Ethics and Emotions: A Cultural History of Chivalric Friendship in Medieval/Early Modern Times

by

Paul Dingman

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Supervised by Professor Richard W. Kaeuper Department of History Arts, Sciences, and Engineering School of Arts and Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, New York 2012

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Curriculum Vitae The author was born in Marion, New York on June 19, 1966. He attended the University of Rochester from 1984 to 1988, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1988. He attended the SUNY University Center at Albany from 1991 to 1994, and graduated with a Master of Arts degree in 1994. He came to the University of Rochester in the Fall of 2006 and began graduate studies in History. He received a University Fellowship in 2007 that continued through 2011, and a University of Rochester Dean's Dissertation Fellowship in 2011. He pursued his research in History under the direction of Professor Kaeuper. List of Publications and Articles Submitted for Publication: “ 'Why Then You Are in Love' – How a Close Male Friendship Equals an Ethical Identity in Early Modern Drama,” (forthcoming) in edited volume: New Readings of The Merchant of Venice, ed. Horacio Sierra, Cambridge Scholastic Publishing (scheduled for 2013). "A Fin'Amor of Two Knights – Deep Friendship as Chivalric Ethic," in edited volume: Love, Friendship, Marriage – Proceedings of 32nd Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum, eds., Rafaelle Florio and Aniesha Andrews, CreateSpace, 2012. “The Rise of Latin Christian Naval Power in the Third Crusade,” International Journal of Naval History Volume 7, Number 3, December 2008.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the members of my dissertation committee⎯original and new⎯at the University of Rochester for their advice and encouragement in my pursuit of this research project: Professor Stewart Weaver, Professor David Walsh, Professor Jean Pedersen, Professor William Hauser, Professor Curt Cadorette, Professor Russell Peck, and especially my advisor, Professor Richard Kaeuper for his guidance, belief, and ready willingness to discuss any aspect of the work. I would also like to thank Alan Unsworth for his helpful suggestions and Professor Rosemary Kegl for her support of my application to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC and the staff at the Folger for their assistance and funding. Likewise, the team at the Huntington Library in California was cooperative when I visited to explore their archives, Mary Robertson in particular. Thanks are also in order for Dr. Christopher Barry and Dr. Laura Carstensen who were instrumental in my obtaining Visiting Scholar status at Stanford University. My fellow medieval history graduate students at the University of Rochester⎯Craig Nakashian, Dan Franke, Peter Sposato, Chris Guyol, and Sam Claussen⎯as well as Kristi Castleberry and the Robbins Library regulars were always of help, too, with suggestions for references and as interested colleagues. Lastly, I give thanks to my loving friend and partner, Scott W. Tang, for his patience and support through the writing of my dissertation and the entire doctoral adventure.

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Abstract

Ideas of emotional male friendship constitute the subject of this study, specifically those ethical notions that supported the elite cultural system of chivalry in Western Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Chivalric traditions shaped nearly all aspects of the ruling classes in medieval/early modern times; however, concepts such as secular friendship in chivalry have received less attention than warranted, especially considering the lasting effects this mixed code of courtesy and violence continues to have in the West (and beyond). The approach of the study is to explore and interrogate imaginative literature of the period⎯epic poems, romances, troubadour songs, and drama⎯as the best primary sources to understand the inner workings of friendship in chivalric culture. Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Prose Lancelot, Amis and Amiloun, Reis Glorios, Le Morte Darthur, Edward II, and The Merchant of Venice are some of the literary works discussed. More conventional sources such as chronicles, treatises, letters, and biographies supplement the study, some in print, others unpublished. The literary works suggest a moral purpose in friendship touching on the core identity of a virtuous knight, and this study explores the ways in which strong emotions among the elite men of knightly rank fused with a developing sense of ethics and status to create an aesthetic that fascinated contemporaries: chivalric friendship. Male-male desire and/or attraction are considered to be possible contributing factors among many others in this cultural phenomenon. Relationships

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between knights and ladies, including marriage, were a parallel and sometimes secondary concern. The presence of an emotional bond among warriors often signified elite chivalric status most clearly, i.e., having sufficient valor and virtue to attract fellow knights as acknowledged, loving comrades meant that a nobleman had attained the peak of chivalry. Linked together in this fierce loyalty, knights formed a community with its own rules and ethics, though customs varied and evolved along with the nobility itself into the early modern period and later periods. Literature provided contemporaries a means of discussing this dynamic system of friendship underpinning medieval society and provides historians with valuable insights into the honor-driven culture of chivalry.

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Table of Contents  

Foreward

1

Chapter 1 - Recognizing Chivalric Friendship

2

Scholarly Approaches to Friendship in Pre-modern times The History of Emotions Male Friendship and Male-Male Desire Sources and Approach

5 11 14 18

Chapter 2 - Friendship Traditions

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The Classical Roman Tradition of Friendship Friendship in Late Antiquity and After Rome's Fall The Influence of the Comitatus The Transmission of Classical Ideals The Christian Tradition of Friendship The Troubadour Tradition of Knightly Love

29 35 40 43 47 57

Chapter 3 - Companions and Love

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Linguistic Concepts of Friendship Friendship in Heroic Tales and Epic Poems Deep Friendship as Knightly Fin'Amor in Romance Historical Accounts of Intense Knightly Friendships

71 74 88 105

Chapter 4 - A Badge of Grief

114

The Honor of Grief in Literature The Honorable Place of Grief in Knights' Lives The Destructive Side of Grief in Malory's Morte Arthur

118 122 126

Chapter 5 - A Transformation of Friendship

142

The Political/Economic Background to Cultural Change Letters, and the Reach of Friendship into Business Courtiers, Friends, and a Changing Chivalry Marlowe, Edward II, and a Beloved Minion Courtiers and Warriors in Shakespeare's 1 Henry VI Comedies and Friendship: Jonson's Fayre, Shakespeare's Venice

148 154 156 160 170 175

Chapter 6 - Celebrations and Suspicions

194

Castiglione and the Threat of Courtiers The Problem of Royal Favorites Lesser-Known Books on Friendship Montaigne and the Personal Zenith of Friendship Francis Bacon and an Empirical View of Friendship

196 200 204 212 221

Chapter 7 - Legacies of Friendship

227

Noble Friendship in the Modern Era?

231

Bibliography

235

Primary Sources Secondary Sources

235 239

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Foreword A segment of Chapter 4 is scheduled to be published in an edited volume entitled New Readings of The Merchant of Venice, ed. Horacio Sierra, Cambridge Scholastic Publishing (2013).

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Chapter 1 Recognizing Chivalric Friendship

Et li rois l’esgarde moult volentiers; s’il li avoit samblei biax en son venir, noiens estoit envers la biauté qu’il avoit ore: si li est avis qu’il soit creus et enbarnis a grant plenté. [And the king gazed on him with pleasure; he had thought him handsome the day before, but it was nothing like the beauty that shone from him now] – Anonymous, Prose Lancelot Thirteenth Century

Ideas of emotional male friendship constitute the subject of this study, specifically those ethical notions that supported the elite cultural system of chivalry in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. While the dominance of heavy cavalry in the military conflicts of England and France continues to be debated as to extent and precise dates, few would argue that an upper layer of military rulers who followed chivalric customs governed and heavily influenced society in the Latin West for many centuries after the (slow) fall of Rome. Indeed, knightly traditions constituted the background for aristocratic life throughout medieval and early modern Europe as a

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lay esprit de corps. Imaginative literature of the times—including romance, epic poetry, and drama—not surprisingly reflects this elite cultural emphasis on chivalry and provides an invaluable portal for historians to observe the mental interior of the emerging society that would serve in many ways as the foundation for basic elements of modern civilization in Europe and America. Chivalric traditions shaped nearly all aspects of the ruling classes in medieval/early modern times; however, some of the ideas underpinning the governing military culture have received less attention than warranted, especially considering the lasting effects this mixed code of courtesy and violence continues to have in the West (and beyond). Close male friendship among knights was an important facet of the aristocratic warrior ethos, one often overlooked in modern scholarship that has tended to focus on clerical views of male amity. Elite lay friendship has received considerably less attention, and by analyzing literary works along with historical sources, I propose to reveal the commanding position that secular ideas of chivalric friendship held in the mentality of England, France, and neighboring regions during this key period of cultural development. A related inquiry arises from this exploration of the friendship phenomenon regarding purpose, i.e., why did friendship receive so much attention? At a practical level, of course, allies were necessary to survive; properly trained and equipped colleagues enabled a medieval nobleman to protect (or expand) his domain and impose his will—by force—on the world. Similarly, people in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance often looked to male friendship as a means to mitigate or rectify destructive rivalries between nobles that

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no central authority could bring to heel. In this sense, the custom of friendship could seal an end to hostilities as marriages often did. Connected to these pragmatic goals, however, is the clear suggestion in the literary works of a virtuous or moral purpose in friendship touching on the core identity of a virtuous knight. Simply put, this study explores the ways in which strong emotions among the elite men of knightly rank fused with a developing sense of ethics and status during medieval/early modern times to create a cultural phenomenon that fascinated contemporaries and permeated the literature: chivalric friendship. Other questions that receive attention in regards to this exploration of ethics, emotions and friendship include the following: What traditions underpinned the practices and concepts of friendship among knights? Did certain conditions encourage strong friendships among the fighting men involved? How was friendship conceived and in what language was its meaning conveyed? What rewards—material or otherwise—could friendship provide, and what dangers? How did chivalric amity among men adjust to the demands of marriage (and vice versa)? How might a particularly strong friendship with another knight possibly define a nobleman’s life? Is noble friendship an undemocratic idea? Could the famous fin’amor image be viewed as intense friendship? And, lastly, how did the purposes, ideas, and behaviors of knightly friendship change during these periods and thus transform the powerful custom?

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Scholarly Approaches to Friendship in Pre-modern times

The existing scholarship on elite male friendship in medieval/early modern times tends to divide into three main branches: the religious, the political, and the erotic. Not surprisingly, many academics have highlighted religious approaches since contemporary churchmen wrote a great deal on the subject in treatises and letters. In these sources, ecclesiastics usually describe spiritual friendship in terms of a personal, loving relationship with God, communal affection among the brethren of a monastery, or the guardianship of someone’s soul by an accomplished cleric, all of which could lead to salvation. Cistercian abbots such as Aelred of Rievaulx and Bernard of Clairvaux are twelfth-century exemplars of these practices, and similar models continued with the Dominicans and Franciscans (and still carry on today in some religious circles). A few of the historical studies examining medieval/early modern religious views include Friendship and Faith (2002) by McGuire, and Friends of God (1991) by Wadell; explications of spiritual friendship remain a regular topic at scholarly conferences devoted to the period. 1 The religious dimension of friendship that monks and ecclesiastics celebrated as the love of God connecting each good Christian to another surely spilled over into the secular side of medieval culture. The versions of the Grail Quest typify this best in the literature, but studies such as Richard Barber's “Chivalry, Cistercianism, and 1

The annual Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, MI has had several scholarly panels in recent years (2009-2012) on the subject of clerical friendship. Also, the theme for Plymouth State University medieval/early modern conference in 2011 was "Love, Friendship, Marriage" and, as such, included much discussion on concepts of religious friendship.

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the Grail” in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle while noting some connections between knightly ideas and Cistercian ones, tend to focus attention on the links of mysticism and chivalry.2 Barber, for example, seeks to show how the Grail stories of romance reflect apocryphal stories of the Crucifixion. The observations of such work is interesting and often leads to contemplative considerations of the quest, but these academic approaches are not concerned with the worldly status of knights nor their connecting emotions with other chivalric warriors as a virtue. In a related channel of study regarding religion and knighthood stands the pioneering but controversial work of John Boswell. His books, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980) and Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (1994), claim that profound love between men had attained a degree of recognition by state and religious authorities up through the eleventh century. Much of his scholarship, however, centers on the Byzantine East rather than the Latin West.3 Also, Boswell's argument on the tolerance and acceptance of male homosexuality in the Middle Ages focuses almost totally on ecclesiastics, not secular knights. Studies of friendship in political terms stress diplomacy, constitutionalism, and/or patronage. Since a monarch represented his nation, operating with "the king's friendship" was common parlance in official, consular correspondence for an alliance of commercial or military interest (or both) with stipulated benefits to those involved. Rights and duties form the basis of friendship in the constitutional sense, and studies

2

See the essay in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle (Suffolk, UK and Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 2003) pp. 3-12. 3 In reference to Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe.

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of this nature often examine oaths sworn by one party to another, promising support if needed in much the same way oaths of fealty worked, the aim being (supposedly) to create governmental stability. An example of this type of approach would be Althoff's article, "Friendship and Political Order" in Friendship in Medieval Europe, edited by Haseldine (1999). Similarly, in Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (2003), Hyams discusses some of the ways friendship was used as a formal, legal, and/or political instrument to counterbalance feuds and thereby strengthen security. With patronage and friendship, the goal seems clear: court advancement. Several biographies predictably refer to this customary, if not equitable, practice of kings (or queens) promoting favored knights or courtiers to higher and higher posts, with mixed results for the monarchs and favorites involved. Records in the form of letters and treaties provide much of the useful evidence for these types of investigation into political friendship. The main problem with such testimony, in my view, lies with the general emptiness of diplomatic exchanges. One representative example of the ornamented disconnect appears in the opening of a diplomatic letter to Henry IV from John I or Portugal in 1405: Muy alto e muy nobre e mui excelente e poderoso Principe, Dom Henrriq, pella graça de Deus Rex dingraterra e de França e Senhor dirlanda, Nos Dom Joham, per essa medes graça Rex de Portugal e do Algarve, de todo nosso coraçom os envyamos muyto saudar como a Irmaâo e verdedeiro amigo que mui fielmente e verdadeiramente anamos e preçamos sobre todos os Principes do mundo, e para que deseiamos que Deus de saude e vida, com grande exalçamento de honora

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[Most high and most noble and most excellent and powerful Prince, Don Henrique, by the grace of God, King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland, we, Don John, by that same grace King of Portugal and of Algarve, from all our heart send you many compliments as to a brother and true friend, whom we most faithfully and truly love and esteem above all the Princes of the world, and because we desire that God may give you health and life, with great exaltation of honor]4 All of this talk of true friendship and esteem while beautifully crafted by a court scribe, falls somewhat flat by the later request in the long letter for remittance of two thousand marks owed to Henry in regards to the Earl of Arundel's wedding. Predictably, funding rather than friendship drives official correspondence of state. The literature of the age, as we shall see, tellingly shows how insubstantial the official shows of love and devotion could be if no feeling lay behind the efforts. Studies focusing on the erotic argue that positive or at least neutral portrayals of male-male sexuality in the past (chivalric or otherwise) have been largely erased and/or misread in an effort to construct a false sexual-historical standard supporting a certain (conservative) view of society. Hence, these works of queer theory strive to disrupt accepted hetero-normative interpretations of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance by characterizing male friendships in literature and history as manifestations of latent same-sex desire. Some academic examples of this approach include Homoeroticism and Chivalry by Zeikowitz (2003) and Queering the Middle

4

Royal and Historical Letters, Henry IV, Vol. II 1405-1413 (London: Longman and Green, 1864, p. 92.

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Ages edited by Burger and Kruger (2001). Most of these studies, not surprisingly, concentrate on potential sexual contact rather than emotional bonds to support their claims. Works attempting to unsettle accepted norms as a stated goal also have generally little interest in examining how the (in their view, flawed) system of virtue and/or ethics in chivalry intersected with loving emotions between elite men. None of this should suggest that erotic desire could not or did not influence the friendships of knights (real or imagined) during the periods in question. The two types of love are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The present study considers the ramifications of this issue and how the academic world addresses (or does not address) it in a particular section of this introduction as well as in the interpretive discussions of the literature/records in respective chapters, but again, the goals of queer theory and this study do not always coincide. While each of the above approaches to the underlying motivations of elite male friendship clearly has merit, they neglect an important perspective: recognizing enhanced status and honor⎯the heart of chivalry⎯as the deeper (ethical) purpose of emotional friendship among knights and the reason for its wide approbation in literary works. To that end, I propose addressing all of these streams of scholarship on friendship to the extent that they deal with strong emotions expressed by chivalric figures. Perhaps the study that comes closest to my line of research is Ennobling Love by Jaeger (1999), an interesting book claiming the charisma of kings and high nobles attracted passionate but definitely non-erotic love from lesser nobles (knights or

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courtiers), thereby increasing the integrity of these lower figures. While agreeing with Jaeger's argument in some respects, my work is also a marked response to his since he envisions this ennobling form of love as a semi-mystical phenomenon/ reaction that had essentially disappeared by the fourteenth century. My view differs from Jaeger's claim emphasizing medieval alterity in several ways. First, I contend that ideas of ethical male friendship continued on into the early modern period (and beyond) though some changes in expression naturally occurred over time. Secondly, I argue that the emotional bond of companionship arises between knights through appreciation of courage, skill, and the difficult-to-quantify attribute of inspiring boldness, a sort of winning charm. I do not doubt that the majesty of kings could awe onlookers, but I think the love of chivalric friendship is a different phenomenon. Thirdly, while overt descriptions of erotic desire between chivalric men are very rare in the sources, except in cases of serious charges of iniquity or similar condemnations (which may have more to do with political struggles than sexual interest), some instances or suggestions of male-male desire do arise. Jaeger suggests that these cases as well as the “passionate” love described in various letters among churchmen or in describing kings is all ideal love, a code using erotic language but with no sexual and therefore no forbidden component; he claims to "help" the history of homosexuality by removing these troublesome/confusing texts from consideration. I am not so sure, for a sense of fin'amor or purest love⎯usually understood only as it relates to male-female romance⎯clearly plays a role in the literary and historical tradition of elite male friendship in the medieval West.

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The History of Emotions

Since emotions represent a key component of the present study's argument, a brief overview of academic views on the subject may be worthwhile to consider at the outset. Some critics and historians have taken the frequent reliance on emotions and emotional connections to others during the Middle Ages (in life and literature) as proof of a systemic excitability among the period’s populace quite removed from modern experience. Though extreme at points, Johan Huizinga, in his influential book The Waning of the Middle Ages (or the extended The Autumn of the Middle Ages), uses evidence from various French medieval chronicles to argue vigorously for viewing medieval people as highly passionate, almost child-like humans, prone to spontaneous explosions of feeling.5 While strong emotions clearly influenced the behavior of knights, I disagree with Huizinga on several points. The largest problem lies in the implied positivist view of history and the restraint-of-emotions reasoning articulated by not only Huizinga but also Norbert Elias and others.6 In sum, according to certain viewpoints, a direct correlation exists between improved civilization and humans within those civilizations suppressing their emotions. From such a perspective, emotions are irrational, dangerous elements that require firm reins for advanced societies to 5

Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, tr. Payton and Mammitzsch (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004). 6 Norbert Elias' influential work The Civilizing Process (1978) asserts a child-like level of emotional control in the Middle Ages.

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develop and function well. First of all, although wild passions can certainly cause damage and misery, I would not concede that emotions are always menacing problems; arguably good outcomes have arisen from individual or collective bursts of feeling, e.g., love, pity, and compassion. Second, the supposedly long march to a more enlightened civilization by subduing strong passions seems a dubious proposition in the face of brutal revolutions/crackdowns, world wars, torture, genocides, terrorism, mass suicides, and even cyber bullying in the modern age. Barbara Rosenwein’s essay “Worrying about Emotions in History” exposes various structural weaknesses with the “grand narrative” approach, not the least of which is a wide lack of agreement as to when the starting point of the alleged emotional controls occurred.7 She also provides a survey of historical methods for studying emotions and “emotionology,” describing how scholars and scientists have moved away from older “hydraulic” models of viewing feelings as rushing flows needing containment to theories of emotion based on cognitive perception and/or social constructivism that do not support any positivist restraint paradigm. Rosenwein herself suggests combining premises from the new models of studying emotions and interpreting people in different “emotional communities” each with its own rules of expression. Her idea is very interesting, and although she does not mention medieval knights as a particular emotional community, they would certainly seem to fit her theory as a self-governing, decentralized (emotional) community with its own standards of conduct and behavior, i.e., its own ethics. It 7

Barbara Rosenwien, “Worrying About Emotions in History” in American Historical Review (Vol 107, No. 3, June 2002, 821-845).

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then follows that the demonstration of strong friendship among knights makes sense as a recognized, ethical system of status given prevailing conditions. From that perspective, William Strongarm, Roland, Lancelot, Richard I or others we will consider are not necessarily reckless man-children with deficient emotional control but functioning, archetypal adults in governing positions of a defined socio-cultural group. Other scholars coming at the question of emotions from different perspectives suggest that emotions may even contribute to the rational processes of cognition, thereby dispensing with the old binary opposition between sense and sensibility. Neurologist Anthony Damasio, for example, in his book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain describes how what we call emotions are necessary components for reasoning and navigating life. By studying several people with neurological damage to the parts of the brain that process emotions but not to those areas that govern logical reasoning, Damasio offers convincing evidence for his claim that emotions guide rational thinking at a somatic level. Similarly, legal ethicist Martha Nussbaum in her wide-ranging book, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, uses literature, philosophy, behavioral theory, music, and her own experience to assert that emotions provide a foundation for values in society.

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Male Friendship and Male-Male Desire

When discussing ideas of emotional or passionate male friendship in knights in the Latin West, the possibility of male-male desire contributing to those relationships must be considered. Indeed, some scholars in the field of history react to the study of male friendship almost as a code for the topic of homosexuality. Others, however, never mention desire in connection to friendship or do so fleetingly as if embarrassed. Discussions of even latent male-male desire during these eras remain very rare in academic lectures, articles, conference panels, or books (except those few devoted specifically to homosexuality). For example, a recent, exhaustive 800+ page edited volume on friendship in the Middle Ages and Renaissance includes a single page on homosocial vs. homoerotic interpretations with jargon dense enough to make one wonder if the writer wished to discuss the subject at all.8 The curious split in academic attitudes over the matter could probably serve as the topic for a study of its own. But does the striking lack of curiosity in much of the academic arena reveal modern discomfort, ideological agendas (of various goals) or period silence?9 Or all three? Untangling that thorny problem may lie beyond the scope of this study, but by

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Classen and Sandidge, eds., Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age (Berlin and New York: DeGruyter, 2010). 9 Some would suggest that those critics/historians who see same-sex love in close chivalric friendships are seeing what they wish to see, i.e., those historians have an agenda, a sort of revisionist agenda, presumably to “queer” our understanding of periods of history, but surely viewing what appears to be clear attraction between knights and assuming such attraction has no physical component is a type of agenda itself.

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addressing male-male desire as a factor in the interpretation of literature and records about male friendship, I hope to at least not extend it. Given the position taken by church and secular authorities in the Middle Ages, positive portrayals of male-male desire in knights are predictably scarce, but if found, would such representations (or hints of them) be reasonably explored? If we admit to an emotional or possibly a physical attraction between chivalric men, even if sex is not involved, does that not suggest the existence of a type of desire? These questions of sexuality are not the main ones of the present study, but they do constitute part of the background in which chivalric friendship took form in the past, how it is presented in works of imaginative literature, and how we understand it today. The literary tales and accounts explored more fully in later chapters of this study do seem to suggest at least an attraction in some cases between knights or noblemen. Simply one's strong appearance or especially having skill with horse, sword, and lance could make one attractive to other knights as a practical concern in gaining a formidable ally or preventing the opposition from doing so. Nobility was often judged by one's physical appearance, as we shall see in the literature.10 Also, an aesthetic sense of chivalric prowess, however deadly, may apply in that practitioners of the medieval martial arts likely appreciated the beauty of good swordsmanship. (In modern terms, it could be akin to the pleasure of seeing a perfect football pass or baseball pitch.) The opening quotation to this chapter about Arthur deriving "pleasure" from looking at Lancelot is probably an example of this.

