniae Scotorum Historia Chronicles of Scotland

The buik of the croniclis of Scotland Sir Lamwell Ane Detectioun of the Duings of Marie Quene of Scottes De origine, moribus et historia Scotorum Historia Rerum Scoticarum Misfortunes of Arthur Genealogy of the High and Mighty Monarch James Translation of Basilicon Doron Macbeth

Catalan Latin Latin Latin Older Scots

Older Scots Scotticized English Latin and Scotticized English Latin Latin English English Welsh English

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Index

Note: Medieval names of the formula ‘x of/de y’ have been listed by first name, e.g. ‘Geoffrey of Monmouth’, ‘Chrétien de Troyes’, except in cases where modern writers conventionally refer to them by the second name, e.g. ‘Wyntoun (Andrew of)’, ‘Langtoft (Pierre de)’.

Adam of Usk 17 ‘Advice to Princes’ literature 5, 77–8, 80, 81, 101–7, 136, 143 Aegisthus 123–4 Aeneas 3, 5, 123 Agamemnon see Seneca Aggravayne 109, 113, 116, 118, 119 Albanactus 3, 11, 14, 19, 31, 35 Albany, Albanak, Albanac (Scotland) 3, 35, 74 Alexander III, King of Scots 26, 29 Alexander, Flora 78 Allan, David 81 Amours, F. J. 46 Amytans 73, 76–7, 101 Angusel 35 Anna (wife of Lot of Lothian) 12, 13, 15 Annales Cambriae 11, 13, 15 Annales Londoniensis 38 Arbroath, Declaration of 4, 105–6 Armes Prydein Vawr 11, 20 Arthur Catalonian representations of 7, 135–47 in Celtic literature 2 as conqueror 2, 18, 43–4, 46–7, 52, 77, 96, 99–100, 107, 112, 114–16, 123 death of 11, 12, 122, 125 as giant-slayer 16–17, 53 and incest 123–4 legitimacy of 11–14, 17, 23, 43, 78 politicisation of 2, 10, 54, 78, 96, 121 and relationship between the Scots and the Welsh 9, 19–20, 23 and relationship between the Welsh and the English 9–11, 19, 21, 23 returning leader motif 15, 19 as ruler of entire island of Britain 1–4, 9–14, 22–3, 32, 41, 88, 96 as ruler of Scotland 6, 11–14, 23, 30 n.28, 35, 41, 43, 78, 136 and Scottish chroniclers and historiographers 3–6, 12–14, 23, 43–4, 50 and sovereignty 5, 10–11, 43–5, 48, 52, 98, 100–1, 107, 116

and treachery 51 as tyrant 14, 43, 49 and Welsh legend 10, 15–17 The Avowing of Arthur 113 Avalon 144, 145 n.42 The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn 46, 77, 95 n.3, 96, 99–101, 103, 112–16, 143 n.31 Badia, Lola 137 n.7, 144–5 Balliol, John 35, 36, 40, 56 Ban, King 74 Banquo 122, 130, 131 Barbour, John The Bruce 44, 45, 50–2, 54, 84, 105, 106, 142 n.29 Beauvais, Vincent of see Vincent of Beauvais Bek, Anthony, Bishop 26–8, 34, 37–9, 41 Belinus 11, 35 Bellenden, John 13 n.17, 14, 16 Beroul Tristan 69 n.34 The Black Book of Carmarthen 13 Blandín de Cornualla 136, 139, 142, 147 Boardman, Stephen 44 Body of Polycye see Christine de Pisan Boece, Hector 4, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17 Boffey, Julia 85 de Bohun, Humphrey, Earl of Hereford 38 Bosworth, Battle of 21 Bothwell, Earl of 124, 132–4 Bower, Walter Scotichronicon 5, 12, 15, 17–20, 22, 43 n.1, 45, 48, 50, 52, 54 Bran de Liz 98, 101 Brennus 11, 35 Brianda 139–40 Britain foundation myth 3, 5, 17–18, 23, 44, 45, 50 island of 1–2, 5, 7, 11, 14, 20–3, 31, 45–7, 50–2, 88, 96, 122 ‘Matter of’ 15, 44, 136, 137, 139, 144, 146, 147 political kingdom of 9–14, 18, 20–3, 25, 31, 36, 88, 110, 112, 127, 134 unity of 9–11, 19–20, 23, 25, 36

