WRITING WAR: MEDIEVAL LITERARY RESPONSES TO

WARFARE

Corinne Saunders, Françoise Le Saux, Neil Thomas

WRITING WAR

MEDIEVAL LITERARY RESPONSES TO WARFARE

War is a powerful and enduring literary topos. Literature of differenttypes, in different periods and in different countries, engages with thepractice of war, and reflects too the cultural attitudes of particularperiods to war. The idea and practice of war are central to some of themost dominant subject matters in the medieval period: to chivalry, toreligion, to ideas of nationhood, to concepts of gender, the body and thepsyche. War is a repeated theme in both secular and religious literarygenres of the Middle Ages, but is not necessarily celebrated.

The essays in this collection consider the variety of responses towarfare and combat in medieval literature. They begin with a consider-ation of ideal military practice and the reception of Vegetius, which iscontrasted to Christine de Pizan’s treatise on warfare. The collectionthen turns to chronicling war, particularly in France, Germany andScotland, and also covers the fictions of war, as presented in EnglishArthurian narratives, Chaucer, Malory, and pastoral poetry. It concludeswith an examination of attitudes to women in warfare.

DR CORINNE SAUNDERS is Reader in Medieval Studies in the Depart-ment of English Studies, University of Durham; DR FRANÇOISE LE SAUX

is Senior Lecturer in the Department of French, University of Reading;DR NEIL THOMAS is Reader in German in the School of ModernEuropean Languages, University of Durham.

WRITING WAR

MEDIEVAL LITERARY RESPONSES

TO WARFARE

EDITED BY

CORINNE SAUNDERS, FRANÇOISE LE SAUX andNEIL THOMAS

D. S. BREWER

© Editors and Contributors 2004

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislationno 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

First published 2004D. S. Brewer, Cambridge

ISBN 0 85991 843 2

D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer LtdPO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK

and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604–4126, USA

website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Writing war : medieval literary responses to warfare / edited byCorinne Saunders, Françoise Le Saux, and Neil Thomas.

p. cm.Includes index.ISBN 0–85991–843–2 (alk. paper)

1. Literature, Medieval – History and criticism. 2. War in literature.3. Military art and science – Europe – History – Medieval, 500–1500.I. Saunders, Corinne J., 1963– II. Le Saux, Françoise H. M. (FrançoiseHazel Marie), 1957– III. Thomas, Neil, 1949–PN682.W35W75 2004809 .93358 – dc22 2003015830

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Printed in Great Britain bySt Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Disclaimer:Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

Contents

Contributors vii

Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1CORINNE SAUNDERS, FRANÇOISE LE SAUX AND NEIL THOMAS

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 15CHRISTOPHER ALLMAND

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade 29MARIANNE J. AILES

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems 49W. H. JACKSON

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France in theFifteenth Century

77

GEORGES LE BRUSQUE

War and Knighthood in Christine de Pizan’s Livre des faits d’armes et dechevallerie

93

FRANÇOISE LE SAUX

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect 107THEA SUMMERFIELD

‘Peace is good after war’: The Narrative Seasons of English ArthurianTradition

127

ANDREW LYNCH

The Invisible Siege – The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry ofChaucer

147

SIMON MEECHAM-JONES

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur 169K. S. WHETTER

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing 187CORINNE SAUNDERS

Speaking for the Victim 213HELEN COOPER

Index 233

Contributors

Marianne J. Ailes is College Lecturer at Wadham College, Oxford andVisiting Fellow at Reading University. Her main areas of research are OldFrench chansons de geste and chronicle. As well as articles in a number ofjournals, including Romania, Medium Ævum, Olifant and Reading MedievalStudies, she has published a monograph on the Chanson de Roland, and heredition and translation of Ambroise’s Estoire de la guerre sainte is forthcoming.

Christopher Allmand was Professor of Medieval History at the University ofLiverpool. He is the author of The Hundred Years War and Henry V, and is atpresent preparing a study of the reception of Vegetius’ De re militari in theMiddle Ages.

Georges Le Brusque holds a PhD in French literature from King’s College,University of London. His research is in the areas of the writing of warfare inlate medieval French and Burgundian chronicles. He also holds degrees inart history from the University of Saint Andrews and Sorbonne UniversityParis IV, and is currently based in Rome.

Helen Cooper is Tutorial Fellow in English at University College, Oxford.She has published widely on both medieval and Renaissance literature. Herbooks include Pastoral: Medieval into Renaissance (1977), The Structure of theCanterbury Tales (1983) and an Oxford Guide to The Canterbury Tales(1989). Her study of medieval and Renaissance romance is forthcoming.

W. H. Jackson is the author of Chivalry in Twelfth-Century Germany: TheWorks of Hartmann von Aue (1994), and co-editor (with J.R. Ashcroft andD. Huschenbett) of Liebe in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters (1986) and(with S. A. Ranawake) The Arthur of the Germans: The Arthurian Legend inMedieval German and Dutch Literature (2000). He has published numerousarticles in the field of medieval German literature and has special interestsin aristocratic culture, especially the history of the tournament in Germany.

Andrew Lynch teaches in English, Communication and Cultural Studies atThe University of Western Australia. His publications include Malory’sBook of Arms (D. S. Brewer, 1997) and articles on medieval romance. Healso writes on medievalism in the modern period.

Simon Meecham-Jones is Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of English inCambridge. He has published on Chaucer, Gower, medieval Latin lyricsand the eighteenth-century editors of medieval romance. He is currently

vii

completing a monograph, The Natural World and Literary Authority inChaucer, and co-editing a study of literature of the reign of Henry II.

Corinne Saunders is Reader in Medieval Studies in the Department ofEnglish Studies in the University of Durham. Her research interests are inlater medieval literature, particularly romance, and the history of ideas.Her publications include The Forest of Medieval Romance (1993), Rapeand Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England (2001) and a BlackwellCritical Guide, Chaucer (2001).

Françoise Le Saux is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Reading,where she is also Director of the Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies. Herresearch interests include translation and cultural adaptation in medievaltexts, and Arthurian literature.

Thea Summerfield teaches Old and Middle English literature at the Univer-sity of Utrecht (The Netherlands). Her research interests include vernacularverse, historiography and romance, also in Middle Dutch.

Neil Thomas is Reader in German in the University of Durham and haspublished widely on the medieval German and French romances, his mostrecent book being Diu Crône and the Medieval Arthurian Cycle (2002).

K. S. Whetter is Assistant Professor of English at Acadia University, NovaScotia. He has written a biography of Malory for Chadwyck-Healey andpublished on Arthurian matters in BBSIA, RMS, and Arthurian Studies inHonour of P. J. C. Field (forthcoming, D. S. Brewer).

Contributors

viii

Abbreviations

ANTS Anglo-Norman Text SocietyEETS Early English Text Society

ES extra seriesOS original seriesSS supplementary series

MGH Monumenta Germaniae HistoricaRS Rolls SeriesSHF Société de l’Histoire de France

ix

Introduction:Writing War: Medieval Literary Responses

CORINNE SAUNDERS, FRANÇOISE LE SAUX ANDNEIL THOMAS

Introduction

And never syns was there seyne a more dolefuller batayle in no Crystenlonde; for there was but russhynge and rydynge, foynynge and strykynge,and many a grym worde was there spokyn of aythir to othir, and many adedely stroke . . .

And thus they fought all the longe day, and never stynted tylle the nobleknyghtes were layde to the colde erthe. And ever they fought stylle tylle itwas nere nyght, and by than was there an hondred thousand leyde dedeuppon the erthe.

(Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur)1

But the past is just the same – and War’s a bloody game . . .Have you forgotten yet? . . .Look down and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.

(Siegfried Sassoon, ‘Aftermath’)2

MALORY WROTE his Morte Darthur in prison, while the dynastic civilwars of York and Lancaster, the so-called ‘Wars of the Roses’, surged

around him; his charge and imprisonment may have been the direct result ofthat political turbulence, and his involvement with Yorkist politics. Smallwonder that in Malory’s great Arthurian history he could so evocatively andso realistically depict the last battle of Arthur and his knights of the RoundTable. His Morte Darthur engages directly with the problems of his ownsociety, of an unstable kingdom, of feuds between knights, resulting indissent among the people and civil war. For Malory, war is indeed a ‘bloodygame’: devastating, yet also, in its relation to chivalry, its manifestation insingle combats, jousting and tournaments, a fundamental, even desirable,aspect of life and society. He perhaps would not have been surprised at therecurrence of war through subsequent centuries, in forms still more hideous

1

1 Book XXI, iv, p. 713.2 In Martin Stephen, ed., Poems of the First World War, p. 303.

than before, nor at that peculiar combination of Armageddon and game-playing in Siegfried Sassoon’s very different war. War, the destroyer ofcivilisation, seems as enduring an action of the human race as love or faithor discovery. Indeed, it might be said to be the dark side of all these things,and most of all, of the human desire for power.

It is not surprising that war is one of the great topics of writing. Theshadow of war is evident as far back as it is possible to look in human history,in the rivalry within the earliest forms of society for possessions – land,women, treasure. The story of civilisation is also the story of war, as onegreat people rises and is vanquished by another – Egyptian, Assyrian,Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman. The Old Testament is full of battles asthe chosen tribes of God attempt to establish themselves against theCanaanites, the Philistines, and other nations. History can often seemexclusively to consist of the stories of battles and kings, and this associationis not coincidental: one of the great motivating societal forces is power, andpower has most of all been enacted first in kingship, then in the assertion ofone society, one nation, and often one ruler, over another. A brief narrativeof the history of war in the Middle Ages illustrates how acutely aware medi-eval writers in particular would have been of its reality.

The world that formed and underpinned the Middle Ages, that of theRoman Empire, rose swiftly, for the Romans were able to take over andfortify the Greek civilisation of the Mediterranean with its established citiesand trade routes – though they were dependent on a powerful army made upof mercenaries of many different nationalities. The subsequent history of theRoman Empire, its expansion, its uniting of East and West, and its uneasyrelations with the power structures of Christianity, was more complex, andits disintegration much more gradual. Like its rise, however, Rome’s end, asfor all the great preceding civilisations, was in war – in the threat anddestruction caused by the waves of barbarian invaders. The Roman initiativehad not been unique – it found its competitors in the Huns under Attila andthen the East Germanic tribes led by Odovacar, the Vandals, the Visigoths,the Burgundians and the Franks. Whereas Rome was dependent on raising alarge, paid army, the barbarians could draw on all fit adult men: theirnumbers made up for their rudimentary military techniques. As PhilippeContamine has argued, these were not simply armies but ‘whole peoples onthe move’, and their movement was marked by raids and attacks made inorder to subsist.3 In this period, war in actuality meant long processes of raidand battle, uneasy peace, settlement and transfer of power from Rome to the‘barbarians’ – and it is this transfer that marks the start of the ‘Middle Ages’,the period of the supremacy of the Germanic kingdoms.

For these Germanic kingdoms, war was a mode of life. Wars could be ofmany different kinds – wars undertaken in defence against invaders; wars

Introduction

2

3 Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, p. 12.

initiated in the spirit of religion; wars between factions of nobles or cities;wars between families or individuals. As Maurice Keen writes, war is‘central to the narrative political story of the Middle Ages. It is also centralto their cultural history.’4 The period from the decline of the Roman Empirein the fourth century to the ninth century, so often labelled the Dark Ages,saw a continuation of the fluidity of power, as first one people and thenanother advanced and conquered and gained the advantages of rule. TheMerovingian kingdom in Gaul was in turn succeeded by the CarolingianEmpire; in the tenth century this would to some extent be replaced by theOttonian Empire. In part, expansion was the result of the clearing of wastelands, but it was also the result of the claiming of territories and establishingof boundaries, the foundation of power structures and systems of kingshipand rule, of state and Church. Timothy Reuter argues that ‘Carolingian andOttonian societies were largely organized by war.’5 The powerful Germanicworld was rivalled, and threatened, by the growing Islamic empire in theEast, which by the early eighth century included the territory of theVisigoths, modern-day Spain: its encroachment provided a particular focusof warfare.

The support of warfare therefore played a crucial role in the developmentof social structures, creating a deeply-rooted system of vassalage or feudalism,in which men served their lords through military support and were in turnprotected by them. Early medieval battles were probably fought with amixture of cavalry and infantry, and with relatively small numbers. But withthe development of new technology, in particular the stirrup, the figure ofthe mounted warrior came to dominate the medieval military world of theMiddle Ages.6 A whole new class of warriors emerged, men who possessedtheir own horses and equipment, and were trained in battle. From the ninthcentury on, these milites, chevaliers or knights, as they were variously known,were placed in a lord’s household and taught the noble arts, including horse-manship. In the later period, such knights would be armed and equipped bythe lord, would fight for him, and would forge bonds of brotherhood, eventu-ally inspiring their own literature of romance, and their own values ofchevalerie, which bound together the great feudal lords and the knights whoserved them.

With the development of a more sophisticated kind of warfare, whichused both cavalry and archers, came new systems of defence. The construc-tion of castles as military strongholds was an important aspect of the processof expansion from the tenth to the twelfth centuries. With this system, bythe time of Charlemagne, the need for constant warfare might have seemed

3

Introduction

4 Maurice Keen, Introduction, in Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare, p. 3.5 Timothy Reuter, ‘Carolingian and Ottonian Warfare’, in Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare,

p. 13.6 There has been considerable discussion of the relation between the development of the

stirrup and the growth of cavalry warfare: for an overview, see Contamine, pp. 179–84.

to be receding: yet in fact the ninth century ended in crisis with ever morefrequent invasions from different quarters – Muslim, Viking and Magyar –and hence the need for enormous defences, garrisons manned by the localpopulation, and strong standing armies. The Vikings in particular brought adifferent and threatening kind of warfare, effected by raids and skirmishes,usually for provisions, treasures and prisoners. They had armies and horses,but their most valued weapons were ships. This period of severe militarythreat limited the progress of many of the great projects of the Middle Ages– building, writing, the institution of the arts.

The eleventh century saw the rise of a new militant people, the Normans,who collected as mercenaries from France, northern Italy and Normandyitself, moved southward in Italy, and came to dominate that region andSicily. The Duke of Normandy also of course moved northwards, toEngland. Germanic rulers pursued Italian expansion actively, and this periodsaw too the Reconquesta of Spain. On the whole, however, from the tenthcentury, as Europe entered what is now seen as the High Middle Ages, thewaves of invasion largely ceased. It is no coincidence that the great litera-ture of the medieval period, like much of its great art, dates from after thetenth century. But if the constant threat of foreign invasion lessened,warfare did not become less real. The motivation for war was various: as wellas defence and the desire for expansion, rivalry between ruling dynasties andfamilies, and conflict between cultural and religious ideals. As principalitieswere formed, small-scale wars became more and more frequent. Kingdomswere divided, so that internecine conflict recurred – in the Saxon andFrankish kingdoms and between the Italian states.

Warfare became more ambitious. More and more castles were built, sothat siege warfare became the norm, and new weapons such as the trebuchetwere developed. When wars were not conducted around cities or castles,they took the form of the chevauchée or raid. There was a growing relianceon archers and crossbowmen alongside cavalry, and the disasters that couldoccur when enemy archers met oncoming cavalry are well known. Armies inthis period were raised partly from households and the demands of loyalty,but also through payment of fees. They could be large: expenditure recordssuggest, for instance, that Edward III led thirty thousand men.7 War wasbecoming more professional, more orchestrated by rulers, less reliant on free-lance warriors. The twelfth century saw conflict on a larger scale than previ-ously with the war between Louis VI of France and Henry I of England, andthere were in the same period large-scale German invasions and Frenchwars, especially against Flanders.

Perhaps the most ambitious of all military enterprises in the period werethe Crusades. From the eleventh century, when the Greeks in the HolyLand called on the Pope for military assistance against the Turks, an extra-

Introduction

4

7 See, for instance, Norman Housley’s discussion, ‘European Warfare c.1200–1320’, in Keen,ed., Medieval Warfare, p. 126.

ordinary number of men had set out to fight for Christianity in the East.Jerusalem was won in 1099 and a series of new Crusading states was set up inthe East, but the empire was vulnerable, and Jerusalem fell once again to theMuslims in 1187. The possibility of winning it back fuelled a further seriesof Crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and as the Turks beganto move into Europe other ‘holy wars’ were launched, which continuedinto the mid-fifteenth century. Military behaviour was sometimes far fromChristian, as in the sack of Alexandria of 1365, with its widespread plunderand massacre, but the Christian ideals of the Crusades remained powerfulright through the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century Geoffrey Chauceris able to imagine in his Knight a man who has fought against the Muslimsin Spain, North Africa, the Near East, and the Baltic (Lithuania andRussia), where Henry IV himself fought, as well as against hostile pagans inTurkey.

Medieval English history can seem a constant succession of wars: against aseries of invaders and between royal houses, against the Welsh, against theScots, against the French. The misty origins of Roman Britain may haveinvolved some degree of warfare against the Celts; it is more certain that theCelts and Roman Britons fought fiercely against the invading Saxons,perhaps with the help of that legendary dux bellorum who may have beenArthur. Anglo-Saxon England was devastated by the raids of the Vikings,and finally conquered by the Normans, who in turn were conquered by theKing of France. From the rivalry of King John and Philip Augustus overFlanders, battles between France and England continued through the reignsof five kings. From 1294 until 1485 (from the reign of Edward I to that ofHenry VII), England was almost constantly at war with France, with Scot-land, France’s ally. The Hundred Years War was only a continuation ofage-old rivalries. War with France was balanced by the need of English rulersto quell the attempts of the Welsh and the Scots to assert their power. Thecampaigns of Edward I and Edward II against the Scots were enormousenterprises, using armies recruited through the feudal system and largenumbers of contracted men: they required immense sums to be spent on pro-visions, ships, horses and siege engines, and hence immense taxes. War wasa way of life for the English in the fourteenth century: during Chaucer’s life,for instance, there was no period when England was not at war. As MauriceKeen writes, ‘The course of the great wars of the late Middle Ages shapedEngland’s gradual achievement of self-conscious, insular identity as anation-state.’8 War was a constant financial drain on the English economy,and expensive too in terms of lives; this in part caused the Peasants’ Revoltin 1381. Not all wars were fought against other countries: civil war endedthe reigns of five medieval English kings. The Wars of the Roses (1450–61)demonstrate especially well the prevalence of violence in this period: their

5

Introduction

8 Keen, England in the Later Middle Ages, p. 1.

cause was an aristocratic struggle between two peers, both of whom hadsome claim to the throne, Edmund, Duke of Somerset, constable of Englandand close adviser of Henry VI and Queen Margaret, and Richard, Duke ofYork, who had gained much noble and popular support. Through the failureof a weak king to control the dispute, it escalated into violent factionalisa-tion in which the great families took sides for and against the Lancastrians,and a series of battles occurred: at St Albans in 1455, Somerset was killed,heightening the feud; at Wakefield in 1460, York was killed. But ultimatelythe support of the populace was crucial, and despite their victory, theLancastrians were refused entry to London: the son of Richard, Duke ofYork, Edward, was established as king, to be crowned Edward IV. The Warsof the Roses ended with the battle of Towton in March 1461, perhapsMalory’s model for the last Arthurian battle, and the largest battle everfought on British soil, in which some 28,000 men died.

Not all the battles of this extraordinary dynastic struggle involved suchlarge-scale slaughter as Towton. War had, however, changed its character inthe fourteenth century – in particular, after the French cavalry were cutdown by waiting infantry in a battle against the Flemings in 1302. Thismarked the so-called ‘Infantry Revolution’, which made it possible toemploy much larger armies, and thus caused battles to become bloodier.9

The feudal system of raising armies shifted to one of contracts or indentures,which would gradually lead to the retention of free, professional, standingarmies. New strategies of defence, attack and siege warfare were developed,and over the course of the fourteenth century the use of gunpowder grewmore widespread. Thus, as Clifford J. Rogers notes, between the Battle ofAgincourt (1415) and the Battle of Orléans (1428), in which Joan of Arctook part, a crucial change occurred: at Orléans artillery that employed gun-powder played an important role.10 The development of successful cannonvastly empowered those taking the offensive, whether in battle or siegewarfare, and the Hundred Years War was ultimately resolved with theFrench victory at Castillon as a result of cannon, just as Constantinople wasfinally taken with cannon by Mehmed the Conqueror: these two battles of1453 marked the end of medieval warfare.11

The late medieval period saw a new interest in the theory of war, with theproduction of treatises on ‘the art of war, military discipline and the organi-zation of armies’,12 of the kind that Christopher Allmand discusses in thisvolume. There was a serious philosophical discourse of war, as well as a prac-tical and theoretical one on how to conduct war. War had its own justicesystem and its own justification. Though there was not general concern

Introduction

6

9 Clifford J. Rogers, ‘The Age of the Hundred Years War’, in Keen, ed., Medieval Warfare,p. 143.

10 Rogers, p. 157.11 See Rogers’ discussion, pp. 157–60.12 Contamine, p. 118.

about just cause for war in a world where battle seemed a natural outcome ofhostility, early Church thinkers had addressed the issue, recognising theprofound clash between the practice of war and Christ’s teachings of love.Some of the earliest edicts of the Church (for instance, those issued byHippolytus, Tertullian and Lactantius) condemned the involvement ofChristians in war, though Christians are in fact recorded as fighting from thesecond century onwards. Augustine’s view, that war could justifiably beundertaken for the good of society and the aim of peace, was widely adoptedthroughout the Middle Ages. Christians other than those in religious orderswere seen as belonging to a secular society, where force was necessary touphold justice, and the action of war was occasionally also necessary anddefensible, indeed potentially honourable. The Crusades brought the furtherpossibility of becoming literally a miles Christi. The frequency of warthroughout the period did, however, lead to debate and to the developmentof a sophisticated ‘just war’ theory: theologians specified the kinds of wars inwhich Christians might or might not take part. The conditions set down byAquinas were widely recognised and echoed by numerous thinkers: war hadto be on the authority of a prince; the cause must be just; and the intentionmust be rightful, of advancing good or contesting evil.13

Chivalry with its complex code of honour was to some extent transferredto war. The ideas of loyalty and service were crucial to feudal values, under-pinning the knight’s relation to his lord.14 Warfare could include acts ofsupreme bravery and high idealism: Malcolm Vale has explored the dynamicrelation of chivalry and war in the Middle Ages.15 The immense body ofmedieval chivalric writing attests to the influence of chivalric ideals, andthe creation of orders of chivalry could play important political roles increating a sense of corporate identity. The chivalric focus on prowess andespecially the tournament, popular from the twelfth century on, providedcrucial training for the knight. Tournaments indeed could merge intofactionalised warfare: in the thirteenth century, royal regulations were issuedto control their violence. Despite the high pageantry of tournaments, andsometimes their imitation of romance literature, they allowed for the prac-tice of group warfare and skilled use of weapons. Maurice Keen has arguedpersuasively that tournaments taught knights ‘the sort of civilised conven-tions . . . that they should observe towards each other in real hostilities’,which would become ‘a nascent international law of war’.16 Vale remarksthat formal challenges of honour continued to be issued in war, and singlecombats and duels could form important aspects of warfare: they were

7

Introduction

13 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2.2, qu. 40, de bello.14 See, for example, Keen’s discussion, Chivalry, pp. 224–6.15 See Malcolm Vale, War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England, France

and Burgundy at the End of the Middle Ages (1981).16 Keen, Chivalry, 101: see also his full discussion of ‘The Rise of the Tournament’, pp.

83–101.

‘increasingly confined to the interstices between combat . . . but there is noevidence that such occasions were treated with anything but the highestseriousness’.17 As Vale has also argued, medieval chivalry sowed the seeds ofRenaissance humanist ideas regarding war.18

There was another side too. Chivalric custom was not always followed.19

Despite the tradition of honourable treatment of prisoners, for instance, thiswas not always observed – as in the battle of Agincourt, when Henry Vordered many of his French prisoners to be killed. Battles could have highdeath tolls, especially, as at Agincourt and Flodden, for the losing side;sieges were destructive both for those within and those without; and infec-tion and disease were also great killers. Pillage within battle was widespread,and the effect of raids, particularly by the later Free Companies of soldiersand the fifteenth-century Ecorcheurs, was devastating not only in terms ofhuman life, but also to crops, buildings, villages and the land itself. The endof wars was deeply problematic, for companies were not disbanded once theywere paid off:

They had to be left at large, still armed with equipment that was theirown, beyond control; and so whole provinces were subjected to the indis-criminate pillaging of soldiery that sought to claim a share in chivalry butwhose manner of living was the antithesis of what chivalry stood for, theprotection of the poor, the fatherless and the widow.20

The practices of chivalry, the figure of the knight errant, the ideas of adven-ture and quest, the glimmering ideal of the Holy Grail, the pageantry andhonour of knighthood, deeds of arms and tournaments, chivalric codes andoaths and romance literature, all these must to some extent be detachedfrom the reality of the history of war. Yet at the same time, they playedcrucial roles in making glamorous the blood, sweat and tears of warfare, andeven in the creation of the medieval warrior.

War is a powerful and enduring literary topos. Literature of different types,in different times, and in different countries, engages with the practice ofwar, and reflects too the cultural attitudes of a period to war. The idea andpractice of war are central to some of the most dominant subject matters inthe medieval period – chivalry, religion, ideas of nationhood, concepts ofgender, the body and the psyche. War is a repeated theme in both secularand religious literary genres. The practice of war is addressed and recom-mended in military treatises and books of arms, and recounted, rewritten andassessed in chronicles, often in relation to the defence or expansion of a

Introduction

8

17 Vale, p. 166.18 Vale, p. 174.19 See in particular Keen’s discussion of Chivalry and War, Chivalry, pp. 219–37, to which the

paragraph that follows is indebted.20 Keen, Chivalry, p. 230.

nation, the making of a hero or king, or the pursuit of Christianity. In hagi-ography, the saint can become the hunted enemy, but can also lead armiesagainst the nations, and the figure of the miles Christi functions on both aliteral and symbolic level across devotional writing. In romance, the knightis proven through his prowess in war as well as through individual chivalricdeeds, and his making of an identity can correspond with that of a nation,while the ladies of romance repeatedly fall victim to warfare. War is notnecessarily celebrated in literature, even when it is presented as necessary,and it can be undercut: the pastourelle, for instance, can engage acutely andsatirically with the predicament of those who experience war and its after-math. Across medieval writing, the enemy, and especially the infidel,become the measure of the hero.

The contributions to this volume commence with a consideration of idealmilitary practice: Christopher Allmand explores the medieval reception, useand understanding of Vegetius’ De re militari, a text often referred to as alocus classicus throughout the medieval period but which has since beenmore typically studied by classicists with a view to establishing the manu-script tradition. Vegetius illuminates the growing importance of the idea ofan army prepared to protect the nation, and hence the notion of the pro-fessional soldier. His work addresses medieval social attitudes to war, andthe ways in which chivalric and military responsibility informed the mindand offered a sense of purpose. Many of his ideas entered into the main-stream of medieval culture via John of Salisbury’s Polycraticus: for John, asfor Vegetius, the position of both the King and his curia of knights as ofpre-eminent importance.

The collection then turns to the chronicling of war and, in particular, themyth-making aspect of accounts of war. Kingship and nationhood arecrucial themes. Marianne Ailes explores the Norman chronicler Ambroise’seye-witness account of the Third Crusade and shows how events are shaped tocreate heroes of war. Her essay demonstrates how the chronicler uses a num-ber of literary techniques in order to render vivid the characters of James ofAvesnes, Aubery Clement and Andrew of Chauvigny, without sacrificingwhat the chronicler took to be the historical truth of their situation(a method of imaginative empathy bearing a certain affinity with the heur-istic methods favoured by some historians of our own generation). Ambroise’ssympathy for the cause of King Richard and his fellow-combatants may havedone much to promote the ‘Coeur de Lion’ myth.

Harry Jackson examines the writing of a thirteenth-century Germanchronicler with close court connections, Rudolf von Ems, demonstratingboth the realism and detail of the chronicle, and the ways war is placedwithin its broader socio-political and historical contexts to form a commen-tary on the education of princes, and to reflect the legendary history ofAlexander. The bearing of arms was seen as a birthright and a prime markerof social status by the new (secular) élites of the twelfth and thirteenth cen-turies. Conspicuously different from many literary products of the Arthurian

9

Introduction

cycle, Rudolf’s accounts of warfare are indicative of contemporary militaryrealities and are described in largely naturalistic terms. Even the battlearrangements of Alexander the Great are described in terms of medievalwarfare, the anachronism throwing much light on contemporary practices inRudolf’s own age. There is an absence of reference to magic (although God’said for the supposedly just side is frequently invoked) and the virtuesof mediation and negotiation (which were an important part of thethirteenth-century ‘peace movements’, as Jackson has demonstrated else-where) are given wide literary scope in Rudolf’s chronicle-romances.

The subject of specifically medieval conditions of warfare is developed byGeorges le Brusque in his exploration of several later chronicles of Franceand Burgundy. Whereas the predominant mode upholds and elucidates chiv-alry and knighthood, in this period chronicles can also be critical, presentingwar and its practitioners as threats to social order. The chronicles thus offercontrasting portrayals of the knight-hero, and Le Brusque points out that thelate chivalric tradition of the Burgundian chroniclers of the fifteenthcentury was to have a relatively brief floruit, being replaced in the incomingcentury by the tradition of unvarnished military realism recorded by soldier-practitioners, most notably in Philippe de Commynes’ Mémoires of 1524.The chivalric mode is taken in new directions by another fifteenth-centurywriter, Christine de Pizan, whose treatise on warfare is the subject ofFrançoise Le Saux’s essay. Christine’s treatise offers an interesting contrastto that of Vegetius: while her work too is practical and male-oriented, shemust reconcile her choice of subject matter with her pacifist views and herown authority as a woman. Thea Summerfield raises some similar questionsabout the narration of warfare in a very different context, in her investiga-tion of Barbour’s Bruce. She examines the political context of the poem,Barbour’s reconciliation of fashionable notions of warfare with Robert theBruce’s actual strategies, and his construction of a heroic leader through theinterweaving of different literary traditions. As with Ambroise’s chroniclewhich did so much to raise the profile of King Richard to that of Lion Heart,John Barbour’s chronicle did much to establish Robert the Bruce as the pro-verbial figure he has become in the Anglophone world. As Summerfieldpoints out, he is portrayed to some extent in ‘demotic’ terms as an underdog,but his ability to bring relief and safety to his people advances him to thelegendary standard of more grandiose names such as Alexander, Fierabras orCaesar.

The volume addresses the fictions of war presented in a variety of literarytexts. Andrew Lynch explores medieval English Arthurian narratives, con-sidering how narratives of war develop from Geoffrey of Monmouth throughWace and Layamon to the alliterative Morte Arthure and Malory. He tracesin particular the attitudes to peace demonstrated in these narratives, and thepossibility of representing war as an accountable and potentially culpablepolicy. Noting the strong desire for peace actuated by the Hundred YearsWar, he takes as his text the words of Gawain to Cador in Wace’s Roman de

Introduction

10

Brut stating that peace is very welcome after a long period of war. Peace inGeoffrey’s chronicle occurs only as a ‘gap’ of twelve years (in which timemany subsequent romances of the Arthurian cycle are implicitly situated),and Geoffrey’s French translator, Wace, takes over the same time-scheme.Lynch surveys the posterity of this chronological gap in later texts includingthe alliterative Morte Arthure and Malory’s version. He shows that Malorymay have shared a sense first encountered in the alliterative poem ofArthur’s Roman Wars as excessive (‘overmuche’) and thus may have movedtowards a partial ‘disarmament’ (to the extent that his material wouldpermit).

In the following essays, two of the most celebrated English medievalwriters, Chaucer and Malory, are also shown to complicate their portrayalsof war despite its centrality to their poetic genres. Simon Meecham-Jonesexamines Chaucer’s writing, taking the Knight’s Tale as his starting point, toelaborate Chaucer’s reservations regarding war and its socio-political con-texts. He points out that Chaucer, like most other medieval authors, lived ina conformist society which was at least functionally similar in a number ofrespects to more modern societies built on a collectivist ideology (with allthe constraints on ‘free speech’ that such systems entail). Beneath Chaucer’sformal obeisances to the spirit of his age, Meecham-Jones discerns attitudesto war that do not conform to the accredited ideology of the feudal agedespite ‘the near-impossibility of a writer escaping complicity in the rhetoricof aristocratic warfare’. Kevin Whetter demonstrates how, while warfare iscrucial to Malory’s Morte Darthur, underpinning Arthur’s rise to kingshipand providing the means for a knight to prove his worship and, frequently,to win his lady, Malory also probes the complexities and limitations ofwar. The seeming ambivalence about war that Whetter documents andanalyses may have been linked, in his contention, both with Malory’sknowledge of the Battle of Towton and with unresolved conflicts andcurious dissonances present in the imagination of this most famous medieval‘knyght prisonour’.

In a conspectus of texts as distant in time and sentiment as the OldEnglish Judith and the South English Legendary (together with a variety ofromances, including some of the works treated by Whetter and Meecham-Jones) Corinne Saunders examines the role of women in relation to warfare.Women can be trophies of war, but the act of ravishment in war more oftencharacterises the enemy. Traditionally feminine virtues of mercy and pitymay contrast with the violence and cruelty of war, although on occasionwomen too may become soldiers of Christ. Saunders’s broad approach makesit clear that, although women are traditionally portrayed as extrinsic to thestubborn virtues of the battlefield, they may play the role of ‘catalyst’: gener-alisations are counter-indicated by the diversity of textual evidence.

The place of the victims of war is explored by Helen Cooper in her studyof medieval pastoral poetry: these poems can provide powerful reminders ofthe truth underlying the chivalric myth and of the predicament of those

11

Introduction

who suffer the exploits of invading armies. Cooper pays particular attentionto the genre of pastoral known as bergerie. The literature of this traditiondoes not privilege the rich and well-born but rather attempts to recover andrepresent (however partially) the voices of the peasantry (which in unmedi-ated form would have been an impossibility given the almost universal illit-eracy of the lower classes in the medieval period). Jean Bodel is cited as oneof a long line of writers in this genre who use bucolic characters in order todecry war and whose dreams/fantasies of order and security show by implica-tion the trauma of war (particularly, in this chronological context, by thefreebooting pillagers of the Hundred Years War) for its numberless and mostoften nameless victims.

The range of periods, languages and literatures treated in this volumeattests to the prominence, variety and interest of the motif of war in themedieval period. So transformative and traumatic an event could not butprovide a powerful stimulus to the literary imagination, then as now.

This collection of essays arises from an international, interdisciplinary con-ference on ‘War: Medieval and Renaissance Responses’, held in the medi-eval setting of Durham Castle at the University of Durham in April, 2001. Itwas the first in a series of conferences initiated by the Durham Centre forMedieval and Renaissance Studies, a University-wide organisation spanningHistory, English, Archaeology and Languages (European and Oriental). Theconference addressed several related strands: the practice of war, the ideol-ogy of war, and cultural responses to war. The topic of writing war emergedas being of particular importance with regard to all these strands. Whilstmost of the essays in this volume find their origins in papers presented at theconference, the collection has been completed by the addition of essays onArthurian chronicles and Malory’s Morte Darthur by Andrew Lynch andKevin Whetter respectively.

The editors of this volume would like to thank the University of DurhamCentre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, which played a large part inthe organisation of the conference, as well as the Departments of English,History and Modern Languages. We also extend thanks to the Master andFellows of University College, Durham for permitting the use of their splen-did building and facilities, to the Master and Fellows of St Cuthbert’sSociety who provided welcome additional facilities, and to the Arts andHumanities Research Board for a generous subvention. Thanks are due tooto the participants in the Conference, for their excellent papers and stimu-lating discussion, and to Boydell and Brewer for their careful presentation ofthis volume. We are grateful to all these and the many others who wereinstrumental in the success of the inaugural colloquy and the smooth pro-duction of this book.

Introduction

12

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae (Alba, Rome: Editiones Paulinae, 1962).Contamine, Philippe, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (1980;

Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).Keen, Maurice, Chivalry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).——, England in the Later Middle Ages: A Political History (London: Routledge,

1973).——, ed., Medieval Warfare: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).Malory, Sir Thomas, Works, ed. Eugène Vinaver, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon,

1971).Stephen, Martin, ed., Poems of the First World War: ‘Never Such Innocence’,

Everyman Library, 2nd edn (1988; London: Dent, 1993).Vale, Malcolm, War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England,

France and Burgundy at the End of the Middle Ages (London: Duckworth,1981).

13

Introduction

The De re militari of Vegetius in theMiddle Ages and the Renaissance1

CHRISTOPHER ALLMAND

ON THE LAST folio of an otherwise rather ordinary fifteenth-centurypaper manuscript of a French translation of Vegetius’s De re militari, to

be seen today at the Archivio di Stato, Turin, the scribe or a contemporarydrew what looks like a rolled-up scroll on which he wrote, in gold letters, thethree words ‘ung pot d’or’, ‘a pot of gold’.2 By the time these words werewritten, Vegetius’s work had celebrated its thousandth birthday and hadmarked itself out as the text to which men naturally turned when in need ofan authority to cite when matters military were under discussion. Whensomeone wrote on the manuscript’s inside cover ‘ce le livre nommé Vegesse’,it underlined the fact that no title was required. There was no need to tellpeople what the book was, nor what it was about. The author’s name alonetold all.

Of that author, however, they will have known little other than what thetext told them. Sadly, we cannot improve on that meagre information. Prob-ably a high official at the court of a late Roman emperor (which emperorbeing the subject of much academic debate among late Romanists),3

Vegetius compiled his work some time between 380 and 450 A.D. todemonstrate how the ailing fortunes of Rome, then under attack, might berevived if ‘reform’ of the army could be achieved. According to the text, hebegan by writing a memorandum, advocating the need to recreate an armydrawn from those who were Roman citizens, and based upon the twinprocesses of selection (with its implied rejection of the unsuitable) and rigor-ous and sustained preparation and training for war.4 From the very first, what

15

1

1 I am deeply indebted to the Leverhulme Trust for having given me valuable financialsupport to undertake the research upon which many of the conclusions offered in this paperare based.

2 Turin, Archivio di Stato, MS Jb.vi.11, fol. 85v.3 See Vegetius, trans. Milner, Introduction, ‘The Date’.4 Ibid., Book I, Preface.

we would today call ‘professionalism’ lay at the very root of what Vegetiusadvocated.

Didactic in nature, founded not on personal military experience (whichthe author probably lacked) but on much reading and interpretation ofancient military texts, such as the Strategemata of the first-century writer,Julius Frontinus, and of the ancient military historians, the De re militari wasto prove very popular in the Middle Ages, some 260 Latin manuscripts alonesurviving to this day.5 Having won imperial favour with his ‘memorandum’,which became Book I of the larger work he was to compile, Vegetiusfollowed with three further books (or sections): Book II, which described thelegion, its personnel, its organisation and function, probably as it had existeda century or so before Vegetius; Book III, which dealt with the activities ofwar, with strategies and tactics, as well as with the attributes of the goodleader; finally, Book IV, concerned with siege warfare, both attack anddefence, and conflict at sea. Behind it all lay not an urging to an aggressivepolicy of expansion, but primarily a desire for internal stability, order andpeace, all under threat at the time.

Vegetius’s work has so far been virtually monopolized by classical scholarsinterested in the text’s transmission. But we need to consider how it wasreceived in the Middle Ages, and how some of its different yet largely com-plementary messages were put to use during the period.6 Indications come invarious forms. For example, we know of those who had knowledge of thework quite early on: Isidore in the early seventh century, Bede a centurylater, and Alcuin c. 800. Interest in it during the Carolingian Renaissance isunderlined by the survival of a dozen ninth-century manuscripts. It wasunder the influence of Book I of the De re militari that, in the mid-ninthcentury, Rabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda, wrote his De Procinctu RomanaeMilitiae, which was to prove influential in encouraging a view of knighthoodas a force in the service of the public good, as advocated by the Church.About 850 the Irishman, Sedulus Scotus, working in Liège, was alreadycopying excerpts from Vegetius. Let me briefly draw attention to threepoints here. First is the interest which the De re militari evoked among theclergy, who may have seen in it an encouragement to self-discipline andtraining, which the monk, in particular, would need; secondly, a perception,which appears early on, that many of its ideas contained social as well asmilitary implications for the good of society so often in conflict with itself;thirdly, the growing practice, observed as early as the ninth century, of mencreating collections of excerpts from the De re militari as they did from otherworks. These show that Vegetius was read, and that he provoked interestamong his readers who admired his ability to write aphorisms neatlysumming up important points or principles.

16

Christopher Allmand

5 See Shrader, ‘Handlist’ and, more recently, Reeve, ‘Transmission’, pp. 351–4. Since this listwas drawn up, two further manuscripts have been identified.

6 The only general study known to me is Richardot, Végèce et la Culture militaire.

If the number of manuscripts declined after the Carolingian Renaissance,it would increase again with the coming of the next ‘renaissance’, that of thetwelfth century, for which period at least sixteen manuscripts can be identi-fied. More important, however, is the development which furthered thegrowth of Vegetius’s reputation from the mid-twelfth century onwards. It iswith John of Salisbury’s Policraticus, written about that time, that basic ideascontained in Vegetius’s work enter the chain of that influential politico-literary genre, the ‘mirror for princes’, destined to have a long history.7

Behind the genre lay the idea that ruling was an art which could be taught.Didacticism was very much in the air. This greatly favoured Vegetius, whohad himself insisted that the ability to wage war successfully depended uponthe willingness of soldiers – and in particular of commanders – to think andbe ready to learn from the experiences of their forebears, experience passeddown the generations largely through the written word. So in Book VI of thePolicraticus, which deals with the need for the ruler to be able to fight,Salisbury underlines both the importance of knighthood as the order whosetask it is to protect society, and the use which a prince will have for a disci-plined soldiery, serving under his command, in the defence of the ‘patria’.Notice that the emphasis is largely on the needs of defence, and on theestablishment of order and stability in the lands controlled by the prince.This had also been the role envisaged for the Roman army by Vegetius someeight centuries earlier.

Note, too, that it was the clerical, educated, Latin-reading class which,perforce, had assumed control of what Vegetius had taught. In the blendingof Christian and Aristotelian thought to which the friars made so notable acontribution in the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas could claim theright of the individual state both to its own existence and its right toself-defence, while Vincent of Beauvais, the encyclopaedist, and, in particu-lar, Giles of Rome, the author of the widely read De regimine principum(c. 1280), a work whose influence would later spread through translation,depended heavily upon Vegetius when they came to discussing the militaryrole and responsibilities of rulers. Giles also emphasised the part to be playedby the soldier acting under oath in the service of the prince, his role beingessentially that of defending society whose protective arm he personified.8

We may note that the oath referred to was not the oath of allegiance butrather the soldier’s personal oath or commitment to the ruler to whichVegetius made reference in Book II, ch. 5, in a passage which, judging by thescoring and marginalia in many surviving manuscripts, greatly interestedmedieval readers. In the realm of ideas, at any rate, the notion of thesoldier’s responsibility to his prince, and through him to the broader society(which, incidentally, paid his wages), was now quite clearly emerging.

What impression did this text, a mixture of theory and the practical, make

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

17

7 See John of Salisbury, ed. Webb; Richardot, pp. 77–84.8 Giles of Rome, De regimine principum, III, iii.

upon the practice of war in the Middle Ages? Was its influence to be mainlyupon the way men thought about war, or upon the way they fought it? Weshould recall that the work’s Latin title is broad and inclusive, as are itscontents. A close reading of the text, and in particular the study of theobservations and marginalia added in the Middle Ages, give us some notionof what appealed to medieval readers. These were interested not merely, orindeed mainly, in instruction on how best to defeat an enemy, or what mili-tary responses are required in a particular set of circumstances. They alsowelcomed the conceptual basis of the work, which dealt with questions ofwhat purpose war served, what an army was, and in whose service it acted;they were interested in the principles leading to the successful conclusion ofa war; they reacted positively to ideas regarding the role played by goodleadership in achieving victory; and they were receptive to ideas concerningthe role of the soldier using arms in defence of the common good which wasa prominent theme in much of the work.

In the preface to Book III, Vegetius made one of his best-known state-ments, drawn to the reader’s attention in a large proportion of the survivingmanuscripts:

He who desires peace, let him prepare for war. He who wants victory, lethim train soldiers diligently. He who wishes a successful outcome, let himfight with strategy, not at random. No one dares challenge or harm onewhom he realises will win if he fights.9

Pared down to four interconnecting sentences, such are the bare bones ofone of the work’s most important (and best known) statements. How did thebroader text support and develop it? First, it became clear that war was aninstrument in the making and defence of states; having created the Empire,war was necessary to protect it, to achieve that peace to which Vegetiusreferred. War, therefore, was part of the process of both setting up anddefending a ‘state’ (for which Vegetius uses the term ‘res publica’). War itselfhad to be fought by the people, or at least by specially selected ones singledout for their physical, moral and intellectual attributes to do this work.Setting out the criteria for the selection of the best soldiers, Vegetius estab-lished the precise characteristics which the soldier should possess. He was noordinary man, for he must be suited to the rigours of long, continuous train-ing and to war itself. He must also show loyalty, by taking the oath(‘sacramentum’) to God and Emperor (that Vegetius was a Christian cameas a surprise and a delight to his medieval readers among whom it may haveenhanced his authority),10 promising to serve faithfully and never to desert.Here, too, Vegetius was underlining his marked preference for the ‘citizen’

18

Christopher Allmand

9 The translation is that of N. P. Milner.10 See for example ‘Fuit Vegetius X[rist]ianus’ (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS D. 2 sup.

fol. 12v).

soldier; the auxiliary or mercenary he regarded as unreliable, and should notbe counted on.

In Book II Vegetius considered something else, the army itself, and theway it functioned. The reader should bear in mind that war is fought tobring about peace, which may result either from war itself or from deterrencewhich only a trained army that is feared can achieve. The logic of thisposition is that a decision to fight must come from a confidence in one’sability to achieve victory, which now assumes an importance of its own. Theability to win that victory depends on three factors: skill, theory and plan-ning. The skill is that of the soldiers who constitute the army, being theresult of a programme of rigorous training and preparation, involvingrunning, jumping, swimming and the use of a whole range of weaponsdescribed mainly in Book I. It is also the skill of the army’s leaders, princi-pally its ‘dux’, regarding whose person and place in the well-run armyVegetius has much to say, chiefly in Book III. How successfully an armyfunctions depends in large measure on the leadership skills of the ‘dux’: onhis ability to fulfil his obligation to train his soldiers and create a positivespirit of unity among them; on his relationship with his subordinate com-manders and his ability to communicate with them; and, most important, onhis awareness and appreciation of the soldier’s fears, hopes and frustrations,all of these being seen as challenges to the commander’s skill in leadership.The ‘dux’ must also be aware of the main lines of military theory: how to getan army through different kinds of terrain with an enemy not far away; howand when to attack; how, too, to retreat without giving his men the impres-sion that he has lost confidence in their ability to win. The third character-istic is planning. If one idea dominated much of this work, it is ‘forethought’,the military virtue of anticipation. The successful commander looks furtherahead than does the enemy: he foresees difficulties of all kinds, and he leadsa well disciplined and versatile army, prepared by its training for everyeventuality, to gain both a moral and practical advantage over the enemy.Above all, the successful leader is ever-ready to seize any opportunity toharry, hinder, discomfit or wrong-foot the enemy, thereby dissuading himfrom seeking a major encounter which can, as Vegetius admits, go wrong.Guerrilla warfare, on the other hand, if properly maintained, is a majordeterrent, less hazardous in terms of possible defeat, less costly in terms oflives lost or of money spent. It enables much to be achieved with theminimum of effort.

The ‘dux’, a thinking commander, has his hand on everything that goeson; through spies he is even informed what the enemy is doing and plan-ning. At the centre of a network of information and at the head of a chain ofcommand, he can pass orders rapidly down the ranks, often using a system ofsignals to do so. It is not surprising that Vegetius should place such emphasisupon the successful fulfilment of the commander’s role. In so doing he wasstressing two things. One was the crucial significance of the ‘dux’ to an armyseeking victory. The other was to emphasise the way of promotion to those

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

19

showing the necessary skills, qualifications and character. Like Napoleon’sprivate who was said to carry a marshal’s baton in his knapsack, Vegetius’srecruit saw the possibility of command and honour advancing to meet him ifhe showed his worth in war. Promotion on merit and experience is, albeitobliquely, referred to in this text, awarded for outstanding military qualitiesand performance. The exercise of authority was not the monopoly of thewell-born alone; the claim of merit was being openly recognised.

By the thirteenth century we begin to see Vegetius’s ideas having a greatereffect on events on the ground, albeit still through the influence of theintellectual. In a recent paper, Gabrielle Spiegel has shown how, in France,narratives of the struggle between the aristocracy and the Capetian mon-archy which led to the battle of Bouvines in 1214 came to be characterised,in an increasingly influential royal historiography, in terms of a traditional,feudal aristocracy striving to preserve its independence, confronted by a con-fident, centralising monarchy.11 There is little new in that interpretation.But the texts become significant if we look more closely at the assumptionsand language which they use. First is the ‘spin’ given to events: a self-seekingaristocracy is opposed by a monarchy presented as working for the good ofsociety, for the ‘res publica’. To this we may add the development oflanguage which also has strong political connotations. In this language, theconflict is described as a match between chivalric tradition, ‘proesce’,bravery and the pursuit of glory, and the power of the centralisingmonarchy, representing society as a whole, which understands that whatbrings success is planning, calculation, and order, in a word, reason.12 So, atone point in the story, his councillors urge Philip-Augustus to avoid directconfrontation with the enemy, telling him:

Gentle king, the situation does not require a battle. So powerful a kingshould not fight at night, before the lines of battle can be drawn up andeach man is accorded his own captain and knows what place he mustassume and whom he must follow . . . Good king, do not fall into error;you are lord of so many that you should not wish to put yourself and yourpeople into such great danger.13

The rivalry between the self-seeking aristocracy and the monarchy respon-sible for the good, not of one group, but of the entire community is a domi-nant theme of the Chronique des rois de France running right through theaccount to its culmination at Bouvines, the old aristocratic values gettingthe worse of the argument when confronted by the new, ‘royal’ valuesfounded on the ‘res publica’. In the battle, too, ‘new’ values of order, disci-pline and foresight make their appearance. The royal forces are now ‘arrayed

20

Christopher Allmand

11 Spiegel, ‘Débuts français’.12 Spiegel, ‘Débuts français’, p. 401; Murray, Reason and Society, pp. 127–30.13 Spiegel, ‘Débuts français’, p. 401, n. 6.

and ordered each on his battle line, knights inspired by boldness but whomaintain their lines closely pressed together, holding themselves at theready to attack and fight the enemy at the moment the trumpets soundthe call to arms’.14

Vegetius did not write those lines, but he surely inspired them. PhilipAugustus, in charge of knights said to be bold yet disciplined, is presented asfighting for the common welfare, the wider society. The text also tells usthat he was persuaded to act in this way by his councillors. Where had thesemen, lay or clerical, got their ideas from? Perhaps from reading Vegetius’stext, or from collections of excerpts, or from reading the work of one, such asJohn of Salisbury, who acted as a propagator of Vegetius’s ideas? If the pointcannot be proved, it nevertheless remains an intriguing possibility, and a notunrealistic one at that.

Times moved on. Let us turn to the means by which Vegetius’s text cameto be made known to a wider public: translation.15 About 1271 (a slightlyearlier date has also been suggested) Vegetius was rendered into Anglo-Norman at the request of Prince Edward, when he was in the Holy Land.The text survives in only a single known manuscript, today in theFitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Clearly intended to emphasise the didacticnature of the work, a miniature shows Vegetius, the Philosopher, inviting agroup of young knights to come to him with the words ‘Venez a moy, senurschevaliers, que volez aver honur de chevalerie’, ‘Come to me lord knightswho wish to have the honour of chivalry.’16 As far as we know, this was thefirst attempt to translate Vegetius out of Latin. It is not without significancethat the work should have been done at the wish of a man known for hismilitary prowess; for a man, too, who would soon become king, reminding usthat Vegetius had stressed that rulers, being responsible for the safety of thestate, should be better informed on military matters than anybody else.Some years later, in 1284, Jean de Meun, a leading literary figure in his ownright, made the first French translation at the request of Jean de Brienne,count of Eu, son of Alphonse, a notable crusader, and grandson of Jean deBrienne, king of Jerusalem, who had died in 1237, the evidence pointing tothe interest which crusaders may have had in Vegetius’s work.17 AlthoughMeun’s text kept reasonably close to the original, it did include references tomilitary events which had taken place ‘en cest derrain age’ or ‘de notretens et de notre souvenance’. This tendency to ‘up-date’ or ‘modernise’ a

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

21

14 Spiegel, ‘Débuts français’, p. 401.15 Richardot, Végèce et la Culture militaire, ch. III.16 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay MS Add. 1. The miniature is reproduced (indif-

ferently) in Richardot, p. 58, and (well) in Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, p. 184. On thetranslation, see Thorpe, ‘Mastre Richard’, and Dominica Legge, ‘The Lord Edward’sVegetius’.

17 Jean de Meun, L’Art de Chevalerie, ed. Robert; Li Abregemenz, ed. Löfstedt.

translation through references to recent events is something observablefrom the start of the process.

Translation was now very much in the air. About 1286, Vegetius was ren-dered into Tuscan by the Florentine, Bono Giamboni,18 while it may havebeen in almost the same year that a verse translation was made into Frenchby Jean Priorat of Besançon, a man of military background, whose versiontook not the original Latin but Meun’s French version as its basis.19 A gener-ation later, probably about 1320, Jean de Vignai produced yet anotherFrench translation,20 to which he attached an interesting preface. Soldiers,he wrote, did not read Latin, which made a translation necessary. He wenton to justify his efforts by emphasising that, as Plato and Aristotle hadexplained things according to reason, so the military art could be explainedfollowing the same criteria. This would help those, princes and nobility,‘who have charge over people committed to their care in such a way that, forlack of leadership, these will not suffer the perils of wars and battles, andthat they shall be properly instructed according to what rank each willrequire’.

Vignai’s preface is important for what he reads into the text which, hefeels, the military class should have in a form which it can understand. Hesees it as a practical, reasoned contribution, based on the wisdom of oldinherited in written form, to problems of government and the establishmentof good order and stability, for which society’s upper ranks have a responsi-bility. If, to achieve this, there is need for the use of force, then it should bedirected through the army which must consist, as Vegetius had insisted, ofselected, trained and disciplined soldiers. Book III, Vignai also emphasises,teaches us about all the ‘art et subtilité’ which are needed to wage warsuccessfully on land. Here it is quite clear that Vignai has grasped theall-important point that getting the better of the enemy means takingmeasures to outwit him, as well as the significance of the importance ofleadership dependent on the exercise of skills rather than on social position.In short, the emphasis is on the need to deal with the enemy with everyeventuality properly thought through and considered. It is the well-preparedarmy that achieves success.

The translations constituted an important element in getting Vegetius’smessage through to later ages.21 They also create problems of semantics andtranslation which are both interesting and important as we try to appreciatehow the Middle Ages interpreted Vegetius. Furthermore, I believe, theyunderline that this kind of text can be studied successfully only if it isapproached from the perspective of more than a single discipline. One majorpractical problem (for us) is how translators (and their readers) were to

22

Christopher Allmand

18 Bono Giamboni, Vegezio.19 Jean Priorat, Li Abrejance, ed. Robert.20 I know of some eleven manuscripts of this text. See Knowles, ‘Jean de Vignay’s Translation’.21 On the English translations, see Allmand, ‘Fifteenth-Century English Versions’.

interpret certain key words and phrases in the Latin original. How, forinstance, was the work’s title, De re militari or, as it was sometimes given,Epitoma rei militaris, to be rendered into a vernacular language? Meun,Priorat and Vignai all translated ‘res militaris’ as ‘chevalerie’ or ‘la chose dechevalerie’; the Tuscan, Giamboni, on the other hand, preferred ‘Dell’artede la guerra’, as if he were translating ‘ars militaris’. At first sight, the empha-sis appears to be rather different; much clearly depends on how the word‘chevalerie’ is interpreted. Vignai, let us recall, had made his translation sothat the upper ranks of society could read the wisdom of Vegetius. Is‘chevalerie’ for him a word denoting rank or position? Is he writing forknights, in the formal, social meaning of the word, or was he using it asindicating (as it were) ‘la chevalerie de France’, the ‘knighthood of France’or, by extension, the ‘army’ of France’, in 1320 still very much dominated byknights? How far does the notion of the ‘national’ army exist in the latethirteenth and early fourteenth centuries? Later it would come to be called‘l’armée du roi’, the ‘king’s army’. In early fourteenth-century France,however, is the term ‘chevalerie’ (with its implications of the importance ofthe role played in it by knights) the nearest term which could be found todescribe the ‘army’? It is not easy to tell. Two indicators, however, may help.The notion of knighthood, in the medieval, feudal sense of the word, was (ofcourse) unknown to Vegetius. A translator who understood what the workwas about would have found it impossible to limit its relevance to theknighthood alone. A second, more persuasive point is to be found in thetranslation of other Latin words. For example, take the word ‘tiro’, under-stood as meaning a young soldier or recruit with little experience of war. It issignificant that Jean de Meun frequently translates it as ‘chevalier’ (a wordwhich, to confuse matters, he also used to render the Latin word ‘miles’).One of the Catalan versions, made by the middle of the fourteenth century,renders ‘tiro’ into ‘hòmen d’armes’, a man of lesser rank, perhaps; it alsotranslates ‘tiro’ as ‘cavaller’, while the Latin ‘tirones an veteres milites’ isrendered as ‘cavallers jòvens o vells’.22 Some years later, the first Englishtranslator, encountering ‘tiro’, would use ‘newe knightis’, ‘yong knihtes’ or‘werriours’, one term having social connotations, the other, perhaps, not.23

The point I am enquiring about and driving at is this. If Giamboni couldoffer his translation as ‘Dell’arte de la guerra’, a title which, perhaps signifi-cantly in a work intended for an Italian readership, omitted referenceto ‘cavalleria’, is it right for us to interpret the late thirteenth- and earlyfourteenth-century French use of ‘chevalerie’ to mean essentially ‘war’, orsimply ‘fighting’, and the ‘chevalier’ not necessarily as a knight but anyfighting man or soldier? This understanding is, I believe, implied in at least

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

23

22 Madrid, Biblioteca Francisco de Zabálburu, MS 1655, fols 1v, 4, 34. I wish to thank DrAntoni Alomar, of the University of Palma de Mallorca, for drawing my attention to thismanuscript and for providing me with a copy of his transcription, which awaits publication.

23 Earliest English Translation, ed. Lester, pp. 49, 59, 64.

one of the Catalan translations which is given the title ‘Del mester d’armeset de la art de cavallerie’ which may be rendered (if I am right) as on the‘profession of arms and the art of war’. Let us not ignore the fact that thishappens to be an accurate description of what Vegetius’s work was all about.

Being more descriptive of war in the third and fourth centuries, Books IIand IV of the De re militari contain many more technical terms (concernedwith weapons, armour, vessels, etc.) than do Books I and III, which are moreconcerned with broad generalisations regarding the preparation for and thewaging of war. It is not evident who would be interested in these ‘technical’chapters, although clearly some were. Were they military men concernedwith the practicalities of war in times past? Or were they scholars, human-ists, philologists, simply students of things Roman? To some, the interest ofthis text was precisely that it contained technical matter which allowedthem to learn how the greatly admired Roman army had functioned. Toothers, it contained matter of what we might today call ‘scientific interest’.Such people, ready to appreciate Vegetius for these reasons, should not beforgotten or ignored as we enquire about the reception of the De re militari inthe Middle Ages and Renaissance.

We should also recall, however, that while technical aspects of wardevelop with time, many of war’s underlying principles change less rapidly ornot at all. Michael Prestwich has written that it is sometimes difficult to dis-tinguish between common sense and certain things which Vegetius wroteabout the conduct of war.24 I would agree, while at the same time notcriticising Vegetius too much for doing what he did, since it was his ability(as, once again, the manuscript evidence clearly demonstrates) to producebroad, ‘common-sense’ statements of principle transcending time that gavehis work the unique, long-lasting authority it enjoyed.

We see this best if we turn from the technical aspects of war (whichchange) to what he had to say about the men who formed the armies uponwhich the success of the system he described depended. Here we find state-ments likely to stand the test of time. The importance of selection, exerciseand training which Vegetius underlined in the first three books remainsunchallenged. The emphasis on team work, rather than on individual, out-standing acts, is also significant; Vegetius is not concerned with heroism.We may note here Juliet Vale’s reminder that ‘the term “tournament” ortournoi refers specifically to a contest between two teams using sharpweapons in a mêlée – simulating . . . . the procedures of war’, and recall howshe demonstrated these ‘team games’ taking place.25 Furthermore, as alreadyemphasised, Vegetius sought to encourage human, not superhuman, quali-ties in leaders. One of the characteristics of his work is the way it treatssoldiers as men who deserve the respect of their commanders. The army maybe a machine, but it is a very human machine. That, I suggest, is where

24

Christopher Allmand

24 Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, pp. 186–7.25 Vale, Edward III and Chivalry, p. 5.

skill, planning and organisation come in; properly used, these enable themaximum to be derived from the army’s potential.

Behind this lies a fundamental confidence that, provided certain thingsare done and others avoided, success will follow. The De re militari was toprove something of a challenge to the traditional, fatalistic approach to theoutcome of war or battle, usually expressed in terms of divine judgement.The ‘just war’ doctrine accorded victory to those whose cause God ‘approved’,while St Paul, claiming that ‘if God is with us, who can be against us’, wassaying much the same thing. Yet, through an important change of emphasis,this view was being challenged by Vegetius. For whereas the wheel of DameFortune plunged one down as often as it took one up, Fortune (‘fortunabellorum’ as Vegetius called it) represented ‘opportunity’ which, if seized,could only improve one’s position. So his insistence that the ‘dux’ mustalways be prepared to act upon every chance offered him by man or ele-ments, and to make the most of them. Advantage, however gained, wassomething to be constantly striven for, not shunned. The qualities of the‘bonus dux’ were shown at their most positive if this were achieved.

Behind this lay a more optimistic view of human ability and a morepositive view of why armies existed than was usually found among medievalwriters, for whom armies were all too often the source of violence and distur-bance. Fundamental to this was the notion, which will have appealed to thehumanists of the period, that man could improve his lot if he actedrationally and took steps to prepare seriously for success. Such a view was atodds with the more ‘traditional’, religious view prevalent at the time. Forexample, Denis the Carthusian, a prominent fifteenth-century theologianfrom the Low Countries, criticised Vegetius for encouraging men to strivefor victories by rational means rather than allowing the will of divine provi-dence to prevail.26 Seen from this perspective, what Vegetius helped toencourage was a major change of attitude in the Europe of the late MiddleAges and Renaissance.

All this presupposes the existence of the army which lies at the very heartof all that Vegetius wrote. In the De re militari he set out not only how thearmy should function, but also what purposes it served. The first has alreadybeen considered; the second – why did societies require armies? – would beperhaps even more important, even radical, in its implications. A littleearlier I drew attention to the role which the king’s army, organised in amanner reminiscent of Vegetius’s thought, was regarded as having played inthe extension of royal authority in early thirteenth-century France. Fromthe perspective of certain chroniclers, the king’s army was an instrumentemployed to create and develop unity in France under the crown. Let usadvance a century and a half to the France of the early Valois, a country atthe mercy of the English, badly in need of a force which would stand up for

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

25

26 Cited by Richardot, p. 91.

it at a time when the traditional, noble-led army had so obviously failed. In1351 John II began what would be a century-long process of sporadic reformsof which Vegetius would certainly have approved. We may note some of itscharacteristics. As Vegetius had insisted that the emperor should takecharge of the army, so in this case it was the king, acting in the name of andfor the benefit of his subjects, who took command and assumed the initia-tive for change, as the texts of the royal ordinances make clear. In 1351certain reforms were initiated: proper and regular pay for all in the royalarmy; the establishment of the number of men in different units and compa-nies, how they should be counted (or mustered) and controlled; and thedecision that all men-at-arms should swear not to leave the royal servicewithout proper authorisation. Later, in 1374, under the rule of Charles V(the king who encouraged the study of Latin authors in France through themedium of translation), came further measures to support those taken in hisfather’s time, not least the insistence that units should be controlled byofficers acting on behalf of the king. As in the De re militari, there now grewa greater tendency to promote on merit, less on social rank, a change whichwould lead to the creation of military career structures within both royalarmies and others.27 This was certainly the case in France until the illness ofCharles VI allowed the ‘old’ nobility to return the country’s army to itsearlier, unreformed state. Yet it had been changes in the intellectual climatein the third quarter of the fourteenth century which had allowed the promo-tion by the king of Bertrand du Guesclin, the rising star in the Frenchmilitary firmament, as constable of France. ‘Will these great nobles obeyme?’: Froissart has the newly appointed constable express his misgivings tothe king, his apprehensions receiving the answer he seeks when the kingreplies affirmatively that he will vent his anger upon any who do not. Inthe De re militari, it is the emperor who recognises the skill and the ‘labor’(to use Vegetius’s word) of the good commander by promoting him; infourteenth-century France it is the king who does the same. Similarly, acentury later, Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, was to put into effectreforms intended to lead to a more effective central command by appointingofficers who received their letters of appointment and batons of office fromthe duke in person at a public ceremony. Appointed for a year, at the end ofwhich they returned their insignia of office, these men were the successors ofthose named by the emperor to high military office as described by Vegetiushimself.28

Dealing with a book-size subject in a short article leaves one with therealisation that much else should have been discussed, or at least touchedon. I could also have raised the matter of the ownership of manuscripts, andwhat this can tell us about the work’s reception in the Middle Ages. Were

26

Christopher Allmand

27 See Allmand, Society at War, pp. 45–9, and ‘Views of the Soldier’.28 Allmand, ‘Did the De re militari of Vegetius influence the military ordinances of Charles

the Bold?’, pp. 139–40.

there periods when the work appears to have been more popular in oneregion of Europe than in others; Italy, for instance, was to show great inter-est in the work during the Renaissance. A comparison between France(where I believe the work was very influential), Italy, and (possibly)England, with their different military systems may, I think, be useful. Whathappened when one form of technology, the cannon, was introduced on tothe scene? Or when another form, printing, made the propagation of itscontents more readily available? While the De re militari is, and will alwaysremain, a book about how war should be fought (with the minimum of riskand effort) and armies controlled, my argument here has had a differentemphasis. Seen from a long historical perspective, the real influenceexercised by Vegetius was to make men realise that the army, increasinglycontrolled by the ‘state’ or the prince, existed mainly to create and protectpolitical society; that leadership, vested in one person, was vital for victory;and that the career of the soldier, now increasingly ‘professional’, was anhonourable one, presenting opportunities for both service and advancement.In a word, there is very much more to this text than may at first appear. Forthat reason, one may sympathise with the man who described it as ‘a pot ofgold’. It is a text to be read at different levels, in different circumstances.There is something in it for everybody, everywhere, at any time.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Bono Giamboni, Di Vegezio Flavio dell’Arte della Guerra libri IV. Volgarizzamentodi Bono Giamboni, ed. G. Marenigh (Florence, 1815).

Frontinus, Iuli Frontini Strategemata, ed. Robert I. Ireland (Leipzig: Teubner,1990).

Giles of Rome, Egidio Colonna (Aegidius Romanus). De regimine principum, libriIII. Reprint of the 1607 edn (Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1967).

Jean de Meun, L’Art de Chevalerie. Traduction du De re militari de Vegèce par Jeande Meun, ed. Ulysse Robert, Société des Anciens Textes Français (Paris:Firmin Didot, 1897).

Jean de Meun, Li Abregemenz noble Honme Vegesce Flave René des Establissemenzapartenanz a Chevalerie, ed. Leena Löfstedt, Annales Academiae ScientiarumFennicae, Ser. B. 200 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1977).

Jean Priorat, Li Abrejance de l’Ordre de Chevalerie, ed. Ulysse Robert, Société desAnciens Textes Français (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1897).

Jean de Vignai, Li Livres Flave Vegece de la Chose de Chevalerie, ed. LeenaLöfstedt, Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Ser. B. 214 (Helsinki:Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1982).

John of Salisbury, Ioannis Sarisberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Policratici, ed. C. C. I.Webb, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).

Vegetius, P. Flavii Vegeti Renati Epitoma rei militaris, ed. Alf Önnerfors (Stuttgart& Leipzig: Teubner, 1995).

The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

27

Vegetius, Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science, trans. N. P. Milner, TranslatedTexts for Historians 16 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2nd edn,1996).

The Earliest English Translation of Vegetius’ De re militari, ed. Geoffrey Lester,Middle English Texts 21 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitätsverlag,1988).

II. Studies

Allmand, Christopher, Society at War. The Experience of England and Franceduring the Hundred Years War, ed. C. Allmand (Woodbridge: Boydell Press,2nd edn, 1998).

Allmand, Christopher, ‘Views of the Soldier in late Medieval France’, in Guerre etSociété en France, en Angleterre et en Bourgogne, XIVe–XVe siècle, ed. PhilippeContamine, Charles Giry-Deloison, Maurice Keen (Lille: Université Charlesde Gaulle, 1991), pp. 171–88.

Allmand, Christopher, ‘Did the De re militari of Vegetius influence the militaryordinances of Charles the Bold?’, Publication du Centre Européen d’EtudesBourguignonnes (XIVe–XVIe s.) 41 (2001): 135–43.

Allmand, Christopher, ‘The Fifteenth-Century English Versions of Vegetius’ Dere militari’, in Armies, Chivalry and Warfare in Medieval Britain and France,ed. Matthew Strickland, Harlaxton Medieval Studies VII (Stamford: PaulWatkins, 1998), pp. 30–45.

Knowles, Christine, ‘A 14th century imitator of Jean de Meung: Jean de Vignay’sTranslation of the De re militari of Vegetius’, Studies in Philology 53 (1956):452–8.

Legge, M. Dominica, ‘The Lord Edward’s Vegetius’, Scriptorium 7 (1953): 262–5.Murray, Alexander, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon,

1978).Prestwich, Michael, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages. The English Experience

(New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1996).Reeve, Michael, ‘The Transmission of Vegetius’s Epitoma rei militaris’, Medium

Aevum 74 (2000): 243–354.Richardot, Philippe, Végèce et la Culture militaire au Moyen Age (Ve–XVe siècles)

(Paris: Institut de Stratégie Comparée EPHE IV – Sorbonne & Economica,1998).

