The Courts of Gawain and the Green Knight.

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The courts of Gawain and the Green Knight: A Study of their Representations .

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Contents. Page.

Introduction 1.

Lexicography 1-3.

Audience Study 3-4.

Historical 4-11.

Pause for thought 11-12.

Feasting and Entertainment 12-22.

Pause for thought 22.

Chivalry and Knighthood 22-25.

Pause for thought 25.

Sexuality 25-

31.

Pause for thought 32.

Christianity and the Church` 32-37.

Pause for thought 37-38.

Bibliography 38-42.

Þenne watz spyed and spured vpon spare wyseBi preué poyntez of þat prynce, put to hymseluen,Þat he beknew cortaysly of þe court þat he wereÞat aþel Arthure þe hende haldez hym one,Þat is þe ryche ryal kyng of þe Rounde Table,And hit watz Wawen hymself þat in þat won syttez (901-906).

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK) begins in Arthur’s courtat Christmas. Just over a year later it ends in the same court. Gawain is received back from his quest as ahero. He has survived the challenge of the Green Knight. He returns with a small scar on his neck, a green girdle and a penitent mien. Yet inwardly he remains an altered man. Who knows what would have befallen him if he had ridden straight to the Green Chapel? Presumably all would have been well in just another chivalric romance. The Gawain-poet chose insteadto waylay him at Hautdesert, a court like and yet unlike Gawain’s own. By so doing, SGGK was transformed into the complex genre-bending poem which has fascinated generations of readers.

I shall examine how the poet represents this court of Hautdesert in relation to Gawain’s own Camelot; how thejuxtaposition these two internal courts within a late fourteenth century literary court entertainment

provides us with a comprehensive representation of the poet’s own courtly surroundings. Like Hautdesert’s courtiers, I too will “spure vpon spare wyse.”

While dictionary definitions in no way constitute the nature of the representationswe seek, they aptly illustrate the complexity of the task ahead. The poet choseto tell a tale which concerns itself with an

aristocratic power base. A plethora of associations is revealed thereby. What meanings were attributed to the word “court” in the late fourteenth century? In its earliest important sense it meant a gathering of the King’s or lord’s advisers, more accurately the curia regis. It could also indicate an enclosed space, an interesting overtone of the claustrophobic atmosphere of Hautdesert. However,as early as the thirteenth century the word had associations with spacious manorial buildings while retaining its more modest meaning of a courtyard or farmyard. The connotation of space was retained and applied to the place where a King or other lord entertained his household. By the fourteenth century it could equally apply to the members of this famila regis, the courtiers as a body. Therefore it denoted powers of both direct and less direct kinds such as those over polite society’s mores. Courtly manners became important both to ingratiate themale courtier to his king and (with the increasing

number of women at court) to his lady. The act of courting began as residing in court, but came to mean paying courteous attention to, even to entice, as in “courting disaster.” Flattery became the bedfellow of one paying court. Courtesy was what a courtier showed to his peers and less often to his inferiors. This wordtravelled from being an aspirational and honourable courtly way of living in the fourteenth century, often to a mere superficial compliment or gesture like the curtsy. Courtship moved from acting in a courtly mannerto seeking a sexual partner, usually with a view to marriage (OED. Court, courtly, courting and courtesy ).

Above all the court represented the elite in society, those that had or aspired to influence and power. Before leaving the lexical, I include glosses from Tolkien and Gordon’s edition of the poem itself. Here “Co(u)rt” denotes both the institution of the court andits members in its numerous occurrences. The adjective“courtays(e)” is glossed as chivalrous or courteous. It is of interest that Gawain, when courteously commending himself to Bertilak’s wife, elides the noun and uses “cortays” for gracious lady (2411). This comesdirectly before he loses his temper and launches into atirade against women. Perhaps the act of calling the “cortays” to mind upset him. “Courtaysy(e)” is glossed as “courtesy, the manners and virtues of chivalry.” In view of the associations of the Edwardian and Ricardiancourts with France, I also cite the following MF usages, estre bien (mal) de court = to be in or out of favour;

Il y a cour pleniere = there is an abundance of; cour ouverte = a banquet to which all are invited; basse court = the privateparts of a woman; passage courtois = easy passage (Greimas).These reveal an interesting mix of power and desire surrounding such courtly words.

SGGK is a romance so we are unlikely to find overt references to historical events within it. Traditional historical inquiry and literary historicism will provide us with some of these. Before examining these,however, I devote a few words to the natureof its audience from studying the text

itself. The narrator provides us with clues,

I schal telle hit as-tit, as I in toun herde,with tonge,As hit is stad and stokenIn stori stif and stronge,With lel letteres loken,In londe so hatz ben longe (31-36).

His audience is thus well-acquainted with the oral tradition of romances and the authority of “with tonge”still provides some putative veracity. Yet it is literate. The story is “stoken”, set down truly (“lel”)in well-locked alliterative verse. Further this form is regarded, at least by the narrator, as traditional.

We are dealing with a group of courtiers who are literate and able to read traditional vernacular verse.R.W.Hanning has provided a stimulating paper on the relationship between audience and twelfth century chivalric romances. He compares them to the relatively unsophisticated gestes and sees in them a shift of values; a distancing from the justification of violence, the priority of the group over the individualand of shame rather than guilt as a deterrent. He stresses the female influence in the newer romances andconcedes a much wider audience for them than just the juvenes which Georges Duby had postulated (2). He quotes Bloch that “We must see courtly literature as a forum for adaption to the political realities of the postfeudal world” (7). Hanning’s audience includes at least, women, clerics and juvenes. He notes an increasingly complex relationship between author, narrator and audience. SGGK two centuries later fits this model. The fictional audience implied by the narrator is listening to or reading an entertaining romance. But the poet addresses a much more sophisticated one which could sit in judgment on Gawain’s minor slip from grace, or follow the close arguments of the temptation scenes. As Hanning puts it,

The audience of chivalric romance, then must constantly adjust its focus on the fast-moving events before it, shift quickly from a posture of

involvement to one of detachment and even criticism, thread its way through obstacles put in

its path by unreliable or secretive narrators… furthermore, since each romance offers a different

mixture of irony, symbolism, parody, and exemplary action, it must, in its telling, create its own special audience…The audience-pressure on a chivalric poet is therefore the pressure to be created, that is, to be involved fully in the decipherment and valuation of the text it is about to share with him (16).

The Lady’s decision to become a sexually active participant in the testing of Gawain’s “trawthe” represents an abrupt change of mood from Gawain’s single-minded search for the Green Chapel. Is this to interest an increasingly sophisticated female audience tiring of knights endlessly hacking at each other? Again, the pentangle is a symbol of perfection and the girdle seems more like a parody of this symbol. Hanningquestions the wisdom of assuming that such opposing tendencies could only be enjoyed by entirely different strata of the audience; and he is dealing with a genre and audience two centuries earlier. Given the further social changes between, it is likely that SGGK’s court audience, which had already been shaped by literary texts, shared actively in the process of its creation. We can assume that many of the manners and tastes foundin the courts of Camelot and Hautdesert are representations the poet’s own court.

From the court as the Gawain-poet’s audience I now turn to traditional historical research for a representation of court life contemporary with the poem. Michael Bennett is a recognized authority on this. He also has an interest in SGGK as a result of his

studies of the north-west midlands. He attempts to locate the poem in time and place. While allowing that it could have been written at any time in the second half of the fourteenth century, his detailed studies ofthe court of Richard II and particularly royal movements in the 1390’s make this period particularly attractive. In the latter part of his reign the king spent much time in the west midlands, feeling safer here than in the south-east (Brewer 97). The royal lords of Chester and Lancaster were important links to court and Richard himself held the earldom of Chester after the death of the Black Prince. Equally, given the number of Ricardian courtiers and soldiers of fortune from the north-west midlands both in London andnorthern France, particularly Brittany, it is possible that SGGK was written elsewhere for the entertainment ofexpatriates (Brewer 80). In keeping with his traditional approach, Bennett steers clear of closely equating internal events of the poem’s text with individual external events. He finds surer grounds to comment on the Gawain-poet’s courtly credentials,

The poet is an insider, a courtier’s courtier, adding complexity and refinement to issues of faith

and honour, and points of ethics and etiquette. Moreover he assumes a courtly audience. In his descriptions of aristocratic and courtly life, he doesnot seek to impress: or presume to educate the people for whom he wrote (Brewer81).

