N.A.M. Oosterlee

By N.A.M. Oosterlee, The Medieval Skald, Blog Entry V

When one refers to the late Medieval English period, there is a high likelihood that many will recall King Arthur and his noblest gathering of the Round Table. Although Arthurian adventures were set in pre-Anglo-Saxon England, the literary franchise received much attention in the late medieval period. One of the main reasons for this sudden popularity was that the Normans returned Brythonic traditions along with the French Romance genre to the British shores. Even though the newly introduced genres have their roots somewhere else, it is only natural that Middle English romances will have a slight alteration accustomed to their cultural manners. In this blog entry of the Medieval Skald, I want to explore whether the word ‘marvel’ holds extra sway over the plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight since the word reoccurs at crucial moments of the text’s narrative. In addition, I want to examine whether there is an Old English presence within the poet’s writing style and narrative.

Magic & the Marvellous

Where today’s Western world finds meagre stimuli for the belief of magic and wonder, the entire period of England’s Middle Ages was one where this belief in witchcraft, divine and demonic intervention, and a realm of fairies living next to civilisation was fairly present. From the Old English period, we can observe some of the ‘rituals’ performed in the magical manuscripts of Bald’s Leechbook, Leechbook III, The Lacnunga, and the Old English Herbarium Complex. These medical manuscripts contain ‘magical’ remedies against physical malfunctions ranging from male impotence to having a cleft lip. The Anglo-Saxons stood out for their medical collections: “The existence of an Old English medical tradition possibly encouraged the relatively rapid translation into Anglo-Norman of medical writings transmitted to England from Italy after the Norman Conquest” (Hollis, 2017).¹ The terms medical and magical have a common origin in Germanic and Celtic social worlds; for they once were mutually inseparable. The modern association of old hags and their malevolent magical spells finds its root during the transition period of Anglo-Saxon to Anglo-Norman England:

“From pre-Christian times, wise women were honoured in communities as local practitioners who helped at the births of babies, provided herbal remedies, interpreted dreams, charmed away wounds and diseases, and even created love potions. By the twelfth century, however, these women began to be regarded less highly and were ostracised. Such women lived on in lonely cottages far from society, where they came to be thought of more as sorceresses and witches, and as such they survived in folk tradition” (Beveridge, 2014).²

Sir Gawain & the Green Knight is a Breton lay romance which, like other Middle English romances, has a world filled with magic, and its plot is driven by it. The Green Knight demonstrates the complex adversary coming out of this magical intervention; and how incomprehensible and ominous this magic was. When considering the combination of magic and the marvellous, some have argued that, within the Middle English literary context, these two are, too, aligned with each other:

“Not all literary marvels take advantage of those possibilities, but a group from the fourteenth century does. I argue that these texts represent a coherent and previously unrecognised theory of the marvellous, one focused on the intersection of the magical, the spectacular, and the moral. This theory posits that magical spectacles can provoke forms of wonder that lead to moral actions by characters and open up moral reflection for the audience, particularly, on the limits and limitations of ethical systems” (Williams, 2018).³

The word ‘marvel’ is also found to be a synonym for words such as ‘miracle’ and ‘wonder’. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word entered the English language around 1300 AD. It was borrowed from the Old French ‘merveile’ meaning ‘a wonder, surprise, or miracle’ and adapted to the Middle English ‘merivelle’ meaning a miracle, a thing, act, or event which causes astonishment. Although the English language lent it from French, the word’s origin lies in Vulgar Latin ‘mirari’ meaning ‘to wonder at’. When taking the original meaning of the word, it is then that the connection between magic and the marvellous can be rapidly made. The act of one’s wondering invites someone to believe in ‘magic’ and face life’s unexpected tidings. This appears to be a universal phenomenon amongst human cultures for E.E. Evans-Pritchard wrote a similar observation when examining Azande witchcraft in the late 1920s. According to him, the Azande believe that anything that is unexpected and is forced to be defined by mere luck and chance is considered to be the works of someone else’s witchcraft.⁴ However, the attached Middle English flavour of magic and the marvellous suits a treaty of one’s morality being tested on display: “The term marvel encompasses the technological, natural, and supernatural wonders that were important contexts for understanding the Middle English marvels… and suggests a relationship between secular marvels and their religious complements” (Williams, 2018). Christianity maintained to have a strong influence on one’s external behaviour towards the world and its moral virtues were a common measuring tool: “This is a world integrated and informed, materially and ethically, by a courtly value system that is felt as having profound moral and spiritual significance” (Putter & Stokes, 2014).⁵ In Sir Gawain, the protagonist is led by his sworn vow and chivalric Christian virtues to embark on his journey towards the mysterious and daunting green chapel to meet his inevitable demise. Although there appears to be a tight connection between magic and the marvellous, famous German philologist Jacob Grimm once mentioned a clear distinction between the two terms: “Miracle is wrought by honest means, magic by unlawful; the one is geheuer (blessed, wholesome, p. 914), the other ungeheuer” (Grimm, 1835).⁶ This passage evokes the quality of either being morally good or evil; once again, a feature that can be drawn from the magic and marvellous in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

A Shield’s Pentagram, Chivalric Virtues, and the Marvellous

As suggested, ‘mervayl’ returns at important moments in the plot’s narration when the inquiry of Sir Gawain’s morality comes into play:

I. At the Christmas party: “Of sum mayn mervayl that he myght trowe” (line 94).

II. When the Green Knight represents himself to King Arthur and his Round Table: “For uch man had mervayl what hit mene myghte” (line 233).