Shrader, Charles R., ‘A Handlist of extant Manuscripts containing the De remilitari of Flavius Vegetius Renatus’, Scriptorium 33 (1979): 280–305.

Spiegel, Gabrielle, ‘Les Débuts Français de l’Historiographie royale: quelquesaspects inattendus’, in Saint-Denis et la Royauté. Etudes offertes à BernardGuenée, ed. Françoise Autrand, Claude Gauvard, Jean-Marie Moeglin (Paris:Publications de la Sorbonne, 1999), pp. 395–404.

Thorpe, Lewis, ‘Mastre Richard, a Thirteenth-Century Translator of the De remilitari of Vegetius’, Scriptorium 6 (1952): 39–50.

Vale, Juliet, Edward III and Chivalry. Chivalric Society and its Context 1270–1350(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1982).

28

Christopher Allmand

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of theThird Crusade

MARIANNE J. AILES

ANY WAR produces its heroes. The Third Crusade has left us along-standing legacy of heroes on both sides. Though now no longer

politically correct, the stirring tales of Richard the Lion-Heart and his nobleopponent Saladin have provided many a comic book with material. If we goback to the contemporary accounts we find that shortly after the ThirdCrusade even reliable, factual accounts, such as the eye-witness account ofthe Norman chronicler Ambroise, depict these knights as worthy of heroicstatus.1

Ambroise’s chronicle was written shortly after the end of the crusade by aclerk, apparently at the royal court, who had accompanied Richard on thecrusade.2 It is an important historical document, not without literary merit,written in rhyming couplets making extensive use of sophisticated rhetoricaldevices.

Ambroise’s main hero is Richard the Lion-Heart himself and we willreturn to Richard shortly, but Ambroise also has other heroes, a number oflesser figures who have their ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ in one or more epi-sodes, men, and very occasionally women, who are in some way exemplary.First three of these ‘minor heroes’ claim our attention: James of Avesnes,Aubery Clement and Andrew of Chauvigny.

29

1 Ambroise, Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, ed. Ailes and Barber. All quotations are taken fromthis edition and its accompanying translation, and are cited by line number; the historicaldetails about the heroes are taken from Barber’s historical notes to the edition. See alsoAmbroise, Estoire de la guerre sainte: histoire en vers de la 3e croisade, ed. Paris. Otherevidence of an early development of Richard’s status as a hero can be seen in the latethirteenth-century Anglo-Norman prose text, La Mort Richard Coeur de Lion, published asThe Crusade and Death of Richard I, ed. Johnston, which drew on the Latin chronicles ofRoger of Howden and Roger of Wendover, and in the planh, or lament, on the death ofRichard written by the occitan troubadour Gaucelm Faidit, one version of which followsthe Estoire in Vatican MS Regina 1659; see Les Poèmes de Gaucelm Faidit, ed. Mouzat, poem50, pp. 415–24.

2 On the identity of Ambroise see the introduction to Estoire, ed. Ailes and Barber.

JAMES OF AVESNES

James of Avesnes, described by Jean Richard as a ‘baron du second plan’,3

was from Avesnes-sur-Helpe in Hainant; his family held lands from both theCount of Hainant and Philip of Alsace, the Count of Flanders.4 He appearsto have been in civilian life a less than perfect vassal and was involved in aserious revolt against his overlord Philip of Alsace in 1175–76, apparentlyout of resentment of the count’s ‘low-born’ administration.5 However, such atroublemaker was clearly of value when intrepid and perhaps inspirationalbravery was needed. When he first appears in Ambroise’s account he is com-pared to the heroes Alexander, Hector and Achilles:

2848 Ço est Jackes d’Avernes en FlandresSi ne cuit c’onques Alixandres,N’Ector, n’Achilles mielz valusent,Ne que meillor chevalier fussent –

2852 Ço estoit Jakes qui tot vendiE enguaga e despendiSes terres e ses heritages,E dona, si fist mult que sages,

2856 Cuer e cors e alme en aïeAl rei qui vint de mort a vie.

This was James of Avesnes in Flanders. I think that Alexander, Hectorand Achilles were not more worthy than he, nor better knights. ThisJames had sold, mortgaged and spent all his land and his inheritance andin a most wise deed, had given everything, heart, body and soul, to theservice of the King Who rose from death to life.

Ambroise uses this technique of comparing, or sometimes contrasting, hiscontemporaries with the heroes of classical or vernacular legend and litera-ture at several points.6 James’ great commendation here is his total commit-ment to the cause. The closely related Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta RegisRicardi describes James in similar, heroic terms, but lacks the reference to thecommitment to God:

That night . . . James of Avesnes reached the longed-for shore. He was aman endowed with triple perfection: a Nestor in counsel, an Achilles in

30

Marianne J. Ailes

3 Richard, ‘Philippe Auguste, la croisade et le royaume’, p. 413.4 So obscure was he after the crusade that the copyist of the only extant complete MS of

Ambroise’s text consistently gets his name wrong and calls him Jacques d’Avernes.5 Ed. Ailes and Barber, n. 217; see E. Warlop, The Flemish Nobility before 1300, pp. 275,

325–6.6 Keen, ‘Chivalry, Heralds and History’, p. 67. Ambroise uses the same technique to dis-

parage the emperor of Cyprus whom he compares to Ganelon and Judas, lines 1387–8.

arms, better than Attilius Regulus at keeping his word. He pitched histents opposite the so-called ‘Cursed’ Tower. (I:28, transl. pp. 74–5)7

A few lines later James figures in a list, linked with the major figures of Guyand Geoffrey of Lusignan (lines 3043–9). James is described as one whocarried out ‘heroic deeds in the land’ (line 3047) and more attention is paidto him than to the more important figures of the Lusignans. In this wayAmbroise prepares for his main appearance several thousand lines later atthe siege of Acre. Here again he is first mentioned in a list (lines 6160–79),this time with the Earl of Leicester, William of Borris, Walchelin ofFerrieres, Roger of Tosni, Count Robert of Dreux and the Bishop ofBeauvais – exalted company indeed. This time James’ death is presaged in away that emphasises his role as a martyr of the crusade, for we are told that‘God took him that day into His kingdom’ (line 6170).

A few hundred lines later he is listed again in noble company with hisfamily with some emphasis on the fact that he was not the only member ofhis family involved in the crusade (lines 6432–8):

6623 Ha! Deus, si grant descomfitureEt si laide mesaventureNos avint la ou [li] noz errentQuant Sarazin recovrerentD’un prodom[e] que il forsclostrent,

6628 En lor recovrir e enclostrent!Ço fu li preuz Jaques d’Averne,Dont Deus face [saint] en son regne,Car de lui trop nus meschaï

6632 Par son cheval qui lui chaï,Mais il fist tant de sei defendreQue l’en nos dist e fist entendreQue aprés la fin de la bataille,

6636 Quant il jut entre la chenaille,E l’[en] enveia son cors quere,Quë en un poi espace de terreEntor le cors de lui troverent

6640 Li prodome qui i alerent,Bien .xv. Turs tot detrenchiez,Dont li prodom s’esteit vengiez.Sei quart de parenz i mururent,

6644 Si quë onques nes sucururent –Tels genz dont il fud grant parlance –Ço fud un des barons de France

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

31

7 Chronicle of the Third Crusade: A translation of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta RegisRicardi, trans. Nicholson; the Itinerarium compares Richard I to the epic heroes in the sameway that Ambroise compares them with James of Avesnes. Nicholson discusses the rela-tionship between Ambroise and the Itinerarium, pp. 12–14, concluding that the Latin textuses the French text.

Ço diseient, li coens de Dreues,6648 Il e les genz qui erent sues.

Sin oï l’en tant gent mesdireQue l’estorie nel puet desdire . . .

6655 Etht vos la novele espandueDe nostre gent qui iert perdue –Non pas perdue, mais trovee,Qu’ele s’iert pas Deu esprovee –Jake d’Averne e sa maisnee

6660 Qui esteit morte e detrenchiee.Eth vos l’ost Deu tote pensive,E si troblee e si baïveQuë onques de la mort un home

6664 Pois quë Adam morst la pomeNe fud oïe si grant plainteNe tel regret ne tel complainte;E il feseit mult bien a pleindre,

6668 Car mult bien servi Deu, sanz faindre,Qu[ë] il aveit ja esguardéEn paradis iert porguardéSon liu o seint Jake l’apostre,

6672 Qu’il teneit a son non e a nostre –Jake d’Averne le martyr,Qui des Turcs ne deigna partir.

Oh God! What an affliction, what a dreadful loss we suffered there, whenthe Saracens rallied, the loss of a valiant man whom they cut off and sur-rounded! This was the worthy James of Avesnes, may God make him [asaint] in His kingdom, for much misfortune came to us because of hishorse, which fell under him. However, he defended himself so well, so weare told and understand, that after the end of the battle, when his bodywas searched for, where he lay among the hoards of curs, that for some dis-tance round his body, the worthy men who went there found a goodfifteen Turks, all hacked into pieces, the valiant man having taken hisvengeance on them. He was the fourth of his family to die there and therewere some who did not come to their rescue which gave rise to much talkabout such men [as failed to help], in particular one of the barons ofFrance, they said, the Count of Dreux, he and his men. I have heard somany speak ill of this that the history cannot deny it . . .

The news spread of our people who were lost, or not lost but found,tested for God, James of Avesnes and his household dead and slaughtered.So the army of God was in melancholy, troubled and shocked; not sinceAdam bit into the apple was such mourning, such regret and such com-plaint heard. And he was worthy of being mourned, for he served Godwell, without fail. He had already chosen his place in heaven, his placewas reserved, at the side of St James the apostle, whom he held as hispatron and ours, James of Avesnes the martyr, who would not deign to fleebefore the Turks.

32

Marianne J. Ailes

The account in the Itinerarium is similar but lacks the reference to St James,a significant element in Ambroise’s exaltation of James.8 James’ commit-ment to God and the special blessing conferred by his martyrdom arestressed throughout Ambroise’s account. In the Itinerarium James is givenmore earthly patrons as we are told that King Gui and King Richard ‘assistedat his burial’.

The actual death is built up to with the exclamatory opening to the para-graph, the eulogy, and the detail of how he was found surrounded by deadSaracens – like the hero of a chanson de geste. The position in which his bodyis found, the evidence of a hard fought battle, is used to show what a braveman he was and how dearly he sold his life. Ambroise is not above making aside-sweep at those who should have served as ‘guarantor’ to this apparenthero, specifically here the Count of Dreux. Indeed such non-heroes orcounter-heroes are part of the presentation of the hero figure. Much is madeof the consequences of James’ death, the mourning which followed. Hisdeath is treated hyperbolically as as great a tragedy for the human race as theFall of man – yet Ambroise shows no dire consequences of his death, nogreat revenge is taken and this man who is finally put on a par with hisname-apostle St James and presented as a martyr was in reality far frombeing a saint.

Ambroise shows very clearly the suffering of the crusaders at the siegeof Acre and there must have been a real need for exemplary and inspira-tional figures. For Ambroise James of Avesnes was one such. He was clearlybrave and could be used to illustrate the ideal of self-sacrifice and total com-mitment. There was no need to mention his past, even if Ambroise wasaware of it. Here he represents the ideal rather than the individual.

AUBERY CLEMENT

Aubery Clement was from a quite distinguished family. His father was thetutor and guardian to Philip Augustus and the family had provided severalmarshals of France, including Aubery himself, his brother Henry and theirfather Robert.9 It is, incidentally, quite remarkable that Ambroise, whonormally has little that is positive to say about the French (as distinct fromthe Normans), is nonetheless prepared to present a Frenchman as a hero.Perhaps it is because of his relative renown that Ambroise does not preparefor the main appearance of Aubery during the siege of Acre:

4881 La fud feiz un granz hardemenz;Ço fist Aubris Climenz,Cil qui dist qu’a cel jor mureit

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

33

8 Cf. Itinerarium, IV:20, trans. p. 258.9 Ed. Ailes and Barber, n. 338.

4884 Ou que dedenz Acrë entreit;N’il n’en deigna onques mentirAinz devint illoques martir;Car sor les murs s’ala combatre

4888 As Turs qui l’alouent abatreE tant sor lui en acurutQue sei defendant i murut,Car cil qui sivre le deveient,

4892 Qui sor l’eschiele ja esteient,La chargerent tant qu’el pleiaE qu[ë] al ploier pecheiaE cil al fossé trebucherent.

4896 Li Turc hüerent e crïerent;Si i ot de tels qui i mururentDes noz e tels qui traiz i furent,Mais d’Auberi Climent sanz dote

4900 Fud desheitie l’ost trestote,E por lui regreter e pleindre.Covint icel assalt remaindre.Ne demora mie grantment

4904 Puis la mort Auberi ClimentQu’il foïrent la tur maudite –Que jo avoie nomee e dite –Tant qu’ele fud estançonee

4908 E empeiriee e estonee. . . .

There was a bold deed committed by Aubery Clement; he had said that hewould either die that day or enter Acre; he did not lie, but became amartyr; he went to fight on the walls, against the Turks, who came uponhim to knock him down in such numbers that he died while defendinghimself. Those who were following him were already on the ladder,putting such a weight on it that it gave way and broke into pieces, throw-ing them into the ditch. The Turks mocked and jeered; some of our mendied and others were dragged out. The whole army was distressed over thedeath of Aubery Clement and in order to mourn and lament him theassault was suspended.

It was not long after the death of Aubery Clement that the CursedTower, as I have called it, was undermined, with props put in place, thendamaged and weakened.10

We can see here one of the difficulties that the extant text poses for us.There is only one complete manuscript of Ambroise’s Estoire and there are anumber of passages which are clearly corrupt. Here the extant French text israther disjointed and reads as if there may be something missing. TheItinerarium has more detail about the actual death, describing how Auberywas surrounded and crushed by the Turks after being left alone at the top of

34

Marianne J. Ailes

10 Cf. Itinerarium, III:10–11.

the wall, and died the death of a martyr as a result of stab wounds, havingbeen bereft of all help (III:10, p. 212). It seems in the account of theItinerarium that Aubery Clement was forced to be a hero – but this is lessclear in Ambroise’s account. However, we cannot tell whether this isbecause we have a faulty exemplar of Ambroise’s text, or because he is delib-erately suppressing details which detract from Clement’s heroic status. Atthe same time, in both texts, Clement dies alone, as befits a hero. In bothAmbroise and the Itinerarium Aubery appears to have made the kind ofboast that we might associate with an epic hero, ‘I will take Acre or die inthe attempt.’ This could be compared to Roland’s declaration that Charle-magne will not lose any animal or item from the rearguard without it beingdefended to the end, or Vivien in the Chanson de Guillaume declaring thathe will not retreat by one step from the enemy. This is not necessarily a goodattitude in military terms, but clearly would have its uses in whipping upenthusiasm in a besieging army. Aubery’s status as a hero is confirmed whena Saracen has the presumption to appear arrayed in the despoiled armour ofthe dead man and King Richard himself ‘strikes him with a bolt square onthe chest’ (lines 4963–5). That it is the king himself who avenges thispresumption gives reflected glory to Aubery Clement.

This time Ambroise spells out the consequences of his death, not just themourning, a subsequent cessation in the assault being ascribed to Clement’sdeath. Later it would appear that the besieged Saracens were aware thatsorrow for this individual knight would make the whole crusading armypitiless:

5075 Mais il n’esteient pas a choisN’en esperance de socurs,E bien saveient tot a cursQue tote l’ost iert en tormentPor la mort Auberi Climent,

5080 Et por lor filz e por lor freres,Por lor oncles e por lor peres,Lor neveuz, lor cosins germains,Qu’il aveient mort de lor mains,

5084 Dont les haouent veirement.E saveient certainementQue nostre gent illoc mureientOu qu[ë] a force les prendreient . . .

5093 Mais Deus lor fist un conseil prendreQu’a nostre gent vint honorableE as lor mortel e nuisable,

5096 Si que Acre fud par cel affaireNostre sanz lancier e [sanz] traire.

But they were not sufficient nor had they any hope of help, and they knewwell that the army was in deep sadness because of the death of AuberyClement, and because of their sons and their brothers, their uncles and

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

35

their fathers, their nephews and their first cousins, whom they had killedwith their own hands and because of whom they were indeed hated. Theyknew for certain that our people would take them by force or die in theattempt. . . . but God caused them to make a decision that brought honourto us and death and harm to them, so that because of it Acre was takenwithout a bolt being fired or a stone hurled.11

The decision made by the besieged was to treat with Richard. Thus thedeath of Aubery Clement is presented as being a direct cause of the surren-der of Acre.

Both James of Avesnes and Aubery Clement die on the crusade, fighting,as heroes do, against insuperable odds. Both are heroes of the siege of Acre, asoul-destroying siege which had need of inspirational figures. Such men, asJean Richard has pointed out, were those who really did make great sacri-fices for the cause, ultimately giving their lives.12

ANDREW OF CHAUVIGNY

Andrew of Chauvigny was an important member of Richard I’s own entour-age and is mentioned by Ambroise on several occasions, figuring in anumber of lists of leaders involved in attacks (e.g. 4982–95 – attack on Acre;10960–72 – going to the relief of Jaffa; 11384–403) – attacking the Turks.He is described as ‘strong and valiant in his saddle’. On one occasion he is atthe front of the field in the rescue of some Knights Templar (lines 7261–7)

Andrew of Chauvigny is singled out as a central figure on two other occa-sions. The first is when he sustained an injury. Chauvigny, in the dis-tinguished company of Henry of Graye, Peter of Préaux and ‘many othermen of renown’ (line 7546) engages a group of infidels. Chauvigny is praisedby the poet before his particular encounter is described:

7558 Oiez, seignors, estrange juste,E tant est proz qui issi justeCom mis sires Andreus josta!

Listen my lords [to the account of] a strange joust. How valiant he is whojousts as my lord Andrew jousted!

Chauvigny strikes first, the point of his lance piercing the opposing emir,but the emir in return strikes Chauvigny, breaking his arm. A broken arm

36

Marianne J. Ailes

11 Cf. Itinerarium, III:15, pp. 216–17.12 ‘Peut-être y a-t-il quelque justice dans le fait que, sous le nom de Jehan d’Avesnes, la

légende a fait d’un des croisés partis indépendamment, dès 1189, et à leurs propres frais, lehéros de la 3e croisade. Car ce sont les barons, les chevaliers, les écuyers, les sergents . . . quiont supporté . . . les dangers et les épreuves du siège d’Acre, deux années avant l’arrivée desdeux rois, en payant leur tribut en vies humaines’, Richard, ‘Philippe Auguste, la croisade’,p. 423.

does not seem to prevent his continued participation in the crusade, for hisbanner is among those seen when Darum is taken (lines 9293–7).

Chauvigny’s second moment of glory comes as he leads one of the groupstaking pilgrims to Jerusalem under the terms of the peace treaty concludedwith Saladin. Here there is no glorious fighting – yet in many ways the visitsto the shrines in Jerusalem are among the most touching passages ofAmbroise’s account, and the leaders are singled out as men of importance.Although apparently less heroic, this role does involve danger as those whowere to have taken Richard’s letter to Saladin asking for safe passage hadfallen asleep on the way and the pilgrims are genuinely fearful that the Sara-cens will extract revenge for the massacre of the prisoners at Acre.

Andrew of Chauvigny may have been a well known figure in his owntimes. His name crops up in a number of contemporary accounts and docu-ments and he also moves into the world of fiction. He has fleeting appear-ances in several chansons de geste attached to the crusade cycle. Unlike thesemi-historical early crusade chansons de geste these texts are highly fictional-ised. In the fourteenth-century chansons de geste Baudouin de Sebourg and itssequel, the Bastard de Bouillon, his name, it would appear, ‘authenticates’ thetext. The use of a known, real, crusader adds historicity. In Saladin, a text ofwhich only prose versions survive, but which was probably based on achanson de geste, Andrew of Chauvigny receives a serious leg injury in a joustwith Saladin; in the shorter version Chauvigny defeats Saladin himself andbecomes the hero of an adventure with the Saracen queen.13 Thus the realknight and member of Richard’s court whom we see in Ambroise’s accountbecomes a romance hero.

RICHARD

Ambroise’s account is full of tales of the heroism of such men as James ofAvesnes, Aubery Clement and Andrew of Chauvigny – but it is above allthe account of Richard’s crusade. Richard I is the central character inAmbroise’s account,14 absent from the scene only when Ambroise gives thebackground to the siege of Acre, before the arrival of the kings of France andEngland.

Richard is introduced early in Ambroise’s chronicle. Although his fatheris still king it is Richard who is named first and who is apparently the first totake the cross:

59 Li cuens de Peitiers li vaillanz,Richarz, n’i volt estre faillanz,

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

37

13 Saladin: suite et fin du deuxième cycle de la croisade, ed. Crist. Andrew appears at severalpoints in the text.

14 Levy, ‘Pèlerins rivaux de la 3e croisade’, pp. 145–50.

Al besoing Deu e sa clamor,Si se croissa por sue amor.Premiers fu de toz les hauz homes

64 Des terres dont nos de ça sumes.Puis mut li reis en son servise

Richard, the valiant Count of Poitiers, did not wish to fail God at the timeof His need and His call, so he took the Cross for love of Him. He was thefirst of the great men of the lands from which we came [to do so]. Thenthe king entered His service.

Immediately Ambroise makes it clear what he thinks of Richard: ‘the valiantCount of Poitiers’. Throughout his tale Ambroise attaches such epithets tohis main hero as ‘the great, ‘the ‘valiant’, ‘the noble king’. Most significantlyRichard is already the ‘Lion-Heart’, ‘Le preuz reis, le quor de lion’ (line2306)15 and references to his ‘lion banner’, his coat of arms,16 reinforce this.

At no point is Richard explicitly linked with heroes of the chansons degeste by Ambroise;17 the associations are made in a more subtle way. Someassociation is made through the name of the horse he captures from theEmperor of Cyprus, Fauvel, the most common name for a horse in thechansons de geste. More significantly Richard certainly behaves in a way thatis reminiscent of the most famous hero of chanson de geste, Roland, forRichard is a little headstrong. He takes personal risks for which othersrebuke him. He is criticised by Saladin for his recklessness as one who‘rushes into things so foolishly’ (line 12114), but this is expressed as a quali-fication to the praise that ‘the king has great valour and boldness’ (line12113). Saladin continues with a phrase which again recalls the epic, ques-tioning the value of heroism without moderation:

12116 Ge voldroie mielz que jo eüsseLargesce e sens o tot mesureQue hardement o desmesure.

I would prefer to exercise generosity and judgement with moderation thanboldness without moderation.

There is at least a suggestion here that it is possible to criticise Richard andthat recklessness, although a heroic attribute, is not necessarily desirable in aking. Moreover Richard is rebuked by his own men:

38

Marianne J. Ailes

15 Ed. Ailes and Barber, n. 183; Broughton, The Legends of King Richard I, Coeur de Lion;Ambroise was not the first so to designate him; Gerald of Wales calls him ‘lion-hearted’ inhis Topographia Hibernica in or before 1187.

16 On Richard’s lion banner see Ailes, The Origins of the Royal Arms of England: Their Develop-ment to 1199, pp. 71–2.

17 Cf. Itinerarium, II.5, transl. pp. 144–6: ‘King Richard had the valour of Hector, the heroismof Achilles; he was not inferior to Alexander, nor less valiant than Roland.’

7135 Quant Dampnedeus par sa franchiseOt esparnié en itel guiseLe rei qui l’ost deveit conduire,Lores pristrent plusors a dire,Que a coregeus le saveient

7140 E qui de lui peür aveient,‘Sire, por Deu merci ne faites!Ne vos chaille a feire tels guaites.Gardez vos e cristïentez.

7144 Vos avez bone gent a plentez,N’alez mes sels en tel affaire.Quant voldrez as Turs forfaire,Menez od vos grant compainie,

7148 Qu’en vos mains est nostre aïe,Ou nostre mort, s’il vos meschiet;Quant le chief des membres chiet,Li menbre puis ne soffisent,

7152 Ainz faillent sempres e defisent,E tost avient une aventure.’Assez i mistrent paine e cureA chastïer l’en meint prodome,

7148 E il toz jorz, c[ë] est la some,Quant il veeit les assemblees,Dont mult poi li erent emblees,Assembloit as Turs a meschief,

7160 E en veneit si bien a chiefQu’il en aveit ou mort ou prisE que suens iert li graindre pris;E Deus toz jorz des greignor presses

7164 Le jetoit hors des genz engresses.

When God in His Grace had, in this way, spared the king who was to leadthe army, several, who knew him to be a man of courage and who fearedfor him, decided to say ‘Lord, for the sake of God, do not do this! It is notfor you to go on such spying expeditions. Protect yourself and Christianity.You have many good people. Never again go alone on such business.When you want to damage the Turks, take a large company, for in yourhands is our support, or our death, should harm come to you – for whenthe head of the body falls, the body cannot survive alone, but will soon failand fall and misadventure then comes.’ In this way many worthy mentook great pains and put much effort into rebuking him but always, this isthe sum of it, when he saw any skirmishes, very few of which were hiddenfrom him, he would go against the Turks to bring things to a conclusion,and he would always finish the business so that some were taken or killedand that the greatest prize was his. God always brought him out of thegreatest dangers of that hostile race.

In this passage Ambroise manages to convey two notions: that Richard’sbehaviour was sometimes a little reckless, and that he enjoyed the special

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

39

protection of God. Thus the king’s very fault becomes an aspect of hisheroism, and the special protection given by God enhances his reputation.Similar criticism only two hundred lines later is couched in terms whichemphasise Richard’s importance to the Christian cause. Richard, with only afew companions, is about to support some of his men, engaged in a struggle,when some try to stop him:

7320 Lors lui comencerent a direTels [en] i aveit, ‘Par fei, sire,Vos errez a mult grant meschief,Ne ja n’en vendrez [vos] a chief

7324 De noz genz qui la sunt rescore,E sels les en vient mielz encorre,Sanz vos, que vos i encurgiez.Par ço est bien que vos retorgiez,

7328 Car si [a] vos vos mescheietE que issi fust escheieitCristïenté sereit tüee.’Li reis ot la culor muee

7332 Lors dist, ‘Quant jo les i enveieaiE que d’aler les i preiaiS[ë] il [i] moerent donc sanz moi,Donc n’ai[e] jo ja mes non de rei.’

7336 Es costez al cheval donaE le frein lui abandona,E fud plus joinz que uns esperviers.

Then some of them began to say to him, ‘In faith, sir, it could do muchharm for you to go on, nor will you be able to rescue our men. It is betterthat they should suffer alone without you than that you should sufferthere. For this reason it is good that you should turn back, for if harmcomes to you Christianity will be killed.’ The king’s colour changed. Thenhe said, ‘As I sent them here and asked them to go, if they die therewithout me then would I never again bear the title of king.’ He kicked theflanks of his horse and gave him free rein and went off, faster than asparrowhawk.

Ambroise puts the justification for this foolhardiness into the king’s ownmouth, giving some force to his arguments. He is in contrast to the Count ofDreux whom we saw earlier failing to behave as a good guarantor of James ofAvesnes. Moreover, as Richard proceeds to strike the enemy, both these pas-sages show Richard’s success and God’s protection of him. All the positiveepithets at his command would not portray Richard as a hero if he were notshown behaving as a hero. This includes risk-taking (however unwise).Richard is shown fighting with great valour – and we have no reason todoubt this aspect of Ambroise’s depiction of him.

Richard is also shown to be generous. Here his generosity is compared tothat of Philip Augustus. Richard pays his soldiers more than Philip does.

40

Marianne J. Ailes

Clearly a less positive interpretation could be put on this act. Richard andPhilip were rivals; what better way to ensure you have the better mercenar-ies than by paying them more – but Ambroise puts only a positive gloss onRichard’s generosity.18 Indeed Philip serves as a foil for his hero. In all pointsof contrast Richard comes out better. Not only is he a more generous lord;he also presents himself as a king should. The two kings are contrasted asthey arrive on Sicily. Ambroise begins his description with the assertion thatit is normal when great lords arrive somewhere that they make some show oftheir arrival, coming ‘as a great lord’ (line 567). However when Philiparrives he does not do so, but comes unobtrusively, even avoiding the crowd(line 579). Richard, on the other hand, ‘came with such pomp that thewhole sea was covered by galleys full of competent people, fighters, bold ofcountenance, with little pennoncels and with banners’ (lines 588–92). Theresponse to this arrival is, however mixed, for the people approve, but thelocals are concerned:

598 Si diseit tels qui vit la roteQuë itels reis deveit venirE bien deveit terre tenir.Mais li Grifon s’en corucerentE li Lomgebard en grocerentPor ço qu’il vint o tel estoire

604 Sor lor citié e od tel gloire.

Those who saw the procession said that this was how such a king shouldenter, a king to hold his land well. But the Grifons were angry and theLombards grumbled because he came into their city with such a fleet andsuch pomp and circumstance.

The wisdom of annoying others is not questioned by Ambroise; Richard isbehaving as a king should. The explicit contrast drawn here betweenRichard and Philip is a theme which runs through much of the text.19 Bothmen suffer from illness. Philip then returns to France and Ambroise makesno attempt to disguise his contempt for this lack of commitment to theenterprise:20

5246 E, merci Deus, quel retornee!Tant fud malement atornee,

5248 Quant cil qui deveit maintenirTantes genz s’en voleit venir!

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

41

18 Hanley, ‘Reading the Past through the Present: Ambroise, the Minstrel of Reims andJordan Fantosme’, compares the treatment of Philip and Richard in Ambroise and theMinstrel of Reims.

19 Levy, ‘Pèlerins rivaux’, pp. 148–50.20 Hanley, ‘Reading the Past’, p. 267 analyses the way Ambroise casts doubt on Philip’s illness

and pp. 267–8, contrasts Ambroise’s pro-Richard account with the pro-Philip account ofthe Minstrel of Reims.

Il s’en vint par sa maladie,Li reis ço dist – que que l’en die –

5252 Mais nus n’ad de ço testimoineQue maladie en seit essoigneD’aler en l’ost le rei demaineQui toz les reis conduit e maine.

5256 Ge ne di pas qu[ë] il n’i fustE qu’il ni meïst fer ne fust,Plum [e] estaim, or e argent,E qu’il ne socurust meinte gent,

5260 Com li plus haut reis terïensQue l’en sache de cristïens;E por ço deüst il remaindreA faire son poeir sanz faindre

5264 En la povre terre esguareeQui tant ad esté comparee.

God’s mercy! What a turn about! This was an unfortunate turn of mind,when he, who should support so many men, wished to go home. He wasgoing back because of his illness, so the king said, whatever is said abouthim, but there is no witness that illness gives a dispensation from goingwith the army of the Almighty King, who directs the paths of all kings. Ido not say that he was never there, nor that he had not spent iron andwood, lead and pewter, gold and silver, and helped many people, as thegreatest of earthly kings known among Christians, but for this very reasonhe should have remained to do what he could, without failing, in the poorlost land which has cost us so dear.

Richard stays. Ambroise does not need to spell out the contrast. Of courseAmbroise will later have problems justifying Richard’s return to England;but for the moment he is shown to be the more committed of the two kings,the man who ‘having put his hand to the plough will not look back’ (Luke9:62).

Even Richard’s enemies are shown to respect him.21 One of Saladin’s menspeaks of Richard with evident admiration:

6815 ‘Encor fait plus a merveillerD’on Franc qui est en lor compaine,Qui noz genz ocist e mahaine.Onques mes nul tel ne veïmes;Toz jorz iert il devant meïsmes;

6820 A toz les besoinz est il trovezCom bon chevaler esprovez.C’est cist qui des noz feit esart;Si l’apelent “Melec Richard”,

6824 E tel melec deit tenir terreE aveir e despendre e conquere.’

42

Marianne J. Ailes

21 Levy, ‘Pèlerins rivaux’, p. 147.

‘What is to be even more wondered at is a Frank who is one of them, whokills and maims our men. You never saw anyone like him; he will alwaysbe at the front; he will always be found at the place of need, as a good andtested knight. It is he who cuts so many of us down. They call him “MelecRichard”, and such a melec should hold land, conquer and dispensewealth.’

The most noble Saracen in Ambroise’s account is Saphadin, Saladin’sbrother, and Saphadin’s respect for Richard enhances Richard’s reputation,even although Saphadin is an enemy. He even gives him a gift of two horseswhen the Christians are fighting valiantly but badly mounted (lines11512–32). Such respect and assistance from the brother of his main enemyshows something of Richard’s charisma. Saladin himself also shows respectfor Richard, to the extent that he acknowledges that if he were to bedefeated by anyone he would rather it were Richard than anyone else (lines11782–93).

Richard is however a human hero, with weaknesses. There are his recur-rent bouts of illness. More seriously Richard makes mistakes of judgement.On one occasion during discussions with Saphadin Richard accepted pres-ents from the Saracens; the giving and receiving of gifts is and always hasbeen part and parcel of international diplomacy and this seems to be thespirit in which the gifts were accepted:

7360 Sis tramist a SalahadinE a son frere Saffadin,E lor fist merveilluses demandesE mult riches, nobles e grandes:

7364 Ço iert la rïaume de SulieDe chief en chief si com il lie,E quant qu’al regne aparteneitQuant li reis messaus le teneit,

7368 E de Babiloine treüIssi com il l’aveit eü,Car tot clamot en heritage

7371 Par le conquest de son lignage.Li messagier le soldan quistrentE lor message mult bien li distrent,E il [lor] dist que nu f[e]reitE que li reis le sorquereit,

7376 E li manda par Saffadin,Son frere, un sage Sarazin,Qu’il lui lareit tote la terreDe Sulie en pais e sanz guerre

7380 Dele le flum de si qu’a la merQu[ë] il n’i poreit riens clamer.Mais par tel covent le f[e]reitQue Eschalone ne ref[e]reit

7384 Ne cristïen ne Sarazin.

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

43

Ço li manda par Saffadin;Mais li rois ne se gardot mieDe la fause gent enemie

7388 Qui le detrichent e teneientPor les chastels qu’il abateient,E le serveient de losenge.Lor acointement mal chief prenge!

7392 Car Saffadin tant le deçutQue li reis ses presenz reçut.Messagers vindrent e alerent . . .

7406 Messager alerent e vindrentE le rei en parole tindrent,Tant qu’il aperçut la traïneDe la fause gent sarazine,Qui trop iert fause e desleial . . .

7416 Quant cele pais ne pot pas estre,Eth vos venir . . .Les Turs en l’ost granz enchauz faire . . .

7420 E li reis a els assembloit,E par essample a els mustroitQui des presenz blasmé l’aveientDe cui li Turc le desceveient,

7424 Qu’il ne voleit fors liautéA Deu ne a la cristïenté . . .

7429 N’onques l’ost ne fud destorbeePor present qu[ë] il receüstE la terre recusse eüst,

7432 Mais teles genz l’en destorbouentQui sa burse sovent robouent.

He sent word by his brother, Saphadin, a wise Saracen, that he shouldleave all the land of Syria to Richard, in peace and without war, from theriver to the sea, and that he could make no claim on it – but that on thecondition that Ascalon would not be rebuilt, by Christian nor Saracen.This message he sent by Saphadin. But the king did not distrust thesefalse enemies; [he did not realise] that they tricked and delayed him whilethey destroyed the castles and deceived him. Let such a liaison come to abad end. For Saphadin so deceived the king that he accepted his gifts.Messengers came and went, bringing gifts to the king, for which he wasmuch blamed and much criticised. . . . Messengers came and went,talking with the king, until he realised that the false Saracens, who weretoo false and too disloyal, were creating delays. . . . When the peace planscould not be concluded, then the Turks made great attacks on ourarmy . . . The king fought against them and by [his] example showedthose who had blamed him on account of the gifts with which the Turksdeceived him that his intentions towards God and Christianity wereloyal . . . The army was no longer worried because of the gifts that hereceived and he would have rescued the land but for those who causedharm by robbing from his purse.

44

Marianne J. Ailes

Ambroise does not hide the fact that Richard was criticised, but contrives toput all the blame on the Saracen Saphadin and immediately follows thiswith an account of the valour of Richard as a warrior in order to showRichard’s good faith. Blaming others, especially the Saracens, for Richard’smistakes is one way of dealing with them. Thus failure on the part of thecrusaders cannot be seen as Richard’s fault (see lines 5946–53).

The most dramatic case of others being blamed is the massacre of theinhabitants of Acre after the surrender of that city. Today this stands out asa shameful incident, and the care Ambroise takes to deflect the responsibil-ity from Richard would suggest that even during a bloody war such a mas-sacre, however strategically useful, was difficult to justify. Ambroise puts theentire blame on Saladin for failing to keep his side of the agreement and fornot coming to the rescue of his people. Indeed he states that the Saracensthemselves blame Saladin.

The most severe test of Ambroise in his fidelity to Richard comes towardsthe end of the poem. As we have seen, Ambroise makes it quite clear that heconsiders Philip’s departure a dereliction of duty; how then is he to depicthis hero when Richard decides to leave? First Ambroise shows all the vicissi-tudes – the appeals made to Richard to return home which he turns down.Ambroise’s most eloquent rhetoric is put into the mouth of the priest who atone point persuades Richard to stay as he reminds the king how God hascaused him to prosper. The careful structure of the speech enhances, ratherthan detracts from, the feeling behind it; this can be seen in an extract:

9569 Reis, remembre tei des granz honurs,Que Deus t[ë] at en tanz lius faits,Qui serunt mes tozjorz retraites,Que onques a rei de ton eageNe fist a mains de damage.

9574 Reis, recorde tei que l’en conte, . . .9580 Reis, remenbre des granz tençons

E des routes des Brabeçons . . .9584 Reis, menbre tei de l’aventure,

De la riche descomfiture . . .9590 Reis, menbre tei de ton realme.

King, remember the great honour God has accorded you in many places,which will be spoken of, for never has a king of any time suffered so littleloss.King, remember what was said of you . . .King, Remember the quarrels and bands of men of Brabant . . .King, Remember the great defeat . . .King, Remember your kingdom.

These words may be put into the mouth of the unknown priest William ofPoitiers, but they are the words of Ambroise and express his feelings.Ambroise has shown a king who is tormented, pulled in two directions,

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

45

apparently having a duty in each. On this occasion Richard stays, butAmbroise has prepared the way. When Richard finally leaves, he must beseen to have had no real choice.22 First of all, he is ill. In his illness he sendsfor Henry of Champagne, the Templars and the Hospitallers and tells themto guard Ascalon and Jaffa while he receives medical attention at Acre.Without his physical presence, however, they are unwilling to guard any-thing, much to the king’s anger:

Quant li rois vit que tot li mondes,Qui n’est guaires ne lïaus ne mondes,

11720 Lui fu tot en travers failliz,Lors fu troblez e maubaillizE durement desconseilliez.Seignors, ne vos esmerveilliez

11724 S’il fist del mielz qu[ë] il savoitSelonc le tens qu[ë] il avoit,Car qui crient honte e aim henorChoisist de deus mauls le menor.

11728 Si velt mielz une triwe quereQue leisser en peril la terre,Car tuit li autre la leissoient,[E] a lor nefs a plain aloient.

11732 E lors manda il a SaffadinQui iert freres Salehadin,Qui mult l’amoit por sa pröesce,Qu’il li porchacast sanz peresce

11736 La meillor triwe quil poroitE il devers lui la donroit . . .

11762 E il qui estoit sanz aïeQue si pres de la gent haïeQue l’ost ert al mains a deus liwes,Prist ensi faitment les triwes –E qui autrement en diroitL’estoire, si en mentiroit.

When the king saw that everyone, everyone had let him down, no-onewas either loyal nor blameless, then was he troubled and disturbed andvery perplexed. My lords, do not wonder at it that he did the best he couldin the time that he had. For he who shuns shame and seeks honourchooses the lesser of two evils. So he would rather seek a truce than leavethe land in danger, for everyone else was leaving, openly making for theirboats. Then he sent to Saphadin, who was brother to Saladin and whorespected him because of his valour, asking that, sparing no effort, hewould seek for him the best truce which he could and that he, Richard,would agree to it. . . . He, being without support and so close to that hated

46

Marianne J. Ailes

22 Others did criticise Richard for leaving, indeed Ambroise is very much on the defensivehere; cf. Roger of Howden, Chronica, XVII, p. 551.

race, with their army at a distance of no more than two leagues acceptedin this way the truce. Anyone who tells the tale differently is lying.

Again others are blamed. The hero stands alone because others have let himdown. Ambroise sets out in detail the terms of the truce, in particular thatChristians would be able to make their pilgrimage, and the emphasis is thatRichard achieved as much as was humanly possible, when abandoned bythose who should have supported him.

CONCLUSION

In his depiction of his heroes Ambroise uses all the literary techniques at hiscall – and he is a considerable rhetorician. His ‘minor heroes’ were men whocould serve as exempla. In the cases of two of the men we have looked atthey were also safely dead, so Ambroise did not need to fear that theirpost-war lives would damage their heroic status. Ambroise may have beenignorant of their lives before the crusade, or may have chosen to ignoreaspects of his heroes’ characters, to be, like any politically engaged writer,‘economical with the truth’; but there is no reason to doubt that these menbehaved in war as Ambroise depicts them. His bias for Richard I is soobvious that it need not distort the historian’s analysis – but he steers acareful path. Richard is a human hero, larger than life, like any hero, butfacing real dilemmas and shown to suffer alongside his men, physically fromillness, and in the stress of his responsibilities. These very partial views are inthemselves evidence: evidence of a young and rapidly growing myth ofRichard Coeur de Lion and his army.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Ambroise, Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, ed. Marianne Ailes and Malcolm Barber(Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, forthcoming).

Le Bâtard de Bouillon, ed. R. F. Cook (Geneva: Droz, 1972).La Chanson de Roland, ed. F. Whitehead (Oxford, 1942; revised ed. T. D.

Hemming, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1993).La Chanson de Guillaume, ed. and trans. Philip E. Bennett (London: Grant &

Cutler, 2000).Chronicle of the Third Crusade: A Translation of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et

Gesta Regis Ricardi, trans. Helen J. Nicholson, Crusade Texts in TranslationIII (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997).

The Crusade and Death of Richard I, ed. R. C. Johnston, ANTS 17 (Oxford:Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1961).

Les Poèmes de Gaucelm Faidit, ed. J. Mouzat (Paris: Nizet, 1965).

Heroes of War: Ambroise’s Heroes of the Third Crusade

47

Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. W. Stubbs, RS (London: 1868–71).Saladin: suite et fin du deuxième cycle de la croisade, ed. Larry Crist (Geneva: Droz,

1972).

II. Studies

Ailes, Adrian, The Origins of the Royal Arms of England: Their Development to1199 (Reading: University of Reading, 1982).

Broughton, B. B., The Legends of King Richard I, Coeur de Lion, Studies in EnglishLiterature 25 (The Hague: Mouton & Co, 1966).

Hanley, Catherine, ‘Reading the Past through the Present: Ambroise, theMinstrel of Reims and Jordan Fantosme’, Mediaevalia 20 (2001): 263–81.

Keen, Maurice, ‘Chivalry, Heralds and History’, in Nobles, Knights and Men-at-Arms in the Middle Ages (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), pp. 63–81, firstpublished in The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays presented toR. W. Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford: OUP,1985), pp. 393–414.

Levy, Brian, ‘Pèlerins rivaux de la 3e croisade: les personnages des roisd’Angleterre et de la France d’après les chroniques d’Ambroise et d’“Ernoul”et le récit Anglo-Norman de la Croisade et Mort Richard Coeur de Lion’, inCroisade – réalités et fictions: Actes du Colloque d’Amiens, 1987, ed. DanielleBuschinger (Goppingen: Kümmerle, 1989), pp. 143–55.

Richard, Jean, ‘Philippe Auguste, la croisade et le royaume’, in La France dePhilippe Auguste: le temps des mutations: Actes du colloque international organisépar le C.N.R.S. (Paris, 29 septembre–4 octobre 1980), ed. Robert-HenriBautier, Colloques Internationaux du CNRS 602 (Paris: CNRS, 1982), pp.411–24.

Warlop, E., The Flemish Nobility before 1300, trans. J. B. Ross and H.Vander-moere, vol. 1 (Kartrijk: Desmet-Huysman, 1975).

48

Marianne J. Ailes

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

W. H. JACKSON

I

RUDOLF VON EMS was one of the leading German vernacular authorsof the thirteenth century, active from about 1220 to the mid-1250s. By

this time military affairs had formed an important theme in German litera-ture for several centuries, at first in heroic poetry that was transmittedlargely in oral form, then from the twelfth century onwards in increasinglycomplex strands of written literature that combined German traditions withnew concerns drawn to a large extent from French and (directly or indi-rectly) Latin literature. In the medieval literary processing of warfareRudolf’s works have a strong claim to interest in that they bring togetherthese various strands, connecting the worlds of secular, knightly nobility andof religion and school learning. Moreover, since we can locate some of theseworks among the nobility associated with the Staufen royal court, we havehere a writing of warfare that throws light on the concerns of an importantsection of German society at a politically sensitive time.

Rudolf stemmed from a family of ministeriales, that is to say knightlyvassals, in Hohenems in the northern Alps. He describes himself inWillehalm von Orlens as a squire, ‘knappe’ (l. 15627), and the internal evi-dence of his works shows that he had a good education that allowed him toconvey features of Latin learned culture to a lay audience, as well as drawingon French literature. His works cover a wide thematic range, with a morallyexemplary story, a religious legend, a romance of love and chivalry, a life ofAlexander, and a world history (the last two works remaining unfinished).Rudolf was exclusively a narrative author. He left no lyric poems. What isimportant for the topic of warfare is that his works convey a strong sense ofhistorical plausibility, and are closely geared to the practices and the mental-ity of his contemporary audience. The works are set in the known geograph-ical world and deploy characters with historically real names; Rudolfquite avoids the fantastic landscapes and personnel of much contemporaryArthurian romance.

Rudolf also provides unusually specific information about his patrons and

49

those who have helped in his literary activity, so that we can form a clearerview than with many German authors of the period about the social contextof his works.1 His first work, Der guote Gerhart, was written at the request ofRudolf of Steinach (Der guote Gerhart, 6826–30), a vassal in the service ofthe bishop of Constance. The Latin source for the religious legend Barlaamund Josaphat was supplied to Rudolf von Ems by Wido, abbot of theCistercian monastery of Kappel (Barlaam und Josaphat, 144–7, 16057–74).Willehalm von Orlens was commissioned by a leading Staufen ministerialis, theimperial butler Conrad of Winterstetten (Willehalm von Orlens, 15649–65).Rudolf worked on his Alexander in two stages, with a break at line 5015.There is a consensus that after this break Rudolf wrote Willehalm von Orlensand only then returned to work on Alexander. Rudolf does not name asponsor in his Alexander, but there is every indication that this work too wasconnected with the Staufen court; and he names no less a figure than KingConrad IV as the sponsor of his Weltchronik (Weltchronik, 21656–710). Atthe latest with Willehalm von Orlens, Rudolf’s work thus moves into closecontact with Staufen court circles. Warfare plays a particularly prominentrole in the two works of Rudolf’s that are most concerned with secular,aristocratic values: the romance Willehalm von Orlens and the story of theconqueror king Alexander. These two works form the basis for the presentstudy.

II

The ideas and practices of military conflict were, in the thirteenth century,integral to the lives of the secular nobility that formed Rudolf’s main targetaudience, for these were men who saw the use of arms as a birthright and amark of social status. More specifically, warfare had a sharp contemporaryrelevance to the Staufen nobility during Rudolf’s literary career. Rudolf’s lit-erary patron for Willehalm von Orlens, Conrad of Winterstetten, had a promi-nent position in Staufen imperial and royal circles. He was a trusted adviserto Emperor Frederick II and was involved in the upbringing and the rule ofthe two sons of Frederick who were successively kings of Germany at earlyages during the lifetime of their father, and during Rudolf’s career: HenryVII and Conrad IV (Brackert, pp. 26–7). Henry was born in 1211 andelected king in 1220. During the 1220s Frederick entrusted the youngHenry’s upbringing to Conrad of Winterstetten and a number of otherleading Staufen figures while he (Frederick) attended to affairs in Italy.There were growing signs of discord between Henry and his advisors, andHenry and his father, from the late 1220s on. In autumn 1234 Henry was inopen rebellion against his father, with armed conflict between the opposing

50

W. H. Jackson

1 On Rudolf’s patrons and the social environment of his works see Schröder; v. Ertzdorff,pp. 48–113; Brackert passim; Bumke, Mäzene, pp. 16–17, 250–2, 261–2, 274–7.

supporters from November 1234 until Henry submitted himself in July 1235(Weller). As a rebel son, Henry was stripped of his royal status and heldcaptive by his father until his early death in southern Italy in 1242.2 Conradof Winterstetten seems to have held faith with the emperor in this conflict,for he does not appear as a witness with the rebellious young king afterAugust 1234, but he does appear in the entourage of Frederick II immedi-ately on his arrival in Germany in summer 1235 (Brackert, p. 27). Theinfant Conrad arrived in Germany with his father in 1235, aged seven. Hewas elected king of Germany in 1237, and Conrad of Winterstetten was oneof the nobles under whose tutelage he was placed during his minority.

Rudolf composed Willehalm von Orlens between the mid-1230s andConrad of Winterstetten’s death in 1243. The work is not only a romance oflove and chivalry but just as much a miroir de princes which provides detailedexemplary evocations of aristocratic life and mentality, with a particularfocus on the education and the passage from youth to lordship of the heroWillehalm, who becomes duke of Brabant and finally king of England. As awork of aristocratic didacticism Willehalm von Orlens reflects in literary formsomething of the important political role of Rudolf’s patron as adviser andprotector to the young King Conrad, presenting a range of social and politi-cal situations calculated to offer prescriptions for ideal sentiment and actionin contrast with the negative example of Conrad’s elder brother.3 Warfare isan integral part of this literary programme of aristocratic education.

In terms of military action, Willehalm von Orlens contains a fairly detailedaccount of a pitched battle, descriptions of two tournaments and the prelim-inaries to a third, and several brief sketches of other military encounters.The pitched battle (911–1484) is a prearranged encounter between thearmies of Willehalm of Orlens (who is lord of Hainault and the hero’sfather) and Jofrit, duke of Brabant, who becomes the hero’s adopted father.The battle is an attempt to bring a decisive end to a longstanding state ofenmity and feuding between the nobles of Brabant and Hainault. Both sideshave agreed to bring the same number of knights onto the field. This agree-ment and the decision to settle the old disputes by military means give thebattle something of the ritual quality of a judicial duel. The battle is foughtin earnest with many deaths, and Rudolf’s account contains much pragmaticmilitary detail.4

On the eve of the encounter Willehalm arranges his battle order by divid-ing his army into five divisions of 400 knights, each under a leader, a vürstewho has a standard, or banner (911–35). Jofrit of Brabant divides his knightsinto four divisions of 500 knights, also grouped around leaders and a

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

51

2 For an account of the relations between Henry and Frederick and the political and personalbackground to their conflict, see Stürner, pp. 116, 126–9, 275–309.

3 On the subject, see also Brackert, pp. 240–4 and Weigele-Ismael, pp. 27–8.4 The accounts of battles in Willehalm von Orlens and in Alexander are discussed in detail in

the light of battle descriptions in earlier German literature by Pütz, pp. 161–213.

standard (947–73). These details correspond closely to the deployment ofcavalry in real pitched battles of the period, where 1,500 to 2,000 horsemen,comprising ‘elementary tactical units called “banners” ’, might be deployedacross a battlefield one kilometre wide.5 Willehalm has an overall battleplan in that he orders one of his five divisions to stay in reserve and notenter the battle until a late stage, as fresh troops (936–44): a move that issuccessfully implemented in the course of the battle (1205ff). The victory ofWillehalm’s army is thus presented as a consequence not only of strengthand courage, but also of tactical planning.

The approach to battle is accompanied by military music, ‘raise notten’(1005), from flutes, drums and fiddles, which is intended to heighten the joyand strengthen the resolve of the combatants (1000–10). The action on thebattlefield itself (1063–364) is vividly described and shows an essentialtactic of mounted combat, that is to say groups charging through the enemyline in attempts to break up the enemy’s formation.6 Passages of armsbetween individuals are referred to in the fighting, but the main focusremains on group combat. Rudolf pays particular attention to the role ofstandard bearers as key figures in the course of the battle. This again pointsto the importance of group action in mounted combat, and provides alively dramatic moment with the capture of Jofrit’s standard-bearer, CountLembekin (1287–1301). Lembekin’s capture is the decisive turning point inthe battle: because Jofrit’s men no longer have a visible rallying point whentheir leader tries to gather them, they are unable to keep an effective battleorder and Jofrit is forced to flee (1305–32). The literary focus on standardbearers in Willehalm von Orlens matches the importance of these figures inhistorically real battles of the time, and Rudolf indicates this link by com-menting as narrator that Jofrit’s knights were disoriented by the lack of avisible standard ‘als es noch geschiht’, ‘as still happens’ (1316).7

Finally the end of the battle touches on a major problem of military actionin the thirteenth century, the relation of individual booty and collectivediscipline, as Willehalm’s men are so preoccupied with taking booty andransom from the defeated enemy that few of them support their leaderWillehalm in his pursuit of Duke Jofrit (1336–64), with fatal consequences

52

W. H. Jackson

5 See Contamine, p. 229.6 Willehalm von Orlens 1072–8; see also Pütz, pp. 168–9.7 On the importance of the standard in real warfare see Pütz, p. 171 and Verbruggen, pp.

89–91. Rudolf’s account reads like a textbook illustration of the tactical significance of thestandard in medieval warfare as described by Verbruggen: ‘Once the standard was down,the men no longer had a rallying-point, and they could not form new units out of widelyscattered men, as the lord of Valkenburg was able to do at Worringen [5 June 1288], for theorganic connection between the formations was lost, and since this betokened defeat, theyfled. This should effectively dispel the notion that the fighting took place in the form ofduels. If it was not done in units, it would not have mattered whether the flag was flying ornot, since each man had to choose only one opponent in order to go on fighting. Besides, itwould have been unnecessary to draw units up in formation before the battle’ (p. 91).

for Willehalm who, while victorious on the field, is killed in this pursuit.The risks involved in an undisciplined pursuit of booty and ransom by a vic-torious army were evidently recognised by military leaders in the thirteenthcentury; for instance at the end of the battle of Bouvines (27 July 1214) theFrench king Philip Augustus ordered that his men should not pursue thefleeing enemy for more than a mile as night was falling, and he feared thatimportant prisoners might escape during the pursuit.8 On this point too, athirteenth-century audience could be alerted by Rudolf’s literary account tothe tactical importance of maintaining discipline precisely at the euphoricmoment of victory.

The passages of arms and the attendant social circumstances of threetournaments are described in some detail in Willehalm von Orlens, on lines5915–6826, 7096–958 and 8313–527. Rudolf’s descriptions hold muchinterest for the broader history of the tournament. Here only some salientpoints will be raised that throw light on the military dimension of theseaccounts. First, as is often the case in thirteenth-century German literature,tourneying marks the entry of the young noble into military manhood, astournaments are the first military events that Willehalm takes part in afterhis knighting ceremony, which is also described at length (5659–884). Onlymounted knights take part in the military exchanges at the tournaments,wearing full battle armour. The only weapons mentioned are the nobleweapons: lance and sword. Individual combat plays a more prominent role inthese events than in the portrayal of serious warfare, but even in Rudolf’saccounts individual jousting takes place primarily before the tournamentproper, while the main military action in the tournament itself is combatbetween groups in a melee that is close in style to the pitched battle ofserious warfare.

Rudolf does not speak of the weapons used in the tournaments as differingin sharpness from those of serious warfare. However, while the battlebetween Willehalm and Jofrit involved fatalities and serious injury thenarrator speaks in the tournaments only of ‘swarzer búlan vil’, ‘many blackbruises’ (6705, 7701), which perhaps suggests blunt weapons.9 A strikingfeature of Rudolf’s tournament descriptions is the attention he pays to thediscussions held about how to divide the participants into sides and whatterms of ransom and booty to agree on (6529–87). This is characteristic ofRudolf’s interest in the role of negotiation in military life, a topic to whichwe shall return.

Historical research has shown that pitched battles in open country were

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

53

8 See Verbruggen, p. 255; Duby, p. 219.9 The earliest explicit reference to blunt weapons in the tournament in German sources

comes around 1270–1280 in Albrecht’s Jüngerer Titurel (Jackson, p. 271; Bumke, HöfischeKultur, p. 356). Interestingly, the Jüngerer Titurel also connects blunt swords with theinflicting of bruises, ‘bulen’ (2239), which strengthens the view that already Rudolf wasthinking of blunt weapons in his tournament scenes.

actually relatively rare in the Middle Ages. For all the dramatic impact ofbattles in literature, and of battles that actually took place, they were moreoften avoided by leaders as involving too much risk, and warfare in thethirteenth century far more often took the form of skirmishing, small raids,pillaging and siege actions.10 In portraying the hero’s fortunes later in thenarrative Rudolf presents brief sketches of all these forms of action.Willehalm chooses a small stone bridge as a place for his raiding party todefend themselves against pursuers (9147–319). In a large-scale war ofaggression, the kings of Denmark, Estonia and Livonia lay waste to thekingdom of Norway with plunder and fire; roup and brant (10778) are thetypical actions of feud warfare in German sources.11 Amelot, king ofNorway, responds to the aggression by choosing his strongest fortified placesto defend and leaving the weaker places unprotected (10815–23). LaterAlan, king of Ireland, pillages the lands of Abbess Savine and lays siege toher fortresses (11822–33). The hero’s career thus includes military under-takings that would have been recognised as part of the fabric of real life byhis audience. For instance the war between the young King Henry and hisfather (1234–35) was largely a matter of siege warfare as Henry’s supporterswithdrew to their castles, and Frederick laid siege to ten fortresses at thesame time.12 And whereas the tournaments were a matter only for mountedknights, archers and ‘sarjande’ appear beside the knights in the later militaryactions in Rudolf’s romance.13

Informative as Willehalm von Orlens is about military actions, these aredeveloped far less extensively than are scenes of social interaction at courts;and throughout the work Rudolf shows a keen interest in the broader social,ethical, diplomatic and political dimensions of warfare, the ways in whichmilitary action connects with other aspects of aristocratic life. Military andsocial values interpenetrate strikingly in Rudolf’s account of the death ofWillehalm père (1365–484). Willehalm, in hot pursuit of the fleeing Jofrit,fails to see that he is accompanied by only a handful of knights. Jofrit fleesinto his own town Nivel (Nivelles, in Brabant), where Willehalm’s men aresurrounded by ‘die sarjande von der stat’ ‘the militiamen of the town’(1415). Willehalm, recognising the danger of the situation, calls on hissmall company to defend themselves as best they can against the commonsarjande until they might be rescued by highborn men who are moved byknightly considerations (‘ritters pris’, 1407). The sarjande, armed with spearsand bows and other weapons, hack Willehalm to death, despite the attemptsof their own lord, Jofrit, to rescue his enemy but fellow noble (1436–75).

54

W. H. Jackson

10 On the subject, see Contamine, pp. 219–28.11 See Brunner, pp. 79–86 and Hagenlocher, pp. 250–1.12 See Weller, p. 179.13 Archers are mentioned in Willehalm lines 8741, 9232, 10804; and ‘sarjande’, lines 10739,

10745, 10750, 10801.

Willehalm’s surviving companions manage to defend themselves until theyare rescued by ‘edel ritter wert’, ‘noble and worthy knights’ (1480), whoaccept their swords in surrender and guarantee them safe conduct. Jofrit,ashamed and enraged that a noble knight has been killed in this waywithout mercy in his (Jofrit’s) town, has the killers executed and theirfamilies driven away (1485–91).

The account of Willehalm’s death expresses a hierarchical mentality thatsaw the orderly conduct of warfare as a transaction of honour and trustbetween those of knightly status, a transaction in which common foot-soldiers, who were increasing in importance in the conduct of real wars andin the defence of towns in the thirteenth century, were thought by aristo-cratic circles to have at best a doubtful place. In this sense the passage takesits place in a powerful, ideologically motivated strand of aristocratic com-mentary about the killing propensities of infantry as opposed to the giving ofquarter by knights that appears in situations as far apart as the battleof Bouvines, the conflicts between Scottish and English armies in the latethirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and the defeat of French knight-hood by the militiamen of the Flemish towns at Courtrai in 1302.14

Rudolf is attentive to the forms of declaration of war and to the propergrounds for hostilities. Count Baldewin acts as emissary for King Witekin ofDenmark, warning Amelot of Norway that Witekin will make war againsthim if he does not do homage (10522–677), and King Amelot sends CountMorant to propose an honourable settlement to King Alan of Ireland, failingwhich Amelot will make war on Alan (11932–12011). Alan is portrayed asan aggressive king who attacks the abbess Savine ‘ane alles reht’, ‘withoutgood cause’ (12366), and we hear that it was God’s will that Alan wasdefeated by Amelot’s forces (12367–8). War appears here, as often inthirteenth-century thinking, as a judgement of God, with victory going tothe side that fights for a just cause.

The medieval aristocracy, as well as asserting the right to press its claimsby force in countless feuds, also developed over the centuries a wide range ofnon-violent practices for settling conflicts and devoted much energy toestablishing peaceful relations after armed hostilities.15 In the political

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

55

14 See Duby, pp. 37, 58, 138–46, 211; Strickland, pp. 42–3. On the distinction betweenknights (and squires) and non-noble soldiers in the laws of war relating to ransom andkilling, see also Stacey, p. 36. Rudolf’s negative portrayal of the sarjande of Nivelles mightbe connected specifically with the routiers known as Brabançons, who appear in historicalsources of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, including accounts of the battle ofBouvines (Duby, pp. 58, 138), as distinct from knightly forces and as particularly brutal intheir style of fighting. The Brabançons stemmed largely from the provinces of Brabant,Flanders and Hainault (Contamine, p. 244), which also form the setting for the conflictbetween Willehalm and Jofrit.

15 Much attention has been devoted to medieval conflict settlement in recent research; forvaluable studies of the German evidence see Althoff, Spielregeln and ‘Genugtuung’, andKamp.

education of a thirteenth-century ruler, warfare was indeed intimatelyconnected with mediation and negotiation, and here again Rudolf is in tunewith the political climate of his time, for he shows particular interest in thenegotiation of settlements to avert or end hostilities. Philip, king of France,is related to both Willehalm and Jofrit, and he and various lords spiritualand temporal bring heavy diplomacy to bear in an attempt to avert thebattle between the two (306–464); the spiritual lords make a last-minuteattempt at conciliation on the eve of the battle (743–8). The failure of theseattempts at mediation does nothing to lessen the force of the close parallelsthey show with mediation processes in historical reality, which often pro-ceeded from family ties, and in which kings and bishops played a leadingpart.16 After the battle Jofrit makes peace with the king by swearing an oathof purgation, and the reconciliation is marked by the release of prisoners(2582–8). The terms of peace after the cessation of hostilities betweenAmelot of Norway and his enemies are secured by hostages (11631ff). Wiserulers try to negotiate peaceful settlements of disputes, but they keep thethreat of war as a means of strengthening their negotiating position(11909ff); the abbess Savine similarly takes advice as to how she might bringabout a firm peace after the military defeat of her enemy Alan of Ireland(12305ff). All this is close to the real world of aristocratic transactionsaround warfare in the thirteenth century.

Witekin of Denmark and Alan of Ireland both lead wars of aggression,and Willehalm’s prominence in their defeat shows his surpassing militaryprowess. However, it is characteristic of Rudolf’s approach to warfare thatWillehalm also brings about lasting peace between former enemies by pro-posing a series of marriage alliances (13683–737). Marriage forms a con-venient link between the real world of thirteenth century power-brokingand the fictive world of literature, and Rudolf exploits this link amply in theclosing stages of the romance, where a series of great counsel and negotia-tion scenes establish peace between warring parties by marriage settlements.The narrative also shows forward movement in this complex of negotiationand warfare, as the stubborn refusal on the part of Willehalm and Jofrit toaccept a mediated settlement to their dispute leads to unnecessary bloodshedand the death of the hero’s father in the opening of the romance,17 while themastery of reconciliation shown by the young Willehalm in the later stagesof the work brings new political alliances where formerly enmity had ruled.

The young hero Willehalm thus emerges as a great warrior and a wisecounsellor, and he goes on to exercise exemplary rule. Indeed throughoutWillehalm von Orlens warfare is placed in a larger political framework in rela-tion to peace and justice. More specifically, Rudolf presents warfare besidethe maintenance of peace and justice as an expression of the power and

56

W. H. Jackson

16 See Kamp, pp. 130–55, and 210–15.17 For a critical reading of the conflict between Willehalm and Jofrit, see also Schnell,

pp. 23–4.

authority of the ruler. This topic of warfare and government will beforegrounded again in Rudolf’s treatment of the world conqueror Alexander.

With some nineteen complete manuscripts and twenty-nine fragmentsknown from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, Willehalm von Orlensseems to have been one of the most widely transmitted romances of theGerman Middle Ages.18 Five of these manuscripts contain illustrations. Oneof the earliest complete Willehalm manuscripts, Cgm 63 in the BayerischeStaatsbibliothek, Munich, from the late thirteenth century, probably around1270/1280,19 contains a series of twenty-seven full page illustrations, eachcomprising two frames, which document the narrative pictorially. The origi-nal rich colours of the miniatures have been almost completely lost, but thefigures and much detail are still clearly discernible. The illustrations arereproduced in full in Erika Weigele-Ismael’s valuable study (pp. 318–44).They follow the main points of the story, showing the fate of Willehalm pèreand, far more fully, the progress of the young noble Willehalm. Such exten-sive illustration is more characteristic of historical than of fictional texts atthis time in Germany, and this feature matches the strong sense of historicalreality in Rudolf’s narration.

Of the twenty-seven sides of miniatures, thirteen contain some militaryreference. Folio 7r shows the meeting of Willehalm and Jofrit and theensuing battle (fig. 1), with the knights wearing full armour and helms andwielding swords. Folio 12r shows Willehalm’s fatal pursuit of Jofrit and hisdeath at the hands of the town militia who are shown wearing simpler head-gear than the knights and using spears and axes (fig. 2). Folio 56v shows thetournament at Poy, with a lance joust in the upper frame and ‘grogierer’,‘criers’ (6462, 6471 – an early form of herald) wearing tabards in the lowerframe (fig. 3). Folio 81r shows knights driving a herd of cattle and menbesieging a castle; these scenes relate to the aggressor King Witekin’s pillag-ing in Norway and his siege of King Amelot’s capital city, Galverne (fig. 4).Folio 86v shows the hero Willehalm defeating the aggressor Gutschart insingle combat and accepting his surrender (fig. 5). Other illustrationsinclude Willehalm’s knighting (fol. 44v), a tournament melee with swords(fol. 53r), and the skirmish at the bridge (fol. 68r). The miniatures in Cgm63 thus confirm the importance of military life for the contemporary recep-tion of Willehalm von Orlens, and they illustrate visually some of the maintechnical, social and ideological features of warfare as it appears in Rudolf’stext.

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

57

18 See Weigele-Ismael, p. 11.19 See Weigele-Ismael, pp. 15–16.

III

Warfare is a pervasive theme in Rudolf’s Alexander. Moreover, whereas wedo not know the French source that Rudolf used for Willehalm von Orlens, forAlexander he draws chiefly on the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus,who produced his History of Alexander probably in the first century A.D. Acomparison of Rudolf’s text with that of Curtius throws light on the Germanauthor’s interests and alterations, and on broader similarities and differencesbetween the Roman period and the thirteenth century.

It is essential for an understanding of the role and significance of warfarein Rudolf’s narrative to note that, while he does little to change the courseof events in Curtius, he presents Alexander in a different light. Rudolffocuses the narrative more exclusively than Curtius does on the figure ofAlexander himself, often reducing the colourful wider canvas of the Romanhistorian. More importantly, Rudolf offers an emphatic idealisation of Alex-ander that informs the presentation of his thoughts and actions on and offthe battlefield, as general and as king.

Alexander is an outstanding general already in Curtius’s work, but Curtiusalso presents a darker side to the Macedonian king, showing how his goodfortune corrupts him and pointing to his pride, his irascibility, his unjustkillings, his drunkenness and sexual debauchery beside the continuing posi-tive aspects of his character.20 Rudolf cuts or reshapes all these negative fea-tures, making Alexander a less complex figure psychologically than he is inCurtius, but a more exemplary leader. Rudolf emphasises time and again, innarrator commentary, in the words of the characters and in the shaping ofthe action, the importance of intelligence, wisdom, skill, planning, disci-pline and good man-management for success in warfare. This message isconcentrated in the portrayal of Alexander as the exemplary soldier andgeneral, with the terms witze, wîsheit, kunst, zuht and the like running as leit-motifs through the narration of Alexander’s actions and thoughts. Thesaelde and heil, the good fortune that Alexander traditionally enjoys, isunderpinned in Rudolf’s work by his personal qualities, so that the GermanAlexander reads at one level as a guide to good generalship.

As far as the pragmatics of military encounters are concerned, Rudolfdescribes the battles of Issus and Arbela and the siege of Tyre in some detail,and he has shorter accounts of many other military engagements.21 In thebattle descriptions Rudolf follows Curtius for the numbers of cavalry and

58

W. H. Jackson

20 See Heckel, pp. 12–13.21 The battles of Issus and Arbela are described on lines 6911–7546 and 11635–12812 of the

Alexander (ed. Junk), and the siege of Tyre on lines 8893–9440.

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

59

Figure 1. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 63, fol. 7r: Jofrit andWillehalm père meet at the lance which signals their dispute; battle in progress

between their armies. All plates are reproduced by kind permission of theBayerische Staatsbibliothek.

Image not available

60

W. H. Jackson

Figure 2. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 63, fol. 12r: Willehalmpursues Jofrit; Willehalm is killed by sarjande.

Image not available

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

61

Figure 3. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 63, fol. 56v: tournament atPoy, showing lance joust and grogierer wearing tabards with heraldic decoration.

Image not available

62

W. H. Jackson

Figure 4. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 63, fol. 81r: armed knightsdrive a herd of cattle; siege of Galverne.

Image not available

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

63

Figure 5. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 63, fol. 86v: combatbetween Willehalm and Gutschart; Gutschart’s surrender.

