Sir Gawain and the contradictions of the chivalric code

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The Unattainable Chivalric Code

Some Thoughts on Chivalry

The chivalric code is a paradigm that is both poorly understood and was even more poorly applied, not because the code was not clearly written down and able to be transferred among the people who it applied to but because of its very confusing historical development and even more confusing codification. The Chivalric code grew out of the desire by many to codify a new role in society, that of the knight. The knight though he had existed before did not previously have a role in society and therefore had only limited means of social control. In an attempt to respond to the lawlessness and brutality that arose from the development of this whole new class the, Christian mercenary soldier made up of individual men taught to fight mercilessly against his enemies and in consummate loyalty to their benefactor the chivalric code was developed and then codified. The code is described most effectively as a manner in which to control the poor behavior of fighting men socially, politically, and economically. It grew of the desire for security and safety, especially in travel and then continued to grow into a complicated and often contrary codified ideal. The knight was expected to be loyal to his Christian God, his Christian King & Queen (divinely approved to lead and conquer) and even his Lover in a certain order and with precise often contradictory application. In the work Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda Taylor discusses the importance of chivalry to the whole fiber of masculine identity during the period, discussed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This writer contends that Sir Gawain is an ideal Knight within a contradictory system. A virtuous Knight is always struggling to maintain a balance of the Chivalric code an array of rules that contradict each other.

'Religion', 'war', and 'chivalry' are three words without which the late medieval mind cannot be understood. After religion, chivalry was perhaps, in the words of the great Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, 'the strongest of all the ethical conceptions which dominated the mind and the heart' of late medieval man. From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, the chivalric 'code' determined the way in which western nobles fought and behaved in battle. It was an ideal, a concept to which men should aspire -- although whether they could actually live up to the concept was another matter. Nevertheless, the code created a mental framework for the military profession, a mentality which not only served to determine battlefield behaviour but also to justify the new-found social, political, and economic position of the knights in the medieval order of things. In the service of kings, knights were an invaluable instrument of power. Especially after Pope Gregory VII (1073-85), whose Gregorian Reform signalled the way for religious approval of warfare, the knights found that in some circumstances they could also conduct their brutal business with God's blessing (Taylor 67)

The issue of chivalry began to mean a great deal more than a code of military honor which if applied correctly could make or break a man, economically and politically as it was translated into the work of poets. The poetic expression of the so called troubadour (traveling poets and purveyors of news) interwove the ideas of knightly duty with those of love and other issues of intrigue that bring individuals and patrons the kind of interest that results in a livelihood. In other words the intermingling of chivalric military duty with the ideals of love was and will likely remain a product of propaganda in the true sense of the word. Yet, it was also an extremely effective means of communicating the social moors of the day, which translated even into the non-verbal gestures associated with social interaction. (Burrow)

Gender and Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Night

It has been previously touched upon in this work that the issue of gender was one of interest in the development of both the chivalric codes and the literature of the period, a period that is supposed to be at its close when the Sir Gawain and the Green Night text is written by its genius unknown author. According to some historians of the period and also literary critics the period marked a time when the role of women was changing in a manner that the society was unaccustomed to. Women were taking control of households, fiefdoms, and even whole kingdoms as a necessary aspect of the crusade period and its wake. According to MClain changing gender roles were an absolutely crucial aspect of the literature of the period:

Courtly literature, the larger category into which Arthurian literature falls, began with the troubadour poetry of twelfth-century France and continued to be popular throughout the Middle Ages. The medieval period was a time of massive confusion and change in thinking about gender. The period's misogyny has been amply documented - women, as St. Jerome put it, were considered "the gate of the devil, the patron of wickedness, the sting of the serpent." However, during the medieval period European noblewomen also gained unprecedented control of land as their men streamed east to fight and die in the Crusades. They also exerted significant control in the Church, either within the system as powerful abbesses or outside the system as revered, if eccentric, visionaries. Courtly literature reflects this new female power by assigning women the higher role in the feudal system, with men acting as servants of love - the opposite of most women's actual low position within the feudal hierarchy. The Middle Ages is thus a time of glaring contrasts and contradictions about appropriate ways to view women, men, and their relationship to each other. (MClain 193)

