Sir Launfal
Encyclopedia
Sir Launfal is a 1045-line Middle English
romance or Breton lay written by Thomas Chestre
dating from the late-14th century. It is based primarily on the 538-line Middle English poem Sir Landevale, which in turn was based on Marie de France
's lai
Lanval
, written in a form of French
understood in the courts of both England
and France
in the 12th century. Sir Launfal retains the basic story told by Marie de France and retold in Sir Landevale, augmented with material from an Old French lai Graelent and a lost romance that possibly featured a giant named Sir Valentyne. This is in line with Thomas Chestre's eclectic way of creating his poetry.
In the tale, Sir Launfal is propelled from wealth and status – the steward at King Arthur's court – to being a pauper and a social outcast. He is not even invited to a feast in his home town of Caerleon
in South Wales when the king visits, although Arthur knows nothing of this. Out in the forest alone, he meets with two damsels who take him to their mistress, the daughter of the King of Faerie. She gives him untold wealth and a magic bag in which money can always be found, on the condition that he becomes her lover. She will visit him whenever he wants and nobody will see her or hear her. But he must tell nobody about her, or her love will vanish at that instant.
The story of a powerful (fairy) woman who takes a lover on condition that he obey a particular prohibition is common in medieval poetry: the French lais of Desiré
, Graelant, and Guingamor, and Chrétien de Troyes
's romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
, all share similar plot elements. The presence of a Land of Faerie, or an Otherworld
, betrays the story's Celtic roots. A final court scene may be intended by Chestre as criticism of the contemporary legal and judicial framework in late-fourteenth century England. The equation of money with worth in the tale may satirize a late-fourteenth century bourgeois mentality.
The Middle English poem itself dates to the late-fourteenth century, and is based principally upon an early-fourteenth century English romance Sir Landevale, itself an adaptation of Marie de France's
Old French Breton lai Lanval
. Unusually for a Middle English romance, the poem's author can be named. The final stanza includes the lines:
It is widely accepted that Thomas Chestre
was the author of two other verse romances in MS Cotton Caligula A.ii., Lybeaus Desconus and the Southern Octavian.
's steward, in charge of celebrations. After ten happy years under Sir Launfal's stewardship, however, King Arthur's court is graced by a new arrival, Guenevere, whom Merlin
has brought from Ireland. Sir Launfal takes a dislike to his new mistress, as do many other worthy knights, because of her reputation for promiscuity. King Arthur marries Queen Guenevere and Sir Launfal's fortunes take a sudden turn for the worse. He leaves King Arthur's court when Guenevere shows ill will to him by not giving him a gift at the wedding. Insulted and humiliated, Launfal leaves the court, losing his status and income.
Returning to his home town of Caerleon
(now a village in south Wales
just outside Newport, where the ruins of the Roman fortress of Isca
can still be seen, whose walls surrounding its Roman baths and elsewhere were still standing high during the medieval period), Sir Launfal takes humble lodgings, spends all the money that King Arthur gave him before setting out, and soon descends into poverty and debt. One Trinity Sunday, the king holds a banquet in Caerleon to which Sir Launfal, because of his poverty, is not invited. The mayor's daughter offers to let him spend the day with her, but he declines her offer since he has nothing to wear. Instead, he borrows a horse from her and goes for a ride, stopping to rest under a tree in a nearby forest. Two maidens appear and bring him to a lady they call Tryamour, daughter of the King of Olyroun and of Fayrye, whom Sir Launfal finds lying on a bed in a glorious pavilion.
(He found in the pavilion the daughter of the King of Olyroun, her name was Tryamour and her father was the King of the Otherworld – of the west, both near and far – a very powerful man. In the tent was a lavishly-adorned and very handsome bed. Lying in it was the beautiful woman who had summoned him.) Tryamour offers Sir Launfal her love and several material gifts: an invisible servant Gyfre, a horse called blaunchard and a bag that will always produce gold coins however many are taken from it, all on the condition that he keeps their relationship a secret from the rest of the world. No one must know of her existence. She tells him she will come to him whenever he is all alone and wishes for her.