While not discounting an Edwardian setting for SGGK, Bennett favours the late Ricardian,

Like the world of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Richard’s court was a post-heroic world in which knights, if not a prey to temptation, were in danger of going to seed. The knightly code, once so simple, now seemed infinitely more complex. Of course, there is a more earthy side to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The challenge of ‘nature’ to ‘nurture’ in the poem gives some credence to the idea of a vigorous regionally-based aristocratic court in some sort of opposition to an effete, royal court. (Brewer 85)

There seems to have been a disparity between on the onehand the increasing distance Richard placed between hiscourtiers and his own person and the intimacy he encouraged on the part of his Cheshire bodyguard. NigelSaul comments on the change of address Richard instituted for courtiers in the terminal part of his reign to encourage an almost godly image while he allowed his Cheshire archers to address him as “Dycun” (Saul 875).

Bennett draws attention to the king’s Christmas and NewYear celebrations which he held in Lichfield in 1397-8 and again in 1398-9 and points to the royal presence inseveral places associated with Gawain’s fictional journey in these years. The king may well have visited the Holy Well of St Winifred, the saint who miraculously survived beheading. After stories that thefreshly beheaded Earl of Arundel rose to his feet on the scaffold, Richard (the instigating agent) was said to have had nightmares. He exhumed the cadaver and found the head attached to the body, sewn on by the Carmelite friars (Brewer 87-8). To remind us of the postscript motto of the Order of the Garter, Bennett places Richard’s last journey as king in the North Wales area concluding that as a result of that eventfulyear from Christmas 1398 to Christmas 1399, “There was much thought as to who had kept their oaths and bargains, much reflection on ‘trawthe’ and ‘traison’. ‘Honi soit qui y mal pense’” (Brewer 90).

Hautdesert is an invention of the poet. Yet it is in many ways this court can be more easily located than Camelot. Several attempts have been made. A number of considerations place it in the North-west Midlands. Thelatter part of Gawain’s “anious uyage” (535) to Hautdesert is full of geographical “poynting”,

Ne no gome bot God bi gate wyth to karp, Til þat he ne3ed ful neghe into þe Norþe Walez,Alle þe iles of Anglesay on lyft half he haldez,

And farez ouer þe fordez by þe forlondez,Ouer at þe Holy Hede, til he hade eft bonkIn þe wyldrenesse of Wyrale (696-701).

Ralph Elliott has found numerous geographical similarities in the latter part of Gawain’s journey andthe court of Bertilak. He is the latest in a line of scholars to localize the nearby Green Chapel. He placesit at Lud’s Church, a natural cleft in the side of a rounded hill on the Staffordshire-Cheshire border (Brewer 116). Michael Thompson has likened Bertilak’s castle to Beeston Castle, Cheshire which is situated ona rocky outcrop,

Its bleak isolation accords well with the name Hautdesert of Bertilak’s castle, while its rocky locality recalls the barren ground traversed by

Gawain on his way to the Green Chapel. A negative point in favour is the absence of a keep since further north a great tower was almost de rigueur.

(Brewer 122).

Such work is interesting and may indicate that the poetwas contrasting a provincial court with that of London.But such a conclusion should be drawn with care. The Royal court of Richard was peripatetic and was located in Cheshire twice towards the end of his reign. In connection with this I find Gawain’s plea to the Green Knight doubly interesting,

'Where schulde I wale þe,' quoþ Gauan, 'where is þyplace?

I wot neuer where þou wonyes, bi hym þat me wro3t,Ne I know not þe, kny3t, by cort ne þi name (398-

400).

This represents a “cort” as having the status of a proof of identity. Yet even as the Green Knight quits Camelot he still leaves no clue as to where his court can be found, only that the rendezvous is at a Green Chapel. Could this be a reflection on the insecurities of Richard’s latter days?

I turn now to an English scholar, Francis Ingledew and his ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and the Order of the Garter for a different representation of the poet’s court. He is more willing than a traditional historian to conflate history and literature and find each in the other. He invokes Guiseppe Mazzotta’s phrase “the erotics of history” to explain his own proposed approach (5). Mazzotta studied numerous readings ofthe story of Dido and Aeneas including those of Augustine and Dante. Ingledew links history and romance by saying that history “describes the field of what has happened and romance describes the field of what can be imagined to have happened” (24). His argument centres round the consuming interest in King Arthur by Edwardian monarchs. He links Camelot in SGGK with the court of Edward III by attempting to prove that likely motivations to create the poem were Edward III’s

nostalgia for chivalry and his founding of the Order ofthe Garter. Ingledew reminds us of the influence of Geoffrey of Monmouth on the perception of English history as coming via Troy to Arthur and categorises Edward III’s aborted attempt to reinstate the round table as an “erotic of history.” This eventually findsits outlet in the founding of the Order of the Garter (25). Thence comes Hony Soyt Qui Mal Pence, the added motto at the end of SGGK.

He compares the court of Edward III with the Galfredianand Chrétien ideals of the Arthurian court and thus by extrapolation to the Camelot of SGGK. Jean le Bel and Froissart are cited as the contemporary historical sources to support this. Edward’s successes in France are recounted and Jean le Bel equates him with Arthur. On his return to England, “chascun disoit que c’estoit le roy Artus” (40). Le Bel, as well as describing Edward as the flower of chivalry, devotes much space tohis alleged rape of the Countess of Salisbury. Ingledewlinks le Bel’s account of this to the substance of SGGK.

Under le Bel’s narrative of Edwardian chivalry, in short, lies the abstract presence of chivalry as an idea of history…the Windsor feast of 1344, completewith the rape that it encloses, can thus raise the spectre of the failure of this allegorized Chivalry, … nonetheless, le Bel’s fundamental commitment to chivalry as a normative mode of historical being is notin question… SGGK, too, stages a quasi-allegorical

drama in which Gawain, the embodiment of an ideal chivalry, successfully negotiates an erotic test that

reverses Edward’s rape of the Countess of Salisburybut discovers in himself a flaw that is a fissure in Chivalry itself (57).

In short Ingledew maintains that Edward’s court and itsbrand of chivalry provoked the writing of SGGK. He adds Froissart to support this. Froissart himself embraced an updated version of Monmouth’s translatio, whereby the force of France’s chivalry passes on to England under Edward III.

Ingledew then presses the parallel further. Arthur (Edward) is prevented from taking the Green Knight’s challenge. In Hautdesert the decisive action takes place in the husband’s absence (Gawain has substituted for Arthur). Furthermore the founding of the Order of the Green Girdle at the end of SGGK is associated with sexual transgression in the poem. A close examination of the stages of Edward’s rape as described by le Bel is paired with the seduction scenes in SGGK. The fact that Froissart’s version of le Bel did not appear until1400 does not faze the author. It may still have been available to the Gawain-poet. Ingledew then elaborates this thesis over the next two chapters. He close reads the parts of the text concerned with the temptation, the moral failure of Gawain and its results backing it up with further examples from the Edwardian court. Thisis how he summarises his findings,

If indeed SGGK were written with Edward III, his court, and the Round Table-derived Order of the Garter in mind, the Edwardian court supplies a historical model of the romance Gawain, a knight who shows how the

Round Table’s Gawain, as a paradigmatic aristocrat who relocates his sense of self in his fallen state, might be very much a mid-fourteenth-century

Edwardian knight (193).

I find this argument convoluted. It is also a restrictive representation of the textual Camelot. It misses the youthfulness and naiveté which are more in keeping with a Ricardian representation. Ingledew can convince me that in reading or listening to romances, the courtly audience read a “certain kind of writing ofhistory” (221). This kind would include aspects we now call literary, a term which at that time had no separate meaning. While unable to compete on the author’s terms I am less convinced by his presentation of historical details, particularly the heavy reliance on le Bel and Froissart and the, to me, tenuous pairingof the rape of the Duchess of Salisbury with the temptation scenes in SGGK. It is worth footnoting that,whether or not Edward’s court was translated to Camelot, the tables there and at Haudesert were never democratically round; hierarchical seating there, as I am sure it was in the Edwardian court, is de rigeur.

