Kaeuper R.W. - Chivalry and violence in medieval europe (1999)(en)

in battle or combat or in lists where the Þnest knights are gathered, take care to stand aside for no one, whether younger than yourself or older, but spur your horse on before all the others and strike the best blow you can. When it comes to arms, you see, no man need yield to young or old to gain fame and honor; but in important deliberations young men should attend to their elders. The truth is that there is great honor in dying boldly and bravely in combat, but only shame and reproach can come from foolish speech and thoughtless counsel.150

King Bademagu takes another corrective line on prowess as he tells his evil son Meleagant, jealous of Lancelot and anxious to Þght, that Ôsize of body and limbs is not what makes a good knight, but greatness of heartÕ.151

Even in those passages that praise some heroÕs prowess interesting elements of doubt, or at least cautionary lines of thought, put in an appearance. Gawain twice fails to have a transforming experience (in the Lancelot) when the Grail comes into his presence: once he cannot keep his eyes off the beautiful maiden carrying it and, in recompense, is not served; the second time he is so worn out with Þghting a mysterious knight in the hall of the Grail castle that he is lying, wounded and almost in a stupor on the ßoor. Through the very presence of the Grail heals his wounds, he fails to recognize it. A hermit tells him later that his failure was Ô[b]ecause you were not humble and simpleÕ.152

In the Lancelot Þve sons of a duke, Þghting their father, convince Lancelot by lies to join their side. He characteristically goes to work Ôkilling whatever he hitÕ, and wins the day, even sending the dukeÕs head ßying with one of his great sword strokes. He is greeted with the usual effusive celebration in the winnerÕs castle as Ôthe best knight in the worldÕ. Yet, the text tells us, this victory was a pity, for Lancelot has been Þghting on the wrong side, against members of the Round Table who were aiding the duke.153

We can only wonder at the way in which, with or without conscious intent, authors give us curiously shaded descriptions of Lancelot and other heroes in full battle fury. Lancelot is not only compared to a raptor, a wolf, or lion, but more than once to an Ôevil demonÕ, Ôthe Devil himself Õ, ÔDeath itself Õ. Bors and even Perceval can likewise be termed ÔdemonÕ.154 William of Palerne is described by enemies who feel the force of his chivalry as Ôsum devel degised tat dot al tis harm (some disguised devil who does all this harm)!Õ155

BalainÕs great prowess likewise produces deep ambivalence. The Merlin Continuation asserts that Balain was the most praised knight on a battleÞeld, for Ôhe practised a chivalry so expert, wherever he went, that everybody

150Carroll, tr., Lancelot Part II, 36; Micha, ed., Lancelot, VII, 151Ð2.

151Rosenberg, tr., Lancelot Part III, 260; Micha, Lancelot, I, 87.

152Krueger, tr., Lancelot Part IV, 100Ð2; Micha, Lancelot, II, 376Ð88.

153Kibler, tr., Lancelot Part V, 152Ð3; Micha, Lancelot, IV, 159Ð64.

watched him marvellingÕ. Wondering observers, however, say he is no mortal, but a ÔmonsterÕ or ÔdevilÕ. Even King Arthur said that Ôhe was not a knight like other mortal knights, but a man born on earth for human destructionÕ.156

Those who would reform chivalry knew that they had to come to terms with prowess. They all hoped to channel or change the force and energy of this great virtue. Some even harboured futile hopes of substituting another quality in the uppermost slot. But prowess holds centre stage; it is essential to the chivalry with which the reformer must deal, however he or she wants to channel or change it. A layman lacking prowess might show other qualities in the textbook chivalric list; but at least in the realm of chivalric literature no one would particularly notice, because no one would particularly care. The chief virtue must come Þrst. It is probable that complex Þgures in chivalric literature, such as Roland himself, or even darker Þgures, such as Raoul in Raoul de Cambrai, Claudas in the Lancelot do Lac, or Caradoc in Lancelot, were so interesting to their contemporaries in medieval society because of the tension between their admirable prowess and other qualities warped or missing in them.157