III. When Sir Gawain sets off his adventure and bids farewell to the Arthurian court: “There all men for mervayl myght on hit loke” (line 479).

IV. When Sir Gawain is visited by the Lady of the Bartilak Mansion:

“Mene other amount — to mervayl, him thoghte” (line 1197).

V. While the Green Knight attempts to behead Sir Gawain: “No mervayl thagh him mislike” (line 2307).

After carefully examining the five occasions, I can see a pattern between the different moments of the appearance of Marvel and the five chivalric virtues of friendship, courtesy, generosity, chastity, and piety. Firstly, the virtuous symbol of friendship can be placed when they are seated at the Christmas gathering. Secondly, courtesy can be assigned to the moment when King Arthur welcomes and hears the Green Knight’s proposal at the Round Table. Thirdly, the act of Gawain’s generosity can be noticed after he takes up the job and decides to put himself out for the entire Arthurian court. Fourthly, the act of chastity is completed when he refuses Lady Bartilak’s seduction towards him. Fifthly, and finally, Sir Gawain’s piety is tested when the Green Knight is ready to land his axe. It is only the latter that the Arthurian knight fails to adhere to. However, it can be read ambiguously whether Gawain remains true to his beliefs. If it is for his faith in a good outcome after the Green Knight’s striking blow; then it can be read as a failure. However, suppose Gawain remains faithful to his sworn chivalric vows to harness one’s life, over death. In that case, he stays loyal: “Chivalry was invented as a means of preserving life, of enabling knightly endeavour to be economically viable as a day-to-day activity, with a much lower risk of death than that implied by the earlier warrior code. To expect a man to die for such a social convention is inherently a mocking proposition. What it reveals is a hypocrisy at the heart of chivalry, because it had, despite its roots in the mitigation of violence, become associated with extremes of bravery” (Ashe, 2012).⁷ Such patterns and poetic schemes are not uncommon to appear in this particular poem: “No one who reads ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ fails to notice its elaborate, symmetrical structure. Such attention to structure certainly argues for a well-defined purpose which goes far beyond the repetition of a traditional tale or the mere entertainment of an audience” (Loganbill, 1972).⁸ Poetically, the Gawain poet assumed and adjusted his literary lines by applying certain formulae such as alliteration and a later-proposed ‘five-lined bob-and-wheel’ (Putter & Stokes, 2014). Symbolically, the five chivalric virtues are, too, portrayed on Sir Gawain’s shield; forming a five-pointed pentagram. These are but a few of the many symbols that the poet seems to have left us. B. Millett mentioned in her article (1994) that the Gawain poet holds a fine grip on his cluster of signs.⁹ It would, therefore, not be odd for there to be an additional meaning of the Gawain poet’s usage of ‘marvel’.

Sir Gawain and the Germanic World: A Marvellous Old English Revival

The Gawain poet demonstrates a heightened awareness of cultural aspects from his present times to remnants of the past. The world, which is portrayed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, must resemble a Celtic one: “The pagan world of the Celts was a not-so-distant memory, and outside of Church and urban centres local folklore and superstition thrived. The Gawain poet, despite, or perhaps because of, his likely clerical vocation, would have been aware of local lore as well as having access to texts of continental philosophy” (Tracy, 2007).¹⁰ Despite the poem’s Celtic world, there are still some hints left by its poet which elicit Germanic ideas; thus, making the poem one that only could have originated from late-medieval England. The alliterative metre, or its supposed revival, traces a poetic tradition that finds its way across the entire early-to-late Medieval English period: “Poems that mix metres, like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late fourteenth century; alliterative metre and template metre)… switch back and forth in perceptibly patterned ways, not imperceptibly or willy-nilly. Metre is not an optimal ornament; it is just that set of historically variable practices by which verse comes to be recognised as verse” (Weiskott, 2016).¹¹ Although appearing throughout literary English history, the metrical style of alliteration has had its ups and downs in mass appearance. The Middle English period saw new poetic dictions arise in its literature such as metrical rhyme. This latter feature is almost absent in the surviving Old English texts. One of the Old English attempts at rhyme is the later-dubbed The Riming Poem found at Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS 3501: The Exeter Book. According to Putter & Stokes’ introduction to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the poet is somewhat aware of the Old English metre: “Though scribal corruption cannot be ruled out, these patterns might also show the poet playing variations and sometimes happy simply to observe the rule that obtained in Old English verse: that alliteration is required only to cross the caesura, aa/ax being an optimal rather than a regularly required norm” (Putter & Stokes, 2014).