Image not available

infantry, and in describing scythed chariots.22 On the other hand the battledescriptions are amongst those parts of the text where Rudolf makes hismost substantial alterations to Curtius, and he does so in order to bring thesedescriptions into line with medieval concepts and practices. Thus Rudolfalters Curtius’s account of the battle of Issus to have the various contingentsattack in the sequence in which they were arranged in the battle order. Thissequential attack follows the pattern of Rudolf’s own Willehalm von Orlensand it matches the tactics of real battles in the Middle Ages, in which theline of battle ‘was rarely engaged at a single clash, but section by section’.23

Rudolf introduces another new element into the battle of Issus when heorders his men to construct a letze, a defensive fortification from which theycan make sorties and to which they can return for rest (6973–80). This forti-fication contributes to the success of the Macedonian army and is referred toseveral times during the battle.24 The construction of the letze is a typicalexample of Alexander’s intelligent tactical thinking.25 In broader terms thisaction is characteristic of the medieval concern with fortified places anddefensive works, and it is a mark of Rudolf’s attention to the tactics of con-temporary warfare that he twice evokes the situation of men defending aletze in Willehalm von Orlens, on lines 7796–800 and 12085–136. The besieg-ing of fortified places is one of the strongest links connecting warfare in theancient world with that of the Middle Ages, and Rudolf exploits this linkwhen he follows the main lines of Curtius’s account of the siege of Tyre.Rudolf places the siege of Tyre close to his German audience’s experiencewhen he comments that the defenders fought ‘as men still do who aresubject to attack’ (9068–9), and he adds a feature unknown to Curtius whenhe has the citizens of Tyre use Greek Fire to burn Alexander’s siege engines(8929–34). Greek Fire seems to have been a Byzantine invention of theseventh century that was used in the West from the mid-twelfth century.The Staufen emperor Frederick deployed Greek Fire at the siege of Viterboin 1243, though with unfortunate results, since a change in the wind caused

64

W. H. Jackson

22 See Alexander, lines 11659–81; Curtius IV, ix, 5. On scythed chariots used by Persian andHellenistic armies in the ancient world, see The Hutchinson Dictionary of Ancient andMedieval Warfare, pp. 67–8. The Gesta Frederici I. Imperatoris in Lombardia refers to similarlyarmed vehicles in 1160 in a conflict between Milan and the emperor. Here the Milanesemounted men and infantry set out with the familiar Italian carroccio and with a hundredother small chariots (or carts) prepared by the Milanese engineer Guintelmus, which wereshaped like shields at the front and surrounded with sharp irons made from scythes: ‘cumcarocero et aliis plaustrellis centum – que Guintelmus fecerat, que quasi ad modum scutifacta fuerunt in fronte; et in giro erant circumdata precidentibus ferris factis de falcibuspradariis’ (Italische Quellen über die Taten Kaiser Friedrichs I. in Italien und der Brief über denKreuzzug Kaiser Friedrichs I., ed. Schmale, p. 268). I am indebted to Holger Berwinkel(Marburg) for this twelfth-century reference to vehicles armed with scythes.

23 On the parallel with Willehalm von Orlens, see Pütz, pp. 187–8; on medieval battle tactics,see Contamine, p. 230.

24 See Alexander, lines 7153ff, 7212ff, 7316ff.25 See Pütz, pp. 184–5.

his own siege engines to catch light; the material would have been knownand feared by the military men in Rudolf’s audience.26

The armies include cavalry and infantry in Curtius’s and Rudolf’s works.However, in the accounts of pitched battles, the focus is already mainly oncavalry in the Roman work, and Rudolf goes further to describe the equip-ment and the fighting techniques of the cavalry in thirteenth-century,knightly terms. The account of knehte (squires) arming the ritter before thebattle of Issus (6891–910) has no equivalent in Curtius; it is Rudolf’s owncreation, and the armour is that of thirteenth-century knights, includinghauberk, chausses, helm with fitted crest and horse-covers. Later, in asingle challenge combat between Satibarzanes and Erigyius, Curtius hasSatibarzanes throw his spear (VII, iv, 36), but in Rudolf’s version the twoopponents break their spears in a tjoste (21228), a joust, where the shockcharge is so strong that it forces the horses back onto their haunches(21237–8). Clearly the ancient use of the spear as a throwing weapon hashere given place to the couched lance as a shock weapon. The use of mili-tary music to accompany the charge of contingents in battle is anothermedieval motif that Rudolf adds to Curtius’s narrative (12234–41).

Warfare is no less intimately bound up with social, ethical and politicalvalues in Alexander than was the case in Willehalm von Orlens; and Rudolf’streatment of Curtius’s life of Alexander shows paradigmatic alterations inprecisely these areas. The military distinction between cavalry and infantryacquires additional overtones of social hierarchy in Rudolf’s version. Thus,Rudolf departs from Curtius and follows the contemporary custom of prece-dence by consistently mentioning ritter before sarjande.27 He also introducesa new distinction placing cavalry on a higher level than infantry when hehas Alexander decree that in the division of spoils, material objects shall goto the sarjande, whilst captives shall be left to the ritter to ransom as they seefit (7075–80). With these shifts of presentation Rudolf transports into hisaccount of the ancient world the social distinctions between knights andlesser men that were becoming increasingly marked in thirteenth-centuryGermany.

Rudolf pays close attention to questions of motivation and morale inwarfare, and he makes a large alteration to the mentality of warfare vis-à-visCurtius by including the inspiration of women as an impetus to battle. In atypical address to his army before the key battle of Arbela, Alexander urgeshis men to take courage from the thought of women (12086–8) while hisenemy Darius, king of Persia, tries to spur his army on by pointing out thatthey outnumber the Macedonians six to one (12140–1) and that he willhave all the enemy killed if he is victorious (12160–2). Darius is defeated inthe ensuing battle, and here the German author privileges by the judgementof battle a military mentality that includes the latest in aristocratic cultural

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

65

26 On Greek fire, see Bradbury, esp. pp. 277 and 151.27 See Fechter, p. 145.

values (service of women) over a less civilised attitude that relies onstrength in numbers and shows no quarter to the defeated.

Alexander also accepts ethical constraints in his form of engagement withthe enemy. Again before the battle of Arbela, Alexander’s leading generalsadvise him to attack Darius’s army under cover of darkness and while thearmy is at rest (11815–51). Alexander rejects the advice on the grounds thatsuch covert action is fit only for robbers and murderers, while he will fightopenly and according to the dictates of êre and triuwe, honour and good faith(11852–78). The passage has a general validity in illustrating how, asMaurice Keen has pointed out,28 knightly honour was a factor of greatimportance in the conventions of war in the Middle Ages. Moreover, Rudolfhere follows Curtius (IV, xiii, 8–9) in relating Alexander’s scruples, and thisis a reminder that the medieval criterion of knightly honour in warfare alsodraws on the classical concern with gloria exhibited by Alexander inCurtius’s work (IV, xiii, 9). Characteristically, however, Curtius’s Alexanderfollows up his principled rejection of his generals’ advice by adding that sucha night attack would be fruitless anyway because the enemy will be underguard (IV, xiii, 10), while Rudolf omits this pragmatic consideration, pre-senting Alexander as being moved solely by the concern for honour andgood faith.

In the aftermath of victory Rudolf’s Alexander shows magnanimity in hishumane treatment of the vanquished and of captives, and this qualityextends to Alexander’s army in general: whereas Curtius tells how Alexan-der’s milites plundered and raped with the cruelty and licence of the victor(‘victoris crudelitas ac licentia’, III, xi, 22) after the battle of Issus, Rudolftransforms them into disciplined knights (ritter) who treat the captivewomen with utmost tact and sympathy (7547–72).

However, even in Rudolf’s version, Alexander at times exacts stern retri-bution by ordering capital punishment. Before the siege of Tyre its citizensviolate Alexander’s honour by killing the emissaries he has sent to negotiateterms and flinging them into the sea before Alexander’s eyes (8764–72).After the siege, Rudolf follows Curtius (IV, iv, 17) in having Alexander put2000 Tyreans to death, and the German author comments that this wasdone to avenge the shame done to the Macedonian king by the citizens(9407–20).29 Later Dimnus, a member of Alexander’s own army, plots

66

W. H. Jackson

28 Keen, The Laws of War, p. 20.29 The high figure of two thousand men put to death on Alexander’s command after the siege

of Tyre doubtless springs from Rudolf’s principle of fidelity to his source on numbers(Fechter, p. 145), even though he often modifies Curtius in ethical and psychological inter-pretations. However, in the Middle Ages too siege warfare was conducted at times withgreat savagery, and when a city was taken by force (as is the case with Tyre), ‘almost anylicence was condoned’ on the victor’s part (Keen, p. 121). Keen’s discussion of the special,harsh rules of medieval siege warfare (pp. 119–33) indicates that the burning of Tyre atAlexander’s command (Curtius IV, iv, 13; Rudolf 9383ff) would have been regarded as alegitimate step by a medieval audience. Curtius and Rudolf both indicate some constraint

against the king, and when his treachery is discovered he commits suicide inCurtius’s version (VI, vii, 29–30). Rudolf alters this to have Alexanderhimself order that Dimnus should suffer death by decapitation (19085–8).The mercy shown by Rudolf’s Alexander is thus not the Christian virtue ofabsolute forgiveness; it is a politically conditioned quality that stops short ofcondoning treachery against the king and offences against royal honour, andRudolf goes further than the Roman author in presenting the king as theproper enactor of justice. As Wilfried Schouwink has argued,30 these andother acts of retribution do not suggest a critical attitude of the authortowards Alexander but rather match a fierce strand in the practice ofStaufen rule and convey the message that even the exemplary king may treatrecalcitrant opponents with unmitigated severity.

As in Willehalm von Orlens so in Alexander warfare is presented in a largerpolitical framework; and the topic of warfare and government in Rudolf’sAlexander can usefully be approached through a comparison with anothermedieval treatment of the life of Alexander, the Alexandreis produced byWalter of Châtillon some time between 1176 and 1202. Like Rudolf vonEms, Walter drew chiefly on Curtius’s History of Alexander, and not only didRudolf use the same Roman source as Walter, but also he knew and usedWalter’s Alexandreis, especially for his account of Aristotle’s instruction ofthe young Alexander in the tasks of the ruler,31 so that a comparison ofRudolf’s Alexander and Walter’s Alexandreis can throw further light on theGerman work. Walter was a cleric who enjoyed the patronage of a leadingchurch dignitary, William of the White Hands, archbishop of Reims, and hiswork clearly shows the intellectual influence of the northern Frenchschools. Rudolf’s Alexander by contrast, for all its Latin learning, drawsstrongly on vernacular German literature for its style and presupposes aGerman aristocratic court as its target audience. The difference between thetwo works is marked for instance by Walter’s use of the Latin hexameter,and by his deployment of the classical world as a framework of learned refer-ence and a source of imagery. Like Rudolf, Walter focuses on Alexandereven more strongly than Curtius does, but while the French author’s selec-tions in the portrayal of warfare seem guided by considerations of a clerical,learned target audience, Rudolf seems to have in mind more the concerns ofthose who exercise secular lordship.

A striking instance of this difference is that whereas Walter in hisaccounts of Alexander’s military victories makes ‘no mention of the arrange-ments made by Alexander to rule the subdued areas’,32 Rudolf pays particular

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

67

in Alexander’s treatment of the defeated Tyreans by having him respect the law of sanctu-ary for those who have taken refuge in temples (IV, iv, 13; 9400–6), and this parallel showsa further link between the ancient and the medieval world in the conventions of warfare.

30 Schouwink, pp. 140–5.31 See Wisbey, pp. 100–8.32 Pritchard, pp. 10–11.

attention precisely to this aspect of the history of Alexander. When thepeople of Rhodes surrender to Alexander’s army the narrator asks the rhetor-ical question: ‘wie er besazte sîniu lant?’, ‘How did he settle his lands?’(9468); and he goes on to tell how Alexander gave charge of various regionsto different governors (following Curtius IV, v, 9). Such rhetorical ques-tions indicate how a narrator wishes to respond to, or to steer, his audience’sreactions. Time and again Rudolf tells how Alexander arranges to rule thelands that he has conquered or annexed, and often the arrangements for ruleare stated in medieval, feudal terms, with defeated lords receiving their landsagain as fiefs from Alexander (‘lêhen’, 2557, 13315; ‘nâch manschaft’,10695), and swearing ‘hulde’, fealty, to him (2848, 10565, 13307, 15081).Similarly Alexander distributes lands in fief as rewards to allies and to thosewho have served him in war.33

Warfare in Alexander thus leads to the formation of a great empire, thegovernance of which is described in terms of the ties of vassality and lord-ship that also shaped the social relations of Rudolf’s German audience.Indeed, in portraying Alexander’s wars, Rudolf von Ems seems to be at leastas interested in the exercise of government as he is in the topic of conquest.In his accounts of warfare and the establishment of rule Rudolf pays particu-lar attention to three related topics: the giving of counsel (rât), the relationbetween king and magnates (vürsten), and the securing of peace and justice.Willehalm von Orlens shows a similar political focus, and with this complexRudolf’s texts process matters of immediate political concern in Staufencourt circles.34

Throughout Willehalm von Orlens and Alexander Rudolf pays particularattention to scenes of counsel, not least in military contexts; and a majordidactic theme in the works is that the ruler should listen to advice, andshould do so with critical discrimination. We have seen, for instance, thatAlexander does not follow advice when he deems it to run counter to hishonour. The giving of counsel was of course an important political matterthroughout feudal society, and it had special relevance in Staufen circles inRudolf’s time, not least because of the problems of guidance that were posedby the young ages of the successive kings Henry VII and Conrad IV. Conradof Winterstetten, for whom Rudolf wrote Willehalm von Orlens, was himselfone of the leading advisors to the young King Henry, and then to the youngKing Conrad. Just how politically sensitive the giving of counsel to thesesons of Emperor Frederick II was is indicated in a letter from the emperor tohis son Conrad, reminding him that disobedience and false counsellorshad led to the fall of his brother Henry, and urging him to listen to

68

W. H. Jackson

33 Such scenes occur on lines 9153–6, 13450–3, 18546–50, 21295–6.34 For detailed interpretations of Rudolf’s works in the light of Staufen concerns, see Brackert,

especially pp. 67–9, 239–47; Schouwink, pp. 155–77.

good advice.35 Huillard-Bréholles dates the letter in 1244, the year inwhich Conrad, under whose patronage Rudolf was later to undertake hisWeltchronik, was sixteen. It was around this age that the young king mighthave received Willehalm von Orlens, which Rudolf completed for Conrad’smentor Conrad of Winterstetten before the latter’s death in 1243.

Rudolf also shows special interest in the magnates known as vürsten,‘princes’ in medieval German history, especially in their relation to the kingor emperor.36 In Willehalm von Orlens the hero is a prince of the empire whoreceives his fief from the hands of the emperor as a child (3130–8), and inAlexander the vürsten are recurrently presented around Alexander in warfareand in scenes of counsel. However, the relation of king and princes was amatter of considerable tension involving armed conflict in Germany duringRudolf von Ems’s literary career. This relation was a major issue in thediscord between the young King Henry VII and his father, Emperor Freder-ick II, from the late 1220s.37 Frederick relied on the princes as a crucialsupport to the crown in the business of government, while Henry enteredinto some conflict with them, not least by favouring support from towns. In1229 Henry made an armed attack on Louis (Ludwig), duke of Bavaria andforced him into submission. Such action led to the princes asserting them-selves in a more collective way. In 1231 they won confirmation of some oftheir rights from Henry in a statute that was confirmed by Frederick II in1232. Rudolf’s patron, Conrad of Winterstetten, was a witness to Frederick’sconfirmation of this statute.38 In 1233 Henry attacked the new duke ofBavaria, Otto, with a large army, forced his submission and took his sonhostage. No clear grounds are known for this attack. It may have been anattempt at territorial aggrandisement, in which case King Henry would havebeen in the position of attacking an imperial prince for reasons of powerpolitics and without sufficient legal grounds.39 This was precisely the kind ofreal-life situation in thirteenth-century German politics that underliesRudolf von Ems’s literary concern with the proper grounds for armed con-flict. In January 1235, after Henry’s open rebellion, Frederick wrote to allthe imperial princes, describing them as the essential members of the empireof which he was head and condemning Henry as a rebellious son who hadalso failed in his duty towards the princes.40 When Frederick arrived inGermany in May the princes rallied to his cause almost without exception,and Henry’s rebellion was quickly put down. In the light of these events theconcord between ruler and magnates that Rudolf recurrently presents in

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

69

35 See Schouwink, pp. 158 and 176–8, referring to the text of the letter in Huillard-BréhollesV, i, pp. 244–5.

36 On the central role of the princes in the governance of Germany in the Middle Ages, seeespecially Arnold, Princes.

37 For what follows on the conflict between Frederick and his son, see Stürner, pp. 275–309.38 See Weinrich, pp. 438 and 439, note 9.39 See Stürner, p. 300.40 See Stürner, pp. 303–4; text of letter in MGH Const. II, pp. 236–8, no. 193.

Willehalm von Orlens and in Alexander has a particular relevance to the con-temporary German political scene.

There is a fundamental ambivalence to warfare in Rudolf’s works in thatit is both a threat to ordered social life and the means whereby social order isrestored, and it is characteristic of Rudolf’s concern with the political frame-work of war that he shows a strong narrative interest in the securing of peaceand justice after military hostilities. Moreover, as Brackert has shown,41 thegreat scenes of the ruler’s establishing peace and justice in Willehalm vonOrlens and in Alexander correspond in spirit and in some details to theStaufen peace edicts (Landfrieden) that reached a high point in the MainzImperial Peace of 1235, a wide-ranging act of legislation that sought ‘todefine and to adjust the rights of three powerful parties, the royal dynasty,the German Church, and the secular princes into a mutual exercise ofregional political authority fitted to the circumstances of thirteenth-centuryGermany’.42

Rudolf’s account of Alexander’s arrangement of the government of Persiaafter the defeat and death of King Darius (15125–211) exemplifies thedifference between Curtius and Rudolf in their conception of Alexander asgeneral and ruler, and indicates the contemporary political orientation ofRudolf’s work. At the equivalent point in Curtius’s text, Alexander isdescribed as falling into a dissipated way of life after his victory (VI, ii, 1–2).Curtius’s Alexander is a great general but a flawed ruler who is unable tocontrol himself once the pressure of military action is removed. Rudolftransforms this image of the Macedonian king, making him into a morallyexemplary figure who combines perfectly the qualities of the great generaland the great ruler. The German author drops Curtius as his source at thispoint in the narrative, gives no hint of moral dissipation, and takes upinstead the Historia de preliis. Historia de preliis is a title used to describe thetradition of texts deriving from the account of Alexander’s achievementsthat was written by Archpriest Leo of Naples around 950; the wide and com-plicated spread of this tradition is discussed by Cary.43 The Historia tells howAlexander arranged the government of Persia after Darius’s death, andRudolf expands and adapts his source here to provide an exemplary image ofthe establishment of government (15125–211) that reflects in its wordingthe contemporary Staufen concern with counsel and the co-operation ofking and princes in the establishment of peace and justice.44 In the counselchamber as on the battlefield Alexander appears as a historical precedent forthe Staufen rulers. His disciplined army is a model for the German princesand knighthood in their relation to the ruling dynasty; and just as the mili-tary exchanges in Willehalm von Orlens and Alexander connect with the

70

W. H. Jackson

41 Brackert, pp. 67–79.42 Arnold, Medieval Germany, p. 156.43 See Cary, pp. 38–58.44 See Brackert, pp. 68–72.

contemporary German experience of warfare, so the concern with negoti-ated settlements and terms of peace in these works had a particular rele-vance in circles around the Staufen court in the years following the armedconflict between the forces of Henry VII and those allied to his father.

Finally, warfare is not just a matter of secular government in Rudolf’sAlexander; it also plays a metaphysical role in the broad sweep of worldhistory seen from a Christian standpoint, so that we see warfare from itsbeginning through to the end of the world. Rudolf departs from QuintusCurtius and draws on Christian authors to synchronise Alexander’s con-quests with Old Testament history. Here he follows Christian tradition tosee Nimrod, king of Babylonia, as the first ruler to introduce warfare intohuman life: ‘dô huop sich urliuges nôt’, ‘then the suffering of war arose’(17141), and with the war between Nimrod and Pontibus, king of Pontus,‘daz êrste urliuge huop sich an / daz lant mit lande ie gewan’, ‘the first warbegan that was conducted land against land’ (17147–8). Rudolf describesAlexander himself as God’s scourge, ‘Gotes geisel’ (10055), and he com-ments that Alexander’s victories were all at God’s command, as a punish-ment of the heathen (12873–909).

Warfare accompanies the whole of human history in Rudolf’s works, aspart of the divine plan, and he projects it into the future in Alexander whenhe draws on the tract known as the Pseudo-Methodius to include a prophecyof the end of the world (17319–573).45 In this excursus to his story of Alex-ander Rudolf taps into the rich stream of prophecies about the end of theworld that became caught up in propaganda conflicts between Empire andPapacy in the thirteenth century. A key feature in this current was thenotion of a Last Emperor who would introduce a period of peace and pros-perity before the onset of Antichrist.46 In Rudolf’s eschatological narrationwarfare appears in a negative sense when the Ismaelites shall enslave theworld with war, ‘mit urliug’ (17391), and in a positive sense when the lastRoman king shall be sent by God to defeat the Ismaelites (17496–514)before the birth of Antichrist heralds the end of the world. Moreover, eventhis eschatological view of war is another allusive gesture in favour of theStaufen dynasty, for they were kings of the Romans in Rudolf’s time, andBrackert’s detailed analysis of Rudolf’s account of the last days47 leaves nodoubt that the German author saw the victorious Last Emperor as stemmingfrom the Staufen dynasty.

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

71

45 On Pseudo-Methodius see Reeves, pp. 300–1; on Rudolf’s use of the text see Brackert, pp.188–93.

46 See Reeves, pp. 312–13.47 Brackert, pp. 186–200.

IV

War is not an unchanging constant but subject to variation in different cul-tures and different periods of history, and subject to differing evaluations indifferent social contexts. Rudolf’s works illuminate key features of medievalpractices and conceptions of warfare in a specific social context.

In a military sense, Rudolf’s emphasis on the need for skill, foresight, plan-ning and discipline in war, and his highlighting of military encounters asgroup combats, all match the findings of recent historians to dispel the viewthat thirteenth-century warfare was an individualist enterprise lacking indiscipline and tactics. Or perhaps Rudolf was reacting against individualisttendencies in literary portrayals of military action and in actual warfare, inorder to reinforce the need for discipline and tactical thinking. At any rate,the linking of prowess with wisdom that underlies Rudolf’s portrayal ofwarfare is not a merely abstract ideal but a recognition of the exigencies ofreal military action.

Rudolf’s writing of war also matches the historical record by presentingwar as being informed by social values of a hierarchical, legal and broadlypolitical nature. The giving of quarter among knights carries aristocraticconcepts into the theatre of war; the consideration of proper causes and theview of war as a judgement of God provide a legal framework of reference;and Rudolf shows particular interest in the politics and diplomacy of war,the bonding between ruler and nobles, the exercise of pressure by threat offorce, the opening and closing of hostilities, the negotiation of settlements.

As has recently been observed, war was often brutal in the MiddleAges, especially between classes or religions, and in sieges (and there are atleast intimations of all these sources of brutality in Rudolf’s works), but thematerial interest and the mentality of those involved in medieval warfarealso provided constraints that meant that warfare was neither anarchic nortotal but ‘organised, regulated and limited’.48 The practice of violence in theform of armed combat was a key feature in the social self-understanding ofthe secular aristocracy in the thirteenth century,49 and it was also crucial tothis self-understanding and to the cultural identity of the knightly nobilitythat the ethos of violence was accompanied by a range of legitimating con-straints, however diverse might have been the force of these constraints inspecific circumstances.

Vernacular literature was an important vehicle for the formulation andtransmission of this paradoxical complex of violence and constraint in thethirteenth century. Rudolf saw his own works as forming part of the develop-ing canon of German literature, and in his treatment of warfare as in somany aspects of his works, literary stylisation is also intimately bound up

72

W. H. Jackson

48 Honig, p. 122.49 On the subject see Kaeuper.

with the pressures and possibilities of the real life of the German aristocracyaround the Staufen court in the mid-thirteenth century.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Albrecht [von Scharfenberg?], Jüngerer Titurel, ed. Werner Wolf and KurtNyholm, 3 vols (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1955–1992).

Curtius Rufus, Quintus, History of Alexander, Latin text with English trans. byJohn C. Rolfe, 2 vols (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946;repr. 1956).

Historia diplomatica Frederici secundi, Huillard-Bréholles, Jean Louis Alphonse,ed., 7 vols in 12 (Paris: Plon, 1852–61).

Italische Quellen über die Taten Kaiser Friedrichs I in Italien und der Brief über denKreuzzug Kaiser Friedrichs I., ed. and trans. Franz-Josef Schmale (Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1986).

MGH Const. II = Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Constitutiones et acta publicaimperatorum et regum, ed. Ludwig Weiland, vol. 2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1896).

Rudolf von Ems, Der guote Gerhart, ed. John A. Asher (Tübingen: Niemeyer,1971; 2nd edn).

Rudolf von Ems, Barlaam und Josaphat, ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig: Göschen,1843; repr. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965).

Rudolf von Ems, Willehalm von Orlens, ed. Victor Junk (Berlin: Weidmann,1905; repr. Dublin and Zürich: Weidmann, 1967).

Rudolf von Ems, Alexander, ed. Victor Junk, 2 vols (Leipzig: Hiersemann,1928–9; repr. in one vol., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,1970).

Rudolf von Ems, Weltchronik, ed. Gustav Ehrismann (Berlin: Weidmann, 1915;repr. Dublin and Zürich: Weidmann, 1967).

Walter of Châtillon, The Alexandreis, trans., introduction and notes byR. Telfryn Pritchard (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies,1986).

Weinrich, Lorenz, ed., Quellen zur deutchen Verfassungs-, Wirtschafts- undSozialgeschichte bis 1250 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,1977).

II. Studies

Althoff, Gerd, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden undFehde (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997).

Althoff, Gerd, ‘Genugtuung (satisfaction). Zur Eigenart gütlicher Konflikt-beilegung im Mittelalter’, in Modernes Mittelalter: Neue Bilder einer populärenEpoche, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig: Insel, 1994),pp. 247–65.

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

73

Arnold, Benjamin, Princes and Territories in Medieval Germany (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Arnold, Benjamin, Medieval Germany 500–1300: A Political Interpretation(Houndsmill and London: MacMillan, 1997).

Brackert, Helmut, Rudolf von Ems: Dichtung und Geschichte (Heidelberg: Winter,1968).

Bradbury, Jim, The Medieval Siege (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1992).Brunner, Otto, Land und Herrschaft: Grundfragen der territorialen Verfassungs-

geschichte Österreichs im Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-schaft, 1970; 6th edition).

Bumke, Joachim, Mäzene im Mittelalter: Die Gönner und Auftraggeber derhöfischen Literatur in Deutschland (Munich: Beck, 1979).

Bumke, Joachim, Höfische Kultur: Literatur und Gesellschaft im hohen Mittelalter,2 vols (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986).

Cary, George, The Medieval Alexander (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1956).

Contamine, Philippe, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (Oxford:Blackwell, 1984).

Duby, Georges, Le Dimanche de Bouvines, 27 juillet 1214 (Paris: Gallimard, 1985;first publ. 1973).

Ertzdorff, Xenja von, Rudolf von Ems: Untersuchungen zum höfischen Roman im13. Jahrhundert (Munich: Fink, 1967).

Fechter, Werner, Lateinische Dichtkunst und deutsches Mittelalter: Forschungenüber Ausdrucksmittel, poetische Technik und Stil mittelhochdeutscher Dichtungen(Berlin: Schmidt, 1964).

Hagenlocher, Albrecht, Der ‘guote vride’: Idealer Friede in deutscher Literatur bisins frühe 14. Jahrhundert (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1992).

Heckel, Waldemar, Introduction to Quintus Curtius Rufus: The History of Alex-ander, trans. John Yardley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), pp. 1–15.

Honig, Jan Willem, ‘Warfare in the Middle Ages’, in War, Peace and WorldOrders in European History, ed. Anja V. Hartmann and Beatrice Heuser(London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 113–26.

The Hutchison Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Warfare, ed. Matthew Bennett(Oxford: Helicon, 1998).

Jackson, William Henry, ‘Das Turnier in der deutschen Dichtung desMittelalters’, in Das ritterliche Turnier im Mittelalter, ed. Josef Fleckenstein(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985), pp. 257–95.

Kaeuper, Richard W., Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1999).

Kamp, Hermann, Friedensstifter und Vermittler im Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Wissen-schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2001).

Keen, Maurice H., The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (London andToronto: Routledge & Kegan Paul and University of Toronto Press, 1965).

Pritchard, R. Telfryn, Introduction to trans. of The Alexandreis: see Walter ofChâtillon.

Pütz, Hans Henning, Die Darstellung der Schlacht in mittelhochdeutschen Erzähldich-tungen von 1150 bis um 1250 (Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1971).

Reeves, Marjorie, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study inJoachimism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969).

74

W. H. Jackson

Schnell, Rüdiger, Rudolf von Ems: Studien zur inneren Einheit seines Gesamtwerkes(Bern: Francke, 1969).

Schouwink, Wilfried, Fortuna im Alexanderroman Rudolfs von Ems: Studien zumVerhältnis von Fortuna und Virtus bei einem Autor der späten Stauferzeit(Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1977).

Schröder, Edward, ‘Rudolf von Ems und sein Literaturkreis’, Zeitschrift fürdeutsches Altertum 67 (1930): 209–51.

Stacey, Robert C., ‘The Age of Chivalry’, in The Laws of War: Constraints onWarfare in the Western World, ed. Michael Howard, George J. Andreopoulosand Mark R. Shulman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,1994), pp. 27–39.

Strickland, Matthew, ‘A Law of Arms or a Law of Treason? Conduct in War inEdward I’s Campaigns in Scotland, 1296–1307’, in Violence in MedievalSociety, ed. Richard W. Kaeuper (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2000), pp. 39–77.

Stürner, Wolfgang, Friedrich II. Teil 2: Der Kaiser 1220–1250 (Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000).

Verbruggen, J. F., The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Agesfrom the Eighth Century to 1340, trans. Sumner Willard and Mrs R. W.Southern (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1997).

Weigele-Ismael, Erika, Rudolf von Ems: Wilhelm von Orlens: Studien zur Aus-stattung und zur Ikonographie einer illustrierten deutchen Epenhandschrift des 13.Jahrhunderts am Beispiel des Cgm 63 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München(Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1997).

Weller, Karl, ‘Zur Kriegsgeschichte der Empörung des Königs Heinrich gegenKaiser Friedrich II’, Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte NF4 (1895): 176–84.

Wisbey, Roy, Das Alexanderbild Rudolfs von Ems (Berlin: Schmidt, 1966).

Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems

75

Chronicling the Hundred Years War inBurgundy and France in the FifteenthCentury

GEORGES LE BRUSQUE

THE PALADIN, the thug, and the soldier: with a touch of hyperbole,one could describe as such the three images which the French and

Burgundian chroniclers of the later part of the Hundred Years War offer ofthe knight, the major actor of the Anglo-French wars. Beyond this, it wasthe chroniclers’ whole outlook on warfare which varied extensively, fromthe heroic vision of the Burgundian Georges Chastelain to the denunciationof the horrors of war by the Bourgeois de Paris, or the pragmatic perspectiveof the Berry Herald, alias Gilles Le Bouvier.1 These authors are exponents ofthree genres of chronicling wars which emerge when examining thehistoriographical scene in the Kingdom of France and the Duchy of Bur-gundy throughout the first sixty years of the fifteenth century. I propose todelineate these three groups, with reference to the chroniclers’ treatment ofthe period between Agincourt (1415) and the days of Joan of Arc, in 1429.We shall see how some of the men who witnessed these dramatic times ofcivil war and invasion approached them in writing, recording them forposterity.

THE CHIVALRIC CHRONICLES OF BURGUNDY

The school of historiography which developed under the aegis of DukePhilip the Good of Burgundy may be the genre with which we are mostfamiliar, as it exemplifies a favourite theme of modern scholars: the rever-ence professed by the nobility and the ruling class towards the ideals ofchivalry at the close of the Middle Ages, in times when the evolutionof tactics and the increasingly murderous character of war rendered this

77

1 This article is derived from my 2001 unpublished doctoral thesis, ‘From Agincourt (1415)to Fornovo (1495)’.

ideological decorum somewhat obsolete.2 Philip the Good, who was alliedwith the English until 1435, had high ambitions for his rich domain. In hisattempt to put Burgundy on an equal footing with the old kingdoms ofFrance and England, Philip adopted an impressive cultural policy, revolvingaround the ideals of chivalry. By posing as a champion of this worthy disci-pline, the Duke hoped to secure the allegiance of the Burgundian nobility.3

The promotion of a chivalrous historiography, which glorified the deeds per-formed by the Burgundian, French and English knights in the wars of thetime, was an important element in Philip’s designs to increase the inter-national prestige of his young state.4 Enguerrand de Monstrelet, whopresented his chronicle to Duke Philip in 1447, may be regarded as thefounder of the Burgundian chivalric chronicle, which culminated with theappointment of Georges Chastelain as the first official and remuneratedhistoriographer of Burgundy in 1455. Although Chastelain and otherexponents of the genre under Philip’s rule, such as the knight Jean deWavrin or the herald Jean Le Fèvre de Saint-Rémy, made extensive use ofMonstrelet’s narrative for the years 1400–1444, the genre underwent avisible evolution, from Monstrelet’s still unpretentious style to Chastelain’sbombastic presentation of Duke Philip’s first deeds of arms. The spiritualfather of the Burgundian chivalric chronicle was Jean Froissart, who hadrecorded the martial deeds of Edward III, du Guesclin and the Black Princein an epic prose style. Froissart had inflamed the imaginations of his aristo-cratic readers by presenting proesce as the martial virtue par excellence, andthe stuff of which history was made. In a paragraph which is often quoted forits manifesto-like character, he argued that the name of preu was a treasureso dearly earned, that it would be a sin to allow the deeds performed by thedisciples of prowess to be forgotten:

J’ai ce livre [Jean Le Bel’s chronicle] hystoriiet et augmenté à la mienne,. . . sans faire fait, ne porter partie, ne coulourer plus l’un que l’autre, forstant que li bien fais des bons, de quel pays qu’il soient, qui par proèce l’ontacquis, y est plainnement veus et cogneus, car de l’oubliier ou esconser, ceseroit pechiés et cose [chose] mal apertenans, car esploit d’armes sont sichierement comparet et achetet, che scèvent chil qui y traveillent, que on

78

Georges Le Brusque

2 On chivalry in the Late Middle Ages see in particular Howard, pp. 1–19; Fowler, pp.140–81; Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages; Keen; and Vale. Vale has shown that itwas wrong to overemphasize the decline of the knight in the fifteenth century: althoughAgincourt, like Crécy, Courtrai or Bannock Burn in the former century, did indicate therise of infantry as a redoubtable tactical force, the heavy cavalrymen still found ways toremain an element of prime importance in late medieval armies until the beginning of thesixteenth century.

3 On the policy of the princes of royal blood (and primarily the Dukes of Burgundy) withregard to the French nobility in the Hundred Years War see Caron, pp. 141–205.

4 On politics and literature at the Valois court of Burgundy see Poirion’s ‘Préface’ andRégnier-Bohler’s ‘Introduction générale’ in Splendeurs de la cour de Bourgogne. Récits etchroniques, pp. i–xxix.

n’en doit nullement mentir pour complaire à autrui, . . . et donner à chiausqui n’en sont mies digne.5

I have compiled and augmented this work [Jean Le Bel’s chronicle] . . .without doing anything, nor favouring any party, nor lending more colourto the deeds of the one side more than to those of the other, only ensuringthat the good works of the good men, from whatever country, who per-formed them through prowess, should be clearly seen and known, for itwould be a sin . . . to forget or neglect them, for feats of arms are sohard-earned and hard-won . . ., as those who perform them do know, thatone should never tell lies so as to flatter anybody . . . nor attribute them tothose who may not be worthy of them.

Froissart dedicated his chronicle to the recording of fine feats of arms,martial valour being the ruling criterion for inclusion in his work – thegateway to everlasting fame.

In their prologues, the Burgundian chroniclers profess the same commit-ment to the recording of instances of Proèce. Monstrelet explained that itwas only natural that the valiant men who had been involved as fighters inthe recent dramatic events, often tragically, should be rewarded ‘en racomp-tant leurs vaillances, bonnes renommées et noble fais, quand pour eulx etleurs successeurs, est et doit estre dénoncé par les vivans, à durablemémoire’, ‘by relating their exploits, good fame and noble deeds, which mustbe exposed by the living, for everlasting memory’.6 They were the heroes ofthese epic times. As in Froissart, the knights in our chivalric chronicles actaccording to a well-established code of chivalry, which embellishes and dis-tinguishes their way of waging war. They appear loyal to their lord, coura-geous, honourable, and courteous. In fact, the only major point of differencebetween Froissart and his Burgundian heirs lies in their increased partisanspirit. Froissart wrote for different patrons successively and may appear asrelatively neutral; the Burgundian chroniclers on the other hand clearlyuphold Philip’s policy. The wish to present a version of history that wasfavourable to their prince, already noticeable in Monstrelet, becomesblatant in the official chronicle of Chastelain. Thus the chroniclers excusedPhilip’s alliance with the English on the grounds that, as an honourable andchivalrous prince, Philip could not leave the murder of his father by theDauphinists without response. Chastelain offers an interesting example as herelates how, in 1422, Philip the Good asked Henry V for assistance on hisway to confront the Dauphin at Cosne-sur-Loire. The chronicler blames

79

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France

5 J. Froissart, Chroniques, i, 2. Translations from the sources are my own; for Monstrelet andJean de Wavrin I have taken my inspiration from The Chronicles of Enguerrand deMonstrelet, ed. and trans. T. Johnes; and A Collection of the Chronicles and ancient histories ofGreat Britain, now called England, by John de Wavrin, ed. and trans. W. Hardy and E. L. C. P.Hardy.

6 Monstrelet iv, 128. The prologue of Monstrelet’s second book does not appear in ThomasJohnes’ translation.

Henry V for responding positively and preparing to do more harm to thechrestien peuple of France, ‘jà-soit-ce-que ce fust plus en faveur de son allyé leduc de Bourgongne, de qui la querelle estoit de pitié, plus que pour la siennepropre’, ‘more to profit his ally the duke of Burgundy, whose case was pitiful,than to promote his own interests’. Chastelain was a francophile anddeplored on many occasions the miseries of France during the HundredYears War. Although he felt uneasy about Philip’s alliance with the English,the chronicler would not blame Philip’s policy: he insisted that his cause wasjust, more than that of Henry. Chastelain presents Philip’s plea for Henry’ssupport as a demonstration of humility – ‘non soy présumant en propre puis-sance’, ‘not presuming in his own strength’ – yet he criticises Henry’s eager-ness to come with his army: the English king was actuated by profanevainglory.7 In the end, the Dauphin avoided the fight, as the combinedforces of Henry and Philip were too great a challenge.

One of the most interesting aspects of the chivalric chronicling of waris what has occasionally been described as the aesthetics of war.8 Writtento please the noblesse d’épée, the noble military caste, the chroniclers oftendepicted war as a beautiful affair, both in the moral and physical sense.The aesthetic canons of chivalric warfare had been developed by Froissart,and they are eloquently expressed, for instance, in Jean de Wavrin’s reportof Verneuil (1424), a battle which the knight ranked as the greatestamong all those in which he had taken part because it was particularlyfierce, with equal chances on both sides, and fought mainly by sheer bodilystrength:

Je vey l’assemblée d’Azincourt, ou beaucop y avoit plus de princes et degens, et aussi celle de Crevant, quy fut une tres belle besongne ; mais pourcertain celle de Verneuil fut du tout plus a redoubter et la mieulzcombatue.

I saw the battle of Agincourt, where there were far more princes and men,as well as that of Cravant, which was a very fine affair, yet certainly that ofVerneuil was the most formidable, and the best fought.9

Wavrin equally praised the magnificence of the armies, and the spectacularcharacter of the fight, as well as the courage and determination of the fight-ers. Such events brought out the best qualities in those who fought. Acentury earlier, Froissart had similarly declared that he thought more highlyof the battle of Poitiers (1356) than of Crécy (1346): the chronicler wasmore sensitive to Poitiers – where King John was honourably captured – as

80

Georges Le Brusque

7 Chastelain (i, 321–2) talks of Henry V’s ‘convoitise . . . de régner en la gloire du monde’,his ‘desire to rule in the glory of the world’.

8 See for instance Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 96.9 Wavrin iii, 109.

a show, than to the significant strategic lessons of Edward III’s earliervictory.10

As they were exceptional events, opposing major armies led by the flowerof nobility, and almost viewed as appeals to the judgement of God,11 battleswere seen as the most outstanding events in a knight’s career. Monstrelet,Wavrin and Saint-Rémy devoted pages and pages of their works to the sen-sational and dramatic battle of Agincourt, which had shaken them tremen-dously, as it had the rest of the kingdom. In many respects, Agincourt brokewith the chivalric traditions, and the chroniclers were rather disconcerted.They were abashed, for instance, at the appearance of King Henry’s archers,who for the most part had no armour on, and wore their hose below theknee, some even going barefoot.12 The aesthetic standards of chivalricwarfare were upset. Yet this riff-raff could utterly destroy the splendid heavycavalry of France. The chroniclers did not really stop to draw conclusionsfrom the success of the English tactics; instead they dwelt on the forlorncourage and valour of the knights, who had come running to the battle‘comme se ce fust à aller à une festes de joustes ou de tournoy’, ‘as if theywere going to a festive joust or tournament’, to quote Saint-Rémy (i, 128).They recounted many a story of brave and hopeless deeds, such as the vainprowess exhibited by Duke Antoine de Brabant, who had arrived at thebattle with only a few men. So impatient was he to fight, that his companyhad been unable to keep pace with him. Without bothering to wait for hismen, the Duke grabbed a banner from one of his trumpeters and cut a holein the middle, so as to make himself a coat of arms. He had no soonerreached the English lines than the archers slew him.13 The tribute paid tothe valour, however vain, of the knights of France gives a truly tragic andmoving flavour to these chroniclers’ narratives.

THE CLERICAL CHRONICLE

Closer to the events in question, a number of French chroniclers, whom Ishall refer to as ‘clerical chroniclers’, relate the period in a very differentway. In the early fifteenth century we find the Bourgeois de Paris (in fact acleric from the University of Paris), the parish priest and apostolical notaryPierre Cochon, and the monk of Saint Denis Michel Pintoin, who wrote inLatin. Pintoin was the continuator of the Grandes chroniques de France, andso it is worth noting that the work of one of our clerical chroniclers had, at

81

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France

10 Cf. Froissart v, 42–3.11 On the significance of the pitched battle in the ideology of medieval warfare see Con-

tamine, ‘L’idée de guerre à la fin du Moyen Age’.12 Monstrelet iii, 106; Saint-Rémy i, 254.13 Saint-Rémy i, 256.

the time, a semi-official status.14 The Bourgeois and Cochon wrote mostprobably for themselves, or a restricted circle. The clerical tradition ofchronicling war in France has attracted relatively less attention frommodern scholars than the chivalric genre we have just discussed; NicholasWright has, however, accurately, if succinctly, delineated its main charac-teristics, connecting some of its exponents to a wider circle of personalities,including the lawyer Honoré Bonet, Jean de Montreuil the royal secretary,the preacher Jean Gerson or poets such as Alain Chartier, who had theirhearts set on defending the cause of the humble.15

Whereas the chivalric genre of Burgundy had its origin in Froissart’schronicle, the clerical chronicling of war is very reminiscent of the work ofJean de Venette, a contemporary of Froissart, who related the Anglo-Frenchconflict in an entirely different manner. Like Venette, Cochon, Pintoin andthe Bourgeois sympathized with the common people; they did not considerthe Hundred Years War as a grand and epic time but as a dark period ofsuffering and tribulation. Also, like Venette, our authors did not hesitate tocastigate the nobility in very forthright terms. The function of the knightswas to protect the labourers and the peasants, yet in these times of anarchyand civil war they would rather trample the people under foot. PierreCochon, for instance, lamented the state of the country around Rouen, in1415, once the French soldiers who were supposed to protect Harfleur hadleft. The natives had fled from their homes, and the soldiers had taken allthat was left in the houses, before setting fire to doors and windows.16

Nothing in the chronicles seems to indicate that the knights behaved betterthan the common soldiers. In fact, most of the chroniclers’ rancour isdirected against the knights.

The clerical chroniclers strongly resented the fact that the Frenchchivalry could not stand up to the English. Sometimes they even had theimpression that the knights were unconcerned, or afraid: in 1415 and in1417, they had done nothing to save Harfleur and Rouen. The knightsappeared not only useless, but also harmful to the people; they were seen asparasites. In a prosopopoeia attributed to the personified city of Rouen,Michel Pintoin (iii, Book 39, 307) severely censures the chivalry of France:

Chevaliers sans courage, qui êtes si fiers de vos cuirasses et de vos casquesempanachés, qui mettez toute votre gloire dans le pillage et le jeu de dés,

82

Georges Le Brusque

14 On the Dionysian tradition of historiography see Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culturehistorique dans l’occident médiéval, pp. 340–2. Guenée has emphasized that Pintoin’s chron-icle was not patronized by the King of France, and that Pintoin did not intend to be thespokesman of the men in power. Yet the Grandes chroniques enjoyed a high reputation, andPintoin’s friends, several of them being close to the royal circle, as notaries or secretaries ofthe King, occasionally expressed wishes (which Pintoin more or less willingly observed)regarding the inclusion of specific events or documents in the chronicle (cf. L’opinionpublique, pp. 163–9).

15 See Wright, Knights and Peasants, pp. 13, 17–18.16 P. Cochon’s Chronique rouennaise in the Chronique normande, esp. pp. 316–56.

cette source de . . . blasphêmes contre Notre-Seigneur, vous qui vantiezavec tant d’arrogance les prouesses de vos aïeux, vous voilà maintenantdevenus la fable des Anglais et la risée de toutes les nations étrangères.

Knights without courage, you who take pride in your armour plate andplumed helmets, you who glory in looting and playing dice, that source of. . . blasphemy against our Lord, you who boasted with so much arroganceabout the feats of valour of your ancestors, now you have become thelaughing stock of the English and the butt of foreign nations.

This tirade offers a fine example of the clerical chroniclers’ style, which isstrongly reminiscent of vigorous sermons aiming to castigate the proudnobility and take up the cause of the humble. What is also typical ofsermons is Pintoin’s vehement disapproval of gambling with dice, which ourchronicler seems to consider as criminal as ill-treating the peasants. Cochonand the Bourgeois could be even more violent when venting their anger.Thus Cochon (p. 302) refers in turn to the routiers who were ransoming andlooting the people of Normandy around 1429 as:

une maniere de larons qui apatichoient les villez, et prenoient gensprisonniers de tous estas, et les mestoient a grosse finanches. Et s’allerentrendre avec eulx plusieurs gens du pais de Caux, merdalle et truandalle,qui faisoient tant de maulx que c’estoit mervaille . . . Et couroient cellemerdalle-là jusques emprès Rouen.

some kinds of brigands who racketed the towns, and captured the peopleof all estates, and heavily ransomed them. And many men of the region deCaux joined them, thugs and rubbish who did so much harm it was hardlybelievable . . . And all this scum overran the country as far as Rouen.

Some of these brigands were undeniably knights, for Cochon (p. 304) tellsus that the routiers who were captured by the English, and had once swornallegiance to them, were beheaded, a method of execution traditionallyreserved for the nobility.

Unlike the Burgundian chivalrous chroniclers, Pintoin, Cochon and theBourgeois saw no beauty or nobility in the waging of war, at least during thistroubled period. In a bitter invective, Pintoin (Chronique du Religieux iii,Book 40, 399) rejected the principles of the chivalrous chronicle, stating:

La plupart des habitants du royaume applaudissaient à ces atrocités et lesvantaient à la façon des hérauts d’armes : ‘En telle rencontre, disaient-ils,les Armagnacs ont vaincu les Bourguignons’ . . . comme si de pareils faitsméritaient, à leurs yeux, d’être consignés par écrit. Quant à moi, aux yeuxde qui toutes ces hostilités n’avaient aucun résultat que la désolation duroyaume, j’ai cru que le récit devait en être abandonné aux accents de lamuse tragique, plutôt que retracé par la plume de l’historien.

Most of the inhabitants of the Kingdom applauded these atrocities, prais-ing them in the manner of heralds: ‘During such battle, they would say,the Armagnacs defeated the Burgundians’ . . . as if such actions deserved,

83

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France

in their eyes, to be recorded in writing. As for me, who only saw in thesehostilities the desolation of the Kingdom, I thought it best to let theirnarratives be lamented by the tragic muse, rather than be recorded by thehistorian’s pen.

The chivalric chroniclers had related Agincourt as a moving misfortune,paying tribute to the knights’ forlorn courage. In the clerical chronicles, thedestruction of the chivalry of France is devoid of any eminence or dignity.Pintoin mocks the arrogance of the knights, who had charged joyfullyagainst the English, shouting ‘Mont-joie!’, and he scornfully relates theoutcome of the battle (iii, Book 36, 563): ‘Alors la noblesse de France futfaite prisonnière et mise à rançon, comme un vil troupeau d’esclaves, ou ellepérit sous les coups d’une obscure soldatesque’, ‘The nobility of France wasthen captured and ransomed like a vile herd of slaves, or else it was slaugh-tered by an obscure soldiery.’ Cochon explains that the knights had refusedthe help of any fighters who did not belong to the nobility, curtly conclud-ing (p. 275): ‘Et fu la pluz laide besongne et plus malvese que, puis mil anz,avenist au roialme de France’, ‘And thus happened the ugliest affair, and themost wicked, that the Kingdom of France had seen in a thousand years.’

Both chroniclers simply see the battle as a massacre of fools on a largescale. Both also criticize the fact that the knights had discarded the supportof the communes, the people’s militias. Our clerical chroniclers thus echo thepeople’s wish to take an active part in the defence of the Kingdom, an ideawhich was expressed half a century earlier in the Complainte sur la bataille dePoitiers, written shortly after the disaster of 1356. The anonymous writer ofthe Complainte had urged the Duke of Normandy (the future Charles V) totake up the fight again and avenge King John; only this time, he shouldallow the people of France to participate in the fight:

S’il est bien conseillé, il n’obliera mieMener Jaque Bonhomme en sa grant compagnieGuerres ne s’enfuira pour ne perdre la vie

If well counselled, he shall not neglect / To include Jacques Bonhomme inhis great company / At least he [Jacques Bonhomme] shall not flee to savehis life.17

The Bourgeois de Paris often suggests that the Parisian commune foughtbetter than the knights. He relates how in 1418 – the year of the terribleuprisings in Paris, a time when the Parisian commune was particularly im-passioned – the commune had launched an attack on the Armagnac fortressof Montlhéry. The Burgundian knights soon ordered the commune to raisethe siege, as they had been warned about the coming of Armagnac reinforce-ments. According to the Bourgeois, however, this was a mere pretext: he

84

Georges Le Brusque

17 Quoted from F. Autrand, ‘La déconfiture. La bataille de Poitiers (1356) à travers quelquestextes français des 14e et 15e siècles’, in Guerre et société en France, p. 99.

asserts that the Armagnacs had bribed the Burgundian knights. He argues(pp. 111–12):

Qui eut laissé faire les communes, il n’y eust demouré Arminac en Franceen mains de deux moys qu’ilz n’eussent mis à fin ; et pour ce hayoient lesgentilzhommes qui ne vouloient que la guerre, et ilz la vouloient mettreà fin.

Had the communes had their way, France would have been cleared of allArmagnacs within two months; and that is why they hated the nobility, forall the nobles wanted was war, and they wanted to put an end to war.

In the opinion of the Bourgeois, the knights only fought to enrich them-selves by looting and ransoming prisoners, whereas the commune aimed torestore peace. Once they had returned to their homes, the Parisian militia-men ‘allerent faire leur labour’, ‘they went back to their work’; the knightson the other hand lived for and through war, and one could not trust themto end the conflict.

In both the works of Pintoin and Cochon, however, one notices a returnof confidence in the nobility of France, after the Treaty of Troyes (1420):once Henry V had in effect gained the governance of Northern France, asthe Dauphinists, formerly the Armagnacs, continued to resist the English, inPintoin’s case; and with the deeds of Joan of Arc in Cochon’s chronicle. Itseems that the reason for these changes was a strong patriotic feeling, whichprompted the chroniclers to back the traditional defenders of France when-ever Fortune seemed to favour them. Cochon (p. 300) writes very enthusias-tically of the victory of Patay (1429), stating that the English were ‘très biencatrés, plus que onques mès n’avoient esté en France’, ‘well and trulycastrated, as they had never yet been in France’, and that they wished toreturn to England, only the Duke of Bedford would not let them. And thechronicler rejoices over the seizure of Château-Gaillard by the French, andthe subsequent release of Barbazan, a Dauphinist captain whom Cochoncalls ‘ung bon et notable chevalier’, ‘a good and eminent knight’, who hadbeen kept prisoner for seven years in the fortress. Cochon relates (pp.308–9) how Barbazan was led ‘à grant joie et solemnité’, ‘with much rejoic-ing and solemnity’, to Louviers. Only the Bourgeois, insubordinate bynature, continues to slander the knights and the governors well after there-establishment of France.

THE FRENCH CHIVALRIC CHRONICLE

A chivalric tradition of chronicling wars flourished in France throughoutthe first seventy years of the fifteenth century; however it was rather differ-ent in style and spirit from Burgundian chivalric historiography. Less homo-geneous in appearance, the genre includes the official history of Jean

85

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France

Chartier, the continuator of Michel Pintoin, the Berry Herald’s semi-officialchronicle, as well as the Chronique d’Arthur de Richemont by the BretonGuillaume Gruel and Perceval de Cagny’s Chronique des ducs d’Alençon. Onecould also include some less easily definable works such as the curiousChronique de la Pucelle, a straightforward chronicle which suddenly developsinto hagiography with the appearance of Joan of Arc, or the remarkableJouvencel, a fictional work by the experienced captain Jean de Bueil, basedon real military events from the Hundred Years War. The Jouvencel, in fact,could be seen as de Bueil’s memoirs in disguise.

Compared with the works of Saint-Rémy, Wavrin and Chastelain, themajority of the French chivalric chronicles appear unadorned and factual,recording the course of war with only a few subjective comments. In a sense,they were close in spirit to the work of the chronicler Jean Le Bel, of whomFroissart had been the continuator: it was Jean Le Bel who had advocatedthe use of prose over verse to celebrate chivalric deeds, arguing that verse bynature tended to embellish martial feats to such an extent that they becameimplausible.18

Like Monstrelet or Wavrin, the French clerical chroniclers had greatesteem for the institution of chivalry, as well as its values, and first and fore-most proesce. This is particularly evident in the opening of Jean Chartier’schronicle, begun in 1437; the King’s historiographer declares (i, 27) that hehas undertaken to write the history of Charles VII ‘affin qu’il soit perpétuellemémoire des gestes et faiz du dit roy, de sesdits adversaires et de leurschevalleries’, ‘So as to perpetuate the memory of the deeds and exploits ofthe said king, of his adversaries, and of their acts of chivalry’. However, theFrench chivalric chronicle differed from its Burgundian homonym in anumber of respects. The Burgundian chroniclers presented chivalry as aninternational brotherhood, lamenting for instance the death of eminentEnglish knights. Philip the Good had been allied with the English for morethan a decade, and presenting chivalry as a fellowship was a convenient wayof appearing hostile neither to the English nor to the French; Chastelain,who rebuked the English on many occasions, is the exception. The Frenchchroniclers, by contrast, were often intent on venting their resentmenttowards the English. Thus Jean Chartier violently asserts Charles VII’s legit-imacy in his prologue, declaring (I, 26): ‘Et a esté occuppé la plus grant partd’icelluy royaulme viollamment et contre raison par les dits Angloiz, anciensennemis du dit roy et de ses prédecesseurs’, ‘and most of the said Kingdomwas occupied by force, with no justification, by the said English, the oldenemies of the said king and his predecessors’. He further deplores (I, 28)the fact that the realm had been ruled ‘par estranges manières et nacions, quiestoit et est contre raison et ordre de droit, à la totalle destruction du peupleet du royaulme de France’, ‘by foreign nations, according to foreign customs,

86

Georges Le Brusque

18 On this aspect of Jean Le Bel’s historiography see Keen, ‘Chivalry’, p. 402.

which was and is against reason and right, to the utter destruction of thepeople and of the Kingdom of France’. The struggle against the English haddeveloped patriotic feelings; this is particularly evident in the Chronique dela Pucelle, which often appears violently anti-English. The chroniclerdenounces the unchivalric behaviour of the Earl of Salisbury, who brutallyinvaded the Duke of Orléans’ territories despite the fact that the Frenchprince was held prisoner in England, explaining how a multitude of soldiers,‘tant Anglois comme faulx François’, ‘both English and turncoat French’,attacked Orléans, and praising the fierce resistance of the people, includingthe women, who brought food and wine to the defenders and occasionallydrove off the assailants themselves.19

One notable difference between the French chivalric chronicles and theirBurgundian counterparts is that, having experienced humiliation and defeatfor decades, the knights had grown wiser, so that the French chivalric dis-course about warfare often appears more pragmatic and rational than itsBurgundian equivalent. The Berry Herald, for instance, follows militaryaffairs with much concern, and the austerity of his narratives shows thatthere was no place for frills in his conception of warfare. He often condemnswith a few cutting words the lack of discipline or the foolhardiness whichcaused so many defeats. Thus he relates (p. 128) how Le Mans had beentaken by the English, because the French had neglected to fortify theirposition, and nobody was on the watch. As the English entered the town,they found the French ‘couchez en leurs litz ou ilz dormoyent commepourceaulx’, ‘lying in their beds where they were sleeping like pigs’. In hisaccount of Verneuil, the Berry Herald explains how the Lombard mercen-aries, entrusted with an attack from the rear, had soon left the battlefield soas to chase the English pages. He ends his account (p. 119) with the causticremark: ‘tost après la desconfiture retournerent les Lombars dedans lechamp, cuidans que les François eussent gangnee la bataille, et trouverent lesFrançois mors et tous nus’, ‘Soon after the defeat, the Lombards returned tothe battlefield, thinking that the French had won the day, but they foundthe French dead and naked.’ In their account of battles, the Burgundianchroniclers did point out some of the mistakes made by the knights, but theyoften excused them, or buried their remarks in epic discourse. By contrast,the comments of the French chroniclers about strategy often appear sharper.Guillaume Gruel’s narrative of Agincourt is not lengthy. He was not insensi-tive to the grandes armes performed, but he devoted half of his narrative to adiscerning analysis of the reasons for the defeat. The battlefield was (p. 17)

trop . . . estroicte pour combatre tant de gens ; et y avoit grant nombre degens à cheval de notre parti, tant Lombars que Gascons, qui devoient ferirsur les esles des Angloys; et quant ils sentirent le trait venir si espessementilz se misdrent en fuyte et vindrent rompre la bataille de noz gens, en telle

87

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France

19 Chronique de la Pucelle, pp. 256–8, 260–3 (quotation p. 260).

manière que a grant peine se peurent jamais rassembler que les Angloys nefussent tousjours près d’eulx.

The battlefield was too narrow for so many people to fight, and there weremany cavalrymen, Lombards or Gascons, who were supposed to charge theEnglish on the flanks. Yet as they felt the arrows fall so densely, they fledand broke our ranks, so that our side found it extremely difficult to formup again, as the English were constantly on them.

The French chivalric chroniclers present a picture of the knight which isfar more realistic and practical than the Burgundian writers.20 One revealingexample is a curious episode in the Chronique de la Pucelle, dealing with thefamous La Hire, one of the French heroes of the Hundred Years War.Shortly before the battle of Montargis, La Hire asked a chaplain to quicklygrant him absolution. The chaplain asked to hear his confession, and LaHire replied that there was no time for this; now was the time to strike at theenemy, and he had done what soldiers usually do. The chaplain grantedhim absolution. La Hire then prayed to God, asking in his Gasconlanguage (p. 246): ‘Dieu, je te prie que tu fasses aujourd’huy pour La Hire,autant que tu voudrois que La Hire fit pour toi s’il estoit Dieu et que tu fussesLa Hire’, ‘God, I beg Thee to do today for La Hire what Thou wouldst wishLa Hire would do for Thee, if he were God and Thou wert La Hire’. Thechronicler adds that La Hire thought this was a very fine prayer. The battlewas a victory for the French, and according to the chronicler, the poorpeople greatly rejoiced that night, celebrating the victory. The wholeepisode is remarkable for its vivid realism, and portrays a knight as a soldier,a professional whose job it is to fight for the people, and to fight well. Thechronicler certainly does not blame La Hire for having somewhat livened upthe conventional practice of religion, in his wish to be efficient. Moreover,the story puts the crimes for which knights were often blamed into perspec-tive: La Hire had only done what soldiers usually do. In other words, onecould not make an omelette without breaking eggs.

La Hire was one of the mentors of Jean de Beuil, having been de Beuil’scaptain for many years, and this partly explains why the most realistic andmodern depiction of the knight as soldier of the King of France is to befound in the Jouvencel. De Beuil showed that there was nothing glamorousabout the life of a soldier: stealing the goats and the laundry of the soldiersfrom the nearest enemy fortress are the first deeds performed by the‘Jouvencel’ at the start of his career (i, 24–5). However, the good knight

88

Georges Le Brusque

20 On this subject, more specifically in the field of the chivalric biography, see ElisabethGaucher, esp. pp. 586–97, who contrasts the image of the knight offered by late fourteenth-and early fifteenth-century French works, such as Cuvelier’s biography of Bertrand duGuesclin, with Burgundian chivalric biographies such as the Livre des faits du bon chevaliermessire Jacques de Lalaing. The military achievements under Charles V, in the late four-teenth century, had paved the way in France for a realistic and functional discourse aboutwar and chivalry.

loyally serving his king experiences the pleasure of comradeship in the faceof danger, and the satisfaction of performing one’s duty (ii, 20–1); and in hispenniless old age, he will be invited into every house, and be hailed (I, 56)as ‘le bon homme, qui a si bien servi le Roy et le royaulme’, ‘the good manwho has served King and country so well’. De Bueil understood that thesoldiers could not live on fresh air, and he recommended them to levy whatwas needed from those who were on the same side, as gently as possible,explaining to the people that this was necessary in order to defend theirinterests. He knew that, ideally, the King should provide his soldiers withregular wages. By the time he composed his Jouvencel, the ordonnances of1445 had been adopted, whereby the ‘professional’ soldiers of the King’sstanding army (fifteen companies of cavalry, composed of knights andmounted archers, which Charles VII had kept in his permanent service, therest having been disbanded) would receive their pay, in times of war andpeace alike, from a tax levied on the people.21 Thus he could retrospectivelyexplain (I, 95–6): ‘Et ainsi passerons le temps jusques ad ce qu’il plaise auRoy nous faire aucune ordonnance’, ‘And so we shall spend our time until itpleases the King to issue an ordinance.’

CONCLUSION

By the middle of the fifteenth century, the clerical genre of historiographyhad become less popular in France, though one still finds strong echoes of itin some chronicles, such as the histories of Bishop Thomas Basin, written inthe 1470s. The re-establishment of France, the creation of a standing armyand the rise of the professional soldier partly account for the decline of theold genre. Also, the chivalric chronicle was replacing clerical historiographyas the genre favoured by the Kings of France. At the dawn of the sixteenthcentury, when the traumatic memories of the Hundred Years War had fadedand the Kingdom was triumphant, it was the chivalric genre promoted bythe Dukes of Burgundy which took the French monarchy’s fancy: more bom-bastic, heroic and ornate, the Burgundian rhétoriqueur style was deemedmore appropriate to celebrate the exploits of the Renaissance Kings as theyembarked upon their conquests in Italy. It is from Chastelain and hiscontinuator Molinet that the official chroniclers of Charles VIII and LouisXII were to draw their inspiration. Yet with Philippe de Commynes’Mémoires, written in the late fifteenth century but only published in 1524(and the narrative of the conquest of Naples in 1528), a new genreappeared: memoirs written in unsophisticated language, by men who had

89

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France

21 On the establishment of the compagnies d’ordonnance, their composition, and on the reac-tions to this important change in the French military institutions, see Histoire militaire de laFrance, I, pp. 201–8. See also Howard, pp. 18–19. For a particularly detailed study seeContamine, Guerre, Etat et société à la fin du Moyen Age, pp. 275–530.

taken part in the military or diplomatic events they related, and who wereprimarily concerned with the unvarnished truth. This new genre, theMémoires d’épée, eventually triumphed in the sixteenth century.22 Some ofits qualities were already extant in the mid-fifteenth-century type of Frenchchivalrous historiography that we have discussed: the gravity of Philippe deCommynes’ comments on war is reminiscent of the perspective of the BerryHerald, and the sober and realistic depiction of a soldier’s career that we findin Blaise de Monluc’s Commentaires, written in the late sixteenth century,recalls Jean de Bueil’s Jouvencel. The days of the chroniclers had drawn to anend, but the military wisdom of the French chivalric chronicle was not lost;its pragmatic depiction of war and of professional soldiers endured in theRenaissance.23

Works cited

I. Sources

A Collection of the Chronicles and ancient histories of Great Britain, now calledEngland, by John de Wavrin, ed. and trans. W. Hardy and E. L. C. P. Hardy,Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, 3 vols (London: Eyre andSpottiswoode, 1864–1891).

A Parisian Journal, 1405–1449, translated from the anonymous Journal d’un Bour-geois de Paris, trans. J. Shirley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).

Basin, Thomas, Histoire de Charles VII, ed. and trans. from Latin to French C.Samaran, 2 vols (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1933–1944; repr. 1964–1965).

Basin, Thomas, Histoire de Louis XI, ed. and trans. C. Samaran and M.-C.Garand, 3 vols (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1963–1972).

Bueil, Jean de, Le Jouvencel, ed. C. Favre and L. Lecestre, Société de l’Histoire deFrance [SHF], 2 vols (Paris: Renouard, 1887–1889).

Cagny, Perceval de, Chroniques, ed. H. Moranvillé, SHF (Paris: Renouard,1902).

Chartier, Jean, Chronique de Charles VII, ed. A. Vallet de Viriville, 3 vols (Paris:Jannet, 1858).

Chastelain, Georges, Œuvres, ed. J. M. B. C. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 8 vols(Brussels: Heussner, 1863–1866; repr. Geneva: Slatkine reprints, 1971).

Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet (The), ed. and trans. T. Johnes, 5 vols(London: J. Henderson, 1809).

Chronique de la Pucelle, ed. A. Vallet de Viriville (Paris: Delahays, 1859).Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denys contenant le règne de Charles VI, de 1380 à

1422, ed. and transl. L.-F. Bellaguet, 6 vols (Paris: Crapelet, 1839–1852);

90

Georges Le Brusque

22 On the Mémoires d’épée see Dufournet, ‘Les premiers lecteurs de Commynes’, esp. pp.168–9.

23 On the representation of the professional soldier, at the dawn of the sixteenth century, inthe context of the first wars of Italy, see my article ‘Du chevalier à l’officier du roi’.

repr. in 3 vols (Paris: Editions du Comité des travaux historiques etscientifiques, 1994).

Cochon, Pierre, Chronique normande (1408–1430), ed. C. de Robillard deBeaurepaire (Rouen: Le Brument, 1870).

Commynes, Philippe de, Mémoires, ed. J. Calmette and G. Durville, 3 vols(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1924–1925; repr. 1964–1965).

Froissart, Jean, Chroniques, ed. S. Luce, SHF, in progress, 15 vols (Paris: VveRenouard, 1869–).

Gruel, Guillaume, Chronique d’Arthur de Richemont, ed. A. Le Vavasseur, SHF(Paris: Renouard, 1890).

Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris de 1405 à 1449, ed. C. Beaune (Paris: LibrairieGénérale Française, 1990).

Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, 1405–1449, ed. A. Tuetey (Paris: Honoré Cham-pion, 1881).

Le Bel, Jean, Chronique, ed. J. Viard and E. Déprez, SHF, 2 vols (Paris: Laurens,1904–1905).

Le Bouvier, Gilles, also known as the Berry Herald, Les chroniques du roi CharlesVII, ed. H. Courteault and L. Celier, SHF (Paris: Klincksieck, 1979).

Le Fevre de Saint-Remy, Jean, Chronique, ed. F. Morand, SHF, 2 vols (Paris:Renouard, 1876–1881).

Monluc, Blaise de, Commentaires, 1521–1576, ed. P. Courteault (Paris: Gallimard,1964).

Monstrelet, Enguerrand de, Chronique, ed. L. Douët d’Arcq, SHF, 6 vols (Paris:Vve Renouard, 1857–1862).

Splendeurs de la cour de Bourgogne. Récits et chroniques, ed. D. Régnier-Bohler(Paris: Robert Laffont, 1995).

Wavrin, Jean de, Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne, àprésent nommé Engleterre, ed. W. Hardy and E. L. C. P. Hardy, RerumBritannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, 5 vols (London: Eyre and Spottis-woode, 1864–1891).

II. Studies

Autrand, F., ‘La déconfiture. La bataille de Poitiers (1356) à travers quelquestextes français des 14e et 15e siècles’, in Guerre et société en France, enAngleterre et en Bourgogne, 14e–15e siècle, ed. P. Contamine, C. Giry-Deloison, M. H. Keen (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses de l’Université Charles deGaulle (Lille III), 1991), pp. 93–121.

Caron, M.-T., Noblesse et pouvoir royal en France, XIIIe–XVIe siècles (Paris:Armand Colin, 1994).

Contamine, P., Guerre, Etat et société à la fin du Moyen Age. Etude sur les arméesdes rois de France, 1337–1494 (Paris: Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes; LaHaye: Mouton, 1972).

Contamine, P., ‘L’idée de guerre à la fin du Moyen Age: aspects juridiques etéthiques’, in Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions etBelles-Lettres (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1979), pp.70–86, repr. in P. Contamine, La France au XIVe et XVe siècle. Hommes,mentalités, guerre et paix (London: Variorum reprints, 1981), essay 13.

91

Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France

Corvisier, A., ed., Histoire militaire de la France, I: Des origines à 1715, ed. P.Contamine (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992).

Dufournet, J., ‘Les premiers lecteurs de Commynes ou les Mémoires au XVIesiècle’, in Mémoires de la Société d’histoire de Comines-Warneton et de la région,XIV (1984), pp. 51–94, repr. in J. Dufournet, Philippe de Commynes. Unhistorien à l’aube des temps modernes (Brussels: De Boeck-Wesmael, 1994), pp.145–91.