Larry Benson acknowledges Camelot’s youthfulness and sees it represented as prelapsarian, before the sins of

Lancelot and Guinevere. He observes that more than a hundred lines are devoted to its description employing the tone of the premarain vers of Le Roman de la Rose. “Camelothas no troubles; it is like the walled Garden of the Rose or the Heaven of Pearl ” (Benson 99). It lies in a no-man’s land of time and space unlike Hautdesert which, though nominally a “faerie” castle, is given geographical and architectural detail linking it with the North-west midlands and with the poet’s own times. Camelot is a young court, “For al watz þis fayre folk in her first age.” (54). Arthur’s conduct seems almost juvenile compared with that of his nephew, “He watz so joly of his joyfnes, and sumquat childgered.”(86). Guinevere sits enthroned like some tapestry dame à la licorne. “Þe most kyd kny3tez vnder Krystes seluen/And þelouelokkest ladies þat euer lif haden”(51-2) return from chapel to spend their time talking, “of trifles ful hende,”accompanied by pipes and trumpets. (109). This rather naïve view of the perfect Arthurian court must have provided for many of the poet’contemporaries an imaginary nostalgia, a feeling of continuity. As Huizinga points out,

In reviving chivalry the poets and princes imaginedthat they were returning to antiquity. In the minds of the fourteenth century, a vision of antiquity had hardly yet disengaged itself from the fairy-land sphereof the Round Table (Huizinga 68).

By implying shortcomings in Arthur’s court as he does in Gawain’s failure to cope with Hautdesert, the Gawain-poet has already begun his own disengagement of imagination still using the formulaic translatio framing device to locate his story in time past for his audience.

By contrast Lynn Arner makes an interesting foray into the historical background of SGGK. She reads the two courts as representations of the political struggle between England and Wales.

Appropriately, the bulk of SGGK’s narrative action unfolds in the English Welsh borderland… In the fourteenth century, the distinction between

conqueror and conquered, settler and native, was even more clearly defined in formal and institutional terms than at any other time… (80-81).

She cites the giants and wild beasts that Gawain encounters en route between Camelot and Hautdesert as referring to the Welsh. “The half-human, half-giant Green Knight is one of the hybrid creatures that aboundat the frontier”(85). She includes the line, “Half etayn in erde I hope þat he were”(140) among others to support this, but leaves out,

For of bak and of brest al were his bodi sturne,Both his wombe and his wast were worthily smale,And alle his fetures fol3ande, in forme þat he

hade,ful clene (143-45)

Which to me suggest admiration rather than disgust. Shecontrasts the “sacred” court of Arthur with the “secular, perhaps pagan” Hautdesert (86). The Green Chapel becomes a devilish place in keeping with the devilish Welsh. Arner has some difficulty persuading herself that Hautdesert lacks civilization, but finds it “disordered” with a woman in charge. After much further fitting of square pegs into round holes, she concludes,

SGGK offers a colonial view of the English-Welsh borderland and of Wales, while providing a self-congratulatory perspective on England that

ultimately promotes the English conquest of Wales (94).

To make such a definite colonial reading of the poem is, I think, exaggerative. But the polarity she impliesbetween these two courtly representations is real and will be subject to further comment.

I pause at this point to review what we have gained by these historical and historicist interpretations. Wouldit have been more productive to go straight to the text? If the poet were using another genre such as the homily, perhaps yes. I can do no better than requote Bennett,

In his descriptions of aristocratic and courtly life, he does not seek to impress: or presume to educate the people for whom he wrote (Brewer81).

This invisibility of the poet in SGGK justifies our use of historical and literary interpretations to guide us.By doing so we have established that a court is a spaceof power always moving, always changing as its courtiers change. It is not confined to a castle or a county, not even to a country as its European aspects show. Camelot’s “historical” traditions enable us to think of it as a lost space of nostalgic longing. By dialect and geography the imaginary Hautdesert can be more accurately placed. It is “the other” which springsmore directly from the poet’s own experience. The two courts in the poem, though similar are thus far enough apart to provide a space in which to examine some common courtly concerns.

We turn to feasting and entertainment. Festivals were important landmarks. Both Camelot and Hautdesert are exclusively involved in them throughout their appearance in SGGK. The poet has no

interest in representing the court in other than festive mood. Time passes by passes by outside.

And al grayes þe gres þat grene watz ere;Þenne al rypez and rotez þat ros vpon fyrst,And þus 3irnez þe 3ere in 3isterdayez mony (527-

29).

Camelot is a place of safety, warmth and recreation, a womb-like space for the warrior. Though his departure must take place in October, All Hallows is chosen as another feast time. For feast the OED gives as its first meaning,

A religious anniversary appointed to be observed with rejoicing (hence opposed to a fast), in commemoration of some event or in honour of some

personage. the feast, in the N.T. esp. the Passover. movable feasts: those (viz. Easter and the feasts depending on it) of which the date varies from

year to year; opposed to immovable feasts, such as Christmas, the Saints' Days, etc (Latin festum).

It is first found in the early thirteenth century with this meaning. The secular and the religious are not easily separable in the fourteenth century.

Feasts are everywhere in SGGK, and both courts are partly defined by them. Above all, Christmas and New Year were celebrated at length and great expense. With Christmas came games,

Lett no man cum into this hall,Grome,page not yet marshall,But that sum sport he bring withal,

For now is the tyme of Crystmas (Hodapp 38).

This opening verse of an early English carol catches the spirit of these occasions. Much has been written about the excesses of the Christmas celebrations of Camelot. Bernard Levy regards the court as delighting, “in the pleasures of the senses for their own sake.” (Levy 79) William Hodnapp restores the balance by citing the numerous joyful and playful, not to mention drink-full Middle-English Christmas lyrics. Richard Firth Green records Christmas and other Holy days such as Easter, Whitsun and All Hallows, as being times of largesse and merry-making in court and wealthy houses. Much needed warmth, food and drink were provided in thecold English winter (Green 24). As the days became shorter, the land more unproductive and journeys more hazardous, some extended good cheer was required to last into the New Year when, “Nowel nayted onewe, neuened ful ofte.”(65). Court servants benefited from this, but as for the very poor, the Gawain-poet, in company with his peers, remains silent. Many perished destitute in winter. The court is exclusive.

Do the celebrations at Hautdesert differ materially from those at Camelot? In their substance they do not.This, too, is a Christian court,

On þe morne, as vch mon mynez þat tymeÞat Dry3tyn for oure destyné to de3e watz borne,

Wele waxez in vche a won in worlde for his sake. (994-6)

Custom is observed but with no loss of culinary indulgence. Appropriately fish is served on the last day of Advent, Christmas Eve, though in tempting fashion,

Summe baken in bred, summe brad on þe gledez,Summe soþen, summe in sewe sauered with spyces,And ay sawes so sle3e þat þe segge lyked.(891-3)

The courtiers apologise, “Þis penaunce now 3e take/and eft hit schal amende.”(896-7). I do not detect the ironic implication of over indulgence found in Chaucer’s description of the Franklin.

Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous,Of fish and flesh, and that so plentevousIt snewed in his hous of mete and drynke.

(Riverside. 343-5)

Gawain gets merry on wine after his arduous journey. After the meal, bells were rung and the community of Hautdesert went to chapel, though this seems to have been as much a social as religious occasion. Bertilak and Gawain, “Seten soberly samen þe seruise quyle./Þenne lyst þe lady to loke on þe kny3t” (940-1).Derek Brewer expands on the subject of medieval feasts (Brewer 131-142).

Of their very nature their celebration in life and art is interconnected. They may also be closely related to their opposite, the fast. Fast and feast mayse part of a larger cycle of life (131).

These were joyous days set aside to celebrate the Christian landmarks of the year. Food, music and theatre were all there. The “enterludez” (472) were probably staged acts: music and dancing were a large part of the feast, “caroles of kny3tez and ladyez” (473). Courtly routine was broken as were the prescribed (though not always observed) fasts. The two went together for the common people either by choice orby necessity. Just as Jesus feasted and fasted so did they. Feasts were occasional rather than spontaneous and had a long history of being part of and underpinning the hierarchical society. The feast is firmly established as a representation if not a paradigm of courtly life in SGGK.