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The Britons and Arthur 15, 35, 43, 128 and the Scots 4, 11, 14, 19–20, 45, 47, 49, 50 and the Welsh 18–21 Brittany 2 n.5, 113, 115–16 Bruce, Robert 37, 50–2, 54, 106, 107, 136 The Bruce see Barbour, John Brunissen 138–9 ‘Brut’ tradition 9–23, 26, 31, 34, 35, 45 Brut, English Prose 34, 45 Brut y Tywysogion 18 Brutus 3, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 27, 31, 35, 54 Buchanan, George 90, 121–5, 127, 129, 134 Ane Detection of the Duinges of Marie Quene of Scottes 123, 133–4 Dialogus de iure regni apud Scotos 122–3 Historia Rerum Scoticarum 4, 14, 22 Bullock–Davies, Constance 38 Cador 126 Cadwaladr the Blessed 18–21, 23 Caen, John of see John of Caen Calogrenant 59 Camber see Kamber Camelot 73, 77, 113 n.13 Camlann, Battle of 11, 13 Captain Cox, His Ballads and Books 84 Caranius 14 The Carle of Carlisle 101 Carley, James P 30 n.28 Carlisle 56, 73, 109, 112–14 Catalonia 7, 136–8, 143, 147 Charlemagne 101 n.20 ‘Chastel Orguelleus’ episode 97–8 Chaucer, Geoffrey 72, 74, 75, 89 Troilus and Criseyde 73, 74, 75 Chepman and Myllar 3, 95 n.3 Chestre, Thomas 83–4 Sir Launfal 83, 88, 89 Chrétien de Troyes 1, 6, 55, 57–9, 61–3, 69 Cligès 61, 62 Erec et Enide 60–2, 64 Lancelot (Le Chevalier de la Charette) 75 n.19 Perceval (Le Conte du Graal) 57–9, 61–4, 69 Yvain (Le Chevalier au Lion) 2, 58–60, 62, 63, 113 Christine de Pisan Body of Polycye 79–80 Chronica Gentis Scotorum see Fordun, John of Chronica Walliae see Llwyd, Humphrey Chronicle see Hardyng, John or Langtoft, Pierre de Clariodus 71, 73 Cligès see Chrétien de Troyes Clytemnestra 123–24 Colgrim 32 The Complaynt of Scotland 72 Confessio Amantis see Gower, John Constantine (son of Cador of Cornwall) 14 Controversy between a Lover and a Jay see Feylde, Thomas

Cooper, Helen 75, 79 Corineus 11 Cornwall 11, 35, 111, 113, 117 Cortesia 135, 138, 140, 141, 143, 147 Cothi, Lewis Glyn 21 Culhwch and Olwen 16 Curial e Güelfa 135 Dalriada 2 n.5 Dark, Ken 2 n.5 Darnley, Lord Henry Stewart 124–5, 132, 133 David II, King of Scots 136 Davies, John, of Brecon see Rhys, Siôn Dafydd Davies, R R 110 n.2 Ddu, Gwladys 21 De Excidio Britanniae see Gildas Dekker, Thomas The Whore of Babylon 132–3 Ane Detection of the Duinges of Marie Quene of Scottes see Buchanan, George Dialogus de iure regni apud Scotos see Buchanan, George The Dream of Rhonabwy 16 Dunbar, William 46 Duncan, King of Scots 129–31, 133 Duncan-Jones, Katherine 81 Dunwallo 35 Dutch romances 55 n.3 Dyfed 2 n.5 Edward I, King of England and Arthur 23, 26, 33, 34, 37, 52–4 and overlordship of Scotland 3–4, 9, 11, 17–18, 23, 25–41, 47, 52–4, 109, 110, 112 and the conquest of Wales 9, 11, 17–18, 23 Edward II, King of England (Edward of Caernarfon) 26 n.3, 32, 34, 37 Edward III, King of England 115 Edward IV, King of England 21 Edward the Elder, King of Wessex 29, 32, 33, 35 Edwards, A S G 71–2, 83, 95 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 9, 21, 121, 123–9, 131–2 Elliott, Kenneth 88 England nation of 1–3, 9, 11, 20, 33, 38, 71, 76, 85, 91, 104, 112, 115, 124–5 people of 1–3, 20, 50, 52, 54, 109–11, 119, 136 and Scotland 26, 29, 35, 40, 47, 53–4, 81, 101, 106–7, 110, 113, 131, 136 and Wales 22, 113 Erec et Enide see Chrétien de Troyes Espadaler, Anton 144 Excalibur 144 The Faerie Queene see Spenser, Edmund Falaise, Treaty of 30 Faula see Guillem de Torroella Fergus Mor (son of Erc) 4, 55 Fergus (son of Feredach/Ferchar) 4, 5 Fergus of Galloway 55, 56