10

Also, see Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe, p. 191.

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Of course, talk of attraction must also prompt the question: was the tradition of elite male friendship in the Latin West⎯at least in part⎯a shield or mask for physical-emotional love between men? Perhaps. While the strident disapproval of sodomy (the criminalizing term contemporaries often used) indicated by some Christian leaders during the Middle Ages might have tended to push any expression of elite male-male desire underground, into what might be called an arma cellula, some scholars argue that male-male sexual activity was a minor concern to authorities through much of the Middle Ages. Moreover, these scholars say⎯logically⎯that even when sodomy was strongly condemned, the ability of authorities to enforce controls in the largely decentralized regions of Europe would have been severely limited.11 R.I. Moore claims that much of the oppression aimed at male-male sexuality in Western Europe started in the twelfth century, agreeing with Boswell.12 While it seems unlikely that one knight establishing a close friendship with another (in literature or life) amounted to an accepted form of cover for shared but secret erotic gratification, it seems equally unlikely that one-sided or mutual sexual attraction never played a role in what clearly were strong emotional connections between robust, often young fighting men. Whether we say homosexuality is an anachronism or not in a discussion of medieval and early modern male friendship, sexual activity between knights and/or male nobles almost certainly occurred. 13

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For more on this, see Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. See Formation of a Persecuting Society (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 1987) pp. 91-4. 13 Many scholars think that someone claiming homosexuality as part of his or her identity in a society is a fairly modern phenomenon as opposed to two people of the same sex engaging in 12

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Considering the difficulty in proving a negative, how could one seriously deny it? Assuming that male friendship and male sexual activity amount to the same thing or that one necessarily suggests the other, however, seems at best dubious. I would say rather that a spectrum of close male friendship existed in medieval and early modern times ranging from the practical to the physical to the emotional to the loving with the erotic involved in some cases and combinations or shifts occurring as relationships evolved.14 Sexual intercourse, after all, whether male-female or male-male (or femalefemale) was not an aspect that received much praise in the Christian-centered world of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance.15 Even the sly troubadours sang more of unrequited love than actual love. Chastity was the preferred state, and marriage a step down. For chivalric noblemen, then, sexual desire for or activity with other men could only lower their perceived honor and status or at best, keep it level.16 An emotional connection with a fellow skilled knight, however, could raise one's standing as a worthy fighter and perhaps as a leader, the type of man other men would

consensual sexual activity together, which most would agree has occurred throughout human history. See Boswell Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality for an in-depth historical discussion of this issue in the West. 14 This spectrum would resemble what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick calls a continuum between homosexual and homosocial desire but differ to include, indeed, to emphasize the emotion of love which she excludes in favor of the psychoanalytical/structural understanding of desire. See Sedgwick's intriguing book, Between Men (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985) for more on her argument that focuses on literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 15 See, for example, Morris Bishop, The Middle Ages (Boston and New York: Mariner, 2001) p. 156. 16 Even Boswell notes that among warrior cultures of the pagan tribes of Germany and Scandanavia, the man who would take the passive role in a male-male sexual encounter would lose respect (though he says nothing about the man taking the active role).

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respect and follow. Emotional friendships are also the ones⎯not by accident⎯that the period writers reward with an ethical glow in the pages of chivalric literature.

Sources and Approach

This study starts with the premise that close friendship between noblemen is worthy of our attention as we study history to try to better apprehend the past (and the present). My approach is to explore and interrogate literature of the period as the best primary sources to understand the highly status-conscious chivalric culture of friendship. This method follows the path of many, but Elif Batuman perhaps crystallizes the goal best in her recent response to the question: What does literature do better than anything else? Her answer: " It provides a detailed representation of the inner experience of being alive in a given time and place."17 I would agree, and this study proceeds to pursue the inner workings of noble friendships and hierarchy by examining reflections of the phenomenon in contemporary literature of the eras in question. During my first year of doctoral work I noted the significant influence of emotional friendship in the Arthurian romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As I looked at more and more tales from the period, a theme became apparent especially in the Prose Lancelot Cycle regarding the title character's strong attachment to another knight named Galehaut, an attachment inspired by superlative 17

“Can ‘Neuro-Lit Crit’ Save the Humanities” in What Literature Does (New York Times online, April 6, 2010).

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battle prowess yet imbued with romantic feeling. From there, the search for themes of male amity and honorable status in knights spread to chansons de geste of the French tradition and to the warrior epics of the English as well as to drama. Many plays in the early modern period celebrate male friendship in the chivalric tradition, albeit with important variations that correspond to larger societal changes that were happening as the theatre rose in popularity. To clarify, though, the type of friendship under examination has the dual characteristics of aristocratic male chivalry and emotional intensity. With the range of time and multitude of sources on friendship, clearly some limits of the topic must be established in the study for manageability and focus. To that end, the chivalric world of Northwestern Europe, especially the realms of England and France, will serve as the geographical center of our attention, though some texts produced outside that area will be discussed if they had a perceptible influence (in translation) on the topic. Furthermore, since chivalry primarily defined the warrior ethos of aristocratic men in medieval and early modern times, our discussion will address elite male relationships and how they determined a hierarchy of honor and status. This is not to suggest highborn women in these eras did not cultivate or value friendship among themselves or with men; they did both, of course, but our concentration on the specific tradition of knights in this study restricts us to male-male associations of the bellatores. While imaginative literature serves as the basis for the main line of analysis in the present cultural study, other more conventional sources such as chronicles,

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treatises, charters, letters, and biographies supplement the work, some in print, others unpublished. These records add many details about real-life secular friendships that occurred among the nobility and those on the edges of nobility trying desperately to enter it. Like converging currents in the ocean, romance, poetry, and drama provided models for male friendship but also reflected friendships among the nobility naturally occurring. The research process has been exciting since the particular aspect of the topic has received little scholarly notice although secondary sources and discussions about friendship in general, chivalry, courtiers, and, of course, the literature exist. The scholarly endeavor is intriguing for me as it has allowed me to draw on my background in drama and literature in addition to my doctoral studies in history and languages to connect together cultural ideas of intense friendship. Choices of which texts (literature as well as records) to include in a cultural study are always a debatable area. Even if one tries diligently to be objective, thoughtful critics may question the selections, and some theorists such as Stephen Greenblatt argue that impartiality in academic matters (or anything else) is an illusion in any case.18 My only answer is that I have aspired to objectivity and tried to pick works for this study from a range of genres⎯some well-known and part of the canon, others more obscure⎯to demonstrate that in the literature and cultures influenced heavily by chivalry, ethics, honor, and emotional male friendship intersect in a broad and durable theme. 18

See several references to this idea in Renaissance Self-Fashioning (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1980).

21

The chapters of the study divide the overall analysis into salient units for discussion. The second chapter, "Friendship Traditions," examines the main traditions that inform the development of elite male friendship in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, i.e., the classical knowledge of the Romans, the wisdom and spirituality of early Christian thought as well as the military values of the so-called barbarians and the more secular concerns of the troubadours. In the third chapter, "Companions and Love," the fierce friendship of model knights in epic poems and romances from La Chanson de Roland to The Prose Lancelot comes under analysis in regards to the positive image of the chivalric hero and his companion. Chapter four, "A Badge of Grief," examines the related though distinct expressions of love and honor between elite men when it takes the form of grief in the medieval era; texts include epic poetry, a troubadour lament, and an in-depth consideration of Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur. Chapter five, "A Transformation of Friendship," shifts forward to the early modern era and focuses on dramatic literature, noting how the theme of friendship and honor continues but also shows signs of change to include courtiers and the developing commercial/urban world. Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice are discussed along with related changes in early modern culture. In chapter six, "Celebrations and Suspicions," the analysis widens to discuss the diversity of ideas regarding early modern friendship discernible in essays, books, and treatises as well as imaginative literature. Works by Michel de Montaigne, Baldesar Castiglione, and Francis Bacon as well as non-canonical plays and books are examined to show differing responses in the swell of Humanism. The

22

concluding chapter seven, "Legacies of Friendship" sums up the overall argument and also considers, briefly, how diverging directions of friendship ideals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries continued to divide in later ages, chafing against some emerging cultural elements yet finding accord with others. Strong friendships between people may seem so basic that we assume they exist as a constant in the human experience. And, perhaps this is true. Such an assumption, however, has often led to considering friendship so elementary as to be unimportant. Ideas and expressions of friendship vary a great deal though, and in many cases friendships have a profound effect on the men (and/or women) involved. As historians, we study cultural phenomena over time and especially during periods of vast cultural change. High Medieval/Early Modern Europe is surely one of those periods and may well contain the keys to understanding how the development of friendship coincides with ideas of status and honor.

23

Chapter 2 Friendship Traditions

Ce nos ont nostre livre apris Qu’an Grece et de chevalerie Le premier los et de clergie Puis vint chevalerie a Rome Et de la clergie la some Qui or est en France venue Dex doint qu’ele i soit maintenue [This our books have taught us: that Greece had the first renown in chivalry and learning. Then came chivalry to Rome, and the heyday of learning, which now is come into France. God grant that she be maintained here] – Chrétien de Troyes, Cligés Twelfth Century

Appreciating chivalry as not only the body of fighting cavalry troops in medieval or early modern times, but more broadly as the dominant ethos of lay society in these eras, this chapter explores the salient traditions from preceding ages that contributed to ideas of male friendship within chivalry. Understanding these

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mores and the intellectual/cultural forces behind them is critically important, for aristocratic people living in the Latin West during the Middle Ages (and to some extent the Renaissance) did not consciously separate themselves from the past. If asked about any cultural transformation from ancient times—and no one would ask— medieval nobles would likely have responded that the old world continued on around them. A dimming of bygone glory might be noted, given the Roman Empire's slow collapse in the West and the prevailing religious belief that the world was mostly a corrupt place, but it was all one continuum. The not-so-distant past certainly held high points of reference, though. Whether one looked back with longing and admiration to Eden before the Fall or to the magnificence of classical Rome at its peak, or to the Apostles' first spreading of the Gospel, or some combination of these, the point is one looked back. Rarely forward. By and large, the immediate future—on earth—was thought to hold mostly disappointment, at least until the Last Judgment (and that could go either way). So, the past established a kind of dominion over the minds of men and women in Europe through authoritative rules and traditions laid down hundreds of years before. Even luminaries of the cultural resurgences sought to revive ancient Roman or early Christian models not generate wholly new ones. A survey of medieval and early modern art illustrates a clear fascination with ancient images.1 Medieval literature in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries also followed this pattern of looking back as attested to by the popularity of romances and epic poems crafted around the 1

Religious subjects dominate, usually portraying some past event, e.g., episodes from the Bible. For example, see The Art of the Italian Renaissance, edited by Rolf Toman (2005).

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"matters" of Rome, Britain, and France.2 Recounting the adventures of heroic knights in earlier times (referred to today as anachronistic), these tales helped define the culture of chivalry⎯including friendship⎯and anchor it firmly in the past. Two main reservoirs of memory provided the intellectual foundations of friendship: the classical and the ecclesiastical. The former contained knowledge of prominent philosophers, poets, and rhetoricians from the Greco-Roman world. Although lacking Christian credentials and therefore suspect in some circles3, these ancient writers and their views on friendship exercised—and to some extent continue to exercise—a powerful influence over the imagination of Westerners. Verses from the Bible along with works from important early churchmen such as Augustine of Hippo and Benedict of Nursia constituted the latter tradition of friendship as a spiritual phenomenon. Although the classical and ecclesiastical legacies of premodern Europe sometimes clashed, they often ran parallel or even in concert on certain topics. Friendship—at least among noblemen—found support from both inherited, cultural systems and became a basic if largely unrecognized component of medieval life. Associated with both lines of tradition but, as it were, once removed lay a palpable barbarian influence. Various tribes outside⎯and as time went by increasingly inside⎯the Roman frontier eventually assumed control of the Latin 2

Popular subjects for literary works—and especially for romance—included the various matters of France, Britain and Rome, and all of these matters concern themselves with heroic deeds performed in the distant past. 3 Accommodations were sometimes made such as Virgil's case in which he supposedly heralded the coming of the Christ child in his poetry or the apocryphal stories of Christ descending into Hell and releasing worthy souls from captivity there.

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West. Early records of the Gauls, Celts, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Suevi, Saxons, Jutes, Burgundians, and others are scarce, but a strong sense of camaraderie among warrior bands reveals itself in Roman descriptions of their opponents/allies. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar described some of the tribes he came across in Gaul as devoted solely to hunting and the military arts.4 In his Germania, Tacitus concurs with the emphasis on arms stating that the men of the tribes knock their frameae (spears) together to show the highest approval and that a valiant group of young warriors around a chief signified prestige and power.5 In such accounts we may detect glimmers of a separate, nascent chivalry as Jacob Burckhardt did when he called the ethos a "northern" system that mingled with Italian society in the Renaissance.6 Arguably, a fusion had started much earlier, for the space between what constituted a Roman and a barbarian had dwindled considerably by early medieval times. Recent scholarship views the tribal groups from the North with considerably less bias than previous accounts. 7 Images of savage, migrating hordes collectively pounding at the polished gates of a cultured and benevolent Mediterranean civilization, though deeply ingrained, are fading. A more complex understanding of Rome and its adjacent realms during this fascinating period has emerged, however, 4

Julius Caesar On the Germans in Chronicles of the Barbarians, edited by David McCullough (New York: History Book Club, 1998), 71. 5 Tacitus, Germania in Chronicles of the Barbarians, 82-83. 6 Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, tr. S.G.C. Middlemore (New York: MacMillan and Co., 1890), 173. 7 Andre Piganiol's famous and oft-quoted line: "Roman civilization did not die a natural death. It was murdered." sums up the older view of destructive barbarians breaking in to destroy the beneficent glory of Rome.

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one in which the supposed grand migrations and the very "Germanic" nature of the tribes in question are challenged. 8 Surprising degrees of Latinization⎯including the wide adoption of Christianity⎯among putative barbarians are now generally acknowledged. Some archeologically-minded historians suggest an overlooked vitality in tool-making, ornamental art, and trade during the so-called Dark Ages. 9 In general, cooperative rather than confrontational overtones are often highlighted in twenty-first century studies of the period. Since the hybrid political situation of Rome in late antiquity shaped the medieval era more directly than, say, roundlyadmired but more distant Antonine Rome, a conception of dynamic amalgamation strengthens our understanding of the culture in which warrior bonding developed. One other stream of tradition that helped influence customs of chivalric friendship in the Middle Ages arose from feelings expressed in the often moving yet enigmatic lyrics of amour courtois songs composed by the troubadours. Though difficult to trace the origin of these works since debate over sources swirls, the intensity of this medium reveals a deep emotional connection⎯even love⎯between knights. Admittedly, the ardor of amour courtois usually described the affections between a noble lady and a young knight, but the sensibility transferred at times to male-male friendships as a way to reflect the extremely strong bonds of chivalric companions.

8

See especially Barbarian Tides by Goffart (2006) and “The Barbarians in Late Antiquity and How They Were Accommodated in the West” for discussions of continuity and assimilation between the various barbarian tribes and the Roman Empire. 9 Peter S. Wells argues for a full reevaluation of the so-called Dark Ages in his book Barbarians to Angels (2008).

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Within these streams of tradition, we can begin to identify which sources we will consider for analysis in this chapter, but one other pertinent point remains: access. The question of when a particular text was widely available or widely read becomes a critical determination. England and France along with the entire Latin West experienced a severe shortage of books and manuscripts during the Early Middle Ages. In addition, many of the classical texts that did survive intact were considered suspect or diabolical by many Christians due to the pagan belief system in which such works were steeped. Surveys of friendship from a modern perspective encounter no problem in this regard; they generally begin with the earliest chronological works (i.e., the Homeric epics), moving on to the entire corpora of Athens and Rome at their heights⎯especially Plato's Symposium and Aristotle's Ethics⎯and on from there.10 The problem with this approach, if one wishes to appreciate how the specifically medieval view of friendship developed, is that the Greek masterworks were not accessible. Medieval monasteries, schools, and royal courts in Northwestern Europe had libraries surely (some better than others), but their collections of Latin literature were incomplete to say the least at the turn of the first millennium or even circa 1200. As for Greek works, very few manuscripts of these existed, and even fewer individuals could read or translate them until the fifteenth century or later when the Humanism movement of the Renaissance started to blossom more fully.11 Chapter six of the

10

See Friendship in the Classical World by David Konstan for one. L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes & Scholars – A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).

11

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present study discusses how some of the ancient Greek philosophical works reached a broader audience in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through writers such as Michel de Montaigne and Marsilio Ficino. Our discussion in this chapter on the prominent traditions of friendship in the medieval world, however, will focus on writings of the past that were more relatively accessible, familiar, and influential to the English and/or French chivalric nobility in the High Middle Ages through the early Renaissance.

The Classical Roman Tradition of Friendship

The first classical text we will consider was very well-known and has had a huge effect on how friendship is conceived in the West.12 De amicitia [On Friendship], sometimes referred to as the Laelius is a treatise written by Marcus Tullius Cicero in 44 BC. Other famous writers such as Seneca and Virgil included the theme of ethical friendship in their imaginative works (some of which were known in the Middle Ages), but Cicero laid the intellectual foundation in his treatise.13 Renowned in his day as an orator, philosopher, stylist, and statesman, Cicero lived during the waning days of Republican Rome (106 BCE - 43 BCE). In De amicitia, Cicero describes a group of Roman aristocrats collecting together after

12

Cicero's De amicitia was known in the ninth-century Carolingian resurgence and even more widely known in the twelfth-century revival. 13 Seneca's tragedy, Hercules depicts friendship between its title character and Theseus while Virgil's Aeneid presents the Achates character⎯Fidus Achates⎯the proverbial always faithful companion to the hero, Aeneas.

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the death of a beloved comrade to talk about their mutual admiration for the departed. As a member of the equestrian order and a prominent politician of Rome, Cicero wrote about what he knew, and the work ostensibly recounts the handed-down wisdom and recollections of one Gaius Laelius, a praetor, consul, and military commander of the second century BCE, concerning his friend: Scipio Africanus. De amicitia is far more than a remembrance, though. In the work, Cicero draws on Greek ideas and forms⎯including some elements of Aristotle and Plato⎯to present a dignified discussion among three speakers, Laelius, Fannius, and Scaevola, on the nature of friendship.14 During the conversation⎯led by Laelius⎯the three quickly identify and denounce lesser varieties of friendship among the volgari and the mediocri , i.e., those based on mere utilitas [advantage] or worse, voluptatem [pleasure]. Dispensing with these, Cicero through Laelius then reveals virtute [virtue] as the essential characteristic of true and perfect friendship: "nisi in bonis amicitiam esse non posse" [friendship cannot exist except among good men].15 Versions of this central tenet appear over and over again in the famous treatise. Regarding this principle, we may discern one of the enduring influences that Cicero's thinking had on chivalric friendship and chivalry itself. The key lies in how Cicero recognizes good men. Unattainably high wisdom as required by certain sophists is not necessary according to the author, for he supplies historical examples

14

Many of Cicero's works incorporate Greek knowledge, and Cicero is known for actually creating words in the Latin language to express Greek meanings. See Winks and MatternParks, The Ancient World. 15 Cicero, De Amicitia 18 in Cicero XX – De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 127.

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of upstanding Romans who fit the bill. Furthermore, he provides criteria by which to judge the good character in question: Qui ita se gerunt, ita vivunt, ut eorum probetur fides integritas aequitas liberalitas, nec sit in eis ulla cupiditas libido audacia, sintque magna constantia. [Those who behave and live in such a way that they are regarded as models of honor, integrity, justice, and generosity, men who have no lustfulness, avarice, or insolence, those with great constancy] 16 Such standards could apply as easily to upstanding medieval or early modern noblemen as they do to the principled patricians Cicero has in mind. One might say that the conduct of knights fell under these guidelines as well (at least theoretically) if we consider, for example, the precepts in Ramon Lull's Libre del ordre de cavayleria calling for honor, loyalty, and largesse in the ranks of chivalry and the rejection of lechery or any known reproach.17 Similarly, Einhard says Charlemagne had a "mettlesome spirit" and an "imperturbability" that remained "constant" in adversity.18 William Marshal's biographer often refers to his subject as "leal" [loyal] and "entier" [resolute],19 and Chaucer describes his first Canterbury pilgrim as: A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man. That fro the tyme that he first bigan To ryden out, he loved chivalrye, 16

Cicero, De Amicitia, 19 (p. 128). Lull, Liber del ordre del cavayleria in Chivalry by Keen, p, 10. 18 Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne, tr. Lewis Thorpe in Einhard and Notker the Stammerer – Two Lives of Charlemagne (Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Classics, 1986), 62. 19 Histoire, 6634. 17

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Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye 20 Note: [fredom = generosity] Across a span of fourteen hundred years and many different authors, the words for "good men"⎯and the sense behind the words⎯resemble each other remarkably. Specifically for our focus on chivalric friendship, the above traits not only define a good man for Cicero (or a good knight for others), these ethical qualities attract the similarly endowed to one another as sincere friends. In De amicitia, Cicero rejects the idea that true friendship results from poverty, lack of confidence, or other weaknesses⎯conditions causing associates to draw together only to barter services and secure mutual advantages. Answering this charge, Cicero replies: "Non igitur utilitatem acmicitia, sed utilitas acmicitiam secuta est" [No, friendship does not follow upon advantage, but advantage upon friendship].21 To illustrate his reasoning, Cicero suggests that true friendship mirrors the care a man has for himself, i.e., it is pointless to try to leverage advantage from yourself. Friendship works the same way⎯or should⎯for the author tells us a friend "alterum anquirit, cuius animum ita cum suo misceat, ut efficiat paene unum ex duobus" [seeks out another whose soul he may so mingle with his own as to almost make one out of two].22 As for the root cause of the attraction, Cicero suggests something else, something "antiquior et pulchrior et magis a natura ipsa profecta" [older, more beautiful and emanating from

20

Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales – General Prologue, lines 43-46 in The Canterbury Tales, editor Beidler (New York: Bantam, 2006). 21 Cicero, 51, p. 162. 22 Cicero, 81, p. 188. Emperors of Diocletian's tetrarchy may have latched on to this idea to two selves.