Sir Launfal returns to Caerleon and soon a train of packhorses arrives, bearing all kinds of valuables for him. He uses this new wealth to perform many acts of charity. He also wins in a local tournament, thanks to the horse and banner given him by the lady. A knight of Lombardy
, Sir Valentyne, challenges him (on the honour of his beloved lady) to come to Lombardy to fight with him, in a section of Thomas Chestre's tale that does not derive from Marie de France's Lanval or from the English Sir Landevale but perhaps from another romance that is now lost. Launfal makes the voyage, and defeats Valentyne, thanks to his invisible servant Gyfre, who picks up his helmet and shield when Valentyne knocks them down. Launfal kills Valentyne and then has to kill many more of the Lombardy knights in order to get away.
Sir Launfal's reputation for martial prowess and generosity reaches new heights and word at last reaches King Arthur. Sir Launfal is summoned again by the king, after a long absence, and asked to serve as steward for a long festival beginning at the Feast of St. John. During some revelry at the court, Guenevere offers herself to Sir Launfal. Sir Launfal refuses, Guenevere threatens to ruin his reputation in retaliation by questioning his manhood and Sir Launfal blurts out in his defence that he has a mistress whose ugliest handmaiden would make a better Queen than Guenevere. Disaster! Guenevere goes to Arthur and accuses Launfal of trying to seduce her and of insulting her as well. Knights are sent to arrest him.
Sir Launfal has gone to his room, but his faerie mistress does not appear and Sir Launfal soon realises why. Tryamour will no longer come to him when he wishes for her since he has given away her existence. Soon, her gifts have disappeared or changed. Now he is brought to trial. Since his jury of peers all know that the Queen is more likely to have propositioned Launfal than the other way around, they believe Launfal's version of the encounter. However, for his insult he is given a year and a fortnight to produce the beautiful lady as proof of his boast; Guenevere says she is willing to be blinded if he manages to produce such a woman. As the day of the proof progresses, the Queen presses for him to be executed while others express doubt, particularly when two parties of gorgeous women ride up. Finally Tryamour arrives and exculpates Launfal on both counts. She breathes on Guenevere and blinds her. His former invisible servant brings his horse Blaunchard up and Tryamour, Launfal, and her ladies ride away to the island of Olyroun, which in Marie de France's twelfth century version of the tale is Avalon
. Once a year, on a certain day, Sir Launfal returns and his horse may be heard neighing and a knight may joust with him, although he was never seen again in Arthur's land.
, particularly during such summer feasts as Pentecost
, Trinity Sunday, and St. John's Day. There is ambiguity, though. Kardevyle, where the opening scene of the story takes place, can be interpreted as Carlisle, in northern England, where King Arthur holds court in many Middle English romances, such as the Awntyrs off Arthure and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
. But it can also be interpreted as Cardiff
, in South Wales, which is King Arthur's residence in Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle
(curiously), and might sit more comfortably with the other locations in Sir Launfal, such as Caerleon
and Glastonbury. Marie de France's poem Lanval, along with other Old French Arthurian works, has this city as "Kardeol", which, given the confusion, must have sounded, even to a late-Medieval English ear, like a conflation of Carlisle and Cardiff. In Marie's poem, however, the intention seems clearly to be Carlisle, since King Arthur is fighting against Scots and Pictish incursions there.
Guenevere (Gwennere, Gwenore) is stated by Thomas Chestre to be from "Irlond", possibly Ireland
, the daughter of King Rion, who is an enemy of King Arthur in most other medieval Arthurian stories and usually hails from North Wales. Launfal's home base seems to be Caerleon, in South Wales. The realm of Fayrye is located on the island of Olyroun (probably Oléron
, near Brittany
). Being the realm of Fayrye, however, it might not be expected to have a specific location in the real world. Marie de France relates that Lanval was taken by his Faërie lover to Avalon
, "a very beautiful island," and was never seen again; just as Connla was taken by a daughter of the Irish god Manannan to a land across the sea that "delights the mind of everyone who turns to me", in an ancient Irish legend. Also mentioned are knights of Little Britain (Brittany), and the need to cross the salt sea to reach Lombardy.
and Queen Guinevere had been added to it by Chrétien de Troyes
in his Knight of the Cart. Thomas Chestre describes a 10-year period during which Launfal prospers at Arthur's bachelor court, followed by Arthur's marriage to Guinevere. In the 13th-century French Arthurian romances, Merlin warns against this marriage; in Chestre's poem, he arranges it, betraying Chestre's willingness to adapt a by-then established legend in his own way.