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INDEX Fergus, Fergus et Galiene see Guillaume le Clerc, Roman de Fergus Feylde, Thomas Controversy between a Lover and a Jay 84 Fin’amors 135, 138–41, 143, 147 Flodden, Battle of 15, 50 Florence of Worcester 27, 30 Florimond of Albany 97 n.9 Fordun, John of Chronica Gentis Scotorum 5, 12, 13, 17, 20, 43 n.1, 48 Fortune 64, 99 Furnivall, F J 85–7 Gaelic, Arthurian ballads in 3 Galeron 100, 109, 114–16 Galiene 55, 57, 60, 62–3, 66, 67 Galiot, Galehaut 72–4, 78, 146 Galloway 55, 56, 112, 115 Gathelos, Gaedelus, Gathelus 4, 5, 14, 54 Gaveston, Piers 34 Gawain 12–13, 43, 49, 59–61, 66–8, 76, 77, 97–101, 106, 114–19, 140–3 right to throne of Britain 12–13, 43, 49 Scottishness of 1, 12–13, 50, 71–3, 109, 112–19 Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia Regum Britanniae 2, 3, 4, 5, 9–17, 19–21, 23, 27, 31–4, 35, 43–4, 122 n.2 and Edward I 10–12, 18–19, 27, 31–2, 34–5 Gesta Regum Anglorum see William of Malmesbury Gildas De Excidio Britanniae 11 Girflet le filz Do 97 Glastonbury 15, 21, 33 Glyndw ˆ r, Owain 9, 15, 17–20, 23, 116 Glyndw ˆ r rebellion (1400–1415) 9, 17, 19, 116 Golagros and Gawane 1, 3, 6, 71, 95–107, 136, 140–3, 146–7 Gorane 49 Gorlois 123–5 Gower, John Confessio Amantis 77 Grail quest 57 Gras, Mossèn Tragèdia de Lançalot 136, 139, 147 Gray, Margaret M 72, 80 Great Britain see Britain Great Roll see John of Caen The Greene Knight 101, 111 n.6 Gruffudd ap yr Ynad Coch 18 Guddat-Figge, Gisela 80 Guenevere 14, 16–17, 72–8, 82, 99, 101, 109, 113, 114, 116 n.24, 117–18, 122–3, 129–31, 134, 139, 143 Guido delle Colonne Historia Destructionis Troiae 5 n.16 Guillaume le Clerc 5, 56–63, 66, 67, 69 Roman de Fergus 6, 55–69, 136 n.6 Guillem de Torroella Faula 136, 143–7 Guillot 140, 142

153

Hahn, Thomas 112–13, 115 Hanna, Ralph 115 Hardyng, John Chronicle 34, 110 Hary 89 The Wallace 44, 45, 50, 52–4, 89, 105 n.35, 141 Hay, Sir Gilbert Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour 101, 102 The Buke of the Governaunce of Princis 102 The Buke of the Law of Armys 102 The Buke of the Order of Knychthede 102, 135, 141–2 Henry IV, King of England 19 Henry VII, King of England 9, 20, 21 Henry VIII, King of England 50, 124 Henry of Huntingdon 27, 30 Historia Brittonum 11, 15 Historia Destructionis Troiae see Guido delle Colonne Historia Maioris Britanniae see Mair, John Historia Regum Britanniae see Geoffrey of Monmouth Historia Rerum Scoticarum see Buchanan, George History of Scotland see Leslie, John Hoel (of Scotland and Brittany) 30 n.28, 32, 53 Holy Grail 144 Howden, Roger of 30 Huchon of the Aule Realle 46, 71–2 Hughes, Thomas 3, 121–3, 125, 127, 130 The Misfortunes of Arthur 6, 121–31 Humber (King of the Huns) 31 Huntingdon, Henry of see Henry of Huntingdon Huw of Eglinton 46 Ingham, Patricia 111 n.6, 115–16, 118 Ireland 4, 19, 47, 111, 113 Jack, R D S 143 James III, King of Scots 77, 95 n.3, 143 James IV, King of Scots 3, 15, 50, 77, 107 James V, King of Scots 16 n.37 James VI and I, King of Great Britain and Arthur 54, 81, 88, 125 as King of Great Britain 2, 4, 10, 22–3, 81, 88 and Mary, Queen of Scots 122, 128–32, 134 as a writer 22–3, 90 Jaufre 136, 138–9, 147 Joceline of Furness 1 n.3 John of Caen Great Roll 29 n.20, 30, 32, 35 Johnstone, Hilda 38 Kamber 11, 18, 31, 35 Karlamagnús Saga 136 n.4 Kay 63, 67, 68, 97, 98, 142 ‘Kay and the Spit’ episode 97 Ker, N F 33 Kim, Hyonjin 113 n.14, 117 Kittredge, G L 86 de Lacy, Henry, Earl of Lincoln 34, 37, 38, 39 Lady of the Lake 74