Fowler, K., The Age of Plantagenet and Valois (London: Ferndale, 1980).Gaucher, E., La biographie chevaleresque. Typologie d’un genre (XIIIe–XVe siecles)

(Paris: Honoré Champion, 1994).Guenée, B., Histoire et culture historique dans l’occident médiéval (Paris: Aubier-

Montaigne, 1980).Guenée, B., Un roi et son historien. Vingt études sur le règne de Charles VI et la

Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis, Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscrip-tions et Belles-Lettres: new series, XVIII (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1999).

Guenée, B., L’opinion publique à la fin du Moyen Age d’après la ‘Chronique deCharles VI’ du Religieux de Saint-Denis (Paris: Perrin, 2002).

Howard, M., War in European History (London / Oxford / New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1976).

Huizinga, J., The Waning of the Middle Ages, trans. F. Hopman, 2nd edn(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965).

Huizinga, J., Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, 2nd edn, TheSociology of Culture III (London: Routledge, 1998).

Keen, M. H., ‘Chivalry, heralds, and history’, in The Writing of History in theMiddle Ages, ed. R. H. C. Davis and J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford: Claren-don Press, 1981), pp. 393–414.

Le Brusque, G., ‘From Agincourt (1415) to Fornovo (1495): Aspects of theWriting of Warfare in French and Burgundian 15th-Century Historio-graphical Literature’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London,2001).

Le Brusque, G., ‘Du chevalier à l’officier du roi: images du soldat professionnelnoble dans les chroniques françaises des premières guerres d’Italie (1494–1500)’, Revue historique des armées, 222 (2001): 3–12.

Vale, M., War and Chivalry. Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England, Franceand Burgundy at the End of the Middle Ages (London: Duckworth, 1981).

Wright, N. A. R., Knights and Peasants. The Hundred Years War in the FrenchCountryside (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998).

92

Georges Le Brusque

War and Knighthood in Christine de Pizan’sLivre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie

FRANÇOISE LE SAUX

CHRISTINE DE Pizan’s attitude towards war and warfare has attracted agood deal of scholarly attention over the past ten years or so. In particu-

lar, her socio-political reflection on the possible justifications of warfare hasbeen studied by peace-theory scholars, who consider Christine’s stance asproto-pacifist in nature, and indeed in some respects as ahead of her times.1

In view of Christine’s well-documented opinion that war is an evil to beengaged in only when all other avenues have been explored, and then onlyin order to redress a gross injustice such as a hostile invasion, the presenceon her list of writings of a treatise on the art of warfare strikes a somewhatdissonant note. Le Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie, published in 1410,that is, three years after the assassination of Louis d’Orléans, is a manual forknights and soldiers. It is a compendium of the leading authorities on thesubject: Vegetius’s De re militari, Frontinus’s Stratagemata and ValeriusMaximus’s Facta Ditaque Memorabilia for Books I and II, and HonoréBouvet’s Arbre des batailles (published c. 1387) for Books III and IV.However, the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie is more than a merecompilation. The shortcomings of old authorities such as Vegetius are recog-nised, and changes in warfare requirements due to technological develop-ments such as the rise of the artillery lead to supplemental chapters based,we are told, on the advice of ‘wise knights expert in the said matters of arms’,‘saiges chevaliers expars es dittes choses d’armes’ (Laënnec, p. 148).2 Simi-larly, Christine does not hesitate to disagree with Bouvet, her authority for

93

1 See in particular the pioneering work by Charity Cannon Willard; among more recentpublications are the articles by Carroll, ‘On the Causes of War and the Quest for Peace:Christine de Pizan and Early Peace Theory’ and van Hemelryk, ‘Christine de Pizan et lapaix’ (both 2000), and Forhan’s The Political Theory of Christine de Pizan (2002).

2 The Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie is quoted from the unpublished edition byChristine Laënnec (1988). For an analysis of technological change in Christine’s work, seeHall, ‘ “So Notable Ordynaunce”: Christine de Pizan, Firearms and Siegecraft in a Time ofTransition’.

Books III and IV of her work, to the extent that A. T. P. Byles,3 the editor ofthe English translations of Christine’s work, considers that these sections aremore of a commentary than a translation of L’arbre des batailles.

The up-to-date quality of Christine’s manual, together with her willing-ness to grapple with the practical consequences of, for example, the legalniceties of the practice of warfare, probably account for the popularity of thework, both in France and in England, where it was translated several times.This eager reception is an interesting phenomenon, as one would not neces-sarily have expected a woman writing on so heavily-gendered a subject aswarfare to be granted the necessary level of authority for such recognition.That Christine’s femininity was indeed problematic for many readers isattested by the fact that a group of English manuscripts ‘masculinise’ theauthor, to bring her more into line with the perceived virile nature ofthe material.4 The Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie is therefore a bookwith a strong practical element, teaching knights how to do their job, andaimed at a purely male readership whose function in society is to conductwar. This essay proposes to investigate the strategies used by Christine todefuse the tension between the knowledge she is imparting and her identityas female authority, and to resolve the conflict between her anti-bellicistviews and the military ethos implicitly embraced in the very writing of awork such as the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie.

A first, important observation to make is that Christine’s intended readeris very well-defined. Though the simple soldier is occasionally mentioned,the advice given in the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie is clearly aimedat a caste of officers, for whom it is crucial to ensure that battle is engaged inoptimum conditions and with suitable equipment; whose responsibility it isto manage mercenaries; and whose moral duty it is to contain the inevitabledepredations of warfare within certain bounds. The upper nobility wouldalso presumably have read the work with interest, but Christine’s manualwould have been of especial use to younger members of the lower nobility,the ‘doers and enablers’ of warfare, who were confronted directly with thethorny questions of when wages to mercenaries were due or not, what sortsof safe-conducts were to be honoured, and who was fair game for ransoming.These people were unlikely to be particularly open to pacifist discourses, astheir hopes for social advancement were intimately linked with their mili-tary skills. This is in evidence in Froissart’s Prologue to his Chroniques,where young men ‘qui se voellent avancier’, ‘who want to get on in life’,5 areurged to seek the patronage of some grandee who will train and equip them,

94

Françoise Le Saux

3 Byles, p. xlvi. On the Middle English translations of Christine’s works, see Mahoney,‘Middle English Renderings of Christine de Pizan’.

4 On the suppression of Christine’s authorship in fifteenth-century English translations, seeespecially Chance, ‘Gender Subversion and Linguistic Castration in Fifteenth-CenturyEnglish Translations of Christine de Pizan’.

5 Quoted from the edition of Luce, vol. 1, p. 2, line 30.

thus allowing them to establish themselves ‘plus par leur proesce que par leurlignage’, ‘more by their prowess than by their lineage’ (p. 3, line 29).

However, whereas Froissart’s tone verges on that of the recruiting ser-geant, urging young men of the lower nobility to keep up family traditionsand emphasising both the glory and the financial gain to be derived fromdashing feats of arms, Christine’s prologue to the Livre des faits d’armes et dechevallerie is altogether more subdued. No suggestion is made that the mili-tary career is particularly desirable or effective as a means of climbing thesocial ladder. Indeed, Christine’s Prologue intellectualises the ‘office desarmes et de chevallerie’ to such an extent that the noise and colour of thebattlefield are all but obliterated.

On the face of things, Christine’s Prologue appears to be a protracted vari-ation on the humility topos, with the very title of the chapter emphasisingChristine’s stance of feminine submissiveness:

Le premier chappitre est le prologue ouquel Christine se excuse d’avoir oséemprendre a parler de sy haulte matiere que est contenue ou dit livre .1.

The First Chapter is the Prologue in which Christine apologises for havingdared to undertake to speak of such exalted material as that contained inthe said Book I.

But this humility is swiftly contradicted by the terms in which Christinedescribes her endeavours:

Pour ce que hardement est tant neccessaire a haultes choses emprendre,que sans lui jamais emprises ne seroient, ycellui m’est convenable a cestepresent oeuvre mettre sus, autrement veu la petitece de ma personne queje congnoiz nondigne de traitier de sy eslevee matiere. Ne l’osasse nesseullement penser, mais quoy que hardiesce face a blasmer quant elle estfolle, moy, non mie meue par arrogance ou folle presumpciun, maisadmonnestee de vraye affeccion et bon desir du bien des nobles hommesen l’office des armes, suis ennortee, apres mes autres escriptures passees – sicomme cellui qui a ja basti un chastel ou fortresce quant garny se sent deconvenables estofes ad ce neccesaires d’entreprendre – a parler en cepresent livre du tres honnouré office des armes et de chevallerie.

Since boldness is so necessary to undertake great things that would other-wise never be undertaken, it is fitting that I should ascribe the presentwork to it, considering the insignificance of my person, whom I know notto be worthy to treat of such elevated material. I would not even darethink of doing so; but even though boldness is blameworthy when it isill-considered, I am not moved by arrogance or foolish presumption, butspurred on by true affection and goodwill towards the noble men in theoffice of arms; and am encouraged by my past experience in writing – justlike someone who has once already built a castle or a fortress and whoknows himself to be equipped with the necessary materials to do so again –to speak in this present book of the most honoured office of arms andchivalry.

95

War and Knighthood in de Pizan’s Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie

One may note that the act of writing is described in terms strongly reminis-cent of those conventionally applied to warfare itself: ‘hardiement’, neces-sary for all ‘haultes choses’; ‘hardiesce’, blameworthy when it is ‘folle’, butpositive when not founded on arrogance or presumption. More striking stillis the simile likening Christine’s experience as a writer to that of buildingand equipping military strongholds: the distinctiveness of warfare is erased,as its semantic field is appropriated to describe scholarly activity.

Christine acknowledges her inferiority as a woman, talking of the ‘petitesede ma personne’, ‘non digne de traitier de sy eslevee matiere’, but at thesame time indicates that she is responding to a male need. This turns hertransgression into an act of womanly concern and obedience; but it also hasas indirect effect of re-gendering the subject-matter of the book. If the art ofarms and chivalry is an exclusively male preserve, why do these ‘nobleshommes en l’office des armes’ require Christine’s help? The sting is some-what attenuated – in appearance at least – by an immediate shift from themale/female polarisation underlying the first sentences of the Prologue tothat of knight and clerk:

Mais comme il affiere ceste matiere estre plus excecutee par fait, dilligenceet scens que par soubtillité de parolles polies, et aussi considéré que lesexerçans et expars en la ditte art de chevallerie ne sont communementclers ne instruiz en science de langaige, je n’entens a traittier ne mais auplus plain et entendible langaige que je pourray, a celle fin que la dottrinedonnee par plusieurs autteurs, que a l’ayde de Dieu propose en cest presentlivre, declairier puist estre a tous clere et entendible.

But as it happens that this business must be executed by deeds, diligenceand common sense more than by subtlety and polite words, and consider-ing also the fact that those practising and expert in the said art of chivalryare not commonly clerks, and have not been educated in the science oflanguage, I intend to treat this material in as plain and understandable alanguage as I can, so that the teaching transmitted by several authorities(which I put forward in the present book, with the help of God) may beclear and understandable to all.

Christine emphasises the practical nature of warfare, but presents this assomething of a disadvantage to its practitioner: the warrior is someonewho is verbally challenged, and who cannot access his authorities directly.Christine, by contrast, has the skill required to become a quasi-transparent,and by implication genderless, intermediary between knights and theauthorities who have written on the art of warfare.

However, Christine does not allow this de-gendered image of herself totake hold. She immediately goes on to reaffirm, under the guise of humility,the fact that she is a woman; begging her readers not to hold her sex againstwhat she is going to say, ‘pour ce que c’est chose non accoustumee et horsd’usaige a femme qui communement ne se sieust entremettre ne mesquenouilles, fillaces et choses de mainaige’, ‘because it is an unusual and

96

Françoise Le Saux

unaccustomed thing for a woman who commonly only deals with spindles,thread and housework’. Once again, though, apparent humility leads to anaffirmation of authority, through the introduction of Minerva into the dis-course. Minerva is presented as a woman of such outstanding achievementsthat she was deemed a goddess; Christine thus appears to be inviting a con-trast between herself and the god-like woman credited with the invention ofiron and steel weaponry. Yet what actually happens is the exact opposite:just as Minerva’s inventions were embraced by men, so should Christine’swords be embraced by her readers, for she also has something valuable togive them. The point is emphasised by a quotation from Seneca.

The full impact of Christine’s process of inversion of expectations comesin the rhetorical address to Minerva that closes the Prologue. Minerva isaddressed in terms reminiscent of those used of the Virgin Mary: ‘par vertud’eslevé entendement par sus les autres femmes’, ‘above all other women byvirtue of her high level of understanding’. Minerva is now credited not onlywith the invention of working iron and steel, but also with the beginnings ofmilitary strategy; and though Christine repeatedly states that Minerva isunrepresentative of the common woman because of her superior intellectualand civilisational achievements, the femininity of the goddess is equallyemphasised, allowing Christine to end the Prologue with the startling andmuch-quoted words: ‘Je suis comme toy femme ytalienne’, ‘like you I am anItalian woman’. Christine, for all her claims to be a ‘simple femmelette’, hasmore in common with Minerva, the origin and inspiration of modernwarfare, than the male practitioners of the art. Moreover the technologicaladvances attributed to Minerva, which underpin the practice of war, aredepicted in such a way as to blur the boundaries between the womanly activ-ities at home and the requirements of warfare. Armour, described as ‘propiceet convenable a couvrir et targier corps de homme’, ‘good and suitable tocover and protect a man’s body’, is in effect just a specialised form ofclothing, no different in essence to the garments woven with ‘fillaces’; whilstthe art of fighting in an orderly manner, ‘en maniere arree’, requires thesame qualities as those displayed by the competent housewife in the smoothrunning of her household. Minerva may well have been exceptional, but shewas not unrepresentative.

It is noteworthy that at no point in the Prologue do the terms ‘preux’ or‘prouesce’ appear: an absence all the more striking when one considersthe importance of the concept of prowess in the Prologue to Froissart’sChroniques. Moreover, Mars, the male, traditional god of war, is totallyabsent from the picture. The tutelary deity of ‘armes et chevallerie’ is unam-biguously female. Similarly, physical skills are barely mentioned, eclipsed bythe superior intellectual requirements of the ‘nobles ars et sciences’ whichmake warfare ‘de si magnifie office’. A good knight, clearly, is not so muchsomeone who knows how to wield weapons as someone who knows whenand in what manner he should do so.

This intellectualisation of warfare has the dual effect of disempowering

97

War and Knighthood in de Pizan’s Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie

those noblemen lacking the education to access the theory of their art, andof reinforcing the authority of Christine, who has from the outset shownthat she is endowed with the necessary virtues of ‘hardiesce’ and ‘hardement’to tackle her material, has privileged access to the authorities (including, ona metaphorical level, Minerva herself) and the relevant experience tomediate them.

The body of the work repeats this strategy of apparently accepting amale-centred bellicist world-view, whilst systematically undermining it.Thus, experience is repeatedly mentioned as an essential requirement forany war leader (in this, Christine follows her sources faithfully), but thestress is firmly placed on the superior importance of knowledge of a moreabstract nature, namely the laws of the art. This point is made in no uncer-tain terms from the outset; in chapter 2 (p. 23), Cato is quoted as saying thathis ‘belles vittoires’ on battlefield were less valuable than his ‘escripture desregles, enseignemens et discipline d’armes’, ‘encoding of the rules, teachingand discipline of arms’. This, of course, enhances Christine’s own status aswriter of precisely that sort of book.

The implicit debasement of actual warfare by Cato himself allowsChristine to make a tentative criticism of war. Considering the great evilsattendant on warfare, such as rape, murder and theft, she says, ‘pourroitsembler a aucuns que guerre et batailles fust chose excommeniee et nondeue’, ‘it could seem to some that war and battles are worthy of excommuni-cation and should not occur’ (Book I, ch. 2, p. 24). The impact of thesestrong words is attenuated by the use of the conditional (‘pourroit sembler’)suggesting that Christine disagrees with the people holding such an opinion;and indeed she proceeds to demonstrate, with reference to the Bible, thatwar is not necessarily evil, and that warfare for a just cause is legitimate. Thesuffering and crimes that come with warfare are, she argues, due to the‘mauvaistié des gens’, the evil ways of men who ignore the rules of warfare.Hence, the true justification of the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie.Christine is not primarily teaching knights how to conduct warfare (thoughof course she is also doing that): she is attempting to instil a culture ofrestraint, and foster a sense of moral and legal responsibility through aware-ness that some things are ‘choses limitees’ by man and the Church.

The low-key approach to chivalry in the Prologue is also evident in Books1 and 2 of the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie, which, as mentionedabove, are based predominantly on classical Latin sources. Once again, thereis little to suggest anything but the most conventional and innocuousreservations on the part of the narrator as regards the practice of warfare, butequally, Christine is extremely sparing in her use of epithets that might lendprestige and glamour to military activity. The ‘art’ of chivalry is repeatedlyreferred to as ‘noble’, but the terms ‘preux’ and ‘vaillans’ only appear infre-quently, and are almost exclusively applied to great generals from Greco-Roman history, ‘preux conquerours du monde’ or ‘vaillans nobles cheval-lereux’ (pp. 17, 18) such as Alexander the Great. This concession to the

98

Françoise Le Saux

traditional glorification of successful war leaders is, however, tempered by anexplicit condemnation of wars of conquest. Christine lists the possiblereasons (pp. 26–8) for engaging in warfare. Among these, vengeance andconquest are unequivocally stated to be invalid and against divine law:

Quoy que les conquereurs, Alixandre, les Rommains et aultres soyentmoult louez es tiltres de chevallerie, et semblablement ceulx qui grande-ment ce sont vengiez de leurs ennemis ou que bien soit ou mal, et quoyque communement on le face, je ne treuve pas en loy divine ne aultreescripte que pour ces deux causes sans autre mouvement loise emprendresus pays crestien guerre ne bataille, Mes ouil bien le contraire, car selon laloy de Dieu n’appartient a homme pas seulement prendre ne usurper riensde l’autrui, mais neiz meesmement le convoittier. (Book I, ch. 4, p. 27)

Even though Alexander, the Romans and other conquerors are greatlypraised for their chivalry, as are also those who have avenged themselvesspectacularly on their enemies, whether this be good or bad, and despitethe fact that this is done commonly, I find nowhere in divine law or in anyother written law that it is acceptable to wage war against anotherChristian country for those two reasons alone. Indeed, the very opposite istrue, for according to the law of God, man should not only refrain fromtaking or usurping someone else’s property, he should not even covet it.

The suggestion discreetly made above that the practice of warfare sometimesviolates the laws and rules of war is here made explicit. Whilst Alexanderand the Roman generals were unrestrained by Christian principles, theimplications are that present-day unjust wars are even less acceptable, asleaders have the benefit of the guidance of the Bible, and have dutiestowards fellow Christians. Public opinion, which condones and admires suchactions, is tersely but categorically dismissed as misguided. Book II, devotedin part to Frontinus’s stratagems, similarly betrays a critical attitude towardsthe use of trickery in war (‘maintefoys ont plus nuit faintes paix et mauvaiscouvines soubz umbre d’acord que force d’armes’, ‘insincere peace settle-ments and bad intentions under cover of agreement have often done moreharm than force of arms’, Book II, ch. 37, p. 175). So success at war andchivalric prowess are not coterminous with moral justification; indeed, themost celebrated paragons of chivalry are in breach of divine law. The thrillderived from the account of the adventures of an Alexander the Great thustakes on a flavour of sinfulness, and any attempt to emulate him is taintedwith evil.

Under these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that Christine’spicture of the ideal general or war leader is more akin to that of an energeticsaint than to the dashing handsome knight of epic and romance. Warfare,which endangers ‘la vie, le sang, l’onneur et la chevance d’infinies per-sonnes’, ‘the life, blood, honour and livelihood of an infinite number ofpersons’ (Book I, ch. 5, p. 29), is too serious a matter to entrust to thehot-blooded impulses of youth (‘legiers mouvemens ne jeunes voulentez’).

99

War and Knighthood in de Pizan’s Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie

The virtues of the ideal ‘congnestable’ are listed at great length in Book I,chapter 7, over some ninety-seven lines of printed text (pp. 38–9): pell-mell,he must have great experience, plenty of common sense, a good nature, anoble disposition; he must be wise, generous, untainted by covetousness,just, true to his word, mildly-spoken, dignified in his manner, and compas-sionate; he must be daring, loyal, diligent, discerning, always well-equippedand on the alert, prepared to defend the widow and orphan; but lastly andabove all, he must love God and the Church and support justice. Thisparagon of virtues is implicitly recognised to be an unattainable ideal;Christine recommends that war leaders be chosen ‘a tout le moinsapprouchans aux dictes condicions que on peut’, ‘at least approximating asmuch as possible to the said conditions’. The qualities required of a warleader are repeated on different occasions in the book, but in less detail andwith a more realistic slant allowing a little more for human frailty; the keyqualities emerge as experience, wisdom and the ability to control covetous-ness, which Christine appears to see as the key to the excesses of warfare.

The detailed description of the perfect war leader is followed by the state-ment that chivalry is now a forgotten and neglected art: the hard work andskills of the Romans and other conquerors have given way to ‘delit, et reposet aux convoitises de pecune’ (‘pleasure, indolence and desire for money’,Book I, ch. 8, p. 41), all of which the worthies of yore despised. The answerto these problems, stresses Christine, is education in the complementaryareas of ‘usaige d’armes’, ‘enseignement d’ost’ and ‘chevallerie’ (p. 42), thatis, physical training in the manipulation of weapons, military strategy andchivalry, which under Christine’s pen takes on marked ethical connotations.This education is contrasted with the custom of sending out children to bebrought up at the courts of grandees, where they learn (p. 43) ‘orgueil’,pride, ‘legerie’, frivolity, and ‘mignotes’, precious manners – terms whichrecall the image given by Christine of the predatory young men at court inher Epistre au Dieus d’amours.6 The different facets of a good chivalric educa-tion are described by Christine as complementary. Even courage is the directresult of a knight’s training, given by ‘la bonne doctrine des parolleshonorables’, ‘the good teaching of honourable discourse’ (Book I, ch. 9,p. 46). Verbal skills are at the heart of military prowess – a fact furtherexemplified by the inclusion of a model pre-battle speech a few chapterslater (ch. 21, pp. 82–3). Valour, and the ability to inspire it in others, issynonymous with knowledge: ‘Et a celui dist il que en tel discipline est bienenseiné, paour de combatre est nulle contre quelconques adversaire, ains luiest si que droit et soulas’, ‘and [my source] says that whoever is well educatedin this discipline will have no fear to fight any adversary, but on the contraryit will feel quite natural and pleasurable to him’ (Book I, ch. 10, p. 47).

100

Françoise Le Saux

6 See esp. lines 51–9 of the Epistre, in vol. 2 of the Oeuvres poétiques de Christine de Pizan, ed.Roy, pp. 1–27.

Conversely, the absence of knowledge leads to cowardice – a startling state-ment further enhancing the status of Christine’s book.

Having carefully undermined the mystique of warfare, Christine proceedsto destroy it in Books III and IV, devoted to the legal aspects of warfare andbased on Honoré Bouvet’s Arbre des batailles. The themes introduced inBooks I and II (with all the precautions we have seen) recur in the last halfof the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie, but with a change of tone. Thissecond half of the work opens with some self-promotion, with the Master –Bouvet – stating that the writing of the Livre des faits d’armes will lead to the‘enhortacion de toutes nobles oeuvres et meurs vertueux’, ‘encouragement ofall noble deeds and virtuous living’, and allow noblemen and knights to ‘plusenbellir es faiz que noblesce requiert’, ‘to further embellish themselves in thedeeds that nobility requires’: i.e., the threefold education mentioned above.The question of legal awareness leads to a detailed discussion of the rightsand responsibilities of members of the warrior class. The restraint in evi-dence up to this stage all but disappears, as Christine takes on the persona ofthe naïve student asking questions of her Master: from this stance of appar-ent non-authority, Christine can afford to be outspoken without being per-ceived as overstepping the mark – particularly since the harshest statementstend to be put in the mouth of Bouvet himself, whose credentials cannot bedoubted. This is especially the case in chapter 7 of Book III, where Christine‘innocently’ questions the legitimacy of employing mercenaries in warfare.She is given an answer that seems to contradict her views, but in factpresents the practice in so grim a light that the ‘official’ position appears tobe morally untenable. Thus, if the mercenary is fighting an unjust war, he isjeopardising his eternal soul. He should therefore make sure that hisemployer has right on his side; for otherwise, ‘cellui qui s’y met dampne soname, et ce en cel estat meurt, va en voye de perdicion se grant repentancepar grace divine n’a en la parfin’, ‘he who gets involved is damning his soul,and if he dies in this state, he will go the way of perdition unless throughdivine grace he greatly repents at the end’ (Book III, ch. 1, p. 196). Thisstern warning, of course, follows the teaching of the Church, but within thecontext of the Hundred Years War, where the rights and wrongs of thewarring parties would have been well-nigh impossible to discern for thecommon man, it is tantamount to stating that everyone engaged in warfareis potentially courting damnation. The fact that mercenaries take this riskfor their pay rather than out of loyalty towards their lord is simply an aggra-vating factor.

The mention of mercenaries leads to a lengthy discussion on pay andfinancial compensation. It is striking that chivalry is reduced to a monetaryrelationship not unlike that of mercenaries – which indeed corresponds tohistorical reality at the time, with the rise of pensions and paid military ser-vices. On one occasion only does Christine use the positive courtly image ofchivalry found in romances, in Book III, chapter 10 (pp. 204–5), where anoble knight (‘un gentil chevalier’: note the ‘gentil’, an adjective that does

101

War and Knighthood in de Pizan’s Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie

not qualify the substantive ‘chevalier’ very often in the Livre des faits d’armeset de chevallerie), ‘meu de pitie et pour garder le droit des dames et croistre sarenommee en vaillance et en chevallerie’, ‘moved by pity and in order topreserve the right of ladies and increase his renown in valiance andchivalry’, decides to help a beleaguered widow. By his prowess (‘prouesce’)and chivalry, he reinstates the lady in her rightful possessions. This situa-tion, worthy of any romance, leads to a very down-to-earth question: is thisknight entitled to claim payment for his services? The question suggests thatin real life, this is what the widowed lady should expect. The answer fromthe Master is no, the increase in honour and renown derived from this gooddeed is its own reward, but embedded as it is in a section where financialconcerns are paramount, Bouvet’s answer sounds decidedly idealistic andnaïve. Christine accepts it, but one feels that the hypothetical knight mightnot have been convinced quite so easily.

Similarly, on the question of the amount of protection to which civilians(or, less anachronistically, non-combatants) are entitled, the answer statesthat only priests, students, madmen and little children can expect to remainunmolested by warfaring troops.7 Yet, in fact, the practice of ransoming pris-oners, with the obvious financial gain involved for the captor, is shown tohave such a perverting influence that even young children are taken pris-oner and ransomed. Naïve Christine suggests that ransoming should beillicit, as the practice goes against the duty of mercy owed to any prisoner ofwar (Book III, ch. 17, p. 220); her Master defends the principle of ransom-ing, but has to acknowledge its abuses, reducing many captives to bank-ruptcy. In the words of the Master, such a practice is an inhuman horror(‘horreur inhumaine’), debasing even an evil Christian tyrant to the level of‘pire que juif’ – a reference to the Jews’ activities in the reproved area ofmoney-lending – and leading to damnation.

This damnation is clearly ahead of only too many warriors, it would seem.Christine responds to the Master’s statement that it is not licit to ransomchildren with a meek ‘sans faille, maistre, dont n’est mie aujourdui cete loibien gardee’, ‘indeed, master, this law isn’t respected at all these days’ (BookIII, ch. 21, p. 231). Bouvet in turn acknowledges that the laws of warfare arecurrently abused because of rampant covetousness. The English are particu-larly targeted, as one would expect, and their habit of taking prisoner‘femmes, enfans, gens impotens ne vieillars’, ‘women, children, the disabledand the aged’ is denounced as especially shameful. Lack of loyalty alsoappears to be widespread. In Book IV, Christine laments the ‘pou de foi quiau monde cueurt’, ‘the lack of faith about the world’ (ch. 3, p. 248), only tobe outdone by her Master in a blistering, 21-line long indictment of thefifteenth-century military man:

102

Françoise Le Saux

7 Old men incapable of bearing arms are said to be fair game, as they may be suspected ofacting as military advisers to the enemy.

Mais a present, pour les barats et soubtilletez trouvees par lesquelles on n’ahonte de mentir foy ne rompre sermens entre crestiens trop moins quejuifs ou mescreans n’aryent, est conseillé par aucuns de nos maistres que ensaufconduit on ne se fie de legier, comme le temps soit ades venuz que ceque les droiz appellent fraude et barat est appellé soubtillité et cautelle. Etsy est le peril grant.

But nowadays, because of the deceit and contorted stratagems throughwhich promises are broken and oaths violated between Christians, witheven less shame than Jews or infidels would have, it is advised by some ofour masters not to have too much confidence in safe-conducts; for thetimes are such that what men of integrity call fraud and deceit is nowcalled subtlety and ruse. And the peril is great.

To this virulent passage, Christine merely answers, ‘Sans faille, maistre,c’est pure verité, ‘Indeed, master, that’s the pure truth’ (p. 249). This nega-tive tone is maintained almost to the end of Book IV.8 There are no furtheroutbursts of righteous indignation, but a number of tolerated practices suchas marque or single combat are presented in such a way as to emphasise theessentially unethical, and therefore, unsatisfactory, nature of these customs.The inadequacy of custom to provide a reliable yardstick for human behav-iour is vividly illustrated by Christine’s humorous asides on the Lombardlaws, with examples of counter-intuitive, bizarre or unjust laws, such as, forexample, the stern penalty stipulated for the seduction of a virgin. Law codesdo not hold the truth; this obvious inference from Christine’s examples inturn gives greater relief and credibility to the arguments put forwardthroughout Books III and IV by the apparently naïve questioner, whoseapproach is increasingly revealed to be based on common sense and moralprinciples not always in evidence in the statements of the Master. Thereader is thus invited to invert the balance of authority from the maleMaster to the female student. But equally, this strategy leads to a questioningof the value of the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie as a whole.

We have repeatedly been told throughout the four Books of the Livre desfaits d’armes et de chevallerie that in order to be a good knight, one has toknow the rules. But the rules themselves are shown to have severe limita-tions, and do not really provide adequate guidance. And, as though thedangers threatening the fighting man had not been made clear enough, thelast piece of practical advice of the work, in chapter 24 of Book IV, is abrutal warning. Christine asks her Master if it is possible for a soldier dyingin war to save his soul, as the whole point of going to war is to destroy anenemy whom God enjoins us to love. The Master rehearses the conditionsof the just war, stating that in such a war, it is meritorious to die. But

103

War and Knighthood in de Pizan’s Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie

8 The final chapters of Book IV deal with relatively uncontentious matters relating toheraldry.

Se un homme muert en bataille, en laquelle fust contre sa conscience –c’est assavoir que il pensast que la querelle fust mauvaise, et pour tollir etexurper le droit d’autruy, dont ne lui chausist mis que tollir peust, pillierou gaangner ses souldees – sans faulte se tel homme n’a loysir d’avoir biengrant repentance en la fin nous ne pourrions presumer qu’en voie desauvement fust. Si s’y gardent bien tous ceulx qui s’y mettent, car ameet corps exposent en grant peril se en faulces querelles soustenirs’abandonnent (pp. 284–5).

If a man dies in a battle undertaken against his conscience – that is, hebelieved the cause to be a bad one, aiming to pillage and deprive people oftheir rights, and he didn’t care less as long as he could steal, pillage or earnhis pay – without mistake, unless such a man has the time to repentgreatly at the end of his life, we cannot presume that he will be on the wayto salvation. Indeed, all those who put themselves in such a situationshould be extremely wary, for they expose body and soul to great peril ifthey allow themselves to support bad causes.

A more discouraging note for a young man considering a military career ishard to imagine. The Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie, which on onelevel is a good, no-nonsense manual for the fifteenth-century knight wishingto know more about his profession, and for the most part seems pragmaticand non-judgmental, in fact quietly provides all the possible argumentsagainst involvement in anything but the most clear-cut defensive warfare.The art of chivalry is described as fraught with moral dangers; the materialgain derived from military activity is shown in many cases to be evil, eventhough it is legal in the strictest sense of the word, or sanctioned by custom.The glory of military activity is virtually unmentioned; physical prowessremains unsung. The traditionally virile qualities of warfare are absent;knighthood is in effect emasculated. The absence of an unrealistic gloss tothe Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie was probably an added appeal forChristine’s readership, who wanted straight answers to straight questions.But the Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie asks questions that manyknights would not have wished to hear asked, and gives answers that werenot designed to enhance peace of mind.

One suspects Froissart would not have approved.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Oeuvres poétiques de Christine de Pizan, ed. Maurice Roy, 3 vols (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1886–91).

Christine de Pizan, ‘An Edition of B.N. Ms. 603. Le Livre des Fais d’Armes et deChevallerie’, ed. Christine Laënnec, unpubl. Ph.D., Yale, 1988; vol. II.

104

Françoise Le Saux

The ‘Livre de la Paix’ of Christine de Pisan, ed. Charity Cannon Willard (London:Mouton, 1958).

The Book of Fayttes of Armes and Chyualrye. Translated and printed by WilliamCaxton from the French Original by Christine de Pizan, ed. A. T. P. Byles, EETS189 (Oxford, EETS, 1932).

Chroniques de Jean Froissart, ed. Siméon Luce, Société de l’Histoire de France,ongoing (Paris: Renouard, 1869–).

II. Studies

Carroll, Berenice A., ‘On the Causes of War and the Quest for Peace: Christinede Pizan and Early Peace Theory’, in Au Champ des escriptures. IIIe Colloqueinternational sur Christine de Pizan, ed. Eric Hicks (Paris: Champion, 2000),pp. 337–58.

Chance, Jane, ‘Gender Subversion and Linguistic Castration in Fifteenth-Century English Translations of Christine de Pizan’, in Violence AgainstWomen in Medieval Texts, ed. Anna Roberts (Gainesville: University Pressesof Florida, 1998), pp. 161–94.

Forhan, Kate L., The Political Theory of Christine de Pizan (Aldershot: Ashgate,2002).

Hall, Bert, ‘ “So Notable Ordynaunce”: Christine de Pizan, Firearms andSiegecraft in a Time of Transition’, in Cultuurhistorische caleidoscoop: EenHuldealbum aangeboden aan prof. Dr. Willy L. Braekman, ed. C. De Backer andM. de Clerq (Gent: Stichting Mens en Kultuur, 1992), pp. 219–40.

Mahoney, Dhira B., ‘Middle English Renderings of Christine de Pizan’, in TheMedieval Opus, Imitation, Rewriting and Transmission in the French Tradition,ed. Douglas Kelly (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 405–27.

Parussa, Gabriella, ‘Instruire les chevaliers et conseiller les princes, L’EpistreOthea de Christine de Pizan’, in Studi di storia della civiltà letteraria francese.Mélanges offerts à Lionello Sozzi, ed. Marciano Guglielminetti (Paris: Cham-pion, 1996), pp. 129–55.

Soret, David, ‘Le syndrome de Mars. La guerre selon Christine de Pizan’, Cahiersd’histoire 40 (1995): 97–113.

Tarnowski, Andrea, ‘Pallas Athena, la science et la chevalerie’, in Sur lechemin de longue étude. Actes du colloque d’Orléans, juillet 1995, ed. BernardRibémont, Etudes christiniennes 3 (Paris: Champion, 1998), pp. 149–58.

Van Hemelryk, Tania, ‘Christine de Pizan et la paix: le rhétorique et les motspour le dire’, in Au Champ des escriptures. IIIe Colloque international surChristine de Pizan, ed. Eric Hicks (Paris: Champion, 2000), pp. 663–89.

Willard, Charity Cannon, ‘Pilfering Vegetius? Christine de Pizan’s Faits d’Armeset de Chevalerie’, in Women, the Book and the Worldly: Selected Proceedings ofthe St Hilda’s Conference, 1993, ed. Lesley Smith and Jane H. M. Taylor(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), pp. 31–7.

Willard, Charity Cannon, ‘Christine de Pizan on the Art of Warfare’, inChristine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference, ed. Marilynn Desmond(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 3–15.

105

War and Knighthood in de Pizan’s Livre des faits d’armes et de chevallerie

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

THEA SUMMERFIELD

IN AN ARTICLE published in 1991, Peter Burke posed the question ofwhat a historical narrative would be like that dealt ‘not only with the

sequence of events and the conscious intentions of the actors in theseevents, but also with structures – institutions, modes of thought, and so on –whether these structures act as a brake on events or as an accelerator’.1 InBarbour’s Bruce we have such a story.2

John Barbour’s task, whether commissioned or self-appointed and laterrewarded,3 was not an easy one. Writing c. 1375 for Robert II, king since1371, and his court, Barbour might have confidently expected a lively inter-est in his poem, particularly as the early 1370s had been a time of renewedhostilities between Scotland and England as well as of friction within Scot-land itself. A poem celebrating the king through whose efforts unity andindependence had been secured must, therefore, have been of great topicalinterest. However, Barbour’s chosen subject, King Robert Bruce (whoreigned 1306–1329), was not only a man of legendary fame, to which songsand stories testified, but also a controversial figure, especially with regard tohis political choices and manner of warfare. Had not the chronicler Langtoftearlier in the century ridiculed the king for skulking about in the woodsnaked, eating herbs and roots?4

107

1 I should like to thank the participants in the Second Chronicle Conference (July 1999) atDriebergen and the War. Medieval and Renaissance Responses Conference at Durham(April 2000).

2 All references are by book and line number, unless otherwise stated, to A. A. M. Duncan’sedition of John Barbour. The Bruce. Translations are Duncan’s unless otherwise stated. Thenumbering system in Duncan’s edition corresponds to that used in previous editions byMcDiarmid and Stevenson (1985) and Skeat (1870–89).

3 See Duncan’s introduction to The Bruce, pp. 3–4; McDiarmid and Stevenson (eds),Barbour’s Bruce, I, pp. 7, 10.

4 Pierre de Langtoft, Le Règne d’Édouard Ier, ed. Thiolier, p. 424, lines 2475–9. Langtoft refersto a book about Bruce: ‘Son livre le temoygne’ (2479). Robert Bruce is ridiculed in similarterms in the anonymous ‘Song on the execution of Sir Simon Fraser’. Thomas Wright’sPolitical Songs of England, ed. Peter Coss, p. 216.

The scribes who recorded payment of the perpetual annuity awarded toBarbour in 1499 stated that such payment was due to Barbour pro compila-tione liber de gestis quondam Roberti de Brus.5 Barbour also refers to com-pilation practices: ‘And in the tyme of the compiling / Off this buk thisRobert [= Robert II] wes king’ (XIII, 709–10). Barbour’s poem is, indeed,best regarded as a compilation of highly diverse material, governed by theauthor’s desire to reconcile the conflict between celebration and exaltationon the one hand, and existing criticism, extant literary traditions and politi-cal expediency on the other. Resonances of the author’s conciliatory strate-gies may be detected both in the work’s content and its construction.

After a brief introduction to the poem, the first part of this article willsketch the political atmosphere in the early years of the reign of Robert IIand the difficulties faced by Barbour when writing his Bruce, insofar as theyappear to have influenced the beginning of Barbour’s text (lines 1–445). Inthe second part the emphasis will be on Barbour’s reconciliation of fashion-able notions of warfare and actual strategies used by Robert Bruce, while inthe third part Barbour’s construction of a heroic leader from different literarytraditions will be discussed. The analysis will focus on the core section of thepoem (see below).

Barbour’s Bruce is a complex poem, partly as a result of the multiple aimswhich the author set himself, and partly as a result of the heterogeneouselements from which it was constructed. We find in it conventionalanti-English invective, popular episodes of the underdog-outsmarting-powerful-oppressor type, information on itineraries and battles, summaries offamous classical and medieval stories, biographical episodes, learned dis-course, rhetorical flourishes and much more. Scholars have tried to come toterms with the diversity within the poem by assigning it to a variety ofgenres, established ones as well as newly invented hybrids,6 and by speculat-ing about Barbour’s lost sources.7 In the end the poem can only be studied asit has survived, in two relatively late manuscripts.8

108

Thea Summerfield

5 McDiarmid and Stevenson, Barbour’s Bruce, I, p. 11.6 For example: ‘romance-biography not a chronicle’ (Duncan, ‘Introduction’, The Bruce, p. 4)

and ‘a chronicle of chivalry’ (ibid., ‘War of the Scots’, p. 125), ‘a heroic poem even morethan . . . a chronicle’ (McDiarmid and Stevenson, Barbour’s Bruce, I, p. 45), a ‘nationalepic’ (McDiarmid, ‘The Metrical Chronicles’, p. 29), ‘a romance, not a chronicle’ (Cameron,‘Chivalry and Warfare’, p. 13), a mirror for princes (Ebin, ‘Bruce, Poetry, History andPropaganda’), an ideological enterprise to ‘unify the nation and defend its sovereignty’(Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, p. 151). E. D. Kennedy notes that ‘verse chronicle is asgood a classification as any’ (Kennedy, Manual, vol. VIII, p. 2684).

7 The traditional view that material for The Bruce was assembled by Barbour ‘from orallytransmitted accounts in the immediate aftermath of the War of Independence’ is repre-sented by H. Henderson, ‘The Ballad and Popular Tradition to 1660’, p. 263. But seeDuncan, ‘Introduction’, The Bruce, p. 2. Duncan believes that Barbour relied largely ondetailed written accounts about King Robert, James Douglas, Edward Bruce and Ingramd’Umfraville, all of them now lost; Duncan, ‘Introduction’, The Bruce, pp. 14–30.

8 MS Cambridge, St. John’s College G23, dated 1487 (incomplete); MS Edinburgh, National

The lack of sources makes it impossible to determine conclusively whetherthe poem was compiled in two or more phases, or whether the disparitybetween some of its sections is due to the variety in source material.9 Thepoem’s core may be considered the section beginning with the words‘Lordingis, quha likis for till her’ in line 445, and ending with the descriptionof the Battle of Bannockburn. It owes much of its appeal to fairly sensationalepisodes in which Robert Bruce, James Douglas or the Scots in general outwitthe English, not by force but by ingenuity and pluck. This part of the poemwould be eminently suitable for oral recitation. After the description of theBattle of Bannockburn a remarkable passage, almost amounting to an envoy,appears to indicate the (temporary) end of the poem.

In the (now) intermediate envoy, Barbour states that he completed hispoem when five years of King Robert II’s reign had passed, and that he hopesRobert Bruce’s offspring (i.e. Robert II) will maintain the land, protect thepeople and maintain justice as well as he (Robert I) did (XIII, 718–22).10

These lines are part of a retrospective passage in which Barbour muses onthe workings of Fortune, which caused the mighty king of England (EdwardII) to fall, while Robert Bruce rose to the top, as a result of which, accordingto Barbour, Scotland became an Arcadian place: men grew rich, there wasan abundance of corn, cattle and wealth; mirth and happiness were every-where (XIII, 723–9). Clearly, if Robert Bruce was a hard act to follow, it waswell worth trying if these were the rewards.

When the story is resumed, its focus is more diffuse with descriptions ofcampaigns in Ireland and the role played there by Edward Bruce. It mayhave been added to achieve a complete account of Robert I’s reign, up toand including his death. The end of the poem tells the story of JamesDouglas’s death in Spain (XX, 200–630). A remarkable feature of the text isthat in the first 444 lines of the poem as it survives today Robert Bruce playsonly a minor role; the emphasis is on anti-English sentiments, including thefamous passage beginning ‘A! Fredome is a noble thing’ (I, 225) and on adetailed account of the early years of James Douglas. Here, at the beginningof the poem, Barbour’s way of combining multiple aims can be seen: heresponds to newly ‘fashionable’ anti-English feeling and a desire for estab-lishing tangible links with the past, circumvents criticism of Robert Bruce’searly years, and underpins Robert II’s efforts to restore unity with the power-ful Douglases.

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

109

Library of Scotland, Advocates 19.2.2, dated 1489 (complete). Duncan, ‘Introduction’, TheBruce, pp. 32–3.

9 See also Duncan, ‘Introduction’, The Bruce, p. 10.10 See also Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland, pp. 177–78.

I

The rousing anti-English invective in the first four hundred-odd lines of TheBruce is not a feature specifically of the 1370s; expressions of intense hatredand mistrust between the Scots and the English are well documented oneither side of the Border throughout the fourteenth century and beyond.John Barbour was just one voice among many telling of atrocities committedby the English, as the English had been telling of atrocities committed bythe Scots, a chorus of mutual hatred dating back to the correspondence withPope Boniface VIII in 1299–1301. However, there was in the early years ofthe reign of Robert II an increase in such feelings when Anglo-Scottish rela-tions were showing similarities to the situation earlier in the century. Theyears from 1357 until 1368 had been largely peaceful, but from 1369onwards there was a steady reconquest of the English occupied territories inthe East March of Southern Scotland,11 as well as an increase in cross-borderattacks. Although it has been argued that these hostilities were not initiatedby the crown or by ‘overmighty magnates’, and should perhaps be regardedas ‘typical cross-border criminal co-operation’, the activities of the militantsin question effectively met with royal approval.12 In addition the Franco-Scottish treaty established in the reign of Robert I was renewed in Marchand April 1371, thus giving new impetus to the increasingly hostile attitudetowards England. Barbour’s catalogue of rape and the deprivation of rightsand goods (I, 190–214) catered to renewed anti-English feelings; possibly, inthe words of Peter Burke quoted at the beginning of this article, acceleratingevents later in the reign.13

The curiously long passage on the early years of James Douglas in thisinitial part of the poem may be expected to have served a double politicalpurpose. It detracted attention from Robert Bruce’s years before his acces-sion to the throne and strengthened the link between the houses of Stewartand Douglas.

Barbour begins his biographical account of Robert Bruce with Bruce’srebellion against King John Balliol, the king instituted by Edward I after thelengthy diplomatic effort to solve the problem of the succession in whichRobert Bruce’s grandfather of the same name had played a prominent role.In Barbour’s text grandfather and grandson are curiously jumbled togetherinto one person, so that it seems as if the later king had been active in secur-ing the crown ever since the death of Alexander III. This kind of ‘tele-scoping of time, the confusion between different men’ is considered acharacteristic feature of the creation of myth.14 It would seem that, whereas

110

Thea Summerfield

11 MacDonald, Border Bloodshed, pp. 11–18.12 Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings, pp. 28–36; quote p. 29.13 See also MacDonald, Border Bloodshed, pp. 161–95.14 Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past, p. 13.

stories about Robert Bruce’s later career were current as late as the 1350s,memories of the events and persons involved around the turn of the previ-ous century were fading fast.15

The start of Bruce’s ‘biography’ in the poem with the institution of JohnBalliol means that there was no need to record that Bruce deserted the Scot-tish cause in favour of the English three times before 1306.16 It is somethingwith which Robert Bruce is reproached from late medieval chronicles to thefilm Braveheart. As the author of the metrical version of Hector Boece’schronicle exclaims:

Robert Bruce, O rabill mynd, allace!Quhair wes thi wit or wisdom in that cace?How culd thow find that time in thi hart,Aganis thi awin to tak so plane ane partWith king Edward [. . .] (III, 48,319–323)17

Robert Bruce, O confused mind, alas! Where was your wit or wisdom inthat case? How could you find it in your heart at that time to side withKing Edward against your own [kind] so openly?

Not all authors were as charitable as this author who, in the next few lines,puts the blame for Bruce’s ‘lack of wit’ on King Edward ‘that subtill wes [and]sle, / Full of falsheid and greit crudelitie’ (III, 48, 327–28). Barbour avoidsthe issue entirely by not dealing with Bruce’s early years. Instead we are toldat length about the youth of James Douglas, later Bruce’s second-in-command, close friend and right hand. Barbour recounts how he sowed hiswild oats in Paris and, once returned to Scotland, joined Bruce as a way ofrecovering his ancestral lands which had been confiscated by the English.18

In this way for James Douglas as for Robert Bruce justification for rebellion isprovided, and the anti-English tone set.

The emphasis on the Douglas interest at the beginning of the poem isbalanced by the account of Douglas’s journey to Spain with Bruce’s heart atthe end, so that effectively the story of Robert Bruce is encircled by accountsof James Douglas. Certainly there were good reasons at the time of writingfor emphasising the close bond that had existed at one time between theScottish king and the Douglas family.

Robert II’s succession had not been uncontested. William, Earl of

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

111

15 Brie, Die nationale Literatur Schottlands, p. 39; see below for evidence of stories extant in the1350s.

16 Does homage to Edward I in 1296; submits to Edward I in 1302; fights for Edward inScotland between 1302 and 1304. See Barrow, Robert Bruce, pp. 76–7, 114 and 121–4,141–2.

17 The Buik of the Croniclis of Scotland; or A metrical version of the history of Hector Boece, ed.Turnbull.

18 On the significance of the details of James Douglas’s youth and training for his role in TheBruce, see McKim, ‘James Douglas and Barbour’s Ideal of Knighthood’, pp. 167–71.

Douglas, had put himself forward as a candidate on flimsy grounds whichwere probably intended to extract concessions from the new Stewart dynastyrather than as a serious move.19 As Stephen Boardman points out, Douglas’ssupporters were keen to hold on to privileges acquired during the reign ofDavid II, and as such were a very real political threat. The matter wasresolved by Robert II’s typical ‘low-key and non-confrontational approach’:20

through appointments, financial arrangements and the marriage of William’sson Sir James Douglas to Robert II’s daughter Isabella (24 Sept. 1371).Loyalty was not being taken for granted, it was bargained for and richlyrewarded to guarantee the future stability of the kingdom.21

In the Douglas family itself as in the royal household, the glorious past wasmuch in the air. In 1369 Sir Archibald Douglas, James’s son, had providedfor a hospital in Holywood Abbey, Kirkcudbrightshire, ‘having in mind thesouls of his father [James Douglas], King Robert, Edward Bruce and KingDavid’. He may also at this time have had the ‘rich tomb of alabaster, fairand beautiful’ made for James Douglas’s remains which Barbour mentions(XX, 598). Barbour’s poem, encompassed as it is by the lengthy descriptionof James Douglas’s youth and his honourable death in Spain, thus became acelebration of Douglas’s life in the service of Robert Bruce and a reminderfor the present generation of the glory that might be achieved by loyalty tothe king.

After the introduction with its rousing anti-English invective, its celebra-tion of James Douglas and the justifications for rebelling against the Englishking, the story proper begins: ‘Lordingis, quha likis for till her’. It is a storyabout a man whose efforts secure, as the medial epilogue states, peace, pros-perity and justice for the country. But this is achieved by unconventional,even controversial means. It was Barbour’s task to reconcile extantmemories about Robert Bruce, often of a highly popular and anecdotalnature, with his aim to present Robert I’s exceptional gifts of leadership as afit subject for emulation, while dealing at the same time with some of thecriticism which he knew to exist about Robert I’s methods. As we shall see,the core section of the poem presents us with a literary patchwork in whichall these elements are given a place.

II

In a poem in which one bloody encounter follows upon another, the empha-sis appears to lie on warfare, and this certainly is an important aspect of TheBruce as a whole. Accordingly a number of scholars have noted that inThe Bruce different types of military command are represented by Robert

112

Thea Summerfield

19 Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings, p. 42.20 Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings, p. 49.21 Nicholson, Scotland. The Later Middle Ages, p. 185.

Bruce and his closest followers, James Douglas, Edward Bruce and ThomasRandolph.22 James Douglas is the epitome of loyalty, but fights for his own,personal ends; Edward Bruce is audacious, but, as a result of his lack ofmesure, often a liability rather than an asset; and Thomas Randolph may beregarded as representing those of a later age who found Bruce’s methods ofwaging war less than honourable. For if Robert Bruce’s early activities in theservice of the English king were remembered with dismay in the 1370s, hismethods of fighting the English appear to have been similarly regarded withless than approbation by some in Robert II’s entourage.

Historians have noted a renewed interest in the early years of the reign ofRobert II in the concept of chivalry, ‘the desire to attain glory and renownthrough military feats and an enjoyment of martial endeavour for its ownsake’.23 This was a European, rather than a peculiarly Scottish phenomenon,revived and given ‘a new flavour, a new emphasis’ and ‘fresh prominence’during the Hundred Years War.24 David II, a tournament enthusiast as wellas a patron of chivalric literature, had gathered round him many young menwho felt inspired by the renewed emphasis on gaining glory in combat.25 It isunlikely that with the succession of Robert II the interest in chivalric featsand notions disappeared overnight. Such interests concerned equipment,such as weaponry and horses, the ‘proper’ way of conducting battles, andindividual behaviour. In his story Barbour unobtrusively incorporates com-ments on aspects of chivalry to illustrate examples of chivalric conduct thathe considered irrelevant to effective leadership.

The Battle of Methven (19 June 1306), where the Scots suffered a humiliat-ing defeat, inaugurated a period of great hardship for the Scots. Barbour’s storyabout Bruce and his followers becomes a tale of fugitives, moving about thecountry on foot, dodging their enemies, attacking from ambushes, and, as oftenas not, being hungry and scared. They do not even have a single horse amongthem. Barbour writes that when winter approaches, the ladies, who so far haveaccompanied their men, are advised to go to warmer and safer places and thatthe horses are given to them (III, 352–7). Robert Bruce’s decision to dowithout the horses and henceforth fight on foot (III, 354) was a strategic deci-sion: in an encounter with the followers of John of Lorn he had found that in afight with men armed with axes a man on horseback is extremely vulnerable.By giving the horses to the ladies, as Barbour tells us, the strategic move alsobecomes an act of kindness and chivalry. It is not unlikely that the latefourteenth-century audience had considered the horselessness of Bruce and hismen a matter for contempt; for although in battles fighting on foot had

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

113

22 Kliman, ‘The Idea of Chivalry in John Barbour’s Bruce’; McKim, ‘James Douglas andBarbour’s Ideal of Knighthood’; Cameron, ‘Chivalry and Warfare in Barbour’s Bruce’.

23 MacDonald, Border Bloodshed, p. 178.24 Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages, p. 243.25 Nicholson, Scotland. The Later Middle Ages, p. 174.

become common towards the end of the century, even for the nobility, horsescontinued to be ‘recognisable signs of . . . status, wealth and importance’.26 Thelack of horses signals the absence of all three qualities at this stage.

Bruce’s tactics also appear to have been controversial, as they areobliquely criticised and defended in a conversation between the king and hisnephew, Thomas Randolph, which Barbour renders in direct discourse.Thomas Randolph, after 1312 Earl of Moray, and, after Robert Bruce’s deathin 1329, Guardian of Scotland until his own death in 1332 was in ProfessorBarrow’s words, one of Bruce’s ‘famous captains’.27 Randolph had been withBruce at Methven in 1306, had been captured there and had changed sides.About two years later28 he was, according to Barbour, recaptured by JamesDouglas. Barbour tells us that, having been brought face to face with hisuncle, Thomas Randolph decided to change sides again and rejoin the Scot-tish cause, but not without telling his uncle his reason for his earlierdefection:

Ye chasty me, bot yeAucht bettre chastyt for to be,For sene ye werrayit the kingOff Ingland, in playne fechtyngYe suld pres to derenyhe rychtAnd nocht with cowardy na with slycht. (IX 747–52)

You rebuke me, but really you should be rebuked. For since you made waron the king of England, you should strive to prove your right in openfighting, and not by cowardice or cunning.

In other words, fighting – and winning – by means of underhand tactics isdishonourable; Robert should obey the rules of chivalry in his wars instead ofresorting to guerilla methods.29 However, Robert Bruce had found out thehard way that at this early stage it was impossible for him to defeat theEnglish, who outnumbered and out-equipped him, in a set battle, and thatwhen he resorted to guerilla tactics, making use of the superior knowledge ofthe terrain and the enormous powers of endurance of his men, he was virtu-ally invincible. Robert replies by saying, according to Barbour: ‘Yeit may-fallit may / Cum or oucht lang to sic assay’ (IX, 753–4) – ‘Well, perhaps it maycome to that [i.e. a regular battle] before too long.’ After which he ordersRandolph to be imprisoned for a while as a punishment for his proud words,

114

Thea Summerfield

26 Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, pp. 30–31; Ayton, Knights and Warhorses, p. 26; Oakeshott,A Knight and his Horse, p. 27, quoted by Ruck, Index of Themes and Motifs in 12th-centuryFrench Arthurian Poetry, p. 55.

27 Barrow, Robert Bruce, pp. 193, 208.28 According to Barrow ‘at some time before March 1309’ (Robert Bruce, p. 183); Duncan

(p. 354 note to IX, 696–700) thinks it was ‘probably the early summer of 1308’.29 McKim notes a number of theoretical opinions which do not reject the use of guile in

warfare (‘James Douglas and Barbour’s Ideal of Knighthood’, p. 180, n. 31).

and as an opportunity for reflection (IX, 759–61); later the nephew exertshimself credibly on his uncle’s account and becomes, with James Douglasand Edward Bruce, one of his main-stays.

This passage, and especially the exchange of words, serves to underlinethe fact that such high and mighty criticism was irrelevant in the difficultcircumstances of Bruce’s struggle.30 At the same time mitigation of RobertBruce’s methods is added by the statement that conventional battle may beon the cards at a later stage: a pointer forward to the Battle of Bannockburn(which we, like Barbour’s audience, know would be fought by pre-arrange-ment on a battlefield between two armies and would result in a resoundingvictory for Bruce); finally, the passage also serves as an acceptable rationalis-ation of Thomas Randolph’s earlier defection; to change sides because one’schivalric conscience is being compromised looks better than leaving theunderdog to fend for himself and joining the side where victory and rewardare more likely.

Criticism of the more extreme manifestations of chivalric conduct in awar situation is found in Barbour’s story of Sir John Webiton. It would be afunny story if it wasn’t so sad. Webiton, according to Barbour, was thecaptain of Douglas Castle, a man described by Barbour as ‘yong stoute andfelloun / Joly alsua and valageous, / And for that he was amorous / He waldisch fer the blythlyar’ (VIII, 454–7) – ‘young, brave and ruthless, cheerfultoo and flighty, and because he was in love, he was the readier to issueforth’.31 He is lured from the safety of his castle by a ruse thought up byJames Douglas and is killed.32 After his death, Barbour tells us, a letter wasfound among his possessions from a lady, telling him that when he hadguarded the highly dangerous Douglas Castle for a year ‘as a gud bachiller’,he might ask the lady for ‘hyr amouris and hyr drouery’, her love and herservice (VIII, 488–99). The story is told without further comment, but itsmessage is obvious: such conduct is not to be commended. Webiton’s fancyand fate were by no means exceptional; cases of knights losing or nearlylosing their lives as the result of tasks set them by ladies or of oaths sworn inknightly company are well-known, nor was Barbour the only author toderide these potentially fatal practices.33

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

115

30 See also Cameron, ‘Chivalry and Warfare’, p. 21.31 ‘He wes amorous’ is translated by Duncan as ‘he was a loving [person]’; in view of

Webiton’s subsequent actions I believe amorous must be understood here as being in love.Lines 456–7 are, therefore, my translation.

32 Douglas had sacks filled with grass put upon horses and led by innocent-looking rural typesin a long line below the castle walls. It was meant to look – and was interpreted as such – asif the Scots were taking a great quantity of grain to Lanark fair. However, once the Englishhave left the safety of the castle to capture the sacks of ‘grain’, the Scots discard the worth-less sacks and their rustic cloaks and mount their horses. At the same time Douglas and hismen burst forth from their ambush. All the Englishmen are killed. Douglas takes the castle,sparing its inhabitants (VIII, 437–517).

33 See Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, pp. 219–20, 233–4.

As Sir John Webiton cannot be traced in the records,34 it is as impossibleto verify the historicity of this episode as it is to know whether or notthe conversation between Robert Bruce and Thomas Randolph ever tookplace or if the horses were really given to the ladies. However, the possiblelack of historical veracity of these episodes does not make them or theinformation contained in them of any less value. In Paul Strohm’s words,‘composed within history, fictions offer irreplaceable historical evidence intheir own right’.35 Although discussed here at some length, these episodesare incidental to the main issue in the poem, more particularly in its coresection. They are interesting in giving us a glimpse of the audience and their‘modes of thought’, which Barbour bore in mind when writing his longpoem. However, his main concern was with Robert Bruce himself, inparticular with the representation of Bruce’s exceptional gifts of leadership.He does so by incorporating and exploiting existing traditions and legendsand yet raising the stature of his protagonist above the anecdotal level ofthese popular stories by relying on his wide reading and learning. Examplesare given, first, of Robert Bruce in the midst of his men, giving themmoral comfort by literary means, and second, of Bruce as a huntedindividual.

III

Throughout the difficult time following the Battle of Methven, Barbouremphasises Bruce’s care for his men’s morale and mental well-being. This isdone – at least in Barbour’s narrative! – by telling them stories about greatheroes of classical and medieval legend who had been victorious in theface of great trouble. The key-word in Barbour’s comments accompanyingthese stories is comfort, as the antidote of disconford (discouragement) anddespair.36 An image is created of Bruce surrounded by his men, sufferingwith them, but morally rising above them through determination and hiscare for others, not showing his own worries so as not to distress his follow-ers, pretending to be more sanguine than the situation warrants: ‘Andfenyeit to mak better cher / Than he had mater to be fer, / For his caus yeidfra ill to wer’ (III, 300–2) – ‘And pretended to be more cheerful than hehad reason to be by far, for his cause went from bad to worse’. An illustra-tive example is provided by the famous episode situated on the edge of LochLomond.

The king and his men have decided to move to Kintyre and find their way

116

Thea Summerfield

34 Duncan notes that this person is not found in English published records (The Bruce,p. 314).

35 Strohm, ‘False Fables and Historical Truth’, p. 4.36 Conford: III, 189; disconford/disconforting/discumfyt: III, 191, 193, 197, 267, 258; undiscumfyt:

III, 274; desparyt/disparyng: III, 195, 200, 251, 295.

blocked by Loch Lomond. Walking round it is said to be too far and moreimportantly too dangerous, as their enemies – Scots and English – are every-where (III, 411–13); their only chance is to cross the lake. Having searchedthe bank for a while, James Douglas, according to Barbour, finds ‘a litillsonkyn bate’ (III, 417) on the shore. It is full of water, but, once it has beenbailed out, proves sound. The oars are apparently still with it, for it isdecided that one man will row James Douglas and Bruce himself across tothe other side. He will then row back to fetch two more men, and so on. Noteveryone fancies waiting; some, Barbour says, swim across with their belong-ings on their backs (III, 427–32). Barbour specifies that it took one day andone night for everyone to reach the other shore (III, 429–30). Meanwhile,Barbour tells us, Robert Bruce reads his men a story to comfort and entertainthem while they were waiting: ‘The king the quhilis meryly / Red to thaimthat war him by / Romanys off worthi Ferambrace’ (III, 435–37) – ‘Mean-while the king read cheerfully to those who were with him the romance ofworthy Fierabras.’

The story of Fierabras is well chosen in the circumstances. It belongs tothe matter of Charlemagne; Fierabras is the heathen king of Alexandria whotakes on the knights of Charlemagne, come to recover the relics of thePassion. A small group of Charlemagne’s knights ends up being imprisonedby the Saracens, as are the seven pairs sent to relieve them. Fortunately thesultan’s daughter is on their side and saves them from certain death. She alsorestores the relics of the Passion to the Christians, who, after great tribula-tions, take them to Saint Denis. The original story, which numbers around6,000 lines, was written ‘some time between 1190 and 1202’ in OldFrench;37 versions survive in verse and prose in many languages, Anglo-Norman and English among them. In the twenty-five lines in which Barbourgives a précis of Bruce’s story, the emphasis is not on the complications oflove and religion or the exotic decor which are such a marked aspect of thestory as it survives, but on the siege of eleven men and one woman by anenormous army in a castle without any supplies who are rescued by Fierabras(who has meanwhile embraced the Christian faith), once he has managed tocross the water. He then vanquishes the sultan’s army and obtains the holyrelics, all ‘throu his chevalry’ (III, 435–66).38 Barbour may well have heardthe story, or seen the relics, during his visit to Saint Denis in 1365.39

The episode has been studied primarily with a view to the veracity of itsdetails: did Bruce know the story by heart, or did he read from a book he had

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

117

37 Dates established on the basis of manuscript, linguistic, historical and literary criteria byAiles, ‘The Date of the Chanson de Geste Fierabras’. See also Fierabras, Chanson de Geste,ed. Kroeber and Servois.

38 The episode is also discussed by Cameron (‘Chivalry and Warfare in Barbour’s Bruce’, pp.24–9) as a vehicle for her argument that The Bruce is ‘a romance in the crusading mould’(p. 25).

39 Duncan, ‘Introduction’, The Bruce, p. 2.

with him? Which language did he use, English, French or Anglo-Norman?And who told Barbour about this?40 However interesting these questions are,it is hard to believe that Robert Bruce really sat there telling his men – cold,wet, scared and hungry as they arrived by twos and threes – a story (whetherfrom a manuscript or from memory) about how a recently convertedheathen saved a handful of Charlemagne’s knights as well as the relics of thePassion. It surely makes more sense to consider the episode as an inventionof Barbour’s, to echo, duplicate and thus underline once more the import-ance of Robert Bruce’s concern for the morale of his men: ‘The gud kingapon this maner / Comfort thaim that war him ner / And maid thaim gamynand solace / Till that his folk all passyt was’ (III, 463–6), ‘The good king inthis way cheered those who were with him, diverting and amusing themuntil his folk had all crossed.’

The message of the Fierabras story – take comfort from famous legendaryexamples – repeats that formulated in an episode some two hundred linesearlier about the despair felt by the Romans on Hannibal’s approach andtheir eventual victory,41 and other ‘auld storys’ (III, 269) about men in diffi-cult circumstances who had persisted and won through. In these cases too,the comfort afforded by such stories is stressed by Barbour. It should be notedthat an earlier comparison to two legendary Gaelic heroes, made by anadmiring opponent, is disdainfully dismissed. After an attack by John ofLorn, one of Lorn’s men is so impressed by Bruce’s personal courage that hepraises him in a speech, a well-known rhetorical device, and compares Bruceto Goll MacMorna and Fynn, heroes of Gaelic legend (III, 67–70).42

Barbour explicitly rejects this comparison as mydlike, insignificant and in-sufficient; Bruce might be better compared, says Barbour, to Gaudifer deLarys from the Romance of Alexander, even though Gaudifer was killed and

118

Thea Summerfield

40 Bingham wonders if the book ‘was . . . given him at parting by the Queen or one of theother ladies?’ (Robert the Bruce, p. 146); Skeat notes, without committing himself, that inthe Middle English Fierabras romance, entitled The Sowdon [= Sultan] of Babylon ‘all thepoints mentioned by Barbour are found’, suggesting Barbour used an early, now lost, MiddleEnglish version of this romance (The Bruce, vol. II, note to p. 437, p. 557); McDiarmidconcludes: ‘The circumstance of Bruce reading from a manuscript kept with him ashe wanders on foot in the highlands is probably an embellishment on a simpler story ofthe king “merryly” remembering the crossing of Flago’, an opinion shared by Duncan(McDiarmid and Stevenson, p. 74; Duncan, The Bruce, p. 132). Sir Walter Scott, in hisTales of a Grandfather, also concluded that Bruce read from a book; for Scott the fact thatBruce could read proved that he was fit to be king (Tales of a Grandfather, p. 27).

41 ‘Thusgat thaim comfort the king / And to comfort thaim gan inbryng / Auld storys off menthat wer / Set intyll hard assayis ser / And that fortoun contraryit fast, / And come topurpos at the last’, ‘The king comforted them in that way, and to encourage them he citedancient stories of men who were placed in various difficult circumstances, whom fortuneopposed strongly, but who in the end won through’ (III, 267–72).

42 According to Henderson (‘The Ballad and Popular Tradition to 1660’, p. 265) GollMacMorna (Gow Macmorn) and Fyn Makowll (Fionn MacCumhail) are the most fre-quently mentioned Gaelic legendary characters in the Middle Ages.

the king survived (III, 71–92). Clearly the native Scottish heroes were notconsidered suitable material for comparison; perhaps they were felt to be tooprovincial, and the comparison evidence of the inferiority of the speaker,who was, after all, one of Bruce’s enemies. Instead, Robert Bruce is immedi-ately raised by Barbour to the level of one of the great international heroesof medieval romance.

In the Loch Lomond episode Bruce is portrayed as the caring leader.Strategic insight and personal courage having earlier been proved in theencounter with John of Lorn and his men, a forceful empathetic dimensionis added to the depiction of Bruce. This narrative strategy is sustainedthroughout the early part of the core section of the Bruce, in which Bruceand his followers move from one place to another, always in danger, both asa group and, in the case of Robert Bruce, as an individual. This sectionshows many similarities to stories about outlaws, as they are told all over theworld. Indeed, both Barbour and the fourteenth-century English writer of anewsletter compare Bruce and his men to outlaws.

In their years of persecution by Scots and English alike, Bruce and hisfollowers live, according to Barbour, like outlaws, ‘utelawys’, drinking waterand eating ‘flesch’, dressed in tatters and wearing the shoes made of hide,rivelyng, for which the Scots were both famous and derided.43 Barbour’s refer-ence to the Scots as outlaws may reflect English attitudes towards the bandof Scottish rebels in their forests. In an English newsletter dated 15/5/1307,44

Robert Bruce is referred to as King Hobbe, ‘Hobbe’ or ‘Hobbehod’ being analternative for Hood, as in Robin Hood: a name used by many real criminalswho wished to associate themselves with the legendary outlaw.45 By referringto Robert Bruce as King Hobbe, the anonymous English newsletter-writerdisdainfully acknowledges Bruce’s outlaw status, his living wild in the woodswith a group of men, perhaps also his sudden attacks and guerilla methods.However, outlaws have a tendency to adopt heroic stature if they success-fully fight or evade a common enemy. It is this feature of the popular talesabout Bruce which Barbour exploits, both in his portrayal of Bruce amonghis men and in episodes in which Bruce is hunted ‘like a wolf, a thief orthief’s accomplice’ (IX, 472).

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

119

43 Both Froissart and Jean le Bel mention the half-cooked meat prepared in leather pots andthe shoes made of hide. Froissart, Chronicles, p. 47; Chronique de Jean le Bel, ed. Viardand Déprez, I, pp. 68–9; see also The Bruce, ed. Duncan, pp. 775–8 for a translation. Theword rivelyng was used in connection with abuse of the Scots by Pierre de Langtoft inhis Anglo-Norman Chronicle, by Robert Mannyng in its translation into English, andby Laurence Minot, Skelton and Dunbar; see Summerfield, ‘The Political Songs in theChronicles’, pp. 141–2.