We must recognize how strongly chivalric literature acknowledges the impulse to settle any issueÑespecially any perceived affront to honourÑby couching the lance for the charge or swiftly drawing the sword from the scabbard. Force is regularly presented as the means of getting whatever is wanted, of settling whatever is at issue.158 Accusations of a more or less judicial nature, of course, lead to a Þght, as does assertion of better lineage. But so does assertion that oneÕs lady is fairer than another knightÕs lady, a request for a knightÕs name or even an answer to the question, ÔWhy are you so sad?Õ Of course, as often as not the Þght is over no stated question at all, but simply seems a part of the natural order of the imagined world of chivalry: two knights meet in the

154Kibler, tr., Lancelot Part V, 160, 198, 204; Micha, ed., Lancelot, IV, 193, 359Ð61, 388; VI, 150,

160, 195Ð6; Carroll, tr., Lancelot Part VI, 315, 317, 326; Asher, tr., Merlin Continuation, 104; Bogdanow, ed., ÔFolie LancelotÕ, 139.

155Bunt, ed., William of Palerne, l. 3888.

156Asher, Merlin Continuation, 197; Roussineau, ed., Merlin, I, 107Ð8.

157Claudas, has, for example, given up love and shows no interest in largesse; his loyalty clearly leaves something to be desired. Yet he is elaborately praised by Pharian as the Þnest knight in the world. Rosenberg, tr. Lancelot Part I, 34; Elspeth Kennedy, ed., Lancelot do Lac, 78. Caradoc is described as Ôthe cruelest and most disloyal of all men who had ever borne armsÕ. Yet he is also Ôof great prowess and strength beyond measureÕ: Rosenberg, tr., Lancelot Part III, 282. Micha, Lancelot, I, 182Ð3. Raoul de Cambrai will be discussed in Chapter 11.

158HonorŽ Bonet provides an instructive list of foolish reasons why knights Þght: over which country has the best wine or the most beautiful women, which country has the best soldiers, which man has the better horse, the more loving wife, the greater success in love, more skill in dancing or Þghting: see Coupland, ed., tr., Tree of Battles, 207.

forest, they Þght.159 The vast and complex literature of chivalry celebrates knightly violence even as it attempts to reform or deßect it into channels where it would produce less social damage.

159 Classic examples from Malory: Sir Pelleas Ôwente thereas the lady Ettarde was and gaff her the cerclet and seyde opynly she was the fayreste lady that there was, and that wolde he preve uppon only knyght that wolde sey nayÕ: Vinaver, ed., Malory. Works, 100. Sir Gareth asserts to the Black Knight that he has a higher lineage, Ôand that woll I preve on they body!Õ (p. 185). The King of Ireland, summoned to ArthurÕs court on a charge of treasonous murder, decides Ôthere was none other remedy but to answere hym knyghtlyÕ (p. 252). Pellinor, wanting to know TristramÕs name, decides he will Ômake hym to telle me hys name, other he shall dye thereforeÕ (p. 314). Sent by Arthur to discover why a passing knight is sorrowful, Balain tells this knight, ÔI pray you make you redy, for ye muste go with me othir ellis I muste fyght with you and brynge you by forceÕ (p. 50).

In abbreviated form, this sentiment appears again in the thirteenth-century

Story of Merlin:

Mild weather had come back with the pleasant season when the orchards and woodlands are in leaf, when the birds sing sweetly and softly and the blossoming, leafy forests ring with their singing, when the meadows are thick with grass and the gentle waters go back into their bedsÑand when it is better to make war than any other time of the year.2