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Lailoken 1 Lamorak 117 Lancelot 72–8, 82, 109, 113, 116 n.24, 117–18, 135, 139, 143 Lancelot see Chrétien de Troyes Lancelot do Lac (non-cyclic French prose Lancelot) 6, 72, 73, 76, 77, 136, 139, 143 Lancelot of the Laik 1, 6, 71–82, 101, 136, 139, 143, 147 Langtoft, Pierre de 3, 5, 25–9, 33, 35–7, 39–41 Chronicle 25–9, 36, 37, 40 Political Letters 36, 40 Lanval 83, 91 Lauderdale, Duke of 85 Lawgoch, Owain 15 Le Rider, P 57 n.12 Leslie, John History of Scotland 3 n.7, 14, 15 Lindsay, David Squyer Meldrum 76 Llull, Ramon Llibre del Ordre de Cavalleria 135, 141 Llwyd, Dafydd, of Mathafarn 21 Llwyd, Humphrey Chronica Walliae 18 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd 12, 18 Locrinus 3, 11, 18, 31, 32, 35 London 10–12, 18, 31, 33, 110, 125 Loomis, R S 33 Lot, Loth (of Lothian) 12, 13, 16, 43, 111–12 Lothian 1, 12, 43, 55, 111, 112 Lucius Hiberius 46, 122, 126 Luttrell, Geoffrey 110, 118 Luttrell Psalter 110 Lyall, R J 77 Lynch, Andrew 111 n.9 Lybeaus Desconus 113 Lydgate, John Troy Book 84, 85, 89 The Mabinogion 16 Macaulay, G C 77 Macbeth see Shakespeare, William MacCool, Finn 13, 17 Macduff 131, 132 Mair, John Historia Maioris Britanniae 3, 14, 15, 43 n.1 Malcolm, King of Scots 31 Malmesbury, William of see William of Malmesbury Malory, Sir Thomas Morte Darthur 3, 6, 73, 78, 103, 109–14, 116–19, 122 n.2 Man, Isle of 113, 114 Manuscripts Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.1.5 78 n.34, 79–81 Cambridge, University Library MS Kk.5.30 83, 84–91 Chantilly, Musée Condé 472 55 n.3, 56–7