Such adaptation is further evident in Guinevere's blinding. Marie de France describes no such mutilation of the Queen, and it sits uncomfortably with the climax of King Arthur's reign, well-known from the thirteenth century Lancelot-Grail Cycle, in which Lancelot and a seeing Guinevere play their part in King Arthur's final days.
In Marie de France's Old French version of the story, Guinevere is not involved in Lanval's initial departure from King Arthur's court, and he is simply a poor knight who has been overlooked by the king, not an over-generous knight vulnerable to getting into debt. Arthur generally comes off much better in Sir Launfal than in Lanval, and Guenevere much worse; she is promoted to a major character, with more speeches and actions, and her comeuppance is the climax of the poem. Chestre also adds a character, the Mayor of Caerleon, who is not present in Lanval and whose grudging disloyalty gives extra gloss to the generosity Launfal shows when he obtains the fairy purse.
Chestre adds two tournament scenes that are not present in Marie's lai, allowing him to show off his ability to fashion them and also changing the emphasis on his hero's character. He also introduces Sir Valentyne, possibly from a lost romance. Sir Valantyne is a giant who, as is so common in medieval romance, the hero is required to defeat. In fact, the poem is close to becoming a romance, recounting many years of Sir Launfal's life – ten before King Arthur's marriage, then seven with his Otherworldly lady and a further year before his trial – in contrast to Marie's Lanval which, like most of her other lais, concern a single episode in a hero's or heroine's life. In general, whereas Lanval is a story about love, Sir Launfal is much more an adventure story which includes a love element.
where all the buildings are made of solid silver, into a town where ships are moored. Marie's lai Guigemar, sees the wounded hero set sail in a mysterious boat with candelabra at its prow and with only a bed on deck, upon which he lies, the only living soul on board. He arrives safely at the mysterious castle of a lady who heals him of his wound, and becomes her lover. Sir Orfeo
follows a company of ladies into the side of a cliff and through the rock until he emerges into an Otherworld, in a Middle English Breton lai, where he rescues his wife who had been abducted, from amongst those who have been beheaded and burnt and suffocated. Many ancient Irish tales involve a hero entering a hill of the Sidhe
, or crossing a sea to a Land of Youth
, or passing down through the waters of a lake into an Otherworld.
A Middle English poem, the Isle of Ladies, describes an island where magic apples sustain a multitude of ladies, and only ladies, on an island that is made of glass; like one of the Otherworldly islands that features in the ancient Irish legend, the Voyage of Maeldun
. In another ancient Irish legend, the Voyage of Bran, a beautiful lady comes to take Bran to one of these islands. "If the Middle English Breton Lay has connections with Celtic folktale, the connections can be easily perceived in Launfal.
, and Sir Cleges
.
was "the code of avantance, in which the male was to protect his lover’s reputation by not revealing her identity." But there may be much wider concerns expressed in Sir Launfal about legal process and the state of justice in England near the end of the fourteenth century. "Literary depictions of the king’s judicial failure, as in Sir Launfal, comment on the entire system." In Thomas Chestre's poem, Queen Guinevere destabilizes the court by taking favourites and falsely accusing those who cross her, the king seems more willing to placate her than to see justice done and at least some of his noblemen are more concerned to see their king's desires blindly carried out than to see a fair outcome. There was undoubtedly dissatisfaction in some quarters with the legal system in England at this time. Marie de France's depiction of King Arthur's court in Lanval, two hundred years earlier, may have been intended to parody the court of King Henry II of England, who saw himself as a new Arthur.
