Loathly Ladies: rationalising differences in the characterisation of the marrying Knight to the precipitating action (Medieval Narratives)

Michael Travis BA/LLB (Hons) October 2001, University of Auckland English Department Please notify the author if you wish to cite this paper, or use extracts in your work. A PDF is also available via Google Drive.  The role of the knight who marries the “Loathly Lady” is characterised differently throughout the tale’s variations, depending on either the precipitating action or the author’s purpose in retelling the common material. For example, Gower uses the tale as a mouthpiece to expound upon the virtues of courtly love, while Chaucer’s retelling comes across as a proto-feminist argument, allowing the Wife of Bath to give a frank dissertation on the benefits of ‘alternative’ lifestyles. Similarly, the Wedding and the Marriage of Sir Gawain seem to parody the edification of courtly romance in order to create popular tales for the common people. The Tale of Florent Gower’s “The Tale of Florent” comes from his Confessio Amantis, a collection of moral parables that are intended not just to entertain audiences as courtly romances, but also to provide instructions for virtuous behaviour. George Coffman describes Gower as an “advocate of a moral order … God’s order for the universe and the established order for human society.” As a consequence, Gower’s rendering of the Loathly Lady tale is intended to show dedication to integrity, and the rewards it brings. “The Tale of Florent” is faithful to the archetype – the hero faces both the riddle and the marriage, and his role is never marginalised by a ‘double’. This allows one character to be the centre of moral attention. As the Emperor’s nephew, Florent represents nobility and the chivalric code that attaches to it. [1] This is consistent with his actions throughout the story, as he appears to be bound by ethics. Firstly he is apprehended by the family of a man he has killed in battle. Killing in battle is not a culpable killing for which a family ought to take revenge – it is a killing governed by the rules of war. Florent is thus already defined in opposition to the family, who wish to kill him while he is at their mercy. Florent then maintains this moral high ground: he keeps his word to both the family (to return for execution if he has not found the correct answer), and to the loathly lady (to marry her if her answer saves him from death). Florent voluntarily returns to the loathly lady to see his promise through when he might have fled. His reward for this moral behaviour is of course a beautiful bride. His deferment to his wife is the “obedience [that] mai wel fortune a man to love,” and exemplifies the positive aspect of courtly love. Florent is thus spared the humiliating and punitive aspects present in later versions of the tale – there is no public wedding to an ugly bride (he is allowed to hide like an owl), and his chivalric achievement is recognised through the discussion between Genius and Amans. Thus Florent is characterised by the tale’s role as an exemplum “illustrating the various aspects and problems of courtly love” (Thomas Garbaty). The Wife of Bath’s Tale Chaucer’s version of the tale is more challenging to the concept of courtly love, and the knight is characterised both by the purpose of the story and his own transgressions. The central question is not just an unanswerable motif, but part of the rapist knight’s re-education – “what thing is it wommen most desiren?” On one level then, Chaucer’s tale is about the rapist knight, and the tribulations he faces through which he punished and forgiven of his crime – redeemed and even rewarded. This tale of redemption is gynocentric: the narrator is a woman, the initial victim is a woman, the questioner is a woman (Guinevere – Arthur having seceded his sovereignty of the issue to his wife), the loathly lady is largely undescribed (and so more likely to retain dignity than the comically grotesque women in the Wedding and Marriage), the question is of actual importance, and the finale comprises further moralising on female sovereignty by the Wife of Bath. Also, the loathly lady herself seems to hold the power of transformation, and is able to change at will. Her ugly appearance is then solely designed to “test” the knight. Another important variation is the choice offered by the loathly lady – the knight can have her ugly and faithful, or else beautiful and inconstant. The knight is squirming at this point – and his male power is subject to visions of cuckolding, or else daily humiliation. It is only when he relinquishes control of sovereignty that the lady will remain beautiful and obey “him in every thing”. That the knight is firstly a rapist allows the tale to challenge Gower’s assumptions of moral order. For Chaucer, gentility is “to lyven vertously and weyve synne.” Courtly ethics are learned, and not merely a product of birth – the idea of a non-chivalric knight serves to illustrate this point. On another level the tale is a justification of the Wife of Bath’s own lifestyle. She has been married five times, and during the prologue she engages in debate about the theological implications of this fact (Is she a sinner? Is she a bigamist?). Alison’s tale of female sovereignty suggests that she must also have a right to exercise sovereignty – thus the choice offered to the knight repeats a similar discussion Alison had with her own husband regarding the chastity of beautiful women: “She may no while in chastitee abyde, that is assailed upon ech syde.” Adultery is an inevitable result of beauty and sovereignty. The tale is also punctuated