ÔPeaceÕ, as Maurice Keen notes concisely, Ôwas not regarded in the middle ages as the natural condition of states.Õ3 Writing to the French king Charles VI in 1387, HonorŽ Bonet observed that Ôit is no great marvel if in this world there arise wars and battles, since they existed Þrst in heavenÕ.4 Explicit assertions that the coming of peace saddened the knights, that they preferred war, appear throughout chivalric literature. When peace is made between Arthur and Galehaut in the Lancelot do Lac and the Lancelot, Ô[m]any, who preferred war, were saddened by thisÕ.5 Of course, some of the motives of actual knights may have been purely economic, stemming from their need for booty; but usually it is the delight in prowess that is openly praised.6 In the First Continuation of the Perceval, a knight announces, Ômy name is Disnadaret: IÕm much more fond of war than peace, and never tire of doing battle.Õ7 Boson in Girart de Roussillon is described as a man whose Ôtaste for warÕ is Ôalways newÕ.8 The author of the Middle English romance William of Palerne relates of the young hero William, newly knighted, that there Ôwas no glader gom tat ever God madeÕ when he learned of an impending war between the Roman Emperor and the Duke of Saxony.9 When Claudas announces that war with Arthur is coming, ÔThe good and bold knights were happy and joyful at this, for they felt

2 Rosenberg, tr., Lancelot Part I, 309; Sommer, ed., Vulgate Version, II, 256

3 Keen, Laws of War, 23.

4 Coupland, ed., tr., Tree of Battles, 81. Bonet refers, of course, to SatanÕs rebellion and soon also discusses the wars chronicled in the Old Testament. He is, in fact, deeply troubled by the issue of war and divine will. He argues (pp. 118Ð19) that peace is all but impossible, that war is built into the stars, men, and animals, though he admits God might be able to bring about peace and that good men can be lords over the power of heavenly bodies. Yet he soon declares that God, as lord and governor of battles, has instituted war, that it is in accord with all law, human and divine, and that soldiers are the ßails of GodÕs righteous (if hidden) justice (pp. 125Ð6, 157).

5 Carroll, tr., Lancelot Part II, 138; Kennedy, ed., Lancelot do Lac, 328; Sommer, Vulgate Version, III, 250.

6 In Girart de Roussillon (Meyer, ed., tr.) the problem with ending the war is seen in the plight of poor knights. How will they live without war? The answer is easily found in a new war, not of Christian versus Christian, but against the pagans. See laisse 633. Again, in laisse 672, the solution for knights who want to prove their worth is clear: let them Þght pagans.

7 Bryant, tr., Perceval, 114. Cf. Paden et al., eds., Poems of the Troubadour, 116Ð17, 244Ð5, 262Ð3, 298Ð9, 364Ð5 (ÔA peace such as this does not enhance prowess, nor any other peaceÕ), 372Ð3, 398Ð9, 460Ð1; Elspeth Kennedy, ed., Lancelot do Lac, I, 296.

8 Meyer, Girart de Roussillon, laisse 474.

they had been at peace too long. But it grieved the mean-spirited and the cowardly, who preferred peace to war.Õ10

The sentiment is often repeated. Knights in the twelfth-century Chanson Gaydon Ôhave no desire to make peace, they have always heard the war-cry, and they love war more than Nones or Compline. They would rather one town burned than two cities surrendered without a struggle.Õ11 Classic warrior speeches urging immediate and vigorous war against the Romans are given to the notables of ArthurÕs court by Geoffrey of Monmouth (in his History of the Kings of Britain), and by Lawman (in the Brut).12 The theme of warriors lauding war was venerable on this side of the Channel, as on the other.13

If knights liked piling up honour and the material rewards of battle, at least some of them also sensed an aesthetic element in war. The author of The Story of Merlin, shortly after he had declared spring as being the best time for war, pictured Arthur and his knights after they had rampaged in near darkness through the encampment of their enemies, in the campaign to relieve the siege of Trebes: ÔThen it was broad daylight and the sun began to rise. The sun shone on the armour, which ßashed in the light, and it was so beautiful and pleasing to look at that it was a delight and a melody to watch.Õ14 In this text, as in many others, the author wants his readers to see colourful banners, rich pavilions and costly armour. The biographer of Robert Bruce similarly pauses to admire the massed English chivalry at the outset of the battle of Loudon Hill in 1307; the morning sunlight gleamed on shields and polished helmets:

their spears, pennons and shields illuminated the entire Þeld with light, their best and embroidered bright banners and various horse trappings and varied coat armour and hauberks that were white as ßour made them glisten as if they were angels from heavenÕs realm.15

Yet the text may bring such trappings into view just as sword strokes and lance thrusts destroy them.16 Peter Haidu has made the interesting suggestion that we are observing a celebration of conspicuous consumption in the wanton

10Carroll, tr., Lancelot Part VI, 288; Micha, ed., Lancelot, VI, 42. Later in this same work Mordred, in a conversation with Kay, denounces the young Perceval: ÔHe looks like a simple knight . . . who prefers peace to war.Õ Kay agrees, noting that PercevalÕs shield bears no signs of Þghting: Carroll, ibid., 325; Micha, ibid., 192.