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
romance or Breton lay written by Thomas Chestre
Thomas Chestre
Thomas Chestre was the author of a 14th century Middle English romance Sir Launfal, a verse romance of 1045 lines based ultimately on Marie de France's Breton lay Lanval...
dating from the late-14th century. It is based primarily on the 538-line Middle English poem Sir Landevale, which in turn was based on Marie de France
Marie de France
Marie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an undisclosed court, but was almost certainly at least known about at the royal court of King Henry II of England...
's lai
Lai
A lai is a lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance.Lais were mainly composed in France and Germany, during the 13th and 14th centuries. A Provençal term for a similar kind of poem is descort.The English term lay is a...
Lanval
Lanval
"Lanval" is one of the Lais of Marie de France. Written in Anglo-Norman, it tells the story of a knight at King Arthur's court who is overlooked by the king, wooed by a fairy lady, given all manner of gifts by her, and subsequently refuses the advances of Queen Guinevere...
, written in a form of French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
understood in the courts of both England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in the 12th century. Sir Launfal retains the basic story told by Marie de France and retold in Sir Landevale, augmented with material from an Old French lai Graelent and a lost romance that possibly featured a giant named Sir Valentyne. This is in line with Thomas Chestre's eclectic way of creating his poetry.
In the tale, Sir Launfal is propelled from wealth and status – the steward at King Arthur's court – to being a pauper and a social outcast. He is not even invited to a feast in his home town of Caerleon
Caerleon
Caerleon is a suburban village and community, situated on the River Usk in the northern outskirts of the city of Newport, South Wales. Caerleon is a site of archaeological importance, being the site of a notable Roman legionary fortress, Isca Augusta, and an Iron Age hill fort...
in South Wales when the king visits, although Arthur knows nothing of this. Out in the forest alone, he meets with two damsels who take him to their mistress, the daughter of the King of Faerie. She gives him untold wealth and a magic bag in which money can always be found, on the condition that he becomes her lover. She will visit him whenever he wants and nobody will see her or hear her. But he must tell nobody about her, or her love will vanish at that instant.
The story of a powerful (fairy) woman who takes a lover on condition that he obey a particular prohibition is common in medieval poetry: the French lais of Desiré
Desire
-Concepts:* Desire , a sense of longing or hoping* Desire * Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, selfish pursuit of wealth, power, or possessions* Interpersonal attraction* Libido, sexual desire according to Freud and psychoanalysis...
, Graelant, and Guingamor, and Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...
's romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Yvain, the Knight with the Lion is a romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem...
, all share similar plot elements. The presence of a Land of Faerie, or an Otherworld
Otherworld
Otherworld, or the Celtic Otherworld, is a concept in Celtic mythology that refers to the home of the deities or spirits, or a realm of the dead.Otherworld may also refer to:In film and television:...
, betrays the story's Celtic roots. A final court scene may be intended by Chestre as criticism of the contemporary legal and judicial framework in late-fourteenth century England. The equation of money with worth in the tale may satirize a late-fourteenth century bourgeois mentality.
Manuscripts
Sir Launfal survives in a single manuscript copy:- British Museum MS Cotton Caligula A.ii., mid-15th century.
The Middle English poem itself dates to the late-fourteenth century, and is based principally upon an early-fourteenth century English romance Sir Landevale, itself an adaptation of Marie de France's
Marie de France
Marie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an undisclosed court, but was almost certainly at least known about at the royal court of King Henry II of England...
Old French Breton lai Lanval
Lanval
"Lanval" is one of the Lais of Marie de France. Written in Anglo-Norman, it tells the story of a knight at King Arthur's court who is overlooked by the king, wooed by a fairy lady, given all manner of gifts by her, and subsequently refuses the advances of Queen Guinevere...
. Unusually for a Middle English romance, the poem's author can be named. The final stanza includes the lines:
- "Thomas Chestre made thys tale
- Of the noble knyght Syr Launfale,
- Good of chyvalrye."