Game-playing in the poem is closely linked to festal celebrations. Huizinga in Homo Ludens (19-46) describes a game as an activity within limitations of time and space, with an established order, according to rules freely accepted by the participants and not being for material gain or by necessity. By this admittedly imperfect definition the mating dance of the peacock would not be classified as a game. The key phrase is “freely accepted.” The consequences of any game, of course, may be unexpected pleasure or pain.

Such games are widespread in both courts. The more exclusive and expensive games, such as hunting and jousting, played a large part for the privileged few. In another sense the author plays games with the poem’sreaders by keeping them in suspense until the very end.Sir Bertilak’s treatment of the honourable but still somewhat naïve young Gawain suggests he regards his visitor as a rather superior Christmas game,

When þe lorde hade lerned þat he þe leude hade,Loude la3ed he þerat, so lef hit hym þo3t,And alle þe men in þat mote maden much joye. (908-10)

Forfeits are played in the Arthurian court without rancour, “Ladies la3ed ful loude, þo3 þay lost haden.” (69). But some games are more dangerous than others. The desire for a new game, the more dangerous the better, was part of knight’s expected “sourquydrye” in the secular version of chivalry. Brewer cites Bakhtin’ssymbolic interpretation of feasts and games as “ingesting the world…an act of establishment of power over nature, of control, civilization, hierarchy and social bonds” (132). These two elements of playing games, order and disorder, combine in Arthur’s feast at Camelot. There is a strict seating plan and procedural protocol, but an adventurous, disrupting element is sought by the young Arthur,

So bisied him his 3onge blod and his brayn wylde.And also an oþer maner meued him eke

Þat he þur3 nobelay had nomen, he wolde neuer eteVpon such a dere day er hym deuised wereOf sum auenturus þyng (89-93).

This, of course, is provided by the Green Knight. Some have seen an element of the “carnavalesque” in this. Brewer agrees and calls the incident a “liminal situation”, subversive but, “releasing new energy in the hero” (139). However, the extreme, “I’ll go first”, suicidal game suggested by the Green Knight reduces even the knight’s of Camelot to respectful silence. His seeming light-hearted motive is even moresurprising.

Forþy I craue in þis court a Crystemas gomen,For hit is 3ol and Nwe 3er, and here ar 3ep mony.

(283-4)

Albeit a more persistent tone creeps into his words addressed to Arthur,

Bot if þou be so bold as alle burnez tellen,Þou wyl grant me godly þe gomen þat I askbi ry3t.' (272-4).

While “gomen” (OE. gamen) is indeed a game, the “bi ry3t”, glossed by Tolkien as “privilege of the Christmas season”, to me has overtones of a legal duty which a valorous knight cannot avoid. The Green Knight’s employs playfully insulting words to the court, together with an almost gleeful manner,

Þe renk on his rouncé hym ruched in his sadel,And runischly his rede y3en he reled aboute,Bende his bresed bro3ez, blycande grene,Wayued his berde for to wayte quo-so wolde ryse

(303-6).

Yet he stays well within courtly rules throughout his challenge and he is no representative of a restless underclass.

James Simpson in A Companion to Chaucer makes another linkbetween Camelot and the court of Richard II. Sir John Dymmok, a knight of the court, rode fully armed into the coronation of the eleven year old Richard II on July 16th 1377 only to be turned back at the cathedral doors by the king’s marshal. This was a premature attempt to enact a carefully rehearsed dramatic challenge to anyone present thinking of harming the king. Unlike the Green Knight he was asked to come backlater (Brown 114). Simpson, in a chapter which examinesthe work of Langland, Gower, Chaucer and the Gawain-poetfinds in them a common concern with the “fragilities ofroyal youth.” He stresses that romances defy history, usually in their happy endings, but,

Attempts to historicize this romance (SGGK), and even to historicize its own apparent attempt to avoidthe specificities of history, turn out to work well

for the reign of Richard II (Brown 125).

He sees in the theatricality of Camelot a reflection ofthe apprehensions for the young Ricardian court. This leads to some very cogent observations about literary representation. Armour, architecture and embroidery arepoetically represented in the poem, just as other formssuch as the white hart are represented visually in the Wilton Diptych. The power to control such poetic representations is related to the way the poem represents Camelot. This court can subsume any challenges within the art form of theatricality. Like Halloween, real dangers can be diverted into games. Theill-timed theatrical appearance of Sir John Dymock at Richard’s coronation can be compared with the much scarier but even more theatrical appearance of the Green Knight in a poem read to a royal court at Christmas. No harm can come to this actual court while it listens to a representation of danger. Even fictional Camelot can deal with the green girdle by assimilating it into its ritual. Real courts sometimes look to the power of the theatrical to neutralize dangers. But of course this power is aleatory. Troy fell. Arthur’s court fell, as did Richard. Does the representation of Camelot sound a gentle warning to theRicardian court by the Gawain-poet?

We return to Hautdesert. Sir Bertilak, devises games for Gawain,

Þus wyth la3ande lotez þe lorde hit tayt makez,For to glade Sir Gawayn with gomnez in halleþat ny3t (988-90).

in the entertaining company of the lady of the house, “… hor play watz passande vche prynce gomen,/in vayres.” (1014-5). The outstanding difference between conventional court games and those initiated by the Green Knight and his alter ego is that the latter make their own rules. Not only that, but they keep remindingGawain of them.

'Loke, Gawan, þou be grayþe to go as þou hettez,And layte as lelly til þou me, lude, fynde,As þou hatz hette in þis halle, herande þise

kny3tes;To þe grene chapel þou chose, I charge þe, to fotteSuch a dunt as þou hatz dalt -- disserued þou

habbezTo be 3ederly 3olden on Nw 3eres morn (448-53).

When Sir Bertilak throws the boar’s head in front of Gawain, he reminds him, “'Now, Gawayn,' quoþ þe godmon,'þis gomen is your awen/Bi fyn forwarde and faste, faythely 3e knowe'” (1635-6). Later Sir Bertilak quizzes Gawain about his own side of a transaction,”'How payez yow þis play? Haf I prys wonnen?/Haue I þryuandely þonk þur3 my craft serued?'” (1379-80).

These voluntary, but quasi obligatory games have drawn the attention of several commentators. Shoaf examines their contractual aspect and its relationship to burgeoning commerce which had become an important element of the Ricardian court. His work comprises two aspects of game and commerce in SGGK. The first is to establish the importance of commerce in games and the second to show the evolution of Gawain’s outlook on life as a result of his experiences at Hautdesert. He appends a word count of commercial terms found in SGGK to his article. “Couenaunt”, “dele”, “3elde” and “prys” are frequently used. Altogether, he finds 189 such terms.

England was in a state of transition in the late fourteenth century. While London was the only city big enough to be called commercial in the same sense as thegreat mercantile cities of Italy, the movement towards urbanization was occurring. Merchants were becoming richer and more numerous. Effects on the royal court were multiple. As greater luxuries became available, more were consumed and the mercantile spirit became more dominant. Moneylenders who demanded their dues were a reality of court, even for kings. Shoaf compares the two most important symbols in the poem andconcludes that the pentangle, a pure symbol of perfection per se, gives place to the girdle which was “bargained for” and is a more contingent, pragmatic symbol (Shoaf 2.iii.2). His argument is not that the poet rejects the pentangle as a courtly marker, or that

Gawain should never again wear it, but that henceforth he wears it together with the girdle. This represents the power of commerce to metamorphose both him and his court. On his return, Camelot accepts the girdle, turning it into a baldric for their ornamental swords. Hautdesert, far more than Camelot represents the business aspect of the life of the contemporary court. Both courts are full of the products of the fourteenth century expansion of the European luxury trade. The Green knight does a deal with Camelot, but it is in Hautdesert and the nearby Green Chapel that payments are made.Mention has been made of the poem’s representations of material wealth. All seems in mint condition. CompareChaucer’s knight,

But, for to tellen yow of his array, His hors were goode, but he was nat gay. Of fustian he wered a gypon : Al bismotered with his habergeon, For he was late ycome from his viage, And wente for to doon his pilgrimage (Riverside.