11Ll. 4802 ff, quoted in Daniel, Heroes and Saracens, 26.

12Thorpe, tr., Geoffrey of Monmouth, 231Ð5; Allen, tr., Lawman, Brut, ll. 12426Ð50.

13For a survey of views in Middle English literature, see Gist, Love and War, 113Ð46, 194.

14Pickens, tr., Story of Merlin, 311; Sommer, ed., Vulgate Version, II, 261.

15McDiarmid and Stevenson, eds., BarbourÕs Bruce, II, ll. 220Ð34.

16The Song of Roland and the poetry of Bertran de Born provide splendid examples. In ÔLo coms mÕa mandat e mogutÕ, for example, Bertran writes, ÔAnd nothing will keep splinters from ßying to the sky, or taffeta and brocade and samite from ripping, and ropes and tents and stakes and shelters and high-pitched pavilionsÕ: in Paden et al., eds., Poems of the Troubadour, 108Ð9.

destruction of so much Þnery; in a society in which few could even imagine such extravagance, the knights can not only wear and use Þne and costly clothing and equipment, they can destroy it in the great game of war.17

If the great game was not always and everywhere available for knights to hone and demonstrate their prowess, tournament was available, even in the absence of war, as scholars regularly point out; it became the great sport and, in time, the great social event of chivalry.18

Early tournaments made good substitutes for war, and in both literature and life the tournament which quickly warmed up to the temperature of battle appears prominently.19 Tournaments were at Þrst distinguished from war only in the prearranged nature of the combat, an absence of deliberate destruction visited on non-combatants, and the provision of some safe zones from the Þghting in which knights could rest and recover. Otherwise, the knightsÑand accompanying bodies of footmenÑranged over the countryside, and sometimes through narrow urban streets, manoeuvring, ambushing, attacking at will. Even though tournaments gradually restricted their scope and functioned by ever clearer forms and rules, there can be little wonder that they were known as Ôschools of prowessÕ.20

The place of tournament in knightly ideology will likewise be evident to any reader of chivalric literature. From the time of ChrŽtien de Troyes in the last quarter of the twelfth century, descriptions of magniÞcent tournaments Þll page after page of chivalric romance; they have become settings around which plots turned, events in reÞned literature demanded by reÞned audiences. Those who heard or read these works evidently could not have enough of colourful display and valorous action. In a splendid instance of art and life playing leapfrog, the imagined becomes the actual; the actual outdoes even the imagined.21 Each great occasion must be decorated with its magniÞcent tournament; each peerless knight errant wandering on some erratic orbit out of touch with the solar centre of the court can only be brought home by his admirers spreading news of a great and tempting tournament. ÔNo knight should avoid a tournament if he can get there in timeÕ, is the straightforward advice of an honourable vavasour in the Lancelot.22

17Haidu, Subject of Violence, 46Ð9.

18For general discussions, see Barber and Barker, Tournaments and Keen, Chivalry, 83Ð102.

19For dangers associated with historical tournaments, see Barker and Barker, Tournaments, 139Ð49. A tournament of 1273 became known as the ÔLittle war of ChalonsÕ: Prestwich, Edward I, 84Ð5. Classic literary examples in Sommer, ed., Vulgate Version, II, 302Ð7; Pickens, tr., Story of Merlin, 335Ð54. Literature sees dangers to the knightly caste and courtly society, rather than to the sub-knightly.

20See citations in Keen, Chivalry, 99.

21See the discussion in Benson, ÔThe TournamentÕ.

22Carroll, tr., Lancelot Part VI, 259; Micha, ed., Lancelot, V, 216.