It is widely accepted that Thomas Chestre
Thomas Chestre
Thomas Chestre was the author of a 14th century Middle English romance Sir Launfal, a verse romance of 1045 lines based ultimately on Marie de France's Breton lay Lanval...
was the author of two other verse romances in MS Cotton Caligula A.ii., Lybeaus Desconus and the Southern Octavian.
Plot
Sir Launfal participates in the chivalric tradition of gift-giving to such an extent that he is made King ArthurKing Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
's steward, in charge of celebrations. After ten happy years under Sir Launfal's stewardship, however, King Arthur's court is graced by a new arrival, Guenevere, whom Merlin
Merlin
Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...
has brought from Ireland. Sir Launfal takes a dislike to his new mistress, as do many other worthy knights, because of her reputation for promiscuity. King Arthur marries Queen Guenevere and Sir Launfal's fortunes take a sudden turn for the worse. He leaves King Arthur's court when Guenevere shows ill will to him by not giving him a gift at the wedding. Insulted and humiliated, Launfal leaves the court, losing his status and income.
Returning to his home town of Caerleon
Caerleon
Caerleon is a suburban village and community, situated on the River Usk in the northern outskirts of the city of Newport, South Wales. Caerleon is a site of archaeological importance, being the site of a notable Roman legionary fortress, Isca Augusta, and an Iron Age hill fort...
(now a village in south Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
just outside Newport, where the ruins of the Roman fortress of Isca
Isca Augusta
Isca Augusta was a Roman legionary fortress and settlement, the remains of which lie beneath parts of the present-day village of Caerleon on the northern outskirts of the city of Newport in South Wales.-Name:...
can still be seen, whose walls surrounding its Roman baths and elsewhere were still standing high during the medieval period), Sir Launfal takes humble lodgings, spends all the money that King Arthur gave him before setting out, and soon descends into poverty and debt. One Trinity Sunday, the king holds a banquet in Caerleon to which Sir Launfal, because of his poverty, is not invited. The mayor's daughter offers to let him spend the day with her, but he declines her offer since he has nothing to wear. Instead, he borrows a horse from her and goes for a ride, stopping to rest under a tree in a nearby forest. Two maidens appear and bring him to a lady they call Tryamour, daughter of the King of Olyroun and of Fayrye, whom Sir Launfal finds lying on a bed in a glorious pavilion.
- "He fond yn the pavyloun
- The kynges doughter of Olyroun,
- Dame Tryamour that hyghte;
- Her fadyr was kyng of Fayrye,
- Of Occient, fer and nyghe,
- A man of mochell myghte.
- In the pavyloun he fond a bed of prys
- Yheled wyth purpur bys,
- That semyle was of syghte.
- Therinne lay that lady gent
- That after Syr Launfal hedde ysent
- That lefsom lemede bryght."
(He found in the pavilion the daughter of the King of Olyroun, her name was Tryamour and her father was the King of the Otherworld – of the west, both near and far – a very powerful man. In the tent was a lavishly-adorned and very handsome bed. Lying in it was the beautiful woman who had summoned him.) Tryamour offers Sir Launfal her love and several material gifts: an invisible servant Gyfre, a horse called blaunchard and a bag that will always produce gold coins however many are taken from it, all on the condition that he keeps their relationship a secret from the rest of the world. No one must know of her existence. She tells him she will come to him whenever he is all alone and wishes for her.
Sir Launfal returns to Caerleon and soon a train of packhorses arrives, bearing all kinds of valuables for him. He uses this new wealth to perform many acts of charity. He also wins in a local tournament, thanks to the horse and banner given him by the lady. A knight of Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, Sir Valentyne, challenges him (on the honour of his beloved lady) to come to Lombardy to fight with him, in a section of Thomas Chestre's tale that does not derive from Marie de France's Lanval or from the English Sir Landevale but perhaps from another romance that is now lost. Launfal makes the voyage, and defeats Valentyne, thanks to his invisible servant Gyfre, who picks up his helmet and shield when Valentyne knocks them down. Launfal kills Valentyne and then has to kill many more of the Lombardy knights in order to get away.