44 Printed by Duncan, The Bruce, p. 304, note to VIII, 271. The ‘Song on the execution of SirSimon Fraser’ also refers to Robert Bruce as ‘King Hobbe’. See Thomas Wright’s PoliticalSongs of England, ed. Peter Coss, p. 216.

45 Dobson and Taylor, Rymes of Robyn Hood, pp. 1–17; Holt, ‘Robin Hood: the Origins of theLegend’, pp. 27–34.

Bruce is repeatedly described in situations where he is alone or nearlyalone and in acute danger of being murdered. There is a curious repetitive-ness about these episodes, evidence of their oral origins. There are, forexample, four elaborately-described attacks on Bruce’s life, when Bruce isalone and unsuspecting, in each case by three men;46 twice Bruce isinformed of treason by a woman;47 three times a woman gives Bruce her sonsor warriors to serve in his army;48 four times, in close proximity, stories aretold in which ladders play a role.49 We see Robert Bruce in a different lightin these episodes: as a man who is above all a human being, on the run,hunted with bloodhounds, near despair, hungry, thirsty and in need of sleep.But even in these circumstances his behaviour is worthy of a king: he is everone step ahead of his attackers.

Stories about Robert Bruce and his associates outwitting their Scottish orEnglish enemies were still current in the 1350s, as is clear from an anecdoterecounted by Sir Thomas Gray in his Scalachronica, telling of two boatmen,both of them Bruce’s enemies, who ferry a person unknown to them acrossthe river. While rowing across they mention that they would dearly like tohave Robert Bruce in their boat, and would lose no time in killing him.Once safely ashore and out of reach, Robert Bruce reveals his identity, pre-sumably to the chagrin of the ferrymen.50 Examples of similar stories ofamusing and successful trickery in The Bruce are the episodes in whichWilliam Bunnock smuggles armed men in his hay wain into the peel ofLinlithgow (X, 150–254) and of James Douglas and his men who are takenfor oxen in the twilight (X, 373–402). Although strongly anecdotal anddemotic in character, such stories contribute to the heroic stature of the pro-tagonist, the survivor who has made his enemies look silly. The storieswhich Barbour includes in his poem about Robert Bruce’s close encounterswith antagonists who always outnumber him and whose sole desire it is tokill him, are rather more grim, in that they involve real suffering for thehero, not just for the enemy. This further enhances their emotive effect.Some of these stories were, as Duncan has pointed out, ‘internationallyfamous’.51

120

Thea Summerfield

46 III, 93–146: the Mac na Dorsair brothers and one other man; V, 549–658: a man once closeto the king and his two sons; VII, 111–230: three men and a wether; VII, 407–94: threeanonymous men emerging from the woods when Bruce is out hunting alone.

47 V, 535–46; XIX, 22–30.48 IV, 662–7; V, 133–42; VII, 259–68.49 Ladders are mentioned four times in Book X: rope ladders made by Sym of Ledhouse in the

siege of Roxburgh Castle (X, 363–73); the ladder used when scaling the wall of EdinburghCastle, provided by William Francis (X, 535–95); the example of ladders used by Alexan-der the Great when taking the tower of Babylon (X, 708–40); the prophecy of St. Margaretinvolving a ladder (X, 741–60).

50 Sir Thomas Gray, The Scalachronica, pp. 34–5.51 Jean le Bel records that Robert Bruce was hunted with dogs. Duncan, The Bruce, pp. 226–7,

note to VI, 36, 39.

In his book Bandits Eric Hobsbawm discusses a number of typical aspectsof the ‘image’ of the ‘noble robber’, which I shall here transpose to what Iconsider to be a genre in its own right, the genre of the outlaw tale, where‘images’ are based on stories rather than facts. Hobsbawm shows that outlawstories are typically set in motion by the protagonist’s deprivation of rights(usually land) and the abuse of authority. Outlaw heroes, in other words, arerebels with a cause; they are morally justified in their rebellion. They do notfight for themselves only; they are the champions of an anonymous com-munity. The enemy is always well-defined, and the outlaw, who was anaccepted member of society before he became an outlaw, ultimately acquireshis proper status.52 During the period of his outlawry, there is a close bondbetween the outlaw and his usually all-male associates, while the poor assistand feed the outlaw and his men. All outlaw stories have a historical andgeographical basis in fact. Outlaw tales consist of a succession of often verysimilar incidents, repeated several times, in realistic settings; all have a ruth-less, violent substratum under their fight for justice. At the same time, thetension is regularly relieved by truly comical episodes. The rationale givenby Barbour for Robert Bruce’s rebellion and fight for freedom, which is of amore exalted nature than Douglas’s struggle to recover his property, theimplicit knowledge that this man will one day be king, the assistance of fre-quently named commoners as well as groups, the named close companionsand sense of unity of purpose, the part played by the scenery and the vio-lence, all contribute to creating a picture of Robert Bruce as a hero. Thereare also differences: food, usually luxurious and plentiful in the ‘greenwood’of outlaw fame, is decidedly scarce in the Scottish hills.53

The picture of Robert Bruce as a hunted, suffering human being, separatedfrom civilisation by an evil power and deprived of what is rightfully his, as aman to whose personal sacrificial suffering ultimate success is due, is alreadyfound in the Declaration of Arbroath (1320), where it is stated that, in orderthat ‘his people and heritage might be delivered out of the hands of enemies,[he] bore cheerfully toil and fatigue, hunger and danger’.54 The memory ofBruce as a hunted man, as the Scalachronica and other chronicles testify, wasstill alive in the 1350s. These stories, and the sentiments expressed in theDeclaration, could not be ignored by Barbour; indeed, they were used to greateffect. However, Barbour added a dimension by juxtaposing the popular

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

121

52 The only other option is death by treason, Robin Hood’s fate.53 The difficulty of finding provisions is a constant in this section of the poem. For example:

James Douglas is shown catching fish and trapping animals to feed the ladies (II, 573–84);the people of Rathlin agree to feed Bruce and his men, but may have had little choice(Bruce gives them a promise that their possessions will not be stolen from them if theyagree to feed him and his men). This agrees with actual outlaw practice (III, 741–52). Seealso Hanawalt, ‘Ballads and Bandits’, pp. 165 and 170–1. Later Bruce decides that he is tooheavy a burden on the population (IV, 336–53). The Earl of Lennox is no less welcome forthe food he brings after a long day’s unsuccessful hunting.

54 The Nation of Scots and the Declaration of Arbroath, ed. Duncan, p. 35.

image of Robert Bruce, officially enshrined in the Declaration, with theimage of an empathetic leader whose grandeur was on a par with the statusof the great heroes of the past. It is the combination of these features withhis great military qualities that makes him fit material for emulation by alater king.

CONCLUSION

John Barbour compiled his liber de gestis quondam Robert de Brus from dis-parate material consisting of, among much else, songs or chronicles aboutRobert I and the other main protagonists, celebrating their memorableexploits; famous stories about the great men of the classical and medievalpast; surviving information on battles and campaigns; and popular legendarytales telling how Robert Bruce and his men outwitted their enemies, and ofthe great personal suffering of the future king, through which independencewas achieved (sentiments echoed in The Declaration of Arbroath). Thismaterial was adapted by Barbour in his compilation to answer the needs of alater court and a later king, Robert II. This involved dealing, often implic-itly, with aspects of Robert Bruce’s struggle which were controversial, evencondemned, in the 1370s, and taking into account existing or recent tensionbetween the descendants of the two main characters in the poem: RobertBruce and James Douglas. It also involved raising the status of the futureking from the demotic level of popular legend to the hieratic level of famousheroes of the past, from the king as a fugitive to the king as the man wholeads his followers, in spite of great personal anguish and suffering, tovictory, to ‘myrth and solace and blythness’ (XIII, 728); a king of the legend-ary stature of an Alexander or Fierabras. However, the demotic episodesforcefully and effectively contribute to Bruce’s heroic stature in a differentway, as stories comparable to those told about famous outlaws everywhere inthe world. The underdog who successfully fights to regain that of which heand his followers have been unjustly and cruelly deprived, may be certain ofthe sympathy of the audience.

Throughout what I have called the core section of Barbour’s Bruce, RobertBruce’s leadership is presented in messianic terms: his personal suffering andhis care for the comfort and solace of his men ultimately lead to success. Thisis what true leadership is about, and this is the message Barbour has for thecourt of Robert II. Kingship is not only about waging war, whether inaccordance with generally accepted or newly invented and expedientmethods. Whether in the end Barbour’s expositions on current modes ofthought led to the result desired by him, whether they were ‘brakes or accel-erators’, is unknown. That he wrote in response to contemporary sentimentsabout Robert I cannot be doubted.

122

Thea Summerfield

Works Cited

I. Sources

Barbour, John, The Bruce, ed. and trans. Archibald A. M. Duncan, CanongateClassics 78 (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1997; repr. with corrections 1999).

Barbour’s Bruce, ed. Matthew P. McDiarmid and James A. C. Stevenson (Edin-burgh: The Scottish Text Society, 1985).

The Bruce, or The Book of the most excellent and noble prince Robert de Broyss, Kingof Scots Compiled by Master John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen A.D. 1375,ed. Walter W. Skeat, EETS ES 11 and 55 (London, New York, Toronto:Oxford University Press, 1870–1889).

Fierabras, Chanson de Geste, ed. Auguste Kroeber and Gustave Servois (Paris:Vieweg, 1860).

Froissart, Chronicles, ed. and trans. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth: PenguinClassics 1968).

Gray, Sir Thomas, The Scalachronica. The Reigns of Edward I, Edward II andEdward III, trans. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Baronet (Felinfach: Llanerch Pub-lishers, 2000. Facsimile Reprint. First published Glasgow, 1907).

Langtoft, Pierre de, Le Règne d’Ëdouard Ier. Edition critique et commenté, ed.Jean-Claude Thiolier. Vol. I (Créteil: C.E.L.I.M.A Université de Paris XII,1989).

Le Bel, Jean, Chronique, ed. Jules Viard and Eugène Déprez, SHF, 2 vols (Paris:Laurens, 1904–1905).

Scott, Sir Walter, Tales of a Grandfather (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black,1869, first publ. 1827).

Stewart, William, The Buik of the Croniclis of Scotland; or A metrical version of thehistory of Hector Boece, ed. William B. Turnbull, Rolls Series, 3 vols (London:Longman, Browns, Green, Longmans and Roberts, 1858).

Wright, Thomas, Political Songs of England, From the Reign of John to that ofEdward II, ed. Peter Coss (with a new Introduction by Peter Coss) (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Facsimile Reprint. First Publishedby the Camden Society, 1839).

II. Studies

Ailes, Marianne J., ‘The Date of the Chanson de Geste Fierabras’, Olifant 19(1994): 245–71.

Ayton, Andrew, Knights and Warhorses. Military Service and the English Aristoc-racy under Edward II (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1994).

Barrow, Geoffrey W. S., Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1965).

Bingham, Caroline, Robert the Bruce (London: Constable, 1998).Boardman, Stephen, The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert III, 1371–1406

(East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1996).Brie, Friedrich W. D., Die nationale Literatur Schottlands von den Anfängen bis zur

Renaissance (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1937).

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

123

Burke, Peter, ‘History of Events and the Revival of Narrative’, in New Perspec-tives on Historical Writing, ed. P. Burke (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), pp.233–48.

Burke, Peter, The Renaissance Sense of the Past (London: Arnold, 1970).Cameron, Sonja, ‘Chivalry and Warfare in Barbour’s Bruce’, in Armies, Chivalry

and Warfare in Medieval Britain and France. Proceedings of the 1995 HarlaxtonSymposium, ed. Matthew Strickland (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1998), pp.13–29.

Dobson, Richard B., and John Taylor, Rymes of Robyn Hood. An Introduction tothe English Outlaw (Stroud: Sutton, 1997, rev. edn).

Duncan, Archibald A. M., ‘The War of the Scots, 1307–1323’, Transactions ofthe Royal Historical Society Sixth Series II (1992): 125–51.

Duncan, Archibald A. M., The Nation of Scots and the Declaration of Arbroath(London: Historical Association, 1970).

Ebin, Lois A., ‘John Barbour’s Bruce: Poetry, History and Propaganda’, Studies inScottish Literature 9 (1971–2): 218–42.

Goldstein, R. James, The Matter of Scotland. Historical Narrative in Medieval Scot-land (Lincoln (Neb.) and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).

Hanawalt, Barbara A., ‘Ballads and Bandits. Fourteenth-Century Outlaws andthe Robin Hood Poems’, in Chaucer’s England. Literature in Historical Context,ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt, Medieval Studies at Minnesota 4 (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1992), pp. 154–75.

Henderson, Hamish, ‘The Ballad and Popular Tradition to 1660’, in The Historyof Scottish Literature I: Origins to 1660 (Mediaeval and Renaissance), ed. R. D.S. Jack (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988).

Hobsbawm, Eric, Bandits (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1969, repr. 2000with postscript).

Holt, James C., ‘Robin Hood: the Origins of the Legend’, in Robin Hood. TheMany Faces of that Celebrated English Outlaw / Die vielen Gesichter des edlenRäubers, ed. K. Carpenter (Oldenburg: Bibliotheks- und Informationssystemder Universität Oldenburg, 1995), pp. 27–34.

Kennedy, Edward D., A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050:1500.Volume 8: Chronicles and Other Historical Writing (New Haven, Connecticut:Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1989).

Kliman, Bernice W., ‘The Idea of Chivalry in John Barbour’s Bruce’, MediaevalStudies 35 (1973): 477–508.

MacDonald, Alastair J., Border Bloodshed (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 2000).Macdougall, Norman, ‘Foreword’, in Stephen Boardman, The Early Stewart Kings.

Robert II and Robert III, 1371–1406 (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1996).McDiarmid, Matthew P., ‘The Metrical Chronicles and Non-alliterative

Romances’, in The History of Scottish Literature I. Origins to 1660 (Mediaevaland Renaissance), ed. R. D. S. Jack (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press,1988), pp. 27–38.

McKim, Anne, ‘James Douglas and Barbour’s Ideal of Knighthood’, Forum forModern Language Studies 17 (1981): 167–80.

Nicholson, Ranald, Scotland. The Later Middle Ages. The Edinburgh History ofScotland, 2 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1974).

Oakeshott, Ronald E., A Knight and his Horse (Guildford and London: P.Lutterworth 1962).

124

Thea Summerfield

Prestwich, Michael, ‘England and Scotland during the Wars of Independence’,in England and her Neighbours. Essays in Honour of Pierre Chaplais, ed. MichaelJones and Malcolm Vale (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), pp. 181–97.

Prestwich, Michael, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages. The English Experi-ence (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996).

Ruck, Elaine H., Index of Themes and Motifs in 12th-century French ArthurianPoetry (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991).

Strohm, Paul, ‘False Fables and Historical Truth’, in Paul Strohm, Hochon’sArrow. The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, N.J.,Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 3–9.

Summerfield, Thea, ‘The Political Songs in the Chronicles of Pierre de Langtoftand Robert Mannyng’, in The Court and Cultural Diversity. Selected Papersfrom the Eighth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society,The Queen’s University of Belfast, 26 July – 1 August 1995, ed. Evelyn Mullalyand John Thompson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 139–48.

Barbour’s Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect

125

‘Peace is good after war’:The Narrative Seasons of English ArthurianTradition

ANDREW LYNCH

MEDIEVAL English Arthurian narratives do not in themselves make upa solid tradition, more a series of differently situated and shaped

responses to disparate source materials. Their supposed common identityoften cannot disguise wide differences. Sir Launfal and the Wife of Bath’sTale, for instance, contemporary romances of love and magic set in Arthur’sreign, are worlds apart in ethos and literary conduct. But if we look beyondself-contained bachelor-knight romances to English narratives attempting abroader chronological treatment of Arthur’s career, what might be calledArthurian biography, a much stronger sense of tradition and intertextualityemerges, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Malory, including the Brut books ofWace and La�amon, Robert Mannyng’s Chronicle, and the AlliterativeMorte Arthure.1

Within these texts, Arthur’s story centres on the changing representationof military power, political organisation and right to rule; narratives of warprovide the main discursive resources for this. A term like ‘war biography’would best describe the treatment of Arthur in these texts, for the king andthe conduct of the wars are inseparable. Less often noted, the representationof peace is also a persistent and significant Arthurian interest. Howeverwarlike their outlook, those writing the reign of Arthur were inevitablyrequired by their material to construct imaginative sequences in which theestablishment and breaking of peace, the alternations of peace and war –‘blysse and blunder’2 – were accounted for in terms intelligible and meaning-ful to their audiences. The question of peace assumed greater importance inthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries because of new political develop-ments. The growing importance of parliament in England, the dependenceon it for financing war, the obvious costs of war to the commons, the

127

1 For an account, see Barron, ‘Arthurian Romance’, p. 23.2 Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, ed. Tolkien and Gordon, rev. Davis, line 18.

prolonged and inconclusive nature of the war with France, the adoption ofmore widely destructive military tactics, the bad experience of civil war, allapparently gave the benefits of peace a stronger voice than they had previ-ously had.3 Especially in the clerkly tradition of moral poetry, the literarydiscourse of peace became newly invigorated in Chaucer’s time and beyond.‘Al werre is dreedful, vertuous pees is good, / Striff is hatful, pees douhtir ofplesaunce’, Lydgate could write.4 How, if at all, do English Arthurianwritings respond to these developments? Do militarist values of prowessand conquest continue to dominate the representation of Arthur, as inGeoffrey’s work, or is their influence at all contested or moderated? What isthe value of Arthurian peace? John Barnie, referring to the AlliterativeMorte Arthure (c. 1400), long ago suggested that it gave out a mixed messageon war issues: ‘Arthur . . . is presented as a great chivalric and national hero,as well as a proud and avaricious tyrant’; ‘Arthur . . . may be the subject offar-reaching criticism, but he is still “Sir Arthure of Inglande”, “owre wyesekyng”.’5 Barnie was responding to the assumption that a poem whichdescribed such destructive wars must inevitably be an ‘anti-war’ poem. Forall the horrors of war it depicts, he and Karl Heinz Göller were both surelyright that the Alliterative Morte is ‘ambivalent’ on the issue; it does notsimply identify itself as an anti-war statement,6 let alone as a work in thenear-pacifist spirit of some later medieval moral poetry. In this study Iattempt a further articulation of its ambivalence, through analysis of peaceand war as sequential and inter-related, rather than separate and adversarial,in the English tradition of Arthurian war biography. Rather than offeringglobal assessments of these Arthurian texts as pro- or anti-war, militarist orpacifist, I make a comparative analysis of the particular ideological relationeach establishes between war and peace, especially at the difficult narrativejunctures that explain the transition between these states.

Lori Walters and Ad Putter have shown that early Arthurian verseromances adopted a cyclical alternation of peace and war. They strictlybound themselves to respect the temporal authority of chronicle prosehistory by situating their adventures interstitially, in the ‘unused story time’7

of peace between Geoffrey’s wars. Wace draws attention to the ‘time ofgreat peace’, after the king’s return from France, in which the marvels and

128

Andrew Lynch

3 For war and political changes, see McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307–1399, Chapters7, 9, 13–15. For the associated growth of peace and anti-war literature, see Scattergood,Politics and Poetry in the Fifteenth Century; Yeager, ‘Pax Poetica’; Ben Lowe, Imagining Peace,esp. pp. 70ff; Lynch, ‘ “Thou woll never have done” ’.

4 Lydgate, A Praise of Peace, in The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. McCracken, no. 64, lines169–84. See Scattergood, pp. 148–50 for other works by Lydgate and Audelay.

5 Barnie, War in Medieval Society, p. 150.6 Göller, ed., in The Alliterative Morte Arthure, pp. 15–17.7 Putter, ‘Finding Time for Romance’, see pp. 2–3; Walters, ‘Le Rôle du scribe dans

l’organisation des manuscrits des romans de Chrétien de Troyes’, see pp. 303–5.

adventures of Arthurian poetic fiction are placed.8 The association of peace-time with romance invention marked its original subordination to awar-history schedule. It is as if the narrative authority of war could never bechallenged by the fictions of the poets, only complemented and structurallybuttressed. As Elizabeth Edwards puts it, ‘the romance of errancy is . . . insti-tuted as the project of the now politically stable court’.9 In time, Ad Putterhas shown, English Arthurian romances, once supported by French prose,developed enough of their own authority to make new gaps in the chron-icles, further breaking up the ‘historical’ fabric to insert more fictive adven-tures.10 I shall argue here that the Alliterative Morte Arthure, imaginativelyre-working Arthurian history at the seam of war and peace, fashioned a newcritique of Arthur’s wars. Some unusual narrative and structural features ofits Arthurian war biography vary and partly disable the traditional cyclicalrelation of war and peace, ultimately supporting the suggestion, not that allwar is dreadful, but that the king’s war goes on too long.

King Arthur’s peacetime role became more important after his twelfth-century transformation from dux bellorum to rex, but always remained over-shadowed by his wars. Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1135) made Arthur aleader hastily crowned in wartime11 and glorious in conquest, perhaps incontrast to the saintly kings of earlier clerical tradition.12 Geoffrey’s Arthurtries to make peace with the Saxons, but their duplicity disrupts his plans,sparking a holy war of extermination.13 Later, Geoffrey passes over twelveyears of Arthurian peace in a few lines.14 Then, after extensive wars in Gaul,he devotes considerable space to Arthur’s glorious return. The more the kingconquers in foreign war, the more splendid his subsequent peacetime life isshown to be. But Geoffrey breaks up Arthur’s Whitsun celebrations, wherethe king renews ‘pacts of peace’ with his chieftains,15 by introducing Rome’sdemands for tribute, and these precipitate further wars never brought to anend, because the rebellion by Mordred in which Arthur dies interrupts hisfinal push on Rome.16 As glorious as Geoffrey made Arthur, he left it poss-ible to see the king’s last wars as both unduly prolonged and inconclusive,failing to meet the expectation of total victory raised by previous campaigns

129

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

8 Wace’s Roman de Brut, ed. and trans. Weiss, lines 9788–98. (Cited as ‘Wace’ hereafter.)9 Edwards, The Genesis of Narrative in Malory’s Morte Darthur, p. 36.10 Putter, ‘Finding Time for Romance’, p. 7. See also Fichte, ‘Grappling with Arthur’. Fichte,

p. 156, places the Alliterative Morte in an English Arthurian tradition giving ‘imaginativepoetic elaborations of the historical “facts” as they are presented in the chronicles andhistories’.

11 The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. Griscom, p. 432 (cited asHistoria hereafter); Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans.Thorpe, p. 212 (cited as ‘Thorpe’ hereafter).

12 Flint, ‘The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth’.13 Historia, pp. 436–7; Thorpe, pp. 215–16.14 Historia, p. 446; Thorpe, p. 222.15 Historia, p. 451: ‘inter proceres suos firmissimam pacem renouaret’; Thorpe, p. 226.16 Historia, pp. 459ff; Thorpe, pp. 230ff.

against the Saxons, Frollo and Lucius, or to achieve the expected peacetimeaftermath.

In the Historia and its successors, peace is principally treated as the pre-condition and the result of war; it is first a state of unrealised potential, thena temporary period of triumph and repletion, the one becoming the otherthrough a transformative intervening space of war. Geoffrey’s highest formof peace is Arthurian – the plentiful feast, the full court, the huge numbersof royal and noble vassals in attendance, the display of luxury, the sports andgames with their sexualised ambience.17 He represents peace mainly as the‘fruits’ and spoils of war, complementing his overall theme that loss of mili-tary prowess brings eventual disaster to a people. Whilst in the moral tradi-tion of the later medieval period, war and peace could be understood asseparate, and in opposition, they are here quite interdependent, necessarilyalternating but not truly alternative states, being parts of the one generativestrategy within a continuing narrative. Though interdependent, their statusis not equal. Peace is ancillary to war, a space of leisure in which success inpast war is celebrated and displayed, and new war prepared and justified. Ifany problem in the relation of these two states arises, it is represented as acyclical hitch: not peace versus war, but too long a peace without war.

Accordingly, in the crisis posed by the Roman challenge Geoffrey showsalmost no prudential assessment of war and peace as alternatives. Arthur’scouncil18 is of the kind Chaucer would much later attack in Melibee as ‘amoevyng of folye’ – assembled in anger, covetousness and haste, taintedwith flattery, and preempted by the king’s expressed desire for war.19 ButChaucer’s Prudence is speaking out of a ‘desire for peace as a temporal con-dition’20 not much known to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey’s charactersregard peace itself as the problem; it has lasted too long. Duke Cador ofCornwall, in a tradition going back at least to Tacitus,21 complains that evenfive years of peace have made the Britons degenerate – cowards, lechers,dice-players – and rejoices that war has come again.22

130

Andrew Lynch

17 Historia, pp. 451–9; Thorpe, pp. 226–30.18 Historia, pp. 460–6; Thorpe, pp. 231–5.19 See ‘The Tale of Melibee’, in Benson, ed., The Riverside Chaucer, p. 225, VII, lines 1243–8.

Although to Chaucer anger vitiated royal council, Arthurian writers seem comfortablewith the ira regis, which had enjoyed a renaissance since the twelfth century. See Althoff,‘Ira Regis’, esp. p. 70.

20 Lowe, p. 5.21 Cornelii Taciti De Vita Iulii Agricolae, ed. Sleeman: Chapter 14: ‘si civitas in qua orti sunt

longa pace et otio torpeat, plerique nobilium adulescentium petunt ultro eas nationes, quaetum bellum aliquod gerunt, quia et ingrata genti quies’. Tacitus, Germania, trans. Hutton:‘Should it happen that the community where they are born is drugged with long years ofpeace or quiet, many of the high-born youth voluntarily seek those tribes which are at thetime engaged in some war; for rest is unwelcome to the race.’

22 Historia, p. 461; Thorpe, pp. 222–3. For a valuable discussion of the topic in romance texts,see Putter, ‘Arthurian Literature and the Rhetoric of “Effeminacy” ’, with special referenceto Geoffrey and Wace at pp. 43–5.

Two succeeding Brut-poems, by Wace (1155) and La�amon (c. 1185–1216),23 add different responses to Cador’s counsel in Geoffrey. The replyWace’s Walwain gives to Cador implies a seasonal sequence and continuitybetween war and peace:

‘De neient estes en efroiBone est la pais emprès la guerre,Plus bele e mieldre en est la terre;Mult sunt bones les gaberiesE bones sunt les drueries.Pur amistié e puir amiesFunt chevaliers chevaleries.’

‘you are upset about nothing. Peace is good after war and the land is thebetter and lovelier for it. Jokes are excellent and so are love affairs. It’s forlove and their beloved that knights do knightly deeds.’24

Though Wace’s peace is leisure after work, a youthful re-generation after oldwinter, a feminised time of plenty, it is also a time for motivating arms. Andyet, after some point in the time of peace, apparently, rest becomes idleness,health becomes sickness, pastime becomes vice, women’s company stopsinspiring men to arms and makes them effeminate and unmartial. Wace’sCador and Gawain disagree about the timing, but they both understand thesame period of peace as after the last war, before the next one. In this narra-tive moment, Wace holds the virtues of peace and war in poise. He cele-brates the joys of soldiers’ return and family reunion, the increase of luxuryand wealth, yet adds disputes arising from chess and dice-playing.25 Heinvents Gawain’s courtly praise of peace, yet by adding some more aboutlove affairs to Geoffrey’s narrative prepares the ground for Cador’s soldierlycomplaints.26 Overall, Wace’s outlook is fundamentally appreciative of theadvantages of conquest. He treats peace as a springtime27 for the growth of anew generation of warriors at home, and an off-season abroad in whichstripped lands can recover their profitability. Wace’s Arthur has only ‘madepeace and a treaty [in Brittany] because, apart from towers and castles,nothing was left to destroy, neither plants nor vines to be despoiled’.28 Nowthe Roman challenge arrives at the perfect time, just when war is necessaryagain.

131

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

23 Le Saux, Lahamon’s Brut: The Poem and its Sources, p. 10.24 Wace, lines 10765–72. Barron and Weinberg, ed. and trans., Lahamon’s Arthur, p. xxviii,

call Wace’s courtly additions ‘trifling in themselves’ (cited as ‘La�amon’ hereafter).25 Wace, lines 10561–88.26 Wace, lines 10539–4227 In Thorpe, p. 225, Arthur returns from France ‘just as spring was coming on’. In later

English texts, spring descriptions become naturalised as preludes to deeds of chivalry andwar. See Of Arthour and of Merlin, Vol. 1, ed. Macrae-Gibson, lines 7619ff; The Works of SirThomas Malory, ed. Vinaver, rev. Field, Vol. III, pp. 1120–1; 1161.

28 Wace, trans. Weiss, lines 10125–8.

La�amon, who generally follows Wace in his own way, diminishes theCaerleon feast and the later Arthurian episodes.29 He cuts the gambling,music and story-telling from Arthur’s court,30 and his version of the councilscene is quite different. In La�amon’s Brut, when Cador attacks ‘idelnesse’and ‘advocates war for the sake of war’31 –

For nauere ne lufede ich longe grið inne mine londe.for þurh griðe we beoð ibunden and wel neh al aswunden32

– Walwain’s reply says nothing about ‘love of women’,33 but takes up thepraise of peace ‘in wider terms of ethical principle and national economy’:34

‘Cador, þu aert a riche mon! þine redes ne beoð noht idon,for god is grið and god is frið þe freoliche þer haldeð wið –and Godd sulf hit makede þurh his Goddcunde –for grið makeð godne mon gode workes wurchen.for alle monnen bið þa bet þat lond bið þa murgre.’

‘Cador, you are a mighty man! Your advice is not sound, for peace andquiet are good if one maintains them willingly – and God himself in hisdivinity created them – for peace allows a good man to do good deedswhereby all men are the better and the land the happier.’35

La�amon, the ‘strong moralist’36 who ‘pruned down’ Arthur’s Roman wars,37

refuses to dismiss peace as a mere occasion of sin. He allows it an effectivevalue in its own right, as the creation of God, and the general preconditionof good works and happiness amongst men. Peace is good, La�amon says,where it can be ‘freely’ (‘willingly’, ‘nobly’) kept. This is an unusually strongstatement in the Arthurian tradition. Under the circumstances, the Romanthreat of force is doubtless understood to make a ‘free’ or ‘noble’ peaceimpossible; such a peace dictated by cowardice, forced on the country bymilitary weakness, and necessitating homage against the customary rights ofthe land, would be shameful.38 But despite this context, and although he

132

Andrew Lynch

29 Le Saux, pp. 30–2.30 Le Saux, p. 37.31 Le Saux, p. 70.32 La�amon, lines 12449–50. Barron and Weinberg translate: ‘For I have never favoured a

prolonged peace in my land, for peace ties us down and makes us all but impotent.’33 Le Saux, p. 39, shows how La�amon tends to cut such references. She notes instead, p. 65,

the role of the woman in La�amon as ‘freoþuwebbe’, ‘the peaceweaver of Old Englishtradition’.

34 Le Saux, p. 39.35 La�amon, lines 12454–8. Barron and Weinberg, p. lxiii, call this ‘a different idealism [from

Wace’s ‘amorous dalliance’] based on social good rather than personal happiness’. See LeSaux, p. 57, for La�amon’s ‘higher sense of the dignity of his subject matter’.

36 Le Saux, p. 13. See also pp. 155ff.37 Le Saux, p. 229.38 See Barnie, pp. 2ff, for the concept of ‘shameful peace’.

often gives Arthur’s wars a positive religious aspect,39 La�amon is unwillingto leave Cador’s sweeping statement unanswered. There is an idea, muchmore developed than in Wace, that peacetime benefits the whole land andpeople, however much it derogates from the military ‘wurþ-scipe’ of ‘riche’(‘powerful’) men like Cador. Walwain’s reply in La�amon’s Brut associatesespecially with Cador the value-nexus of conquest through war, increasedhonour and enrichment through spoils. Following Geoffrey’s lead, Cador(the proto-Obélix) has repeatedly thanked God for sending him theseRomans.40 But to La�amon’s Walwain, Cador is self-interested, not a voicewho can speak for all, much less divinely motivated, and against his partialinterest the poet sets up an idea of peace itself as God-given and salutary.La�amon goes beyond the traditional praise of the strong king as goodsecurity for the land, fierce to his foes, generous to his friends, which thepoem provides elsewhere, in the tradition of the Peterborough Chronicle’sapproval of tough rulers like William I and Henry I.41 This is nevertheless anequally patriotic concept of peace, which fits the poet’s ‘pro-Briton bias’.42

La�amon’s idea of Britain’s happiness under Arthur is less the victoriousreturn from France43 than the previous twelve years without war. Geoffreyhad mainly treated this space as a time for military build-up, Wace as a timefor chivalric adventures; La�amon thinks of the whole country:

Her mon mai arede of Arðure þan kinghu he twelf �ere seoðen wuneden hereinne griðe and inne friðe, in alle uaer�nesse.Na man him ne faht wið, no he ne makede nan unfrið;ne mihte nauere nan man biþenchen of blissenþat woren in aei þeode mare þan i þisse;ne mihte nauere moncunne nan swa muchel wunneswa wes mid Arðure and mid his folk here.44

No wonder the poet is unwilling to see peacetime traduced by Cador. Apeace like this would not inevitably go on ‘too long’; it could be freely ‘held’.La�amon comes closest in the English Arthurian tradition to imagining apeace that opposes wars.

133

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

39 Le Saux, p. 159.40 La�amon, lines 12428–50. See Thorpe, p. 232.41 See Barron and Weinberg in La�amon, p. 268, notes to p. 81, lines 10776–800. They cite

other praises of peace in La�amon: lines 10744–799, which seems to echo the PeterboroughChronicle, years 1087, 1135; lines 1255–1257 (Gwendoleine); lines 9255–9258 (Uther).

42 Le Saux, pp. 40–41.43 La�amon, lines 12073–96.44 La�amon, lines 11337–44: ‘Here one may read of Arthur the king, how he afterwards dwelt

here twelve years in peace and prosperity, in all splendour. No one fought against him, nordid he make war on anyone; no man could ever conceive of greater happiness in anycountry than there was in this; nor could any nation ever know such great joy as there waswith Arthur and his people here.’

Later English versions of Geoffrey’s council scene tend strongly to affirmthe cyclical, rather than the adversarial, model of war and peace, and indoing so they continue the traditional narrative subjection of peace to war.Mannyng’s Chronicle fills out the idea of peace as the restoration of the landby emphasising, following Wace, the recent joyful return from France ofArthur’s army. Mindful of home, the king has demobilised the veterans,keeping the young men with him.45 War is seen as natural to the young, inline with the views normally attributed to Gawain in this tradition. Afternine years in France, all the Britons return. Families are re-united; spoils arereckoned; news is exchanged between old friends:

Ladies kist þer lordes suete,modres on childir for ioy grete;sones welcomed þer fadres home& mad myrth at þer tocome.. . .þei stode in ilk strete and stie,in gashadles [crossroads] men passed bieto spir at þam how þei had faren,& whi þat þei so long waren,& how þei sped of þer conquest,and whan þei won so far est,& how þei ferd in alle þer wo.‘We wille no more �e far vs fro.’46

For all the charm of Mannyng’s scene, this moment encapsulates the praiseof victory rather than of peace per se, since it can properly apply only to theland and people of a conqueror. Despite his promise in the Prologue to tell‘whilk did wrong, & whilk ryght, / and whilk mayntend pes & fyght’,47

Mannyng’s general debt to Wace effectively makes him a partisan for warbecause it restricts the view of war’s aftermath to the victorious side.Accordingly, when the Roman challenge is offered, the distinction Mannyngdraws is in favour of war. The author of Handlyng Synne has Cador give aweighty moral critique of how peace encourages sloth, lechery and viciouspastimes:

‘þorh idelnes of pesere Bretons feble & hertles.Idelnes norisces but euel;& mykelle temptacoun of þe deuel;idelnes mas man right slouh& dos pruesse falle fulle louh;idelnes norisches licherie

134

Andrew Lynch

45 Robert Mannyng of Brunne, ed. Sullens, lines 10757–9 (cited as ‘Mannyng’ hereafter).46 Mannyng, lines 10802–14.47 Mannyng, lines 19–20.

& dos vs tent to suilk folie;idelnes & long reste,�ougþe in wast a way wille keste,& dos men tent to foly fables,tille ha�ardrie, to dee� and tables.’48

Peace is no more than an inglorious ‘sleep’ from which God has wakenedthem by sending the Romans:

‘Long pes lufed I neuer,ne nouth salle, þof I lyf euer.’49

Wawan’s ‘curteise’ reply is here reduced to a brief defence of peace as ‘goodafter war’, like happiness after sorrow, and as a source of deeds of arms:

In pes ys don gret vassalage,for luf men dos many rage.50

Even here, in a way which recalls the medieval church’s attitude to sex,Mannyng’s diction shows him troubled by the thought of taking up arms forlove rather than to avoid sin. Despite serious reservations, he morallyapproves the shift to war because of the dangers of peace. His Cador is avoice to be respected, more restrained and circumspect than in previous ver-sions. Cador’s counsel is long-meditated, and given at the king’s request, notin a premature outburst of anger.51 Mannyng’s Arthur, also, is unusuallymorally aware and cautious in counsel. He admits, for instance, that annex-ation by force confers no legal rights, that avarice motivates conquerors, andthat the church’s teaching on restitution should apply to conquered lands.The previous British conquest of Rome confers no more ‘right’ on Arthurthan Julius Caesar’s conquest of Britain does on the Romans.52 For all that,Cador’s low view of peace goes basically unchallenged, since Wawan’sanswer is so lightweight. Disapproval of some aspects of war does not in itselfgenerate much enthusiasm for peacetime life, because the poem does notconceptualise war and peace as alternative states of being, or as equallyimportant in the lives of its hero and his associates. Mannyng has had plentyto say about the virtues of Arthur’s peacetime rule.53 But when it is ‘time’ forwar, he has nothing to say for peace. Peace then becomes an empty time,with no worthwhile ‘deeds’ of its own – a worrying occasion of sin.

The fifteenth-century English version of the French Vulgate Merlin

135

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

48 Mannyng, lines 11321–32.49 Mannyng, lines 11349–50.50 Mannyng, lines 11355–66. In the Lambeth MS of the Chronicle, the rhyme is ‘grete

outrage’.51 Mannyng, lines 11307ff.52 Mannyng, lines 11417–20.53 Mannyng, lines 9610–31; 10205–28; 10329–404; especially 10793–826.

continuation, the Prose Merlin, fairly closely resembles Wace in this scene.Cador understands the Roman demands as a salutary ‘challenge’ to theEnglish: ‘longe haue we be idill and in slouthe in deduyt a-monge ladyes anddamesels in Iolite and wast’.54 Gawain replies that

‘full good it is to haue pees after the warre, for the londe is the bettere andthe more sure, and full good is the game and pley a-monge ladies andmaydenes, ffor the druweries of ladies and damesels make knyghtes tovndirtake the hardynesse of armes that thei don’.55

The courtly interest purely serves the martial here. Gawain’s argument forpeace circles back again into an appreciation of the benefits of victory.Success in war allows the stable (‘sure’) conditions that make noblerecreation both possible and blameless, and the recreation makes betterwarriors. From the tradition of these Arthurian texts, with the exception ofLa�amon’s, a clear relational model emerges: peace after war is youthful,leisured, plentiful, feminised, regenerative of the land, and a good prepara-tion for more war; war after peace is mature, industrious, masculine, healthyhardship, regenerative of the person, and the foundation of more peace. Thewar/peace continuum acts like the cyclical episodic sequence in romancenarrative: riding-out/accomplishment/return. To imply such a depersonalis-ing pattern is effectively to avoid the issue of Arthur’s choice between peaceand war, and to lessen any possibility that the sequence of war/peace/warmight be broken off or arrested. War occurs without the necessity for indi-vidual motivation, merely according to the rhythm of earthly life, and forthe good of the realm. The question to be answered in council is not ‘shouldArthur make war?’, but ‘is he ready?’. The unmotivated nature of Arthurianwar, which is always presented as reactive – overthrowing usurpers andtyrants; aiding allies; repelling invaders; responding to others’ belligerence;maintaining ancient rights – permits its real cause to be seen as providential:God wants times of war, to punish wrong and keep the Britons from vice.Seasons of war and peace on earth implicitly owe their origin to theunchanging and eternal.56

The Alliterative Morte Arthure (c. 1400), my main focus in this study, isdemonstrably conscious of the traditional cyclical structure, but employs itin unusual ways. The Morte’s récit begins with the king and his men ‘resting’

136

Andrew Lynch

54 Merlin, ed. Wheatley, Vol. 2, Chapter xxxii, pp. 640–1.55 Ibid.56 See Ecclesiastes 3, 1.8: ‘Tempus belli, et tempus pacis’. God’s hand in Arthurian history is

quite explicit in Historia, p. 494: ‘Quod diu ne potentie stabat dispositione. cum & vetereseorum priscis temporibus auos istorum inuisis inquietationibus infestarent. & isti libertatemquam illi eisdem demere. tueri instarent’. Thorpe, p. 256: ‘All this was ordained by divineprovidence. Just as in times gone by the ancestors of the Romans had harassed the fore-fathers of the Britons with their unjust oppressions, so now did the Britons make everyeffort to protect their own freedom, which the Romans were trying to take away fromthem.’

for ‘solace’ after many previous conquests,57 but peace is given little chancein the narrative discours. The nominal peacetime setting is overshadowed bya plot forecast of Arthur’s future wars, down to the conquest of Rome, and along summary of his wars so far.58 Normal motifs of peace are enlisted as partof Arthur’s hostile capacity. The description of the plenary court at Carlisleis rearranged so that the long feast section occurs after the Roman envoys’challenge has been delivered and Arthur has stated his intention of callinghis council; it therefore functions as part of Arthur’s stupefying response tothe Romans, an overwhelming statement of his superiority, since the chiefguests have all been overcome in his previous wars or else yielded by treaty.(Significantly, there is no corresponding later description of Emperor Lucius’court.)59 Arthur’s spectacular hospitality to the Romans is basically anotheraspect of the ferocious anger expressed by his countenance.60 As with thepolitical display of the feast, mention of the council allows Arthur to remindthe Roman delegation just how many conquered kings, dukes and nobles arehis men. (His safe-conduct for the Romans will similarly be made a sign ofhow much his subjects fear him.)61 Anger dominates the council, alreadymanifested by Arthur’s countenance, rather than by his young knights’words, as in earlier versions,62 although a newly invented seven-day intervalavoids some appearances of over-hastiness and acting in anger:63 ‘To warpwordez in waste no wyrchipe it were / Ne wilfully in þis wrethe to wreken myseluen.’64 The poet seems to have recognised in this, and in occasionalmention of negotiation65 and truces, that anger is a dangerous motivation,and that war is not necessarily the only option, but we see practical alterna-tives laughed away. Though the author also uses Wace, La�amon andMannyng in this passage, he chooses to follow Geoffrey in including noresponse by Gawain to Cador in praise of peace.66 Cador jokes that Arthurmust be dragged off to Rome by the emperor’s summons, unless he can ‘treat’more successfully – ‘ “�ow moste be traylede, I trowe, but �ife �e trettbettyre.” ’ (As in Geoffrey’s and Wace’s narratives, though not in La�amon’s67

and Mannyng’s, Cador seems to have started talking before the proceedingsare formally opened.) Arthur then teases Cador with ‘affectionate’68 criti-cism of his impetuousness – ‘For thow countez no caas, ne castes no furthire,

137

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

57 Morte Arthur, ed. Hamel, lines 53–5 (cited hereafter as Morte Arthur).58 Morte Arthur, p. 254, n. 24.59 Morte Arthur, lines 503ff.60 Morte Arthur, lines 116–19.61 Morte Arthur, lines 475–8.62 See Morte Arthur, p. 257, n. 116–19.63 Hamel, pp. 258–9, n. 152–5.64 Morte Arthur, lines 150–1.65 See also line 407: ‘Qwhen they tristily had tretyd’.66 See Hamel, p. 264, n. 247–62.67 See Le Saux, p. 70.68 Hamel, p. 264: ‘The resulting badinage is unprecedented.’

/ But hurles furthe appon heuede as thi herte thynkes’69 – and jokingly floatsthe idea that he might have to make a ‘truce’, either with the Romans, orwith the warlike Cador himself, before they can proceed to council: ‘ “Imoste trette of a trew towchande þise nedes, / Talke of thies tythands þatteenes myn herte.” ’70

Here and elsewhere Arthur links the idea of a possible truce withunthinkable cowardice – ‘I myght noghte speke for spytte, so my hertetrymblyde!’71 It is the first of several occasions in the poem when he and hismen deal with pacific suggestions by military sarcasm: others include refer-ence to making a ‘treaty’ and ‘truce’ with the giant of St Michael’s Mount,and sending two humiliated senators with the emperor’s corpse as ‘tribute’and ‘tax’ to the Romans.72

Peace is made a joke because Arthur’s warlike intentions are really quiteplain. His cousin Ewan’s ‘kyndly’ request to know his will73 seems nothingbut a courtesy, since Arthur has already spoken immediately after Cador toapprove his ‘noble’ counsel, and scotched any possibilities for diplomacy by awhole-hearted assertion of Roman tyranny and his ‘right’ to take tribute ofRome, his ius ad bellum.74 Peace is not a factor in the council, even in theguise of military recuperation or prelude to war. To Cador, it has simplybeen a lazy time of ‘dessuse of dedez of armes’.75 The ethos of Arthur’s estab-lishment is solely military. Just as the guests at a peacetime feast are there torepresent his wartime success, so he repeatedly tells his men that their primefunction is to fight for him as he pleases:

�e have knyghtly conqueryde þat to my coroun langes.Hym thare be ferde for no faees þat swylke a folke ledes,Bot euer fresche for to fyghte in felde when hym lykes.76

All this seems to point to a thoroughly militarist conception of Arthurianhistory. Yet the scene is haunted by its pacific absences. The AlliterativeMorte both suggests and erases the normal period of Arthurian ‘revel andrest’; it heightens consciousness of the need for prudent counsel, yet pro-duces counsel only as a bellicose show of strength; it points to possible diplo-matic solutions other than war to this crisis, only to cancel them with heavysarcasm. In all, the poem somewhat denaturalises the traditional moment ofchange from peace to war. Going to war becomes less a part of a providentialpattern, an unmotivated seasonal cycle, and more exposed as an Arthurian

138

Andrew Lynch

69 Morte Arthur, lines 261–2.70 Morte Arthur, lines 247–64.71 Morte Arthur, line 270.72 Morte Arthur, lines 877–9; 991–2; 2340–51.73 Morte Arthur, lines 337 ff.74 Morte Arthur, lines 259ff.75 Morte Arthur, line 256.76 Morte Arthur, lines 402–4.

cultural obsession, an accountable decision on the part of the king. Indeploying so many narrative strategies which deprive this peacetime of itstraditional value as an interval between hostilities, the Alliterative Mortere-motivates the frequent and prolonged nature of Arthurian wars, implicat-ing Arthur’s belligerent will as a factor. As in earlier versions, Arthur isprobably seen to have no option but to fight the Romans, and so the possi-bility that peace might be ‘freely held’ is foreclosed. Yet the narrative ofArthur’s decision-making still shows him eagerly embracing the opportunityof war for reasons of self-interest, and its onset can be more readily under-stood in terms of his anger, pride, avarice and ambition. (At this stage, thataccusation is made only by the Romans: ‘ “thow has redyn and raymede andraunsound þe pople / And kyllyde doun . . . kyngys ennoynttyde.” ’)77 Thespace between periods of Arthurian war-history now unoccupied by thecourtly discourse of peace offers itself to a potential discourse of choice, andthe first impression grows of a kingdom too much at war.

Malory’s ‘Tale of Arthur and Lucius’, drawing on the Alliterative Morte, isfairly similar in the issues it raises in this episode, but different in the morestraightforward impression created. Malory jumps immediately to descrip-tion of the Roman challenge, avoiding Arthur’s earlier lengthy continentalwars, so that the sense of endless conquest is much diminished. In this short-ened version, Arthur’s determination not to be ‘over-hasty’, his restraint ofthe young knights, and the seven-day cooling-off period stand out more,indicating a controlled anger, despite his furious show of countenance.78 Theking does not speak his mind at once; Cador waits to be asked for hiscounsel. Their exchange is brief, unmoralistic and to the point:

‘Sir . . . as for me, I am nat hevy of this message, for we have be manydayes rested now. The lettyrs of Lucius the Emperoure lykis me well, fornow shall we have warre and worshyp.

‘Be Cryste, I leve welle,’ seyde the kyng, ‘sir Cador, this message lykisthe. But yet they may nat so be answerde, for their spyteuous spechegrevyth so my herte.’79

The interval of rest since the last war, though reckoned in ‘days’ not years, isat least present. (The long previous story of Gawain, Yvain and Marhalt hasin effect provided a sizeable peacetime respite.) Nothing is said about peace.Arthur realises he needs some better formal answer than Cador’s ‘warre andworshyp’, but the remaining business of the council is really to see howmuch armed support the king can muster in his undisputed ‘right’. Arthurseems quietly in control, vengeance on Roman outrages is repeatedly justi-fied, and the idea of a treaty is not even raised. Malory seems to have

139

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

77 Morte Arthur, lines 100–1.78 Malory, Vol. 1, pp. 185–86.79 Malory, pp. 187.18–188.3.

adapted the Alliterative Morte’s story in ways that make the onset of thiswar a much simpler business.80

The ideological value of Arthurian peace is further illuminated if we lookat another crisis point in the traditional narrative cycle, when war is un-expectedly prolonged. This moment occurs at the end of Arthur’s warsagainst the Romans, as the news of Mordred’s rebellion at home deprives theking of his anticipated victorious rest. In Geoffrey’s narrative, the rebellionimpinges just as Arthur is ready to cross the Alps and head for Rome. Theking rushes back to defeat Mordred, but due to his departure for Avalon, andthe Britons’ subsequent decline into prolonged civil war under his succes-sors, no true peace ensues. The fulfilment of the peace/war cycle signalledafter the first continental wars by the army’s ‘spring’ return, with Arthur‘overjoyed by his great success’,81 and extensive court ceremonial, is quiteabsent. The king has to fight his way ashore in Britain, and knows no restagain in this world.82 Geoffrey’s core idea of ‘peace’, as celebrated in Arthur’sWhitsuntide feast, cannot be realised, because such ‘peace’ is never simplythe cessation of hostilities but a gift in the hand of the prosperous conqueror.Not war itself, but lack of victorious return, is the true opposite of Arthurianpeace. So although Geoffrey blames only Mordred and Guinevere for whathas happened, he still gives the king’s last wars a sad sense of incompletion,one which would be retained or even increased in subsequent versions.

Wace, similarly, ascribes no blame to Arthur for his second continentaladventures. Arthur thanks God, buries the slain with honour, and settlesthings down in Burgundy.83 Mordred’s sin, too great for any peace to be con-cluded with his father, is alone responsible for the civil war.84 In Geoffrey’swork, Mordred is ‘the boldest of men’.85 In Wace’s, he is given a degeneratenature, associated with his having remained too long in peace at home, awayfrom war:

Modred ot humes concultis,En pais et en repos nurriz;Ne se sorent pas si cuivrirNe si turner ne si ferirCume la gent Arthur saveit,Ki en guerre nurrie esteit.

Modred had assembled men brought up to peace and quiet; they did notknow how to protect themselves, to wheel and to strike, as Arthur’s mendid, who had been brought up to war.86

140

Andrew Lynch

80 For Vinaver’s comments on Malory’s changes, see Malory, Vol. 3, pp. 1366–71, and subse-quent notes.

81 Thorpe, pp. 225–6.82 Thorpe, p. 258.83 Wace, lines 12977–3012.84 Wace, lines 13015–30.85 Historia, p. 499: ‘omnium audacissimus’; Thorpe, p. 260.86 Wace, lines 13113–18.

And yet, after so much combat detail in his previous Arthurian narrative,and despite ample material in Geoffrey, Wace chooses to leave the lastbattle vague:

Par grant ire fud asembleeE par grant ire fud justee;Par grant ire fud l’ovre enpriseGrant fu la gent, grant fu l’ocise;Ne sai dire ki mielz li fistNe qui perdi ne qui cunquistNe qui chaï ne qui estutNe qui ocist ne qui murut.

They gathered and joined battle in great anger; in great anger was thework begun, great were the numbers of men and great was the slaughter. Icannot say who did best, nor who lost nor who won, nor who fell or stoodfirm, nor who died and who lived.87

By withholding closure to combat in this way, Wace specifically preventsthe suggestion of peacetime conditions after Camble. Instead, all is left‘doubtful’, even whether Arthur has lived or died.88 The king’s campaignremains unfulfilled also, since Arthur will never return and conquer Rome ashe has promised.89 He fights to the finish, but not to the conclusion. Thedeparting of Arthur is all but the end of the British. Their hope of the king’sprophesied ‘return’ from Avalon, so strongly painted by Wace,90 points tothe conventional cyclical importance of this theme, as in Arthur’s previousreturn from France, but it is now the illusion of a people pathetically ‘degen-erated from the nobility, the honour, the customs and the life of theirancestors’.91

La�amon also treats this war purely as a rightful punishment of treachery.Although he reduces the immediate survivors of the last battle to just twoknights and Arthur,92 a distinctive respect for peace is maintained in hisending. Barron and Weinberg call it ‘devoid of military glory’.93 The depart-ing Arthur passes on to Constantin his concern to maintain the good laws ofthe land. Arthur promises to return, and the ‘great joy’ he anticipates indwelling with the Britons clearly refers to peacetime at home, ratherthan the prospect of conquest abroad: ‘And seoðe ich cumen wulle tomine kineriche / and wunien mid Bruten mid muchelere wunne.’94 Robert

141

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

87 Wace, lines 13255–62.88 Wace, line 13286.89 Wace, lines 13047–50.90 Wace, lines 13275ff.91 Wace, lines 14851–4: ‘Tuit sunt mué et tuit changié, / Tuit sunt divers et forslignié / De

noblesce, d’onur, de murs / E de la vie as anceisurs.’92 La�amon’s addition. See Le Saux, pp. 148–89.93 La�amon, p. xlviii.94 La�amon, lines 14281–2.

Mannyng, by contrast, gives Arthur a death beyond all hopes of return –‘Bot the Bretons loude lie; / he was so wonded that him burd die’.95

These English narratives of the end of Arthur’s Roman wars and hisbattles against Mordred operate without condemnation of the king for hisabsence or his long campaign. Their sadness is that through treacheryArthur fails to conclude his greatest military victory, and so never returns toBritain and another glorious peacetime as he should have. The AlliterativeMorte continues within this tradition, but, as I have tried to show, is unusualin its heavy concentration on war, even more so than in the source material.It does not make La�amon’s ‘attempt to achieve variety in a work so largelyconcerned with warfare, both in the alternation of war and peace, actionand ceremonial’.96 The Morte mounts some open critique of Arthur’s wars aswrong;97 but it often treats them as a kind of Crusade, by introducing somany prayers for victory, and so many pagan and outlandish enemies. Moregenerally, the poem creates the impression of excessive war, I believe, bymaintaining a strong consciousness of the broken expectation of peace afterwar, through the relentless representation of a campaign that takes Arthuraway so far and for so long, with very brief interludes of ‘revel and rest’. Theking’s departure to fight the Romans is overshadowed by premonitions thathe will not return to what he left. Arthur bids farewell not just to Britain butto the whole nexus of activities – courtly life, hunting, government, law andgood works – that make up his peacetime existence.98 Mordred begs not tobe left at home, apparently foreseeing his degeneracy (as in Wace) if kept solong from war: ‘ “When oþer of werre wysse are wyrchipide hereaftyre, /Than may I for sothe be sette bot at lyttill.” ’99 Gaynour blames the man whobegan this war, and forecasts a permanent separation from Arthur – ‘ “Allmy lykynge of lyfe owte of lande wendez, / And I in langour am lefte, leue �e,for euere.” ’ Arthur, comforting what he sees as a woman’s irrational grief,foreshadows a happy return: ‘ “Grefe þe noghte, Gaynour, for Goddes lufe ofhewen, / Ne gruche noghte my ganggynge; it sall to gude turne.” ’ But themoment is accompanied by a reminder that she will in fact never see himagain: ‘cho sees hym no more’.100 Mordred and Gaynour are, in one sense, tobe ruined by Arthur’s long absence. Gawain, too, is made the subject ofdramatic irony, for anyone who knows the famous story. His praise of peace,absent in the council scene of this poem, is poignantly displaced to a speechmotivating his knights with hopes of a traditional courtly aftermath to thewars:

142

Andrew Lynch

95 Mannyng , lines 13723–4.96 Barron and Weinberg in La�amon, pp. xlvi–xlvii.97 See Hamel in Morte Arthure, p. 351, n. 3038–43.98 Morte Arthure, lines 648–78.99 Morte Arthure, lines 685–6.100 Morte Arthure, line 720.

‘We sall in this viage victoures be holden,And avauntede with voycez of valyant biernez,Praysede with pryncez in presence of lordesAnd luffede with ladies in dyuerse londes.’101

More and more as the poem goes on and a complete peacetime continuallyeludes Arthur, the anticipation of peace is replaced as motivation by thegrieving impulse to take revenge for slain comrades – Cador for Berille,Gawain for Chastelayne (like Mordred, a ‘child’ of Arthur’s chamber), andespecially Arthur for Gawain, slain by Mordred. The poem continues torepresent full ‘peace’ as an arrangement ensuing from conquest, but theonset of more war continually puts it off, leaving only minor instances:Arthur negotiates to capture a city by appointement with a charter of‘peace’,102 is sued for ‘peace’ and ‘treats of a truce’ with a cardinal from thePope’s court. And in its new and prolonged extension of Arthur’s warsinto Italy, the Morte carries war beyond the narrative expectations of theArthurian tradition, and, as it had at the poem’s start, brings news of moretrouble just when glorious peace is most anticipated – ‘ “Now may we reuelland riste, for Rome es oure awen!” ’103 The words of Fortune to Arthur in hisdream underline the contradiction in his expectation of a peace consequenton war: he is urged into acquisitive war – ‘ “fyrthe noghte þe fruyte” ’ (‘ “donot leave the fruit [Rome] in peace” ’) – yet motivated by the hope of ‘ryotte’and ‘riste’, key terms in the poem’s discourse of peacetime.104 (A homonym –‘roo’ – is used for both ‘rest’ and Fortune’s restless ‘wheel’.) The poem’semphasis on Arthur’s fortune, which changes ‘be ane aftyre mydnyghte’,105

replaces the omnitemporal seasonal cycle of war and peace with the limitedtime span of human life and death. Only after his previous war history hasbeen discredited as a providential and unmotivated pattern is Arthur’s per-sonal responsibility made clearer, and he is then subjected to severe criticismfrom his own ‘philosopher’ for having caused so much bloodshed.106 Animportant ideological shift has occurred.

In effect, as we see, Mordred’s war puts Arthur’s peace on hold indefin-itely. Arthur has returned ‘home’, but the death of Gawain demands revengebefore he can hunt or hold court again,107 and it would be a court withouthis wife and two dearest supporters. The poem’s ending is divided betweena sense of fulfilment and disappointment. Arthur consoles himself at the lastfor the triumph he has missed with the thought of rest and peace in

143

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

101 Morte Arthure, lines 2863–6.102 See Hamel in Morte Arthure, pp. 352, n. 3053, p. 355, n. 3125–7, with reference to Keen,

The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, pp. 119–21.103 Morte Arthure, line 3207.104 Morte Arthure, lines 3370–5.105 Morte Arthure, line 3222.106 Morte Arthure, lines 3396–9. For commentary, see pp. 57–8.107 Morte Arthure, lines 3997–4006.

Glastonbury (if not at Caerleon) – ‘ “There we may ryste vs with roo andraunsake oure wondys” ’108 – and thanks God for at least letting him ‘dye inoure awen’. He sets up his successor, and is given a spectacular burial. Butthese weakened motifs of peace cannot fully efface the impression of excess-ive and unconcluded war, to which they now provide a haunting contrast.The naturalised cycle of war/peace/war, an ideological model concealing theself-interest of the conqueror, is strongly challenged. The Wheel of Fortuneallegory, substituting its unpredictable changes for the orderly seasonalsequence of war and peace, displays the private motivation of the conquerorsclinging to the wheel, Worthies though they may be. As ruled by Fortune,the king’s change from peace to war, his prolongation of war, have becomeimplicitly unstable, a culpable pride, even a fall.109

Evidence that one medieval reader was troubled by the image of endlesswar in the Alliterative Morte is provided by Malory’s re-working of the textin Le Morte Darthur. Malory cut and changed his ‘Arthur and Lucius’ tomake a happy ending, and to leave space for long books of knight errantryand the Launcelot plot. Interestingly, his newly fashioned end is rich indetails that re-establish the traditional onset of peace after war: Arthur iscrowned in Rome; he comes to terms with the conquered cities; he‘stabelysshe[s]’ lands; the knights and lords request permission to returnto their wives; they bring home with them ‘all maner of rychesse . . . at thefull’,110 and Guenevere and other queens and ladies meet them on theshore.111 Now that he has all he wanted – for in Malory’s work he has finallygot all the way to Rome – Arthur consciously avoids ‘too much’ war: ‘forinowghe is as good as a feste, for to attemte God overmuche I holde hit notwysedom’.112 Then, in the next book, even the peace-time adventures onlybegin after Launcelot has ‘rested hym longe with play and game’.113 Malory,it appears, found in the Alliterative Morte Arthure a sense of Arthur’sRoman wars as ‘overmuche’, and moved to disarm it.

In summary, Arthurian texts in England generally come across as tradi-tional and militarist in what they say (and do not say) on the issue of peace,largely uninfluenced by the growth of a separate peace discourse in themoral poets, the new ‘desire for peace as a temporal condition’114 which hasbeen so often noted by Scattergood, Barnie, Göller, Hamel, Yeager, Loweand others. These Arthurian texts belong to a tradition which makes peaceand war part of the same discourse. La�amon’s Brut contains the exception,an isolated view of peace as ‘good’ in itself, blessedly free from war. Yet

144

Andrew Lynch

108 Morte Arthure, line 4304.109 On two attitudes to Fortune, that it operates independently, or in relation to the fallen

man’s nature, see McAlpine, The Genre of Troilus and Criseyde, pp. 19–20.110 Malory, p. 247.1–2.111 Malory, pp. 244–7.112 Malory, p. 246.11–13.113 Malory, p. 253.20.114 Lowe, p. 5.

within the cyclical model of peace and war always remained the potentialunderstanding that war might go on too long. In Malory’s narrative, thisbecomes proverbial; his characters say casually in support of a truce: ‘bettir ispees than evermore warre’; ‘better ys pees than allwayes warre’.115 Of the textsI have examined that inherited this traditional ideology, the AlliterativeMorte Arthure subjects it to most pressure. It does not simply display a dis-taste for war, or an acceptance of peace as the highest good, which we see insome English contemporaries like Chaucer, Gower and Hoccleve, or later inLydgate. But it is still able to represent war as an accountable and potentiallyculpable policy, rather than as the natural and necessary successor to peace.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. L. D. Benson (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1987).

Geoffrey of Monmouth, The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth,ed. Acton Griscom (London: Longmans, Green, 1929; reprinted Geneva:Slatkine, 1977).

Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966).

La�amon, Lahamon’s Arthur: The Arthurian Section of Lahamon’s Brut, ed. andtrans. W. R. J. Barron and S. C. Weinberg (Exeter: Exeter University Press,rev. edn., 2001).

Lydgate, John, The Minor Poems of John Lydgate: Part II: Secular Poems, ed. H. N.McCracken (London, Oxford University Press 1934), Early English TextSociety, O.S. 192.

Malory, Sir Thomas, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. E. Vinaver, rev. P. J.C. Field (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).

Mannyng, Robert, Robert Mannyng of Brunne: The Chronicle, ed. Idelle Sullens(Binghampton, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 153, 1996).

Merlin, ed. Henry B. Wheatley (London: Kegan Paul, 1899), Early English TextSociety O.S. 21 and 36.

Morte Arthur: A Critical Edition, ed. Mary Hamel (New York and London:Garland, 1984).

Of Arthour and of Merlin, Vol. 1, ed. O. D. Macrae-Gibson (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1973), Early English Text Society O.S. 268.

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, ed. J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, rev. N.Davis (Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1967).

Tacitus, Cornelii Taciti De Vita Iulii Agricolae, De Origine et Moribus Germanorum,ed. J. H. Sleeman (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1952).

145

The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition

115 Statements by Guenevere and Lancelot respectively, in Malory, pp. 1128 and 1212.

Tacitus, Germania, trans. M. Hutton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1970).

Wace’s Roman de Brut. A History of the British, ed. and trans. Judith Weiss(Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1999).

II. Studies

Althoff, Gerd, ‘Ira Regis: Prolegomena to a History of Royal Anger’, in BarbaraH. Rosenwein, Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998).

Barnie, John, War in Medieval Society: Social Values and the Hundred Years War1337–99 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974).

Barron, W. R. J., ‘Arthurian Romance: Traces of an English Tradition’, EnglishStudies 61 (1980): 1–23.

Edwards, Elizabeth, The Genesis of Narrative in Malory’s Morte Darthur (Cam-bridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000).

Fichte, Joerg O., ‘Grappling with Arthur’, in Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, eds,Poetics: Theory and Practice in Medieval English Literature (Cambridge: D. S.Brewer, 1991), pp. 149–63.

Flint, V. I. J., ‘The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth: Parodyand Its Purpose: A Suggestion’, Speculum 54 (1979): 447–68.

Göller, Karl Heinz, ed., The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A Reassessment of thePoem (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1981).

Keen, Maurice, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (London: Routledge,1965).

Le Saux, Françoise H. M., Lahamon’s Brut: The Poem and its Sources (Cambridge:D. S. Brewer, 1989).

Lowe, Ben, Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas (UniversityPark, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).

Lynch, Andrew, ‘ “Thou woll never have done”: Ideology, Context and Excessin Malory’s War’, in D. Thomas Hanks Jr. and Jessica G. Brogdon, eds, TheSocial and Literary Contexts of Malory’s Morte Darthur (Cambridge: D. S.Brewer, 2000), pp. 24–41.

McAlpine, Monica E., The Genre of Troilus and Criseyde (Ithaca and London:Cornell University Press, 1978).

McKisack, May, The Fourteenth Century 1307–1399 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1959).

Putter, Ad, ‘Finding Time for Romance: Mediaeval Arthurian Literary History’,Medium Aevum 53: 1 (1994): 1–13.

Putter, Ad, ‘Arthurian Literature and the Rhetoric of “Effeminacy” ’, in FriedrichWolfzettel, ed., Arthurian Romance and Gender (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995),pp. 34–49.

Scattergood, V. J., Politics and Poetry in the Fifteenth Century (London: BlandfordPress, 1971).

Walters, Lori, ‘Le Rôle du scribe dans l’organisation des manuscrits des romansde Chrétien de Troyes’, Romania 106 (1985): 303–25.

Yeager, R. F., ‘Pax Poetica: On the Pacifism of Chaucer and Gower’, Studies inthe Age of Chaucer 9 (1987): 97–121.

146

Andrew Lynch

The Invisible Siege – The Depiction ofWarfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

SIMON MEECHAM-JONES

ONLY a fortunate few in medieval Europe can have escaped experiencingthe physical facts of war, its dangers and privations, and the psycholog-

ical corollary – the fear and anticipation of war, the pains of grief, and thesocial dislocation which resulted from war. Armed conflict in its diversemanifestations was an anticipated trial of medieval life, and one couldexpect that medieval literature would be replete with images of warfare. It isthe more striking, then, that the extensive poetic oeuvre of Geoffrey Chau-cer’s work1 is notable for the infrequency of the appearance of feats of armsand scenes of chivalric prowess. That a poet so conscious of his relationshipto the ‘authoritative’ literature of the past should choose not to drink fromso major a fountain-head of themes and styles from the Epic, Tragic andRomance traditions demands explanation. In justifying the writing of a bookentitled Chaucer and War, Pratt ventures the claim:

Yet Chaucer, the writer, could not have failed to produce commentary onwar, for he lived in an age of military conflict.2

It proves impossible, however, to read Chaucer’s works as mirrors of theviolence of his times, or as commentary either on specific conflicts or on thenature of war itself. Chaucer’s refusal to use the stock tropes of literaryheroism as foundation stones of his narrative, or even as garnish, proves tobe a key strategy in revealing both his awareness of the centrality of theideology of war in the perpetuation of the aristocratic culture of his day, andhis need to evade the expectations this imposed on him as a writer.3

In The House of Fame, Chaucer translates the celebrated opening lines of

147

1 All quotations are from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Benson.2 Pratt, Chaucer and War, p. 3.3 One might make the comparison with Malory: in Lynch’s judgment, ‘Warfare in the Morte

is . . . ideologically privileged and protected in terms of some aspects of Malory’s style’,‘ “Thou woll never have done”: Ideology, Context and Excess in Malory’s War’, in Hanksand Brogdon, eds, p. 28.

Virgil’s Aeneid – ‘I wol now synge, yif I can, / The armes and also the man’,4

but in this poem, and throughout his work, he resists the challenge toemulate Virgil’s identification of the warrior prowess of the individual withthe destiny of the res publica or common weale. This marked reluctance tomake use of martial motifs can be demonstrated at every level of Chaucer’swork, from the narrative structure of events, through the selection ofimagery, even to the vocabulary of each poem. Chaucer makes strikinglyspare use of terms associated with warfare, avoiding not merely the display ofspecialised knightly terminology of medieval engagement, but also the mostgeneral and familiar descriptive terms. Despite Chaucer’s extensive adapta-tion of classical, mythological and ‘historical’ material, terms such as ‘war’,and ‘battle’ are used rarely.5 The word ‘war’ appears on a mere 72 occasionsthroughout Chaucer’s work, and more than half of those appearances occurin a single Canterbury Tale, the Tale of Melibee,6 which is written to someextent as a parody of medieval romance forms. Nor does Chaucer replace theword ‘war’ with equivalent terms – the word ‘battle’ appears on 42occasions,7 ‘strife’ 36 times, ‘affray’ a mere 14, and the appearance of allthree words is heavily concentrated in Melibee, The Knight’s Tale, and thetranslations of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and the Roman de la Rose.In Troilus and Criseyde, a poem set amidst the cataclysmic and mythopeicdisorder of the Trojan War, the word ‘werre’ is used a mere eight times, andits meaning refracted by its employment metaphorically to describeemotional states or circumstances rather than scenes of war. Having usedthe term in this way to characterise the abandoned Troilus’s distress, ‘Whocan conforten now your hertes werre?’,8 Chaucer reiterates the conflation ofwar as a physical and psychological experience in Troilus’s potently ambig-uous wish, ‘That deth may make an ende upon my werre!’9 Chaucer’s use ofthe word is in keeping with his presentation of Troilus’s physical involve-ment in the war. Though the reader is continually reminded of Troilus’s roleas ‘a second Ector’, we do not see him in action in his role as defender ofTroy. There is an avoidance of narrative set-pieces of the sort found, forexample, in the Scottish Gest Historiale, an alliterative translation and adap-tation of Guido de Colonna’s Hystoria Troiana, which was also one of

148

Simon Meecham-Jones

4 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 143–4.5 Occurences have been calculated using Oizumi, A Complete Concordance to the Works of

Geoffrey Chaucer. Oizumi uses the Riverside edition of Chaucer’s text as the basis of theconcordance.

