While reading the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere this week, I was struck
by a particular line spoken by Sir Bors. After an incident of poisoning
disrupts a dinner hosted by Guinevere, she is accused of murdering the
knight Sir Patricius, and will be burnt if a champion does not meet the
accusation in a trial by combat. After some ado about who will take up
the challenge in Lancelot's absence, Sir Bors confides in Arthur his
concern: "howsomever the game goth, there was treson amonge us" (594).
The line suggests a stunning awareness of the justice system which
Arthur's court employs. Bors understands full well that no matter how the trial by combat is decided, it remains the case that a knight was murdered, and the duel cannot remedy this fact. In such instances, the judicial ordeal serves not as a salve but as a symptom of the breakdown of society, an indicator that the very character of that society is dishonest.
The notion of the judicial ordeal was that, regardless of the actual combative strength and skill of the participants, God would favor the combatant who was in the right. In actuality, of course, the duels play out much differently. When Meleagaunt discovers the bloody bedsheets in Guinevere's room - evidence of her having lain with a wounded knight - Launcelot says he will prove with his hands "that thys nyght there lay none of thes ten knyghtes wounded [who were lodged with the queen] with my lady" (634). Lancelot thus turns the ordeal to one of a non-issue by tricky words - does God favor this half-truth by giving Lancelot the victory in battle? The ordeal once again becomes an indicator of social disorder rather than a re-institution of order: in addition to discounting Lancelot from the sexual indiscretion (despite his freshly-wounded hands) the duel does not explain the blood on the bedsheets. The physical evidence of misdoing is forgotten once the accuser is dead.
This brings up the ultimate failing of the trial by ordeal - the value of having an invincible champion. Lancelot knows that he can get away with any lie by insisting on a trial by combat and winning it. Indeed, when Mordred and Aggravain go to Arthur to disclose the absolute truth of the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, Arthur counsels that they catch him in the act - "for Sir Launcelot ys an hardy knyght, and all ye know that he ys the best knyght amonge us all; and but if he be takyn with the dede he woll fyght with him that bringeth up the noyse, and I know no knyght that ys able to macch him" (646). Even though Aggravain implicates Gawain in knowing of the affair - an implication Gawain does not deny - and Arthur has some deeming of it, the king himself cannot move against his own vassal for knowing that the trial by ordeal will offer him a loophole to justice. Although there is certainly a religious tick which motivates the judicial ordeal system, does it seem that there is also a kind of primitive impulse as well, to admit the right to whoever is strongest by force? Mallory seems to draw our attention the failings of this system. Despite his descriptions of valorous battlefield conduct, is he indicting a social system which privileges violence?
I also noticed the importance of violence in Le Morte Darthur’s scenes of judgment, but I am not sure whether Malory includes such scenes so as to imply that the mode of decision he depicts here are illegitimate or indicative of societal breakdown. He does include, in the narration of the fallout from Sir Patrice’s poisoning, the note that Guinevere was “put in a constable’s ward, and a great fire made about an iron stake” (410). She is treated, in other words, as any common criminal might be treated; even Arthur, her husband, displays no regard for her paternity or present power. This seems, to Malory’s mind, to be a good thing: “For such custom was used in those days, for favour, love, nor affinity there should be none other but righteous judgment, as well upon a king as upon a knight, and as well upon a queen as upon another poor lady” (410). The implication of this aside is that the medieval system of detainment is, at least, actually quite fair and therefore not worthy of indictment. Whether this approval extends to the violence of the actual judgment is unclear. I can agree only that Malory recognizes this social system’s privileging of violence, but I also note that he simultaneously praises Arthur for not privileging birth or lordly connections prior to the occurrence of that judgment, as appears to have been the case in Malory’s own day (557 n. 410).
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure whether or not Malory is indicting the social system he is describing in the Morte D'Arthure. However, the prevalence of violence found in these two tales is indicative of the medieval attitudes toward the subject. However, I noticed a great sense of chivalric compassion as well, particularly following the death of Arthur and Gawain. Malory writes "Sir Lancelot kneeled down by the tomb and wept, and prayed heartily for his soul...Lancelot lay two nights upon his tomb in prayers and in doleful weeping" (519). Malory juxtaposes the deaths of these warriors with a scene of great compassion. Lancelot is truly sorrowful for this to occur, as he spends two entire days weeping in memory. Also interesting is that Lancelot decides to go off alone on a new adventure. I inferred from that he wishes to honor these men on his own, not wishing to share his melancholy with anyone else.
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