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Nature itself].23 Amor [Love], he tells us, leads to the word amicitia [friendship] and also "princeps est ad benevolentiam coniungendam" [the first impulse to the uniting of goodwill].24 Cicero compares the attraction of true friends to the natural love of parents for children, saying "similus sensus exstitit amoris, si aliquem nacti sumus, cuius cum moribus et natura congruamus, quod in eo quasi lumen aliquod probitatis et virtutis perspicere videamus." [that similar impulse of love, which arises when we find someone whose character and nature harmonize with ours, because in him we see a sort of light, as it were, of probity and virtue]. The inclination for friendship of this high grade is both innate and instinctive for good men according to Cicero, originating from love and its natural connection to virtue. To highlight the point, the author goes on to say, "Nihil est enim virtute amabilius" [For nothing is more worthy of love than virtue].25 Friendship derived from these fundamental and noble elements may be a gift of the gods⎯deserving recognition as such⎯but De amicitia also repeatedly emphasizes the rarity of this gift. To help his audience comprehend the power of friendship, Cicero explains that while contacts among men are countless in the world, "ita contracta res est et adducta in angustum, ut omnis caritas aut inter duos aut inter paucos iungeretur" [this thing called friendship is so concentrated and narrowed that

23

Ibid, 26, p. 138. Ibid. 25 Ibid, 28. 24

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all the affection in the world unites only two or a select few].26 So, if great virtue attracts its equal yet only a handful of men experience this type of true friendship, ergo, great virtue must be surpassingly limited. Given that virtue referred to courage, valor, and manliness⎯those heroic, good qualities of a man (i.e., vir)⎯one can see how Cicero's idea of friendship could prompt its cultivation among noblemen eager to distinguish themselves through prestige. All the dignified talk of virtue in De amicitia, while not false, can scarcely conceal a fierce political system in Republican Rome built on favors and shifting alliances. Along with the deeper benefits of friendship, Cicero presents⎯in direct opposition⎯the serious dangers of discord, asking "Quae enim domus tam stabilis, quae tam firma civitas est, quau non odiis et discidiis funditus possit everti?" [For what house is so strong, what state so enduring that it cannot be utterly destroyed by hatred and internal division?]27 The author of De amicitia had lived through substantial unrest in Italy and had watched his beloved Republic largely unravel as formidable generals competed for supremacy. With that perspective, the treatise's setting in an harmonious past where friendship and virtue prevailed makes for a sharp commentary on the dissonant present. Cicero, himself, fell prey to the vagaries of a factional power struggle in Rome and was murdered as a result in 43 BC.

26 27

Cicero, 20. Ibid, 23.

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Friendship in Late Antiquity and After Rome's Fall

While late republican Rome may not have reflected the ideal era of refined friendship (if such an era ever truly existed), and Cicero's treatise may have been nostalgia or prescription, his vision of the loving practice among noble men would prove enduring. As republic shifted to empire, friendship continued as an important concern among the powerful, often as a practical matter of ambition or survival. After the crises of the mid-third century, writers looked back fondly to Cicero's ideas; references to the dolce vita and a Raparatio Saeculi (Age of Restoration) appear.28 Reviving the grand literary culture of the past⎯or at least an image of that past⎯forms a pattern in the history of Europe. 29 Causes for this cyclical fascination with remembrance are likely multifaceted (and beyond the scope of this study) but may well include a certain cultural confidence as well as a desire for familiarity after periods of difficulty or rapid change. Whatever the reason, scholars, poets, and governors in Late Antiquity consciously styled themselves on traditions of the past.30 The writings of Ausonius (310-394 AD), a nobleman from Bordeaux, show his sometimes tedious fascination with older forms. His works demonstrate, however, that classical culture and the cultivation of friendship continued to fascinate even as immense change was underway with the rise of Christianity.

28

Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1971), 34. Warren Treadgold charts various resurgences of classical letters and forms in his book Renaissances Before the Renaissance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984). 30 Brown, 29-30. 29

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Throughout much of the late third and fourth centuries, many thrived under the more secure borders and steadier political conditions, especially large landowners. Broadly speaking, wealth grew more concentrated in the West until those in the lower rungs often had to seek the favor or friendship of a great lord, a patronus, to meet a variety of wants in their lives, not the least of which was shelter from increased taxes.31 Such arrangements clearly conflicted with Cicero's ideals of true friendship in De amicitia, but in practical terms, a lord's approbation⎯or friendship⎯became a necessary component of advancement and part of the culture inherited by the Middle Ages. One might say this had always been the case in Rome, but Late Antiquity allowed (or encouraged) more of this favor-driven social mobility, for several individuals during this period emerged from humble beginnings in the provinces to reach great heights among the elite.32 The Church constituted one main avenue for promotion and the military another. Those benefiting from the system of favors would probably have preferred claiming the higher form of Ciceronian amity (strictly applicable or not) than admitting to trafficking in lower forms of friendship based on advantage. Ecclesiastical circles drew less-cultured prospects from the provinces but also from the old, wealthy senatorial class that persisted even as the fortunes of particular

31

Brown, 37. Brown lists several examples: Augustine, John Chrysostom, etc., but many of the generalsturned-emperors profiled in Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire also came from rudimentary beginnings. Brown's argument in this regard would seem to diminish the claims of Stephen Greenblatt in Renaissance Self-Fashioning that men arising from lowly status was a hallmark specifically attributable to the Renaissance age of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

32

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families rose and fell. Under the arches of luxurious country estates, traditional practices of friendship still flourished in the Latin West. As central power shifted to the East along with the emperor's new capital at Constantinople and the old institutions of state in Italy faded, aristocrats in the western provinces adapted. Some of the wealthy sons formerly headed to high administrative office in the halls of the senate adjusted their trajectories to walk the corridors of a new ecclesiastical government as bishops or abbots.33 They brought their refined culture and ideas of friendship with them to the Church, communicating those ideas to the swelling ranks of clerics and monks. The senatorial-episcopal class no longer held all the reins of power in Late Antiquity, for a new division of men began to shape how elite friendship would be conceived. Since the troubled times of the third century, emperors had arisen almost invariably from the ever more professional military. Historians often credit the emperor Diocletian with saving the Roman Empire when he donned the purple in 284, and perhaps he deserves this tribute, but the provincial general also irretrievably transformed the enormous entity that was Rome. He emphasized the role of the army, breaking it into smaller units and enlarging it substantially. Diocletian also added layers of administration to manage the expanded force and extra taxes to support it. At the top of this huge political-military apparatus, he installed a co-emperor and two sub-emperors to aid him in wielding executive power. Together, these four leaders constituted a new rapid-response command structure able to deal swiftly with

33

Brown, 135.

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dangerous enemies both foreign and domestic. His experimental tetrarchal government did not solve the problem of imperial succession (civil war ensued when Diocletian retired), but it did achieve sufficient stability for the Roman Empire to continue and even return to prosperity⎯the aforementioned Raparatio Saeculi. The image of four veteran warriors supporting each other to turn the tide of calamities and rule effectively also helped establish a lasting positive model for chivalric friendship. Statues of the tetrarchy that survived into the Middle Ages were sometimes mistaken for a group of devoted knight comrades on crusade.34 The decisive course change that Diocletian made in the third century led to a widespread cultural shift beyond the heights of authority, a shift toward a more militarized society overall. With order restored after so much chaos, it became difficult for the senatorial class to argue that they should control the government. Generals not only had the power of their armies behind them but also a growing belief that only an experienced and skilled military commander was qualified to lead.35 Such views helped eventually pave the cultural landscape for chivalric lords to direct society in the medieval era. More immediately, doubling the size of the army had a huge impact by itself in terms of numbers now involved in or training for combat.36 All of the new soldiers needed weapons and equipment, a requirement that must have realigned production efforts across the empire. Furthermore, recruits had to be found on a massive scale, and many of them came from the northern provinces 34

Brown, 22. Brent D. Shaw, "War and Violence" in Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World, eds. Bowersock, Brown, and Grabar (Camebridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999) p. 151. 36 Brown, 25. 35

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along the Rhine and Danube rivers.37 Diocletian himself hailed from a family in the Danubian territory known as Dalmatia. These frontier areas bordered on barbarian lands and barbarian culture. Ironically, with demand for troops high, men from various tribes outside Rome's hegemony entered the ranks of those tasked with defending the empire and its way of life. Undoubtedly, Roman culture influenced the barbarian recruits immensely as simple proximity and trade had to a lesser degree, but the immigrant soldiers certainly effected a change on Rome as well, predominantly in its military values. According to Tacitus, the warriors from these areas prized battle prowess and fierce loyalty above all⎯elements central to what would become chivalric friendship in the medieval and early modern eras. Payment of all the troops in these expansive armies became another major concern with far-reaching societal repercussions. First, burdensome taxes on the populace drained resources that could have gone to meet other demands, in some cases prompting people to transfer their land to the only ones with money to buy it, the wealthy aristocrats with advantageous governmental connections, i.e., friendships (in the process often making this class wealthier and more powerful). Second, even with the higher taxes⎯a percentage of which almost certainly went astray through embezzlement⎯emperors had to search for funding to pay their soldiers almost constantly. The Christian-leaning Constantine apparently raided pagan temples

37

Shaw talks of the "constant pressure to recruit beyond the bounds of one's ethnic group," and how "like a magnetic force, the rewards of the [Roman] military tended to attract ethnic groups from ever farther afield to the line of the Rhine and Danube," 134.

40

regularly for treasure to melt down and mint into gold coins for his troops.38 More broadly, a violent cycle of seizing loot in one campaign to finance another became standard procedure in Late Antiquity.39 After central authority eroded in the fifth century, Romanized warrior chiefs in post-imperial Europe still followed the plunder principle of frequent if not continual warfare. Within these circumstances, an understandable reverence for bravery in battle and love of comrades developed among the constantly-fighting soldiery, later flourishing into a culture celebrating chivalric friendship.

The Influence of the Comitatus

This warrior-dominated world of the so-called barbarians in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries lies fog-covered in a culture of few if any written records, so picking out ideas of friendship presents a challenge. Archeology, as mentioned earlier, provides clues to the nature of these societies. Some notions of friendship and its importance to the fluid cultures of the Early Middle Ages may be apprehended by examining the concept of the comitatus or war band.40 Stephen Evans, for example, claims that the comitatus phenomenon was a leading feature of political and social life in Britain during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, a feature common to the 38

Shaw, 141. Ibid. 40 The comitatus is a Latin word and was used by the Romans not only to describe what they encountered in the tribal groups beyond the northern boundaries of the empire but also to a practice adopted by some later emperors, e.g., Constantine, in establishing a select company of warriors. See Brown, 24-5. 39

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native Britons (descendants of people in the Romanized lowland area) as well as the invading tribes from the Continent (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc.).41 He argues for a more expansive social view of the comitatus, one that embraces not only a chief's personal bodyguard of kin and/or retainers but also the young warriors who lived in a war chieftain's hall (related by blood or not) as well as minor lords and their followers who might frequent the hall.42 Evans also notes that loyalty and fighting prowess figured as the most valued characteristics of the war band, a male-centered group in which war served as the primary function.43 The bond of warriors in the comitatus also "formed a strong, underlying support structure" according to Evans in that "the kinship functions appear to have been incorporated" into the relationship between a warlord and his band. Furthermore, the ties of warrior and warlord in the comitatus were beginning to outweigh the ties of kinship at this time. 44 Glimpses of friendship within the warrior aristocracies that ruled in the period of Rome's retreat also appear in some of the records, but these reports must be viewed with care since they usually spring from the opposite side and contain strong biases. Gildas, an ecclesiastic Briton writing during the sixth century, condemns the practices of the invading tribes and their chiefs, but his criticizing views still reveal important slices of information about the new warfare-driven leaders. For example, Gildas states "reges habent britannia sed tyrannos ... eos qui secum ad mensam sedent non

41

Stephen Evans, The Lords of Battle (Woodbridge, UK, and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 1997). 42 Evans, p. 2-3. 43 Ibid, p. 50-55. 44 Ibid, p. 69.

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solum amantes sed et munerantes" [Britain has kings but they are tyrants, those who sit at table with them are robbers, and they not only love but reward them].45 Gildas' disapproval of the conquering "tyrants" from the Germanic lands is clear throughout the work (and reasonable under the circumstances), but the sense of "loving and rewarding" those comrades who share the table, i.e., the robbers, is interesting. Although disgusted by it, Gildas refers to the ruler's treatment of his warrior friends as loving. A few lines later, Gildas presses the idea again saying the tyrants/kings "sanguinarious superbos ... commanipulares [exalt the blood-thirsty military companions].46 With the invective filtered out, a picture of emotion, prowess, and a warfare ethic in the governing layer of sixth-century Britain starts to form. How did the high ideals of Cicero and others from the classical/ecclesiastical world regarding elite friendship merge with popular attitudes in the army or in the comitatus that glorified comrades and war rather than refined philosophy? Gradually. By and large, the non-aristocratic army generals from the provinces and later the barbarian tribes became the new ruling nobility of Western Europe. As lords of their domains, these nobles had to interact with their subjects to oversee trade, issue decrees, dispense justice, collect taxes, negotiate with neighboring powers, etc., in short to govern. Some were more successful than others in this venture since winning territory in a battle could be far simpler than holding it for long.47 Those who did manage to reign effectively, e.g., the Goths or the Anglo-Saxons, or the Franks,

45

Gildas, De Excido et Conquestu britanniae, Chapter 27. Ibid. 47 See Brown for more on this idea, 125. 46

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needed help in the form of able administrators. For these talents, they turned to men educated in the traditional Roman fashion, a curriculum that included literary studies, and hence the recognized literary master, Cicero. The new rulers also called on scholars to act as tutors to their children and heirs (e.g., Ausonius to Gratian), thereby opening another transmission point for high culture to reach the new warrior aristocracy. Lastly, ruling the old western dominions of Rome successfully in the centuries following the empire's fragmentation almost always meant an eventual conversion to Christianity. As part of that process, the pope, bishops, abbots, and other clerics entered the governing equation, and as discussed earlier, the upper levels of church administration often came from the same stratum of wealthy, traditionallyeducated families.

The Transmission of Classical Ideals

In these various ways, a legacy of upper-class ideas on friendship slowly extended into the intellectual culture of Western Europe. Modifications to these ideas occurred, of course, as nimble minds confronted gaps or issues between the different cultural approaches to friendship and found solutions. A few examples of important figures in the Middle Ages writing about friendship may suffice to demonstrate the breadth and significance of this process. The first one, Einhard, was a young nobleman in the ninth century who served at the court of Charlemagne and wrote a Vita Caroli (Life of Charlemagne) about the famous emperor. Einhard borrows much

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of the form of his Vita Caroli from Suetonius' Lives, but he invokes Cicero by name in his introduction as the master of literary skill he wishes were available to write the deeds of Charlemagne properly. Furthermore, Einhard states that the friendship he was shown by the emperor "bound me to him and made me his debtor in both life and death."48 The frequent mentions in the Vita of Charlemagne's capacity for establishing and sustaining earnest friendships with popes, monarchs, and other notables suggests that Einhard likely appreciated Cicero's views on the subject. For the present study, it demonstrates how those views on friendship became incorporated into the chivalric world of the Carolingians and continued beyond it. Our second example, Aelred of Rievaulx, was an abbot in the North of England and a leading figure in the rising Cistercian movement of the twelfth century. In one of his most well-known works, Amicitia Spirituali (Spiritual Friendship), Aelred describes his boyhood attraction to Cicero and how the words of a Roman from centuries earlier helped him: Cum adhuc puer essem in scholis … inter diuersos amores et amicitias fluctuans, rapiebatur animus huc atque illuc et uerae amicitiae legem ignorans, eius saepe similitudine fallebatur. Tandem aliquando mihi uenit in manus, liber ille quem de amicitia Tullius scripset; qui statim mini et sententiarum grauitate utilis, et eloquentiae suauitate dulcis apparebat. [When I was still just a lad at school ... torn between conflicting loves and friendships, I was drawn now here, now there, and not knowing the law of true friendship, I was often deceived by its 48

Einhard, Vita Caroli, p. 52.

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mere semblance. At length, there came to my hands the treatise which Tullius wrote on friendship, and it immediately appealed to me as being serviceable because of the depth of his ideas, and fascination because of the charm of his eloquence.] 49 Aelred wrote the passage above as a mature man of fifty years or so looking back on his boyhood, but this only demonstrates the long-lasting influence.50 More importantly, we learn the treatise had practical as well as philosophical value for the author. Before abruptly joining the Cistercians as a young man, Aelred was on his way to worldly success at the court of King David in Scotland, a household and retinue heavily influenced by Norman cultural ideas of chivalry. The penetrating discussions of friendship in De Amicitia apparently proved useful to Aelred as he navigated what could be challenging circumstances as a courtier among nobles in medieval society. Of course as the passage also shows, Aelred admired the Roman writer’s larger, contemplative ideas about friendship and his literary talent. In an act of homage, Aelred structures his treatise, Amicitia Spirituali, in the same way Cicero shapes De Amicitia: a conversation among men about the subject of true friendship. The main difference lies in how Aelred presents friendship as a gift from the Christian God, whose presence enables the emotional warmth and goodwill between true friends. Aelred's treatise does not focus heavily on theory or doctrine, however. 49

Aelred, “De Spirituali Amicitia” in Opera Omnia (Corpus Christianorvm – Continvatio Mediaevalis), ed. A. Hoste O.S.A., (Turnholti: Brepols, 1981), 287, tr., Spiritual Friendship, tr. Mary Eugenia Laker (Washington, DC: Cistercian Publications, 1974), (Prologue 1), 45. 50 See the Powicke’s chronology section in Walter Daniel’s Life of Ailred for more information on when Aelred worked on and published various writings.

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He shapes his text on the spirit of friendship with accessible stories and universal questions, reflecting his years in the secular world as well as his time in the monastery, as the lines below demonstrate. Dic, rogo nunc, utrum sine socio omnia tibi haec possent esse iucunda? 51 [Tell me, now, whether without a companion you could enjoy all these possessions?] Putasne quemquam mortalium esse qui non uelit amari? 52 [Do you think there is any human being who does not wish to be loved?] All levels of the bellatores as well as the oratores (and many of the laboratores) could appreciate the warm, human concern articulated in such lines. The third example of Cicero's long reach in matters of friendship is Petrarch, a lauded poet, scholar, and a particularly influential humanist of the fourteenth century. He often worked for the Papacy at Avignon despite his publicized distaste for the transplanted entity yet also wrote extensive and much-admired love poetry. Petrarch deliberately celebrated friendship between virtuous men, following ancient models and continuing the tradition that flourished among ecclesiastics in the Middle Ages. Based on letter collections from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, monks, nuns, abbots, bishops and nobles (ladies and lords) took part in an elaborate network of

51 52

Aelred, “De Spirituali Amicitia” in Opera Omnia, 333. Ibid, 334.

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friendship at a variety of levels. 53 Some overstate the case to say Petrarch rediscovered "the conception and achievement of friendship...of the Ciceronian stamp,"54 but he may well have brought it to a new level in his famous cultivation of friends among the most elite men of his time: scholars, barons, bishops, princes, even kings. Petrarch reveled in the past of ancient Rome as no one had before and found expression for this fascination through a robust literary output of his own that had wide influence throughout the Renaissance and extends to modern times. It should come as no surprise that he listed Cicero's work as his favorite, for Petrarch⎯in sympathy with the teachings of De amicitia⎯considered its author his own alter ego across time.55

The Christian Tradition of Friendship

Other lines of tradition emerged from the ecclesiastic world that ran parallel to the classical Ciceronian one and became mixed into medieval culture. The Bible itself contains many principles and beliefs regarding friendship. The present study will examine a few of the instances that deal specifically with male love and friendship from the Latin Vulgate Bible translated/fashioned in the fourth century by

53

One excellent place to see this in evidence is in the letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Books devoted to the subject exist as well; for a general survey of essays on the subject, see Haseldine, ed., Friendship in the Middle Ages (Sutton, 1999). 54 J.H. Whitfield, Petrarch and the Renascence (Oxford: Basic Blackwell, 1943), 63. 55 Reynolds, 116, and see also p. 9 of this chapter.

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Jerome and used throughout the Middle Ages. The connection between David and Jonathan as described in the First Book of Samuel stands out for its intensity: et factum est cum conplesset loqui ad Saul anima Ionathan conligata est animae David et dilexit eum Ionathan quasi animam suam tulitque eum Saul in die illa et non concessit ei ut reverteretur in domum patris sui inierunt autem Ionathan et David foedus diligebat enim eum quasi animam suam 56 [That same day, when Saul had finished talking with David, he kept him and would not let him return to his father's house, for he saw that Jonathan had given his heart to David and had grown to love him as himself. So Jonathan and David made a solemn compact because each loved the other as dearly as himself.] 57 Neither amicitia nor amor appears in these verses from the Vulgate, but rather forms of the verb diligere meaning to esteem highly or to love.58 The sense of love or intense friendship between Jonathan and David seems clear enough, however, and closely resembles descriptions of Cicero's true friendship in De amicitia. This is not to suggest one necessarily influenced the other but rather to highlight corresponding ideas in two works from different societies that helped encourage the notion of intense chivalric friendship in medieval/early modern culture.

56

1 Samuel 18:1-3. Biblia Sacra Vulgata (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983). 1 Samuel 18:1-3, The New English Bible with the Apocrypha – Oxford Study Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). 58 Different words for love are used throughout the Bible, reflecting shades of meaning and/or the original Hebrew or Greek. Klaus Oschema asserts that Biblical translators found or perhaps crafted this new word specifically to differentiate a type of love between men in the Scriptures, a pure type of love with no physical dimension as other words for love (e.g., amor) might have. See Classen/Sandidge, eds., p. 19. 57

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Another Bible verse worth examining for its relation to friendship is in the Book of John from the New Testament: Maiorem hac dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam quis ponat pro amicis suis [There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends].59 Again, the English word love has been translated for the Latin dilectionem, in this case from the Greek agapen for deep, unconditional, and/or sacrificial love. Latin texts sometimes use caritas for a similar meaning of deep affection from which we derive charity. In the verse above, the message of sacrifice pertains not only to religion or spirituality. Knights reading this⎯or more likely having it read to them⎯could probably identify with both the idea of sacrifice by their savior and comrades who may have fallen next to them in battle. And, while not exact, a similar concept exists in De amicitia : "Itaque, si quando aliquod officium exstitit amici in periculis aut adeundis aut communicandis, quis est qui id non maximus efferat laudibus?" [Whenever, therefore, it comes to light some signal service in undergoing or sharing the dangers of a friend, who would not extol him with the loudest praise?].60 In comparison, the Ciceronian line falls short of the Bible verse, but the sense of superlative approbation is the same. Other books of the Bible reference friends or friendship in a variety of ways. The Book of Proverbs dispenses wisdom through short adages, such as "multi homines misericordes vocantur virum autem fidelem quis invenient?" [Many a man protests his loyalty, but where will you find one to keep faith?].61 Few verses could

59

John 15:13. Cicero, 24, 134. 61 Proverbs 20:6. 60

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apply more directly to the concerns of medieval knights and early modern nobles. Likewise, Proverbs celebrates the good friend one has: "omni tempore diligat qui amicus est et frater in angustiis conprobatur" [a friend is a loving companion at all times, and a brother is born to share troubles].62 Both of these sayings accord with ideas expressed in De amicitia. Paul's epistle to the Romans also addresses the idea of friendship and love between men: "caritatem fraternitatis invicem diligentes honore invicem praevenientes" [Let love for our brotherhood breed warmth of mutual affection. Give pride of place to one another in esteem].63 The apostle's words speak to the entire Christian community but over the centuries would carry special import to monks residing together and possibly the elite brotherhood of knights as well. Our last verse from the Book of James uses more metaphorical language: "adulteri nescitis quia amicitia huius mundi inimica est Dei quicumque ergo voluerit amicus esse saeculi huius inimicus Dei constituitur" [You false, unfaithful creatures! Have you never learned love of the world is enmity to God? Whoever chooses to be the world's friend makes himself God's enemy].64 An opposition involving friendship is set up here, but it applies more to the larger concepts of sin versus morality, for a few verses earlier envy and ambition are blamed for the quarrels that divide men and a few verses later brothers are told not to disparage one another.65 Connections to ideas found in De amicitia are more tenuous here, but Cicero's contempt toward lower

62

Proverbs 17:17. Romans 12:10. 64 James 4:4. 65 James 4:2 and 4:11. 63

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friendships, those aimed at advantage or pleasure, borders on the disdain expressed in James. The stature of Augustine (354-430) as a religious thinker in the Latin West during medieval and early modern times can hardly be overstated, making his views on friendship highly significant. He experimented with other spiritual paths before converting to Christianity under the tutelage of Ambrose and later became the Bishop of Hippo in the Roman province of Africa. Augustine authored no work specifically on friendship, but he writes emotionally about it in his famous and highly influential autobiography, The Confessions. Et quid erat, quod me delectabat, nisi amare et amari? Sed non tenebatur modus ab animo usque ad animum, quatenus est luminosus limes amicitiae, sed exhalabantur nebulae de limosa concupiscentia carnis et scatebara pubertatis et obnubilabant atque obfuscabant cor meum 66 [And what was it I delighted in, but to love, and be beloved? But I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship’s bright boundary; but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my heart.]67 For Augustine, friendship caused confusion and trouble in his youth, leading often to sin. Potentially then, friendship was a threat. Here, as in the verse from James, any

66

Augustine, “Confessiones” in Sancti Avgvstini Opera (Corpus Christianorvm – Series Latina), ed. Lucas Verheijen O.S.A., (Turnholti: Brepols, 1981), (Book 2:2), 18. 67 Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, ed. Paul M. Bechtel based on translation by E. B. Pusey, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981), (Book 2:2), 43.