How this gender role shifting plays out in Alienor's coming upon the desire and responsibility to codify the chivalric code and support the troubadour poetry which furthered the expression of its social impact could in many ways be explained in this adjustment of the social order for women. The thematic interest of the main challenge for Sir Gawain, Arthur's youngest and most inexperienced knight surrounding the contradictions between "chivalric duty" and "chivalric duty" with regard to another man's wife and specifically a superior's wife in Sir Gawain and the Green Night could also be reflective of the message of changes regarding gender near the close of the period. Some critics see the irony of this central theme as well as other central themes that express inner and outer turmoil as a reflection of the broader changes in society as the period's faults and specifically the faults of the chivalric code begin to find expression. While others stress that irony was not ment to detract from the ideal but to define it for the broader audience;

[Green in Irony in the Mediaeval Romance] observes that "there is no logical contradiction in poets [sic] applying irony to an ideal of courtliness (or of chivalry or love) which they are in process of propagating, for they make use of irony not to undermine or destroy that ideal, but to define it more clearly and to reach agreement on the detailed choices and decisions with which it confronts society" (324 -- 325). (Lambdin 372-373)

Iit is difficult to say that this sort of conjecture is an appropriate one, as the most basic evidence leads one to conclude that Sir Gawain and the Green Night was in some way meant to develop the idea of the inherent flaws in a military turned almost exclusively to a social code. Textual evidence plays out the challenges that Gawain faced in the close proximity of another man's wife. The narrator interjecting his moral message of irony stresses the conundrum faced by Sir Gawain; "Refined as they say Gawain's manners are, With such chivalry as he is said to embody, He could scarcely have stayed so long with a lady Without asking for a kiss, if only from politeness, At some point or pause, somewhere in the conversation." Then Gawain said, "Indeed, whatever you will. I shall kiss at your command, as a knight should…" (Merwin 89) Ashton goes on to say; "Thus the story's events may be read as demonstrating a gap between the different components of a chivalric code and the inner man." (Ashton 57) Ashton goes on to speak of one of the symbols in the work that gets shifted around with what seems no regard for their history;

Perhaps it speaks of the failures of chivalry or tells something of the covert and multiple ways in which we construct social worlds. Maybe the pentangle evokes some of the challenges to the Christian Church in medieval times. Or is it an external symbol of masculinity -- itself problematic -- pinned on to the as-yet untried Gawain and concealing something far more conflicted beneath? Possibly it has no singular truth at all but enacts some, or even all, of these possibilities at once. (Ashton 58)

The theme of symbols in the work including the pentangle as mentioned above and then the green girdle given to Gawain by the Green Knight, after the stories hero assumes he has failed the quest, and is to him worn as a badge of his failure, but then ironically accepted by his fellow knights of the round table as proof of his success is troubling but interesting. The work notes humility in Gawain's character which in and of itself is a serious and important aspect of the chivalric code, yet in all irony the knights upon Gawain's return find so much pleasure in the telling of his tale of woe that they consider the quests a success and join Gawain in wearing their won silk girdles. This could be a trick of the troubadour, showcasing the power of his own craft, as a way to entertain through messages of politics, intrigue and valor. Either way it leaves the reader, of the fable wondering what the point was that the unknown writer was trying to make something that is also a theme of the work and its literary criticism.