with interruptions by the Wife of Bath – stories from Ovid, Dante, Seneca and so on - extemporising on issues that she wishes to be drawn from the tale. Ultimately the second motive behind telling the tale is to justify her own existence as an older woman who takes younger lovers – and so the knight must be made subservient within the story. Afterall, Alison gets her kicks from conquering men – and the more difficult it is, the more satisfying it is. Afterall, those husbands which “loved [her] so wel …ne tolde no deyntee of hir love” – she did not value. The tale of the “Loathly Lady” is thus an ideal vehicle for Alison’s reassertion of female sovereignty in response to male transgression and uprising. The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle This poem (and also the Marriage) represents a trend towards mockery of courtly romance as a popular function of ballads for the common people. Garbaty places this tale in the “post-Chaucerian era of Fifteenth Century turmoil” in which the audience was no longer satisfied by traditional romance works and courtly ethics. Instead, this is a “parody-burlesque” featuring “the decline of the hero” (Garbaty). Thus, while Arthur is the knight who is initially challenged with the question, the knight who will have to marry the loathly lady is in fact Gawain. Arthur is open to parody because he is removed from the sympathetic role of martyr, but Gawain is all the more pathetic in this role because it is not even his own life that is as stake! Gawain, then, is firstly characterised by his role as a surrogate, or ‘double’ for Arthur. This also increases the burden of chivalry – Gawain will suffer not to keep his own word, but to keep the word of another – and so, obedience to courtly tradition is being mocked. Gawain’s duty to Arthur appears archaic – particularly in response to the horrors described. The grotesque appearance of the loathly lady is exaggerated unlike before, and the cost required of honour is all the more higher. The lady is absurd in her monstrousness – “her nose snotyd … her tethe hung overe her lyppes” – and Gawain’s humiliation at the wedding is absolute – even “for alle her raiment she bare the belle of fowlnesse.” Not only ugly, Dame Ragnelle has no manners and is “fulle foulle and nott curteys.” Poor Gawain is made even more pathetic as he goes to bed with this monster, who continues to tease his devotion to chivalry. It is “for Arthours sake” that Ragnelle demands sexual attention… However, in the end Gawain’s courtly virtues are upheld as he is rewarded for his persistence with the “fairest creature that evere he sawe.” But one final twist remains for Gawain’s character in this version of the tale. Gawain and Ragnelle alternate between who retains sovereignty. Gawain gives the choice of appearance to her, and in return she promises to “be obeysaunt.” However, it is clear in the conclusion that Ragnelle continues to hold sovereignty – in contradiction of Gower’s assertions – as Gawain lies beside her “as a coward” with no interest in the courtly and Arthurian pursuits such as jousting and hunting.  The Marriage of Sir Gawain This is another parody of courtly romance, and Gawain’s role, as the knight who will marry the loathly lady is made even more unfortunate. This time around Arthur betroths Gawain without even consulting him: “Thou shalt have gentle Gawaine, my cozen, and marry him with a wing.” Gawain will, of course, honour this bargain because his loyalty to Arthur precludes him from doing otherwise, but it seems all the more archaic. Especially since the lady is now at her most horrific: “there as shold have stood her mouth, then there was sett her eye, the other was in her forhead fast.” Gawain’s courtesy is heightened by his willingness to take this bride without consultation, but also because he treats her with the appropriate respect that even Arthur “had forgot”. Later, when the other knights, including Gawain, meet the loathly lady for the first time, Sir Kay cannot restrain himself from insulting her. This is, by extension, an insult to Gawain. Interestingly, Gawain’s courtesy is extended in this version because he must also shield his wife-to-be from Kay’s jibes. While a parody, this version goes further than the others to exemplify Gawain’s renowned chivalry: “That Gawayn, with his old curteisye … ne koude amende with a word (Chaucer, “The Squire’s Tale”). Conclusion In both the Wedding and Marriage, Gawain is linked to the precipitating action through his loyalty to Arthur. While Arthur somewhat cowardly dodges his confrontation with the Baron, dismissing his unwillingness to fight as “methought it was not mett”, Gawain unflinchingly and unfalteringly meets his fate. He is always defined in opposition, to Arthur, to Kay, and is ultimately used to show the farcical degrees to which courtly manners can be stretched, while still earning a happy ending for his suffering. Chaucer and Gower do not rely on any surrogate characters, and so their knights are responsible for themselves. While Gower’s knight consistently fulfils all the ideals of courtesy, Chaucer’s knight is initially ‘errant’ and eventually brought into line with female authority. While all four tales rely on similar archetypes, it is interesting to see how they manipulate the central male characters and diverge along different paths, in order to prove different points. [1] While the Arthurian tales are set in a uniquely chivalrous society, there is no general reason why Florent would choose to follow a similar ethical code. This is why he is identified as being of noble birth. Not however, Chaucer disputes this ‘inherited’ courtesy.