CT 73-8).

with the arming of Gawain. We hear little of the post-journey condition of Gawain’s splendid accoutrements. The extraordinary detail of the arming scene seems as much a courtly fashion show as a preparation for combat,

Fyrst a tulé tapit ty3t ouer þe flet,And miche watz þe gyld gere þat glent þeralofte;Þe stif mon steppez þeron, and þe stel hondelez,Dubbed in a dublet of a dere tars,And syþen a crafty capados, closed aloft,Þat wyth a bry3t blaunner was bounden withinne

(568-73)

Gold, impractible as a metal of combat, combines with the green of the Green Knights armour. Gawain does not lack it, “Þe lest lachet ouer loupe lemed of golde” (591). Gringolet gets the same treatment,

Þe apparayl of þe payttrure and of þe proude skyrtez,

Þe cropore and þe couertor, acorded wyth þe arsounez;

And al watz rayled on red ryche golde naylez,Þat al glytered and glent as glem of þe sunne (601-

4).

It would seem that the poem’s young courtly audience had aspirations of being upwardly mobile. If we take differences between the courts as a marker of the poet’s silent commentary on his own court, no such marker is found here.

Felicity Riddy in her essay “Jewels in Pearl” (sic), (Brewer 142-55) makes the point that a show of luxury was not just expensive, but was regarded as hierarchically ordered by rank. It is likely that the

nouveaux riches were strongly challenging the aristocracy’smonopoly of show. Italian and French sources of fine fabrics were becoming more available and desirable. Guinevere has, “a selure hir ouer/Of tryed tolouse, andtars tapites innoghe “ (76-7). Riddy takes particular note of gold, other metals and precious stones (Brewer 145). The word “juel” in ME more often meant a highly-wrought art object, like the kerchief on Gawain’s helmet, than just a single precious stone. She likens these very descriptions to poetic “juels” in Pearl (Brewer 147). The same can be said of the rich alliterated depictions in SGGK. They are as close to iconic representations as words can get.

Þenne set þay þe sabatounz vpon þe segge fotez,His legez lapped in stel with luflych greuez,With polaynez piched þerto, policed ful clene,Aboute his knez knaged wyth knotez of golde (574-

77).

Riddy goes on to suggest that such luxuries were becoming marks of an international luxury system. However these objects were also an important form of currency. She gives examples of kings pawning their crowns. The smaller, more portable objects were most indemand and these exchanged hands regularly and were often melted down and recycled (Brewer 150). In the courtly setting such artifacts were also part of the gift system of social obligation. Finally “juels”

presumably by association with their scarcity, were believed to have magical powers.

An examination of the climax of Gawain’s encounters with the Lady in Hautdesert aptly illustrates the complex network of power of such tokens. First Gawain apologises for not having brought a box of presents with him on his quest (1808-10). The lady, still in herdécolleté, counters, “'Þa3 I hade no3t of yourez,/3et schulde 3e haue of myne'” (1815-16). She then compoundsthe social embarrassment of Arthur’s nephew by ironically offering him “payment” for his love-talk,

Ho ra3t hym a riche rynk of red golde werkez,Wyth a starande ston stondande alofteÞat bere blusschande bemez as þe bry3t sunne;Wyt 3e wel, hit watz worth wele ful hoge (1817-20).

He has to fight off this move, only to be put in check by her offer of the girdle. It is itself a “juel” and having just left her body, equates physically to her sexual favours,

Ho la3t a lace ly3tly þat leke vmbe hir sydez,Knit vpon hir kyrtel vnder þe clere mantyle,Gered hit watz with grene sylke and with golde

schaped,No3t bot arounde brayden, beten with fyngrez (1830-

33).

When he refuses it she again asks ironically whether hedoes so because it is too cheap for his social standing.

'Now forsake 3e þis silke,' sayde þe burde þenne,'For hit is symple in hitself? And so hit wel

semez.Lo! so hit is littel, and lasse hit is worþy (1846-

48).

Finally she invokes its magical powers. A new non-monitary excuse to accept it has been found. The exchange is that he will conceal the transaction from her husband. “Þen kest þe kny3t, and hit come to his hert/Hit were a juel for þe jopardé þat hym iugged were” (1855-6). This is a carefully documented sequenceof exchange, similar to the nightly gift-exchanges constructed by Sir Bertilak. To me this is a representation of commercial reality to be found in Hautdesert, but absent from Camelot.

We have seen in this section that feasts, games and luxuries are indispensible to any representation of a court. Camelot is brought up to date, made more fashionable by continental materials. The season of winter forces courtiers to take their leisure largely indoors, apart from hunting. Feasts show the insatiabledesire of the court to consume. Their Christmas mini-dramas give them a feeling of being in control of the many external dangers. The Green Knight temporarily upsets this false security. Most games in both courts

are to pass time, but the games Gawain chooses to play,in Hautdesert, have a commercial aspect. The poet is showing his audience, themselves well aware of it, thatCamelot is naïve in this respect.

Chivalry is central to any discussion of court representations in SGGK. It is said that Richard II, deposed and lying in prison in 1399, claimed to his gaolers that he had always remained chivalrous, “Je ne forfis

oncques shevalrie.”( White 67). By the end of the fourteenth century chivalry was a complex but still very influential force. It had subsumed its equestrian,feudal and warlike beginnings, the Church’s Christian ideals, fin amour and the increasing complexities of court life. This divisive mixture of influences made putting it into practice problematic. Clearly it could mean different things to different people and did not have an essential quiddity. But the ideal remained; the more so because accepting its tenets represented acceptance into the governing social elite. A simple honour-shame dichotomy well- suited the hierarchical court milieu. Moral regulation by guilt, though advocated by the church was less evident. Gervase Mathew in The Court of Richard II investigates chivalry. Of its ideals he says,

It is probable that for the majority of the ruling class they formed a standard of values at times

consciously followed, at times consciously sinned against, but always presupposed. (Mathew 114)

What were these values? He cites three sources, saying that together they provide a reconstruction in minutestdetail of the standards of knightly conduct in the Ricardian court. The first is the Chandos Herald’s ‘ Life of the Black Knight’, written in the closing decades of the fourteenth century in French. The second is Sir Degravant and thenyke and thanke, a compendium containing the title story and a number of songs. The third is SGGK itself. There is close concurrence between them. Chivalry is the exercise of knighthood. For the Chandos Herald, bon chivaler had ceased to have strong moral implications. It is the possession of prowess, a combination of rashnessand indomitability coupled with an acquired skill at arms. The prowess could be on horse or on foot. Complexrules of fair fighting applied. Prowess also implied being adventurous. Sir Degravant had fought, “In Hethenesse and in Spayne/ In ffraunce and in Brittayne”(SD II.21-22).

Though the primary object of adventures was to gainglory (los e pris) the exercise of prowess still preserved one moral implication… For John Gower the function of the true knight is to give battle against injustices. (Mathew 120).

What was or was not just of course depended on the views of the contenders. “Bolingbroke was to utilize it

in 1395 when he landed at Ravenspur to claim his rightful inheritance (Mathew 120).”

By the late fourteenth century the execution of such justice was supposed to be modified by “pitie.” Mathew makes it plain that this “pitie” seldom involved pity as we would recognize it. It was usually an emotional provocation to immediate action. “Pur pitie” for King Pedro motivated the Black Prince to invade Spain. (Mathew 122). Mathew makes a further distinction between this restricted use of the term chivalry just described and three other qualities which were essential to the “ideal” knight, “largesse”, “franchyse”, and “cortaysie.” “Largesse” was of paramount importance. It implied adequate riches but with a fine disregard for them. “Covetesse” was its antonym. “Franchyse” had become to mean a naturalness of manner signifying good breeding. A churl did not have “franchyse.” Mathew tells us that “Courtoisie” in the context of the Ricardian court had come to mean good manners in action or in word. (Mathew 124). Its extension to the relationships of a knight with women was that of giving service to them in a courteous manner, often called “Druerie.” Additional endowments which added to a knight’s chance of success in court were to be enseigné (meaning accomplished rather than learned) and to be physically beautiful. Mathew pinpoints the inherent shortcomings of this courtly code,

These ideas carried with them theories of personal loyalty that influenced both history and fiction, for such conceptions were to have direct political

consequences, and could provide the avowed motive for political action, while at the same time they helped to stylize the hero of a romance and form theframework of its plot. It was perhaps a central tensionin late fourteenth century English culture that its economics, its politics and its fiction were all too complex for so simple and individualistic code (114).