Edinburgh, National Archives of Scotland RH 4/74 (Dalhousie or Panmure Manuscript) 48, 49, 50 Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland MS 9450 88 Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland MS 16500 (Asloan Manuscript) 48, 49, 50, 102–3 London, British Library, MS Add. 27879 (Percy Folio Manuscript) 84, 86, 87 Oxford, Bodleian Library Douce II.95 85–6 Oxford, Bodleian Library Malone 941 85–7 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C86 84 Paris, BNF fr. 1553 56–7 Mapstone, Sally 77–8, 85, 141 Margaret, the ‘Maid of Norway’ 29 Marie de France 83 Marius 31–2 Marquardt, W 59 Mary, Queen of Scots 121–9, 131–4 Mason, Roger 102 May, Steven 90 Meale, Carol 85 Melyhalt, Lady of 73 Merlin 1, 14, 16, 19, 25, 36, 37, 40, 49, 81, 111, 112 Merlin, Post-Vulgate Continuation 111 n.9 ‘Mirror for Princes’ literature see ‘Advice to Princes’ literature The Misfortunes of Arthur see Hughes, Thomas Monmouth, Geoffrey of see Geoffrey of Monmouth Mordred 11–14, 15, 43, 46, 49, 54, 77, 78, 112, 116 n.24, 118, 121–3, 125–8, 131–2 Scottishness of 11–14, 50, 109, 112 Morgan 145–6 Morgause (wife of Lot of Lothian) 43 Mort Artu 109, 113 nn.13 and 16, 144 Morte Arthur, Stanzaic 73, 113 n.13, 117 Morte Arthure, Alliterative 46–7, 77, 95 n.3, 96, 99, 100 n.18, 103, 113 n.12 Morte Darthur see Malory, Sir Thomas Murray of Tibbermuir James 84, 85, 88–91 John 85, 89 New Arcadia see Sidney, Philip Newstead, Helaine 72 Nine Worthies 23, 99 Olif and Landres 136 n.4 Orestes 125 Original Chronicle see Wyntoun, Andrew of Orkney 1, 43, 47, 111, 116–18 Padel, O J 2 n.5 Palamedes 114 Perceval see Chrétien de Troyes Perceval Continuations 57, 60, 63, 69, 95–8, 100, 103 n.30, 136, 140, 146 Pere III the Ceremonious, King of Catalonia 138 Perpetual Accord, Treaty of 50 Picts 14, 16, 31, 32, 45, 49 de Pisan, Christine see Christine de Pisan

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INDEX ‘Poisoned Apple’ episode 117–18 Polychronicon (trans. Trevisa) 34 Prestwich, Michael 30 n.23, 33 The Prick of Conscience 103 Questa del Sant Grasal 136, 147 Ralph de Diceto 30 Ramon Berenguer III, King of Catalonia 137 Rauf Coilhear 101 n.20 Regalado, Nancy Freeman 39 Rhys, Siôn Dafydd 17 Riddy, Felicity 76 de Riquer, Isabel 135 n.3 Robert I, King of Scots see Bruce, Robert Robert II, King of Scots 136 Robert III, King of Scots 19 Roman de Fergus see Guillaume le Clerc Le roman de Tristan 103 n.30 Round Table 15, 113, 114, 118 St John of Beverley 26, 29, 30, 40, 41 St Kentigern 1 n.3, 15 Saxons 11, 19, 20, 21, 32, 44, 49, 52, 54 Scalot, Lady of 139 Schichtman, Martin 71 Scone, Stone of 4, 12, 47–8, 50 Scota 4, 5, 10, 14, 17, 23 Scotichronicon see Bower, Walter Scotland 1–5, 6–7, 10–15, 17–18, 20, 22–3, 31, 34, 43–4, 47, 48, 50, 53, 55–6, 58, 69, 71, 76–8, 88–9, 91, 96, 100–1, 107, 109, 111–15, 118, 131–2, 136, 141, 143, 147 and English overlordship 3, 19, 25–6, 29, 33–5, 37–8, 41, 43–4, 110 foundation myth 4, 10, 11, 14, 17, 23, 44–5 sovereignty over Britain 44, 47, 50, 54 sovereignty over England 12, 18, 47 union with England 81 The Scots 3–4, 15, 32, 43, 45, 47–50, 102 alliance with the Britons against the Saxons 11, 14, 19–20 relationship with the English 1–2, 5–6, 17–22, 25–6, 29, 31, 37, 40, 50, 109, 110 treacherous nature of 117, 119 relationship with the Welsh 17–22 The Scottis Originale 5, 13, 43, 44, 45, 48–50, 52, 54, 105 Scotus, Marianus 30 Secreta Secretorum 76, 102 Seneca Agamemnon 123–5 Senecan tragedy 122–5, 130 Thyestes 122–3, 129 n.16 Shakespeare, William 129–30, 132, 133 Macbeth 6, 121–2, 129–34 Lady Macbeth 129, 131–4 Shire, Helena 88 Sidney, Philip 79, 80, 90 New Arcadia 79–82