Sir Launfal's reputation for martial prowess and generosity reaches new heights and word at last reaches King Arthur. Sir Launfal is summoned again by the king, after a long absence, and asked to serve as steward for a long festival beginning at the Feast of St. John. During some revelry at the court, Guenevere offers herself to Sir Launfal. Sir Launfal refuses, Guenevere threatens to ruin his reputation in retaliation by questioning his manhood and Sir Launfal blurts out in his defence that he has a mistress whose ugliest handmaiden would make a better Queen than Guenevere. Disaster! Guenevere goes to Arthur and accuses Launfal of trying to seduce her and of insulting her as well. Knights are sent to arrest him.
Sir Launfal has gone to his room, but his faerie mistress does not appear and Sir Launfal soon realises why. Tryamour will no longer come to him when he wishes for her since he has given away her existence. Soon, her gifts have disappeared or changed. Now he is brought to trial. Since his jury of peers all know that the Queen is more likely to have propositioned Launfal than the other way around, they believe Launfal's version of the encounter. However, for his insult he is given a year and a fortnight to produce the beautiful lady as proof of his boast; Guenevere says she is willing to be blinded if he manages to produce such a woman. As the day of the proof progresses, the Queen presses for him to be executed while others express doubt, particularly when two parties of gorgeous women ride up. Finally Tryamour arrives and exculpates Launfal on both counts. She breathes on Guenevere and blinds her. His former invisible servant brings his horse Blaunchard up and Tryamour, Launfal, and her ladies ride away to the island of Olyroun, which in Marie de France's twelfth century version of the tale is Avalon
Avalon
Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account Historia Regum Britanniae as the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged and later where Arthur was...
. Once a year, on a certain day, Sir Launfal returns and his horse may be heard neighing and a knight may joust with him, although he was never seen again in Arthur's land.
Geography
In this story, Arthur is king of England (also referred to as Bretayn) and holds court in Carlisle and GlastonburyGlastonbury
Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,784 in the 2001 census...
, particularly during such summer feasts as Pentecost
Pentecost
Pentecost is a prominent feast in the calendar of Ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai, and also later in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ after the Resurrection of Jesus...
, Trinity Sunday, and St. John's Day. There is ambiguity, though. Kardevyle, where the opening scene of the story takes place, can be interpreted as Carlisle, in northern England, where King Arthur holds court in many Middle English romances, such as the Awntyrs off Arthure and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle is a 15th-century English poem, one of several versions of the "loathly lady" story popular during the Middle Ages...
. But it can also be interpreted as Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
, in South Wales, which is King Arthur's residence in Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle is a Middle English tail-rhyme romance of 660 lines, composed in about 1400. A similar story is told in a 17th century minstrel piece found in the Percy Folio and known as The Carle of Carlisle...
(curiously), and might sit more comfortably with the other locations in Sir Launfal, such as Caerleon
Caerleon
Caerleon is a suburban village and community, situated on the River Usk in the northern outskirts of the city of Newport, South Wales. Caerleon is a site of archaeological importance, being the site of a notable Roman legionary fortress, Isca Augusta, and an Iron Age hill fort...
and Glastonbury. Marie de France's poem Lanval, along with other Old French Arthurian works, has this city as "Kardeol", which, given the confusion, must have sounded, even to a late-Medieval English ear, like a conflation of Carlisle and Cardiff. In Marie's poem, however, the intention seems clearly to be Carlisle, since King Arthur is fighting against Scots and Pictish incursions there.
Guenevere (Gwennere, Gwenore) is stated by Thomas Chestre to be from "Irlond", possibly Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, the daughter of King Rion, who is an enemy of King Arthur in most other medieval Arthurian stories and usually hails from North Wales. Launfal's home base seems to be Caerleon, in South Wales. The realm of Fayrye is located on the island of Olyroun (probably Oléron
Oléron
Île d'Oléron is an island off the Atlantic coast of France , on the southern side of the Pertuis d'Antioche strait....
, near Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
). Being the realm of Fayrye, however, it might not be expected to have a specific location in the real world. Marie de France relates that Lanval was taken by his Faërie lover to Avalon
Avalon
Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account Historia Regum Britanniae as the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged and later where Arthur was...