Thematic Ambiguity

Though Sir Gawain is considered by the unknown author, as evidenced by the narrator and by the development of the character as somewhat perfect amidst an imperfect system the themes of the work are difficult to interpret, to say the least. This message is expressed by Zott in a piece of literary criticism that attempt to create a functional synopsis of the work;

Scholars have traditionally regarded the themes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as ambiguous. Some view the poem as the tale of a noble knight who resists sexual temptation and so keeps his vow of chastity. Others interpret it as the unveiling of a knight's improper behavior: According to the second group, Gawain renders what he intends as a mortal wound to the Green Knight, not a sparing blow, as the chivalric code dictates. He also rejects the rules of courtly love by refusing Lady Bertilak's advances; he is disloyal to his host and their Exchange of Winnings Agreement in not giving Bertilak the girdle; and he is cowardly when he avoids the first swing of the Green Knight's ax. Critics consider the puzzle of the theme a major asset of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and they continue to debate whether the real test was what happened at Castle Hautdesert rather than the exchange of blows, as well as whether, finally, Gawain passed or failed the tests. (Zott 257)

Without any trepidation this writer assumes that the ambiguity in the theme is both intentional and meant to be interpreted as a social commentary, by the author regarding the danger of idealism, in both the young and in the development of social order, in this case the chivalric code. This writer contends that the purpose of this ambiguity is to demonstrate that even a "perfect" specimen untainted by the experiences of age and danger has challenges that are seemingly impossible to overcome and will make the best decisions he can in the imperfect system he is unlucky enough to be a part of. Chivalry at the close of the period, when the work is supposed to have been written is a waning social construct, one that can certainly, during this period be shown to have flaws.

The Autumn of the Chivalric Period

One of the most interesting aspects of the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is its place in literary history. The work is what some would call a prequel, attempting to demonstrate the history of the very beginning of the chivalric period, through hindsight. The wisdom of this tactic is clear as the author can then utilize the work to demonstrate social commentary on the period it attempts to depict as well as express to the reader what the characters at the genesis of chivalry really should have done to avoid the challenges of its ambiguity;

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight performs the fullest, most complex euhemerization of the giant, completely rewriting the gigantomachia at the heart of identity romance. Arriving late enough in the development of the genre to reflect thoughtfully back on its layers of sedimentation, Sir Gawain was composed toward the close of the fourteenth century, the autumn of romance. Yet the poem locates its action in romance's green season. The "fayre folk" of Camelot are still "in her first age" ("in the flower of their youth" [Tolkien, 55]. The romance situates itself as a prequel to the matter of Britain, set in the days before the betrayals that dismembered the court, in the days before the formation of an Arthurian identity. "Sumquat childgered" [rather boyish], Arthur cannot long sit still because of his "songe blod" and "brayn wylde" [young blood and restless mind]. When the Green Knight bursts suddenly into the hall, he pretends that he cannot determine who is the king, declaring that "hit arn aboute on Ipis bench hot berdlez chylder" [There are only beardless children on these benches!] (280). (Cohen 144)

The work can also then describe, with impunity what the historical figures, should have done, possibly to avoid the challenges and contradictions of the system of chivalry as well as allow the youthful characters to make their rightful mistakes in the guise of a literary farce;

By setting the action during the communal enfances of Camelot, the Gawain author wipes clean the accumulated history in which the court of Arthur had become embedded: there are no adulterous liaisons to explain, no incest or infidelity, no treason or sad deaths. Because all these calamities are yet to come, the poem works somewhat like Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, laying the narrative foundation for an Arthurian "present" by positing a formative anteriority. The Green Knight plays the role of the traditional giant of romance…(Cohen 144)

To better understand when the work was written one must have at least a minimal understanding of the manner in which the manuscript has reached modern readers. The work exists in a single volume that is roughly dated to 1400 and is the final poem in a group of four copied into the volume. All four of the works have been attributed through analysis to the same unknown writer and yet they are also clearly different. The first poems title, Pearl, Purity and Patience all describe virtuous and human development. The first is a poem of the acceptance of grief (Davenport 7), the second is an attempt to retell several biblical stories as a way to express God's distaste for human impurity (55), and the third is a retelling of the Book of Jonah of the bible, and last we find Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a romantic tale of the application of chivalry as an ideal in crisis.