155

Simpson, Grant G 29 n.20 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 99, 101, 141, 143 n.31 Sir Lamwell 3 n.9, 6, 83–93, 96 n.5 text 91–3 Sir Lambewell 84 Sir Landevale 84–6, 88 Sir Launfal see Chestre, Thomas Spenser, Edmund 81, 129, 132, 134 The Faerie Queene 123, 128, 129, 132 Spynagros 98–101, 103, 146 Squyer Meldrum see Lindsay, David Stefan, A 56 n.9 Stewart, William 14 Stones, E L G 28 n.18, 29 n.20, 34, 36 n.47 Strathclyde 2 n.5, 56 Talis of the Fyve Bestes 103 Thomas, Neil 56 n.8 Thyestes see Seneca Tragèdia de Lançalot see Gras, Mossèn Tripartite Indenture (1405) 19, 20 Tristan 69 n.34, 114, 117, 135 Tristan see Beroul Tristan (Prose) 103 n.30, 114, 116, 137 Troilus and Criseyde see Chaucer, Geoffrey Troy 4, 5, 123, 125 Troy Book see Lydgate, John Troy Book, Scottish 84 de Troyes, Chrétien see Chrétien de Troyes The Turke and Sir Gawain 101, 114 Usk, Adam of see Adam of Usk Uther Pendragon 12, 19, 43, 47, 123 Vawr, Llwelyn 21 Vergil, Polydore 10, 17 Vincent of Beauvais 46 Vogel, Bertram 143–4 Vortiger 14 Vulgate Cycle 73, 137, 144 n.38 Wales and English claims of overlordship 9–12, 17–19, 22–3 as a nation 1–2, 5, 7, 15, 22–3, 31, 35, 111, 113, 115–17 Wallace, William 18, 37, 50, 52–4, 104, 106, 107 The Wallace see Hary wars Bruce-Balliol 102 of Independence 4, 5, 17, 18, 37, 136 of the Roses 9, 21 Trojan 4, 51, 123 The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell 113–14 The Welsh 5, 17, 18, 20, 22, 117 ‘White Stag’ adventure 60–2 The Whore of Babylon see Dekker, Thomas William I King of England 31

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William of Malmesbury Gesta Regum Anglorum 27, 30, 112 Worcester, Florence of see Florence of Worcester de Worde, Wynkyn see Wynkyn de Worde Worden, Blair 80 Wormald, Jenny 100 n.17 Woudhuysen, Henry 81 Wurtele, Douglas 81 Wynkyn de Worde 85

Wyntoun, Andrew of Original Chronicle 5, 12, 44–50, 52, 54, 71 Ygerne 13 York 32 Yrlanda 140 Yvain 59, 63, 66 Yvain see Chrétien de Troyes Ywain and Gawain 2, 111 n.6, 113

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ARTHURIAN STUDIES I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI

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XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII

XXIV XXV XXVI

ASPECTS OF MALORY, edited by Toshiyuki Takamiya and Derek Brewer THE ALLITERATIVE MORTE ARTHURE: A Reassessment of the Poem, edited by Karl Heinz Göller THE ARTHURIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY, I: Author Listing, edited by C. E. Pickford and R. W. Last THE CHARACTER OF KING ARTHUR IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE, Rosemary Morris PERCEVAL: The Story of the Grail, by Chrétien de Troyes, translated by Nigel Bryant THE ARTHURIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY, II: Subject Index, edited by C. E. Pickford and R. W. Last THE LEGEND OF ARTHUR IN THE MIDDLE AGES, edited by P. B. Grout, R. A. Lodge, C. E. Pickford and E. K. C. Varty THE ROMANCE OF YDER, edited and translated by Alison Adams THE RETURN OF KING ARTHUR, Beverly Taylor and Elisabeth Brewer ARTHUR’S KINGDOM OF ADVENTURE: The World of Malory’s Morte Darthur, Muriel Whitaker KNIGHTHOOD IN THE MORTE DARTHUR, Beverly Kennedy LE ROMAN DE TRISTAN EN PROSE, tome I, edited by Renée L. Curtis LE ROMAN DE TRISTAN EN PROSE, tome II, edited by Renée L. Curtis LE ROMAN DE TRISTAN EN PROSE, tome III, edited by Renée L. Curtis LOVE’S MASKS: Identity, Intertextuality, and Meaning in the Old French Tristan Poems, Merritt R. Blakeslee THE CHANGING FACE OF ARTHURIAN ROMANCE: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in memory of Cedric E. Pickford, edited by Alison Adams, Armel H. Diverres, Karen Stern and Kenneth Varty REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS IN THE ARTHURIAN ROMANCES AND LYRIC POETRY OF MEDIEVAL FRANCE: Essays presented to Kenneth Varty on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, edited by Peter V. Davies and Angus J. Kennedy CEI AND THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND, Linda Gowans LAHAMON’S BRUT: The Poem and its Sources, Françoise H. M. Le Saux READING THE MORTE DARTHUR, Terence McCarthy, reprinted as AN INTRODUCTION TO MALORY CAMELOT REGAINED: The Arthurian Revival and Tennyson, 1800–1849, Roger Simpson THE LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR IN ART, Muriel Whitaker GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG AND THE MEDIEVAL TRISTAN LEGEND: Papers from an Anglo-North American symposium, edited with an introduction by Adrian Stevens and Roy Wisbey ARTHURIAN POETS: CHARLES WILLIAMS, edited and introduced by David Llewellyn Dodds AN INDEX OF THEMES AND MOTIFS IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRENCH ARTHURIAN POETRY, E. H. Ruck CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES AND THE GERMAN MIDDLE AGES: Papers from an international symposium, edited with an introduction by Martin H. Jones and Roy Wisbey