, "a very beautiful island," and was never seen again; just as Connla was taken by a daughter of the Irish god Manannan to a land across the sea that "delights the mind of everyone who turns to me", in an ancient Irish legend. Also mentioned are knights of Little Britain (Brittany), and the need to cross the salt sea to reach Lombardy.
Evolution
Marie de France's lai was composed at a time when the story of King Arthur was not fully developed, and probably before the story of the love between LancelotLancelot
Sir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...
and Queen Guinevere had been added to it by Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...
in his Knight of the Cart. Thomas Chestre describes a 10-year period during which Launfal prospers at Arthur's bachelor court, followed by Arthur's marriage to Guinevere. In the 13th-century French Arthurian romances, Merlin warns against this marriage; in Chestre's poem, he arranges it, betraying Chestre's willingness to adapt a by-then established legend in his own way.
Such adaptation is further evident in Guinevere's blinding. Marie de France describes no such mutilation of the Queen, and it sits uncomfortably with the climax of King Arthur's reign, well-known from the thirteenth century Lancelot-Grail Cycle, in which Lancelot and a seeing Guinevere play their part in King Arthur's final days.
Lanval and Sir Launfal
Many passages of Chestre's poem follow Marie de France's Lanval line by line (probably via the earlier English romance). However, he adds or changes scenes and characters, sometimes working in material from other sources, and makes explicit and concrete many motivations and other aspects of the story which Marie leaves undiscussed; for example, the fairy purse and other gifts, such as the horse Blaunchard and the invisible servant Gyfre, who both depart when he breaks his promise not to boast. Some of these additional elements derive from an Old French lai of Graelent, itself borrowing from Marie's Lanval.In Marie de France's Old French version of the story, Guinevere is not involved in Lanval's initial departure from King Arthur's court, and he is simply a poor knight who has been overlooked by the king, not an over-generous knight vulnerable to getting into debt. Arthur generally comes off much better in Sir Launfal than in Lanval, and Guenevere much worse; she is promoted to a major character, with more speeches and actions, and her comeuppance is the climax of the poem. Chestre also adds a character, the Mayor of Caerleon, who is not present in Lanval and whose grudging disloyalty gives extra gloss to the generosity Launfal shows when he obtains the fairy purse.
Chestre adds two tournament scenes that are not present in Marie's lai, allowing him to show off his ability to fashion them and also changing the emphasis on his hero's character. He also introduces Sir Valentyne, possibly from a lost romance. Sir Valantyne is a giant who, as is so common in medieval romance, the hero is required to defeat. In fact, the poem is close to becoming a romance, recounting many years of Sir Launfal's life – ten before King Arthur's marriage, then seven with his Otherworldly lady and a further year before his trial – in contrast to Marie's Lanval which, like most of her other lais, concern a single episode in a hero's or heroine's life. In general, whereas Lanval is a story about love, Sir Launfal is much more an adventure story which includes a love element.
Breton
Elements of Sir Launfal that borrow from Marie de France's Lanval can be found in other Breton lais as well, particularly the land of "Fayerye". Marie de France's Yonec, for example, describes a woman following a trail of blood left by her lover; a man who was accustomed to arriving at the window of her room in the form of a hawk. She follows the trail of blood into the side of a hill and out into an OtherworldOtherworld
Otherworld, or the Celtic Otherworld, is a concept in Celtic mythology that refers to the home of the deities or spirits, or a realm of the dead.Otherworld may also refer to:In film and television:...
where all the buildings are made of solid silver, into a town where ships are moored. Marie's lai Guigemar, sees the wounded hero set sail in a mysterious boat with candelabra at its prow and with only a bed on deck, upon which he lies, the only living soul on board. He arrives safely at the mysterious castle of a lady who heals him of his wound, and becomes her lover. Sir Orfeo
Sir Orfeo
Sir Orfeo is an anonymous Middle English narrative poem, retelling the story of Orpheus as a king rescuing his wife from the fairy king.-History and Manuscripts:...
follows a company of ladies into the side of a cliff and through the rock until he emerges into an Otherworld, in a Middle English Breton lai, where he rescues his wife who had been abducted, from amongst those who have been beheaded and burnt and suffocated. Many ancient Irish tales involve a hero entering a hill of the Sidhe
Sídhe
The aos sí are a supernatural race in Irish mythology and Scottish mythology are comparable to the fairies or elves. They are said to live underground in the fairy mounds, across the western sea, or in an invisible world that coexists with the world of humans...