6 The word war, characteristically spelled in a form werre which recalls the Italian guerra andthe French guerre, appears 37 times in the tale of Melibee, and 8 times in the translation ofthe Roman de la Rose.

7 Pratt draws attention to the three possible meanings of the word in the fourteenth century– as a term for individual combat, as a division of an army, or in its modern sense of amilitary engagement, Chaucer and War, pp. 85–90.

8 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde V, line 234.9 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde V, line 1393.

Chaucer’s most important sources. The Gest presents the fierce daring ofTroilus in battle, which is to be halted only in single combat with Achilles,as a grand scena counterpointing the deaths of Hector and of Paris andAchilles, which precede and follow that of Troilus:

Þan Troiell with tene tene the tourfer beheld,Knew well the kyng [Achilles] by caupe of his hond,Reiches his Reynis & his roile strykes,Caires to þe kyng with a kant wille.The kyng met hym with mayn, macchit hym sore;Derf dynttes þai delt þo doghty betwene,With þaire fawchons fell, femyt of blode.Troiell carue at the kyng with a kene sword,Woundit hym wickedly in wer of his lyf,Þat he was led to the loge, laid as for dede,But he langurd with lechyng long tyme after.Troiell in the toile truly was hurt,But not so dedly his dynttes deiret as Achilles.10

Chaucer, by contrast, avoids describing the belligerence of the prince inbattle, and turns the readers’ eyes away from the physical rending of his bodyby Achilles. Instead, Chaucer invites the reader to recognise an artisticsleight of hand, through which Troilus’s active involvement in warfare isnot denied, but occurs ‘off-stage’ and as one element of his experience ofloving Criseyde, rather than as the most striking characteristic of his being.The praise of his prowess in Book One is unequivocal, but curiouslynon-specific:

The sharpe shoures felle of armes preveThat Ector or his othere brethren didenNe made hym only therfore ones meve;And yet he was, where so men wente or riden,Founde oon the beste, and longest tyme abiden,Ther peril was, and dide ek swiche travailleIn armes, that to thenke it was merveille.11

No praiseworthy deeds or vanquished opponents are named. The effect ofdisengagement from the violence of Troilus’s daily employment is completedin the sour irony of the poet’s word-play on the metaphorical and actualmeanings of the word ‘deth’:

Fro day to day in armes so he speddeThat the Grekes as the deth him dredde’.12

149

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

10 The Gest Hystorial of the Destruction of Troy, ed. Donaldson and Panton, lines 10213–25.11 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde I, lines 470–76.12 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde I, lines 482–83.

After Troilus’s abandonment by Criseyde, the narrator still refuses to defineTroilus in his role as warrior rather than as unhappy lover:

In many cruel bataille, out of drede,Of Troilus, this ilke noble knyght,As men may in thise olde bokes rede,Was seen his knyghthood and his grete myght:And dredeles, his ire, day and nyght,Ful cruwely the Grekis ay aboughte;And alwey moost this Diomede he soughte.13

Diomede, the Greek who has supplanted Troilus in Criseyde’s arms, is theonly knightly opponent spared the anonymity conferred by Chaucer’scareful imprecision.

It is clear that Chaucer has made a conscious stylistic decision to avoidelements of heroic display, even where his material seems to require them,and in Book Five he teases his audience by drawing attention to his omis-sions in words that humorously reshape those of Virgil:

And if I hadde ytaken for to writeThe armes of this ilke worthi man,Than wolde ich of his batailles endite;But for that I to writen first biganOf his love, I have seyd as I kan –His worthi dedes, whoso list hem heere,Rede Dares, he kan telle hem alle ifeere.14

The presence of war within the poem has not been denied, but it has beenoccluded, functioning not as an overt signifier but as, in Sidney’s phrase, an‘absent presence’,15 the importance of which the reader is expected to retain,and to infer into the action of the poem. If Troilus and Criseyde cannot becharacterised as a poem of war, it is a poem shaped by the influence of war, apoem in which the ethics of conflict and the psychological disjunctioncaused by war are granted a potent but implicit significance.

To achieve this occlusion, key elements of the traditional characterisa-tion of the loyal warrior-prince Troilus have, necessarily, been obscured,leading John Burrow to note that ‘the figure of Chaucer’s Troilus illustrateshow even the most eligible Ricardian hero can fall short of epic stature’.16

150

Simon Meecham-Jones

13 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde V. lines 1751–7.14 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde V, lines 1765–71.15 O absent presence Stella is not here;

False flattering hope that with so faire a face,Bare me in hand, that in this Orphane place,Stella, I say my Stella, should appeare. (Sonnet 106)

Sir Philip Sidney, ‘Astrophil and Stella’, The Poetry of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Duncan-Jones,p. 187.

16 Burrow, Ricardian Poetry, p. 99. I would like to record my gratitude for Professor Burrow’smost helpful interest in this paper.

Though Burrow notes this ‘falling short’ he does not seek to account for itsexpressive purpose within Chaucer’s poem. Instead he posits a morewide-spread literary fashion in Ricardian poetry, declaring that ‘Thetrumpet is not, poetically speaking, a Ricardian instrument.’17 It is hard notto hear in Burrow’s diagnosis of a ‘lack of interest in fighting’, an echo ofWalsingham’s taunt that the knights of Richard II’s court were ‘knights ofVenus rather than Bellona: more effective in the bedchamber than thefield’.18 One might expect that poetry written for a court in which ‘the mili-tary atmosphere which had characterised the medieval court had beenshaken off’19 would display precisely ‘the civilian or ‘chamber’ quality’20

Burrow describes. But no evidence survives to link the writing of any ofChaucer’s poetry to court commission, and it is far from clear that RichardII’s knights would have been significantly represented in Chaucer’s audi-ence. Nonetheless, though it cannot be shown that Chaucer was familiarwith the terms of Walsingham’s rebuke, the apostrophe to Bellona in theInvocation of the poem known as Anelida and Arcite provides a telling,(perhaps coincidental) Chaucerian riposte to Walsingham’s divorce of theservice of Mars and Venus. After calling on the full panoply of the deities ofwar for inspiration:

Thou ferse god of armes, Mars the rede,That in the frosty contre called Trace,Within thy grisly temple ful of dredeHonoured art as patroun of that place;With thy Bellona, Pallas, ful of grace,Be present and my song contynue and guye;At my begynnyng thus to the I crye21

Chaucer develops an extended poem in the ‘chamber’ rather than ‘heroic’style. After a brief recapitulation of the bloody conflict at Thebes, asrecounted by Statius, Chaucer narrates not the heroic deeds of the knightArcite, but the sorrows of his abandoned lady Anelida. Like Troilus andCriseyde, Anelida and Arcite is a poem in which the influence of warfare isall-pervasive but never immediate.

For Yeager, Chaucer’s unwillingness to sound the trumpet of warlikepoetry helps to shed light on the psychology of the man, showing him to bea (discreet) pacifist by temperament. Yeager distinguishes Gower’s calls forpeace at a particular historical moment from what he perceives to beChaucer’s more general distaste for strife:

151

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

17 Burrow, Ricardian Poetry, p. 95.18 Annales Richard II & Henry IV, in J. de Trokelowe et Anon., Chronica et Annales, ed. Riley,

p. 333, quoted in Saul, Richard II, p. 333.19 Saul, Richard II, p. 333.20 Burrow, Ricardian Poetry, p. 95.21 Chaucer, Anelida and Arcite, lines 1–7.

Unlike Gower’s, which develops demonstrably over time and which drawssupport from identifiable doctrines, Chaucer’s preference for peace seemspermanent, if somewhat inchoate; implicitly apparent throughout hiswork is a ubiquitous scepticism about the claims of chivalry, though heldperhaps more staunchly at the end of his life.22

The conclusions Yeager draws are certainly compatible with the scant depic-tion of warfare in Chaucer’s poetry:

while there is little enough we can say directly to establish Chaucer’s dis-taste for war, yet also is it much, for Chaucer was, I think, a man of peaceby inclination, and to call him so is perhaps to dye him deeper in the colorthan to demonstrate, as certainly we can with Gower, a logic and a set ofsources for the antiwar sentiments in his poems, line by line. In respect topacifism, then, as in so many other ways, Chaucer may have been morethorough than was Gower yet once more.23

There is, necessarily, a circularity in an argument that draws conclusionsregarding the poet’s psychology in shaping these texts from the substance ofthe texts themselves. Where Yeager praises Chaucer for the considered thor-oughness of his response to chivalric violence, other critics have read Chau-cer’s refusal to express a personal engagement with the political conflicts ofhis day as a sign either of social conservatism or as a failure of nerve. Thereare no equivalents in Chaucer’s poetry of Gower’s outspoken attacks on thetyranny of the deposed Richard II, and from Loomis’s celebrated posing ofthe question ‘Was Chaucer a Laodicean?’ onwards,24 Chaucer’s perceivedfailure to rail against the sufferings and tyrannies of late fourteenth-centuryEngland has been condemned. In a recent judgement on the politics ofChaucer’s poetry, Pearsall acknowledges that Chaucer may have rejectedsome of the values of his society at a personal or psychological level, butfinds no proof of these reservations in the texts themselves:

Chaucer wrote out of the concerns of his class; if his text requires anopinion on a matter of political or social concern, he responds by articu-lating the views of that class or by evading the question. Both the conven-tionality and the evasiveness are encouraged by his perception of himselfas a comparative newcomer to the class.25

Pratt, considering Chaucer’s responses to war, reveals an impatience,implying a rebuke, with the impossibility of reading Chaucer’s poetry as acommentary on contemporary events:

152

Simon Meecham-Jones

22 Yeager, ‘Pax Poetica’, p. 121.23 Yeager, ‘Pax Poetica’, p. 121.24 Loomis, ‘Was Chaucer a Laodicean?’ in Long, ed., Essays in Honor of Carleton Brown, pp.

129–48.25 Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 148.

In modern terms, was he a hawk or a dove or something in-between? But ifit is the latter, which way did he lean? No one can maintain non-commitment for a lifetime.26

Such an analysis flattens out the potential diversity of ways through whichcommitment might be embodied in poetry. It makes no allowance either forthe dangers of Chaucer’s position at court as both poet and as senior govern-ment official, writing at a time of highly personalised political and dynastictensions which would lead to civil war and the overthrow of the anointedking. Chaucer was a writer fated to live in, in the words of the apocryphalChinese curse, ‘interesting times’, and his ‘evasiveness’ owed less to his senseof being on the margins of aristocratic society than to his recognition of thepotentially deadly consequences of being too closely identified with thelosing side in any conflict.27 Before him as a reminder was the tragic careerof Thomas Usk, a self-styled poetic follower of Chaucer, whose politicalinvolvement led to his imprisonment, and execution in 1388.

No less misleading is the judgement that the writing of The CanterburyTales marked a new involvement with the particularity of ‘real’ life, ratherthan the topoi of literature – a ‘turn to the social world of contemporaryEngland’.28 The case is made eloquently by Patterson:

it must be acknowledged that Chaucer’s meditations on history remain,throughout the pre-Canterbury Tales two-thirds of his career, for the mostpart divorced from the specificity of local events. By endowing his courtlywriting with both a densely developed classical context and philosophicaldepth Chaucer distinguished it from the makyng of his contemporaries.But his poetry declined to engage with the real world of late medievalEngland explicitly.29

But a consideration of Chaucer’s presentation of war shows the difficulty ofsustaining Patterson’s attempt to mark out a distinction between TheCanterbury Tales and the poems which preceded it. Certainly, the presenceof war is more overtly marked in The Canterbury Tales than in Chaucer’sprevious works, and studies which find in his work a resistance to the warriorethos, from Scattergood’s reading of Melibee as an oblique commentary onthe French wars30 to Aers’ reading of The Knight’s Tale as a sustained critiqueof aristocratic codes of violence,31 draw their material from Chaucer’s finalwork. But both Melibee and The Knight’s Tale develop not from an explicitengagement with ‘the real world’ but from the adaptation of literary sources,

153

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

26 Pratt, Chaucer and War, p. xiii.27 Terry Jones, Who Murdered Chaucer? (London, 2003) entertains the possibility that the

sensitivities of Chaucer’s position led to the official ordering of his death.28 Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History, p. 26.29 Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History, p. 24.30 Scattergood, ‘Chaucer and the French War’.31 Aers, Geoffrey Chaucer, pp. 54–60.

into which the reader (whether in the fourteenth or the twenty-firstcentury) can, rather than must, infer parallels with the events of Chaucer’stime. Though The Knight’s Tale appears to some modern critics to beChaucer’s most extended and searching questioning of the ethics of martialsociety, Chaucer uses the conventions of an antique setting and (pagan)divine intervention to limit any freedom to read the tale as holding up amirror to fourteenth-century England. Additionally, the complex construc-tion of multiple narratorial personae – the created ‘consciousnesses’ of thepilgrim-as-teller and the persona of ‘Chaucer’ within the text as the(presumably fallible) recorder of the material – further complicates thepossibility of reading any of the Tales as a conscious moral statement ratherthan as a demonstration of the psychology or phraseology of the depicted‘pilgrims’. If there appears to be more questioning of aristocratic ideologies ofviolence in The Canterbury Tales than in Chaucer’s prior works, it iscertainly because the fictional buffering achieved through the constructionof a series of ostensible narrators, positioned between the text and the poet,creates an additional, and protecting, layer of distance between the poet andhis unmediated response to the bellicosity of his age. Patterson, like Pearsall,fails to allow due weight to the dangers of being a court-poet working closeto the heart of an unstable oligarchy – dangers not merely to the poet’s life,but also to the physical survival of his work. It is a strange irony that in themodern world, with its inescapable confrontation with the violent andcapricious nature of tyranny, critics have seemed unable to draw on thetestimonies of artists who worked in such conditions to gain an insight intothe conditions under which Chaucer worked. Reading the Shostakovich/Volkov32 account of the lethal irrationality of Stalin’s interference in thecareers of Soviet artists and composers, for example, it is hard not to bereminded of the fickle judgement of Chaucer’s monstrous goddess Fama inThe House of Fame, who proudly declares, ‘Al be ther in me no justice’,33

granting favour, as the mood takes her, to those that ‘han don neither thatne this, / But ydel al oure lyf ybe’ while denying it to others that had ‘goodfame ech deserved’.34 Chaucer depicts a world in which it would be rash toexpect that justice will reward the actions of the virtuous or the wise, and inwhich it would be reckless to express anything more than the most obliquecriticism of the follies and injustices of the political world.

If Chaucer’s evasion of martial themes reflects the poet’s shrewd notion ofthe precariousness of his position, it must also be judged as a consideredrecognition of the spiritual, political and literary pitfalls inherent in theliterary models of representation of warfare. The function of warfare as a

154

Simon Meecham-Jones

32 Testimony, the Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to and edited by Volkov, translatedby Bouing. The consequences of Stalin’s interference are demonstrated, for example, on pp.106–12, pp. 160–71.

33 Chaucer, The House of Fame, line 1820.34 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 1732–3.

theatre for the active assertion of self was clearly difficult to reconcile withChristian notions of patience in the face of suffering and humility. Therewas an inherent incompatibility in attempts to adapt classical models ofheroic achievement to exemplify the un-classical virtues of humility andfaith in divine grace. Though the language of warfare, understood as a meta-phoric construction, could be of value to illustrate the difficulties ofachieving a Christian life – for example, through the metaphor of battlingworldly temptation – medieval accounts of Christian martial prowess areinevitably compromised and full of contradictions. The contradictions arewell-evidenced in the Middle English romance of Sir Ysenbras. Following,and as a result of, a series of reversals, Ysenbras achieves an exemplary stateof humility. He also proves himself on the battlefield against the Saracens.But these two elements of his Christian progress are quite separate.Ysenbras’s experiences of loss lead him to a Christian state of mind, whichproves to be a necessary prelude to his exploits in battle. On the field,however, his hard-won humility is apparently set aside – the virtues he hasstruggled to achieve proving irrelevant in the performance of his duties as aknight.

Other literary models available to Chaucer offered alternative solutions tothe same problem. The incompatibility of warrior values with a Christianinterpretation of the world had created a characteristically medieval genre –the genre of failed epic – in which Christian writers imitated the forms ofclassical epic, while demonstrating the impossibility or undesirability of epicvirtues when judged from a Christian perspective. Pre-eminent in the genrewas Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreid – a medieval epic which imitated theform of Virgil’s Aeneid, but which was predestined by its choice of subject tobe unable to achieve epic closure. Walter seems to have chosen the career ofAlexander partly because his remarkable story had not been immortalised byone of the great classical auctors, and partly because Alexander’s life seemeddesigned to prove the truth of the Biblical dictum that it would profit a mannothing to gain the whole world if he thereby lost his soul.35 The ethicalcontradictions of Walter’s poem led him to create an uneasy hybrid of formsand styles, which cannot claim the kudos of being either an achieved emula-tion or a critique of its authoritative sources – the Alexandreid is, variously,too out-spokenly condemnatory or too grudging to work as epic, but tooseduced by the glamour of violence to be judged a successful attempt at aChristian denunciation of the vanity of war. It was an experiment thatChaucer was too acute a reader to emulate.

Reconciling traditional epic virtues with Christian morality was not theonly potential difficulty faced by an aspirant writer of war-like poetry. Thecomplex figuration of national identity at the court of Richard II, Angevinwithin England, yet capable of invoking a vision of Britishness in its

155

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

35 Matthew 8, v. 36.

ambitions to outflank dissent, made a choice of subject delicate, renderingstories of the heroic British past of Arthur, or of the relationship of Englishand French forces, potentially dangerous. While the ruling dynasty and thearistocracy of England owed their position to a war of conquest, andesteemed their French origins, large areas of English history and mythologywere marked out of bounds for a court poet. The abundance of Charlemagneromances written in medieval England provides revealing evidence as to thecomplex mediation of issues of ethnicity and national allegiance inherent inEnglish culture. The equation was made more complex by the multilingualnature of English society. Though the ascendancy of Anglo-Norman overEnglish as the language of government, law and literature had been checkedin the fourteenth century, the reversal was far from completed – in the earlyyears of the fifteenth century, Gower was to choose Anglo-Norman as thelanguage of his Cinkante Balades. The shifting patterns of relations withFrance rendered the French wars an uncertain choice of subject made redun-dant by the possibility of peace. For the writers of medieval romance, thecrusades against the Saracens provided one answer to some of these poten-tial sensitivities, but for a court poet there were dynastic and political impli-cations to be weighed up in praising a crusader like Richard I. For everyglorious victor, there must also be a vanquished, and Chaucer would havefaced great difficulty in choosing a vanquished whose defeat would satisfy alland not disturb the sensitivities of his audience.

These may be sound literary reasons for Chaucer’s reluctance to tacklewarlike themes, but they do not supply the primary motive for the absence ofwar in Chaucer’s work. Chaucer’s unwillingness to sound the martialtrumpet is a direct consequence of his over-powering belief in the writer’sresponsibility for the ethical effects of his writing on future audiences. In TheHouse of Fame, Chaucer depicts a world in which all that is said or writtencontinues to exist, represented through the figure of ‘tydynges’ taking up anindependent physical existence of their own:

Thus north and south,Wente every tydyng fro mouth to mouth,And that encresing ever moo,As fyr ys wont to qukye and gooFrom a sparke spronge amys,Til al a citee brent up ys.And whan that was ful yspronge,And woxen more on every tongeThan ever hit was, {hit} wente anoonUp to a wyndowe out to goon;Or, hit myghte out there paceHyt gan out crepe at som crevace,And flygh forth faste for the nones.And somtyme saugh I thoo at onesA lesyng and a sad soth sawe,

156

Simon Meecham-Jones

That gonne of aventure draweOut at a wyndowe for to pace;And when they metten in that place,They were achekked bothe two,And neyther of hem moste out gooFor other, so they gonne crowde,Til ech of hem gan crien lowde,‘Lat me go first!’ ‘Nay, but let me!And here I wol ensuren the,Wyth the nones that thou wolt do so,That I shal never fro the go,But be thyn owne sworen brother!We wil medle, us ech with other,That no man, be they never so wrothe,Shal han on [of us] two, but botheAt ones, al besyde his leve,Come we a-morwe or on eve,Be we cried or stille yrouned.’Thus saugh I fals and soth compounedTogeder fle for oo tydynge

Thus out at holes gunne wringeEvery tydynge streght to Fame,And she gan yeven ech hys name,After hir disposicioun,And yaf hem eke duracioun,Somme to wexe and wane sone,As doth the faire white mone,And let hem goon. Ther myghte y seenWynged wondres faste fleen,Twenty thousand in a route,As Eolus hem blew aboute.36

Six centuries before Barthes’ proclamation of the Death of the Author,37

Chaucer dramatises his sense of the frailty of authorial intention, revealing asense of helplessness to prevent future audiences mis-reading his works. Bycomparison with the aesthetic of Dante, who admits no element of fear tocolour his narrative, Chaucer’s sense of responsibility for the effect of hispoetry on its readers proves to be a major check on the subjects he canpresent, and the style through which he could present them. Where Dante’sboundless confidence encourages declamation and assertion, Chaucer’sethical diffidence causes him to develop the evasive strategies of narrativeocclusion which might be termed characteristically Chaucerian.

The House of Fame is Chaucer’s most sustained and undisguised consider-ation of the difficulties of authorship, and his reservations concerning the

157

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

36 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 2075–120.37 Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’, 142–8.

depiction of war and warriors by previous poets are explored in his depic-tions of the vestibule of the goddess Fame. In the Alexandreid Walter hadproclaimed the superior power of the poet over the warrior, in Alexander’slament that his deeds had not been immortalised in great art, like those ofAchilles and Ulysses:

‘O fortuna uiri superexcellentior,’ inquit‘Cuius Meonium redolent preconia uatem,Qui licet exanimem distraxerit Hectora, roburEt patrem patriae, summum tamen illud honorisArbitror augmentum, quod tantum tantus haberePost obitum meruit preconem laudis Homerum.O utinam nostros resoluto corpore tantisLaudibus attollat nam inuidia fama tryumphos!Nam cum lata meas susceperit area leges,Cum domitus Ganges et cum pessundatus Athlas,Cum vires Macedum Boreas, cum senserit Hamon,Et contentus erit sic solo principe mundusUt solo sole, hoc unum michi deesse timebo,Post mortem cineri ne desit fama sepulto,Elisiisque uelim solam hanc preponere campis.’38

(‘O supremely blessed is the fortune of the man whose praises are redolentof the Maeonian bard,’ he said. ‘Although he dragged about the lifelessHector, the strength and father of his country, nevertheless I think that thegreatest addition to his honor was the fact that after his death such a greatman chanced to have so great a herald of his praise, Homer. O would thatan ungrudging fame might extend my triumphs with such high praiseswhen I am dead. For though a wider area will receive my laws, though theGanges will be tamed, though Atlas will be destroyed, though Boreas andAmmon will be as content under one ruler as under one sun, I fear that Iwill lack this one thing – fame for my buried ashes. This alone I wouldprefer to the Elysian fields.’)39

There is a characteristically Walterian slippage of time frames, since Alex-ander is anticipating that he will be denied something which the livingheroes of the Iliad could not have known they would receive, but the impu-tation is clear – only poets have the power to preserve the deeds of themighty. Chaucer, though, redefines this conception of authorial power,showing his ‘maisters’ as a series of monumental but immobile figures,perched on pillars, becalmed in the vestibule of Fame:

Tho saugh I stonde on eyther syde,Streight doun to the dores wide,Fro the dees, many a peler

158

Simon Meecham-Jones

38 Walter of Châtillon, The Alexandreis, I, ed. Colker, lines 478–92 (p. 32).39 Translation from Jolly, The Alexandreid of Walter of Châtillon, p. 57.

Of metal that shoon not ful cler;But though they nere of no rychesse,Yet they were mad for gret noblesse,And in hem hy and gret sentence;And folke of digne reverence,Of which I wil yow telle fonde,Upon the piler saugh I stonde.40

In contrast to the overwhelming confidence of Dante or Walter ofChâtillon, these poets, though initially the creators of Fame, become thecreatures of Fame, for central to Chaucer’s perception is the uncomfortablerealisation that both those remembered and those who cause them to beremembered are perpetually subject to the vagaries of the judgement ofsubsequent readers. Chaucer visualises this ambivalent status in his strikingdepiction of the way the poets physically carry the burden of their subject sothat, for example, Virgil:

That bore hath up a longe whileThe fame of Pius Eneas.41

At first this may suggest a gallery of literary strongmen, bearing the weight ofcultural history, but the implications of this depiction are both more originaland more challenging, for it becomes clear that these eminent men aretrapped perpetually by the inheritance of their work, literally weighed downby the results of their endeavours. Chaucer thus manages to reverse the usualperception of the balance of power in the relationship of author and inspira-tion, making it clear that in the eyes of history, the poet is rendered inertand at the mercy of his work. It is a powerful and surprising realisation ofDante’s remarks in the Comedy to his mentor Brunetto Latini:

M’insegnavate come l’uom s’etterna

‘You taught me how man makes himself eternal.’42

The poetry of Latini and of his pupil Dante render his name immortal, likethat of Virgil

di cui la fama ancor nel mondo dura,e durera quanto ‘l mondo lontana

whose fame still lasts in the world, and shall last as long as the world.

But it is not just the poetry of Latini which is remembered – Dante, after all,shows us his revered master in the circles of Hell. In the creation of litera-ture, the particularities of the creator are not purged, and the political,

159

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

40 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 1419–28.41 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 1484–5.42 Dante, Inferno, Canto XV, line 85.

religious and ethnic ideologies of their work do not cease to influence thetexts themselves, and the readings future audiences find, or create, there.

In his visualisation of the ancient masters in the Court of Fame, Chaucermakes clear the unease about the inescapable and unavoidable bondbetween writer and work which might be said to have inspired theRetracciouns to The Canterbury Tales. Curiously, in some ways this uneaseanticipates Barthes’ ideas about the independent power a text exercises overits author, but Chaucer’s work disputes the ability of the author to becomedetached from his text, in the way that Barthes believed to be inevitable:

writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin. Writingis that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, thenegative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of thebody writing.43

For Chaucer, such a theory would seem to offer the writer a way of evadingthe responsibilities of the work he had brought into being. ThoughChaucer’s image of the great poets, each perched on a column like StSimeon Stylites, seems a less than respectful one, it is hard to imagine amore striking visualisation of the isolated nature of the poet than thesefigures removed by the power of Fame not merely from their own culturalmilieu, but (apparently) from the obliterating powers of Time. Yet Chaucer’spresentation of the matter of Troy emphasises how, although their worksmay be blended or muddled into a larger corpus, the separate identities ofthese poets, their ‘distinctness’, is in no way compromised. It forms apowerful, and poignant, contrast to the ease with which Chaucer can adapt,borrow from or combine the incidents and styles of their works – from Dares,Guido, Benoit and the rest. The vision of poets bearing contrary versions ofthe matter of Troy and questioning each other’s impartiality emphasisesChaucer’s rejection of the possibility that ‘fallen’ secular literature canexpect to embody a single and tangible expression of truth:

And by him stood, withouten les,Ful wonder hy on a pilerOf yren, he, the gret Omer;And with him Dares and TytusBefore, and eke he Lollius,And Guydo eke de Columpnis,And Englyssh Gaufride eke, ywis;And ech of these, as have I joye,Was besy for to bere up Troye.So hevy therof was the fameThat for to bere hyt was no game.But yet I gan ful wel espie,Betwex hem was a litil envye.

160

Simon Meecham-Jones

43 Barthes, ‘Death of the Author’, p. 142.

Oon seyde that Omer made lyes,Feynynge in hys poetries,And was to Grekes favorable;Therfor held he hyt but fable.44

The great ‘auctors’ of the past, displayed on pillars bearing up the ‘fame’ oftheir subjects, have become the victims of their own work, pinned downunder the weight of their own talent and the ideologies of their vision –unable to escape the judgements which result from the exercise of their imag-inative faculties. In Chaucer’s visualisation of the consequences of literaturein The House of Fame, to write is to leave oneself open to perpetual judgementfor the moral consequences of the text. In the sly mention of Dares’s denunci-ation of Homer as propagandist for the Greek cause, Chaucer isolates aparticular strand of his reservation about the proper relationship of art andpower, or the artist and the powerful. In the portrayal of the great ‘maisters’ atthe Court of Fame it is clear that the propagation of Fame supplies both ajustification and practical sustenance for the poetic craft, in a mutual interde-pendence of poet and ruler that unites the epochs of literary history. Chauceris careful to draw our attention to the perpetual binding together of theMighty and their chroniclers in his description of:

The grete poete daun Lucan,And on hys shuldres bar up than,As high as that y myghte see,The fame of Julius and Pompe.45

But in this visualisation of the inevitable connection of the reputation ofsubject and author, Chaucer raises the question of the poet’s complicity inthe failings of their subjects. Both Caesar and Pompey are figures whosecareers were full of violent and morally questionable acts – but Lucan, astheir chronicler, must bear responsibility for the survival of their name. Thepoet, even if preserving memories of their failings, is also paradoxicallyhelping them to achieve the preservation of their names, an ambition whichlay at the heart of heroic culture. It is clear from his portrayal of Fame as amonstrous and unjust figure that Chaucer intends to present this process ofpoetic embalming of reputations in a severely critical light. The reference tothe Apocalypse in the description of Fama

For as feele eyen hadde sheAs fetheres upon foules be,Or weren on the bestes foureThat Goddis trone gunne honoure,As John writ in th’Apocalips46

161

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

44 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 1464–80.45 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 1499–1502.46 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 1381–5.

emphasises the blasphemous presumption of her judgements. Similarly thetrumpet-playing of Aeolus takes on the quality of a parody of the last Trump:

What dide this Eolus, but he,Tok out hys blake trumpe of bras,That fouler than the devel was,And gan this trumpe for to blowe,As al the world shulde overthrowe,. . .And hyt stank as the pit of helle.47

Though Chaucer’s primary purpose may have been to castigate Dante’s bold-ness in claiming for poetry the divine right to declare historical figuresdamned or saved, in the ludicrous but vivid image of Caesar and Pompeyriding into eternity on Lucan’s shoulders Chaucer reveals his fear of theartist being locked into an eternal and inescapable relationship with thepolitical leaders of his day. The risk was greatest in chronicling warfare and,in avoiding the topic, Chaucer demonstrates his awareness that in writing ofbattles and political conflict, the writer is drawn into a direct and indissol-uble relationship with the ideology from which the warfare springs. Theresult is a poetry which achieves disengagement from the pressing politicaldifficulties of its time – the fitness of Richard II to rule, the legality of HenryIV’s usurpation, the proper relationship of the English throne to the lands inFrance and the colonial annexation of Wales and Ireland. Some scholarshave been critical of Chaucer’s perceived lack of political commitment toethical causes or political factions, reading this disengagement as a sign ofweakness, and writing of Chaucer as if he were a free artist working in aliberal democracy. But Chaucer’s presentation of war reveals his recognitionof the creative restrictions inherent in his position as an artist working in avolatile and repressive culture of hierarchical patronage. His unwillingnessto allow his work to be assimilated within either the valorised tradition ofheroic ideology or the passing particularities of political and dynasticconflict reflects not an acceptance of the mores of his time but, on thecontrary, a conscious act of dissociation from the ideology of hiscircumstances.

The apparently unassertive courage of Chaucer’s refusal to let his workembody the motives and values of his political masters is illuminated bycomparing his practice of resistance with that of twentieth-century artistsattempting to safeguard their integrity within totalitarian regimes. In VaclavHavel’s essay ‘The Power of The Powerless’, the dangers of acquiescence inthe rhetoric of the display of power are demonstrated. Havel’s purpose is toshow how easily, and without consciously choosing to do so, citizens becomecomplicit in the ideology which denies their freedom – and how thatideology enslaves every level of the hierarchy:

162

Simon Meecham-Jones

47 Chaucer, The House of Fame, lines 1636–40, 1654.

Vedoucí obchodu se zeleninou umístil do výkladu mezi cibuli a mrkevheslo “Proletáøi všech zemí, spojte se!”

Proè to udelal? Co tím cht÷l sdelit svetu? Je skuteèn÷ osobn÷ zapálenpro myšlenku spojení proletáøù všech zemí? Jde jeho zapálení tak daleko,»e cítí neodolatelnou potøebu se svým ideálem seznámit veøejnost?Uva»oval opravdu nìkdy aspoò chvilku o tom, jak by se takové spojenímìlo uskuteènit a co by znamenalo?

Myslím, »e u drtivé v÷tšiny zelináøù lze právem pøedpokládat, »e o textuhesel ve svých výkladech celkem nepøemýšlejí, nato» aby jimi vyslovovalinìco ze svého názoru na sv÷t.

To heslo pøivezli našemu zelináøi z podniku spolu s cibulí a mrkví a on jedal do výkladu prostì proto, »e se to tak u» léta d÷lá, »e to d÷lají všichni, »eto tak musí být. Kdyby to neudìlal, mohl by mít potí»e; mohli by mu vyèíst,»e nemá “výzdobu”; nekdo by ho mohl dokonce naøkout z toho, »e neníloajální. Ud÷dal to proto, »e to patøí k v÷ci, chce-li èlovìk v »ivot÷ obstát;»e je to jedna z tisíce “malièkostí”, které mu zajišÿují relativnì klidný »ivot“v souladu se spoleèností”.48

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, amongthe onions and carrots, the slogan: ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ Whydoes he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genu-inely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world?Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaintthe public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment’sthought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?

I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shop-keepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do theyuse them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to ourgreengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions andcarrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been donethat way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it hasto be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached fornot having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accusehim of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to getalong in life. It is one of those thousands of details that guarantee him arelatively tranquil life ‘in harmony with society’, as they say.49

In the militaristic culture of medieval Europe, the deployment of images ofwarfare and prowess must have seemed as natural an employment for writersas the greengrocer’s placing of a Communist slogan. It is the seeming obvi-ousness of this behaviour, its apparent transparency of intention, which, inHavel’s account, proves so enslaving:

Jak vidìt, sémantický obsah vystaveného hesla je zelinarí lhostejný, adává’li své heslo do výkladu, nedává ho tam proto, »e by osobnì tou»il právìs jeho myšlenkou seznámit veøejnost.

163

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

48 Havel et al., O Svobodì A Moci, pp. 15–16.49 Trans. Wilson, in Havel, The Power of the Powerless, ed. Keane, pp. 27–8.

To ovšem neznamená, »e jeho poèin nemá »ádný motiv a a »e svýmheslem nikomu nic nesdìluje. To heslo má funcki znaku a jako takovéobsahuje sice skryté, ale zcela urèité sdìlení. Verbálnì by je bylo mo»névyjádøit takto: já, zelináø XY, jsem zde a vím, co mam dìlat; chovám se tak,jak je ode mne oèekáváno; je na mne spolehnutí a nelze mi nic vytknout;jsem poslusný a mám proto právo na klidný »ivot. Toto sdìlení mápøirozenì svého adresáta: je namíøeno “nahoru”, k zelináøovýmnadøízeným, a je zároveò štítem, kterým se zelináø kryje pøed pøípadnýmiudavaèi.

Svým skuteèným významem je tedy heslo zakotveno pøímo v zelináøovìlidské existenci: zrcadlí jeho »ivotní zájem. Jaký to je však zájem?

Všimnìme si: kdyby naøídili zelináøi dát do výkladu heslo “Bojím se, aproto jsem bezvýhradné poslušný”, nechoval by se k jeho sématickémuobsahu zdaleka tak laxné, pøesto, »e by se tento obsah tentokrát zcela kryl seskrytým významem hesla. Zelináø by se pravdìpodobnì zdráhal umístit dosvé výkladní skøínì takto nedvojsmyslnou zprávu o svém poní»ení, bylo bymu to trapné, stydìl by se. Pochopitelnì: je pøece èlovìkem a má tudí»pocit lidské dùstojnosti.

Aby byla tato komplikace pøekonána, musí mít jeho vyznání loajalitynormu znaku, poukazujícího aspoò svým textovým povrchem k jakýmsivyšším polohám nezištného pøesvìdèeni. Zelináøi se musí dát mo»nost, abysi øekl:V»dyÿ proè by se koneckoncù proletáøi všech zemí nemohli spojit?

Znak pomáhá tedy skrýt pøed èlovìkem “nízké” základy jeho poslušnostia tím “nízké základy moci. Skrývá je za fásadou èehosi “vysokého”.

Tím “vysokým” je ideologie.50

Obviously the greengrocer is indifferent to the semantic content of theslogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his window from any per-sonal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. This, ofcourse, does not mean that his action has no motive or significance at all,or that the slogan communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really asign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message.Verbally, it might be expressed this way: ‘I, the greengrocer XY, live hereand I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I canbe depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore Ihave the right to be left in peace.’ This message, of course, has an addressee:it is directed above, to the greengrocer’s superior, and at the same time it isa shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. Theslogan’s real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer’s exis-tence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?

Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display theslogan ‘I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient’, he would notbe nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement wouldreflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed toput such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shopwindow, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a senseof his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of

164

Simon Meecham-Jones

50 Havel et al., O Svobodì A Moci, pp. 16–17.

loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface,indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocerto say, ‘What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?’ Thus the signhelps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of hisobedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. Ithides them behind the facade of something high. And that something isideology.51

Chaucer refuses to decorate his texts with the trophies of the ideology of warwhich governed medieval aristocratic society, and his refusal to do so shouldbe recognised as a principled and imaginative recognition of the moralimplications of accepting and re-using traditional styles and tropes. He doesnot concede the justice of aristocratic violence, even though he cannotimagine an alternative structure of social organisation once the ‘good feith’of the mythical Former Age had been breached.52 The simultaneousdis-engagement from the ideology of warfare and pessimism about thecreation of alternative mores results in the quality of inchoateness Yeagerdescribes in his account of Chaucer’s distaste for war – a distaste that ispotent but implicit. That Chaucer was able to choose this path of implicitand solitary resistance, so at odds with the needs of the ruling class, and sohostile to what was perceived to be in ‘harmony with society’, tells us muchabout his isolation as an artist, and the apparent obtuseness of his readers.Chaucer worked at a court less than sensitive to the potential propagandavalue, both immediately and for posterity, of the poet in its midst – perhapsbecause he chose to write in the ‘unlearned’ language of English. It appearsthat the poet’s suitability to plead the case for England and its ruler, (a rolewhich seemed so obvious to Chaucer, as it had to Dante, Walter ofChâtillon and Virgil, and to Gower in the writing of the Confessio Amantis)was not noticed. Saul has drawn attention to the fact that no evidencesurvives that Chaucer ever wrote to a commission from Richard II53 – had hedone so, his disinclination to embrace warlike themes would presumablyhave proved more problematic. At the same time, and disturbingly for apoet, although he was so sensitive to the consequences of his verse, Chaucerhad to live and work with the possibility that his prospective usefulnessmight be discovered, and pressure exerted to make his verse the host forauthority’s choice of an ideological parasite. Though it rejects the role of acommentary on the warfare of his time, Chaucer’s poetry is powerfully

165

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

51 Trans. Wilson, in Havel, The Power of the Powerless, ed. Keane, p. 28.52 Unforged was the hauberk and the plate;

The lambish peple, voyd of alle vyce,Hadden no fanasye to debate,But ech of hem wolde other wel cheryce.No pryde, non envye, non avaryce,No lord, no taylage by no tyrannye;Humblesse and pees, good feith the emperice.

53 Saul, Richard II, p. 362.

shaped by his determined exclusion of the imagery of warfare. It is nosurprise that the military imagery that holds most power over Chaucer’simagination throughout his work is not that of combat on the field of warbut of siege – the besieging of Troy which frames the action of Troilus andCriseyde, the siege of Thebes which causes the abandonment of Anelida.Images of siege are not found at the forefront of Chaucer’s poetic canvases,but an awareness of being besieged permeates Chaucer’s poetic voice asdeeply as it does the consciousness of Troilus. The absent presence of siegeembodied an image of surrounding, potentially mortal, but not immediate,danger which functioned within Chaucer’s poetry as a figure of his sense ofthe poet’s integrity perpetually under threat from the external demands of asocial structure founded on the violence of warfare. It was not possible forChaucer to achieve an aesthetic in which the existence of war could bedenied, but the imagery of the siege, with its strong Christian echoes of thesoul besieged by sin, enabled Chaucer to give figurative expression to hisfears about the near-impossibility of a writer escaping complicity in therhetoric of aristocratic warfare.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Annales Richard II & Henry IV in J. de Trokelowe et Anon, Chronica etAnnales, ed. H. T. Riley (London: Rolls Series, 1866).

Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd edn, ed. Larry D. Benson(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. John D. Sinclair (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1961).

Sidney, Sir Philip, The Poetry of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).

The ‘Gest Hystoriale’ of the Destruction of Troy: An Alliterative RomanceTranslated from Guido de Colonna’s ‘Hystoria Troiana’, ed. GeorgeA. Panton and David Donaldson, 2 vols in 1, Early English Text Society,OS 39 and 56 (London: N. Trübner, 1869 and 1874).

Havel, Vaclav et al., O Svobode A Moci (Cologne: Index, 1980).Havel, Vaclav, The Power of the Powerless, ed. John Keane (London: Hutch-

inson, 1985).Jolly, William Thomas, trans. and commentary, ‘The Alexandreid of Walter

of Châtillon’, Tulane University of Louisiana, unpublished PhD thesis,1968.

Volkov, Solomon, Testimony, the Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related toand edited by Solomon Volkov, trans. Antonina W. Bouing (London:H. Hamilton, 1979).

166

Simon Meecham-Jones

Walter of Châtillon, Galteri de Castellione Alexandreis, ed. M. L. Colker,Thesaurus mundi 17 (Padua: In aedibus Antenoreis, 1986).

II. Studies

Aers, David, Chaucer (Brighton: Harvester, 1986).Barthes, Roland, ‘Image–Music–Text’, Essays, ed. and trans. Stephen Heath

(London: Fontana, 1977).Burgess, G. S., ed., Court and Poet: Selected Proceedings of the Third Congress

of the International Courtly Literature Society (Liverpool: Francis Cairns,1981).

Burrow, J. A., Ricardian Poetry (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971).Hanks, D. Thomas and Jessica Brogdon, ed., The Social and Literary Contexts

of Malory’s ‘Morte Darthur’ (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000).Jones, Terry with Terry Dolan, Juliette D’Or, Alan Fletcher and Robert

Yeager, Who Murdered Chaucer? (London: Methuen, 2003).Long, P. W., ed., Essays in Honor of Carleton Brown (New York: New York

University Press, 1940).Oizumi, Akio, A Complete Concordance to the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer

(Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1991).Patterson, Lee, Chaucer and the Subject of History (London: Routledge,

1991).Pearsall, Derek, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford:

Blackwell, 1992).Pratt, John H., Chaucer and War (Lanham: University Press of America,

2000).Saul, Nigel, Richard II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).Yeager, R. F., ‘Pax Poetica: On the Pacifism of Chaucer and Gower’, Studies

in the Age of Chaucer 9 (1987): 97–121.

167

The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

K. S. WHETTER

SIR THOMAS Malory’s fifteenth-century Morte Darthur begins and endsin warfare.1 When warfare proper is not the principal subject, the narra-

tive is dominated by tournaments or individual jousts and combats, friendlyand unfriendly, in which knights clash together and one of them, to borrowan Homeric phrase, falls upon the earth to have his armour rattle upon him.Unfriendly jousts are obviously a form of combat, but even more amicableencounters and martial games can be considered as an ‘imitation ofcombat’,2 utilising and honing the skills used in war. This is as true of medi-eval historical and literary tournaments, including those in the MorteDarthur, as it is of the funeral games in the Iliad. And as with actual warfare,tournaments and individual jousts in the Morte can lead to bloodshed, aswhen Balyn and Balan fail to recognise one another until they are bothmortally wounded, or when Launcelot, prior to knighting Gareth, agrees tojoust with him and then has to warn Gareth to stop fighting so earnestlybefore one or the other of them is seriously injured.3 Balyn and Balan areforced to fight, but Launcelot and Gareth fight by mutual consent, atGareth’s request, in a battle that is obviously designed to allow Gareth toprove himself and increase his reputation. The danger in such situations, asMalory observes elsewhere, is that however courteously knights may speak toone another, ‘whan they be in batayle eyther wolde beste be praysed’(223.12–13).4 Such praise, of course, is best won by defeating one’s oppo-nent, and Gareth’s fierce competitiveness in fighting Launcelot illustratesthe potential disaster attendant upon such feelings. The full effects of such

169

1 I am indebted to P. J. C. Field for his comments on this paper.2 Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad, p. 206. For tournaments in Malory, see Hellenga,

‘The Tournaments in Malory’s Morte Darthur’, pp. 67–78.3 The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, Vinaver, rev. Field, pp. 89.5–91.7 and 298.26–299.7

respectively. All references are by page and line number to this edition; subsequent refer-ences will be made parenthetically in the text. I do not reproduce Vinaver’s variousbrackets around emendations, nor his capitalisation of the explicits.

4 On the potential for good and ill will here, see also Lynch, Malory’s Book of Arms, p. 93;Knight, Arthurian Literature and Society, pp. 116–18.

disaster are made even more explicit when Gawayne and Uwayne encounterone another in the Grail Quest: ignorant of one another’s identity anddesirous to joust, they come together with the result that Uwayne, ‘a felowof the Rounde Table’, is mortally wounded in their first charge(943.31–945.18). Gawayne and Uwayne are both seeking adventure, as istheir habit as knights, but the poignancy of Uwayne’s death is emphasisedwhen we remember that Uwayne is Gawayne’s cousin, and that earlier inthe Morte Gawayne willingly accompanies Uwayne into exile (158.5–22).

It has been argued that wounds in the Morte Darthur are inflicted by andassociated with false knights, whereas true knights are associated withhealing. Thus Gawayne’s accidental killing of Uwayne is a sign of Gawayne’sfalsity.5 This, however, is only partially true, and is – as we shall see – muchless valid elsewhere in the Morte than in the Grail Quest. Rather, there isconsiderable thematic interest throughout the Morte Darthur not only in thewinning of worshyp (honour; glory) through combat and prowess, but inweeping, wounds and blood.6 The consequences of combat are Malory’s focusas much as the combats themselves. Hence one of several small but significantoriginal details in the Morte is Malory’s observation that, in the aftermath ofthe final battle between Arthur and Mordred, those injured knights left aliveon the battlefield were killed by looters (1237.29–1238.4). This emphasisesthe sombreness and suffering of the final war in the Morte Darthur, and alsosuggests Malory’s own awareness of the bloody and grim realities of warfare –hardly surprising if this observation is indeed based on Malory’s experiences ofthe Battle of Towton, ‘the bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil’.7 Yet wecannot conclude from this that Malory is condemning war, for elsewhere inthe Morte war, and particularly tournaments and individual battles and jousts,are the means by which a knight proves his worship and, often, wins his lady.Such, for instance, is the case with Gareth or Trystram or, especially,Launcelot, who admits in the Grail Quest that his battles were undertaken inlarge part ‘for to wynne worship’ (897.20). Such is even the case, mutatismutandis, in the Morte’s judicial trials by battle, where Malory is more inter-ested in the fighting and the ways fighting advances the plot and aggrandiseshis heroes than he is in legal niceties.8

Thus warfare in the Morte Darthur is one of those topics that revealsMalory’s seemingly contradictory complexities. At times, war generatesopportunities for worship and puts an end to tyranny or unjust rebellion.

170

K. S. Whetter

5 Kelly, ‘Wounds, Healing, and Knighthood in Malory’s Tale of Lancelot and Guenevere’(especially, for Gawayne’s falsity, p. 180).

6 For worship and prowess, see Lynch, Book of Arms, pp. 28–33; 43–6; on the consequences,see pp. 73–4. Despite the argument of these last pages, Lynch elsewhere generallydownplays the consequences of combat in the Morte, emphasising instead fighting ‘for itsown sake’: see pp. 41–3; 49–50; 56; 77–8; 132–3. As will become evident, I disagree withthis.

7 See, for this suggestion, Field, ‘Malory and the Battle of Towton’, p. 74.8 Eynon, ‘The Use of Trial by Battle in the Work of Sir Thomas Malory’, pp. 85; 91–104.

The Roman War brings just rule to lands that had been in discord, and wewitness many instances of Arthur’s good conduct towards both enemies andfriends.9 At other times, however, we are reminded how ‘ “there ys hardebatayle thereas kynne and frendys doth batayle ayther ayenst other”, forthere may be no mercy, but mortall warre’ (1084.5–7). This is corroboratedagain and again in the Morte, but even if it were not, the fact that the senti-ment is described as an ‘olde-seyde sawe’ suggests that it is common experi-ence approved by everyone in Arthur’s (and perhaps even Malory’s) society.In this sense, warfare has both beneficent and destructive consequences, foralthough war and individual combat are the principal means by which aknight establishes worship, they are also the principal means by which heencounters injury or death. It is my contention that Malory throughout theMorte Darthur asks us to accept each side of this equation as equally valid.The Grail Quest is an exception to this, but only partially. Finally, as theMorte draws to its tragic close, warfare is one of several narrative features orstrands used by Malory to highlight the irredeemable loss of an idealkingdom, ruler, and fellowship.

The war which opens the Morte Darthur is brief, and we lose sight of it tofocus on its consequence: the birth of Arthur; but it is worth rememberingthat the war is already in progress when the story opens – ‘Hit befel in thedayes of Uther Pendragon . . . that there was a myghty duke in Cornewaillthat helde warre agenyst hym’ (7.1–3) – and that, when it resumes followingan abortive peace, ‘there was grete warre made on bothe partyes and mochepeple slayne’ (8.6–7). The cost of war, then, is immediately placed before us.Even when this war is ended and Arthur has been recognised as king, muchof the opening section of the ‘Tale of King Arthur’ (Tale I) is devoted toArthur’s wars with Lott and the rebel kings. Although war is not the prin-cipal subject, the ‘Tale of Balyn’ and ‘The Wedding of King Arthur’ bothopen by recalling the great wars Arthur had to fight to become king (61.1–5;97.1–6), and war recurs in both sections. The explicit to Tale I, meanwhile,recalls Arthur’s ‘many batayles’ (180.17), the opening lines of Tale II – the‘Tale of the Noble Kynge Arthure that was Emperoure Hymself thorowdygnyté of His Hondys’ – are similar (185.3–4), and both the ‘Tale of SirLauncelot’ and ‘Boke of Syr Trystrams’ open by recounting Arthur’s lordshipover Rome and many other lands, implicitly recalling the wars requisite forestablishing that rule.

Modern readers with modern values may well view all this fighting aswrong. In doing so they follow (consciously or not) the Renaissancehumanist Roger Ascham, who condemned the Morte and its heroes becauseof the fighting and slaughter.10 Even if they do not frown upon it, modern

171

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

9 E.g., pp. 186.24–187.12; 227.7; 241.22–242.18; 245.9–246.3. See also Cherewatuk, ‘SirThomas Malory’s “Grete Booke” ’, pp. 55–7.

10 Ascham, The Scholemaster, fols 27r–27v.

readers are often uninterested in the fighting. Helen Cooper’s recent abbre-viated edition of Malory, for instance, condenses the fight scenes for thisvery reason.11 We must remember, therefore, that Malory is interested in thefighting: it is in fact his ‘favourite topic’.12 Thus fighting is not only thenorm in the Morte Darthur, it is both accepted and expected, providing the‘chief means by which a Malory hero can “florysh hys herte in thysworlde” ’.13 Nevertheless, Malory takes pains to emphasise the justice ofArthur’s cause in the early wars by repeatedly showing him drawing thesword from the stone (see pp. 12–16), and it is made clear that ‘Whosopulleth oute this Swerd of this Stone and Anvyld is rightwys Kynge borne ofall Englond’ (12.34–36). Something similar occurs in the ‘Tale of the NobleKynge Arthure that was Emperoure Hymself thorow dygnyté of HisHondys’,14 in which Arthur (or his emissaries) repeatedly emphasises hisright to oppose Rome by evoking the emperorship of his ancestors(188.5–14; 194.21–23; 207.4–6; none of which is denied by Malory), whilevarious of his allies agree to fight Rome to avenge past Roman wrongs(189.9–20) and because they ‘had never scathe syne [Arthur was] crownedkynge, and whan the Romaynes raynede uppon us they raunsomed oureelders and raffte us of oure lyves’ (188.18–20). Even the wording of theexplicit, that Arthur became emperor ‘thorow dygnyté of His Hondys’ (italicsmine), emphasises Arthur’s prowess while simultaneously singing his praises.The Emperor’s alliance with fiendish giants (193.24–25), meanwhile,contrasts with Arthur’s destruction of the villainous and monstrous Giant ofSeynte Mychaels Mounte (198.5–205.10), and again suggests the justice ofArthur’s war. The monstrousness of the Emperor’s allies also indicates thathis claim of overlordship of England is itself monstrous.

If the wars are just, so is Arthur’s worship, and like the battle with thegiant, the wars in Tale I allow Arthur to distinguish himself and win glory,for he fights ‘ever . . . in the formest prees’ (19.16–17) and does so‘mervaylesly in armys that all men had wondir’ (29.13–14; cf. 19.9–11;30.33–4). Arthur’s worship is all the greater considering that his opponentsare later called ‘the beste fyghters of the worlde’ (37.3) and ‘knyghtes ofmoste prouesse that ever y saw other herde off speke’ (34.35–6). Just asArthur wins glory, so too do his knights. Hence Balyn wins both glory andArthur’s favour in defeating King Royns and fighting against the rebel kings(70.21–7; 73.27–30; 75.34–76.5), Kay wins glory in the ‘War with the FiveKings’ episode (see esp. 128.14–129.22; cf. 75.29–30), and Gawayne and

172

K. S. Whetter

11 See Cooper, ed., Le Morte Darthur, p. xxv.12 Vinaver, ed., Works, p. xxxiii. Cf. Lynch, Book of Arms, p. 38. Mahoney, ‘Malory’s “Tale of

Sir Tristram” ’, p. 177, suggests that Malory may have been attracted to the Tristram storyin part because of its fighting.

13 Lynch, Book of Arms, p. 147, quoting Malory, p. 1119.24. See also Lynch, Book of Arms, p.35, and his ‘Ideology’, p. 26.

14 Tale II is also referred to as ‘King Arthur and the Emperor Lucius’.

Launcelot (amongst others) win glory in the Roman War.15 When wecombine these scenes with Cador’s response to the Roman Embassy (andwar) in Tale II, that Arthur’s knights have been idle for too long and thank-fully ‘now shall . . . have warre and worshyp’ (187.18–21), we seem to have astraightforward, almost celebratory response to warfare.16

Malory does not, however, simply aestheticise warfare. Thus, as a concom-itant of warriors winning glory in battle, we have Lott, one of the causes ofthe principal war in Tale I, weeping ‘for pité and dole that he saw so manygood knyghtes take their ende’ (33.5–7). Shortly thereafter Merlyn encapsu-lates both aspects of war, the glorious and the bloody, when he upbraidsArthur for continuing to fight when so many are slain, while at the sametime praising the worship and prowess of Arthur and his men (36.26–37.3).Such sentiments are continued in the Roman War, which alternatelyemphasises the opportunities war brings for winning knightly worship, aswell as the destruction attendant upon war. Thus, in the wake of a battle inwhich Gawayne especially is seriously injured, and in which Arthur himselflaments Gawayne’s wounds and offers bloody reprisal for them (211.23–8),we are nonetheless told how ‘was there joy and game amonge the knyghtesof Rounde Table, [who] spoke of the grete prouesse that the messyngers[including Gawayne] ded that day thorow dedys of armys’ (212.1–3). Simi-larly, Launcelot and Cador both argue in favour of fighting against superiornumbers and dying with honour rather than retreating (213.31–214.5; cf.217.25–9), just as Gawayne refuses to allow Pryamus to enter the fray withreinforcements until their men ‘be stadde wyth more stuff than [he sees] hemagaynste’ (237.4–22). Throughout these scenes, war is seen as a means towin glory or die with honour, a sentiment as familiar to the heroes of theIliad as to the knights of the Round Table.17 Even Merlyn feels this,contrasting his own ‘shamefull dethe’ with Arthur’s ‘worshipfull dethe’ inbattle (44.24–30). We are, however, concomitantly reminded of the cost ofwar, as when Arthur weeps to hear ‘whyche of the good knyghtis wereslayne’ (217.17–24), or when

173

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

15 For Gawayne, see (inter alia) the episode where he is part of Arthur’s embassy to theEmperor (207.20–211.31) and that with Pryamus (228.20–234.24). For Launcelot’s glory inTale II, see especially the prisoner escort episode (212.11–217.14); his role in Malory’sversion of the Roman War may be contrasted with that in the principal source, the allitera-tive Morte Arthure, where his part is relatively slight. See also Dichmann, ‘ “The Tale ofKing Arthur and the Emperor Lucius” ’ (especially pp. 74–9 and 90).

16 The sentiment in Caxton’s version of the Roman War is the same, and the wording is notsignificantly different: see the Caxton text printed at the bottom of Works, p. 187, orCaxton’s Malory, ed. Spisak, Vol. I, p. 122.9–12.

17 See, e.g., The Iliad of Homer, trans. Lattimore, XII, 322–8. Lewis’s aspersions of theWinchester version of the Roman War and its source notwithstanding, such sentiments arecloser to the spirit of the Morte Darthur than is generally acknowledged: Lewis, ‘TheEnglish Prose Morte’, pp. 26–7. For the heroic and martial influence of the alliterativeMorte Arthure on Malory, see especially McCarthy, ‘Malory and the Alliterative Tradition’;McCarthy, ‘Beowulf’s Bairns’.

174

K. S. Whetter

a chylde of kyng Arthurs chambir, he was a warde of sir Gawaynes . . . they[the Romans] chaced that chylde, that he nowhere myght ascape, for onewith a swerde the halse of the chylde he smote in too. Whan sir Gawaynehit sawe he wepte wyth all his herte. (239.12–19)

Even here, though, Malory tells us, and Gawayne repeats to Arthur(240.28–9), that the youth with his own hands slew an enemy warrior beforebeing killed; considering that Malory generally abbreviates his material, andthat the source here recounts only the youth’s death, not his success, therepetition implies some degree of consolation.18

The matter of whether England or Rome owes the other tribute is settledby war. As a general rule, however, Malory treats warfare and tournamentcombat as much the same thing, often focussing on the opposition of indi-vidual knights or small groups of knights.19 Hence Arthur fights Lucyus inthe Roman War, sending Lucyus’s body as tribute to Rome (223.14–226.8),and Gawayne fights Bors and Launcelot (et alia) in the Siege of Benwick(1214.20–1221.17). Another indication of the similarities between warfareand individual combat in Morte Darthur comes with the question of Cornishtribute to Ireland, for this matter is settled by individual combat betweenMarhalte and Trystram. And just as war allows knights the opportunity towin glory, Marhalte agrees to champion Ireland in order ‘to encrece [hys]worshyp’ (376.26), while Trystram, as a newly-made knight, championsCornwall for similar reasons (381.13–33). Again, just as Launcelot andCador would rather die with honour than flee their enemies in the RomanWar, so in the battle between Trystram and Blamour, Blamour would ratherdie with honour than be shamed by admitting defeat – a decision endorsedby his brother (408.23–34; 409.20–410.26). To a considerable extent, then,the focus in war, tournament and individual combat is on the winning ofworship.20 Arthur even dismisses Launcelot’s warnings about facingnumerous envious opponents at Lonezep because Arthur, like Launcelot andGawayne and others in the Roman War, wants to ‘preve whoo shall be besteof his hondis’ (682.11–17).

It has been said of Malory’s (much-maligned) fifth tale, the ‘Boke of SyrTrystrams’, that it celebrates ‘the joys of combat . . . almost beyond limits’.21

Indeed, its theme is the ‘pursuit of “worship” gained by fighting’.22 This, as theabove examples or even a superficial reading of the tale help to illustrate, is

18 For Malory’s additions to the scene, see alliterative Morte Arthure, ed. Hamel, lines2952–61 and 3027–8; Vinaver, ed., Works, n. to 240.27–9.

19 See Lynch, Book of Arms, pp. 48–52. Cf. Knight, pp. 111–12 and 126; Hellenga, pp. 72–4and 78.

20 For Mann, combat also plays a role in the knights’ realisation of their own identities as wellas in helping them to confront the mysterious and arbitrary nature of life and the universe,‘Malory: Knightly Combat in Le Morte Darthur’.

21 Lynch, Book of Arms, p. 78. See also Cherewatuk, pp. 52 and 59–61.22 Mahoney, p. 175.

175

quite true. Yet for all its polyphonic stream of chivalric adventures, tourna-ments, and fighting, the ‘Boke of Syr Trystrams’ also reminds us of the humancost of warfare and combat. Thus, for instance, when the Sessoyne hostattacks Cornwall, one particular battle is ended both by the approach of dark-ness and also ‘for grete slaughtir of peple and for wounded peple’ (622.22–3;cf. 620.5–8). The slaughter is so great, in fact, that neither party wants to con-tinue fighting. Rather, the war is settled by single combat between Trystramand the Sessoyne leader, Elyas, a combat which Trystram eventually wins, intypical romance fashion, by gaining inspiration from thoughts of his lover(625.1–33). Like the battle with Marhalte, this is one of many acts in theMorte Darthur as a whole that contributes to Trystram’s great reputation asone of the best knights of the Round Table; more importantly in the presentargument, the emphasis on the dead and the glory Trystram wins serve toillustrate both the cost and the worship attendant upon war. This is especiallytrue since, in a detail original to Malory, Elyas dies in the combat,23 andTrystram laments the loss of a knight whom he feels to be second only toLauncelot in prowess (626.1–4).

Although I believe that Malory’s view of war and individual combat isfairly consistent throughout the Morte Darthur, I do not mean to imply thatall wars and battles are the same (however much the paratactic similaritiesof their narration may make them appear so to unsympathetic readers). It iseven possible that the condemnation of murder in the Grail Quest is meantto suggest that war is bad, especially in light of the argument that falseknights are associated with wounds and true knights with healing.24 This,however, is only partially true, and even in the Grail Quest Bors can defend(by combat) a lady against the attacks and seizures of her lands and castlesby another lady’s army (956.34–960.15). Further, although the notion of warallowing a knight to win worship seems counter to the religious aesthetic ofthe Grail Quest, the Quest’s values are not those of the Morte as a whole.One of Malory’s greatest changes to his source in the Grail story is to down-play any condemnation of earthly chivalry. Consequently, the Grail allowsArthur’s knights even greater opportunity for winning ‘glory in this world’.25

Bors is one of three knights to achieve the Grail, but even he explains toone of the Quest’s ubiquitous hermits that ‘he shall have much erthly worshipthat may bryng [the queste of the Sankgreall] to an ende’ (955.9–10; myemphasis). The hermit, it may be added, agrees with this.

Thus, excepting certain figures such as Galahad, the Morte and its heroesoperate as much by epic-heroic values privileging prowess, glory and honour

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

23 See Vinaver, ed., Works, n. to 626.5–7, and Lynch, Book of Arms, pp. 61–2. For Lynch, thisshows Trystram’s respect for his opponent’s blood and worship. More importantly, to mymind, it shows Malory taking extra effort to emphasise the human cost of combat.

24 See n. 5.25 Vinaver, ed., Works, p. 1535.

176

K. S. Whetter

as by medieval Christian morality.26 This is especially evident in two martialscenes. The first is Gawayne’s blood-feud oath against Launcelot:

My kynge, my lorde, and myne uncle, . . . wyte you well, now I shall makeyou a promyse whych I shall holde be my knyghthode[:] . . . for the deth ofmy brothir, sir Gareth, I shall seke sir Launcelot thorowoute seven kyngesrealmys, but I shall sle hym, other ellis he shall sle me. (1186.1–12)

The second is Arthur’s decision, in the wake of the destruction of the lastbattle, to pursue vengeance upon Mordred ‘tyde me dethe, tyde me lyff, . . .now I se hym yondir alone, he shall never ascape myne hondes!’(1237.5–6).27 The argument that Malory take pains to ‘displace the . . .moral questionability of war’28 is consequently misguided, for he does notview it morally at all. On those occasions where war is objectionable it isbecause of its destruction or dishonour, not its moral distastefulness. It alsoremains true that even in the Grail Quest Bors, Galahad and Percivale aretwice able to defeat and kill a far greater force than would be humanlypossible. On the second occasion Galahad ‘smote on the ryght honde and onthe lyffte honde, and slew whom that ever abode hym, and dud somervaylously that there was none that sawe hym they wend he had bennone erthely man, but a monstre’ (1001.22–26). Although Galahad objects,we can, I think, accept Bors’s appraisal of the situation, that their successesagainst greater odds, however bloody, are testimony to God’s grace andpower, and to their enemies’ evil customs (997.3–11). On these occasions,then, victory in battle generates both earthly and celestial glory. We musttherefore remember that although Launcelot is castigated in the Quest forhis adultery and vainglory, his penance includes a promise ‘to sew [pursue]knyghthode and to do fetys of armys’ (899.2–3). Since the hermit thenencourages Launcelot to perform ‘suche penaunce as he myght do and to sewknyghthode’ (899.4–5), it seems that penance and knighthood ‘are comple-mentary means to salvation’.29 And since combat is an integral part of aknight’s existence, the most common aspect of knightly adventure and(according to one critic) the means by which a knight relates to a hostileworld,30 it follows that combat itself is not necessarily a nullification ofpenance: that it is not, in itself, necessarily a bad thing.

The success of Bors and his fellows in battle illustrates how in some wars itis possible for one side to be clearly in the right. An even more obvious case

26 Cf. Brewer, ‘the hoole book’, p. 58: ‘For Malory . . . there is no essential incompatibilitybetween the values of Christianity and those of the High Order of Knighthood.’ See alsoVinaver, ed., Works, pp. xxix–xxxiv.

27 Lynch, ‘Ideology’, p. 34, also sees Arthur’s act as an example of the Morte’s heroic valuesystem.

28 Lynch, ‘Ideology’, p. 31.29 Kelly, ‘Wounds’, p. 182.30 For this point, see Mann, ‘Knightly Combat’, pp. 331–9, and her ‘ “Taking the Adven-

ture” ’.

177

of right and wrong comes in Mordred’s revolt and the final war, a situationin which Mordred is so obviously in the wrong that Malory famously inter-rupts his narrative to castigate Mordred’s followers as typical of Englishfickleness:

Lo ye all Englysshemen, se ye nat what a myschyff here was? For he thatwas the moste kynge and nobelyst knyght of the worlde, and moste lovedthe felyshyp of noble knyghtes, and by hym they all were upholdyn, andyet myght nat thes Englyshemen holde them contente with hym. . . . Alas!thys ys a greate defaught of us Englysshemen. (1229.6–13)

Malory’s objections, though, are not based on issues of morality, but honour.This is made clearer by considering Launcelot’s relationship with Gwenyvere.In the Knight of the Cart episode Launcelot rescues Gwenyvere and success-fully defends her against charges of adultery. Despite Mellyagaunte’s assertionthat ‘God woll have a stroke in every batayle’ (1133.28), Launcelot defeatshim in trial by combat. Readers want Launcelot to win, for Mellyagaunte is avillain, but the circumstances of the battle coupled with Mellyagaunte’sclaim remind us that, while Gwenyvere did not sleep with any of the injuredknights, she did sleep with Launcelot. Later, when accosted in Gwenyvere’schamber, Launcelot single-handedly defeats fourteen knights, slaying all butMordred (1165.5–1168.24). This is a singular feat of prowess; yet in bothcases Launcelot is morally suspect, if not culpable. Nevertheless, for Maloryand most readers, Launcelot’s escape and rescue of the Queen corroborateand increase his worship. This is because, for Malory, both Launcelot andGwenyvere are honourable, whereas their detractors are not. On the otherhand, in Arthur’s wars with Lott and the rebel kings, the justice of Arthur’scause does not necessarily lessen the prowess, and therefore the reputation, ofthe other.31

In the war between Launcelot and Arthur, however, questions of rightand wrong are even more opaque; indeed, both sides are partially to blame,and Gawayne and Launcelot (and Gwenyvere) each take responsibility forthe resulting destruction.32 Unlike the war with Lott or the Emperor, whichthe audience wants Arthur to win, we are no longer sure which side tosupport. Moreover, in marked contrast to the earlier wars in which we weretold of knights winning worship, there is in this war much less emphasis onglory. We are told of Launcelot’s ‘grete curtesy’ in re-horsing Arthur,preventing Bors from slaying him and putting an end to the war in the Siegeof Joyous Gard (1192.9–33). We are also told how for six months at theSiege of Benwick Gawayne is undefeated in single combat, thrashing all whoride against him, including the Grail knight Bors (1214.20–1215.5). ButMalory’s emphasis largely lies elsewhere, as when we are told how ‘muchpeople were slayne’ (1192.3–4; cf. 1215.5–6), how ‘horsis wente in blood

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

31 On Lott, see also Lynch, Book of Arms, pp. 39–41.32 Respectively, 1230.24–31, 1256.33–8 (and 1252.8–25).

178

K. S. Whetter

paste the fyttlokkes, there were so many people slayne’ (1193.33–4), and ofthe burying of the dead and caring for the wounded (e.g. 1194.3–4). Maloryalso focusses on the way in which the Round Table fellowship divides intofactions, some supporting Launcelot, some supporting Arthur. All remindsus of destruction, and all contrasts with the earlier wars where – howevermuch blood was shed – Arthur was obviously in the right, and Launcelot’sprowess and glory benefited rather than divided and destroyed the RoundTable fellowship. In the war between Launcelot and Arthur, however, this isno longer the case. Even Launcelot’s courtesy, consistently in the MorteDarthur one of the reasons for his great worship, here serves only to increasethe suffering of his side in the war (1193.18–20; 1211.30–2) and thus helpsto secure the destruction of the Round Table.