There is a marked difference between the last poem in the manuscript, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the other three. 1 Its material is the secular stuff of chivalry and marvellous adventure. The story is therefore set in a framework of the mutability of history, a more shadowy realm than the areas of virtue and vice or of death and salvation within which the poet's other narratives are placed. The voice which the poet adopts is also consonant with his choice of matter, a voice mingling the professional patter of the court entertainer and the manipulative arts of the all' observing narrator. The narrator is, for the most part, the servant of the tale, who speaks as moralist only in the passage explaining the pentangle and otherwise keeps his distance, reminding one of his stance in the other poems only when he regards his hero with ironic detachment similar, in some ways, to the narrator's comments on Jonah. There is no insistence that one should relate what the poem says to one's own sense of life, nor that one should see the tale as illustrative of a moral maxim. Any sense of exemplification is only in what the reader may discern in the working out of the fable. (Davenport 151-152)

According to Davenport is it easy to look at the work through a literal schema assuming that it is on its face what the writer intended, a simple tale of the knight in search of his honor, through a quest for his king and his comrades;

At first reading, one accepts the story on the narrator's terms, as an Arthurian adventure in which Gawain, Arthur's nephew and leading knight of the Round Table, takes on a challenge to the honour and reputation of Camelot, is tested and found to be 'On the fautlest freke that ever on fote yede', though he 'lakked a lyttel' and falls below the ideal standards of knightly perfection, proving to be as subject as all men to 'the faut and the fayntyse of the flesch crabbed'. (Davenport 152)

There is a clear sense that in a way the story is simply a tale of an imperfect man in an imperfect world and system, responding as most men would to the challenges set before him. He remains virtuous as best he can but falters because he is of flesh and blood. Yet there is a clear sense that there is simply more to the story, than can be arrived at on face value. The balladry of the work clearly dictates that without trials and tribulations the "romance" would be rather dull, not catch the ear or eye of the audience and the benefactors. Yet, the most ardent literary critics also attest to the fact that the poem simply means more than what is on the surface;

The poem is indisputably 'a romance', but it has an unexpected ending, employs more mystery, trickery and jesting than is common in romance and shows a more realistic sense of conduct and motive than one would accept as normal to the romance mode. The art which one ecognizes as the Gawain poet's concern here is that of writing a sophisticated, literary romance which inhabits the same imaginative world as the one variously represented in the tales which Chaucer gave to his Knight, Squire, Franklin and Wife of Bath. (Davenport 152)

All of the works associated with Chaucer at the end of the statement by Davenport embody and independent position in literature that is that is considered to be in a style that was openly critical of both the Chivalric ideal and the Victorian Era in which Chaucer wrote, bemoaning the challenges of high ideals and human frailty. Connecting the Gawain poet to Chaucer and particularly to the Wife of Bath tale which contains Chaucer's only Arthurian story; "presents a knight experiencing and portraying intense gender anxiety as he rapes, then studies, then finally submits to, women," (McClain 195) is significant as it exemplifies the idea that the message of the work is indeed deeper than the surface. Sir Gawain is an ideal Knight within a contradictory system. A virtuous Knight is always struggling to maintain a balance of the Chivalric code an array of rules that contradict each other and intermingle contradictory social, political and economic concepts.

Conclusion

This work has demonstrated the development of both literary criticism on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as well as the depth of understanding a careful reading of the work will provide. On the surface the tale of Sir Gawain could simply be a story fit for a child, so he or she might be entertained and amused by the challenges of a mythical figure. Yet, the real story of the tale is deeper and more confounding, offering an anonymous and genius tale of social commentary.

At the violent close of Richard's reign, Sir Gawain bespeaks the poet's desire to use art and legend to imagine a world less tragic than his own, a "variant" world with a fuller range of possibilities. 10 That alternative world, however, refashions an existing one, calling attention to the personal and partisan choices that have been made. (Astell 132)

All the development associated with this work has a great deal to do with its ambiguous themes. These ambiguous themes have a clear message regarding the real ambiguity of living within the confines of an ambiguous ideal. One is simultaneously challenged by doing one sort of "right" thing and at the same time challenged to doing another sort of "right" thing neither of which end in the development of a truly virtuous success.