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SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: Sources and Analogues, compiled by Elisabeth Brewer CLIGÉS by Chrétien de Troyes, edited by Stewart Gregory and Claude Luttrell THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SIR THOMAS MALORY, P. J. C. Field T. H. WHITE’S THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, Elisabeth Brewer ARTHURIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY, III: 1978–1992, Author Listing and Subject Index, compiled by Caroline Palmer ARTHURIAN POETS: JOHN MASEFIELD, edited and introduced by David Llewellyn Dodds THE TEXT AND TRADITION OF LAHAMON’S BRUT, edited by Françoise Le Saux CHIVALRY IN TWELFTH-CENTURY GERMANY: The Works of Hartmann von Aue, W. H. Jackson THE TWO VERSIONS OF MALORY’S MORTE DARTHUR: Multiple Negation and the Editing of the Text, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade RECONSTRUCTING CAMELOT: French Romantic Medievalism and the Arthurian Tradition, Michael Glencross A COMPANION TO MALORY, edited by Elizabeth Archibald and A. S. G. Edwards A COMPANION TO THE GAWAIN-POET, edited by Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson MALORY’S BOOK OF ARMS: The Narrative of Combat in Le Morte Darthur, Andrew Lynch MALORY: TEXTS AND SOURCES, P. J. C. Field KING ARTHUR IN AMERICA, Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack THE SOCIAL AND LITERARY CONTEXTS OF MALORY’S MORTE DARTHUR, edited by D. Thomas Hanks Jr THE GENESIS OF NARRATIVE IN MALORY’S MORTE DARTHUR, Elizabeth Edwards GLASTONBURY ABBEY AND THE ARTHURIAN TRADITION, edited by James P. Carley THE KNIGHT WITHOUT THE SWORD: A Social Landscape of Malorian Chivalry, Hyonjin Kim ULRICH VON ZATZIKHOVEN’S LANZELET: Narrative Style and Entertainment, Nicola McLelland THE MALORY DEBATE: Essays on the Texts of Le Morte Darthur, edited by Bonnie Wheeler, Robert L. Kindrick and Michael N. Salda MERLIN AND THE GRAIL: Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, Perceval: The Trilogy of Arthurian romances attributed to Robert de Boron, translated by Nigel Bryant ARTHURIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY IV: 1993–1998, Author Listing and Subject Index, compiled by Elaine Barber DIU CRÔNE AND THE MEDIEVAL ARTHURIAN CYCLE, Neil Thomas KING ARTHUR IN MUSIC, edited by Richard Barber THE BOOK OF LANCELOT: The Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation and the Medieval Tradition of Narrative Cycles, Bart Besamusca A COMPANION TO THE LANCELOT-GRAIL CYCLE, edited by Carol Dover

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THE GENTRY CONTEXT FOR MALORY’S MORTE DARTHUR, Raluca L. Radulescu PARZIVAL: WITH TITUREL AND THE LOVE LYRICS, translated by Cyril Edwards ARTHURIAN STUDIES IN HONOUR OF P. J. C. FIELD, edited by Bonnie Wheeler THE GRAIL LEGEND IN MODERN LITERATURE, John B. Marine RE-VIEWING LE MORTE DARTHUR; Texts and Contexts, Characters and Themes, edited by K. S. Whetter and Raluca L. Radulescu