, or crossing a sea to a Land of Youth
Tír na nÓg
Tír na nÓg is the most popular of the Otherworlds in Irish mythology. It is perhaps best known from the story of Oisín, one of the few mortals who lived there, who was said to have been brought there by Niamh of the Golden Hair. It was where the Tuatha Dé Danann settled when they left Ireland's...
, or passing down through the waters of a lake into an Otherworld.
A Middle English poem, the Isle of Ladies, describes an island where magic apples sustain a multitude of ladies, and only ladies, on an island that is made of glass; like one of the Otherworldly islands that features in the ancient Irish legend, the Voyage of Maeldun
Máel Dúin
Máel Dúin is the protagonist of Immram Maele Dúin or the Voyage of Máel Dúin, a Christian tale written in Old Irish around the end of the first millennium. He is the son of Ailill Edge-of-Battle, whose murder provides the initial impetus for the tale.Máel Dúin is the son of a warrior and chieftan....
. In another ancient Irish legend, the Voyage of Bran, a beautiful lady comes to take Bran to one of these islands. "If the Middle English Breton Lay has connections with Celtic folktale, the connections can be easily perceived in Launfal.
Folktale
Folktale elements inherited from Marie de France's Lanval include the fairy lover, magical gifts, a beauty contest and an offended fay. Sir Launfal adds a number of folktale elements of its own to those inherited from Marie de France's Lanval, including those of a spendthrift knight, combat with a giant, a magical dwarf-servant and "the cyclical return of the mounted warrior's spirit to this world once a year."Wealth over worth
In a number of ways, Sir Launfal may give literary expression to some contemporary fourteenth century concerns as well. Its depiction of a court and a kingdom where wealth is the only measure of standing and social worth, may be a satire on a bourgeois mentality in late-fourteenth century England. A knight who, through his own generosity, falls into debt and poverty, and consequent misery, is depicted in at least two other late medieval Middle English works, Sir AmadaceAmadas
Amadas, or Sir Amadace is a medieval English chivalric romance, one of the rare ones for which there is neither a known nor a conjectured French original, like Sir Eglamour of Artois...
, and Sir Cleges
Sir Cleges
Sir Cleges is a medieval English chivalric romance. It is clearly a minstrel tale, praising giving gifts to minstrels, and punishing the servants who might make it impossible for a minstrel in a noble household. Corrupt officials are central to it....
.
Justice
Sir Launfal's breaking of his word not to reveal his lover's name may have contemporary medieval significance, since one of the tenets of Courtly loveCourtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
was "the code of avantance, in which the male was to protect his lover’s reputation by not revealing her identity." But there may be much wider concerns expressed in Sir Launfal about legal process and the state of justice in England near the end of the fourteenth century. "Literary depictions of the king’s judicial failure, as in Sir Launfal, comment on the entire system." In Thomas Chestre's poem, Queen Guinevere destabilizes the court by taking favourites and falsely accusing those who cross her, the king seems more willing to placate her than to see justice done and at least some of his noblemen are more concerned to see their king's desires blindly carried out than to see a fair outcome. There was undoubtedly dissatisfaction in some quarters with the legal system in England at this time. Marie de France's depiction of King Arthur's court in Lanval, two hundred years earlier, may have been intended to parody the court of King Henry II of England, who saw himself as a new Arthur.
External links
- Sir Launfal. Original Middle English full text.
- Introduction to Sir Launfal. Edited by Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury. Originally Published in The Middle English Breton Lays. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995. The published edition includes Sir Landevale.
- Sir Launfal. Translated by James Weldon; pdf format.
- Sir Launfal Modern English Translation. Medieval Forum
- Sir Launfal Modern English retelling.