For nearly half a millennium (and increasingly before an audience featuring women as well as men), tournaments become a stock feature of chivalric life both as lived and as portrayed in literature: horse hoofs pound, lances splinter, shields crack, swords bite into helmetsÑin a continuum of tourneying that blurs chivalric ideology and practice. Passionate belief in tournament as the ideal sport unquestionably Þgures as one line in the creed spoken by those who worshipped at the high altar of prowess.

Any real disparity between historical events and literary portrayals appears when literary texts ignore the gradual safeguards that knights actually used, especially blunted weapons for combats ˆ plaisir, instead of the sharp lance heads of combats ˆ outrance. Literary tournaments are potentially deadly affairs, with no hint of rebated weapons, perhaps to emphasize the sense of danger and the vigour of the combatants.

The Fact of Fear? Voices for Peace?

Did they ever play the game, whether in war or tournament, with sweaty palms and shaking hands? In any sane person the prospect of being wounded, maimed, or killed with edged weapons in Þerce combat would surely produce to some degree the phenomenon of fear. That warriors in all ages have experienced and more or less mastered these fears we can take as given. Replacing fear with gritty endurance and courage or even converting it into steel-edged battle fury must be a prime goal of any successful warrior culture.23 High praise for honour secured through prowess and larded with visions of loot is the ideological path usually taken. Yet the tensions are obvious. If knights seldom left any record of their intimate thoughts, chivalric literature allows us occasionally to hear amidst the trumpet-calls the small but insistent voice of fear.24 As a battle waxes Þerce, we learn that Ôeven the bravest were afraid (li plus hardis ot pašr)Õ.25 The Chanson de Guillaume shows a warrior so fearful that his loose bowels have soiled his saddle blanket.26 More traditional historical sources make the same point. The Song of Dermot and the Earl, written at about the turn of the thirteenth century, tells a chilling tale of two armies encamped at night near Wexford in Ireland, expecting battle on the morrow. Suddenly a

23His biographer tells us the late fourteenth-century Castilian knight Don Pero Ni–o was instructed as a youth to emulate St James, whose body was chopped bit by bit, but who steadfastly refused to renounce his faith: see Evans, tr., The Unconquered Knight, 20Ð1. Geoffroi de Charny regularly praises steady endurance: see Kaeuper and Kennedy, Book of Chivalry. With an eye to German chivalric literature and to the distinction between the world and the court, Stephen Jaeger discusses fear in ÔSociology of FearÕ.

24See the discussion in Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 43 ff.

25Roche-Mahdi, ed., tr., Silence, l. 5464.

26Muir, tr., The Song of William, Ernest Langlois, ed., La Chanson de Guillaume, laisse 28.

Ôphantasm (un enfantesme)Õ comes upon the English camp and the watch is sure they are beset by an armed enemy. ÔSt David! Barons, Knights!Õ calls out Randolf FitzRalph; men come tumbling out of the huts and Randolf (thinking him one of the enemy) strikes the Þrst man he sees, bringing the fellow to his knees. The phantom soon passes to the Irish camp, causing them, in turn, to think that they are entrapped by their enemies. Yet in the morning the two sides formed up and got to their martial work.27 Such phantasms of fear must often have stalked camps and battlelines; Froissart tells a similar story of the Flemish camp in the early morning hours before the battle of Roosebeke in

1382.28

Parodies of knightly ways, of course, speak more openly of fear.29 But in his Livre Charny, even Geoffroi de Charny, the very soul of courage, admits plainly that a knight thinks of ßeeing as arrows and lances rain down upon him, as he sees his friends lying dead on the ground around him: ÔIs this not a great martyrdom?Õ he asks.30 Yet he knows martyrdom is the cost of honour and he knows the rewards if fear is mastered. In his Livre de chevalerie he pragmatically urges knights not to think what the enemy will do to them, but what they will do to the enemy.31

Against the profound commitment to war reiterated in chivalric literature could any reforming voices praise peace? The question touches one of the deep paradoxes of chivalric ideology, of course, for the ideal goals of spiritual and social peace, which the critics and reformers pressed and which some knights must have accepted, were, Þnally, incompatible with the widespread worship of prowess.32 Obviously, if war is the highest expression of prowess, the best opportunity for prowess, knights need war. When in romance a knight brings peace to some castle, region, or kingdom, that martial achievement usually spells the end of prowess there and thus the end of interest; the romance

27Orpen, ed., tr., Song of Dermot, 72Ð7.