Though Mathew does not directly make the connection, itwould be difficult to find a better explanation for thetesting of the chivalrous Gawain and his subsequent failure to live up to impossible standards. Thus Camelot’s chivalry is utopian and Hautdesert is its more realistic representation.

Lili Arkin adds another dimension to this failure of chivalric ideals to cope with late fourteenth century court life. She believes that the poet in Camelot is showing a court before the inclusion of women into the equation. She sees this as conforming more to the church’s ideal of knighthood in the service of Christ rather than of Eve. She stresses the power wielded by women in Bertilak’s court and by extension the contemporary Ricardian court as being disruptive to traditional male hierarchies, shown in the hunting scenes as the “appropriate venue for male chivalric action.” (Arkin 4) The Lady, however is in no doubt

that, “And of alle cheualry to chose, þe chef þyng alosed/Is þe lel layk of luf, þe lettrure of armes” (1512-13). Gawain subscribes to this emasculated version of chivalry. Haudesert may be run by an active male with a work ethic, but his court is a treacherous place. Acedia inhabits it; a vice which to the medieval mind was connected with the breaking of oaths, and which also reminded some of the idle sighs of the courtly lover. While his host is out hunting he is playing the game of the female-centred chivalry. “… Gawayn þe god mon in gay bed lygez,/Lurkkez quyl þe dayly3t lemed on þe wowes” (1179-80).

The Gawain-poet seems aware of the dichotomy between theprinciple and practice of chivalry. The concept remainscentral to the very nature of a court and this is neverquestioned. “Trawthe” is a headstone in the arch of knightly behavior as seen in Camelot, but slippages occur in Hautdesert. The returning Gawain brings back with him an awareness of this. As to who is right or wrong in this debate, the Gawain-poet answers these questions silently as his tale unfolds, deepening his representation of the two differing courts as he does so.

The concept of chivalry leads naturally tothe wider question of how sexuality at court is represented in SGGK. Richard Firth Green examines love games in relation to the late fourteenth century

court. He categorizes them into specific social games which bring people together and the more general practice of treating courtship itself as a game. (Green117). When Gawain has agreed to Sir Bertilak’s game,

Þay dronken and daylyeden and dalten vnty3tel,Þise lordez and ladyez, quyle þat hem lyked;And syþen with Frenkysch fare and fele fayre lotezÞay stoden and stemed and stylly speken,Kysten ful comlyly and ka3ten her leue. (1114-8).

These outward and visible flirtatious love games are common to both courts. Forfeits are played in Camelot. The increased number of young men and women in contemporary courts justifies this emphasis. Much of the considerable spare time young courtiers possessed was spent looking for a sexual, or more importantly a marriage partner. Treating courtship itself as a game is more problematic. Love-talking plays an important role in this.

When Bertilak’s courtiers welcome Sir Gawain’s arrival for the opportunity it offers to ‘lerne of luf-talkyng’, they must be anticipating a rather more

public display from ‘ þat fyne fader of nurture’ than the one their mistress elicits. (Green 118).

Much of the stylized courting of the time was in versethough the Gawain-poet does not mention written “love-talk.” Green notes that the secular lyrics which survive are for consumption of the whole court while

presumably being addressed to a particular lady; but also notes that this mannered show was as much, if not more, to demonstrate the breeding of the suitor rather than the depth of his passion (Green 119). In Confessio Amantis Gower depicts the vainglorious courtly suitor, “And ek he can carolles make,/ Rondeal, balade and virelai” (I.2708-9). Amans’ lady is not impressed. In view of the time the poet devotes to Gawain’s public and private shows of verbal dexterity as opposed to hisfeats of arms, it is not unreasonable to detect some gentle general criticism of the excesses of the courtlypractice of fin amour in SGGK.

It is incontestable that the independent status of women at the English court was increasing in the late fourteenth century. This was partly due to the change in its nature from curia regis of the post-conquest monarchs to the larger, more complex and ostentatious courts of Edward III and Richard (Mathew 12). Chaucer lived through some of these changes. The number of influential women at court increased and with them cametheir domicellae. A cultural burgeoning ensued with a strong French influence. Much of the ornamental description in SGGK resulted from this broadening of the courtly vista. The architectural details of Hautdesert, such as its central courtyard and numerous rooms, its French style machicolations and its chimney corners,

Þay tan hym bytwene hem, wyth talkyng hym ledenTo chambre, to chemné, and chefly þay askenSpycez, þat vnsparely men speded hom to bryng,And þe wynnelych wyne þerwith vche tyme (977-79).

all suggest a representation of the latest fourteenth century French fashion rather than the traditional court of Arthur. This increased influence did not necessarily endear women of court to the church’s male hierarchy. It would sometimes seem that for the church the only good woman was a dead virgin. In practice of course the church had to compromise, not least because many of its rulers were actively heterosexual themselves. Augustine and later Aquinas had found a place for married heterosexual bodily concourse, albeitsans desire. Repression of sexual instincts was still ofgreat importance. A widening gap opened between adulterous courtly love and chaste Christian love. Many of the outward shows of courtly love encouraged repression by substituting courtly etiquette for sexualdesires. Gawain’s viage has been seen by Frank Griffithsas the testing of a young knight, “in his first age” tocontrol his sexual urges, and by doing so, prove his masculinity (1). I find this less than convincing; his most likely motivation being to remain loyal to his host’s marriage vows and his duties as a guest.

Many commentators regard the temptation scenes of the poem as illustrating a conflict between the courtly andthe Christian. This idea travels with a great deal of

accompanying baggage. A commonplace of medieval biblical exegesis was the polarity of Eve and the Virgin Mary. This can be widened in SGGK to see Gawain as Adam, the Lady as Eve and even Morgan le Fay as the serpent. Allegedly led astray by the Lady, Gawain rantsagainst femmes fatales,

Bot hit is no ferly þa3 a fole madde,And þur3 wyles of wymmen be wonen to sor3e,For so watz Adam in erde with one bygyled…

Þa3 I be now bigyled,Me þink me burde be excused (2414-6, 2426-7)

The last couplet of the wheel is reminiscent of Adam trying to lay the blame on God for his misfortunes because He gave him Eve, “Dixitque Adam mulier quam dedisti sociam mihi dedit mihi de ligno et comedi” (Gn 2,12). In contrast, the Virgin Mary saves her sworn Christian knight from committing adultery, “Gret perilebitwene hem stod,/Nif Maré of hir kny3t mynne (1768-9).The consequences of this “angel or whore” interpretation extend from Hautdesert to Camelot. By rejecting Gawain’s confession, choosing to wear a representation of the Lady’s girdle and forgetting the unbreakable perfect pentangle, the court has set itselfon a course to self-destruction. By choosing to remain worldly, Camelot will suffer a fate predicted in the poem’s opening and become a place,

Where werre and wrake and wonderBi syþez hatz wont þerinne,And oft boþe blysse and blunderFul skete hatz skyfted synne (16-19).

As we only meet three living women in SGGK, the Lady Eve, Morgan the serpent magician and Guinevere, it onlyremains to remind ourselves that the latter’s adultery will be the underlying cause of the Arthurian court’s demise. Three all-powerful women who can destroy the Christian chivalric tradition? Should the motto for SGGK be Radix malorum est mulieritas? Of course not.

I reiterate that SGGK is not a homily. The Gawain-poet lived in or near a real, probably regal court. Nearly half that court was female. There were children though we seldom hear of them. That we, over six hundred yearslater, find representations we wish to find in this tapestry masterpiece is a compliment to its rich complexity and the enduring strength of its subject matter, but caveat lector. Gerald Morgan, examining supposed misogyny in Gawain’s complaint against women (2414-28) suggests that the text of SGGK is hardly the place to find it (Morgan 266). We may find it in churchfathers like Tertullian, but hardly in the depiction ofa young amorous knight.