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putative tension over friendship rises from the absence of God's grace, or in Ciceronian terms the lack of virtue. Once he converted to Christianity, Augustine brought companions with him to lead a contemplative life in Cassiciacum, a villa outside Milan, and it was during a trip to Africa taken to persuade another friend to join the retreat that Bishop Valerius "drafted" Augustine into service at the church in Hippo.68 Clearly, friendship remained important to him, it just had to be the right kind. In addition to fulfilling his duties at Hippo for the rest of his life, Augustine exercised much of his intellect in the defense of Trinitarian Christianity against perceived heretical movements and pagan beliefs, including a rationale for the concept of Just War. His momentous tour de force in the early fifth century, De Civitate Dei (City of God), comprehensively refutes the claims made by pagans that the adoption of Christianity precipitated Rome's fall. As an example of its lasting impact and link to the chivalric world, Einhard reports that Charlemagne, one of the Nine Worthies, enjoyed having City of God read during meals at Aachen.69 While not writing pointedly about friendship in the work, Augustine nevertheless considers the custom and issues related to it along with other facets of classical culture. After all, he had studied and taught rhetoric in Rome and Milan, making him well acquainted with the master writers of old, including Cicero. For example, Augustine states that the Christian martyrs surpassed the nobility of the ancient Romans in "virtute vero"

68

Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 2nd Edition, Volume I (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 146. 69 Einhard, p. 78.

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[true virtue] through their "vera pietate" [true piety].70 To extrapolate, if their virtue were greater then presumably their friendship might be as well. Augustine has more to say about the purpose of friendship later in the work: "quid nos consolatur in hac humana societate erroribus aerumnisque plenissima nisi fides non ficta et mutua dilectio uerorum et bonorum amicorum?" [For in the abundant errors and worries of this human fellowship, is not our consolation in the sincere trust and mutual love of good and true friends?].71 Passages such as this from the great Augustine helped ensure friendship would retain its prominence and value in the cultural environment of the medieval West as the ancient world faded. Another figure who contributed to an enduring line of tradition around friendship surfaced in the monastic world. Benedict of Nursia⎯later St. Benedict⎯(480-547) came from one of the old, aristocratic families in Italy and developed his famous Rule at Monte Cassino.72 The monastic movement had started fervently in Egypt and the Greek East during the fourth and fifth centuries, probably in reaction to the official adoption of Christianity by the empire. The idea of retreating from the world later spread to the Latin West, and hundreds flocked to various teachers in remote locations from the sixth century onwards. Benedict was one of these. His Rule is a spiritual yet practical guide for governing a monastery; the decrees are firm but more moderate than others of the period, probably accounting for its wide acceptance and implementation, notably at Cluny and Cîteaux in Burgundy.

70

St. Augustine De Civitate Dei V:XIV (www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine). St. Augustine De Civitate Dei XIX:VIII (www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine). 72 Gonzalez, 278. 71

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Though lapses occurred and disagreements arose over how strictly to interpret the Rule⎯sometimes leading to new monastic movements, e.g., the Cistercians⎯the Rule remained a strong cultural force in the West for a thousand years. Although Benedict says little directly on the subject, his Rule still affected how male friendship and chivalric conduct came to be conceived in both stories and reality during the Middle Ages. According the Rule, monks should love each other equally: "Non unus plus ametur quam alius" [Let him not love one more than another] for "omnes in Christo unum sumus" [we are all one in Christ].73 The only reason for preference in the sight of God according to the Rule is if one excels in "operibus bonis et humiles " [humility and good works]. Monks, therefore had to learn humility and obedience in order to "in melius proficiant obsecrare" [advance in virtue] but also to "Domino Christo vero regi militaturus" [do battle under Lord Christ, the true King].74 The battle referred to in the Rule is a spiritual one yet the warfare imagery would resonate with chivalric culture. Galahad, the perfect celestial knight of the thirteenth-century Lancelot-Grail Cycle and Malory's later Sankgreal achieves success in the mystical Grail Quest when other knights⎯even Lancelot or Gawaine⎯fail. Why? In a telling response to Gawaine by one of the "munkes" in Malory's tale: "'Sir,' seyd he, 'for ye be wycked and synfull, and he ys full blyssed.'75 The humble yet powerful Galahad, favored by monks and hermits, is virtually a monk 73

St. Benedict, chapter 2. St. Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict, tr. Doyle (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001) and (http://www.intratext.com/IXT/LAT0011/__P1.HTM). 75 Malory, Works, edited by Vinaver (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 534. 74

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himself and pure before God. Furthermore, it is no accident that Lancelot and Bors, the boon companions, enter a type of monastic retreat at the end of the Morte Arthur; it is their natural earthly destination as virtuous if not perfect warriors. The experience of soldier-monks was not restricted to the pages of romance. As early as the tenth century, ecclesiastics had tried (with limited success) to curb or control rampaging knights in efforts known as the Peace of God and Truce of God. By the twelfth century, military orders of monks took shape in the form of the Templars and the Hospitallers whose main task was to protect pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land.76 Trained as knights in the arts of war, the men in these orders also took vows of obedience, poverty and chastity as monks did and pledged to live their lives under a rule, loving one another equally in brotherhood. Bernard of Clairvaux, the influential leader of the Cistercian monks, helped prepare the specific rule of the Templars; Benedict's Rule provided much of the content.77 Bernard also wrote a treatise called De Laude Novae Militiae [In Praise of the New Knighthood] to promote the new order and defend it from critics. Familiar themes of male friendship appear in Bernard's description of "Christi equitum mores et vitam" [the life and virtues of these cavaliers of Christ].78 He says "Vivitur in communi, plane iucanda et sobria conversatione" [They live as brothers in joyful and sober company]79 We are told the knights of this order make no distinction among themselves, and in an echo 76

C.H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism Third Edition (Harlow, London, New York: Pearson Education, 2001), 209-210. 77 Lawrence, 210. 78 Bernard of Clairvaux, De Laude Novae Militiae in Sancti Bernardi Opera Vol. 3 (Rome: Editiones Cistercianses, 1957-1977), 220. 79 Bernard of Clairvaux, 220.

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of both Cicero's ideas and the David and Jonathan story, "universae multitudinis esse cor unum et animam unam" [the whole multitude has but one heart and one soul].80 A discrepancy between the Templar model of knightly brotherhood or any of the monastic approaches to communal friendship and the classic Ciceronian version bears some explanation. Cicero envisioned love between only a select few or a single pair of the best, most noble men who would naturally recognize and gravitate to one another's virtue. A similar bond of exceptional love united David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel. The implied sense of unparalleled worthiness underpinning such rare friendships would surely appeal to the always status-conscious knights out to win honorable reputations and accompanying worldly rewards. Troubadours and trouvères (or others) writing about knights also wanted individual characters of superior, inspiring quality around whom they could weave stylized tales of war and love. How then could the exclusive principle/practice apply to an entire collective of monks or a whole company of monastic knights? Two answers, one theoretical the other more practical, may serve to untangle the difficulty. Part of Christianity's draw as it spread around the Mediterranean lay in the religion's promise to endow its adherents with a moral distinction equal to or greater than that afforded by pagan philosophy without the laborious years of education in esoteric concepts. Through the intervention of grace and revelation, devoted Christians could achieve a righteous state relatively quickly. Plus, a higher number of converts to the new religion was encouraged. The centers of pagan 80

Ibid.

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philosophy, by contrast, defined themselves by long, hard, and frequently expensive study that only the aristocracy could afford. So, the monasteries and religious orders of knights followed the same Christian pattern in regards to true friendship, providing it to all who entered the brotherhood as a fundamental part of God's grace. The only presumed distinction within such a community would result from greater humility or advanced good works. Practically of course, certain monks or monastic knights formed closer friendships with some of their brethren than others based on any number of attributes.81

The Troubadour Tradition of Knightly Love

The last tradition of friendship to consider, the cansos of the troubadours, comes from the decidedly secular world of amour courtois [courtly love]. As the name implies, these complex songs were prepared for an aristocratic, courtly audience and revolve around the theme of romantic love. Troubadours reflect the culture of chivalry very closely since knights counted themselves among the composers of this form.82 While usually leaving the actual presentation of the songs to traveling minstrels or jongleurs, troubadours sometimes performed their own works, entertaining songs of romance, war, and love celebrating the secular 81

In Spirituali Amicitia, Aelred writes of specific friends at Rievaulx who cheer him even as they confound others in the community. Augustine, likewise, suggests that particular friends rather than the collective body of Christianity or even a particular congregation bring one joy. 82 King Richard the Lionheart, for example, wrote troubadour/trouvére-type poetry while still a young man in Southern France and went on to embody (according to many) the ideals of chivalry and kingship. See Gillingham for more on this.

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aristocracy and its mores.83 Troubadours and minstrels are known to have traveled throughout the courts of affluent nobles in Spain, France, England, Italy, and beyond, e.g., on crusade, but the movement seems centered in the southern regions of France. Limousin, in particular, as well as Poitou, and Saintonge appear to be the points of origin for troubadour verse.84 The language of these songs is Provençal, a dialect of Occitan, also known as langue d'oc, a language spoken primarily in the southern parts of France. Latin remained the high language of the nobility and clergy in Europe during the Middle Ages, but vernacular languages started to develop and gain respect as well by the eleventh and twelfth centuries. William IX, Count of Poitiers (1071-1127), is often recognized as the first troubadour, though songs of the tradition almost certainly were written before him.85 Fierce debate continues over the origin of troubadour songs and, indeed, the entire amour courtois genre of writing. Some look to the sophistication of Arabic poetry in Northern Africa, or especially in the adjacent Mozarabic region of the Iberian peninsula to account for the amazing elegance and virtuosity of the best troubadours. Others see a lyrical line that traces all the way back to Latin verse from Late Antiquity and that arrived in France by way of the central or southwest regions of Europe. Still others claim that popular folk songs in the South of France inspired

83

These entertainments became very popular and even influential for the rulers growing up during these times. 84 H.J. Chaytor, The Troubadours, paperback edition (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 4. 85 Chaytor, p. 6.

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what would become the influential poetic developments first reported in Limousin and Poitiers.86 Whatever the source or combination of sources, troubadour verse had a lasting impact on literature in the West. Singing frequently of "Bon amors" [good love], the troubadours suggest that virtuous love could deepen or enhance a knight's honor as well as his combat ability, an enduring idea in knighthood that finds its way into the work of others, e.g., Geoffroi de Charny's fourteenth-century Book of Chivalry. While an erotic attraction is often insinuated in troubadour lyrics, consummation is usually not. The most ethical (and often most popular) songs transfer longing to something higher, a purer love or fin'amor. The intense bond between a knight and his true friend or to use the word from the tales, companho [companion], occasionally finds expression in the amour courtois mode of the troubadours. As we shall see in later chapters, this idea of loving friendship continues in the epic poems and romances that were influenced by the songs of the troubadours and their counterparts in the north, the trouvères. To provide a flavor of the poetic medium, this chapter will briefly explore ideas of ethics and friendship in the songs of three troubadours: Marcabru, Raimbaut, and Giraut. Marcabru, if his name is recognized at all today (literally Dark Spot), is known mostly as a moralizing troubadour in seeming opposition to others of the movement such as William IX whose verse often had coarse double meanings. The

86

See James J. Wilhelm, Seven Troubadours: The Creator of Modern Verse (University Park, PA and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1970), pp. 15-17 for more. Also, see Chaytor, pp. 7-11.

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perceived stern tone of Marcabru's work usually receives more attention than the songs themselves. Modern scholarship has renovated Marcabru's poetic reputation, recognizing great talent, complexity, and sophistication in his songs.87 Little is known about Marcabru besides a few pointers in the composer's own work. Supposedly, he came from a poor family in Gascony and studied with Cercamon, an obscure Troubadour, before launching his own career in the courts of southern France during the mid-twelfth century. Although some critics suggest that the sharp, lecturing tone of Marcabru's sirventes (satires) in which he describes "fals amar" opposed to "amor fina" reveals a religiously-conceived divide, Ruth Harvey has argued that the composer considers both varieties to be forms of secular love. According to Harvey, Marcabru envisioned "a pure, sincere love with a highly developed spiritual dimension" as fin'amor; he thought the other type of love consisted of "base, self-interested lasciviousness."88 This split shows up again and again in his poetry and would seem to have applied to his whole philosophy of worldly life, in which an internal sense of ethics is required for bona cuida. Harvey concludes that Marcabru "draws on the Christian tradition to encourage reverent approval of fin'amor."89 The composer writes of "amistat fina" [pure friendship] as well as "fin'amor," [pure love] in his songs, likely meaning male-female relationships

87

Ruth Harvey notes the expertise of this 'problem' troubadour by examining how he invents words as he needs them and often places the right sound in the wrong place by design. See "Rhymes and 'rusty words' in Marcabru's Songs" French Studies, Vol. 56 (2002) 1-14. 88 Ruth Harvey, The Troubador Marcabru and Love (London: Committee for Medieval Studies, 1989) p. 30. 89 Ibid, 194-5.

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with both terms, but it is not always clear.90 In any case, Marcabru's ethical view of living would certainly pertain to male friendships. Raimbaut de Vaqueiras wrote in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, and he took part in the Fourth Crusade. He was born into a family of lower noble status in Orange where he later became a troubadour at court.91 Active in Italy as well as southern France and a long associate of the Marquis de Montferrat, Raimbaut built a reputation as a composer, but only a small number of his poems have survived. In one of them, apparently written while on crusade in 1205, he questions his place in the campaign: "Doncs, qe·m val conquistz ni ricors? / qu'eu ja·m tenia per plus rics / qand er' amatz e fis amics, [So, what are conquests and riches worth to me? For I considered myself richer when I was loved and a true lover,]. 92 The idealistic attitude toward love could be said to define much of troubadour thought. Raimbaut's next line is most interesting in regards to our exploration of friendship, however, for he refers to a male companion: "e·m paissi' ab n'Engles amors; / n'amava mais un sol plazer / que sai gran terr' e gran aver," [and love nourished me with Sir Engles; I preferred then one single pleasure to great lands and wealth here,]. With this, Raimbaut speaks of a happier time when he was content with another knight who was his friend, Engles. The nourishing love likely means the love of a lady sustaining him while

90

See, for example, "Per l'aura freida que guida" in Marcabru: A Critical Edition, eds., Gaunt, Harvey, Paterson (Cambridge and Rochester, NY: DS Brewer, 2000), p. 458-9. 91 Chaytor, p. 96. 92 Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, XX, The Poems of the Troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, edited by Linskill (The Hague: Mouton, 1964) in Simon Gaunt "Poetry of Exclusion," Modern Language Review, Vol 85, No. 2 (April 1990) p. 326. Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3731812.

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away from her with his companion, but it may also include the love of his comrade. Part of the art and enjoyment of troubadour poetry lies in the deliberate ambiguity of meaning in the phrases. The image of two knights satisfied and at ease together became an inspiring, virtuous image for chivalric culture. Giraut de Borneil was sometimes referred to as the Master of Troubadours when the songs of the troubadours were studied in later centuries. Many of his poems were highly praised and preserved in a multitude of manuscripts, which may lend some certification to his reputation.93 Dante mentions him specifically in as a composer known for the characteristics of honor and virtue in his songs.94 Giraut was probably born in southwestern France near Excideuil around 1140; he was active in the late twelfth century and had established a reputation as a troubadour of note in the courts of French nobles by 1170.95 He wrote many different types of poetry, sirventes of criticism as well as rich love ballads, laments, and pastorels. One of his songs, Reis Glorios [King of Glory], provides a sense of the strong feelings involved in chivalric friendship. The poem begins with an appeal by one knight to "Dieus poderos senher" [Lord God Almighty] to protect another knight, his friend who is late in returning.96 The situation is not entirely clear; the last stanza suggests that the overdue knight is having a rendezvous with a lady, but that may be a

93

Chaytor, pp. 53-54. Ibid, reference to Dante's Convivio. 95 Ruth Sharman, The Cansos and Sirventes of The Troubadour Giraut de Borneil: A Critical Edition (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989) p. 1-3. 96 Giraut de Borneil, Reis Glorios, lines 1-2 in The Cansos and Sirventes of The Troubadour Giraut de Borneil: A Critical Edition, ed., Sharman, p.365. 94

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later addition, in which case the delay could have many explanations.97 The opening request for God "As mieu companh siatz fizels aiuda" [to take my friend into your care] may imply that he fears his friend is dead.98 Whatever the circumstances, a stanza of Giraut's song conveys the love and concern involved: Bel companho, pos mi parti de vos Hieu non dormi ni·m moc de ginolhos, Ans preguiei Dieu, lo filh Sancta Maria, Que·us mi rendes per leyal companhia, Et ades sera l'alba! [Fair companion, since I left you I have not slept or risen from my knees, But have prayed to God, son of the Blessed Mary, To give me back my faithful companion, And the dawn will soon be here!] 99 The notion of a nocturnal vigil generates romantic effect but also evokes the image of a dubbing ceremony in knighthood.100 The talk of prayer and the Blessed Mary connect to chivalric themes as well, for some critics view courtly love in the twelfth century as a secular reflection of the increased spiritual attention directed to Mary.101 The reason for the prayer in the song, though, is to return his companion safely. What comes across with the most clarity is one knight's solicitude for his friend. By staying up all night to watch and pray for his companion, he demonstrates loyalty, 97

Ibid, notes on poem, pp. 367-8. Ibid, Giraut, Reis Glorios, line 3. 99 Giraut de Borneil, Reis Glorios, lines 21-25 in The Cansos. 100 See Keen, Chivalry, pp. 64-82. 101 Chaytor, p. 15. 98

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and the language coupled with that action indicates an emotional bond not easily severed. While all the separate lines of friendship traditions discussed here from the ancient and late antique worlds did not merge smoothly into a few pages of the uniform codebook of chivalry circa 1300 (no such codebook exists), ideas of chivalric friendship do coalesce into part of something new in the Middle Ages. The ruling warrior aristocracies in the Latin West during Rome's sluggish disintegration were comprised of men who had varying degrees of attachment to the new religion or exposure to old Roman culture, but they did trust their battle companions. They had to. The fierce emotional bonds of the comitatus slowly and unevenly mixed with Christianity and Roman learning, taking elements that meshed with their military perspective to generate secular chivalric culture. Ideas of elite male friendship constituted some of those elements. The songs of the troubadours were among the first artistic celebrations of chivalric culture, as both literature and performance. We now move on to explore some of the other literary forms that appeared as chivalry developed further and ideas of emotional friendship developed with it.

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Chapter 3 Companions and Love

Li reis li done corroços et iriez, Si li charga seissante chevaliers, D’or et d’argent trossez trente somiers; Al departir se corurent baisier. [The king granted his permission, sad and vexed at heart, and put in his charge a band of sixty knights and thirty pack-horses loaded with gold and silver. At the moment of separation, they rushed into each other’s arms and exchanged kisses] – Anonymous, Le Couronnement de Louis [The Crowning of Louis] Twelfth Century

In the Latin West, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time for celebrating heartfelt love among the nobility—and not just between men and women. Although rarely pointed out in modern studies of the epic poems and romances that enjoyed great popularity during this period, a careful reading of these texts reveals a striking amount of intense affection among knights, barons, counts, and kings for each other. Drawing inspiration from the changing conditions of the High Middle

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Ages (ca. 1000-1300) as well as traditions of the past, ideas of passionate friendship between knights emerged and blossomed widely as a recurrent theme in heroic literature and as a dynamic element in chivalric life. In this chapter, our study will concentrate on identifying close male-male friendship and/or love as a prevalent, even defining phenomenon in the mentality of the times and understanding how ideas of ethics and status regarding male friendships both shaped and were shaped by a rapidly developing medieval society. This study cannot cover all of the multi-layered changes occurring at the end of the first millennium, but a few observations on the macro level may help call to mind key circumstances. The Latin West had been on the defensive from invasions since the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire in the ninth century, and a sharp sense among the embattled Latins of pulling together and bonding for shared survival likely resulted.1 Western Christendom endured, however, and slowly fortunes turned so that by the eleventh century the Latins had not only stabilized their borders but also began to strike out and expand. Population in Western Europe soared, trade increased, and various advances—including military ones—assisted in the societal expansion.2 Simultaneously, learning and confidence surged as part of a broad

1

Aggressors included Vikings from the north, Hungarians/Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south; each was a serious threat and taken together, they were a catastrophic danger to the peoples and culture of Western Europe. Eventually, all the invaders either gave up, were absorbed into the Latin culture, or suffered defeat. 2 Debate continues as to the exact causes and effects of the population increase but none deny that a sizable jump occurred. Some of the general advancements I refer to here include the change to a three-field system of crop rotation for some areas as opposed to the older, less productive two-field arrangement as well as the adoption of new collars for horses to pull plows rather than oxen. See Keen’s major study on this subject, Chivalry (1994), for more

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cultural growth continuing for well over a hundred years;3 indeed, many historians now refer to the long twelfth century (1050 to 1250) as a medieval renaissance.4 Although no central authority re-materialized in the form of a strong, encompassing empire, the papacy tried to fill the vacuum in some ways through aggrandizing efforts known as the Gregorian Reforms.5 Absorbing vitality from the general upswing and increased wealth, chivalry flourished in this environment as a decentralized but powerful force, especially as opportunities emerged for nobles to win new lands. Enhanced prestige and detail on the development of the stirrup and couched-lance positioning around this time that enhanced the value of heavy cavalry. 3 With a relative break in the onslaught, schools began to expand and thrive as large numbers of eager new students emerged; teachers in logic, law, theology and other subjects gained prominence under the many graduates found employment in the service of kings, dukes, or bishops that required workers with the administrative skills being taught. 4 Charles Homer Haskins’ 1927 book, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, is usually pointed to as the first and perhaps strongest historical argument for acceptance of a medieval renaissance comparable to the great Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century. Haskins’ contention runs against the historical view laid out earlier by Burckhardt and others which describes the Middle Ages as a dull, static and comparatively backwards period in the development of Europe. Deliberately provocative with his title, Haskins lays out a persuasive argument for looking at the twelfth century as an important revival of classical learning that stands on its own – distinct from previous medieval centuries as well as the Italian Renaissance to come, i.e., the twelfth century renaissance was not merely a precursor. Some of the new intellectuals also started to study ancient works from Greece and Rome (in whatever limited collection might be available) for more than simply grammar and style; they wanted to understand and reconcile the work of these pagan writers from the previous age with a unified Christian doctrine. Stirrings of scientific thought appeared, too, as certain students contemplated nature itself as an independently functioning phenomenon, albeit designed and set in motion by God, see Otten’s book, From Paradise to Paradigm (2004). 5 A committed group of nobles and clergy united by a common ideology struggled to create what they considered a more independent, potent, and pure religious institution via various reforms. A document called the Dictatus Papae (released in 1075) detailed the new powers and responsibilities reformers thought the Pope should have. Clerical marriage, simony, concubinage, and the secular appointment of church offices were some of the practices they endeavored to prohibit. Named after a leading proponent and polarizing figure, Pope Gregory VII, these Gregorian Reforms became established in jumps and starts across the lands of Europe. See Bolton’s book Medieval Reformation for more on the ecclesiastical changes and far-reaching efforts involved.