As for story elements, one specific variation of the Arthurian Round Table in Sir Gawain can lead to an assumption of Old Englishness: the sudden importance of Gawain’s role. Unlike French Arthurian tales, the nephew of the king plays a more prominent role: “In making Sir Gawain, Arthur’s sister’s son, the preeminent knight of the Round Table, the poet was faithful to an older tradition” (Greenblatt, 2018).¹² This ‘ancient custom’, which the author refers to, is the dear relationship between the sister’s children and her brother. One might wonder why. However, when thinking it over, this relationship only seems natural; for you would always be certain of the children being related to you. This relationship is even more important as a king’s nephew since it will be evidence of royalty. It is unclear whether this intimate kin’s union is restricted to Germanic culture only. Yet, there is a recording of its phenomenon early on: “For the ancient Germans, this was already observed by Tacitus who mentions that the sister’s children are as dear to the mother’s brother as they are to the father” (Bremmer Jr., 1980).¹³ Despite his tale of Celtic heroes, the poet of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight demonstrates Germanic elements in his narrative by indulging more in alliterative verse and making the king’s nephew, Gawain, the protagonist.

Conclusion

I have examined the possible structural meaning of the Gawain poet’s distribution of the term ‘marvel’. After looking more closely at its reoccurrence, there appears to be a connection between the quintet of chivalric virtues, also represented on Sir Gawain’s shield forming a pentagram. Like some of the other found and established patterns, such as the five-lined-bob-and-wheel, the Gawain poet, once more, evokes another additional pattern to his plot. While the actors’ world must portray a Celtic world, the Gawain poet continues to employ some Germanic characteristics in alliteration and the aspect of an important kinship between an uncle and his sister’s children.

Works cited

Ashe, L., “Chapter Ten: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Limits of Chivalry”, The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Beveridge, J., Children into Swans: Fairy Tales and the Pagan Imagination, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014.

Bremmer Jr., R.H., The Importance of Kinship: Uncle and Nephew in Beowulf, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik, 1980.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E., Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, Oxford University Press, 1976.

Greenblatt, S., The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages, Tenth Edition, W.W. Norton & Company: New York – London, 2018.

Grimm, J.L.K., Teutonic Mythology, Translated by J.S. Stallybrass, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Hollis, S.J., “Medical Writing”, The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017.

Loganbill, D., “The Medieval Mind in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’”, The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Winter, 1972, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Winter, 1972), Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, 1972.

Millett, B., “How Green is the Green Knight?”, Nottingham Medieval Studies, XXXVIII, 1994.

Putter, A., & Stokes, M., The Works of the Gawain Poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience, Penguin Group, 2014.

Tracy, L., “A Knight of God or the Goddess?: Rethinking Religious Syncretism in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’”, Arthuriana (Dallas, Texas, Vol. 17, no. 3, 2007, p. 31-55, 2007.

Weiskott, E., English Alliterative Verse, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Williams, T., Middle English Marvels: Magic, Spectacle, and Morality in the Fourteenth Century, Penn State University Press, 2018.

1. Hollis, S.J., “Medical Writing”, The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017. ↩
2. Beveridge, J., Children into Swans: Fairy Tales and the Pagan Imagination, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014. ↩
3. Williams, T., Middle English Marvels: Magic, Spectacle, and Morality in the Fourteenth Century, Penn State University Press, 2018. ↩
4. Evans-Pritchard, E.E., Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, Oxford University Press, 1976. ↩
5. Putter, A., & Stokes, M., The Works of the Gawain Poet: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience, Penguin Group, 2014. ↩
6. Grimm, J.L.K., Teutonic Mythology, Translated by J.S. Stallybrass, Cambridge University Press, 2012. ↩
7. Ashe, L., “Chapter Ten: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Limits of Chivalry”, The Exploitations of Medieval Romance, Cambridge University Press, 2012. ↩
8. Loganbill, D., “The Medieval Mind in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’”, The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Winter, 1972, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Winter, 1972), Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, 1972. ↩
9. Millett, B., “How Green is the Green Knight?”, Nottingham Medieval Studies, XXXVIII, 1994. ↩
10. Tracy, L., “A Knight of God or the Goddess?: Rethinking Religious Syncretism in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’”, Arthuriana (Dallas, Texas, Vol. 17, no. 3, 2007, p. 31-55, 2007. ↩
11. Weiskott, E., English Alliterative Verse, Cambridge University Press, 2016. ↩
12. Greenblatt, S., The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages, Tenth Edition, W.W. Norton & Company: New York – London, 2018. ↩
13. Bremmer Jr., R.H., The Importance of Kinship: Uncle and Nephew in Beowulf, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik, 1980. ↩