28Brereton, tr., Froissart, 243Ð5. Froissart reports that some thought the disturbance was the revelling of devils delighted at the souls they would win for hell that day.

29See Whiting, ÔVows of the HeronÕ, 263Ð4.

30Taylor, ÔCritical EditionÕ, 18Ð19, quotation at ll. 457Ð8: ÔNÕest ce grant martire / Qui a tel ouvrage sÕatire?Õ

31Kaeuper and Kennedy, Book of Chivalry, 194Ð5. William of Palerne, in a fourteenth-century English romance, calls out to his men not to ßee, even if they are afraid of the enemy: see Bunt, ed., William of Palerne, l. 3343. He wants them to think of their lovers instead: l. 3370.

32Burns, in Lacy, ed., Lancelot-Grail, I, xvi, says the prose romances Ôattempted to combine the irreconcilable interests of earthly chivalry and military conquest with the spiritual quest for peaceÕ. One example of the paradox: near the end of The Death of King Arthur Arthur laments unthinkable losses in battle with Mordred: ÔAh! day, why did you ever dawn, if you were to reduce the kingdom of Great Britain to such great poverty when its heirs, who are lying here dead and destroyed in such suffering, were so renowned for prowess?Õ If these losses are unusually great, the prowess praised at the end of his statement, of course, requires battles. Cable, tr., Death of King Arthur, 221; Frappier, ed., La Mort, 245Ð6.

moves on to the next adventure, the next setting for prowess, the next battle zone. ÔThat day they rode in peace,Õ says the author of the Merlin Continuation, ÔÞnding nothing that one should record in a storyÕ.33 Fighting for peace is acceptable to these professional warriors only so long as there is no real danger of a surfeit of peace; they could scarcely cheer any smothering of chances for displays of prowess that so well repay their hard efforts in the bright coinage of honour (and in other coinages as well).

Yet reforming voices raised in the interests of peace can also be heard in chivalric literature, at least as a brake on enthusiasm. They never draw on fear, nor on the reluctance we know prudent commanders felt about risking all in open battle. The ideals usually come, instead, from the world of clergie.

When ChrŽtien de Troyes presents a world weighed down by the heroÕs failure to ask the Fisher King questions which would have cured him and restored his paciÞc rule, he reveals a cursed land that seems to be afßicted by war:

Do you know what we must withstand, if the king cannot hold his land

and for his wounds obtains no cure: The married women will endure

their husbandÕs deaths, lands will be wrecked, and orphaned maids will live abject,

with many deaths among the knights, calamities and other plights.34

In the anonymous Perlesvaus which picks up ChrŽtienÕs unÞnished story, the link is explicit: because Perceval failed in his moment of trial, Ôall lands are now rent by war; no knight meets another in a forest but he attacks him and kills him if he canÕ.35 As if to ensure that his point has registered, the author repeats the link of grail curse, war, and universal violence shortly thereafter: the curse means that Ôall lands were engulfed by war; whenever a knight met another in a forest or glade they would do battle without any real causeÕ.36

A hermit in the continuation of the Perceval by Gerbert says that ÔGod did not make knights to kill and to make war on people, but to uphold justice and defend Holy ChurchÕ. How knights are to achieve these high professional goals in an imperfect and violent world without killing and making war is, of course, not speciÞed. Yet peace is praised. PercevalÕs last secular act in this romance, before retiring from the world as a hermit, himself, is to give an

33Asher, tr., Merlin Continuation, 249; Roussineau, ed., Merlin, I, 292.

34Cline, tr., Perceval, ll. 4675Ð87.

35Bryant, tr., Perlesvaus, 27; Nitze and Jenkins, eds., Perlesvaus, 38.

36Bryant, Perlesvaus, 35; Nitze and Jenkins, Perlesvaus, 50.