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legitimacy for knights came with endorsement from the Church whose leaders needed agents in the secular world to implement or support policy.6 True, relations between nobles and ecclesiastics were sometimes strained, but from surviving chivalric guides as well as treatises and literature, it seems clear that knights collectively became protectors/ enforcers for the Church and medieval society (at least in theory). 7 The various crusades—whether or not they always achieved stated territorial gains— constituted some of the more successful collaborations between the warrior nobles and religious heads of Europe. Even with these broad changes and the general boom in chivalry, basic attitudes among the medieval aristocracy towards life, including a positive inclination towards elite male friendship, seemed to remain much the same as in the ancient world for no conscious separation of time periods was apparent. Changes were happening as noted, however, and knights rode in the middle of the flux since they provided much of the muscle behind the various expansions.8 Interestingly, the high

6

For example, Pope Gregory VII needed military support in Italy against the German Emperor and sometimes against rival factions within Rome itself whereas a powerful Norman transplant, Roger Guiscard, wanted official recognition for the kingdom he was forging in Apulia and Calabria (see G.A. Loud’s book The Age of Roger Guiscard for a full treatment). A similar if slightly less crude arrangement was reached in England after the Norman Conquest. King William I (the Conqueror) became a strong supporter of the various “Gregorian” reforms in England, and in return, Pope Gregory gave papal approval of the Norman invasion and accompanying religious respectability to William’s new kingdom. 7 See treatises or guides of chivalry written by knights during the medieval period, e.g., the anonymous Ordene de chevalerie, Geoffroi Charny's Book of Chivalry, and Ramon Llull's Libre del ordre de cavayleria as well as the influential works such as Perceval by Chrétien de Troyes. 8 Medieval nobles and associated knights led many expeditions that increased the boundaries of Western Christendom, e.g., the reconquest of Spain, incursions into the Slavic regions and territories over the sea in the Holy Land via the numerous crusades of the period. This should

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nobility began to adopt a specific culture of knighthood as its own in this period, i.e., during the twelfth century, as well.9 Conditions were set for friendship to take on new prominence among the growing chivalric class at this time. First of all, well-trained heavy cavalry almost by definition had to be comprised of wealthy nobles (or have noble sponsors) since the cost of equipment, weapons, and horses, not to mention the necessary years of practice, was so expensive and laborious.10 No one else could afford the resources involved; yet most knight-nobles were not part of a large, organized legion beholden (in theory) to an emperor as in Roman times. Similarly, given the lack of any dominant authority to keep order and the very real need to protect lands from rivals or raiders as well as the potentially lucrative opportunities of conquest, a count or baron could hardly afford not to pursue a chivalric career and/or have friends who were knights to call upon in need. Numbers equaled safety when threats arose (as they often did), and a system of largely independent lords and vassals sharing land governance and coming together when called for a combined defense or offense is a hallmark of the Middle Ages.11 Historians looking with economic or legalistic eyes

not be taken to suggest that footsoldiers, men-at-arms, etc. did not also play a huge role in these military ventures. 9 See Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp. 189-90. 10 A common chivalric narrative of the Middle Ages and Renaissance includes unknown knights with little means winning fame and fortune and then getting recognized later as a son of a noble family. 11 Tidy representations showing owed service emanating from a king sitting atop a “pyramid” matrix have been widely challenged by several historians; most now paint a far more complex and not always orderly hierarchical system of allegiances. References to a feudal pyramid still exist, as a teaching model however. See, for example, http://www.middleages.org.uk/feudalism-pyramid.htm.

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have given various names to this set-up, feudalism being the most popular, but with a little imagination one can view the entire arrangement as a novel network of friendships.12 Consider the language of fealty shown in an excerpt from a mideleventh century charter: I the above-mentioned Sancho, king, out of friendship, fidelity, aid, and council as God has given them to me, give you the castle which is called Sangossa,13 Essentially, a vassal promised to become “the man” of another, and a lord pledged to accept and protect the man who was now his vassal. The ritual established certain rights and responsibilities as well as personal trust and amity between the two. Clearly from even a cursory survey of medieval history, ceremonial practices of this type did not always lead to entirely successful, stable, or peaceful relationships, but fealty was an extensive, enduring convention and must have had some efficacy. Although this study touches on these overarching governmental concerns, our focus is on smaller-scale emotional friendships, not the many wrinkles and factors of administrative land management.

12

Several historians have objected to the alleged over-use and/or misapplication of feudalism as a term to facilitate our historical understanding. See Elizabeth Brown’s essay “Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe” for more on the problematic nature of this concept in medieval history. 13 Liber Feodorum Maior in The Records of Medieval Europe, Ed. Carolly Erickson. (New York: Anchor Books, 1971), 162.

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Linguistic Concepts of Friendship

Before totally shifting away from the macro level, however, one more large issue requires attention: our understanding of love and friendship as linguistic concepts. Top entries from a modern dictionary illustrate the point: love n. 1. a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. friend n. 1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts. 14 Apparently, a rather large gulf exists between these terms today for most people (and dictionaries15), but in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, virtually no gap existed. Words for love and friendship could be used interchangeably, reflecting both the conceptual and linguistic link between accepted meaning. After all, our modern English word friend comes from the Old English frēond, formed from a participle of the verb frēon for “to love,” and frēond could mean either a friend or a lover.16 Similarly, the Old French ami (friend) was clearly related to amor (love) in the same

14

American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006). The Oxford English Dictionary (online edition) lists "lover or paramour of either sex" as the meaning #4 in its extensive listing for "friend," but the first/top meaning in the OED essentially matches the AHD one noted, even adding "not ordinarily applied to lovers or relatives." 16 The English word, friend, also corresponds to the Dutch vriend and the German freund, which all share an Indo-European root in a word for love as well as a word for freedom. The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006). Clark’s A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Boston: Cambridge University Press, 1960) lists both friend and lover under meanings for frēond. 15

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way the Latin amicus was related to amor (or the Greek philos and phileo). This is why ecclesiastics would sometimes write letters to each other as ardent friends without ever having met.17 It is also why in the thirteenth century William Marshal, a highly successful knight who rose to become regent of England, lovingly refers to his wife as a friend for their last kiss before he enters the ranks of the Templars near the end of his life: Bel’amie, or me besereiz, Car ja mes nul jor nel ferez. 18 [Fair Lady, kiss me now, for you will never be able to do it again] “Bel’amie” (literally "beautiful friend") is usually translated to “Fair Lady” in modern English because the romantic sense is almost always missing from the word in our time.19 So, although the languages and regimes of England changed during the Middle Ages, a strong association between ideas of love and friendship remained. Tracking words alone, however, is insufficient for our purposes since—as today—the word friend (or the French ami) suffers slippery usage, often signaling the hollow talk of diplomacy or pleasantry not to mention irony. Intimate friendship, however, like any form of intense love reveals itself contextually in displays of strong 17

For more on this particular practice, see Stephen Jaeger's Ennobling Love (1999) and the discussion of this work in chapter one of this study. 18 History of William Marshal Vol. II, ed., A.J. Holden, tr. S. Gregory (London: AngloNorman Text Society, 2004) 18369-70. 19 A few are apparently trying to reclaim the English meaning in wide usage as the opening line of a recent popular song from a long-running Broadway musical states: “There’s a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend…” Lopez and Marx, Avenue Q, opened on Broadway in 2003.

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feelings such as joy, anger, grief, and longing. These emotions (and others) are key to understanding the breadth of love that medieval knights display for each other from simple like-mindedness to profound bonds of affection and all points in between. Real knights, after all, were complex human beings capable of expressing many kinds of love depending on the circumstances and individuals involved. Likewise, medieval poets often make keen insights into the nature of their chivalric subjects, reflecting or possibly influencing actual figures. We will now examine some specific instances and then consider the wider ramifications. Imaginative, heroic literature of the period—epic poems and chivalric romances—will be our guide, supplemented by chronicles and other factual sources, as we try to interpret friendship as a neglected but powerful force that binds fighting men together through honor or, when missing, rips them apart.

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Friendship in Heroic Tales and Epic Poems

In our first literary exploration of chivalric friendship, Beowulf, the ripping is literal.20 A demonic monster named Grendel terrorizes an entire community of Danes by brutally slaughtering victims each night in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem until a hero, Beowulf, arrives from across the sea. This story of a valiant young champion fighting horrors typically evokes discussions of good versus evil, the nature of bravery, and/or the historical transition from pagan to Christian beliefs, but the poem also illustrates how love expresses itself between warriors in a dangerous world. When the hero proves his prowess by fatally wounding Grendel in battle, Hrothgar, the Danish king, rewards Beowulf with riches and gifts but also declares a significant link to him: "Nū ic, Bēowulf, þec, / secg betsta, mē for sunu wylle / frēogan on ferhþe" [Now, Beowulf, noblest of men, I will cherish you in my heart as a son].21 Later, after also dispatching Grendel’s vengeance-seeking mother, Beowulf prepares to return home, but he pauses to promise military aid if Hrothgar ever needs it or to come back if he can do anything personally to earn the Danish king’s love. All of these words might be viewed as mere formalities of a feudal variety until the actual parting embrace when Hrothgar breaks down in tears, and we see how metaphorical bonds of love have emotional and physical impact on the king: 20

Accurately dating Beowulf is a difficult matter for scholars; estimates range from the early eighth century to the late tenth. This puts it roughly at the edge of our period of study in this chapter, but the themes and story undoubtedly remained popular in England well into the eleventh century and beyond. 21 Beowulf, bilingual edition, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), 946-8. Translation by David Wright (New York: Penguin, 1957).

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Wæs him se man tō þon lēof, þæt hē þone brēost-wylm forberan ne mehte; ac him on hrepre hyge-bendum fæst æfter dēorum men dyrne langað beorn wið blōde. [And such was his affection that he could not help being overcome; deep within his heart, a secret affection for the beloved hero burned in his blood.] 22 Sincerity and genuine human feeling speak through stirring descriptions like this one, leaving little doubt that strong emotions were a major factor in the relations of warrior rulers and nobles. Moreover, not only does this display by Hrothgar confirm the young hero's elite status before the assembled nobles in the story, the description of the king's "secret affection" existing "deep within his heart" proves it was not conceived as merely a public show for diplomacy or court effect.23 The real warrior aristocrats in the audience hearing the tale might well remember this episode as a model of ethical and honorable behavior. Beowulf provides other more oblique cues about Anglo-Saxon cultural ideas of friendship as well. Even the monstrous Grendel reveals certain attitudes about love through his role as an outcast turned destroyer. The poem specifically connects Grendel to the Biblical Cain who murdered his own brother, a vicious crime against one of the most basic male-male bonds. As a result, Cain is damned by God and 22

Beowulf, 1876-80. The described private/secret nature of Hrothgar's feeling at this point places the case outside of what Jaeger talks about in Ennobling Love as a love that is "primarily a public experience."

23

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exiled from humanity. Grendel shares that heavy sentence, for he is drēamum bedæled or bereft of joy but also tortured by it. The monster does not attack the great hall of Heorot without cause; on the contrary, happy sounds of kin and friends celebrating together torment him into doing so. Friendships and feuds through time form another theme of Anglo-Saxon beliefs in Beowulf. The struggle of the Danes against Grendel and his mother may constitute the main thread of the story, but one storyline is not enough to satisfy the anonymous author. The poem constantly swings back and forth through the past, present, and future as we hear about various ancestors and descendants alternatively clashing with or befriending one another. Indeed, we hear from Hrothgar, the besieged king, that Beowulf has undertaken his voyage to Denmark to sōhte holdne wine [follow up an old friendship]24 from the days of his father, indicating that such ties span generations. To Hrothgar, that friendship provides new hope, and the audience of the poem learns that successful warrior rulers have many friends and value them accordingly. We find a more linear tale of war and chivalric friendship in one of the most popular and lasting literary works of medieval times: La Chanson de Roland [The Song of Roland].25 This highly influential epic poem was performed as an entertainment by minstrels in the various courts of French nobles, including (most

24

Ibid, 376. Anonymously written at some point in the early twelfth century, scholarly opinion generally agrees the tale was composed in the late eleventh century. For more on dating the poem accurately, see Goldin’s introduction in his English translation of The Song of Roland (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978).

25

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likely) the Norman ones ruling England since 1066.26 The poem’s plot concerns the historical battle of Rencesvals in 778 CE, a heavy loss for Charlemagne’s Franks.27 Hundreds of years later, a poet (or poets) employing massive artistic license transfigured this sad event of the eighth century into a new literary medium, the chanson de geste (song of noble deeds) celebrating the heroic spirit of the twelfth.28 Not only was the poem composed in (Old) French rather than Latin, but it speaks confidently in the voice of contemporary chivalry with descriptions of mounted combat, pagan enemies, and familiar geography.29 While much modern criticism focuses on questions of honor, faith, and pride regarding the title character’s seemingly bizarre decision to face hopeless odds with a relatively small force instead of calling for available help from the main army, The Song of Roland also invites 26

France, though not organized or centralized as a kingdom, was the epicenter of the cultural and chivalric surge in the long twelfth century. One of the dukedoms making up the French territories was Normandy, and its conquest of England in 1066 was part of the general expansion that carried Frankish ideas of chivalry and friendship to England, Spain, Italy, and the Holy Land. As the famous embroidery at Bayeux illustrates, William the Conqueror’s mounted knights defeated Harold’s foot soldiers in a massive battle at Hastings. One should, of course, beware reading too much into these images and concluding—probably erroneously—that the heavy cavalry of the Normans decided the battle alone. Still, it seems clear from viewing the embroidered images that armored horsemen played an active part in the conflict. 27 We know from chronicles that the rearguard of the army was ambushed by Basques in the passes of Pyrenees Mountains and annihilated leaving the supply train to be plundered. 28 Epic poems about heroic journeys and battles had existed in the Western tradition before and were known, of course, most notably in the work of Homer and Virgil, but The Song of Roland marked the arrival of whole new subject: La Matière de France (The Matter of France), which constituted a literary cycle with recurring characters, situations, and actions in the struggle of Charlemagne against the Saracens. Other “matters” or literary categories were those of Britain (the Arthurian stories) and Rome (tales about heroes from antiquity, e.g., Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar). 29 In short, the poet knew his audience of French, chivalric nobility and aimed his story directly to them. The response was enthusiastic to say the least, considering the poem’s wide dispersal and the multiple existing manuscripts. Of course, it is possible that had it been written in Latin, the poem would have still been popular, but the choice coincides with general expansion of Frankish culture.

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other questions in regards to a martial, male culture built on the emotional bonds of love. One of the larger questions involves exploring how love and friendship set the action and provide drama in a war epic. Early on, we see how some knights enjoy a closer, more favored or higher position in the French host than others. Needing a representative to go to Saragossa and meet with the enemy, pagan king, Marsilion, who supposedly now sues for peace, Charlemagne declines the bids of Naimon, Roland, Oliver, and Archbishop Turpin to undertake this risky mission.30 The emperor wants to keep these men close to him and revealingly shows a bit of anger when they volunteer. Naimon’s eagerness to go receives an abrupt dismissal: "Vos n’irez pas uan de mei si luign" [You will not go so far from me this year; or ever].31 When Roland says he would go, his companion Oliver objects saying, "Jo me crendreie que vos vos meslisez" [ How I would worry—you’d fight with them, I know].32 Oliver then offers to go, but Charlemagne curtly orders: "Ambdui vos en taisez!" [Be still, the two of you!],33 and when Turpin puts himself forward, we are told:

30

Many records exist of medieval kings sending knights on diplomatic missions, e.g., SC 2 55, SC 2 95, SC 3 57, etc., in Special Collections: Ancient Correspondence of the Chancery and the Exchequer, Henry II - Henry VIII, National Archives, Kew, London, U.K. 31 La Chanson de Roland, ed. William Calin (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968), 250. Translation by Frederick Goldin, 1978. And, true to his word, Naimon stays with Charlemagne and does not perish with the rest of the rearguard. 32 Ibid, 257. 33 Ibid, 258.

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Li empereres respunt par maltalant: 'Alez sedeir desur del palie blanc! N’en parlez mais se jo nel vos cumant!' AOI [The Emperor replies to him in anger / 'Now you go back and sit on that white silk / and say no more unless I command it!' AOI] 34 The exasperation shown through the text offers a view of the strong feelings at play in choosing an ambassador. Furthermore, the emperor in The Song of Roland shapes the selection process by commanding "Li duze per mar i serunt jugez!" [Let no man here name one of the Twelve Peers!].35 Clearly, Charlemagne values—or loves—these select men too much to put any one of them in harm’s way. When Roland suggests that his stepfather, Ganelon, take the assignment, however, the poem tells us "Dient Franceis: 'Car il le poet ben faire. / Se lui lessez, n’i trametrez plus saive.' " [The French respond, 'Why that’s the very man! / Pass him by and you won’t send a wiser.']36 This apparently more expendable—or less beloved—knight elicits no objection from the emperor and pleases all the assembled lords, except Ganelon himself who chokes with fury. One could argue that the barons in the story simply have more confidence in Ganelon’s diplomatic balm, but considering his irate reaction and subsequent speedy betrayal of his compatriots to Marsilion, this claim hardly seems likely.

34

Ibid, 271-3. Ibid, 261. 36 Ibid, 278-9. 35

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Immediately following the contested election of the messenger, the poem presents an even stronger—and darker—display of male-male friendship, showing how love can veer into something dangerous. Privately, Ganelon threatens his stepson, declaring that should he return from his official errand to Saragossa, he will start a "grant contraire" [a great feud] with Roland.37 Unimpressed by such bluster, Roland responds that he would gladly take on the mission in place of his stepfather if the king approved (though it is clear by now the king does not). Then, Ganelon answers: "Pur mei n’iras tu mie! / Tu n’ies mes hom ne jo ne sui tis sire" [You will not go for me! You are not my man, and I am not your lord].38 These lines, phrased formally and deliberately in terms of severed loyalty, have serious implications that would not be lost on a medieval audience. Far from defusing the situation, Roland laughs at his stepfather’s ominous announcement which leads, we are told, to Ganelon actually suffering pain and almost losing his senses with rage—truly an extreme, emotional response. As a kinsman, albeit by marriage, Ganelon expects friendship and goodwill from Roland, but instead receives what he perceives to be ill treatment in the form of an unwelcome nomination and then scornful laughter.39 When he recovers enough to speak, Ganelon’s revealing reply to Roland is "Jo ne vus aim nient " [I have no love for you].40 Again, this is no empty declaration but a grim warning, full of disturbing meaning to nobles whose social structure depended on 37

Ibid, 290. Ibid, 296-7. 39 Indeed, Ganelon uses Roland’s “betrayal” of him as a defense at his trial for treason. This argument convinces several of the barons, and it takes a champion to challenge the claim in formal combat and decide the issue against Ganelon. 40 La Chanson de Roland, 306. 38

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personal allegiance. Ganelon has placed Roland outside his circle of love, outside his family and friends, essentially among his enemies, and Ganelon will treat him as such by arranging to have his stepson killed in the passes of the Pyrenées. While the above exchange between Roland and Ganelon is remarkable in demonstrating the absence of love, several moments displaying the presence of strong friendship appear between Roland and Oliver in the poem. These two enjoy a special bond recognized by their fellows and even their enemies; they are companions to one another and referred to as such throughout the poem: "Li quens Rollant est muntet el destrer / Cuntre lui viens sis cumpainz Oliver " [Roland the Count mounted his battle horse / Oliver came to him, his companion].41 Although no set rules are presented as to the exact nature of the companion role, one gathers that they are closer to each other than any of the other French knights, allowing a certain level of mutual honesty and concern. We already mentioned how at the beginning of the epic poem Oliver worried about Roland going as messenger to Marsilion and not only protested the choice but volunteered to go himself instead. In another example, Roland, tells Oliver to take out his sword, Halteclere, during the battle with the pagans to enhance his combat ability, and when Oliver follows the advice with successful results, Roland happily cries: "Vos reconais jo, frere! " [Now, I know you, Brother!].42 Appreciation of Oliver's prowess is a necessary component of the friendship, and with that awareness, a sense of good-natured playfulness shines through the lines even amid the bloody chaos of war scenes. 41 42

La Chanson de Roland, 792-3. Ibid, 1376.

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Earnest disagreements also arise between the identified companions, but in these too, Roland and Oliver’s bond of love does not falter; indeed, the close friendship is what permits the debate. When the members of the rearguard discover a huge enemy force approaching, Oliver thinks Roland should sound his olifant (battle horn) to alert Charlemagne so the full army of Franks can return and rescue them. Roland, however, judges that course of action shameful; he prefers the glory of standing against the pagan hordes without calling reinforcements even if they fall. Trying to decide who is correct is a tempting puzzle for modern and medieval audiences alike, and this conundrum no doubt accounts for part of the poem’s enduring popularity, but the more interesting factor for our study is the emergence of a debate at all. Charlemagne gives command of the rearguard to Roland; this is an active military operation not a council meeting, yet Oliver openly questions the leader—his leader—about strategy. No one else challenges Roland’s decisions, no one else would dare to, but Oliver has that acknowledged privilege and status. The famous quarrel in The Song of Roland between Oliver and the title character also provides a glimpse of the internal checks, as it were, built into the chivalric system: Kar vasselage par sens nen est folie; Mielz valt mesure que ne fait estultie. Franceis sunt morz par vostre legerie. Jamais Karlon de nus n’avrat servise [I will tell you what makes a vassal good: it is judgment, it is never madness;

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restraint is worth more than the raw nerve of a fool. Frenchmen are dead because of your wildness And what service will Charles ever have from us?]43 As noted earlier, only a very close friend of high rank could say this, but Roland listens in the poem, and the audience of medieval nobles listened, too. This amounts to what might be called a reality check, an appeal to unwritten standards of conduct in medieval chivalry delivered by that most invaluable figure—the trusted, beloved battle companion. Any arguments between Roland and Oliver do not detract from their strong feelings for each other. Although Oliver disputes with Roland over the rearguard’s impending doom, his tone quickly shifts to a personal lament: "Oi nus defalt la leial cumpaignie: / Einz le vespre mult ert gref la departie." [We kept faith, you and I, we were companions; and everything we were will end today. We part before evening, and it will be hard.]44 Not long after, Roland, the mightiest of knights, actually faints when he sees his companion fatally wounded. Weakened and almost blind from pain and blood loss, Oliver strikes the unconscious Roland by mistake but does no damage besides waking him. Then, in a poignant scene, Roland says: Sire cumpain, faites le vos de gred? Ja est ço Roland, ki tant vos soelt amer! Par nule guise ne m’aviez desfiet!