There is a less straightforward aspect of male courtly love which I will term “dismissogyny”, that is a directed lack of interest in women as real women, sometimes, but not always, in favour of homosocial and

even homosexual bonding. The Ricardian court seems to have illustrated this well. Susan Crane (49) observes,

“Men negotiate the difficult demand that they establish in a heterosexual bond but maintain strong homosocial bonds by building the former into the

latter, redoubling and extending masculine relations through courtship.”

John Bowers’ study of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale and its reading by his contemporary Sir John Clanvowe, examinesthe mechanisms whereby homosexuality is disguised in courtly literature. Clanvowe and his friend Sir RichardNeville had a close relationship which Bowers likens tothat of Palamon and Arcite. The rivalry for Emelye, a woman hardly known to either (a kind of medieval femaleBunbury) was “the formulaic for supplanting exclusivelyhomosocial attachments” (Bowers. Three Readings 285). Bowers rehearses the commonly perceived image of the young king’s court,

The teenage king assembled a brilliant circle of youthful male friends, and he showered them with favors such as titles, lands, wardships, offices, and

confiscated goods…the king modeled the style for his court, and the record of Richard II’s personal conduct suggests that he was not particularly

interested in women sexually but more devoted to these male friendships (281).

He applies this to Chaucer as a court writer, “Chaucer’s own courtly productions during the 1380s reflect, albeit cautiously and uncomfortably, this prevailing style of heterosexual chastity and homosocial familiarity” (281). Carolyn Barron (13-19) suggests Richard practiced “chaste marriage” with both his wives and cites the Wilton Diptych as supporting his replacement of heterosexual relationship with Mariolatry.

Assuming that SGGK was written during Richard’s reign, what such representations can we find in it? I have earlier referred to the description of Guinevere in thecourt of Arthur. Let us examine this passage more fully,

Whene Guenore, ful gay, grayþed in þe myddes,Dressed on þe dere des, dubbed al aboute,Smal sendal bisides, a selure hir ouerOf tryed tolouse, and tars tapites innoghe,Þat were enbrawded and beten wyth þe best gemmesÞat my3t be preued of prys wyth penyes to bye,in daye.Þe comlokest to discryeÞer glent with y3en gray,A semloker þat euer he sy3eSoth mo3t no mon say (74-84).

This is not a flesh and blood woman. It is descriptio of a Barbie-doll. Naturally she is the “comlokost to discrye” but the rest is dressing her up and putting

her into a very expensive plastic packet labeled “Do not open.” It is stressed that no expenses are spared,“of prys with penyes to bye.” While aware that such descriptions are commonplace, this does not prevent us questioning why they are. Compare Chaucer’s Criseyde,

But alle hire lymes so wel answerynge Weren to wommanhod, that creature Was nevere lasse mannyssh in semynge;

And ek the pure wise of hire mevynge Shewed wel that men might in hire gesse Honour, estat, and womanly noblesse ( TC I. 281-7

Riverside 477).

There is more than the mere externals in this. Describing Gawain’s first sight of the Lady, the poet again uses the female formula, “Ho watz þe fayrest in felle, of flesche and of lyre,/And of compas and colourand costes, of alle oþer” (942-3). Commentators have interpreted the subsequent interpolations of Morgan’s ugliness as enhancing by contrast the beauty of the Lady. I find them reductive of the combined attractiveness of the two women. It is a dissmisogyny which implies women consist of the bud and the blown rose.

Þat no3t watz bare of þat burde bot þe blake bro3es,

Þe tweyne y3en and þe nase, þe naked lyppez,And þose were soure to se and sellyly blered;A mensk lady on molde mon may hir calle,

for Gode!Hir body watz schort and þik,Hir buttokez bal3 and brode,More lykkerwys on to lykWatz þat scho hade on lode (961-9)

This is not to suggest that the Gawain-poet is consciously dismissogynistic, but that the conventionalcourtly descriptio was partly to keep feminine power undercontrol. Morgan le Fay may be powerful, but to be so she has to stop being an attractive woman. A strong element of the homosocial is found in Sir Bertilak’s relationship with Gawain.

This brings me to Carolyn Dinshaw’s “A Kiss Is Just a Kiss,” which astutely examines ambivalent sexuality inthe latter part of SGGK, with reference to the exchanged kisses of Gawain. First she talks generally about the Gawain-poet’s “devotion to the surfaces of things.” The poem is full of polyvalent signs which shesays are reduced to monovalency by, “the operation of aprinciple of intelligibility”(205). She notes that homosexual sex is, “the logical end of the interlockingplots the lady and Bertilak play out—but it is a forbidden end”(206). She excepts the conventional male kisses of greeting and parting as outside her argument:but by putting the bedroom and hunting scenes in context she points out their feminizing influence on Gawain. The masculine performative aspect of his heterosexuality is undermined. At the same time she

does not question that the poet of Cleneness is not purposely introducing a homosexual theme. She sees the acceptance of the girdle, called a “drurye”, as being partly and belatedly a renaturalisation of the Lady’s proposed heterosexual union. The intelligibility she mentions earlier is the normalizing of heterosexuality to make the alternative unintelligible; thus the poet constantly neutralizes any doubts by stressing Gawain’sEnglish Christian chivalric identity. But the English court of the fourteenth century was still strongly homosocial while stigmatizing homosexuality. The reputation of the young Richard II’s court was a matterfor speculation. Dinshaw’s conclusion is that the poem’s words may tell us one thing, but she asks us to,“read the lips of Gawain and Bertilak” (223).

The sexual Gawain we meet in SGGK is another prelapsarian. His lecherous later reputation is not mentioned. He is presented as normal young man attracted to the women of court, especially the Lady. The Virgin Mary is his guardian angel and that Gawain remains chaste is partly due to her help. He is a master at love-talk but this does not prevent Sir Bertilak and his wife feminizing him by the terms of their game. He escapes with his virginity and most of his honour intact.

The sexual representation of the court in SGGK is stillof a largely homosocial society in which women are a means to preferment, sexual satisfaction and preserving

a bloodline. Much of the fin amour is about maintaining adistance without giving offence. The Lady exposes this in her seduction scenes. However, the representation ofso much power in the Lady and Morgan le Fay is a reflection of the greater influence of women in the late fourteenth century court and may also reflect their taste in chivalric romance.

I turn finally to the representation of the Church in the courts of SGGK. In an age so immersed in the Judaeo-Christian faith and bible as the medieval, allusions to it are everywhere in writing and the plastic arts. In the construction of image and metaphor the

bible and known classical models were shared as a dual source of reference. The Bible remained the single mostimportant textual authority. The manifestations of Christianity in the text of SGGK can be regarded as threefold. First there are the almost unconscious textual allusions to the Bible described above. Second, there are conscious outward and visible references such as the celebration of church sacramentsand the invocation of Christ and Mary as saving and guiding forces. Third, there are the less visible assumptions about the extent to which the teachings of Christianity are integrated into the life of the two courts. I would also include here the Gawain-poet’s own,albeit muted, comment on these for I detect no sustained allegory in the work.

An example of the first type occurs when the poet echoes the temptations of Gawain with those of Christ by the devil. At Hautdesert the Lady would like to promise him the world’s riches in exchange for his love(1268-75) an offer the devil also makes. Finally after being rebuffed she reflects, “Bot þat 3e be Gawan, hit gotz in mynde” (1293). This finds its parallel in Satan’s scornful dare to Christ when standing in a highplace that if he is the real Christ he can jump off,

quia (Dominus Deus) angelis suis mandabit de te et in minibus

tollent te ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum.”

(Vulgate. Sec. Mattheum: 4.6)

As it turns out Gawain puts his faith in the living Lady’s magic girdle rather than the Virgin Mary.