To make matters worse, this war is interrupted by news of Mordred’s rebel-lion and another civil war back in England. It has been argued of the alliter-ative Morte Arthure that Arthur’s downfall – the ultimate consequence ofMordred’s revolt – is the result of a shift from just to unjust wars, withArthur being punished for his arrogance and foreign conquests.33 Regardlessof the validity of this argument, it would be relatively easy for Malory to putprecisely such an emphasis on his Arthuriad. He does not. On the contrary,by separating the Roman War from Mordred’s rebellion, and by making theRoman War an early, successful episode in Arthur’s career and story, heemphasises Arthur’s achievements and glory, concomitantly exacerbatingthe tragedy of the final destruction of such achievements in Arthur’s down-fall.34 Further, war itself has thus far in the Morte been presented as bothgood and bad: a place to win worship, but also a place of slaughter. By thetime of the final two civil wars with Launcelot and then Mordred, however,the emphasis is more on slaughter than on worship. The divisive anddestructive nature of war is further emphasised in Malory’s version of eventsby placing the two civil wars back-to-back at the end of Arthur’s reign,where the destruction stems not from any unjust foreign conquests, but frominternecine strife attendant upon the tragic unfolding of a combination offate, free will, chance and conflicting loyalties.

Launcelot when banished from England compares himself to Hector ofTroy and Alexander the Great, and though he does so to illustrate the fick-leness of Fortune (1201.14–19), his words also illustrate the gravity andsorrow which accompany war, for Hector is killed during the Trojan War,and his death prefaces and makes possible the destruction of Troy itself.Alexander the Great died while campaigning in Asia, and although he wasnot killed by his enemies, his death in the wake of the successful conquest ofmuch of the known world serves to remind us that even so great a king asAlexander can die: and so too can Arthur and Launcelot and the RoundTable. It is therefore significant that it is now, in the midst of the internal

33 See Finlayson, ed., Morte Arthure, pp. 12–14.34 Brewer, ‘hoole book’, pp. 46–7. Cf. Vinaver, ed., Works, p. 1367.

179

war, that we get the exact opposite of Cador’s belief that war brings actionand glory. In contrast, Launcelot hopes for peace because ‘better ys peesthan allwayes warre’ (1212.25–26). This sentiment also contrasts withLauncelot’s earlier exclamation, uttered in more jocular circumstances andcombat: ‘God gyff hym joy that this spere made, for there cam never a bettirin my honde’ (278.4–5). Launcelot’s celebration of his spear reveals his joyin combat35 and the glory it can bring; his (fruitless) hope for peace revealscombat’s destructive and sorrowful possibilities.

To emphasise the sorrow and tragedy of events, the war with Mordred iscalled ‘myschevous’ (1228.23) and ‘unhappy’ (1230.27), while the day of thefinal battle is the ‘doleful’, ‘unhappy’ and ‘wycked day of Desteny’ (1236.17;1236.29; 1237.3). So bad will the slaughter of the last battle be that Godgrants the dead Gawayne leave to warn Arthur against fighting (1233.28–1234.19). Malory himself calls it the most doleful battle in all Christendom(1235.30–3), replete with ‘many a grym worde . . . and many a dedelystroke’. The horror and destruction of war are here epitomised by the sombreimage of the looting of the dead, where

pyllours and robbers were com into the fylde to pylle and to robbe many afull noble knyght of brochys and bees and of many a good rynge and manya ryche juell. And who that were nat dede all oute, there they slew themfor their harneys and their ryches. (1237.34–1238.4)

In all of the fighting throughout the whole of the Morte Darthur, this is theonly occasion where the dead are looted. The killing of the injured for theirwealth is, moreover, original to Malory. There is nothing like it in theFrench Mort le roi Artu, and the English stanzaic Morte Arthur records onlythat the dead were looted of ‘besaunt, broche, and bee’.36 As Arthur’sfortunes reach their lowest ebb, in the wake of a slanderous strife and ‘greteangur and unhappe that stynted nat tylle the floure of chyvalry of alle theworlde was destroyed and slayne’ (1161.7–8), Malory no longer presents theglory to be won in war, merely the destruction.

Sir Thomas Malory was born at some point between 1414 and 1418, and diedon 12 or 14 March 1471.37 He thus lived through the last quarter-century ofthe Hundred Years War, as well as through the Wars of the Roses. He mayhave fought in France in the early 1440s; he certainly fought for Edward IV in

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

35 Eynon, p. 93; the remainder of the sentence is my own.36 Le Morte Arthur, ed. Hissiger, lines 3417–19. This may be contrasted with La Mort le roi

Artu, ed. Frappier, § 191. Both Vinaver, ed., Works, n. to 1237.29–1238.9 and Field,‘Towton’, pp. 72–3 comment on Malory’s relation to and alterations of his sources here, butneither observes that the most disturbing aspect of the scene, the killing of those who werenot dead already, is original to Malory.

37 This and the following account of Malory’s life comes from Field, The Life and Times of SirThomas Malory.

180

K. S. Whetter

his siege of several northern Lancastrian castles in the 1460s. He was alsocapable of raising weapons and breaking out of prison. When Malory died, hewas buried in Greyfriars Church, Newgate. His marble tombstone recordsthat he was valens miles; the phrase itself ‘claims distinction in arms’, and thefact that someone close to Malory went to the trouble and expense ofsecuring a carved marble epitaph proclaiming this suggests that the claim hadsome truth to it.38 It is therefore natural to speculate as to whether thesombreness which is especially prominent in the closing wars of Malory’sArthuriad is a product of the blood which he himself shed or of the bloodshedof the period in which he lived or both. The problem is, we simply do nothave enough evidence. As is well known, the few political allusions in theMorte Darthur can be taken to support either Lancaster or York – or neither.39

With the Morte Darthur itself, though, we are on firmer ground. We haveestablished that Malory throughout the Morte treats war as a means bywhich knights both win worship and are injured or killed. By the time of thewars with Launcelot and Mordred, the focus seems more one-sided,emphasising only the destruction rather than the destruction offset by glory.On the surface this suggests perhaps that Malory modified his view ofwarfare as the story – and, it might be added, his lengthy prison sentence –progressed. It is claimed, for instance, that

although Malory never abandons his celebration of arms, the concept cer-tainly appears to be under unusual pressure in the ‘myschevous warre’(1228.23) of the ‘dolorous’ last book, and especially in the last battle,where a hundred thousand are ‘layde to the colde erthe’ (1236.7).40

It is also argued that Merlyn’s simultaneous blame and praise of Arthur’scampaign against and slaughter of the armies of Lott and the rebel kings(36.26–37.3; discussed above) is indicative of an ideological disquiet withinthe Morte Darthur which ultimately problematises the winning of worship incombat by occasionally criticising the text’s violence.41 A slightly differentview, but one which must still be addressed in considering the close of thestory, is the argument that Malory’s ‘narrative impulse to the end is to undoor defer for as long as possible the consequences – political and bodily – offighting’.42

38 For the epitaph, see London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius F.xii, fol. 284r. For the‘distinction in arms’ quotation, see Field, ‘Hunting, Hawking and Textual Criticism inMalory’s Morte Darthur’, p. 103, n. 3.

39 Critics have nonetheless attempted to draw connections. Those who see socio-politicalallusions and influence include Kelly, ‘Malory’s Argument against War with France’, pp.111–33; Riddy, ‘Contextualizing Le Morte Darthur’, pp. 55 and 66–73; and Knight, pp.105–48. For a more sceptical view, see Field, ‘Fifteenth-Century History in Malory’s MorteDarthur’, pp. 47–71.

40 Lynch, ‘Ideology’, p. 35.41 Lynch, ‘Ideology’, pp. 29–30.42 Lynch, Book of Arms, p. 77; cf. pp. 132–3.

As is evident by now, none of this is entirely true. The consequences havealways been there, it is simply that they become more obvious andpronounced as the Morte draws to its tragic close. There is, moreover, noideological undermining of the winning of worship in arms. There is a trou-bling paradox in the fact that war can be alternately good and ill in theMorte Darthur, but the explanation for what has been termed this ‘strangelydouble view of war’43 is not to be sought in some on-again, off-again loveaffair with and criticism of violence, the textual and martial equivalentperhaps of Launcelot and Gwenyvere’s amorous tribulations. Rather, itresides in the Morte’s epic-heroic value system, one that Malory will haveknown from the alliterative Morte Arthure and found amplified and exacer-bated by the tragedy of the Arthurian Legend both in general and as it isrecounted in another of Malory’s sources, the stanzaic Morte Arthur.44 Thissystem not only valorises the notion that ‘worshyp in armys may never befoyled’ (1119.27), but also accepts – however resignedly – that glory anddeath are equally integral consequences of such a system. Precisely becauseof this we have an inherently tragic situation in which the same martialmight which is ‘necessary to the establishment and maintenance of Arthur’snew world order’ is partial ‘cause and symptom’ of the collapse of thatworld.45 Precisely because it is tragic, there is no simple or satisfying answer,that is why it is disturbing; but that is also why much epic-heroic literature,including, it seems, Malory’s Arthuriad with its mingling of epic andromance values, is alien to many modern readers – and critics.

C. S. Lewis observes that ‘Malory has a three-storeyed mind’ in whichsometimes a character or event seems good, sometimes bad ‘without anyinconsistency’ in Malory’s eyes.46 In this sense Malory accepts circumstancesthat strike the modern reader as incompatible. With regard to warfare, it isnot Malory’s attitude which has changed at the close of the story, but the situ-ation. Thus the glory which war brings to Arthur, Gawayne, Launcelot andothers in the early wars is tragically inverted in the deaths of Gawayne andArthur and most of the Round Table fellowship in the final wars. Even laud-able character traits now secure only destruction. It is, for instance,Gawayne’s sense of honour and familial loyalty which causes him todenounce Aggravayne and Mordred and refuse to participate in Gwenyvere’sand Launcelot’s denunciation and the Queen’s burning (pp. 1161–3;1174–7); yet it is this same sense of honour and loyalty which drives theblood-feud with Launcelot. Launcelot’s love of the Queen similarly makes

181

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

43 Lynch, ‘Ideology’, p. 35.44 For the influence of the alliterative Morte on Malory, see the work of McCarthy, referred to

in n. 17. For the tragedy of the stanzaic Morte and its influence upon Malory, see my ‘TheStanzaic Morte Arthur and Mediaeval Tragedy’.

45 The quotation is from Lynch, ‘Ideology’, p. 24; the rest of the sentence is my own. I agreewith Lynch that this duality is a problem for readers of the Morte, but not with his assess-ment of it.

46 Lewis, review of Chambers, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Some Collected Studies, p. 239.

182

K. S. Whetter

him both the greatest and technically – though significantly this is not thecase in Malory’s eyes – the most treacherous of Arthur’s knights, just as hiscourtesy towards Arthur actively harms his side in the war (1193.18–20;1211.30–2; both cited above). In such tragic circumstances, questions of rightand wrong, good and bad, become blurred indeed.

Nevertheless, in Malory’s Morte Darthur fighting, whether in warfare,tournaments, jousts or individual combats, is viewed principally as a meansby which knights can win worshyp. This is the attitude of narrator and char-acters alike. Indeed, Malory

describes single combats and tournaments in language more vigorous thanthat of his sources, sometimes adding details, and he takes special interestin the technique of fighting. One of his favourite phrases is ‘a noble knightof prowess’. Apart from its inherent worth, prowess is admirable because itbrings a knight reputation and honour, or what Malory calls ‘worship’.47

As such, warfare and individual combat in and of themselves are not neces-sarily bad. Launcelot’s great reputation, as the opening of the ‘Tale of SirLauncelot’ makes clear, is the result of those deeds, those battles, accom-plished in adventure, thereby fulfilling the promise shown in the RomanWar:

than all the knyghtys of the Rounde Table resorted unto the kynge andmade many joustys and turnementes. And som there were that were butknyghtes encresed in armys and worshyp that passed all other of herfelowys in prouesse and noble dedys, and that was well proved on many.

But in especiall hit was prevyd on sir Launcelot de Lake. (253.2–8)

The fact that Malory does not change his mind about warfare, that it is stillnot necessarily dire and can in fact still bring glory along with suffering, isevident in the closing lines of the Morte, where Bors, Ector, Blamour andBleoberis ‘dyd many bataylles upon the myscreantes, or Turkes. And therethey dyed upon a Good Fryday for Goddes sake’ (1260.14–15).

Although war once again brings glory – both to the knights and to God –this is not sufficient compensation for the loss of Arthur and the RoundTable. Furthermore, the dominant image of the close of the story is notLauncelot’s kin fighting in the Holy Land, but Mordred hanging impaledupon Arthur’s spear (1237.14–18), or Launcelot starving himself to death,‘grovelyng’ on Arthur and Gwenyvere’s tomb (1256.21–1257.9). There isvery little glory in such images. Thus, coupled with the fact that worship isbest won in battle is the constant reminder that the cost of seeking glory inbattle can be death and destruction. Present throughout, this cost isnowhere more evident than in the close of the Morte Darthur and the tragicdissolution of an ideal fellowship in ‘a grete angur and unhappe that stynted

47 Tucker, ‘Chivalry in the Morte’, p. 65.

183

nat tylle the floure of chyvalry of alle the worlde was destroyed and slayne’(1161.7–8).

Consequently, with the deaths of Gawayne and Arthur and most of theRound Table, Malory emphasises the destruction and bloodshed attendantupon warfare because that is all that is left. That he can do so withoutcondemning warfare may strike the modern reader as strange, but this servesonce again as evidence of Malory’s penchant for complexities, and of thecomplex tragedy of the Morte Darthur as a whole. For in emphasising andthus lamenting the ‘irreversible loss of something supremely treasured’,48

Malory emphasises the essential tragedy of his own retelling of the story ofArthur and Gwenyvere and Launcelot and Gawayne. But in lamenting thistragedy we also recall the glory of its participants, the fact that, for instance,Launcelot, the greatest of the Round Table fellowship, was ‘never matchedof erthely knyghtes hande’, that he was

the curtest knyght that ever bare shelde! . . . the truest frende to thy lovarthat ever bestrade hors, and . . . the kyndest man that ever strake wythswerde. And thou were the godelyest persone that ever cam emonge preesof knyghtes, and . . . the sternest knyght to thy mortal foo that ever putspere in the reeste (1259.11–21).

This, the last speech in the Morte Darthur and a summary and evaluation ofLauncelot’s career, focusses predominantly on Launcelot’s abilities as knightand his skills in battle. The same abilities and skills allowed Launcelot toachieve the worshyp that made him both the paragon of the Round Table andthe lover of Gwenyvere, the friend of both Arthur and Gawayne. The sameskills inspired Ector, Bors, Blamour and Bleoberis to emulate Launcelot and,in accordance with his instructions (1260.12), to do ‘many bataylles upon themyscreantes’ (1260.14), thereby winning worship before dying.

The tragedy of the Morte Darthur stems from the fact that the same char-acters, desires and values responsible for achieving the ideal fellowship andOath of the Round Table are the same characters, desires and values respon-sible for the destruction of the final wars. The greatness and destruction areintermingled and inseparable, and it is, finally, in warfare and individualcombat that this becomes most evident. In this, perhaps, Le Morte Darthurand Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel, Warwickshire, valens miles aswell as knight, thief, prisoner, prison-breaker, and author, are not so very farremoved after all.

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

48 The phrase is Halliwell’s, who considers such loss to be one aspect of the essence of tragedy,‘Plato’s Repudiation of the Tragic’, p. 339.

184

K. S. Whetter

Works Cited

I. Sources

Caxton’s Malory, ed. James W. Spisak (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1983).

Homer, The Iliad of Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1951).

Malory, Sir Thomas, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugène Vinaver,rev. P. J. C. Field, 3rd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).

La Mort le roi Artu: Roman du XIIIe siècle, ed. Jean Frappier, 3rd edn(Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1964).

Le Morte Arthur, ed. P. F. Hissiger (The Hague: Mouton, 1975).Morte Arthure, ed. Mary Hamel, Garland Medieval Texts 9 (New York:

Garland, 1984).

II. Studies

Ascham, Roger, The Scholemaster, English Experience 15 (Amsterdam:Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1968).

Brewer, D. S, ‘the hoole book’, Essays on Malory, ed. J. A. W. Bennett(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 41–63.

Cherewatuk, Karen, ‘Sir Thomas Malory’s “Grete Booke” ’, The Social andLiterary Contexts of Malory’s Morte Darthur, ed. D. Thomas Hanks, Jr, andJessica S. Brogdon, Arthurian Studies 42 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer,2000), pp. 42–67.

Malory, Sir Thomas, Le Morte Darthur, ed. Helen Cooper, Oxford World’sClassics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Dichmann, Mary E., ‘ “The Tale of King Arthur and the Emperor Lucius”:The Rise of Lancelot’, Malory’s Originality: A Critical Study of Le MorteDarthur, ed. R. M. Lumiansky (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1964), pp. 67–90.

Eynon, Nadine Ruth, ‘The Use of Trial by Battle in the Work of Sir ThomasMalory’, Unpublished MA Thesis (University of Saskatchewan, 1974).

Field, P. J. C., ‘Fifteenth-Century History in Malory’s Morte Darthur’,Malory: Texts and Sources, Arthurian Studies 40 (Cambridge: D. S.Brewer, 1998), pp. 47–71.

Field, P. J. C., ‘Hunting, Hawking and Textual Criticism in Malory’s MorteDarthur’, Malory: Texts and Sources, Arthurian Studies 40 (Cambridge:D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 103–13.

Field, P. J. C., The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory, Arthurian Studies 29(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993).

Field, P. J. C., ‘Malory and the Battle of Towton’, The Social and Literary

185

Contexts of Malory’s Morte Darthur, ed. D. Thomas Hanks, Jr, ArthurianStudies 42 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 68–74.

Finlayson, John, ed., Morte Arthure (London: Edward Arnold, 1967).Halliwell, Stephen, ‘Plato’s Repudiation of the Tragic’, Tragedy and the

Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond, ed. M. S. Silk (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1996), pp. 332–49.

Hellenga, Robert R., ‘The Tournaments in Malory’s Morte Darthur’, Forumfor Modern Language Studies 10 (1974): 67–78.

Kelly, Robert L., ‘Malory’s Argument against War with France: The PoliticalGeography of France and the Anglo-French Alliance in the MorteDarthur’, The Social and Literary Contexts of Malory’s Morte Darthur, ed.D. Thomas Hanks, Jr, and Jessica S. Brogdon, Arthurian Studies 42(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 111–33.

Kelly, Robert L., ‘Wounds, Healing, and Knighthood in Malory’s Tale ofLancelot and Guenevere’, Studies in Malory, ed. James W. Spisak(Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1985), pp. 173–97.

Knight, Stephen, Arthurian Literature and Society (London: Macmillan, 1983).Lewis, C. S., ‘The English Prose Morte’, Essays on Malory, ed. J. A. W.

Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963): 7–28.Lewis, C. S., Review of E. K. Chambers, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Some

Collected Studies, Medium Ævum 3 (1934): 237–40.Lynch, Andrew, Malory’s Book of Arms: The Narrative of Combat in Le Morte

Darthur, Arthurian Studies 39 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997).Lynch, Andrew, ‘ “Thou woll never have done”: Ideology, Context, and

Excess in Malory’s War’, The Social and Literary Contexts of Malory’s MorteDarthur, ed. D. Thomas Hanks, Jr, and Jessica S. Brogdon, ArthurianStudies 42 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), pp. 24–41.

Mahoney, Dhira B., ‘Malory’s “Tale of Sir Tristram”: Source and SettingReconsidered’, Medievalia et Humanistica NS 9 (1979): 175–98.

Mann, Jill, ‘Malory: Knightly Combat in Le Morte Darthur’, Medieval Litera-ture: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition, ed. Boris Ford, The NewPelican Guide to English Literature, Part I (Harmondsworth: Penguin,1982), pp. 331–9.

Mann, Jill, ‘ “Taking the Adventure”: Malory and the Suite du Merlin’,Aspects of Malory, ed. Toshiyuki Takamiya and Derek Brewer, ArthurianStudies 1 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer; Totowa, NJ: Rowman andLittlefield, 1981), pp. 71–91.

McCarthy, Terence, ‘Beowulf’s Bairns: Malory’s Sterner Knights’, Heroesand Heroines in Medieval English Literature: A Festschrift presented to AndréCrépin on the occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Leo Carruthers(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994), pp. 149–59.

McCarthy, Terence, ‘Malory and the Alliterative Tradition’, Studies inMalory, ed. James W. Spisak (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publica-tions, 1985), pp. 74–81.

Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur

Redfield, James M., Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector,expanded edn (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994).

Riddy, Felicity, ‘Contextualizing Le Morte Darthur: Empire and Civil War’,A Companion to Malory, ed. Elizabeth Archibald and A. S. G. Edwards,Arthurian Studies 37 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), pp. 55–73.

Tucker, P. E, ‘Chivalry in the Morte’, Essays on Malory, ed. J. A. W. Bennett(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 64–103.

Whetter, K. S., ‘The Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Mediaeval Tragedy’, ReadingMedieval Studies 28 (2002): 87–111.

186

K. S. Whetter

187

Women and Warfare in Medieval EnglishWriting

CORINNE SAUNDERS

What is war?Ask the young men who fight,Men who defend the right,Ask them – what is war?‘Honour – or death – that is war’,

Say the young men.

What is war?Ask of the women who weep,Mourning for those who sleep,Ask them – what is war?‘Sorrow and grief – that is war’

Say the women.(J. M. Rose-Troup, ‘What is War?’)

EVEN IN the twenty-first century, war is a gendered concept. Manymillions of both sexes have been the victims of war in just the last

hundred years, yet the image that perhaps most powerfully haunts thecollective imagination is that of the millions of young men who fought anddied in the battlefields of France and Belgium. That haunting is reflected inthe extraordinary success of novels such as Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogyor Sebastian Faulkes’ Birdsong. Those most vividly remembered are the mendistinguished by having made the choice to fight, and hence to enter thesphere of heroism. Until very recently, that choice was exclusively open tomen, and the idea of war has thus necessarily engaged a set of conventionalgender stereotypes throughout the history of western thought and writing:the lines quoted above might as easily refer to the Middle Ages as to theearly twentieth century.

The world of medieval warfare – battle, arms, the tournament, jousting –was undoubtedly a world of men, one of the interconnected public spheres ofmedieval society, which found their opposites in the private and domesticspheres inhabited by the lady – the bedroom, the castle, the garden. Suchcontrasts between male and female, public and private, domestic and

188

Corinne Saunders

worldly lie at the heart of the medieval understanding and presentation ofgender. In medieval romance, as perhaps in reality, the drama of lady andknight is situated partly in the encounter of public and private worlds, eachtantalising to the other in its otherness, the protective armour of the warriorcountered by the ornate draperies of feminine clothing. The opposition ofmasculine and feminine traits – courage, prowess, assertion of individualhonour versus pity, vulnerability, maternality – pervades medieval writingmore generally, but it is perhaps nowhere more evident than in literarytreatments of warfare. As Rose-Troup’s lines suggest, the female figures mostobviously associated with war are those who stand and wait – the mothers,sisters, daughters, wives and lovers of those in battle. Yet women are alsofundamental in other ways to literary portrayals of warfare: they do not onlyinhabit the margins as spectators, but also function as catalysts for the enact-ment of deeds of arms and war through their power, willingly or not, toincite desire. Such emphases are most evident in medieval romance, buteven those writers telling ‘history’ play on the drama of the clash of spheresand attitudes in their portrayal of warfare. Writing women into warfareallows for the opposition of passive and active, the exploitation of shock,pity and horror, and the possibility of setting against the structures of thepolitical, military world an ethic of pity, mercy and reconciliation – thedesire for peace over war. Writers can also play on the contravention ofstereotypes through the troubling figure of the woman who takes up arms,most obviously in the classical legend of the Amazon but also in certainpopular religious and hagiographic works.

While medieval literature exploits the separation between male andfemale, public and private worlds, and thus the drama of women in warfare,it is unrealistic to imagine that in actuality the world of medieval warfarewas so distinct from the world of women. As so often the stereotypes paintonly part of the picture. If the military sphere was not women’s naturalhabitat, it certainly impinged in major ways on their private and domesticlives. It is instructive to recall that during Chaucer’s life, the period whenwriting in English reached its height, there was no time when England wasnot at war, while from the eleventh to the mid-fifteenth century the call tothe Crusades was repeatedly heard, and the ideal of regaining Jerusalemhovered luminously in the medieval imagination. Although it is difficult toreconstruct the experience of medieval women, there is no doubt that theirlives would have been affected by the absences of fathers, brothers, loversand husbands on military campaigns, including the Crusades, and that giventhe difficulty of medieval travel such absences could have lasted for manyyears, even when the individual concerned was lucky enough to survive thealmost insurmountable threats of wounds and disease.

Women may have played considerably more active roles than the image ofthose who wait implies. The very partial evidence available suggests the gapbetween actual experience and literary representations of women in warfare.Early chronicles offer interesting evidence of women taking part in battles.

The figure of the Amazon was inherited from classical legend, and Germaniclegendary history too depicts the figure of the woman warrior: SaxoGrammaticus claims such a tradition for the Danes in the Gesta Danorum,‘Fuere quondam apud Danos feminae, quae formam suam in virilem habitumconvertentes omnia paene temporum momenta ad excolendam militiamconferebant’, ‘There were once women in Denmark who dressed themselvesto look like men and spent almost every minute cultivating soldiers’ skills.’Saxo’s description, however, plays on the contravention of nature:

Hae ergo, perinde ac nativae condicionis immemores rigoremqueblanditiis ante ferentes, bella pro basiis intentabant sanguinemque, nonoscula delibantes armorum potius quam amorum officia frequentabantmanusque, quas in telas aptare debuerant, telorum obsequiis exhibebant,ut iam non lecto, sed leto studentes spiculis appeterent, quis mulcerespecie potuissent.1

As if they were forgetful of their true selves they put toughness beforeallure, aimed at conflicts instead of kisses, tasted blood, not lips, sought theclash of arms rather than the arm’s embrace, fitted to weapons hands whichshould have been weaving, desired not the couch but the kill, and thosethey could have appeased with looks they attacked with lances.2

The description is unlikely to be founded in historical fact, but rather in aScandinavian fascination with such figures, powerful in their very unfamil-iarity and unnaturalness.3 If these women are the stuff of legend, Germanichistory offers a more persuasive image of the powerful woman leading herarmy in the description of the Germanic queen Fredegund.4 The anonymouslate seventh- or early eighth-century Liber Historiae Francorum, based onGregory of Tours’ Historia Francorum, tells how Fredegund gathers an armyagainst the Austrasians with Landeric and other Frankish dukes, and coun-sels attack by night with the soldiers carrying branches. Fredegund iscertainly included in the action, ‘with Fredegund and young Chlothar theykilled the largest part of that army, a countless number, a very large force,from the highest to the lowest’. Fredegund is also said to have continued on

189

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

1 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ed. Knabe and Herrmann, 7:6. This passage is cited byCarol J. Clover (1986), p. 35 and n. 1.

2 Saxo Grammaticus, History of the Danes, trans. Fisher and ed. Ellis Davidson, 212.3 Clover argues that such tales are more about sons than daughters, about ‘the power, in

Norse society, of the patrineal principle to bend legend and life to its intention’, p. 49.Jenny Jochens makes a related argument, emphasising the appeal of such exotic figures toNordic writers, ‘Old Norse Sources on Women’, pp. 155–88.

4 The example of Fredegund is offered by Carolyne Larrington in her discussion of ‘Womenand Power’ in Women and Writing in Medieval Europe, pp. 164–9; Larrington’s extractsinclude a version of the passage cited below, p. 169. Larrington also offers the example ofthe tenth-century Swedish queen Sigrid told in Heimskringla: Oláfs saga Tryggvasonar,whose exploits include burning the hall where her suitor King Harald and all his men sleep,an act that recalls Gudrun’s vengeance on Atli in Atlakviða, pp. 169–73.

to Rheims, and to have burned and devastated Champagne before returning‘with much booty and many spoils’.5 Fredegund, like the Norse maidenwarriors, seems to have been viewed as morally ambivalent. English chroni-cles offer a less distant and more positive example in the figure ofÆthelflæd, the daughter of Ælfred, who appears to have taken over as rulerof Mercia from her husband Æthelræd while he was ill, and to have beenrecognised after his death in 911 as ‘Myrcna hlaefdige’, lady of the Mercians:before her own death in 918, she is said to have built a series of fortresses,sent a Mercian army to avenge the murder of Abbot Egbert, and capturedDerby and Leicester from the Danes, causing the Danish army and the menof York to yield to her.6

Continental chronicles occasionally offer other tantalising reference towomen fighting: Carolyne Larrington cites two eleventh-century examples,that of Richilde of Hainault, ‘captured fighting at the battle of Cassel in1071’, and that of Gaïta, the wife of the Norman adventurer and would-beEmperor, Robert Guiscard, whose story is told in the Alexiad of AnnaComnena.7 Gaïta accompanies Robert in battle, and is described as ‘asecond Pallas if not an Athene’: ‘when dressed in full armour the woman wasa fearful sight’. Not only does she admonish fleeing soldiers verbally inHomeric terms, ‘How far will ye flee? Stand, and quit you like men!’, butalso chases after the deserters, ‘And when she saw they continued to run, shegrasped a long spear and at full gallop rushed after the fugitives; and onseeing this they recovered themselves and returned to the fight.’8 The anon-ymous Spanish Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris offers a nice contrast to Gaïta’saction in the description of the Empress Berengaria, whose castle at Toledowas besieged by Muslim attackers in 1139. Dressed in their finest clothes,she and her women made music above their enemies until they retreated inshame.9 Later chronicles suggest that women could be called upon to protecttheir lands while their husbands were away either on business or in warfare.Christine de Pisan instructs ladies to be familiar with arms and to ensure thedefences of their castles, and it is striking that she chooses to write a treatiseon arms, Le Livre des Faits d’Armes et de Chevallerie, the subject of Françoise

190

Corinne Saunders

5 Liber Historiae Francorum, ed. and trans. Bachrach, ch. 36, pp. 90–1.6 F. T. Wainwright pieces together Æthelflæd’s life in ‘Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians’.

Only Æthelflæd’s death is noted in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle: historians rely on the lost‘Mercian Register’ which is inserted into other chronicles, including that of William ofMalmesbury (Wainwright, p. 305). Larrington cites Æthelflæd as ‘establishing anti-Vikingcoalitions with neighbouring rulers’, p. 158. Joel T. Rosenthal identifies Æthelflæd as ‘ouroutstanding secular figure’, ‘Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: Men’s Sources, Women’s History’, p.268.

7 Larrington, p. 158: the instance of Richilde is cited by McLaughlin, ‘The Woman Warrior’,pp. 194, 200.

8 Anna Comnena, The Alexiad of the Princess Anna, trans. Dawes, I, xv, p. 38; IV, vi, p. 109.9 This incident is found in the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, c. 150, ed. Sánchez Belda, pp.

116–17, and described by Dillard, Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian TownSociety, 1100–1300, p. 15, and by Larrington, p. 158.

Le Saux’s essay in this volume. Christine also paints Joan of Arc in positiveheroic terms in her Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc.

The large collection of letters written by and associated with the Pastonfamily provides intriguing insights into the everyday experience ofupper-class women in fifteenth-century England, including that of whatmight be termed ‘dynastic warfare’. In the second generation of Pastonwriters, the letters of the first John Paston’s wife Margaret depict in particu-larly vivid terms the possible involvement of women in violence betweenfamilies and factions. Margaret Paston’s engagement with the traditionallymale spheres of property, finance, law and arms is obvious throughout herletters. She took charge of the household but also of business affairs duringher husband John’s frequent absences, the result of his deep involvement inlitigation over property throughout the course of his life: he was imprisonedthree times. Margaret’s letters to John relate her very direct experience ofviolence, yet her tone is never that of the victim; rather she writes with thevoice of an equal, engaged with facts, rights and the practicalities ofdefences. In 1448, she describes how the family chaplain James Gloys wasset upon and attacked, fleeing to her mother’s house, ‘And with þe noise ofþis as-saut and affray my modir and I came owt of þe chirche from þesakeryng’: they offer Gloys shelter, are abused in ‘meche large langage’, andtake the case to the Prior of Norwich.10 In 1448, Lord Moleyns laid claim toJohn Paston’s manor of Gresham, bought by Paston from Thomas Chaucer.Margaret writes not of her fear of attack but of her need for defences:

Ryt wurchipful hwsbond, I recomawnd me to �u, and prey �w to gete somcrosse bowis, and wyndacis to bynd þem wyth, and quarell, for �wr hwsishere ben so low þat þere may non man schete owt wyth no long bowe,þow we hadde neuer so moche nede. . . . And also I wold �e xuld gete ij oriij schort pelle-axis to kepe wyth doris, and als many jakkys, and �e may.

(Letter 130, 226)

She describes in some detail the defences already made, but it is a token of theeveryday aspect of such concerns that she ends her letter with shoppingrequests, ‘j li. of almandis and j li. of sugyre, and þat �e wille do byen summefrese to maken of �wr childeris gwnys’ (Letter 130, 226–7).11 Margaret’sdefences were in vain: John’s appeal to the King states that ‘his wife was forc-ibly driven out by “a riotous people to the number of a thousand persons” ’.12

In 1459 John became involved in a struggle over the property of Margaret’sdeceased relative Sir John Fastolf, whose will leaving Caister Castle and hismany other manors to John Paston was bitterly contested by the other execu-

191

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

10 Paston Letters and Papers, ed. Davis, I, letter 129, p. 224. All subsequent references to thePaston Letters will be from this edition, and will be cited by letter and page number (all invol. I unless specified). I do not reproduce Davis’s italics.

11 This letter is also cited by Larrington.12 Davis, The Paston Letters, p. 13, note 1.

tors; John died in 1466 at the age of forty-five with the dispute unresolved.The struggle was by no means exclusively legal. Margaret vividly describesattacks made by the Duke of Suffolk and a force of armed men on the manor ofHellesdon in 1465: ‘gret affrayes have ben made vppon me and my felashep’(Letter 188, 310), she writes that summer; in October, she describes how theDuke made their tenants ‘breke down the wallys of the place [the manor house]and the logge both’ and ‘rensackyd the church and bare a-way all the gode thatwas lefte there’ (Letter 196, 330). The threat of violent attack for Margaret isevident, ‘we kype here dayly more then xxx persons for sauacyon of ous and theplace, for in very trowght and the place had not be kypyd strong the Duck hadcom hethere’ (Letter 196, 331). The kind of treatment she might have receivedis suggested by a petition from one of John Fastolf’s men, J. Payn, to JohnPaston in 1465. Payn is seized by Jack Cade and threatened with execution;later he is robbed and attacked, as is his wife: ‘And in Kent, þer as my wyfdwellyd, they toke a-wey all ovre godes mevabyll þat we had, and þer woldehaue hongyd my wyf and v of my chyldern, and lefte her no more gode but herkyrtyll and her smook’ (Letter 692, II, 313). Margaret’s active involvementwith the violent world of property litigation does not end with John Paston’sdeath: in 1469, she is writing to her son asking that he assist his brother atCaister, for many are dead or wounded, they lack food and ‘fayll gonnepowderand arrowes, and the place sore brokyn wyth gonnes of þe toder parte’ (Letter204, 344). Again it is the practical, robust tone, the familiarity with violenceand the personal involvement in it that are striking.

Chronicles also, however, exploit the contrast between types, masculineand feminine, and between action and passivity, the bearing of arms and thedesire for peace. Behaviour towards women can become a key to moral defini-tion, distinguishing good from evil. For Froissart, the shameful treatment ofwomen is a powerful emblem of enemy dishonour and immorality, by contrastto English chivalry. The Bretons, for example, mistreat the people of Castile,‘we coude nat haue ben worse dalte withall than we were, as in ravysshinge ofour wyves and doughters’ (1385).13 In the battle of the English against theFrench at Canes (1346), the commander, Thomas, takes action to preventviolation of women by the soldiers: ‘he . . . rode into the streates, and savedmany lyves of ladyes, damosels, and cloysterers fro defoyling, for the soudyerswere without mercy’ (I, cxxiiii, 284). The gentlemanly nature of the Englishis epitomised by their refusal to violate women: Sir Godfray of Harecourt, atthe same siege of Canes, commands the townspeople not to kill citizens, ‘norto vyolate any woman’ (I, cxxiiii, 285), and in the sieges of Bergnes andDamne, ladies and children are sent away to avoid violation. Unlike the

192

Corinne Saunders

13 Froissart, The Chronicles of Froissart, trans. Bourchier, Lord Berners. All subsequent refer-ences to Froissart will be from this edition and cited by volume, chapter and page number.This discussion and those of Wulfstan, Roger of Wendover, and Old English poetry drawon material from my study Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England: seeespecially pp. 139–42 and 38.

chivalrous English, the foreign captains left in France after the accord isreached (1360), ‘defoyled many a damoselles’ (II, ccxv, 86). Froissart’sdescription plays on the contrast between chivalrous and savage, but also sug-gests that, like pillage, rape of women in conquered territories was a commonmeans of asserting military dominance outside battle.

In chronicles of the Crusades, the violation of women in warfare canrepeatedly function to define the Saracens as evil, and can also indicate infi-delity and corruption among the Crusading armies. Roger of Wendover, forexample, in his entry for 1096, describes how the Teutonic Crusading armyabuses its privileges while marching into Hungary by drinking, killing, plun-dering and ‘cum uxoribus Hungarorum et filiabus rem illicitam violenterperpetrantes’ (II, 71), ‘abusing the wives and daughters of the Hungarians’ (I,385). As in Froissart’s description, little emphasis is placed on the victims:rather, the action of sexual abuse characterises the male armies as corrupt.

One of the most notable depictions in early English writing of womenviolated in warfare, that found in Archbishop Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi adAnglos (c.1014), employs similar thematic patterning. Wulfstan employs theominous image of the Viking raids to represent God’s punishment of thesinful English people. The third and longest version of the sermon (MSS Eand I), which may draw on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year1014, includes several long passages detailing contemporary breaches of lawand societal order and describing the Viking attacks as punishment forthese. Wulfstan graphically portrays how a sinful thane is punished throughthe loss of his property in a Viking raid, employing the image of sexual viola-tion to portray devaluation. The Vikings rape the thane’s wife and daughteras he looks on:

And oft tyne oððe twelfe, ælc æfter oþrum, scendað to bysmore þæsþegenes cwenan & hwilum his dohtor oððe nydmagan þær he onlocað þelæt hine sylfne rancne & ricne & genoh godne ær þæt gewurde.14

And often ten or a dozen, one after another, insult disgracefully the thegn’swife, and sometimes his daughter or near kinswoman, whilst he looks on,who considered himself brave and mighty and stout enough before thathappened.15

Wulfstan exhibits little or no pity for the women; they represent a part ofthe thane’s property, and their rape brutally proves God’s anger with him.That there was contemporary concern for such treatment of women,however, is suggested by the ninth-century penitential Capitula Judiciorum,which includes the pontifical ruling that women who are raped in warfare donot have to do penance for fornication.

The twelfth-century chronicle of Roger of Wendover, formerly ascribed to

193

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

14 Wulfstan, ed. Bethurum ‘Sermo ad Anglos’, XX, MSS EI, 271, lines 113–17.15 Wulfstan, in Whitelock, ed., English Historical Documents, I: c. 500–1042, pp. 857–8.

and retold by Matthew Paris (1204–31), looks back on the same period but inconsiderably more lurid terms. The focus is not punishment but the demonicevil of the invaders, graphically evinced in images of the violation of women.The chronicle describes the Danish King Sweyn’s vengeance on the English,which includes murder, burning, pillage, destruction of churches and wide-spread rape (1013). Violation becomes part of the stereotypical portrayal ofthe dehumanised enemy. The image of rape most dramatically conveys theevil of the enemy in the account of the defence of the Abbess Ebba ofCollingham and her nuns against Viking invaders in 870. Ebba states directlythat violation of women is one danger of heathen warfare:

‘Advenerunt nuper . . . ad partes nostras pagani nequissimi et totiushumanitatis ignari, qui loca regionis hujus singula perlustrantes, nec sexuimuliebri nec parvulorum quidem parcunt aetati, ecclesias et personasecclesiasticas destruunt, fæminas sanctimoniales prostituunt, et obvia sibiquæque conterendo consumunt’.16

‘There have lately come into these parts most wicked pagans, destitute ofall humanity, who roam through every place, sparing neither the female sexnor infantine age, destroying churches and ecclesiastics, ravishing holywomen, and wasting and consuming every thing in their way’.17

The desecration of churches is echoed in the rape of nuns. In a dramaticresponse, Ebba cuts off her nose and lips and invites her nuns to follow suit:

illa admirandæ animositatis abbatissa, palam cunctis sororibus ex-emplum castitatis præbens, non solum sanctimonialibus illis proficuum,verumetiam omnibus et successuris virginibus æternaliter amplectendum,arrepta novacula nasum proprium cum labro superiori ad dentes usquepræcidens, horrendum de se spectaculum adstantibus præbuit universis.Quod factum memorabile cum congregatio tota videns admiraretur, similide se opere a singulis perpetrato, materna sunt vestigia insecutæ.18

the abbess, with an heroic spirit, affording to all the holy sisters anexample of chastity profitable only to themselves, but to be embraced by allsucceeding virgins for ever, took a razor, and with it cut off her nose,together with her upper lip up unto the teeth, presenting herself a horriblespectacle to those who stood by. Filled with admiration at this admirabledeed, the whole assembly followed her maternal example, and severally didthe like to themselves.19

Although the convent is burnt, the nuns succeed in protecting theirvirginity by, in a sense, ungendering themselves, cutting off the nose and lipsthat create the feminine countenance and destroying the capacity to incite

194

Corinne Saunders

16 Roger of Wendover, Chronica, sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, I, p. 301.17 Roger of Wendover, Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, ed. and trans. Giles, I, p. 191.18 Roger of Wendover, ed. Coxe, I, pp. 301–2.19 Roger of Wendover, ed. Giles, I, pp. 191–2.

desire. The depiction of the violation of women, then, provides a powerfulmeans to portray the enemy in chronicles.

The earliest English poetic texts also employ compellingly the image ofwomen in warfare, both to characterise the enemy and more generally as anemblem of suffering. The poem Genesis A makes poignant use of the motif ofthe seizure of women in the depiction of the battle against the kings ofSodom and Gomorrah:

Sceolde forht monigblachleor ides bifiende ganon fremdes fæðm. feollon wergendbryda and beaga, bennum seoce.

Many a frightened, white-cheeked woman had to go trembling into astranger’s embrace: the defenders of wives and rings fell, fatally wounded.20

The capture of the women functions as a haunting symbol of loss and defeat.Part of the poem’s power lies in its realism: for the audience, capture andservitude must have been a genuine possibility, and indeed Anglo-Saxonmarriage laws allow for the possibility of losing a wife through invasion.Beowulf similarly employs the image of the captive or helpless woman. Itswomen are political pawns, frequently married into other tribes, and poten-tially the victims of hostilities between peoples. Hildeburh watches helplesslyas her brother and son kill each other when feud breaks out between Finn andher own kinsmen; Hrothgar’s daughter Freawaru awaits renewed battlebetween the Danes and the Heatho-Bards; the name of Hrothgar’s queen,Wealhtheow, itself means ‘foreign slave’. In Genesis A, lamentation is theonly action available to the captured women: the lines used to describeHildeburh in Beowulf become emblematic of the woman’s part in warfare,‘ides gnornode, / geomrode giddum’, ‘The woman mourned, chanted adirge’.21 In Beowulf too we are left with the powerful image of the Geatishwoman who mourns Beowulf’s death and the coming destruction of her tribe:

Swylce giomorgyd Geatisc meowlebræd on bearhtme bundenheordesong sorgcearig swiðe geneahhe,Þæt hio hyre heofungdagas hearde ondrede,wælfylla worn, werudes egesan,hynðo ond hæftnyd.

Likewise, a Geatish woman, sorrowful, her hair bound up, sang a mournfullay, chanted clamourously again and again that she sorely feared days oflamentation for herself, a multitude of slaughters, the terror of an army,humiliation and captivity.22

195

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

20 Genesis A, ed. Doane, lines 1969–72; trans. Christine Fell (1986), p. 67.21 Beowulf, ed. and trans. Swanton, lines 1117–18.22 Beowulf, ed. and trans. Swanton, lines 3150–5.

The lines clearly suggest the captivity and violation of women as well as thedeath of the Geatish warriors. The image of ‘the women who weep’ recursacross Anglo-Saxon literature, just as it will in the writing of later periods.

The roles of women in warfare in the imaginative writing of the latermedieval period are more various, for in the romance genre women arecrucial to the enactment of chivalric order. Romance also, unlike chronicle,captures the emotional situation of the women who wait, though they mayonly be present on the margins of romance while their lovers’ chivalricdeeds of arms are the focus. In one of the earliest English romances, Havelokthe Dane, for instance, we are simply aware of Goldborgh, waiting inEngland while Havelok returns to Denmark to regain his inheritance,although the emphasis is placed on Havelok’s own emotion as he ‘yede soregrotinde away’.23 By contrast, the roughly contemporaneous King Hornmakes much of the emotional distress of Rimenhild: even Horn’s absence ata tournament ‘hire thughte seve yere’.24 This romance employs emblematicdescriptions of female lament to convey Rimenhild’s emotion during Horn’sbanishment: at parting, ‘Heo kuste him well a stunde / And Rymenhild feolto grunde. / Horn tok his leve’ (743–5); when Rimenhild discovers her mes-senger to Horn drowned, ‘hire fingres heo gan wringe’ (988). On return indisguise, Horn discovers her ‘sitte / Ase heo were of witte, / Sore wepingeand yerne; / Ne mighte hure no man wurne’ (1091–4). At the news ofHorn’s supposed death, Rimenhild falls onto her bed, ready to stab herself inthe heart (1205–12). An especially memorable image of grief is found in thelater Ywain and Gawain, a translation of Chrétien’s Le Chevalier au Lion(Yvain), when Alundyne reminds Ywain of his promise to return from thepursuit of arms within a year, ‘Hir lord Sir Ywayne sho bisekes, / With teristrikland on hir chekes, / On a wise that he noght le / To halde the day thathe had set’.25 Her grief will of course be well-founded.

The women who wait and weep are not necessarily lovers. TheGawain-poet vividly depicts the court’s pretence at jollity as they awaitGawain’s departure, inwardly grieving:

Al for luf of that lede* in longynge thay were; [*lord]But never-the-lece ne the later thay nevened* bot merthe, [*talked]Many joyles for that jentyle japes ther maden.. . .Wel much was the warme water that waltered of yyen26

196

Corinne Saunders

23 Havelok the Dane, ed. Sands, line 1390. All subsequent references to Havelok will be fromthis edition and will be cited by line number.

24 King Horn, ed. Sands, line 528. All subsequent references to King Horn will be from thisedition and will be cited by line number.

25 Ywain and Gawain, ed. Mills, lines 1557–60. All subsequent references to Ywain and Gawainwill be from this edition and will be cited by line number.

26 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Cawley and Anderson, lines 540–2, 684.

Chrétien’s Perceval offers perhaps the most haunting image of the womanwho waits, in the depiction of Perceval’s mother, who falls in a swoon as herson rides off to seek knighthood:

si regarda et vit cheüesa mere au chief del pont arriere,et jut pasmee an tel menierecom s’ele fust cheüe morte27

he looked back and saw that his mother had fallen at the head of thebridge and was lying as if she had dropped dead.28

Later, we learn that she has indeed died from her extreme grief, which ispartly rooted in the memory of her two older sons, both killed in deeds ofknighthood. In the Middle English Sir Percyvell of Gales, the grief ofPerceval’s mother at his supposed death turns her into a wild woman of thewoods, ‘For siche draghtis als this, / Now es the lady wode, i-wys, / And wildein the wodde scho es’.29

Malory repeatedly employs the image of the lamenting woman in theMorte Darthur. There is a kind of solidarity between the women who wait onthe sidelines as their knights prove their prowess in deeds of arms: Isoudsends word to Guinevere, ‘there be within this londe but four lovers, andthat is sir Launcelot and dame Gwenyver, and sir Trystrames and queneIsode’.30 The Morte recalls too the situation of women who waited during theCrusades, through the depiction of feminine grief when the fellowshipdeparts on the Grail Quest:

Whan the quene, ladyes, and jantillwomen knew of thys tydynges theyhad such sorow and hevynes that there myght no tunge telle, for thoknyghtes had holde them in honoure and charité. But aboven all othirquene Gwenyver made grete sorow. (XIII, 8, 523)

The division between spheres of male and female activity is made especiallyclear here, for ladies hope to accompany their knights, but are sent word by thehermit Nacien ‘that none in thys queste lede lady nother jantillwoman withhym, for hit ys nat to do in so hyghe a servyse as they laboure in’ (XIII, 8, 523).

The women who wait in romance are not always absent from battles. Theemphasis of chivalry on the proof of prowess through jousts and tourna-ments, and challenges to single combat, means that women frequentlybecome spectators in chivalric battle as they do not in scenes of widescale

197

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

27 Le Conte du Graal (Perceval), ed. Lecoy, lines 620–3.28 The Story of the Grail (Perceval), trans. Kibler, p. 389.29 Sir Percyvell of Gales, ed. Mills, lines 2160–2.30 Sir Thomas Malory, Works, ed. Vinaver, 2nd edn (1971), VIII, 31, p. 267. All subsequent

references to Malory’s Morte Darthur will be from this edition (still in print), and will becited by book, section and page number. For the full scholarly version with complete notes,see the three-volume 3rd edition, revised by P. J. C. Field (now out of print).

warfare. Romances are full too of images of women who watch as theirbeloved knights fight, in play or earnest. Such occasions are especiallynoticeable in the Tristram section of the Morte, punctuated as it is byfrequent tournaments and jousts. At the tournament of Lonazep Isode‘wepte hartely’ on seeing Tristram unhorsed, then ‘was passynge glad, andthan she lowghe and made good chere’ (X, 70, 447, 448). Lancelot, havingbrought Tristram and Isode to Joyous Gard, goes so far as to make ‘suchepurvyaunce that La Beall Isode sholde beholde the justis in a secrete placethat was honeste for her astate’ (X, 52, 416). The role of spectator is notnecessarily a passive one. Ladies, along with the men who for some reasoncannot fight, are crucial in forming the audience in large tournaments; theymay also act as judges, as in the tournament of Candlemas in Book XVIII ofthe Morte, where almost all knights of the court are in the field:

And kynge Arthure hymselff cam into the fylde with two hondredknyghtes, and the moste party were knyghtes of the Rounde Table thatwere all proved noble men. And there were olde knyghtes set on skaffoldysfor to jouge with the quene who ded beste (XVIII, 22, 785).

Knights are repeatedly spurred on in battle by looking at their ladies. AtLonazep, Palomides sees Isode’s joy at Tristram’s success, and is so cheeredthat he gains great worship, ‘Than sir Palomydes began to double hisstrengthe, and he ded so mervaylously all men had wondir; and ever he kastehis yee unto La Beall Isode. And whan he saw her make suche chere he faredlyke a lyon, that there myght no man wythstonde hyim’ (X, 70, 448). In thetale of Sir Gareth of Orkney, Gareth experiences both negative and positiveincitement. Dame Lynette repeatedly urges him on through her scorn,placing him as a cowardly kitchen knave and ‘chyding hym in the fowlestemaner wyse that she cowde’ (VII, 10, 189). When Sir Gareth arrives atLyonesse’s castle to take on the Red Knight of the Red Launds, however,Lynette immediately points out her sister, ‘at yondir wyndow is my lady, mysistir dame Lyones’, and Lyonesse later cries out ‘on hyght’ to urge on thefallen Gareth, ‘A, sir Bewmaynes! Where is thy corrayge becom?’ (VII, 16,197; 17, 199). From this window too Gareth is sent to prove himself further inbattle for the next twelve months. In the same way, Horn, though he does nothave Rimenhild herself present for his battles, is inspired by looking on herring. The sight of the beloved may have effects far beyond simple encourage-ment, most famously perhaps in Le Chevalier de la Charrette, when Guineveresignals Launcelot to spare Meleagaunt, and thus inspires him to fight with hisback turned to his opponent while gazing at her. Malory modifies the accountof this scene in the Prose Vulgate, so that Guinevere causes Launcelot tomake peace with Meleagaunt before the battle. Her role in the combat thatoccurs after Meleagaunt’s treason, however, is equally striking:

So sir Launcelot loked uppon the quene, gyff he myght aspye by ony sygneor countenaunce what she wolde have done. And anone the quene

198

Corinne Saunders

wagged hir hede uppon sir Launcelot, as ho seyth, ‘sle hym’. And full wellknew sir Launcelot by her sygnys that she wolde have hym dede.

(XIX, 9, 662)

So eager is Lancelot to prove himself against Meleagaunt for the queen thathe fights with his head and left side unarmed, without shield, with his leftarm bound behind his back.

The treatment of women plays a definitive role in the proof of chivalry inromance, as it does in chronicles. In the Morte Darthur, the oath sworn by allthe knights at Pentecost includes the vow ‘allwayes to do ladyes, damesels,and jantilwomen and wydowes [sucour], strengthe hem in hir ryghtes, andnever to enforce them, uppon payne of dethe’ (III, 15, 75). Christian knightsare frequently characterised by their noble treatment of women, by contrast tothe lecherous or violent behaviour of the often heathen enemy. Thus in theSeege off Melayne (written c.1400 or just after) the Christians virtuously prayto ‘Mary mylde that maye’, whereas the Sultan has her image burnt, and hisviolation of the Christians is especially marked by the martyrdom of ‘ladyesswete of swyre’.31 Ganelon too ‘to ladyse grete barett bredde’ (180). Lecherybecomes a powerful marker of evil in the latter part of the romance, when Garcybecomes Sultan. The king of Macedonia sends as a coronation gift, ‘sextymaydynys faire of face, / That cheffeste of his kyngdome was / And fairest apponfolde’ (842–4). Garcy proves his godless nature by his treatment of this harem:

Of alle the damesels bryghte and schene,The sowdane hade hymselfe, I wene,

Thaire althere maydynhede;By tham ilkone he laye a nyghte,And sythen mariede hir unto a knyght:

They leffed one haythen lede.So mekill luste of lecheryWas amange that chevalryThat thay [mygh]te noghte wele spede. (866–74)

It is notable that Garcy both takes the women’s virginity, and gives themaway to other men – a double contravention of the rules of chivalry throughlechery.32

The Seege off Melayne finds an interesting contrast in the late fourteenth-century Siege of Jerusalem, a work that by no means suits modern tastes in itscelebration of violence and focus on the punishment of the Jews, but thatnarrates a celebrated episode in legendary Christian history. While theemphasis on the details of battle and siege may be seen as in the heroicmode, the poem also uses the precepts of chivalry to characterise the

199

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

31 The Seege off Melayne, ed. Shepherd, lines 72, 26, 36. All subsequent references to the Seegeoff Melayne will be from this edition and will be cited by line number.

32 Floris and Blanchefleur, though it presents the Emir more sympathetically, similarly uses themotif of the harem to distinguish the East.

Romans against the Jews. Perhaps unexpectedly, women play an importantrole in the poet’s depiction of the terrible suffering of the besieged populaceof Jerusalem – suffering that is to some extent sympathetically treated withinthe narrative of an heroic battle. In the description of the appalling ravagesof warfare and starvation, women’s predicaments heighten the horror of thescene. Thus in the bombardment of the city by Roman battering engines, awoman is struck so that her child is thrown ‘as a bal’ over the city walls, andother ‘wymmen wode open . walte vnder stones’.33 The poet emphasisesparticularly the effects of starvation on women, ‘Wymmen falwed falste &her face chaungen, / Ffeynte & fallen doun þat so fair wer; / Some swallen asswyn, som swart wexen, / Som lene on to loke, as lanterne-hornes’ (1143–6);Titus on entering the city is moved by their appearance, ‘Was no�t on ladieslafte bot þe lene bones, / þat wer fleschy byfor and fayr on to loke’ (1245–6).What is perhaps the most troubling moment of all in the poem occurs whenextreme deprivation and hunger cause the violent contravention of naturalfemininity. A woman named Mary consumes the body of her own child:

On Marie, a myld wyf, for meschef of foode,Hir owen barn þat �o bar �o brad on þe gledis,Rosty�þ rigge & rib with rewful wordes,Sayþ: ‘Sone, vpon eche side our sorow is a-lofte,Batail a-boute þe borwe, our bodies to quelle,Withyn hunger so hote, þat ne� our herte brestyþ;þerfor �eld þat I þe haf’ & a�en tourne,& entr þer þou cam out!’ & etyþ a schoulder. (1077–84)

The unstated contrast between this Mary and the Virgin, emblem of perfectmotherhood, points up the horror of the crime. The sight of the woman’smad hunger causes the curious citizens attracted by the smell of roastingflesh to depart weeping, and as an act of mercy to kill all ‘wymmen andweyke folke’ (1099) left in the city. The great power of the scene is rooted inthe refusal of both the people and the poet himself to judge: this terriblecrime against nature reflects not interior corruption but the terrible, un-natural suffering of the siege – itself begun to revenge the terrible, unnaturaldeath of Christ, for which even the innocent must pay, unable to escape thesins of their ancestors.

In different ways, all these are women who wait and watch and suffer asvictims of warfare: women can also play more causative roles in warfare asobjects of desire, inciting competition, conflict and hostility. Much of theaction of romance centres on the threat to and defence of the lady; asRoberta Krueger writes, ‘Within the chivalric honour system, the womanbecomes an object of exchange.’34 Whereas noble lovers win the love of

200

Corinne Saunders

33 The Siege of Jerusalem, ed Kölbing and Day, lines 828, 830. All subsequent references to theSiege of Jerusalem will be from this edition and will be cited by line number.

34 Krueger, ‘Love, Honor, and the Exchange of Women in Yvain’, 306.

their ladies by performing great deeds of prowess, less heroic knights resort topure force in order to gain their desired objects. Central to chivalric law isthe duty of knights to rescue ladies threatened with enforced marriage, mostoften represented through the siege of their castles and lands. The defence ofa lady tests and proves the knight-protector, but also illustrates the under-lying romance assumption that military victory is decisive: once the lady’scastle and lands or those of her father have been won, she has no choice butto submit to the victor. The potential force underlying the chivalric ethic isvery apparent in Sir Beues of Hamtoun. The lady Josian’s suitor Brademundstates directly, ‘I shal winne hire in plein bataile.’35 Victory in arms, notconsent, is definitive, and the protection of women therefore depends on theknight’s willingness to respect consent and desire. Those who exploit forceare repeatedly set up against the romance hero, who offers militaryprotection.

The founding incident in Arthurian history is perhaps that of Arthur’sdefeat of the giant of Mont Saint Michel, who has raped and murdered theDuchess of Brittany, and violates many other women: in his victory over thegiant, Arthur establishes the order of chivalry in the savage world outsideLogres. Later romance treats the contravention of this order both within andbeyond the Arthurian world, and uses in particular the motif of enforcedmarriage. The focal point of Ipomadon becomes the rescue of le Fere from herattacker Sir Lyolyne, ‘a fendes fere, / That wastythe here landes all way’(6482–3); his aim is to ‘her have / In to Ynde Mayore’ (6504).36 Lyolyne isidentified as a demonic figure, an outsider both in terms of nationality andpaganism, whose great might only Ipomadon dares confront. His blacknessand villainy provide a foil for Ipomadon’s excellence, and Lyolyne’s forcecontrasts with Ipomadon’s love for and obedience to le Fere, his use ofprowess for rather than against her. The lady, no matter how improbably,must consent to love.

Romances play repeatedly on the lady’s need for a defender and lord, ifonly to save her from other would-be defenders. The successful defence of alady’s castle from its attackers is frequently accompanied by the swiftconferral of her hand and lands on her defender. This phenomenon is partic-ularly evident in the early fourteenth-century English rewriting of Chrétiende Troyes’ Yvain, Ywain and Gawain. After Alundyne’s protector has beenkilled by Ywain, Lunete elaborates the vulnerability of her lady:

If twa knyghtes be in the feldeOn twa stedes, with spere and shelde,And the tane the tother may sla:

201

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

35 The Romance of Sir Beues of Hamtoun, ed. Kölbing, Auchinleck MS, line 920. All subse-quent references to Beues will be from this edition and cited by line number.

36 Ipomadon, ed. Kölbing, lines 6482–3; 6504.

Whether es the better of tha?’Sho said, ‘He that has the bataile’.

The lady thoght than, al the nyght,How that sho had na knyght,Forto seke hir land thorghout,To kepe Arthur and hys rowt* (999–1003; 1021–4) [*company]

The narrative intimates the impossibility of independent female existence:within the chivalric society depicted in the romance, women cannot defendthemselves, and there is no recourse against the man who wins the woman’sperson in battle. Thus Alundyne swiftly accepts the expedient of marriagewith the very knight who has killed her husband, while later the lady whomYwain rescues from her besieger, Sir Alers, prays him to marry her:

‘Sir, if it be yowre will,I pray yow forto dwel here still;And I wil yelde into yowre handesMyn awyn body and al my landes’. (1959–62)

The link between lady and lands is made explicit, and the virtuous heroequated with the able defender.37

This situation is also acutely realised in the contemporaneous Sir Percyvellof Gales. Perceval describes a heathen sultan’s siege of the lady Lufamour’scastle in order to possess her:

‘That scho may have no pese,The lady, for hir fayrenesAnd for hir mekill* reches, [*great]He wirkes hir full woo!He dose his sorow all hir sythe* [*life]And all he slaes doun ry[f]e;* [*in great numbers]He wolde have hir to wyfe,And scho will noghte soo’.38

While Perceval responds according to the precepts of chivalry, the battlebetween the two becomes a battle for Lufamour’s hand. She views herperson as the right of her defender, and indeed employs the same termi-nology as the Sultan: ‘Scho thoght hym worthi to welde,* (*have) / And hemyghte wyn hir in felde / With maystry and myghte’ (1310–12). In the mili-tary society of romance, battle proves who is hero, who villain. The lady maybe gained through force, but not force enacted against herself: her consent is

202

Corinne Saunders

37 A similar instance is found in Guy of Warwick, where the Emperor offers Guy the hand ofhis daughter Clarice in return for defeating his attackers: see The Romance of Guy ofWarwick, ed. Zupitza, lines 4177–90.

38 Sir Percyvell of Gales, in Mills, ed., Ywain and Gawain, lines 103–60: 981–8. All subsequentreferences to Sir Percyvell of Gales will be from this edition and cited by line number.

necessary in order to rewrite as love what could be construed as enforcedmarriage. Episodes of abduction or threats of enforced marriage thus stand inopposition to those where the lady is won through the honour and prowessof the knight, and military achievements for the lady are contrasted withattacks on her. One of the most sinister moments in Sir Orfeo is that of thefailure of armed defence of the lady: human prowess proves ineffectualagainst the mysterious power of the King of Faery. Orfeo’s ‘wel ten hundredknightes with him / Ich y-armed stout and grim’ cannot oppose the invisibleforces of the supernatural:

Ac yete amiddes hem full rightThe Quen was oway y-twight,With fairy forth y-nome.Men wist never wher she was bicome.39

It is only through the marvellous power of Orfeo’s harping, rather thanthrough the use of warfare, that Heurodis is regained. The work is compel-ling precisely for its overturning of the normal structures of chivalry.

It is inevitable that women won in honourable warfare or combat appearto some extent as trophies, as valuable property. Chaucer in The Knight’sTale notably probes this motif, revealing both its centrality to chivalricstructures and the constraints it places on women. We are reminded at thestart of the tale that Theseus’s wife Hippolyta is the defeated queen of theAmazons, won in battle:

What with his wysdom and his chivalrie,He conquered al the regne of Femenye,That whilom was ycleped Scithia,And weddede the queene Ypolita,And broghte hire hoom with hym in his contreeWith muchel glorie and greet solempnytee,And eek hire yonge suster Emelye.40

The brief reference to the defeat of the ‘regne of Femenye’ in the context ofTheseus’s triumph is typical of the way that the tale operates, its smoothsurface assumptions of moral order troubled by hints of a more ambiguousuniverse. Thus Hippolyta appears a ‘fair, hardy queene’, but is also defeated

203

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

39 Sir Orfeo, ed. Sands, lines 167–70.40 Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale, ed. Benson, lines 865–7. All subsequent references to Chaucer

will be from this edition and will be cited by line number. Woods notes the balance of loveand war which defines Theseus as ‘the complete man in this chivalric world’, ‘ “My SweeteFoo” ’, p. 281; Hansen points out that women first appear in the poem as ‘erstwhilepowerful separatists’, defeated and domesticated, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender, p. 218,though Mann suggests that the marriage between Theseus and Hippolyta resists ‘the sepa-rateness of “Femenye” ’, Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 171. For an account of the ‘shift from classicalto romance versions of the Amazon’, see Susan Crane, Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s‘Canterbury Tales’, p. 79.

and captured: ‘marriage is consequent on military defeat with no interveningmovement of consensual subordination or self-transformation on the part ofthe Amazons’.41 Emilye, Hippolyta’s sister, is equally a trophy of war; shebegins and ends the tale as an object to be fought over and won by men:

Emilye’s relative freedom is an illusion, in that she is effectively one of thespoils of war, technically even a prisoner of war, her garden effectively partof the prison.42

Priscilla Martin points to Emilye’s relegation to object, both in narrative andstylistic terms, ‘She is often, as at her first appearance, a syntactical adjunctto her sister the queen.’43

The description of Emilye in the garden presents her as the archetypalromance heroine, and the ensuing rivalry of Palamon and Arcite is typical ofthe chivalric ethic according to which the woman is fought over and won.Love is defined exclusively from the male perspective and imagined as asiege or battle: Emilye, the ‘sweete foo’ (2780), has no knowledge of thecousins’ love for her, and their emotions are both desired and threatening,the cause of unhappiness, illness and conflict.44 Emilye’s status as trophy ofwar, and her ignorance of the men whom she inspires to mortal enmity, illu-minate the absence of the female voice within the structures of fin’ amors.

Upon seeing the cousins fighting, Emilye weeps with the other women,‘The queene anon, for verray wommanhede, / Gan for to wepe, and so dideEmelye, / And alle the ladyes in the compaignye’ (1748–50), but we hear noword from her; instead, it is Theseus who speaks for her and who decides herfuture, ‘I speke as for my suster Emelye’; ‘Thanne shal I yeve Emelya to wyve/ To whom that Fortune yeveth so fair a grace’ (1833, 1860–1). The onlyexpression of her voice is her prayer in the temple of Diana, ‘Chastegoddesse, wel wostow that I / Desire to ben a mayden al my lyf, / Ne everewol I be no love ne wyf’ (2304–6). Although it is highly stylised, the passageopens a tiny window onto the predicament of the woman objectified withinthe patriarchal structures of love and war. When Arcite has died despite hisvictory, it is Theseus, not Emilye, who restores order by granting her hand toPalamon, and although he addresses her in formal legal terms, we hear nodirect response from Emilye herself. The tale obscures all individual emotionwith the conventional formula of the happy ending, and replaces thewoman’s voice with that of the man. Yet, like the sinister machinations offate that lead to Arcite’s death, the subtext of force and Emilye’s prayer

204

Corinne Saunders

41 Crane, Gender and Romance, p. 80.42 John M. Ganim, ‘Chaucerian Ritual and Patriarchal Romance’, p. 69.43 Priscilla Martin, Chaucer’s Women, p. 42.44 Hansen writes, ‘the proper male hero must first conquer with superior violence and then

domesticate [her]’, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender, p. 219; H. Marshall Leicester, Jr,comments on the elision between ‘the idea of doing battle for Emilye’ and ‘doing battle withher for her favors’, The Disenchanted Self, p. 305.

contribute to an alternative perception of chivalric order as imprisoning andsilencing. Emilye’s plight demonstrates more clearly the absence of free willin a world controlled by the potentially malevolent whims of the gods.

The contrast between two modes, feminine and masculine, one of war,one of peace, is made clear at the start of The Knight’s Tale in the pleas of thecompany of widows to Theseus that they may honour the bodies of theirdead husbands. They express a feminised ethic of pity and mercy:

‘Lord, to whom Fortune hath yivenVictorie, and as a conqueror to lyvenNat greveth us youre glorie and youre honour,But we biseken mercy and socour.Have mercy on oure wo and oure distresse!Som drope of pitee, thurgh thy gentillesse,Upon us wrecched wommen lat thou falle. (915–21)

Yet as so often in this tale, the weight of warfare is inevitable: their pleas areanswered but lead in fact to still more violence, Theseus’ great battle againstThebes.

Romance is shadowed by the powerful classical paradigm of the abductionof Helen of Troy, which causes a war so great that the civilisation of Troyfalls. For English writers, the history of Troy was especially important, inthat it provided the founding myth of Britain. In Chaucer’s Troilus andCriseyde, Troilus reminds Pandarus, ‘this town hath al this werre / Forravysshyng of wommen so by myght’ (IV, 547–8). The comment is the morestriking for our view of ‘the faire queene Eleyne’ (II, 1556) at Deiphebus’house. Here she appears as a highly domesticated figure, integrated intoTrojan society, and an unwitting friend to the progression of the love ofTroilus and Criseyde. Helen’s ravishment is portrayed as entirely consensual,and Pandarus suggests that Troilus similarly ‘ravysshe’ Criseyde away:

‘Artow in Troie, and hast non hardymentTo take a womman which that loveth theAnd wolde hireselven ben of thyn assent?Now is nat this a nyce vanitee?’ (IV, 533–6)

The backdrop of the war and our knowledge of Troy’s fate, however, cannotbut recall the disastrous social consequences of even consensual ravishment.Troilus’ response emphasises both the war and the potential fear and shameassociated with such an action:

Yet drede I moost hire herte to perturbeWith violence, if I do swich a game;For if I wolde it openly desturbe,* [*prevent]It moost be disclaundre to hire name. (IV, 561–64)

The story of Helen of Troy perhaps underpins the numerous examples inmedieval romance of knights who fight on behalf of abducted ladies.

205

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

Arthurian romance treats the same complex issues in the crucial narrativeepisode of Launcelot’s rescue of Guinevere from burning at the stake, whichensues in war between Arthur and Gawain, and ultimately the fall of thekingdom of Logres.