43 44

Ibid, 1723-1726. Ibid, 1735-6.

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[Lord, Companion, do you mean to do this? It is Roland who always loved you greatly. You never declared that we were enemies.]45 Neither angry words nor even an errant blow can shake the devotion between them. From Roland’s tender and almost lightly teasing response, we see it would take much more. Oliver immediately recognizes his friend’s voice, asks for forgiveness, and receives it. The two then bow to each other a last time, and the poem tells us "Par tel amur as les vus desevred." [this is the love in which they parted].46 Episodes of noble feeling such as this that mix courage, affection, and sadness in equal measure point to an underlying current of ethics in chivalry that runs in opposition to the seemingly reckless violence of the ethos. Granted, these moments of admirable emotional intensity only apply to those who claim membership in the elite subset of knightly companions, but they do exist and should remind us to view the male chivalric mentalité as a cultural environment with more sophistication than some would acknowledge. Emotional flare-ups both dark and bright are not an uncommon feature of the chansons de geste of the twelfth century. In Le Couronnement de Louis [The Crowning of Louis], part of a cycle of poems about William of Orange, a young heroic knight named Guillelmes Fierebrace [William Strongarm] protects the young King Louis, son of Charlemagne, from various foreign and domestic threats. The first of these comes after Charles (i.e., Charlemagne) angrily berates and almost disowns 45 46

Ibid, 2000-2. Ibid, 2009.

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his son for hesitating to step forward at a young age and accept the heavy responsibilities of kingship. Admittedly, the Louis of this poem is weak and inept, but his father’s rage would seem, at least in part, to spring from disappointment in a loved one. (Even today, most would recognize such family dynamics as having the ring of truth.) This family squabble in the story prompts a fast-talking noble named Arneis to take advantage of the situation and attempt to claim the throne for himself until the young Louis is ready (if ever). With support from a group of politically-biased courtiers, it looks as if Arneis' bid might succeed, but when William hears about the imminent "grant pechié " [great evil],47 he rushes in and strikes Arneis so hard that the blow snaps his neck. Apparently, this lethal stroke is an example of our hero restraining himself for the sake of religious piety (his first thought had been to chop off the offender’s head with a sword). So, while he only meant to inflict "un petit chasteier" [a small rebuke],48 William kills him and feels no remorse over it. His justification? William tells the audience as he reprimands Arneis' corpse: 'Hé! gloz!', dist il, 'Deus te doinst encombrier! Por quei voleies ton dreit seignor boisier? Tu le deüsses amer et tenir chier,'

47

La Courennement de Louis, ed., Ernest Langlois (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Edouard Champion, 1925), 118 (translation by Glanville Price). 48 Ibid, 140.

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['Ah, scoundrel!' he said, 'God give you grief! Why did you try to betray your rightful lord? You ought to have loved him and held him dear,']49 Sheer anger over the traitorous disrespect to his beloved king motivates William’s deadly assault and simultaneously proves his status as the king's best, most loyal knight. Interestingly, none of the nobles or courtiers present care to argue the point or punish William for his brazen attack. Of course, their reticence may spring from selfpreservation, but given the story and William’s place in it as the hero, there is a clear sense that he acted correctly, even ethically (if inadvertently) under the circumstances. The emotional response of such an honorable knight defines law in a time when much of the law was unwritten. Notwithstanding the hyper-violence and anger of Le Couronnement de Louis (and this whole genre), surges of impulsive attraction and goodwill also appear in the tale. When William hurries back from Rome to France to rescue young Louis (again) from barons trying to disinherit the new ruler, the hero of the story gains a curious friend and ally. Approaching the city of Tours, now dominated we are told by rebel followers of Richard of Rouen who wants to set his own son on the throne instead of Louis, William pretends to support Richard, the leader of the rebel faction, in order to pass the city gates with a few hundred men. William and his forces, however, find a welcome surprise when the loyal and loquacious porter refuses them entry as traitors against the king, i.e., Louis. Merely from reading the lines, one can sense a contagious happiness spreading through William as he tells his kinsman, Bertrand: 49

Ibid, 135-137.

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"Entendez, sire niés, / Oïstes mais si bien parler portier?" [Listen to me, nephew, did you ever hear a porter speak so well?].50 William quickly responds to the porter as "Amis, bels frere" [My friend, good brother],51 and with a little explanation, the situation soon sorts itself out. Along with the proven eloquence and faithfulness of the gatekeeper, William admires the porter’s audacious daring, his estoltement in denying an (apparently) enemy lord entry. These qualities along with pressing circumstances prompt William to adopt the porter into his inner circle, making him a chief advisor immediately. Bertrand has no problem with the outside promotion after examining the porter and judging him "bel et gent et alignié" [handsome, noble, and slender].52 In short order, they have the former watchman equipped as a knight and ready for action in William’s party as a favored friend of the count. Again, an emotional reaction⎯not a measured one⎯by an honorable (albeit unrecognized) knight defines ethics and status in the chivalrous society. This episode stands in sharp and revealing contrast to a formal reconciliation effort later in the story between William and Richard that fails miserably (mostly on Richard’s part) because no genuine feeling backs it up.

50

La Courennement de Louis, 1553-1554. Ibid, 1557. 52 Ibid, 1649. 51

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Deep Friendship as Knightly Fin'Amor in Romance

The theme of chivalric friendship finds its most extreme expression in the thirteenth-century Lancelot, central piece of the Old French Arthurian Vulgate Cycle of prose romances. Within this literary work about the best of earthly knights, the title character builds two particularly deep emotional relationships: one with Guenevere, his lady love, the other with Galehaut, his close companion. Both of these ties develop into versions of fin'amor [pure love] as emblematic rewards of Lancelot's unparalleled nobility, prowess, and prestige, revealing much about the ideals of secular chivalric culture. Although largely disregarded by modern scholarship and little known by today's readership, the anonymously authored Lancelot is a long, rich, influential, and absorbing tale of chivalry. It follows Lancelot from his birth in Benoic to his flight after the kingdom is seized unjustly by Claudas, to his adoption by the Lady of the Lake, and in due course to his dubbing ceremony at Camelot. After this official entry into chivalry, the beautiful and skillful Lancelot displays his amazing combat prowess in many, many, many adventures before embarking on the more well-known Grail Quest. During his youthful itinerant phase in the Lancelot, he discovers allies, lost relations, and several adversaries, but his most fateful encounters are with Guenevere and Galehaut. Of the two characters, greater attention (scholarly or otherwise) has been paid to the queen. The illicit love affair between Guenevere and Lancelot has fascinated

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readers across the centuries and fully penetrated the western cultural sphere. Indeed, the illicit liaison is one of the few literary allusions that medievalists can count on being recognized in the modern world. After all, the most accomplished knight's unbearable infatuation with the unobtainable queen essentially defines amour courtois [courtly love].53 Guenevere's favor⎯and perhaps more⎯inspires Lancelot to perform great feats of prowess in her honor, and also helps set him apart from lesser knights. His position as her champion contributes to Lancelot's high status in the ideals of chivalric ethics. Other factors also signify knightly value in medieval romance, noble friendship being one of the most important. The anonymous author of the Lancelot depicts love between elite men as a central component of the lord-vassal system. Early on, the usurping King Claudas feels affection for a valiant knight named Banin and hopes desperately⎯but in vain⎯that Banin will join his following. Another brave knight, Pharian, renounces feudal service to Claudas after losing respect and love for the king, declaring that to remain a vassal would make him "traïtres et desloiaus" [traitorous and untrue].54 Love, trust, and status are related concepts in chivalric thinking, and leaders with perceived flaws in honor cannot attract the best warriors nor rise to high stature.

53

For a thorough discussion of the often misunderstood concept of courtly love in medieval times, see Peter Dronk, Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love Lyric (London: Oxford University Press, 1968). 54 Alexandre Micha, ed., Lancelot Vol. VII (Genéve: Librairie Droz, 1980), 214. Translation by Rosenberg in Norris Lacy, ed., version of Lancelot-Grail, Vol. II (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993), 51.

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The Lancelot also presents friendship as a jubilant bond holding knights together in a dangerous profession. Over and over again, knights derive pure pleasure from the camaraderie of their fellows. In one case of many, Sir Gawain collects a group of knights to join him on a quest, and we are told: "Lors en eslut mesire Gauvain .XL. de cels que il plus amoit, car chascuns estoit moult liés que en sa compaignie pooit aler." [Then Sir Gawain chose forty of those whom he loved most, for each was overjoyed to be able to accompany him.] 55 Knights are even described as leaping about and exhibiting "grant joie" [great joy]56 over meeting and/or recognizing each other. The sentiment of friendship underpinning chivalry in the Lancelot is the same exuberant feeling expressed in Jean de Bueil's fifteenth-century memoir, Le Jouvencel: "On s'entr'ayme tant à la guerre ... En cela vient une délectation telle que, qui ne l'a essaiié, il n'est honne qui sceust dire quel bien c'est." [You love your comrade so in war ... there arises such a delight, that he who has not tasted it is not fit to say what a delight it is.] 57 This type of wild happiness among fighting companions has been relegated to pressured warfare psychology by some,58 but I would argue it has more to do with understanding why some figures can stir the hearts of others so. In medieval tales, those knights capable of inspiring emotional bonds invariably emerge as the best, i.e., the most beloved, most effective, and most ethical. 55

Micha, ed., Lancelot Vol. VIII, 37, tr. Carroll in Lacy, ed., Lancelot-Grail Vol. II, 126. Micha, ed., Lancelot Vol. VII, 384; my translation. 57 Jean de Bueil, Le Jouvencel, excerpt in Malcolm Vale, War and Chivalry (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1981), 30. 58 For one, see Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, tr. Payton and Mammitzsch (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press) 2004, 79. 56

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Lancelot certainly wins many chivalric friends and animates them accordingly during his tenure as the best knight in the world, but in order to symbolize his superlative distinction in this regard, he needs more⎯a perfect friend. Enter Galehaut, Lord of the Distant Isles and son of the Giantess, a powerful knight in his own right who gladly gives up everything simply to become the loving, faithful companion of the greatest knight, eventually dying for his love of Lancelot. Is that not a version of fin'amor?59 Consequently, as a friend unparalleled in his devotion, the Galehaut character represents the pinnacle of knightly inspired love and a significant, distinguishing facet of chivalric status for Lancelot.60 When we meet Galehaut in the story, he is an enemy of Camelot and a rival to Arthur. After having conquered twenty-eight kingdoms, Galehaut leads a massive invading force into Arthur's realm intent on making it the twenty-ninth. The incursion is succeeding when Galehaut spies Lancelot⎯an opponent⎯unhorsed and surrounded in battle but fighting so brilliantly on foot that Galehaut is moved. Quant Galahos vit ces merveilles que il faisoit, si se merveilla comment le cors d'un chevalier pooit ce faire et dist a soi 59

In his journals, T.H. White considers many sides to the characters in his twentieth-century book of Arthurian tales, The Once and Future King. The author describes his positive view of Malory's Lancelot as (among other things) "sensitive...ambitious...devoted to honour...emotional" and possibly "homosexual" or "bisexual," the last two terms reflecting White's interpretation of Lancelot's loving attachment to Gareth and the greatest knight's deep bond with Arthur in Malory's work. These strong male-male relationships exist along with Lancelot's clear love for Guenevere, according to White. See Sylvia Townsend Warner's T.H. White: A Biography (New York: Viking Press, 1968), p. 148-9. 60 Thomas Malory dropped the particular Galehaut storyline in his famous fifteenth-century reworking of the Arthurian tales. No one knows why. Malory's version contains enough close male companions for the Lancelot character (e.g., Gareth, Bors), however, to signify Lancelot's position as the best earthly knight and to place worthy friendship squarely among the central ingredients of Malorian chivalry.

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meismes que il ne vaudroit avoir conquis toutes les terres qui sont desous le trosne par covent que si preudom fust mort par ses coupes. [When Galehaut saw these wonders, he marveled at how one knight could accomplish this, and said to himself that he would not want to have conquered all the lands under the heavens, if such a splendid knight were to die through his fault.] 61 Resembling moments in romance when knights are struck mysteriously by love for alluring ladies, Galehaut, here, falls under the spell of Lancelot's simultaneously beautiful yet terrible prowess. To be captivated in this way may appear extreme, but we must remember the extraordinary importance of valor in this culture. As Richard Kaeuper convincingly argues, prowess was "the demi-god in the quasi-religion of chivalric honour," and honor was "worth more than life itself."62 So, emotional susceptibility to Lancelot's display suggests a heightened appreciation of honor and, ergo, nobility. On impulse arising from watching Lancelot, Galehaut rides out personally to rescue this brave enemy knight and provide him with a new warhorse. The battle then resumes, but at the end of the day, Galehaut seeks out the knight he rescued earlier and makes an unusual proposal to "li mieudres qui soit, et vous estes li hons el monde que je miex vaudroie honerer: si vous sui venus requerre en tous gueredons que vous vengiés huimais herberger o moi" [the man I would most wish to honor in

61

Micha, ed., Lancelot Vol. VIII, 70, tr. Carroll in Lacy, ed., Lancelot-Grail Vol. II, 134. Richard Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 130.

62

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all the world: I've come to ask you, as a favor, to come stay with me tonight].63 Lancelot refuses at first but then relents. This agreement, observed by Gawain, sets off alarm in Arthur's camp since they assume that their powerful foe has effectively retained Lancelot's service against them. The hero, of course, would never betray Arthur in this way; Lancelot has his own loyal agenda, but even so, Galehaut starts to have a deeper effect on him and vice versa. Lancelot only consented to retire with the opposition on condition that Galehaut agree to an undisclosed request of his. Before the secret petition is announced, however, Lancelot is guided to a specially prepared chamber with a high bed adorned for an honored guest. Just prior to falling asleep "li chevaliers commencha a penser a la grant honor que Galahos li fait, si li prise tant en son cuer comme li plus puet." [the knight began to think about the great honor shown him by Galehaut, and in his heart he esteemed him most highly].64 Next, once he is sure Lancelot is asleep, Galehaut returns and "se couka dalés li al plus coiement que il pot" [he lay down beside him as quietly as he could].65 The text even describes how Galehaut remained awake the entire night listening to Lancelot moan in his sleep and thinking how he could "retenir le chevalier" [retain the knight].66 The scene may appear somewhat curious to us, but it does establish two points without doubt: the great honor in which Galehaut holds Lancelot and the overpowering compulsion to be close to him. 63

Micha, ed., Lancelot Vol. VIII, 74, tr. Carroll in Lacy, ed., Lancelot-Grail Vol. II, 135. Ibid., 80, 136. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 64

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This scene of knights sleeping and/or lying awake next to each other all night prompts some scholars to view it as a homosexual liaison between the two noblemen. Hyonjin Kim, for example, argues that a homoerotic explication of the LancelotGalehaut plot is "instrumental" to understanding love and identity in the Vulgate Cycle and similar Arthurian tales.67 Other scholars dismiss such claims if they are even aware of them. It is interesting to note that the relatively few academic studies of the early segments of the Lancelot either totally ignore the possibility of male-male desire or focus on it exclusively. For example, Carol Dover's informative book of essays entitled A Companion to the Lancelot Grail Cycle professes to provide readers a "sense of the rich diversity" of the lengthy work, yet remains oddly silent regarding the subject of homosexuality.68 What are we then to make of this peculiar scene, and how should we read it? I would propose that the episode indicates a physical and emotional attraction between the two knights rather than a sexual one, but it does demonstrate remarkable levels of esteem and intimacy in the nascent friendship. The night they spend together is pivotal, though, for the next day several amazing requests are made and granted by the new companions to each other. First, Galehaut asks Lancelot to remain with him in the morning, telling him "et sachiés que vous porrés bien avoir compaigne de plus riche homme que je ne sui, mais vous ne l'avrés jamais a homme qui tant vous aint." [and if you stay, I assure you, you can have the company of a richer man, but you'll never have that of a man who loves you 67

Hyonjin Kim, "Between Guinevere and Galehot: Homo/eroticism in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle" in Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, Vol. 15, No.2, 307-326, 2007. 68 Carol Dover, Editor, A Companion to the Lancelot Grail Cycle (Cambridge: Brewer, 2003).

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as much].69 As a signal of change, Lancelot agrees to stay, "car millor compaigne de la vostre ne poroie je mie avoir" [for I could have no better company than yours], but Lancelot also now divulges his aforementioned but unannounced request.70 He asks Galehaut to continue the battle but when he overcomes Arthur (apparently a foregone conclusion), Lancelot tells Galehaut "vous li ailliés crier merci, et vous metés outreement en sa manaie." [you are to ask him for mercy and put yourself entirely in his power].71 Hearing this, Galehaut is "trop esbahis" [aghast], but he does not deny his friend. Galehaut does, however, add another request; he asks Lancelot "que vous portés les mois armes por commenchement de compaigne." [to wear my armor, as a beginning of our companionship].72 Lancelot immediately agrees and fights on the side of Galehaut in battle against Arthur, knowing that Galehaut will surrender at the appointed time. The striking conduct of this encounter emphasizes the depth of feeling and personal commitment between the two knights. Moreover, it sets the knights' bond on the raised path to fin'amor and helps cement the worth of that bond in chivalric cultural ethics. Galehaut and Lancelot then travel together for a period of time, sharing adventures, trust, and company as their joint fame grows. Presently, after noting his friend in chronic pain over the queen, Galehaut arranges for Guenevere and Lancelot to meet discreetly. In a fascinating scene, Galehaut and Guenevere reach a marriage69

Micha, ed., Lancelot Vol. VIII, 81, tr. Carroll in Lacy, ed., Lancelot-Grail Vol. II, 137. Note, Carroll translates "plus riches" as "more powerful" but I have translated it as "richer," since that seems closer to the meaning here. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid.

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like accord to share Lancelot between them in their respective roles as companion and paramour. Galehaut charges the queen "que vos li donés vostre amor et que vous le prenés a vostre chevalier a tous jours et devenés sa loiax dame a tous le jors douniés tout le monde" [that you give him your love, and that you take him as your knight forevermore, and become his loyal lady for all the days of your life].73 In return, Galehaut asks Guenevere "que vous me donrés sa compaignie" [to grant me his companionship].74 In answer, the queen takes the Lord of the Distant Isles by the hand and tells him "Galahot, je vous doing cest chevalier a tous jors" [Galehot, I give you this knight forevermore].75 Together, the three create an ideal triangle in perfect balance for the best of earthly knights. I would argue that the Lancelot presents this alignment of elite male and female love around Lancelot as the successful formula for the zenith of chivalry. Consequently, the inspiring love of noblewomen has perhaps received too much emphasis in our understanding of prestige in chivalric culture, and the emotional love of noblemen too little. Later in the story, the two companions become separated during various adventures, and Galehaut dies of grief believing (wrongly) that his beloved Lancelot is dead. Lancelot discovers Galehaut's grave at a later point and loses his wits in grief, almost succumbing to death as well, but the Lady of the Lake intervenes. With her help, Lancelot recovers, but when Camelot later crumbles from internal war, Lancelot and Guenevere finally part and die separately at religious houses. Lancelot

73

Ibid., 115, 146. Ibid., 116, 146. 75 Ibid. 74

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is buried⎯by his direct request⎯at Joyous Guard in the same tomb with his companion in life, Galehaut. While not as sophisticated (or nearly as long) as the Prose Lancelot, the popular verse romance, Amis and Amiloun, also celebrates deep friendship as a proximate male-male fin'amor that eventually reaches similar arrangements for its knightly companions. Composed in England during the late-thirteenth or earlyfourteenth century, Amis and Amiloun concerns itself specifically with the special bond of friendship shared by two knights⎯the title characters⎯whose love-derived names distinctively announce a theme of chivalric loyalty and love. Versions of the story appear in French (Amis et Amiles) as well as Latin,76 though a clear line of transmission has not been established, and some think the tale may reflect elements of hagiography along with chivalry given the miraculous events at the end, e.g., leprous

76

The Early English Version of the Gesta Romanorum (presumably authored by Pierre Bercheur aka Berchorius, and updated by John Bromyard into an Anglo-Latin version in the first half of the fourteenth century) contains a similar story: "Enlopius Was a Goode Emperour" subtitled "The Two Friends." The story involves two knights, one from "baldak" and one from "lumbardye," and "thes twoo loved to-gedir Right muche." They are great friends but have never seen each other. When one finally visits the other (the knight from Lombardy travels to Baldak), they kiss each other and weep in joy, one declaring "thow art welcome to me as halfe my soule!" Later, the knight from Baldak falls into "grete poverte" and travels to Lombardy in beggar's clothing for help from his friend but is mistaken for a thief and a murderer. He confesses to the crimes even though he didn't commit them because he feels it is better to die than live in destitution. Just before he is going to be executed, his friend, the Knight from Lombardy recognizes him and takes the blame for the crimes, saying he does so because he "lovid him as moche as myselfe." Both are then taken to be executed when the real culprit comes forward (afraid of damnation). All three report why they admit to the crime before a "Iuge" [judge], who decrees that the two noble knights should go free and the guilty party also since he was willing to die for the "Innocentes." Moralite follows calling the one knight Adam, the other Christ, the murderer all sinners. All the stories in the Gesta Romanorum were drawn from older tales in Roman history and later shaped by monks and clergy for teaching Christian lessons and sermons - sometimes with only a tenuous connection betweeen the two.

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knight healed, dead children revived. While a few plot points vary, the main storyline of two knights making a "trewthe plight" to each other and then struggling to keep faith with that bond against circumstances, missed recognitions, and antagonists remains the same. The stanzaic Middle English version, set in Lombardy, was wellknown and will serve as the basis for the present study's exploration of ideal chivalric friendship and its corresponding moral value in the medieval world. The romance emphasizes the equality of Amis and Amiloun by describing their unusual, even mysterious similarities. Although unrelated by blood, the two are both sons of noble families with the same rank (fathers are barons); the children, we are told, were conceived on the same night and born on the same day. They each "gon then thryve" and grew increasingly fair, known to all the land for their courtesy, worthiness, and handsome appearance. (As noted earlier with the porter in The Crowning of Louis, a comely form implies nobility.) Strangely, Amis and Amiloun also resemble one another so completely that no one, not even their parents, can tell the two young men apart except by "the coloure" of their clothes. The extreme likeness allows for a later transfer of identity at a key juncture of the plot, but the peculiar condition also establishes the two young men as a perfectly matched pair, the ideal chivalric friends. The link between them becomes deeper than appearances, however, when they pledge their "trewthes togidir" as a bond. The duke of the region holds a festival where he learns of the noble youths and immediately wishes to have the beautiful duo in his service. Everyone agrees, and the two young men depart with the duke.