The second type of reference is everywhere in both courts. All Hallows, Christmas and the Feast of the Circumcision are observed with due jollity. Advent is acknowledged in culinary fashion. I do not detect any veiled criticism of court practices here. Arthur’s court has a chapel nearby,

Þe chauntré of þe chapel cheued to an ende,Loude crye watz þer kest of clerkez and oþer,Nowel nayted onewe, neuened ful ofte (63-65)

Lent is observed, “After Crystenmasse com þe crabbed lentoun /Þat fraystez flesch wyth þe fysche and fode

more simple (502-3). The pentangle motif of Gawain’s shield seems to be a mixed symbol of chivalry and Christianity, but the five wounds of Christ are included (642-3). His heavenly mistress is not forgotten,

His þro þo3t watz in þat, þur3 alle oþer þyngez,Þat alle his forsnes he feng at þe fyue joyezÞat þe hende heuen-quene had of hir chylde;At þis cause þe kny3t comlyche hadeIn þe inore half of his schelde hir ymage

depaynted,Þat quen he blusched þerto his belde neuer payred

(645-50)

In the midst of the rigours of his journey he remembersboth God and the Virgin Mary and prays for a place where he might hear Mass,

And þerfore sykyng he sayde, 'I beseche þe, lorde,And Mary, þat is myldest moder so dere,Of sum herber þer he3ly I my3t here masse,Ande þy matynez to-morne, mekely I ask,And þerto prestly I pray my pater and aueand crede.'He rode in his prayere (753-59).

Hautdesert is no less Christian in its external practices. Gawain does not rush to the chapel on arrival, but after a change of clothes and a meal he repairs there with courtiers to sing evensong (930-35).

Sir Bertilak hears mass early each morning before hunting while Gawain lies abed. But Gawain attends massafter each temptation (1309-11, 1558, 1872-6). Again, as in Arthur’s court the festivities of Christmas are observed in Christ’s name,

On þe morne, as vch mon mynez þat tymeÞat Dry3tyn for oure destyné to de3e watz borne,Wele waxez in vche a won in worlde for his sake

(995-97)

During the final temptation of Gawain, the narrator calls on the Virgin Mary to protect him. Gawain shriveshimself before a priest after accepting the girdle. He obtains from the priest a complete absolution for an incomplete confession, “And he asoyled hym surely and sette hym so clene/As domezday schulde haf ben di3t on þe morn (1883-4).

The outward and visible references to Christianity in SGGK represent a relatively small part of its length compared with descriptions of food, furnishings, armour, love-talk and hunting in the poem. However, commentators tend to find what they want to believe in this shape-shifting poem. All would, I think, agree that it is no religious homily aimed at a sinful court.J.R.R.Tolkien, who knew SGGK better than most, says of the poet,

He has re-drawn (the tale) according to his own faith, his ideal of knighthood, making it Christian

knighthood, showing that the grace and beauty of its courtesy (which he admires) derive from the Divine generosity and grace, Heavenly Courtesy, of which Mary is the supreme creation (Tolkien. SGGK Introduction 3).

He continues,

We see the attempt to preserve the graces of ‘chivalry’ and the courtesies, while wedding them, or by wedding them, to Christian morals, to marital

fidelity, and indeed married love (5).

Lynn Staley Johnson points out the close correlation between the action of the poem and the liturgical year.She, too, sees Gawain’s adventure as representing a turning to Christ from the secularity of courtly life, “Rather than a shield which betokens the ideals of chivalry, he now wears a girdle which betokens the weaknesses of the flesh”(89). She, in company with other commentators, stresses the importance of the New Year feast of the Circumcision. Both encounters with the Green Knight occur on that day. The Green Knight’s axe and holly branch, indicate a challenge to Camelot’scourt by the symbols of justice (the axe) and possible renewal. The axe reappears the next year to deal justice to Gawain and by surviving he is reborn (65). Gawain realizes this and the narrator tells us, “Neuer syn þat he watz burne borne of his moder’/ Watz he neuer in þis worlde wy3e half so blyþe” (2320-21). Johnson here finds an echo of Christ’s advice to

Nicodemus, “Nisi quis natus fuerit denuo non potest videre regnum Dei” (Vulgate.Io 3.3). She therefore seesthe Gawain-poet’s aim much as does Tolkien, that of confirming the necessity of Christianity in the conceptof chivalry. Given the earlier discussion about the poem’s audience, these latter commentators imply that both Camelot and Hautdesert are defined by a desire to reinstate Christianity into them and therefore into thepoet’s contemporary court.

For an alternative representation it may be fruitful toturn to the examination of the Christianity of the fourteenth century English court by David Aers. He pairs the court’s concerns with commercialism with those of religion. Aers begins by instancing Augustine’s precept that the life of a wise Christian should be seen in his social dealings. He then cites Langland several times, suggesting that in Piers Plowman the poet struggles to see how this ideal of justice andpenance stands up in his own society, prone as it was to commercialism and “hende speche” (Brewer 92). He refers to Shoaf’s work on the commercial influences on SGGK. He also acknowledges the work of Jill Mann and Stephanie Trigg on this topic. He deals first with commercialism and maintains that though the poem is full of commercial references, the Gawain-poet shows little or no concern for the everyday realities of commerce, exemplified by the tighter labour market resulting from the Black Death and a shift in the balance of classes. Arthur, Sir Bertilak, Gawain and

the two courts are never involved with these things. Ofcourse, one good reason for this (pace Aers) is that thepoet is writing an occasional Christmas entertainment rather than a political tract! But Aers contends that all the rich material wealth described in SGGK is purely ornamental with no basis in economic reality. I admit to having always found the description of the kerchief covering Gawain’s helmet,

Enbrawden and bounden wyth þe best gemmezOn brode sylkyn borde, and bryddez on semez,As papiayez paynted peruyng bitwene,Tortors and trulofez entayled so þykAs mony burde þeraboute had ben seuen wynterin toune (609-14).

disturbing in its lack of social implications. Aers then moves from this dissociation from economic realities to the poet, qua courtier, and the treatment of the church we find in the poem. He finds similarities. “It becomes a church totally assimilated into the poem’s version of courtly existence” (Brewer 95). Priests are not the target of satire or critical comment, as they are in Langland or Chaucer. Bischop Bawdewyn sits at the top table with his knightly confreres. The pentangle represents secular knightly values as well as the wounds of Christ and Mary’s joys.Aers then focuses on the sacrament of penance. He is not the first to do so. Other scholars have found the

relationship between Gawain’s first and second confessions intriguing.

Gerald Morgan finds Gawain’s first confession consistent with church’s teaching that those in periculo mortis should confess to a priest (1). He maintains that it may be incomplete but it is not invalid, due to the knight’s ignorance of the nature of the venial sin he has committed in taking the girdle. He does not regardit as blasphemous as does Burrow. The second, lay confession to the Green Knight thus completes his shriving (12-18). Aers avoids splitting hairs as to what may or may not constitute a venial sin. He assertsthat what is important is that the poet finds the first confession valid (Brewer 96). Aers places more importance on the lines immediately following the confession,

And he asoyled hym surely and sette hym so cleneAs domezday schulde haf ben di3t on þe morn.And syþen he mace hym as mery among þe fre ladyes,With comlych caroles and alle kynnes ioye (1883-

86).

He regards this as the poet’s unconscious admission of the place of the holy sacrament in court life, that it should be immediately subsumed into court games. He then reopens the debate as to the significance of Gawain’s lay confession to the Green Knight. While acknowledging the orthodoxy of lay confession in the absence of a priest, he raises the attempted subversion

of the priestly sacrament by the Lollards and suggests the poet may have had unorthodox views which remain largely unspoken. He concludes that what he calls the “honourmen” of court subscribe to a virtually “Christless Christianity” (99) and that the Gawain-poet largely accepts this. The brotherhood of the court has its own codes of morality. Gawain’s “own lamentations”on returning to Arthur’s court have no real effect on the conduct of the court. The green girdle and any significance it may have had are incorporated into court life. Hony soyt qui mal y pence (99).

What are we to make of these opposing views and how do they represent the courts of SGGK? The secular and the religious were nearer each other than they are now. While such disparate views can be helpful in our reading of the text, they should be regarded as parts of a wider discourse, to prevent their effect being reductive. While there is no argument about the centralplace of the Bible and religious festivals in fourteenth century society there were varying degrees of religious devotion both inside and outside the church. The same is likely to have been true of the court and the poet’s representation of court Christianity reflects this. I can find no evidence thatthe poet is suggesting differing degrees of piety in the two courts.

Chaucer’s self-disparaging irony and detachment make itfamously difficult to read his thoughts. The Gawain-poetin SGGK is no less difficult but for different reasons.

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