Conspicuous by its near-absence in romance is the motif of the womanwarrior, whereas in the Renaissance period, this was to become a powerfulliterary topos, most obviously perhaps in Spenser’s Britomart in The FaerieQueene. As we have seen, Chaucer makes little of the Amazonian past ofHippolyta and Emilye, emphasising instead their status as trophies of war. Arare exception is offered by the thirteenth-century Roman de Silence ofHeldris de Cornuälle, preserved only in one long-undiscovered manuscriptand written by a wholly unknown poet of north-west France.45 The work isunique in placing at its centre the cross-dressing heroine Silence, daughterof Cador, retainer and later count of Cornwall, brought up as a boy in orderthat she may inherit: the poet describes the debate between Nature andNurture over Silence’s gender. The romance traces Silence’s life with atroupe of jongleurs, her attempted seduction by the queen of Cornwall, therejected queen’s accusation of force, Silence’s exile and her penitential taskof finding Merlin. While deeds of arms are not the central focus, they playan important part in the poem and Silence’s military ability is emphasised:

N’i a un seul de lui plus maistreQuant il joent a le palaistre,Al bohorder, n’a lescremir,Il seus fait tols ses pers fremir.46

there was no one more adept than he:when they played at jousting,at tilting, or at swords,he alone made all his peers tremble.47

Knighted by the king of France, Silence proves him/herself in a great joust:

Kil veïst joster sans mantelEt l’escu porter en cantielEt faire donques l’ademise,La lance sor le faltre mist,Dir peüst que NoreturePuet moult ovrer contre Nature,

206

Corinne Saunders

45 Cross-dressing episodes are found in Huon de Bordeaux, L’Estoire Merlin and Tristan deNanteuil, but are not central to these romances; see Psaki’s discussion of sources and influ-ences in the introduction to her translation of Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence,pp. xxxiii–vi. Thorpe offers an extensive discussion of the author’s use of L’Estoire Merlin inthe introduction to his edition of Heldris, Le Roman de Silence, pp. 27–35.

46 Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence, ed. Thorpe, lines 2493–6.47 Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence, trans. Psaki, lines 2493–6.

Quant ele aprent si et escoleA tel us feme et tendre et mole.48

Anyone who saw him joust without a mantle,carrying the shield on his left arm,and set to the attack,lance on the lance-rest,would say that Nurturecan do much against Nature,when she teaches and trainsa tender, delicate woman in such behavior.49

It is crucial for the success of the poem that Silence’s natural qualities arestill profoundly feminine, and that it is through nurture that she takes onmale qualities of strength and prowess; they are not intrinsic to her. It ishard to see Silence’s natural femininity in the later part of the poem, whenhe/she takes thirty French knights to fight for the English king, performinggreat deeds of prowess, and spurring the others on, eventually to defeat theleader of the enemy army. Although the poet emphasises God’s protectionof Silence, his/her abilities seem very much those of the male hero, ‘li vallésde Cornuälle’, ‘the boy from Cornwall’ who leads the battle.50 The power ofboth nature and nurture are, however, confirmed as this episode is setagainst the final denouement, when Merlin reveals Silence’s identity, andthe poem ends with her wedding. As in Saxo’s account of the Danishwomen warriors, the appeal of the story of Silence lies in its self-consciouscontravention of gender norms, as the debate between Nature and Nurturemakes clear.

In general, however, it is not in medieval romance but in religious writingthat the figure of the woman warrior appears. It seems clear that, for medi-eval writers, there was great dramatic potential in subverting or opposing thetraditional presentation of women as victims, making them into powerfulheroic figures – but also that this was a problematic reversal of role, whichtended to require a spiritual motivation. The great Biblical example of thewoman warrior is that of the Old Testament heroine Judith, the Israelitewho finds her way into the attacking Assyrian Holofernes’ camp and killshim. This was obviously a problematic story, relegated to the Apocrypha; itportrayed Judith as using her feminine wiles to seduce and then killHolofernes. The poet of the Old English Judith (c. tenth century) useshagiographic elements to make the story more like those of the Christiansaints. Thus Judith is identified as a holy virgin, and rather than seducingHolofernes, is absent from his feast. She is identified as the handmaiden ofthe Lord, authorised to take on a male, heroic role, killing Holofernes and

207

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

48 Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence, ed. Thorpe, lines 5149–56.49 Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence, trans. Psaki, lines 5149–56.50 Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence, ed. Thorpe and trans. Psaki, lines 5556, 5572.

leading her troops in battle. Judith seems to usurp Holofernes’ militarydominance by striking him with his own sword as he lies comatose on thebed, ‘swa heo ðæs unlædan eaðost mihte / wel gewealdan’, ‘As she mightbest have power over . . . the hated foe.’51

Judith to some extent equates to the Christian saint, although her fate isvery different. She kills her enemy and wins the battle, whereas the tradi-tional hagiographic pattern is of torture and martyrdom. The Golden Legend,the South English Legendary and Osbern Bokenham’s Legends of HoolyWomen contain one very striking example of this pattern in the context ofwarfare, the legend of Saint Ursula and the 100,000 virgins. Here the powerof the virgin opposes an entire enemy host: Ursula puts off marriage to travelfrom Little Britain to Rome with a great company of English virgins in orderto face the army of the pagan princes Julian, Maxim and Affrican atCologne, and is finally cut down on the battlefield with her companions.Bokenham describes the pagan army: ‘As raueynows wuluys . . . / Among aflok of sheep’, terms that recall the descriptions of the Vikings inchronicles.52 Bokenham is careful to downplay eroticism by emphasising themale presence in Ursula’s company – the pope, cardinals and bishops, andher own fiancé in spiritual marriage, Ethereus. In the battle, Ursula herself isspared and, because of her great beauty, her hand is requested by Julian inmarriage; on refusing to consent, she is shot with an arrow from ‘a myhtybowe’ (3435), her virginity maintained. The South English Legendarysimilarly uses the image of wolves among lambs: ‘Hi houede & cride �amassame . to gronde hi ham slowe / Also fale wolues among lomb . �are clenefleiss todrawe’.53 The women are in one sense heroic warrior figures as Judithis, but in another, victims. The legend’s drama is partially situated in thethreat to the holy female body posed by warfare, and specifically the threatof ravishment, the archetypal motif linked with the depiction of women inwarfare. Women become mirrors of Christ’s passion on the Cross, theirbodies perfect in chastity but also torn and bleeding, willingly sufferingwounds and death, their unconquerable faith set up against the hollowviolence and warfare of the pagan enemy.

The introduction of women into the male world of warfare allows, then,for a series of powerful oppositions, crucial to the drama of literary represen-tations of war. Women present still points within the circles of warfare. Themale action of battle is opposed by the static quality, though not necessarilythe passivity, of the women who wait and weep and suffer. The taken or

208

Corinne Saunders

51 Judith, in Hamer, ed., A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse, pp. 102–3; for an analysis of the ironicreversal of sexual role behaviour in this passage, see Chance, ‘The Structural Unity ofBeowulf’, pp. 254–5. See also Saunders, Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of MedievalEngland, 138–9, and for Ursula, 136–8.

52 Bokenham, Legendys of Hooly Wummen, ed. Serjeantson, lines 3415–16. All subsequentreferences to Bokenham will be from this edition and will be cited by line number.

53 South English Legendary, ed. d’Evelyn and Mills, II, p. 447, lines 131–2.

besieged body of the woman is opposed by the warfare of both attackers anddefenders. The active, threatening desire of the enemy is opposed by theunassailable, still chastity of the virgin. Yet women also play their ownpowerful roles: they encourage and incite those who fight; they also providemany of the incentives for the battles that structure the chivalric world andprove the hero. On occasion, they offer alternative, ethical perspectives thatrely on ideas of mercy, pity and peace. Especially rare is the image of thewoman who takes up arms. What is most full of potential for the medievalwriter is not the real experience of women in war, or the possibility ofwomen emulating men, so much as the strong contrast and drama created byplacing ‘woman’ within the male world of warfare.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Beowulf, ed. Michael Swanton, Manchester Medieval Classics (Manchester:Manchester University Press; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1978).

Bokenham, Osbern, Legendys of Hooly Wummen, ed. Mary S. Serjeantson,Early English Text Society, OS 206 (London: Oxford University Press,1938 for 1936).

Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Chrétien de Troyes, Le Contes du Graal (Perceval), ed. Félix Lecoy, 2 vols,Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes V and VI, Les Classiques Français duMoyen Age (Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1975, 1984).

Chrétien de Troyes, The Story of the Grail (Perceval), ed. William W. Kibler,Arthurian Romances, Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991).

Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, c. 150, ed. Luis Sánchez Belda, Escuela deEstudios Medievales, Textos 14 (Madrid: Consejo Superior deInvestigaciones Cientificas, 1950).

Comnena, Anna, The Alexiad of the Princess Anna Comnena Being the Historyof the Reign of her Father, Alexius I, Emperor of the Romans, 1081–1118AD, trans. Elizabeth A. S. Dawes (London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner,1928; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).

Froissart, Sir John, The Chronicles of Froissart, trans. John Bourchier, LordBerners, intro. William Paton Ker, 6 vols, The Tudor Translations 27–33(London: David Nutt, 1901–1903).

Genesis A: A New Edition, ed. A. N. Doane (Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1978).

Havelok the Dane, ed. Donald B. Sands, Exeter Medieval English Texts andStudies (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1986), pp. 58–129.

Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence, trans. Regina Psaki, GarlandLibrary of Medieval Literature 63, series B (New York: Garland, 1991).

209

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

Ipomedon in drei englische Bearbeitungen, ed. Eugen Kölbing (Breslau:Wilhelm Koebner, 1889).

Judith, ed. and trans. Richard Hamer, A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse(London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1970).

King Horn, ed. Donald B. Sands, Exeter Medieval English Texts and Studies(Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1986), pp. 17–54.

Le Roman de Silence: A Thirteenth-Century Arthurian Verse-Romance byHeldris de Cornuälle, ed. Lewis Thorpe (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons,1972).

Liber Historiae Francorum, ed. and trans. Bernard S. Bachrach (Lawrence,KS: Coronado Press, 1973).

Malory, Sir Thomas, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugène Vinaverand P. J. C. Field, 3rd edn, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).

Malory, Sir Thomas, Works, ed. Eugène Vinaver, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clar-endon, 1971)

Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Davis, 2 vols(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, 1976).

The Paston Letters: A Selection in Modern Spelling, ed. Norman Davis, World’sClassics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).

Roger of Wendover, Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, trans. J. A.Giles, 2 vols (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1899).

Roger of Wendover, Chronica, sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry O. Coxe, 5vols, English Historical Society (London: Sumptibus Societatis,1841–44).

The Romance of Guy of Warwick, ed. Julius Zupitza, Early English TextSociety, ES 42, 49, 59 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1883,1887, 1891).

The Romance of Sir Beues of Hamtoun, ed. Eugen Kölbing, Early English TextSociety, ES 46, 48, 65 (London: N. Trübner 1885, 1886, 1894).

Rose-Troup, J. M., ‘What is War?’, in Poems of the First World War: ‘NeverSuch Innocence’, ed. Martin Stephen, Everyman’s Library (1988; London:J. M. Dent, 1993), p. 63.

Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ed. C. Knabe and Paul Herrmann, rev.Jørgen Olrik and H. Raeder (Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard,1931).

Saxo Grammaticus, History of the Danes, trans. Peter Fisher and ed. HildaEllis Davidson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer; Totowa, NJ; Rowman andLittlefield, 1979).

The Seege off Melayne, ed. Stephen H. A. Shepherd, Middle English Romances,Norton Critical Editions (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995).

The Siege of Jerusalem, ed. E. Kölbing and Mabel Day, Early English TextSociety, OS 188 (London: Oxford University Press, 1932).

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. A. C. Cawley and J. J. Anderson, Pearl,Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Everyman Classics,2nd edn, Everyman’s Library (London: Dent, 1976), pp. 159–254.

210

Corinne Saunders

Sir Orfeo, ed. Donald B. Sands, Exeter Medieval English Texts and Studies(Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1986), pp. 185–200.

Sir Percyvell of Gales, ed. Maldwyn Mills, Ywain and Gawain, Sir Percyvell ofGales, the Anturs of Arther, Everyman’s Library (London: J. M. Dent andSons; Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1992), pp. 102–60.

The South English Legendary, ed. Charlotte d’Evelyn and Anna J. Mill, 2 vols,Early English Text Society, OS 235 and 236 (London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1956).

Whitelock, Dorothy, ed., English Historical Documents, I: c. 500–1042(London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955).

Wulfstan, The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Dorothy Bethurum (Oxford: Clar-endon Press, 1957).

Ywain and Gawain, ed. Maldwyn Mills, Ywain and Gawain, Sir Percyvell ofGales, the Anturs of Arther, Everyman’s Library (London: J. M. Dent andSons; Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1992) pp. 1–102.

II. Studies

Chance, Jane, ‘The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel’sMother’, in Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessy Olsen, eds, NewReadings on Women in Old English Literature (Bloomington and Indianap-olis: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 248–61.

Clover, Carol C., ‘Maiden Warriors and Other Sons’, JEGP 85 (1986):35–49.

Crane, Susan, Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Dillard, Heath, Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian TownSociety, 1100–1300, Cambridge Iberian and Latin American Studies(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Fell, Christine, Women in Anglo-Saxon England; And the Impact of 1066, withCecily Clark and Elizabeth Williams (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984,1986).

Ganim, John M., ‘Chaucerian Ritual and Patriarchal Romance’, ChaucerYearbook 1 (1992): 65–86.

Hansen, Elaine Tuttle, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press, 1992).

Jochens, Jenny, ‘Old Norse Sources on Women’, in Joel T. Rosenthal, ed.,Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History (Athens, GA:University of Georgia Press 1990), pp. 155–88.

Krueger, Roberta L., ‘Love, Honor, and the Exchange of Women in Yvain:Some Remarks on the Female Reader’, Romance Notes 25 (1984–85):302–17.

Larrington, Carolyne, Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook(London: Routledge, 1995).

211

Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing

Leicester, H. Marshall, Jr, The Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject inthe Canterbury Tales (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of Cali-fornia Press, 1990).

Martin, Priscilla, Chaucer’s Women: Nuns, Wives, and Amazons (Iowa City:University of Iowa Press, 1990).

McLaughlin, M., ‘The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare, and Society inMedieval Europe’, Women’s Studies 17 (1990): 193–209.

Rosenthal, Joel T., ‘Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: Men’s Sources, Women’sHistory’, in Rosenthal, ed., Medieval Women and the Sources of MedievalHistory (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press 1990), pp. 259–84.

Saunders, Corinne, Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001).

Wainwright, F. T., ‘Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians’, The Anglo-Saxons,Studies in some aspects of their history and culture presented to Bruce Dickins,ed. P. Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 53–70; reprinted in ScandinavianEngland: Collected Papers by F. T. Wainwright, ed. H. P. R. Finberg(Chichester: Phillimore, 1975), pp. 305–24.

Woods, William F., ‘ “My Sweete Foo”: Emelye’s Role in The Knight’s Tale’,Studies in Philology 88 (1991): 276–306.

212

Corinne Saunders

Speaking for the Victim11

HELEN COOPER

In the sweet springtime, when the grass is fresh and the days clear and bright,I came across a shepherdess wearing a garland of leaves and a belt of roses;she was fluting, ‘Tirra lirra!’, and Perrin was accompanying her on a pipe.I dismounted onto the grass and said, ‘Damoiselle, love me, and I will giveyou fine jewels, and a better knife than a shepherd’s.’ Then Peronellereplied, ‘I have heard that a troop of treacherous Flemings are making greattrouble. Tirra lirra! Whoever asks me for love doesn’t know how fearful Iam.’The shepherdess had a fair face and a hue of rose. I said, ‘Pretty one, I’ll beyour lover if you’re willing.’ ‘Sir, I have given my heart to Perrin and meanto marry him; but we are overrun in this country. The French have beenhere and have devastated it too much. Sir, are you one of those wretcheswho have passed the river, who gathered across the Lys? Traitors and rebelsand perjurers! – they will all be made landless and their shame revealed.’2

THAT TEXT is a slightly abbreviated translation of a pastourelle by theFlemish poet Jean Bodel, written in the late twelfth century. Pastourelles

are poems that typically describe the encounter of a man, most often aknight, with a shepherdess; he propositions her, and she may or may notconsent to his advances. Bodel’s poem opens in the most conventional ofways, and its first audience would accordingly have expected somethingmildly salacious to follow. The shepherdess’s rejection of the speaker’schat-up line decisively foils those expectations. Instead, she delivers anattack on both the treacherous Flemings and the French troops who aredevastating the country. The last verse, in the original, runs:

Sire, estes vos des eschiski l’iaue ont passee,

213

1 The second half of the lecture on which this essay is based drew extensively on materialused in my as yet unpublished article ‘The Hundred Years War and the Golden Age:French Pastoral Moralities’, written for Order and Disorder: Rationalities and Mentalities of theMedieval World, ed. Lesley Smith and Giles Gaspar (forthcoming). I am grateful to theeditors for permission to incorporate some of that material here.

2 Bodel, in Romances et pastourelles françaises des XIIe et XIIIe siècles, ed. Bartsch, pp. 290–1.

qui de l’autre part le Lisfont lor assemblee?trecheor et foimentiset gent parjuree!

dorenlot ae!tot seront deshiretea honte provee.

The shepherdess’s words are no more a statement about military strategythan they are about unwanted seducers; her principal message is more like,‘A plague on both your houses!’ Just for that reason, however, the workcarries a political message of a broad kind. For Bodel is only one in a longline of poets who use the inhabitants of the countryside – specifically, shep-herds and shepherdesses – to speak out against war. We do not hear thegenuine voices of peasants here or in any other of these texts: the over-whelming majority of the rural population was illiterate, and incapable ofleaving records of their own. What we do have on record are the voices ofthe commentators and poets and moralists who speak for them and throughthem – who give them a voice. So far as the peasantry was concerned, theparticularity of the politics that drove war across the countryside, or theidentity of the lords and knights who conducted it, was beside the point. Asin the eyes of Jean Bodel’s shepherdess, the whole lot might just as well berebels, traitors, outlaws – all equally reprehensible and equally hated.

As in this example, a writer of a commentary of this nature will often startout by misleading his audience. Such texts tend to open by setting up a highlyconventional form with different expectations; and typically they will startfrom a pastoral rather than a rural perspective. In other words, the texts repre-sent themselves not as the genuine writings of peasants (which would havebeen almost a contradiction in terms in the Middle Ages) but asself-consciously literary, whether courtly or urban; and not until that is estab-lished do they spring a surprise on the audience when their subject matterturns out to be much more realistic, or even satirical. By convention, thepastourelle form may lead to either sex or frustration; what you do not expect isa disquisition on the fear of having a harrying army overrunning the land.

Such poems are found in the Middle Ages almost uniquely in France.Medieval English pastoral concerned itself with broader social satire – thecorruption of royal officials or the Church, heavy taxation, or just the stateof the world and the weather – but war or invasion was not an issue. Whensuch pastoral satire of war does appear, it takes a negative form, as indicatingEngland’s blessedness; and in this eulogistic form it does indeed becomepolitical. It makes a later appearance than in France, emerging in thesixteenth century in panegyrics of Elizabeth I that contrast her peace withthe wars that were ravaging Europe.3 Thomas Blenerhasset’s Revelation of the

214

Helen Cooper

3 Cooper, Pastoral, pp. 198–207.

True Minerva, written in 1582, is a narrative poem declaring how superiorElizabeth, the ‘true Minerva’, is to any other contemporary ruler. It includesan interlude in which three shepherds from continental Europe put in anappearance to lament the condition of their lives:

On pleasant pipe to play did please me much,I did delight sweete ditties to indight:But nowe the woes of wretched warres be suchAs nothing els but howe in fielde to fight,And howe to keepe the flocke from souldiours sight . . .

My flockes be stolne, my fruitfull fieldes be bare.

The people for the princes pride are plagde,It falleth to the faultlesse subjectes lot,To double drinke in cruel cuppe of care,When perverse princes madding minde doth dote:Bellona then doth sounde a dolefull note,Then blooddie men of warre the sweete doth eateWithout regard of us the shepheardes sweate.4

By contrast, an English commoner who has travelled to Europe expressesamazement at the miseries he has encountered there:

What taxe, what tolle, what tribute do they pay?With dayly warres, what wretched lives they leade?Kinges they do cause continuall decay,Their subiectes live in daily doubt and dread.5

England’s insulation from the wars across the Channel can therefore be repre-sented as turning the country into a paradise of security and contentment.

Blenerhasset and Bodel between them, for all the four centuries that sepa-rate them, illustrate three consistent principles of this kind of writing. First,the writer and the audience have nothing to do with real peasants: Bodelwas apparently a leading burgher of Arras, Blenerhasset a minor poet of theSidney circle. Second, it is none the less taken as a premise that realpeasants, the suffering common man and woman, can speak a politicalwisdom that does not always get a voice elsewhere. And third, unless it isturned into a panegyric of a good monarch, as happens in the Revelation, thissort of writing is unlikely to be addressed directly to a ruler. Elizabeth is apossible audience because she is neither perverse nor mad; but a poet is notlikely to declare ‘The people for the prince’s pride are plagued’ directly tothe prince in question.

The period on which this paper will focus comes midway between Bodeland Blenerhasset: the France of the Hundred Years War, when the devasta-

215

Speaking for the Victim

4 Blenerhasset, The Revelation of the True Minerva, ed. Bennett, sig. B1a.5 Blenerhasset, The Revelation of the True Minerva, ed. Bennett, sig. B2a

tion suffered by the peasantry was particularly grievous. A succession ofarmed bands pillaged the countryside: the free companies, the routiers, of thefirst English occupation; then the rival armies of the civil wars of theBurgundians and Armagnacs; and then, worst of all, the écorcheurs, the anar-chic bands associated with the revival of hostilities with England in thefifteenth century and the wars to displace them. It was a series of horrorsthat elicited a run of commentaries of this kind, but those texts presentmajor difficulties when it comes to trying to use them for historiographicalpurposes. Their peasant spokesmen are not, by and large, interested in factsor events. They express rather social desires (for good government, peace,security of life and livelihood) and fears – the worst of which, since it elimi-nates every social good, is a war fought across their own countryside. Thesetexts most often originate outside the court or the main centres of power, sothey are not designed to reflect monarchical policies or aspirations; but theydo have the potential to provide evidence for mental frameworks that else-where remain largely unstated and unrecoverable.

The technical term for this kind of writing, for using the shepherd worldas a metaphor for the real world, is bergerie. The word can mean the craft ofsheepkeeping, or the imagined literary representation of shepherd life, or,more specifically, a pastoral morality play.6 Such texts describe one way oflife, the shepherd’s, in order to comment on another, the political or ecclesi-astical or moral world that most directly involves the author and theintended audience. Shepherds are used precisely because they can speak forthose excluded from the discourses of power, from the court, chivalry, andthe Church – the three institutions that dominate so much of the medievalwritten record. Bergerie writings combine a sense of what peasant life wasactually like with a strong sense of literary tradition. The literariness madethem attractive to a cultured readership, whether clerical or urban orcourtly, and attractive to authors too, since they did not have to leavebehind their own education when they were writing. The learned reso-nances also helped to make possible the stress on significance as distinctfrom event.

The first of the literary traditions they incorporated was the Bible. It washere that the dignity of the shepherd’s calling was stressed, in the persons ofKing David and the Patriarchs, figures to whom a writer could appeal inorder to insist to his audience that the shepherds of his poem or play are notto be dismissed as mere yokels. Furthermore, the Bethlehem shepherds hadbeen the first to hear news of the birth of Christ, so marking their estate asespecially favoured by God. The fact that they were out at night watchingnot only their sheep, but also, according to a number of these texts, the stars,gave them a further significance, as it was taken as an indicator both ofcontemplation and of wisdom, and was often cited to justify the presentation

216

Helen Cooper

6 For a full account, see Cooper, Pastoral, especially chapter 2. The most detailed study of thelate medieval French texts is Blanchard’s La Pastorale en France aux XIVe et XVe siècles.

of the shepherd not as an illiterate rustic but as a teacher. Above all, ChristHimself was the Good Shepherd. The duties of the good shepherd as spelledout in the Gospels were not very different from those of his fifteenth-centuryFrench counterpart: he had to care for his flocks, make sure they were fed,protect them from wolves, and heal their diseases. The derelictions of thebad shepherd had not changed much either since the hireling described inJohn 10, who is characterized by stealing the sheep and taking the profit.

Both good and bad shepherds are represented in this French literaturewith a strong sense of actuality. Their closeness to reality can be measuredby comparison with a treatise on sheepkeeping written by a man who claimsto be, and indeed seems to have been, an actual working shepherd, by thename of Jean de Brie.7 Commissioned by Charles V in 1379, the workcontains a remarkably detailed account of what was actually involved inraising and caring for sheep, information such as would normally be passedon in the fields from father to son or master to lad and never reach writtenform. It covers such matters as the practicalities of weather prediction, thetreatment of sheep-rot, and the need for the herdsman to wear extraclothing on the front (since sheep face into the wind); and it provides agenerous list of musical instruments that the shepherd should be able toplay. Its practical instructions, moreover, extend to moral interpretations. Itis not just herdsmen who can learn from the treatise, but those pastorsequipped with a crozier rather than a crook, who carry responsibility for adifferent kind of flock. Its commissioning by the king indicates that it carriesa further extension to political meanings. The king, in a frequently usedmetaphor, was the shepherd of his subjects, and bore the responsibility ofgood government for the sake of his sheep. The work thus bridges the gulfbetween the literal and the metaphorical herdsman, between allegories ofgood government and the peasant in the fields.

Jean de Brie makes the customary appeal to the Bible to demonstrate theworthiness of the shepherd, but he does not apparently have any detailedscriptural knowledge. Other writers in the bergerie tradition clearly did havea full clerical education, such as included familiarity not only with the Biblebut with secular Latin traditions of pastoral. The quintessential innocentpastoral landscape was the one that belonged to the myth of the GoldenAge, as described in one of the most widely known school texts, Ovid’sMetamorphoses. This was the time before the advent of agricultural labour:the land produced berries for food; the sheep bore ready-coloured wool for

217

Speaking for the Victim

7 The work was entitled Le Traicté de l’estat, science et pratique de l’art de bergerie, et de garderoeilles et brebis à laine: ‘a treatise on the condition, knowledge and practice of the art ofsheepkeeping, and of managing ewes and wool-bearing sheep’. The original is lost, but itsurvives in a shortened form in early printed editions entitled Le Vray Régime etgouvernement des bergers et bergères, ‘the true order and government of shepherds and shep-herdesses’, edited by Lacroix as Le Bon Berger; see pp. vi, xvi for the history of the work.The extent and nature of Jean’s own education is not known, but the evidence of the workindicates that he was literate in French, and had a good familiarity with vernacular culture.

use in clothing; the maiden Justice was still present in the world, so therewas no need for law or government; and there were no cities, and, crucially,no war. The peace-loving and contented Golden Agers had nothing to dobut keep a gentle eye on the sheep, sing, and enjoy free love. This portrayalof an idyllic pastoral existence was to some degree endorsed by a furtherwidely known group of poems, Virgil’s Eclogues, which were often dissemi-nated together with Servius’s late Classical commentary on them. For all theidyllicism they contain, however, they do not rest content with representingsuch a world. Most of the eclogues are dialogues, and therefore potentiallydialectic too; and the opposing positions Virgil represents are first of allthose of peace and war. The very first one introduces a shepherd-poet pipingunder a shady tree, a man who possesses a flock and livelihood and cottageof his own thanks to a powerful political patron, Augustus; but his interloc-utor, who has no such political protection, is a refugee displaced by war withthe poor remnants of his flock. The opening of the poem, familiar to genera-tions of schoolboys given a Classical education, runs:

Meliboeus. Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagisilvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena:nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva;nos patriae fugimus . . .

Tityrus. O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit . . .ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsumludere quae vellem calamo permisit agresti.

Meliboeus. . . . en, ipse capellasprotinus aeger ago; hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco.8

Meliboeus. Tityrus, while you lie under the shade of a spreadingbeech and play country songs on a slender pipe, I have toleave my home fields and the ploughlands dear to me. I am forexile . . .

Tityrus. Meliboeus, the man who gave me such an easy life is agod. He enables my cattle to browse at large, as you see, andmyself to play what music I like on my rustic flute.

Meliboeus. See, unwell as I am, I have to drive my goats ever for-ward. I can scarcely drag this one along.

The eclogue offers a model of pastoral as political panegyric by means of itsjuxtaposition to pastoral as the mode of complaint, of protest – the modelfollowed by Blenerhasset in The Revelation of the True Minerva. There, Eliza-beth takes on the role Virgil allots to Augustus, their beneficence beingcontrasted to the misery of the destitute peasant. The Eclogues also,however, gave later pastoral writers authority to cut the panegyric andconcentrate on the hardships of war, and several made the most of the

218

Helen Cooper

8 Lines 1–4, 6, 9–10, 12–13; Rieu, in his parallel-text edition, heads this eclogue ‘The Dis-possessed’ (Virgil: the translation here is mine).

opportunity. To take two examples of conscious imitators of Virgil who tooksuch a line: the sixteenth-century French poet Jacques Bereau devoted threeof his ten eclogues to just such issues of war and peace, in particular theseventh, ‘Sur les calamitez de la guerre’, on the Franco-Spanish war of 1554,in which its Meliboeus figure describes how he has been viciously beaten upand left destitute by marauding men at arms;9 and in the eighteenth century,Thomas Warton rewrote five of Virgil’s Eclogues to lament the sufferings ofthe German peasantry during the War of Austrian Succession.10 In thesepoems, the dialectic takes the specific form of opposing what the goodpastoral life should be like against its destruction in war.

In medieval French pastoral writing, the good life was represented asbeing inherent in the shepherd world itself, as is implicit in Jean Bodel’sopening image of the shepherdess singing in a spring landscape. Thedialectic of pastoral comes from the writer’s choosing between variousopposing possibilities. Rural life could be idyllic, or its idyllicism could beshattered by war, by those French and Flemish armies. Shepherds could bethe sophisticate’s image of the naive or uneducated yokel, or a source ofdivine wisdom. The literary shepherd modelled on either the real-life or theBiblical herdsman could be either good or bad: he could devote himself tothe care of his flock through every vicissitude of harsh weather and diseases,or he could be uncaring, irresponsible, at worst vicious, as the sheep arefleeced, flayed and slaughtered. The sexual availability of the shepherdess ofthe pastourelles overlaps with ideas of Golden Age free love, but the motifcan be treated as male fantasy, as female tragedy, or as a measure of deepmoral disorder. The shepherd world is often given a thick description bymeans of lists – of musical instruments (flutes and corn-pipes and bagpipesand shawms and cornemuses); of the shepherd’s equipment (crook andpouch and tarbox and awl and dog); of rustic food (brown bread, mush-rooms, nuts, and a whole range of milk products from butter and curds tojunkets and cheesecakes) – but all of these can be used for purposes either ofcelebration or of complaint, since the loss of such things can evoke thesuffering of the rural victims of all those groups of freebooting pillagers whomade life so persistently wretched for the victims of any age of war, and notleast the peasants of the Hundred Years War. The pastoral ideal at its mostidyllic is the closest to perfection imaginable: poets will present a Golden-Age-like fantasy where it is always April or May, where there is endlessleisure for singing, dancing and rural games. The minimum requirement forcontentment is rather simpler, consisting merely of sufficiency of food andclothing, peace, and security. And in war, all those are absent.

Two things follow from imagery of this kind. First, it gives a strongweighting towards using the condition of countryside at large as a measure of

219

Speaking for the Victim

9 Jacques Bereau, ed. Gaultier, pp. 62–7.10 Warton, Five Pastoral Eclogues, in The Works of the English Poets, ed. Chalmers, vol. 18, pp.

136–41.

the political condition of the state. It does not look to the group interests ofthe rich or the noble: it offers an inclusive vision, in which the poor and thedisempowered punch above their weight. A number of bergerie texts usepastoral precisely because it allows that kind of appeal to be made on behalfof the powerless. Second, the fantasy element is frequently set in balancewith a strong appeal to religious ordering. What from one angle is wishfulfantasy is from another angle normative: how things ought to be, how Godwould have them be. Eden, the Biblical parallel to the mythological GoldenAge, may have been lost at the Fall,11 but the annunciation made to theBethlehem shepherds promised an age in which there would be peace onearth for men of good will. The annunciation to the shepherds was widelytaken as an injunction against war: Gower, for instance, offers as a para-phrase of the angels’ message to the shepherds of ‘pes to the men ofwelwillinge’ that ‘ther schal no dedly werre be’.12 One favourite way torepresent France in royal entries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries wasto show it as a park or garden inhabited by shepherds and shepherdessesenjoying the pastimes of peace, and such pageants often incorporated theangels too.13 God had promised that the shepherd-subject should enjoypeace, and it was a measure of the king’s fulfilment of his role as pastor of hispeople that he should bring that about. Civic pageants of the annunciationto realistic-looking shepherds are therefore making a political rather than arural or a religious statement; but their method and effect are very differentfrom the advice to the king such as would emanate from his council. Theyoffer an image of a desirable end, but contain very little on any practicalmeans of achieving it.

All this presents problems for any modern historian who might want tomake use of these bergerie pageants and texts. There is little narrative varietyin a society that consists of shepherds and sheep, and not very much moreeven when shepherdesses are added in. To modern commentators, therefore,tableaux and pageants and royal entries from different decades or cities canappear just to replicate each other; but to their original spectators, thefamiliar material was always defined and qualified by its known topicalcontext. Such matters as their target audience and the immediate politicalor local circumstances that impelled the choice of pastoral imagery wereevident at the time: they did not need to be spelled out, and so were notrecorded. We have the advantage of knowing about the pageants throughrecords in contemporary accounts or civic minute-books, where they are at

220

Helen Cooper

11 The parallel was made most familiar by means of another pastoral work, the tenth-centuryEclogue of Theodulus: see Theoduli Eclogam, ed. Osternacher. It remained a favouriteschool text until well into the Renaissance.

12 Confessio amantis, III.2256–62, in The English Works of John Gower, ed. Macaulay.13 See Kipling, Enter the King, pp. 99–102, on the appearance of shepherds rejoicing at good

news, and fig. 2 for the Virgin Mary portrayed with shepherds in Pierre Gringore’s pageantfor Mary Tudor’s entry into Paris in 1514.

least embedded in a specific time and place, but the problems become muchworse in the case of full-scale allegorical political drama, which tends tosurvive in the form of texts without any such contextualizing information.The verbal detail of a play text is likely to carry more information than abare descriptive record, but that information may be no more occasion-specific than the parks or angels of the tableaux. The drama is typicallyconcerned to promote a state of affairs closer to the ideal; and ideals do notvary very much over time. An author, furthermore, may make a choice forpastoral imagery, the metaphor of the shepherd world, precisely because hewants to promote a timeless vision above messy contemporary detail.

The problem of using such material for historiographical purposes iscompounded by the principles governing why particular texts survive. Theliterature of political comment should be the most historically specific kindof imaginative writing; but the more specific it is, the more likely it is to diewith the event that gave rise to it. It needs to have some continuing rele-vance beyond its immediate context if it is to be worth preserving, and sothe more generalized the complaints or the wishes for peace, the greater itschances of survival. One apparently fifteenth-century pastoral morality play,for instance, entitled Mieulx que devant, discussed further below, survivesonly in a mid sixteenth-century print;14 and it may be the very generaliza-tion of its wishes for peace, and the absence of unequivocal identifying allu-sions in its text, that made it worth publishing at all.

Further problems of dating arise from the extended relevance of the topicthat frequently calls forth writing of this kind: the suffering of the peasantry.Unless there is some very clear hint in the text, it is very difficult to distin-guish between the misery caused by one set of marauding soldiers andanother. In the fifteenth century, the expulsion of the English from Francedid not put an end to war or hardship, though the intensity of the miseryengendered by the Hundred Years War left that period etched in people’sminds as representing the archetype of suffering, rather as warnings of‘Boney’ were used to scare children long after the threat from Napoleon wasgone. References to the English occupation or the activities of the free-booters do not therefore necessarily allude to a present military situation.They may be more of a symbolic after-image of miseries already long gone,used to express a sense of the continuing injustices of the present; and sotheir time-frame is much more difficult to sort out than for chronicles orhistorical narratives that locate their action securely in the past. The actionof a play or a pageant is always in the present tense, and can represent withequal ease the memory of what happened in the past, fear of what ishappening in the present time of the performance, or hope for what mighthappen in the future; but memory, fear and hope are rarely separated outalong a clear chronological time-line.

221

Speaking for the Victim

14 It was printed in Lyons by Barnabé Chaussard; facsmile reproduction in Le Recueil du BritishMuseum, no. 57.

There is just a handful of bergerie texts that identify their historical momentexplicitly, but many do so almost incidentally. It is only Jean Bodel’s mentionof the river Lys that gives a date and context to his pastourelle (1199, when thecrossing of the river represented a crucial moment in the Franco-Flemishcampaign his shepherdess deplores); without that, it would be impossible toidentify its topicality. Very occasionally, an author will provide a more com-prehensive key to decode the allegorical actions within his work. The mostelaborate of these is given in the Pastoralet, a poem of epic scope and lengthon the early fifteenth-century civil wars of the Burgundians and Armagnacs.The author names himself in an acrostic at the end as ‘Bucarius’: his actualidentity is unknown. The work is divided into chapters, each with its ownnon-allegorical summary of the historical events described, and further assis-tance is given by an ‘exposition’ at the end in which all the proper names aregiven their historical equivalents.15 It was written as a eulogy of Jean sansPeur, though since it refers to the death of Henry V it cannot have been com-pleted before 1422. It was therefore written from closer to the centre of power,and more on behalf of the centre of power, than most such works. ThePastoralet’s panegyric function probably ensured its preservation, in theBurgundian ducal library. It still stresses the misery of the inhabitants of theFrench countryside as an indictment of the proud and madding princes whoplague them; but that emphasis is possible because it is the Armagnacs whoare blamed for that misery.

The Pastoralet announces its method at the start: ‘Chi commenche lePastoralet, ou quel Bucarius faintement par pastourrie descrist la devision desFranchois et la désolation du roialme de France’ – ‘Here begins thePastoralet, in which Bucarius under the cover of shepherds describes the divi-sion of the French and the desolation of the realm of France.’ The statementindicates both the method of the work (‘par pastourrie’) and the reason thatsuch pastoral allegory is appropriate: ‘devision’ is the opposite of that socialharmony which ideal shepherd society embodies, and the desolation of therealm is the concrete expression of the destruction of that ideal as repre-sented in the landscape as well as in the people. The materials from whichits poetic text is woven are those of the familiar contrasts betweengolden-age idyllicism and military destruction.

The work opens with the country portrayed as a locus amoenus, an ideallandscape filled with shepherds and shepherdesses singing and dancing, butwith a warning sounded that this Eden will not last:

C’estoit un droit paradis,Se cest déduit durast toudis. (355–6)

It would have been a true paradise if this delight had lasted for ever.

222

Helen Cooper

15 The edition used here is that by Kervyn de Lettenhove in Chroniques relatives à l’histoire deBelgique, which is still more easily accessible than that by Blanchard, Le Pastoralet. For asubstantial account of the work, see Blanchard’s Pastorale, pp. 149–235.

In a postlapsarian world, however, pleasure alone is not enough: shepherdsshould think of their flocks before their amusements. These particularshepherds turn out to be ‘roiaux et gentils’ (112); the commons, when theyeventually figure, lead a kind of wer-sheep existence, sometimes cast assuffering herdsmen whose food and musical instruments are stolen by thearistocratic shepherds, sometimes as the mistreated flocks to whom thewolves are no more dangerous than the evil shepherds (the Armagnacs, thatis) who shear them up to twelve times a year. Love itself becomes a danger.The principal shepherdess is named Belligère, and she is not so much thebearer of beauty (belle) as of war (bellum); and her name also echoes thequeen’s, Ysabeau or Isabel. She is seduced by Tristifer (the sorrow-bearer, asLucifer was once the light-bearer), standing for Louis, duke of Orleans. Thepastourelle or Golden Age model of the accessible shepherdess is now a polit-ical and ethical horror.

The events of the war are still more horrible. They reach their climax inthe sacking of Compiègne, represented in accordance with the pastoralmetaphor as a parc (chapter XII), like the peaceful shepherd worlds repre-sented in the civic entries; but now, instead of the ‘droit paradis’ that Francemight have been, it has become something more reminiscent of Hell, in theshrieks and howls of the shepherds as they try to escape slaughter and theshepherdesses as they are raped. In between such episodes of gruesomeviolence, there are increasingly temporary scenes of idyllic life, of revelryand songs in praise of the peace and contentment of the shepherd world.They are not, however, ironic: it is suggested rather that they are normative,how things ought to be, and that sense is given authority by an appeal bothto figures from Virgil’s Eclogues, and to the Good Shepherd, Christ.

Bucarius’s choice of method may now seem bizarre, and there are timeswhen his tropes of representation stretch credibility: the new-forged crooksglinting before a battle, for instance (6426–8). But the method is not arbi-trary, and pastoral allegory, with its all-pervasive implicit appeal for some-thing better than civil strife, turns his work from being a partisan narrativechronicle to a committed plea, not for the Burgundian cause alone, but forgovernment dedicated to the good of the people. Its protagonists are thearistocrats who hold political power and are responsible for the war; and ofthose, the ones cast as villains act for self-interest or self-gratification orpower without regard to the consequences for the country at large and itsinhabitants. The pastoral metaphor insistently writes those consequencesback in. The shepherds and shepherdesses who represent the commons havea role in the text somewhat comparable to the chorus in an opera (or indeedin Greek tragedy, a form equally unknown in the early fifteenth century):they are not distinguished as individuals, but express their own hopes andfears in interludes of revels and singing or in episodes that deny all suchpossibilities, such as the anti-musical howling at Compiègne. They havetheir own agendas that are profoundly at odds with the political and militaryactions of the named characters, agendas which are specifically opposed to

223

Speaking for the Victim

any kind of intervention in their own world. The work thus inverts the usualpoint of view of political narrative, to make the victims, not the powerful,those whose interests are most forcefully represented.

The other two texts with which this essay will be concerned are bothplays, and both lack the decoding key provided for the Pastoralet. Eachsurvives in a unique copy that offers no information about the origins of thetext it contains; but both, in terms of language, imagery and subject, seemlikely to belong to the later Hundred Years War. Few scholars have lookedat them, and there is no consensus as to just what they represent, or whenthey were written. A close reading to make their conventions yield up alocality, a moment, and an audience, may come tantalizingly close to resolu-tion, but it can never quite get beyond hypothesis. Both, however, aredeeply revealing about the way people thought and feared and hoped.

The first is a play headed in its sole manuscript Moralité à cincq personnages,though it has more frequently been entitled, from its two primary characters,the Moralité du Petit et du Grand.16 It is much the longest and most elaborateof the surviving pastoral moralities, running to almost 1700 lines. Its keyproperty is a fountain, and the easiest way to supply that would have been touse an existing one in a city street, as was regularly done for pageants forroyal entries. The play, like them, spells out a series of allegorical meaningsfor its various parts: the basin, the spouts, the water. The Moralité, however,is too long and difficult for ordinary street presentation. It contains, forinstance, a summary of Boethius’s explanation of how the influence of Prov-idence weakens with its distance from its centre, God: an explanation thatwould threaten to lose a less than attentive outdoor audience. Yet who itwas written for is crucial to answering the question of what it is about.

The speech and action of the play vary between a generalized andconventional condemnation of the present in comparison with a lost ideal ofshepherd life, and what seems to be very specific detail. It opens with LePetit and Le Grant, shepherds who represent the commons and the nobility,lamenting the loss of good times past, in terms derived from learned Latintraditions, Virgil and Ovid. Each of them accuses the other of responsibilityfor their present misery. Dame Justice enters and castigates them at lengthfor their moral failures; they reply by blaming the eglantine, representingEngland, that has rooted itself in their country and that is blocking the

224

Helen Cooper

16 Its late fifteenth-century manuscript, Paris, B.N.F. ms fr. 25467, presents numerous difficul-ties, not least on account of the scribe’s eccentricities of orthography, which at the extremeproduce a number of non-existent words. These led to editors avoiding it for many years; itwas finally edited by Blanchard, La Moralité à cincq personnages du manuscrit B.N. fr. 25467,who suggests that the copyist did not understand what he was writing. My discussion isbased on my own transcription of the manuscript, though the differences in reading do notaffect the points made here. Other scholars who make mention of the play follow thepractice of naming it after its characters, established in de Julleville’s Répertoire du Théatrecomique en France au moyen-age, no. 58.

fountain of Justice. An old shepherd named Conseill then appears, toexpound the origins of the eglantine and to encourage Le Petit and Le Grantto attack and uproot it, something which, after more quarrels, they proceedto do: a rare piece of real action in a political morality, but still a ratherextraordinary way of eliding what war actually involves. The fountain ofJustice flows again, and the shepherds ask for a guardian to preserve it in thefuture. Dame Justice runs through a long list of possibilities, ending withParis. In the first instance, this is the Trojan Paris, who had himself spenttime as a shepherd, but whose experience of judging (in the episode of thethree goddesses) might be considered less than encouraging. Le Petit and LeGrant, however, jump at the prospect, and Justice substitutes ‘ung Paris deplus grant renom’ – the city – for the original bearer of the name. Paris isaccordingly summoned, and agrees to guard the fountain with the assistanceof Conseill. Justice explains the allegorical meanings of the various pipes ofthe fountain before leaving its care to the others. The final speech withinthe action comes from Conseill, who predicts a future not unlike the goldenpast for which the shepherds were longing at the start of the play; and Parisspeaks an epilogue to the ‘messeigneurs’ who constitute the audience, apolo-gizing in case the play is not as clever as their capacité might have wished,and confirming that the eglantine has been uprooted, that Justice will flowfreely under the guardianship of Paris, and that the country will unite as oneflock under one shepherd (John 10.16).

One set of circumstances presents itself as particularly appropriate as acontext for the play. Its main action, concerning the extirpation of theEnglish eglantine and the restoration of the source of Justice to Paris, couldbe a recollection of what has happened or a hope for what might happen,but it must indicate some immediate and urgent interest in both topics.There is only one date that fits with such an interest, and that is 1437: theyear after the English had been expelled from Paris, and the year in whichthe Parlement, the institution centrally concerned with the administrationof justice, returned to the city.17

Since 1418, the royal Parlement had operated from Poitiers, in parallelwith an Anglo-Burgundian Parlement that continued to function from Paris.Charles VII had played with the idea of closing down the Paris Parlementaltogether, but that proved impracticable. He therefore decided instead toamalgamate the two, while keeping a majority of members who hadremained loyal to the French crown. Some Burgundian nominees, but no

225

Speaking for the Victim

17 There are complicating factors in some of the detail of the work; most previous commenta-tors, including Blanchard in his edition, have favoured 1480 or later. Lewicka concurs witha date of 1437: see her edition of La Bergerie de l’agneau de France à cinq personnages, pp.9–10. I discuss the dating more extensively, including my reasons for disagreeing with thelater dates proposed, in ‘The Hundred Years War and the Golden Age’, cited in the first ofthese notes.

English ones, were allowed to remain. On 1 December 1437 the new jointParlement was installed and its opening session held.18

Could the play have been performed to advise such a move, or indeed tocelebrate it? It goes out of its way to avoid attaching excessive blame to thosewho had supported the planting of the eglantine in France: it had initiallyappeared sweet and profitable, and its vicious thorns only became apparentwhen it was too late (542–64). The Moralité is a play of reconciliation, so longas everyone is now prepared to unite in getting rid of the eglantine, and it iscareful to avoid recriminations – a position in keeping with a slightBurgundian tinge to the language of the piece. Those who opposed theEnglish are praised, those who did not have seen the error of their ways. Thelong passage in which various guardians of the fountain of Justice are pro-posed and rejected leaves Paris as the only option within the action of theplay, and implies that there is no plausible alternative in the real world. Theconstant Classical references within the play – not just the flurry of Ovid andVirgil and Theodulus at the start, but some heavy doses of Boethius,pseudo-Seneca, Cicero, and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics later – wereinserted presumably not just to show off the author’s education, but to appealto a legal and clerical audience who would appreciate a tribute to their ownlearning. It would fit very well the opening session of the Parlement, whichwas attended by a whole flock of archbishops and bishops as well as lawyers.

There is, however, no mention of Charles VII himself in the play, nor anyfigure or image who represents him. The omission strongly suggests that itwas not intended for performance anywhere where he was likely to appear.His pathological avoidance of Paris would again support a 1437 date, sincehe did not re-enter the city until some time later. It would also fit with sucha scenario that Le Petit stands for the common people only at some distance.He is cast as a shepherd, and the shepherd’s clothing was immediatelydistinctive;19 but although real herdsmen and peasants are not excludedfrom what he represents, and their sufferings get some emphasis, he alsostands for the commons in the Estates General sense, those of the middlerank rather than at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Indeed, if an alterna-tive occasion is sought for the play, if its action is retrospective rather thanfuture or present, then a meeting of the Estates General would be a crediblealternative. The play urges peace between the commons and the nobility aswell as between supporters of the French and English crowns, in a way thatwould be appropriate for such an occasion.20 There is a strong implication

226

Helen Cooper

18 See Bossuet, ‘Le Parlement de Paris pendant l’occupation anglaise’; Neuville, ‘Le Parlementroyal à Poitiers (1418–1436)’; and de Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, III.427–9.

19 See Salter, ‘The Annunciation to the Shepherds in later medieval art and drama’ and theaccompanying plates; and Cooper, Pastoral, pp. 51–5 and plates.

20 Such a meeting was scheduled to take place in Paris in September 1439, though it was infact transferred to Orleans. The date would still be close enough to the events of 1437 for aperformance to retain its topicality.

that Le Petit and Le Grant are not just innocent victims; they are partlyresponsible for the mess that the country is in, and they need to take actionto get out of it.21

The next text I wish to discuss by contrast concerns itself centrally with thevery lowest levels of society, and with victims who are both undeserving andhelpless. The Bergerie nouvelle fort joyeuse et morale de Mieulx que devant, ‘amost pleasant new pastoral morality of “Better than before” ’, is a short playwith a very simple action.22 It opens with two shepherds named Plat Pays(that is, open country, easy to invade; it could, but need not, carry an allu-sion to the flat plains of the Low Countries) and Peuple Pensif (its grievinginhabitants). They exist somewhere between being the personificationsimplied by their names, and the type characters implied by their speechesand their utter destitution, the latter defining them as representing thesuffering commons. The play starts with the two of them lamenting theirstate in familiar terms: the shepherds’ songs have ceased; April and May, theconventional idyllic months, no longer exist. A full three-quarters of theplay, furthermore, is devoted to a relentless exposition of the successivedepredations they have suffered. The countryside is overrun by men at armswho steal or kill their sheep and cattle and poultry, fire the hedges, and takeall their possessions, their cooking pots and their clothes. The first garmentsmentioned as having been stolen are their finer clothes, their Sunday outfits,but it then transpires that even their rags have been taken. If the text of theplay is to be trusted, far from being recognizable as shepherds by their outfits,these men are naked.

What little action the play has consists solely of the entry of a ‘nobleshepherdess’ named Bonne Esperance, who comes in singing. She is followedby Mieulx-que-devant himself, who announces the imminent arrival of goodtimes in the form of yet another personification, Roger Bon-Temps. Roger isa type character familiar from other texts, but he never figures in personwithin this play. Things, in fact, get ‘better than before’, but ‘good times’never actually arrive within the dramatic action.

How is it possible to make historical sense of a text of this kind? It wouldfit almost any period of rural crisis or depression, and that may indeed bewhy it survived to be printed, as a kind of all-purpose lament for hardshipand vague hope for amelioration. Even here, however, there is one strain of

227

Speaking for the Victim

21 A better-known instance of a comparable argument in non-dramatic form occurs in AlainChartier’s Quadrilogue Invectif, of 1422, in which a personified France chastises all threeestates, Le Peuple, Le Chevalier and Le Clergé, for not aiding her; Le Peuple, who is intro-duced lying on the ground ‘plaintif et langoureux’ (but who is not here specified as ashepherd), describes bitterly how the others have overturned the order of justice to live offthe poor without giving any protection of land or livelihood in return (Alain Chartier, ed.Droz, pp. 10–11, 20–2).

22 See note 12 above for its preservation; the only edition with any annotation is by Fournier,Le Théâtre français avant la Renaissance, pp. 54–60.

allusion that seems to be audible, this time to the France of the écorcheurs,the bands who were ravaging the countryside in the 1430s to 50s, and whowere perhaps the nastiest of all the roving men-at-arms of the HundredYears War. They were famously described by Thomas Basin in his Histoire deCharles VII as having instituted a period of constant terror.23 Work in thefields, he tells us, was confined to an area within earshot of a trumpeterstationed on a lookout point such as a church tower, who could sound awarning if any armed men were spotted so that the peasants could attemptto seek refuge, and protect at least themselves if not their goods. This is thescenario described by Peuple Pensif as a key element of his constantinsecurity:

Quant je os la trompetteSonner la retraicte,

Je suis en soucy.

When I hear the trumpet summon us back, I am afraid.

The trumpet is altogether an alien instrument in the shepherd world offlutes and bagpipes. It belongs to the martial world, a world where security isimpossible, and its very mention in a bergerie setting is a symbolic indicationof how wrong things have gone. The écorcheurs, the ‘flayers’, got their namefrom their habit of stripping their victims of everything they possessed, andthese naked shepherds bear eloquent witness to such a process. The text alsocontains what may be allusions to Charles VII’s attempts, beginning in 1448but initially not very successful, to suppress the irregular armed bands and setup properly ordered companies in their place: a reference that would suggesta date shortly after the middle of the century.24

There are however other possibilities. The shepherds also speak of a‘maulvais vent’, an ill wind, blowing from England and keeping them in astate of dread. It sounds as if it should relate to a particular moment, but thereference could fit almost any date between 1415 and 1453, or 1475 (whenEdward IV invaded France), or the years after the accession of Henry VII(when English troops crossed the Channel in support of the Breton quarrelwith France), or indeed, since the Hundred Years War epitomized thesuffering of the peasantry symbolically as well as historically, almost anyother year of the century.25 There is a description of a performance of what

228

Helen Cooper

23 Ed. and trans. Samaran, Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen age, I.84–9. For moredetail, see Wright, Knights and Peasants, and, on the écorcheurs in particular, the classicaccount by Petit-Dutaillis, Charles VII, Louis XI, et les premières années de Charles VIII,Histoire de France ed. Lavisse IV.2, pp. 86–93.

24 The clue to this lies in the technical terms used by the text to refer to the men at arms(‘quassés’, or the contrasting ‘compaignies d’ordonnance’). Fournier accordingly dates theplay to the middle of the century.

25 For a counter-argument (based on the use of the word ‘picque’ to describe the pain of war,and on the possible allusion in the play’s mention of ‘folle noise’ to the ‘Guerre folle’) that

sounds very like this piece in 1493, played before Margaret of Austria,daughter of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, when she was released byLouis XII after spending some years effectively as a hostage. After the peaceaccord of the Treaty of Senlis she was handed back to the Burgundians andentertained at Valenciennes with a play put on by the townspeople, ‘and thesaid play was based on the desertion of the country which was beginning torecover, all in pastoral mode’:26 a description very close indeed to Mieulx quedevant. Such a context would give extra meaning to the plat pays, since somuch of the war concluded by the treaty had been fought over the LowCountries; it would give an additional spin to the bergerète franche whobrings Good Hope, who would be a figure for Margaret herself; and the latedate would reduce the long gap between performance and publication.

It sounds an attractive solution; but it would leave unexplained the play’sstrong sense of the desolation of the 1430s and 1440s, and the apparent allu-sions that link in with that – the warning trumpet, the shepherds’ naked-ness. If Mieulx que devant does indeed date from as late as 1493, we can nonethe less say with confidence that it is still using the anxieties and the imagesthat had been established in the later stages of the Hundred Years War. If itwas written several decades earlier, the play might have been imitated orrecycled in 1493, for its message would still be appropriate; but neitherimitation nor recycling is a necessary hypothesis to explain the overlap.Peace always offers the hope of prosperity, security, and the end of fear anddevastation, and an author’s choice of the pastoral mode is also a commit-ment to the contrast of near-mythical happiness and its appalling opposite.

Texts of this kind occupy the shadowy hinterland between history andliterature, and seem at first glance to offer little for analysis to scholars ofeither discipline. They are useless as documentary records on account oftheir imprecision. They are too heavily dependent on convention to attractmodernist literary critics, with their privileging of originality as the greatestof literary virtues; and they are too obscure in their relationship to thesources of power to provide much grist for New Historicists. They do nonethe less provide a glimpse, as more strictly historical records cannot, of whatit felt like to be living through, or in the aftermath of, the Hundred YearsWar. They tell us what people sensed had gone wrong, and what it was thatmattered to them, not as facts but as images. They represent their dreams oforder and security, so much easier to imagine in metaphor than in terms ofpractical politics. And not least, they show the long shadow cast by thetrauma of war over its victims.

229

Speaking for the Victim

the play dates from the mid- or late 1480s, see Lewicka’s introduction to La Bergerie del’agneau de France, p. 9. Blanchard concurs with the 1480s dating, suggesting further thatthe bergière who brings hope is a reference to Anne de Beaujeu (La Pastorale en France, pp.289–93). See also Cooper, ‘The Hundred Years War’.

26 Chroniques de Jean Molinet, ed. Doutrepont and Jodogne, II.373: ‘et estoit ledit jeu fondé surla desertion du pays qui revenoit à convalessense, et tout sur bergerie’.

Works Cited

I. Sources

Bartsch, Karl, ed., Romances et pastourelles françaises des XIIe et XIII siècles(1870, repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967).

Basin, Thomas, Histoire de Charles VII, ed. and trans. Charles Samaran,Classiques de l’histoire de France au moyen age (Paris: Société d’édition‘Les belles Lettres, 1933).

Bereau, Jacques, Les Églogues et aultres oeuvres poétiques, ed. Michel Gaultier,Textes littéraires français (Geneva: Droz, 1976).

La Bergerie de l’agneau de France, ed. Halina Lewicka, Textes littérairesfrançais (Geneva: Droz, 1961).

La Bergerie nouvelle fort joyeuse et morale de Mieulx que devant, in Le Théâtrefrançais avant la Renaissance, ed. Edouard Fournier, 2nd edn (Paris:Laplace, Sanchez, 1873).

Blanchard, Joël, Le Pastoralet (Paris: Champion, 1983).Blenerhasset, Thomas, The Revelation of the True Minerva, facsimile ed. Jose-

phine Waters Bennett (New York: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints,1941).

‘Bucarius’, Pastoralet, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove in Chroniques relatives àl’histoire de Belgique (Brussels, 1873).

Chartier, Alain, Le Quadrilogue Invectif, ed. E. Droz, Classiques français dumoyen age, 2nd edn (Paris: Champion, 1950).

Gower, John, The English Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay, EETSE.S. 81 (1900)

Jean de Brie, Le Bon Berger, ed. Paul Lacroix (Paris, 1879).Mieulx que devant, facsimile reproduction in Le Recueil du British Museum:

Fac-similé des soixante-quatre pièces de l’original, intro. Halina Lewicka(Geneva: Slatkine, 1970), no. 57.

Molinet, Jean, Chroniques de Jean Molinet, ed. Georges Doutrepont andOmer Jodogne (Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 1935).

La Moralité à cincq personnages du manuscrit B.N. fr. 25467, ed. JoëlBlanchard, Textes littéraires français (Geneva: Droz, 1988).

Theodulus, Theoduli Eclogam, ed. Joannes Osternacher (Uhrfahr-Linz,1902).

Warton, Thomas, Five Pastoral Eclogues, in The Works of the English Poets, ed.Alexander Chalmers, vol. 18 (London, 1810).

Virgil, The Pastoral Poems, trans. E. V. Rieu (Harmondsworth: Penguin,1954).

230

Helen Cooper

II. Studies

Blanchard, Joël, La Pastorale en France aux XIVe et XVe siècles (Paris: Cham-pion, 1983).

Bossuet, André, ‘Le Parlement de Paris pendant l’occupation anglaise’,Revue historique 229 (1963): 19–40.

Cooper, Helen, ‘The Hundred Years War and the Golden Age: FrenchPastoral Moralities’, in Order and Disorder: Rationalities and Mentalities inthe Medieval World, ed. Lesley Smith and Giles Gaspar (forthcoming).

Cooper, Helen, Pastoral: Mediaeval into Renaissance (Ipswich: D. S. Brewer,1977).

de Beaucourt, G. du Fresne, Histoire de Charles VII (Paris: Librairie de laSociété bibliographique, 1885).

de Julleville, L. Petit, Répertoire du Théatre comique en France au moyen-age(Paris: Cerf, 1886).

Kipling, Gordon, Enter the King: Theatre, Liturgy, and Ritual in the MedievalCivic Triumph (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

Neuville, Didier, ‘Le Parlement royal à Poitiers (1418–1436)’, Revuehistorique 6 (1878): 272–314.

Petit-Dutaillis, Charles, Charles VII, Louis XI, et les premières années deCharles VIII, Histoire de France (Paris: Hachette, 1902).

Salter, Elizabeth, English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art andPatronage of Medieval England, ed. Derek Pearsall and Nicolette Zeeman(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Wright, Nicholas, Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years War in the FrenchCountryside (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998).

231

Speaking for the Victim

Index

Achilles, 30Acre, siege of, 33, 36–37Æthelflæd of Mercia, 190Agincourt, battle of, 6, 8, 77, 80–81, 84, 87Alcuin, 16Alexander the Great, 9–10, 30, 98–99, 118,

122, 158, 178Amazons, 189, 203, 206Ambroise, 9, 29–48Andrew of Chauvigny, 9, 29, 36–37Anglo-Saxons, 5Antoine de Brabant, 81Aquinas, Thomas, 17Aristotle, 17, 226Arthur, king, 127–45, 201Ascham, Roger, 171Augustine, 7Bannockburn, battle of, 109, 115Barbazan, Arnaud Guilhem de, 85Barbour, John, 10, 107–25Basin, Thomas, 89, 228Bede, 16Beowulf, 195Bereau, Jacques, 219bergerie, 12, 216–29Berry Herald, see Le Bouvier, GillesBertrand du Guesclin, 26Blenerhasset, Thomas, 214–15, 218Bodel, Jean, 12, 213–15, 219, 222Boece, Hector, 111Boethius, 148, 224Bokenham, Osbern, 208Bonet, Honoré, see Bouvet, HonoréBono, Giamboni, 22–23Bourgeois de Paris, 77, 81–85Bouvet, Honoré, 82, 93–94, 101–2Bouvines, battle of, 20, 53, 55Bruce, Edward, 112–14Bruce, Robert, see Robert I (king of

Scotland)Bucarius, 222–24Burgundian chroniclers, 77–92Canes, siege of, 192Carolingian Empire, 3, 16–17Cato, 98Chanson de Guillaume, 35

Charlemagne, 3, 35, 117–18Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, 26Charles V (king of France), 26, 217Charles VI (king of France), 26Charles VII (king of France), 89, 225Bergerie nouvelle fort joyeuse et morale de

Mieulx que devant, see Mieulx que devantChartier, Alain, 82Chartier, Jean, 86Chastelain, Georges, 77–80Chaucer, Geoffrey, 6, 11, 147–67, 188,

Anelida and Arcite, 151, 166, Boece, 148,House of Fame, 147, 154, 156–62, Knight’sTale, 148, 153–54, 203–5, Romaunt of theRose, 148, Tale of Melibee, 130, 148, 153,Troilus and Criseyde, 148–51, 166, 205,Retraccions, 160

Chrétien de Troyes, 197, 198, 201Christine de Pizan, 10, 93–105, 190–91Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoriis, 190Chronique de la Pucelle, 87–89Chronique des Rois de France, 20Clement, Aubery, 9, 29, 33–37Cochon, Pierre, 81–85Compiègne, sack of, 223Complainte sur la bataille de Poitiers, 84Conrad IV (king of Germany), 68–69Conrad of Winterstetten, 50–51, 68–69Crécy, battle of (1346), 80Crusades, 4–5, 7, 29–48, 188, 193Curtius (Quintus Curtius Rufus), 58–68Dante, 157, 159, 165Darius, king of Persia, 65–66, 70David II (king of Scotland), 113Declaration of Arbroath, 121–22Denis the Carthusian, 25Douglas, James, 109–12, 114–15, 117,

120–22Ebba of Collingham, Abbess, 194écorcheurs, 8, 216, 228Edward I (king of England), 110Edward II (king of England), 109Edward III (king of England), 4, 78Edward IV (king of England), 6, 179–80, 228Edward, the Black Prince (prince of Wales

and Guyenne), 78

233

Elizabeth I (queen of England), 214–15Enguerrand de Monstrelet, 78–79, 81, 86Etienne de Vignolles, ‘La Hire’, 88Fierebras, 10, 117–18, 122Flodden, 8Franks, 4, 189–90Fredegund (queen of Franks), 189–90Frederick II (Emperor of Germany), 50, 69Froissart, Jean, 78–80, 82, 94–95, 104, 192Frontinus, Julius, 16, 93, 99Genesis A, 195Geoffrey of Monmouth, 10–11, 127–31,

133–34, 137, 140–41Germanic kingdoms, 4–5Gerson, Jean, 82Gest Historiale, 148–49Giles of Rome, 17Golden Legend, 208Gower, John, 156, 165, 220Gray, Sir Thomas, 120–21Gregory of Tours, 189Gruel, Guillaume, 87Hainant, Count of, 30Harfleur, 82Havel, Vaclav, 162–65Havelok the Dane, 196Hector, 30, 178Heldris de Cornuälle, 206–7Henry I (king of England), 4Henry IV (king of England), 162Henry V (king of England), 8, 79–80Henry VI (king of England), 6Henry VII (king of England), 228Margaret (queen of Austria), 229Henry VII (king of Germany), 68–69Historia de preliis, 70Hobbe, see Hood, RobinHomer, Iliad, 158, 169Hood, Robin, 119Hundred Years War, 5, 6, 10, 12, 77–92, 113,

179, 213–29Ipomadon, 201Isidore, 16Islamic Empire, 3–4Italian states, 4Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis

Ricardi, 30, 33, 35James of Avesnes, 9, 29–33, 36–37Jean de Brie, 217Jean de Brienne, count of Eu, 21Jean de Brienne, king of Jerusalem, 21Jean de Bueil, 88–90Jean de Meun, 21–23Jean de Montreuil, 82

Jean de Venette, 82Jean de Vignai, 22–23Jean de Wavrin, 78, 80–81, 86Jean le Bel, 78–9, 86Jean le Fèvre de Saint-Rémy, 78, 81, 86Priorat, Jean de Besançon, 22–23Joan of Arc, 6, 77, 85, 191Jofrit, duke of Brabant, 51–57John (king of England), 5, 80John Balliol (king of Scotland), 110–11John II, ‘the Good’ (king of France), 26John of Salisbury, 9, 17Judith, 11, 207–8Julius Caesar, 10, 161La Hire, see Etienne de VignollesLangtoft, 107La�amon, 10–11, 127, 132–33, 136–37,

141–42, 144Le Bouvier, Gilles, the ‘Berry Herald’, 77, 87,

90Liber Historiae Francorum, 189Louis VI (king of France), 4Lusignan, heroes of, 31Malory, Sir Thomas, 1, 10–11, 139–40,

144–45, 169–86, 197–99Mannyng, Robert, 127, 134–35, 137, 142Matthew Paris, 193–95Merovingian Empire, 3Methven, battle of, 113, 116Mieulx que devant, 221, 227–29Mort le Roi Artu, 179Morte Arthur, stanzaic, 179, 181Morte Arthure, alliterative, 10–11, 127–29,

136–40, 142–45, 178, 181Morte Darthur, see Malory, Sir ThomasNimrod (king of Babylonia), 71Normans, 4–5Orléans, battle of, 6Ottonian Empire, 3Ovid, 217, 224Paris, 225–26Paston Letters, 191–92Paston, Margaret, 191–92Pastoralet, 222–24pastourelles, 11–12, 213–31Paul, Saint, 25Peasants’ Revolt, 5Peterborough Chronicle, 133Philip II, ‘Augustus’ (king of France), 5, 20,

40–42, 53Philip of Alsace, 30Philip the Good (Duke of Burgundy), 78–80,

86Philippe de Commynes, 10, 89–90

234

Index

Pintoin, Michel, 81–86Poitiers, battle of, 80, 84Prose Merlin, 135–36Rabanus Maurus, 16Randolph, Thomas, 112–16Richard I, ‘Coeur de Lion’ (king of England),

9, 29, 31, 33, 35–48Richard II (king of England), 152, 155, 162,

165Richilde of Hainault, 190Robert Guiscard, 190Robert I, ‘the Bruce’ (king of Scotland),

107–25Robert II (king of Scotland), 109–13, 122Roger of Wendover, 193–95Roland, 35, 38Roman Empire, 2–3, 5, 15Rose-Troup, J. M., 187–88Rouen, 82–83routiers, 216Rudolph von Ems, 9, 49–75Rudolph von Ems, Alexander, 50, 58, 64–71,

Willehalm von Orlens, 49–58, 64, 67–70Saladin, 37–38, 42–46Saphadin, 43–46Sassoon, Siegfried, 1, 2Saxo Grammaticus, 189, 207Saxons, 4–5Sedulus Scotus, 16Seege off Melayne, 199

Siege of Jerusalem, 199–200Sir Beues of Hamtoun, 201Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 196Sir Orfeo, 203Sir Percyvell of Gales, 197, 202Sir Ysenbras, 155South English Legendary, 11, 208Spenser, Edmund, 206Staufen, royal court of, 49–75Thomas of Walsingham, 151Towton, battle of, 6, 11Tyre, siege of, 64, 66Usk, Thomas, 153Valerius Maximus, 93Vegetius, Flavius Renatus, 9, 10, 15–28, 93Vikings, 5, 193–94Vincent of Beauvais, 17Virgil, 148, 155, 165, 218–19, 223–24Moralité à cincq personages, 224–27Moralité du Petit et du Grand, 224–27Visigoths, 3Viterbo, siege of, 64–65Wace, 10–11, 127–28, 131–33, 136–37,

140–42Walter of Châtillon, 67, 155, 158–59, 165Wars of the Roses, 1, 5–6, 179–80Webiton, Sir John, 115World War I, 1–2, 187–88Wulfstan, 193Ywain and Gawain, 196, 201–2

235

Index