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Shortly thereafter, the romance tells us a deep affection develops between Amis and Amiloun: "Bituix hem tuai, of blod and bon, / Trewer love nes never non,".77 This true love leads them to undertake the promise of loyalty to each other that governs the rest of the story: While thai might live and stond That bothe bi day and bi night, In wele and wo, in wrong and right, That thai schuld frely fond To hold togidir at everi nede, In word, in werk, in wille, in dede, Where that thai were in lond, Fro that day forward never mo Failen other for wele no wo: Therto thai held up her hond.78 The phrasing and spirit of the shared plight suggest a union of lives comparable to the vows of vassal and lord⎯though here the two are equals⎯or even marriage, highlighting a symmetry in such agreements.79 Nothing homoerotic appears in the scene, and both characters take wives later in the story, but the pledge coupled with the description of true love between Amis and Amiloun indicates a remarkable level of devotion and emotional commitment. It reminds one of the biblical David and Jonathan as well as the Ciceronian model of high friendship. Given that the women 77

Amis and Amiloun, 142-3, p. 12. Ibid, 147-56, p.12. 79 Maurice Keen mentions the trewthe plight in Amis and Amiloun in his article "Brotherhood in Arms" in History Vol. 47 (1962) pp. 1-17. Keen views the pledge more as an alliance in reference to feudal oaths, however, not as an emotional/cultural phenomenon connected to the cultural idea of fin'amor. 78

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who become their wives behave in distinctly ignoble ways (extortion in one, callousness and adultery in the other), the articulated, emotional bond between the two youths stands out in relief as the most important in their lives. Endorsement of their vow in the story follows, for after taking this pledge, we hear how happy life is for Amis, Amiloun, and the Duke at their new home. When the boys turn fifteen, the duke officially dubs them knights, gives them all the finest weapons and a horse plus he "sett hem bothe in gret office" at his court. The sequence and timing of these events is not insignificant. Amis and Amiloun plight their "trewthe" and then become beloved knights and attain high positions. The author of the romance crafts the story for one step in virtuous love to lead naturally to knighthood, then to honor and status in the secular medieval system of government. Problems and complications soon arise to trouble the situation, however. Amiloun is called away to rule his homeland when his father and mother die, and the two friends must part. Before separating, they have a set of richly-crafted twin cups made as mementos/symbols of their bond. Remaining with the duke, Amis attracts the attentions of a steward in the household as well as the duke's daughter, Belisaunt. Both desire a relationship with the knight, the former as a friend, the latter as a wife. Amis rejects both. He tells the steward, whom the narration brands evil for clarity's sake, that "Mi trewthe y plight to Sir Amiloun," and that he will never forsake that promise.80 The steward turns angry over the refusal of amity and swears "That y schal be thi strong foman / Ever after this day!" showing how rapidly an overture of

80

Amis and Amiloun, 367-8, p. 17.

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alleged love by someone of lowly status can change to hatred.81 By contrast, Amis' loyalty to his distant friend demonstrates his virtue as does his spurning of the villainous steward. Belisaunt presents a more delicate problem; she is noble, but her love for Amis pushes her to desperation. In a reversal of the usual pattern in fin'amor, the duke's daughter feels a bitter torment in her yearning for Amis: "Thus that miri maiden ying / Lay in care and lovemourning / Bothe bi night and day."82 When she later happens upon Amis alone in a garden, and asks him to "plight his trewthe" to her, he rejects her offer of love. Again, the request of a solemn pledge recalls the earlier promise to his chivalric friend, but unlike in the case of the steward which would displace and nullify his bond with Amiloun, Amis refuses Belisaunt on the grounds that it would be dishonorable to her father. The result is similar, however. Belisaunt becomes angry, declaring she will lie to her father and accuse Amis of rape if he declines to satisfy her. Faced with extortion, Amis concedes and agrees to a rendezvous with her in a weeks' time. The assignation, of course, is witnessed by the steward who then accuses Amis of violating the daughter of the duke. The remainder of the tale deals with extricating Amis from this perilous situation through his friendship with Amiloun and the consequences of their solution. The duke calls a trial by combat when Amis and Belisaunt deny the charge, but Amis fears to cross swords with the formidable steward, saying "Ich have the wrong and he the right." Finally, with the support of Belisaunt (whom he apparently has forgiven), 81 82

Ibid, 392-3, p.18. Ibid, 481-3, p. 20.

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Amis decides to request help from Amiloun. The two friends meet in the forest, discuss the problem, and Amiloun agrees to fight in Amis' stead since no one can tell the two apart, and more importantly since Amiloun need not fear being in the wrong in the contest. Technically, Amiloun still perpetuates a lie in the trial by combat, but his personal distance from the specific accusation offers enough flexibility for a chance of success. While Amis keeps up appearances with Amiloun's wife (he has married a lady in his homeland but few details of the wedding are provided), Amiloun journeys back to the duke's castle, fights in place of Amis with none the wiser, and slays the wicked steward after a terrible battle. The victory assures Amis' (false) innocence before the court, paving the way for him to marry Belisaunt and later inherit the duke's lands after the two knights swap identities back again. The plot twists into moral complications at this point, however, for Amiloun's victory nevertheless constitutes a dishonorable act. The masquerading Amiloun ignores a dire warning, "a voice fram heven adoun" stating he will have an "eventour strong" [dread adventure] and suffer the moral punishment of leprosy if he undertakes this fraudulent battle in place of Amis. Caught between conflicting ethical directives, the heroic Amiloun opts to honor his pledge to his friend, squarely placing loyalty and the love of friendship above divine command. Here, we see how the secular ethics of chivalry could diverge from sacred morality in the medieval world. The romance provides glimmers of affirmation for Amiloun's proscribed choice through the categorical evil of the steward and the celebration that erupts after his death "Than were thai al glad and blithe / And thonked God a thousand sithe / That the steward

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was slain."83 Amiloun's courageous defense of his companion garners respect and praise in the knightly mode of thinking despite the heavenly threat or perhaps because of it. God's retribution arrives a few years later, as foretold, laying Amiloun low with the terrible disease. His unsympathetic wife forces her leprous husband to live in a small shed and ultimately drives him out of his lands. After suffering in the wilderness for three years with only his young nephew, Amoraunt, to care for him, Amiloun finds his way to the duke's lands, now ruled happily by Amis. Though taken as an undesirable leper and a thief at first, the ornamental cup and Amoraunt's word finally effect a recognition and heartfelt reunion for the friends. Soon after, both knights have dreams suggesting a strange, sacrificial remedy for Amiloun. If Amis will slay his own children and use their blood to wash his afflicted friend, Amiloun will be healed according to the visionary dreams. The bond of friendship rates above family in the tale just as it did above religion, and Amis proceeds with the grisly task in order to save his companion. Not only does the blood enact a swift cure, but the children are discovered intact and unharmed. The romance sweeps to a just ending with Amis and Amiloun returning to their original lands in time to disrupt the nuptials of Amiloun's wicked and adulterous wife with another man. After scattering the traitorous guests, they lock Amiloun's unfaithful wife in a tower to suffer until her death and leave Amoraunt in charge of their homeland as its new baron. Amiloun

83

Ibid, 1403-5, p. 41.

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then returns with Amis to live together as companions "in muche joy without stryf" for the rest of their days.84 Thus, through meritorious suffering and perseverance in their noble devotion to each other, the two knights achieve high honor in the world as well as the eventually favorable reward of Heaven. Their loyal and emotional bond of friendship stands as the path to such accomplishment. A reformed Belisaunt remains as Amis' happy wife (and he is apparently content with her in a triad of love), but she moves to the background. As with the Prose Lancelot arrangement described earlier, Amis and Amiloun suggests that the love between a knight and a lady can fit naturally with the love of male-male friendship. In Amis and Amiloun, however, the fin'amor of the companions is revealed as the main ethical and emotional force of the romance. If any further statement of that were needed, the last lines of the tale tell us Amis and Amiloun founded an abbey to serve as their final resting place together. No mention is made of Belisaunt: Bothe on oo day were they dede And in oo grave were they leide, The knyghtes both twoo; And for her trewth and her godhede The blisse of hevyn they have to mede, That lastest ever moo.85 Dying on the same day completes the line of their mysterious link in life, and the closing image of Amis and Amiloun lying next to one another in the same burial site 84 85

Ibid, 2494, p. 66. Ibid, 2503-2508, p. 67.

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mirrors the Galehaut/Lancelot shared tomb at Joyous Guard. Ideal friends rest together for eternity.

Historical Accounts of Intense Knightly Friendships

Exact parallels between fact and fiction are rare, but intriguing comparisons do appear when one looks through the lens of friendship at historical events. Hints exist in correspondence from Henry III's reign, for example, in the case of Hugh de Neville, a kinsman of the king, who calls for a jury complaining that another knight "dislikes" him or in requests for pardons.86 Consider also one of the most famous clashes of wills in medieval times: the dispute between Henry II, King of England, and Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Often, these two men are presented as icons of the conflicting interests of Church and State or chess pieces in renewed Crown-Papacy struggles of Gregorian Reform in England. Perhaps these representations are fitting, perhaps not, but it is important to recall that these men were close friends once and that the fraying of that friendship may have contributed to the bitterness of their later dissension and ultimately to the deadly results at Canterbury Cathedral in December, 1170. Beckett, recommended to Henry by Archbishop Theobald, became the king’s chancellor in 1155 and one of his most trusted advisors thereafter. During these

86

SC 1, Vol. 6, 25 in Special Collections National Archives, Kew. As for the pardon, see and SC 1, Vol. 36, 8 in the same: In 1322, John de Hastings, a noble in Wales, asks for a pardon from Edward II's court on behalf of a bailiff designated as an outlaw.

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years, a contemporary chronicler describes how the two would “sport together like boys,” that the king took time to visit Beckett when he fell gravely ill at Rouen, and that “Never in the whole Christian era were two men more of one mind or better friends.”87 According to Warren, a modern biographer of Henry II, the love between them started to break down after a failed initiative to claim Toulouse as part of Henry’s French domains. Beckett, as chancellor, had forcefully supported the venture and led troops in it, but Henry became disillusioned and eventually regretted the whole military/diplomatic operation. Soon after, the king saw fit to direct Beckett into an ecclesiastical but significant role as Archbishop of Canterbury, a position in which Henry thought his old friend would have less direct influence on state policies. He was wrong. Beckett, likely resentful over his removal from the king’s court, seemed to cultivate political controversy with the king up to and including his death.88 Certainly as some have argued, the Archbishop may have simply embraced his new post and the struggle for Church rights with great zeal, but a whiff of acrimony drifts over his dealings with Henry. The king, too, appears overly angry with Archbishop Beckett at times, suggesting a sharp sense of betrayal. Although he never confesses to ordering a group of knights to murder Beckett over the latest contretemps, the king does admit the knights in question may have misinterpreted his

87

William fitzStephen, Vita Sancti Thomae, in The Life and Death of Thomas Beckett, translated and edited by George Greenaway (London: William Clowes and Sons, Ltd., The Folio Society, 1967), 44-45. 88 See Warren’s Henry II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977) for more on this episode; the informed interpretation of events is Warren’s, but he makes a very convincing case, noting that the grand defenses of Beckett come after his death when glow of martyrdom may well have guided the hands of chroniclers.

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outrage as “impetrasse causa animi motus et turbationis quam in eo viderant” [a request in consequence of his agitated state of mind and the perturbation in which they had seen him].89 Such descriptions make one wonder if personal feelings spurred or at least had a hand in the actions taken by both men. In a lesser known event, a more positive result may be discerned in Walter Manny’s efforts to spare the citizens of Calais from Edward III’s wrath in the early stages of the conflict now known as the Hundred Years War. Incensed at the townsfolk of Calais for defying his commands, resisting his troops, and holding out so long (to the point of starvation), the king says he will accept no terms of surrender but demands the leaders and people of the town place themselves entirely within his power. Not liking the sound of this, the Calais governor, Jean de Vienne, pleads with the king’s emissary, Walter Manny, for some promise of better treatment, and Manny agrees to advocate on his behalf. The king stubbornly denies any leniency, however, until Manny is able to reason with him one-on-one, telling Edward he is setting a “trop mauvais exemple.” [very bad example].90 Pointing out that harsh treatment in Calais could adversely affect morale among the king’s men who might fear cruel reprisals in the future if positions were reversed, Manny’s “langages amolia grandement le coer dou roi” [words greatly soften the king’s heart,] and a more moderate solution was agreed to.91 In some ways, this episode mirrors the interplay

89

Roger de Hoveden, Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. William Stubbs, Vol. II (London: Longmans, 1869), 35. (my translation). 90 Froissart, Oeuvres de Froissart - Chroniques, Vol. 5 (Bruxelles: Victor Devaux, 1868), 209. 91 Ibid. Six burghers of the town give themselves up to save the rest.

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between Roland and Oliver in that only a close, highly respected confidant could disagree with a commanding chivalric ruler acting out of anger and bent on a violent confrontation. The friendship that emerged between Philip II (Augustus) of France and Richard the Lionheart of England in the summer of 1187 (before Richard was king) seems to go beyond the establishment of a treaty. Richard disobeys his father, Henry II, and remains with Philip, the King of France post pacem [after the peace was made]. As the chronicle of Roger Hoveden tells us, Richard and Philip became inseparable: quem rex Franciœ in tantum honorabat, quod singulis diebus in una mensa ad unum catinum manducaban , et in noctibus non separabat eos lectus. Et propter illum vehementum amorem qui inter illos esse videbatur, rex Angliœ nimio stupore arreptus, miribatur quid hoc esset, [the King of France held him in such high esteem, that every day they ate at the same table and from the same dish, and at night had not separate chambers. In consequence of this strong love which seemed to have arisen between them, the King of England was struck with great astonishment, and wondered what it could mean,] 92 Some have interpreted this striking description in the chronicles as evidence of an erotic relationship while some view it as a sign of Richard perhaps considering rebellion against his father (something he had done before) and joining Philip's side. 92

Roger de Hoveden, Chronica Rogeri de Hoveden, ed. William Stubbs (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1869) Vol. II, p.318.

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The Hoveden chronicle does seem to suggest the latter in describing his father sending messengers out of "prœcavens" [precaution] and Richard "qui simulans se pacificum, et ad patrem suum venire volentem, transitum fecit per Chinonem" [who pretending that he was peaceably inclined and ready to come to his father, made his way to Chinon].93 Whether sexual desire was present or not, the emotional bond⎯the sudden friendship⎯should not be discounted; it supersedes the familial for Richard as it does for the knights in Amis and Amiloun. While we know Philip and Richard became rivals in later years when both were kings, the strong connection they forged in 1187 and Henry's reaction to it shows how great an influence friendship could have. Other instances of male friendship and corresponding honor/status mirror imaginative fiction even more closely. L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal [The History of William Marshal] or simply the Histoire, was composed in the thirteenth century around the same time as the Prose Lancelot, and also reflects the prominence of friendship in chivalric life. The Histoire tells the story of an actual English knight in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries yet resembles the form (and sometimes the content) of romance. More of a detailed tribute than anything approaching a critical biography, the Histoire nevertheless provides an elaborate portrait of chivalric culture and practices in the Middle Ages. Woven into its 19,000+ lines of old French poetry are numerous engaging descriptions of conflict in tandem with knightly boen ami. Whether in tournaments or

93

Ibid.

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campaigns, the Marshal⎯as he is called in the work⎯makes many friends through his impressive combat skills. A sense of how easily the two notions go together in chivalric society may be clear in a positive description of the Marshal as a "felon compere" [deadly companion]. Prowess wins him fame as well as friends and helps him acquire a plum position as tutor to the Young King Henry (i.e., Henry II's son), a youth who relishes tournaments and chivalric life. Furthermore, the Histoire tells us that the Young Henry was often reckless and/or overconfident in battle, requiring the Marshal to rescue him on multiple occasions. Par teles e par autres teles L'ama li reis e le tint chier Plus que nul autre chevalier De nule terre qu'il seüst Ne qu'onques ove li eüst [For these exploits and similar ones the King loved him dearly, more than any other knight he knew in any land or any he had ever had in his company] 94 The outlined process of affection arising from reliance may lack subtlety, but it does sound plausible under the prevailing conditions of the twelfth century. Young Henry's favor toward the Marshal results⎯predictably⎯in envy from others in the king's chivalric following who take offense "Quant uns Engleis toz nos surmonte" [When an Englishman eclipses us all].95 Through lies and distortions, we

94

A.J. Holden, ed., History of William Marshal, Vol. I. (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 2002), tr. S. Gregory, 3638-3642, p.185. 95 Ibid., 5215, p. 267.

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are told, these malcontents create a rift between the king and his esteemed champion; they accuse him of vanity, arrogance, and⎯in a strange reflection of Lancelot tales⎯adultery with the queen. This strategy leads to the Marshal's fall from favor and departure from the king's company. The Histoire states that all of the strife occurs because of resentment over a loving friendship: Li envios orent envie Del bien e de la bone vie Del Mareschal e de l'amour Que il aveit a son seignor [Envious people were jealous of the Marshal's good fortune and good life jealous, too, of the love which bound him to his lord] 96 Many might interpret these lines as jealousy over wealth, but it is more than that. The salient point here concerns precisely what they envy in addition to the Marshal's wealth: the strong love binding a knight to his lord and the high standing that goes with it. The Marshal eventually returns to the Young King's side and approbation through the efforts of a trusted companion, Baldwin de Béthune, proving again the value of close friends in chivalric society. David Crouch acknowledges this loyal service and calls Baldwin "all but the second hero" of the Histoire, 97 much as Amoraunt is the second hero of Amis and Amiloun. Furthermore, Crouch quite rightly points out that Baldwin, Henry fitz Gerold, and especially John of Earley were 96

Ibid., 5127-5130, p.261. David Crouch, William Marshal, 2nd Edition (New York: Pearson Education Ltd., 2002), 167.

97

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devoted to Marshal throughout his adult life and that at least John and Henry were crucial in the commissioning the Histoire after Marshal's death.98 To Crouch's observations, I would only add that such caring on the part of William Marshal's elite friends demonstrates the strong emotions that this successful knight kindled in his fellows, a reflection of his high status in the medieval world. Events surrounding the death of the Marshal also link ideas of chivalric friendship across imagination and reality. Near the end of his life, William Marshal separates from his wife and enters the brotherly ranks of the Knights Templar with whom he spent time in the Holy Land; furthermore, the Histoire reports that the Marshal explicitly states to John of Earley that he wishes to lie with the Templars in eternal rest. The love shown to knightly comrades in the literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries became a regular, even expected component of the epic poems and romances. Chivalric companions, two devoted friends recognized as having a particularly strong emotional link, appear in some of the tales and enjoy high status as the crest of warrior culture. Historical records of the period suggest trusted and/or beloved male friends played an important role in the real noble/chivalric world as well. In the thirteenth-century sermons of Odo of Cheriton, the cleric even describes dead knights appearing to comrades or rising to protect their friends.99 Such an address would likely affect an audience of knights greatly, for the passing of a close friend among the nobility often triggered a huge release of emotion in his fellows, the 98 99

Ibid., 163. See Egerton MS 2890 in the British Library.

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expression of which also relates to honor. The next chapter examines the various modes of feeling connected to grief.

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Chapter 4 A Badge of Grief

C’est raison, nature la veut Qui a cuer porte e a cuer deut [Quite rightly what nature dictates What you love you grieve over] – Anonymous, L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal [The History of William Marshal] Thirteenth Century

Just as feeling great esteem and affection for a noble comrade signified virtuous stature in life, experiencing great distress and grief over the death of a cherished friend raised a knight high in the ideals of chivalric culture. The one naturally, if sadly, leads to the other, and both arise from the same emotion: love. Given that essential link, an ethical correlation between the two follows. In many ways, grief enabled the strongest shows of emotion by knights. The exploration of these intertwined phenomena in this chapter and the last is not an attempt to soften or beautify the rough image of medieval knights⎯records of actual battles and raids along with the prevalence of vivid combat descriptions in literature of the period

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would certainly doom such a venture to failure⎯but rather an effort to understand the secular concerns that inspired, justified, and sustained chivalric life in the Middle Ages. The endeavor is important because these concerns are often overlooked in historical studies of chivalry. Some of these emphasize religious incentives for knights either through organized crusades, defense of the Church, or honorable asceticism.1 Other views stress the courtly love ethic as an inducement, whereby noble warriors earn the attention of noblewomen and sometimes access to them through success in war or tournaments.2 Many simply view tales of chivalry in the Middle Ages as hollow rationales for securing temporal power, shiny façades covering the brutal realities of dominance and plunder.3 Each of these interpretations surely informs our knowledge of the culture that ruled medieval society in England, France, and adjoining areas, but they also leave out significant facets. The intensity of friendship among male knights as a motivating force is one of these facets, with grief constituting an especially sharp manifestation of it. Literature expressing the deep sorrow involved with the loss of a close comrade in this period reveals an authentic poignancy and often a determination in knights not explicable by references to the usual stimuli of religion, heterosexual desire, or rapine. By looking

1

See Richard Kaeuper, Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). 2 For example, see Huizinga, "The Heroic Dream" and "The Forms of Love" in The Autumn of the Middle Ages, tr. Payton and Mammitzsch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 3 See Nicholas Wright, Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years War in the French Countryside (Woodbridge, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell, 1998).

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closely at accounts and expressions of male grief, this chapter will demonstrate that the warrior ethos of medieval knights was intimately familiar with anguish and remorse over death. Furthermore, as literary knights and nobles as well as actual ones grieve, they reveal much of what is important to them and to the culture over which they presided. By sheer volume in its treatment, the sorrow of mourning would seem to be one of the most consequential circumstances in the period. While studies rarely focus on it, chivalric literature is full of accounts of grief, and knights, dukes, even kings do not restrain themselves from showing their emotional pain. Nobles and monarchs weep regularly in the stories; knights frequently cry or run mad in lamentation. Accomplished chivalric warriors faint from distress at losing a comrade, sometimes in the middle of a battle. Readers today may snicker at such outbursts that seem outside our reality and unbecoming supposedly expert soldiers. Grown men in armor falling to tears comes across as childish at best or ridiculous at worst. The strong and silent masculine image of a warrior may be more fantasy than actuality even in our time, but it was certainly not the case in the Middle Ages. As discussed in the introduction to this study, social mores regarding the expression of emotions may vary in history, but judging a culture immature based on those mores should be avoided if understanding is the goal. Some scholars are recognizing that people living in the medieval and early modern eras did not suffer from a lack of sophistication toward grief. Jennifer Vaught discusses the subtleties of late medieval writers on the subject of emotions in the introduction to Grief and

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Gender 700-1700.4 Likewise, Bonnie Wheeler investigates different reasons behind the many occasions of bawling by Sir Palomydes in her essay, "Grief in Avalon," and comments generally that "grief in medieval texts is usually public, often communal."5 Such displays increased honor rather than detracted from it. In her book, Passion and Order, Carol Lansing confirms this idea beyond the pages of literature. She examines the power of grief and governmental efforts to control male expression of it in medieval Italian communes,6 describing several instances of noisy, public demonstrations of bereavement for young noblemen. The father, brothers, and male friends of the deceased constitute the mourners in these gatherings. In one, she cites reports that the aristocratic men assembled in the town and engaged in a "corrotto," a chant or song praising and grieving over the son of a local lord in 1295.7 In a similar event in 1288, she reports sixteen men including at least one young knight by the name of Janne not only wept openly in the street over the death of a young nobleman but "pulled off their headgear or tore at their hair in a display of grief."8 Discussing epic poetry later in her book, she notes that "violent lamentation is not a dishonourable loss of self-control" and that "a warrior had an obligation to grieve for his fallen comrades."9 To Lansing's astute observation, the argument of the present study would only add that beyond obligation, an emotional 4

Grief and Gender 700-1700, ed. Jennifer C. Vaught (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003) p. 3. 5 Ibid, p. 75. 6 Carol Lansing, Passion and Order (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2008). 7 Ibid, p.12. 8 Ibid, p.13. 9 Ibid, p. 76.

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yet authentic display of grief enhances a warrior's honor and status in the ethics of chivalry. The best prud-hommes in literary tales do not cry or carry on over their friends by accident; a heartfelt lament marks the passing of an especially worthy knight and simultaneously ennobles the mourner.

The Honor of Grief in Literature

Considering the lot of the rearguard in La Chanson de Roland, several opportunities for the hero to exhibit grief emerge in the course of the epic poem. The harrowing circumstances are an integral part of the poetic package that makes the work so captivating. Roland and Olivier's bond was discussed as a sign of nobility in the previous chapter, but Roland's great sadness over the loss of his fellow knights and particularly over his famous companion further indicates his high honor as a model in the chivalric system of ethics. None would question Roland's deadly prowess as a knight; his strength and skill with weaponry is unparalleled. The abundance of split helms, skulls, and entire torsos that follow in his wake bear adequate testimony to that. All of the hacking and slashing is not enough, though, nor the astonishing bravery. To push him still higher on the nobility scale, the right type emotions under the right conditions are required. Roland, of course, delivers. This is not to suggest any pretense in the hero's display of feelings. Simulating emotion in epic poems or romances would be unthinkable, i.e., it does not enter into the conventions of the literary genres. Some knights may be villains and

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they may even betray their lords⎯as Ganelon does in La Chanson de Roland⎯or at times play strategic tricks, but they do not typically feign a show of love or grief for comrades. For Roland, and for all the heroic knights of medieval literature, conscious reasoning is totally absent when it comes to companions; some internal force takes charge. Just the sight of Oliver’s mortal wound causes Roland to faint in the poem. He topples to the ground; his senses literally leave him. The Saracens conveniently do not take advantage of the situation, and Roland quickly recovers to fight on valiantly, but the brief episode demonstrates how strongly he feels a connection to his friend. The most significant exhibition of grief in the poem occurs during a late break in the battle when most of Charlemagne's rearguard has been cut down by their enemies. Again, the peak of Roland's emotional suffering centers on Oliver and shows itself in an almost involuntary manner. He carries the bodies of his fallen peers and places them carefully in neat rows before Turpin, so the fighting but holy archbishop can pray for their departed souls. That action by itself is heartrending. In Oliver’s case, however, Roland significantly “encuntre sun piz estreit l’ad embracet” [held him tight in his arms against his chest] and then begins to weep. 10 The extra attention is natural and illustrates the high esteem and irrepressible love Roland carries for his companion, a love revealed not only through words but actions. A similar though more intricate pattern appears in the long Lancelot-Grail cycle around the Lancelot and Galehaut characters. As discussed in the previous 10

La Chanson de Roland, 2202.

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chapter, the two knights join in a profoundly emotional friendship that ends with Lancelot asking to be buried in the same tomb with his companion. When Lancelot first discovers Galehaut's death in the story, however, he loses his mind with grief. He comes across the burial site by accident in the forest of Sarpenic at a monastery church. Kneeling in prayer, he notices an ornate choir screen with knights behind it guarding a tomb. When he approaches the casket to read its inscription, he learns the terrible truth: "Ci gist Galehout li fiz a la Jaiande, li sires des Lointaignes Isles, qui por l’amor de Lancelot morut" [Here lies Galehaut the son of the Giantess, the Lord of the Distant Isles, who died for the love of Lancelot.] 11 The news and accompanying guilt actually renders Lancelot unconscious, for we are told the greatest knight in the world immediately falls into pasmés [a swoon]. He wakes after a time but then proceeds to beat himself, scratching at his own face and tearing his clothing in grief. Lancelot declares he should die in turn for his companion and that he does not wish to live for he will never again have joy or rest in this world. Lancelot's own words reveal his mental torment: Ha, Diex! Quel damage, quel perte del plus preudome del monde qui mort est por le plus vil chevalier et por le plus malvés qui onques fust! [Oh, God! What shame, what loss of the most valiant knight in the world, who died of love for the basest and most wicked knight there ever was] 12

11

Micha, Ed., Lancelot Vol. II, 212. Translation is from R. Krueger in the Norris Lacy Lancelot-Grail Vol. III, 59. 12 Ibid.

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Lancelot's critical view of himself as a knight (notably shared by few) is so customary in the Prose Lancelot that it should be taken as an irony, i.e., the valiant Galehaut's act of dying for Lancelot's love paradoxically verifies Lancelot's status as the most virtuous and honorable of earthly knights. Moreover, his death raises the question: is Galehaut the most valiant in Lancelot's eyes⎯and in the eyes of the work's chivalric audience⎯because he died for the love of Lancelot? If asked, the Lancelot character would probably answer "non," but the larger audience of the period might reply differently. Arguably, the ethical standing of Galehaut rises through his grief-induced death when he thought, tragically, that his beloved companion had died. In a highly emotional state, Lancelot wishes to do the same, proving that the reaction of Galehaut is not bizarre or outlandish. The messenger from the Lady of Lake prevents Lancelot from ending his life only by commanding him to transport Galehaut's body to the castle known as Dolorous (sometimes Joyous) Guard and interring it there so Galehaut and Lancelot may rest together eventually. The idea appeals to Lancelot, and he agrees to the task as well as to not committing suicide. Taking his own life would go too far and cause other moral difficulties with Christian teaching, but having no desire to live once one's best chivalric companion had departed this life was an honorable response in the knightly code of the Middle Ages. It preserved the old sense of the unbreakable warrior bond from the comitatus.

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The Honorable Place of Grief in Knights' Lives

The idea apparently suffused chivalric culture and manifested outside literature in the lives of actual knights. Early in William Marshal’s L'histoire, we hear about John Marshal’s two sons, one of whom dies of sickness and the other dies of grief over him. The incident is treated as a sad but noble occurrence in the family history of William, not as a bizarre curiosity. The generally laudatory nature of the romantic biography would lead us to believe this model of behavior was honorable⎯not surprising and perhaps expected. Imitatio was, after all, considered a major influence in directing the development of people. This type of emotional pattern emerges in the records of other aristocratic individuals as well. In 1186, Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany, died; he had not quite reached his twenty-eighth year. Chronicles report that he lost his life at a tournament mishap at Paris after getting trampled by a horse.13 As ruler of a province and the son of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, he was an important political figure. After his death, a substantial outpouring of grief ensued, but whether as a consequence of his youth, his status, his family, or his character, demonstrations of emotion connected to his bereavement reached unusually high levels. Philip Augustus, the King of France, reportedly became so distraught at his friend Geoffrey's funeral that others present had to prevent the king from "throwing himself

13

Roger de Hoveden, Chronica Majorica, Vol. II.

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into the open grave."14 Like other powerful chivalric figures, e.g., William Marshal, Geoffrey II had critics, mostly churchmen who viewed his demise as God's punishment, but the lay nobility supported him and deeply mourned the young man's passing. Bertran de Born, a French noble, a knight, and a well-known composer in the troubadour tradition, is usually remembered for his poems in praise of war and songs exhorting kings to avoid delays in launching campaigns/crusades.15 Bertran, however, also had great affection for his warrior comrades, especially Geoffrey, and the famous troubadour knight used his lyrical skill to memorialize his friend in a poem. The first stanza of Bertran's A totz dic qe ja mais non voil, gives voice to the despondency many men of the knightly class had when their fellows were laid to rest. A totz dic qe ja mais non voil viure ni ja joi non aurai tan gran con lo jorn q'ieu morrai; pos sai hai mon Rassa perdut, lai lo volri'aver cobrat. Ai! Signer, car ses vois remain totz temps n'aurai lo cor irat duscha qe vos aia segut. [To all I say I don't want to live any longer, and never will I have such a great joy as the day I die; since I have lost my Rassa in 14

Gerald of Wales, Opera, VIII, p.177, ed. J.S. Brewer (Rolls Series 1869) as noted in W.L. Warren's Henry II, paperback edition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: California University Press, 1977) p. 611. 15 See, for instance, Lo coms m'a mandat e mogut and Nostre seingner somonis el mezeis, in The Poems of the Troubadour Bertran de Born, eds., Paden, Sankovitch, and Stäblein (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986) pp. 106-111, 384-7.

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this life, I would like to find him again in the next. Ai! Lord, since I am left without you, I will always have a keening heart until I follow you.] 16 The use of the endearment, "mon Rassa," indicates how personal this loss is for Bertran. His claim in the poem of having no desire to live without Geoffrey might suggest to some the strange otherness or alterity of medieval life, but one might just as easily interpret Bertran's words as a natural, emotional, even ethical response⎯a wail of sadness in the face of losing a loved one. Funerals across time have echoed with similar feelings from thousands of years in the past up to our present day. Bertran de Born's elegiac poem about Geoffrey II also provides a glimpse of the grand camaraderie that knights imagined for honorable men who had passed on to the next world: Verais coms, Alixandres voil qu us fassa compaignia lai Ogiers e Raols de Canbrai Rolantz ab tota sa vertut et Oliviers son aizinat, Estols, Naimes ab n'Oristain, Guillens d'Aureng'e l plus prezat qe del miels del mont son crezut [True count, Alexander wants to keep you company there; Ogier and Raoul de Cambrai, Roland with all his strength and Olivier are your close friends, and Estout and Naimes with Sir Oristain,

16

Bertran de Born, A totz dic qe ja mais non voil in Poems of Bertran de Born, p. 347.

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Guillaume d'Orange, and the most praised men who are classed among the world's elite.]17 With this shortlist of the most treasured knights of history and literature (the merging of the two also tells us how contemporaries may have viewed chivalry), Bertran refers to a chivalric paradise in Heaven for the best knights. The troubadour's picture of the blessed hereafter might not resemble the orthodox one of ecclesiastics (Alexander was a pagan, and an angry Raoul burned a group of nuns alive at a church in Origny), but that is the point. Knights had their own ideas of what was important and what constituted morality, a lay piety that took elements of Christianity as needed and applied them to chivalric life and to death.18 Bertran, likely articulating the thoughts of many, believed virtuous men who fight the good fight as knights on earth will find happy rest in Heaven with each other. Roland, Olivier and the celebrated figures of knighthood dwell there under "Lo reis dels reis per sa vertut" [The king of kings in his might] as "aizinat" [close friends] in the vision of his poem.19 The ideological fusion of devoted chivalric friendship with ethics could hardly be more explicit.

17

Ibid, p.348-9. Richard Kaeuper has written extensively and convincingly on the related concepts of lay piety and knightly independence⎯"inde-Goddamn-pendence" over matters of religion. See especially chapter four of Holy Warriors (2009) for more on this. 19 Bertran de Born, p. 349. 18

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The Destructive Side of Grief in Malory's Morte Arthur

Not all the stories and accounts of emotional grief were peaceful and introspective, however, for a knight's anguish of loss could easily turn violent, especially if blame could be affixed to a target. In the last (and many would say best) segment of Thomas Malory’s famous set of Arthurian romances, The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur (ca. 1471), a deadly feud destroys the kingdom, ending Arthur's reign in a destructive war. Lancelot's illicit love affair with Guinevere, King Arthur's queen, stands as the sinful reason behind the Camelot's fall in the eyes of many, but that interpretation, if not a total mistake at best qualifies as an incomplete interpretation of the forces pulling apart the vision of chivalry in the well-known tale. A close reading reveals that intense grief over the death of a young knight named Gareth triggers the feud and leads to the collapse of the realm, a pattern likely taken as much from the author's experiences in fifteenth-century England as from the pages of his thirteenth-century French sources.20 Thomas Malory fashions his series of chivalric stories from older texts to provide an image of the glorious past but also⎯perhaps⎯to present the admittedly imperfect chivalry of bygone days as a model for his troubled nation in the late fifteenth century. Spectacular victories at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415) surely lingered in the minds of the English, but the war in France had gone horribly wrong since the death of King Henry V in 1422. Joan d'Arc had 20

Most scholars believe Malory's major source for his Arthurian tales were the prose Lancelot-Grail cycle of French romances.

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rallied the French to renewed resistance at Orleans in 1429, and the AngloBurgundian alliance, central to English designs, unraveled five years later. By 1453, all of the English holdings on the Continent except for Calais had been lost. Worse, civil conflict erupted in the wake of the defeat in France. Malory, an accomplished knight himself, had fought in the Hundred Years War across the channel and possibly in some of the factional conflicts at home.21 Warfare had surely changed somewhat since the twelfth century, but not so much that the chivalric stories of Arthur would seem unfamiliar. Malory makes use of that awareness to present potent, life-changing grief in Morte Darthur as an inevitable effect of war and a concern to an audience enduring civil war⎯an elite audience composed chiefly of men in the knightly/noble class and those socially adjacent. The heads of state in Late-Medieval England were primarily military in nature, and kings still led armies the field (either against the French or against English rebels). While some may object in a technical sense, it is worth remembering that in the fifteenth century most still essentially followed the medieval idea of a three-way class division of people into bellatores or those who fight (a military aristocracy), oratores or those who pray (a professional clergy), and labatores or those who work (peasants, craftsmen, etc.).22 True, approaches to government and economics were shifting and parliaments met to some effect, but clearly the real proof of English

21

Now identified as hailing from Newbold Revel by Anne Sutton, Thomas Malory suffered imprisonment, albeit gentle as accorded by his rank, as fallout from factional fighting and died awaiting pardon at Newgate Prison. See "Malory in Newgate: A New Document" in Library (2000) 1(3): 243-262. 22 Jordan, 192.

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political power in Malory’s time came not in orderly council chambers but on the battlefields or streets of St. Albans, Wakefield, Towton, Barnet, Tewkesbury, and Bosworth. Undoubtedly, armed conflict and the maintenance of fierce loyalties remained a high concern in life and art for the nobility of England. With this connection in mind, our discussion turns to The Most Piteous Tale, a chivalric war story filled with friendship, swordplay, threats, betrayals, and battles⎯belligerent by any measure. In this last installment of the long Morte Darthur, a serious rift arises between members of Arthur’s court with the best two knights, Lancelot and Gawain, leading the warring factions. Agitators Mordred and Aggravain start the trouble by exposing Lancelot’s long-standing liaison with Queen Guinevere, but the dispute only grows when Gawain enters the feud, resulting in a protracted and bitter war. The two captains engage each other twice on the battlefield outside the besieged castle of Benwick in exhausting duels. Lancelot endures “many a grete and grievous strokis” from an enhanced Gawain during the late morning, but Lancelot⎯the greatest knight⎯ ultimately wins both contests by outlasting his opponent and landing “suche a stroke” on Gawain’s helm that the knight from Orkney falters and cannot continue. In both duels, however, Lancelot spares Gawain’s life despite ominous threats from the defeated knight: "Wyte thou well, sir Launcelot, whan I am hole I shall do batayle with you agayne, for I shall never leve the tylle the tone of us be slayne!" 23 Moreover, Arthur and Gawain’s long prosecution of the conflict against Lancelot and his followers in France allows the 23

Malory, Morte Darthur

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treacherous Mordred to usurp the throne of England in the king’s absence and leads to terrible climactic battles in which many of the greatest knights fall in battle, including Arthur himself. Given the genre of chivalric romance that Malory follows in the crafting of The Most Piteous Tale, an elevated level of combat and high body count should really come as no surprise, for medieval chivalry reflexively includes a generous helping of violence.24 But, is the Morte Darthur more than just a story of knighthood and battles from the days of yore? Although set nearly a millennium in the past as an account of the historical Arthur (Caxton’s preface announces this along with various "proofs"), many parallels with the unstable politics and violent partisan strife in Malory’s time exist. Some scholars have argued that certain characters in the romance mirror important figures in fifteenth-century England.25 Others think battles in the story match military encounters during what has come to be known as the Wars of the Roses.26 No one knows for sure whether Malory intended for such comparisons to be drawn, or if so, to what extent he incorporated contemporary events into his version of the Arthurian tales.

24

See Richard W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 25 For example, Nellie Slayton Aurner in “Sir Thomas Malory-Historian?” intriguingly suggests that the three Lancastrian kings, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI show similarities to the various temperaments of Arthur in different sections of the romance and that Guinevere and Margaret of Anjou share certain traits and that a host of other comparisons can be made PMLA Vol. 48, No. 2 (Jun. 1933), pp. 362-391. 26 P.J.C Fields argues that Malory’s account of the final struggle between Arthur and Mordred’s forces on Salisbury Plain may actually draw many details from the Battle of Towton in 1461; see “Malory and the Battle of Towton” in The Social and Literary Contexts of Malory’s Morte Darthur, Ed. D. Thomas Hanks (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000), 68-74.

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We do know, however, that England could be a dangerous and often lawless place in the fifteenth century. Not counting the monumental struggles between Yorkist and Lancastrian factions in the Wars of the Roses period (roughly 14551485), civil wars and/or rebellions raged sporadically from the deposition of Richard II in 1399 to insurrections against Henry VII following the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Outside the conflicts of the nobles, smaller feuds raged such as those recorded by the Pastons, and these minor hostilities were still hazardous. The high level of outlawry in legal records and literature of the time attests that crime was a serious issue as well.27 Malory himself was imprisoned for (among other infractions) supposedly attempting to murder the Duke of Buckingham at one point, and the author of the Morte Darthur wrote his masterpiece of Arthuriana from a jail cell awaiting pardon.28 So, directly or indirectly, The Most Piteous Tale reflects the turbulent and perilous times in which it was written. All of these dangers from war, feuds, crime and related strife undoubtedly produced untold grief for the inhabitants of England, truly a most piteous tale. It is impossible to say whether Thomas Malory, no stranger to violence and misery, had a particular episode from his personal experience in mind when he positioned grief at the center of his concluding tale, but he does craft the sections of bereavement among Arthur, Lancelot and Gawain in a very emotional, accessible form. Furthermore, the

27

See Paston Letters, Ed. Davis, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), and Maurice Keen’s Outlaws of Medieval Legend (New York: Routledge, 2000) for a full discussion of outlaws in late-medieval times. 28 See P.J.C Field, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory (Cambridge, UK and Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 1993), 131-145.

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passionate transformation of the Gawain character from blasé courtly noble to frenzied aggressor is so total that it suggests Malory at least believed grief could have such power or perhaps that he had witnessed it firsthand. Whatever the inspiration, Malory lets a chivalric grief principle over the death of a young knight drive the action in The Most Piteous Tale. As noted earlier, Mordred and Aggravain’s conspiratorial trap for Lancelot generates a disruptive scandal at court, but it lacks sufficient cause to wreck the Round Table and bring everything crashing down. Thirteen knights underestimate Lancelot and die trying to apprehend him outside the Queen’s chamber while the fourteenth, Mordred, barely escapes. However, all this slaughter truly fails to make much impact⎯brawls and combat deaths are not uncommon occurrences in the environment of Malory's work especially when Lancelot is involved (nor was real violence a rarity in Malory's time). When the king hears of the trespass and subsequent turmoil from a freshly wounded Mordred, Arthur’s first words about Lancelot demonstrate his ambivalence in the matter: "Jesu mercy! seyde the king, he ys a mervaylous knyght of proues."29 Indeed, the king seems more shaken over Lancelot and his adherents' departure than anything else; the queen’s apparent betrayal is clearly a secondary concern. True, her offense requires that she "must suffir dethe," but the outcome makes him angry for the loss of his injured reputation not depressed at the thought of her impending execution.30 Modern readers may marvel at such a response, but the king’s reasoning

29 30

Malory, 682. Ibid.

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makes a certain sense under the conditions and rules of chivalry where maintenance of one’s loyal following (or faction to use fifteenth-century terms) is paramount. As for Gawain, the leading court figure, he reacts to the news of mayhem over Lancelot and Guinevere’s impropriety with more insouciance than the king. Concerning Guinevere, Gawain councils Arthur "nat to be over hasty, but that ye wolde put hit in respite, thys jougemente of my lady, the queen."31 Gawain goes on to defend his friend and fellow knight, Lancelot, suggesting that the alleged transgression may turn out to be a misunderstanding and "for none evyll." When a somewhat bewildered Arthur points out that Lancelot has now killed several members of Gawain’s immediate family, including his brother Aggravain and Gawain’s sons Florens and Lovell not to mention wounding his half-brother Mordred, Gawain replies that although those events sadden him, they are not a cause for revenge. Furthermore, Gawain notes that he warned his brothers and sons against their reckless courses of action, saying "for I tolde them there was no boote to stryve with sir Launcelot," even going so far as to declare, "they ar the causars of their owne dethe."32 One has to wonder how deeply his love runs for these particular relations. Gawain then openly refuses to obey Arthur’s command to escort Guinevere to her execution, thereby registering both his official disapproval and unique position at court. Only a very powerful, independent, and/or favored knight could treat with the king in this manner. Arthur then asks, not commands⎯asks⎯Gawain to "suffir your brethirn" (i.e., his remaining brothers) to usher the queen to the stake. This duty 31 32

Ibid. Ibid, 683.

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Gawain leaves up to Gaheris and Gareth, though he correctly predicts that if they must follow such an order they will not do so willingly. Evidence of an uncommonly strong bond between Arthur and Gawain certainly provides narrative fuel for later developments in the story, but this exchange may also reflect the presence of overly powerful nobles at the courts of Henry VI and Edward IV or at least Malory’s views of such figures. Real emotional grief and its life-changing effects are lacking in the tale so far, but the whole situation is transformed when Lancelot inadvertently strikes down Gareth while rescuing the queen from execution. Malory’s language in describing the incident shows how chaotic, dangerous, and decidedly non-idyllic actual chivalric combat could be: And so in thys russhynge and hurlynge, as sir Launcelot thrange here and there, hit mysfortuned hym to sle sir Gaherys and sir Gareth, the noble knyght, for they were unarmed and unwares. As the Freynshe booke sayth, sir Launcelot smote sir Gaherys and sir Gareth upon the brayne-pannes, wherethorow that they were slayne in the felde. Howebehit in very trouth sir Launcelot saw them [nat]. And so were they founde dede amonge the thyckyste of the prees.33 This scene with "russhynge" and "hurlynge" suggests a ferocious commotion, a clash in which one hardly knew exactly what was occurring. Given his experience as a knight on campaign in France during the Hundred Years War, Malory undoubtedly had experience with the rough and tumble of combat that could help him render

33

Malory, 684.

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battles credibly. He probably also had experience with sifting through the wreckage and casualties left behind after waves of violence passed, perhaps even experience with finding the broken body of a comrade or beloved companion. The young Gareth fulfills that crucial role in The Most Piteous Tale, and his death more than anything else sets the tragic machinery of the romance in motion. Calm, measured reactions in the story abruptly vanish as word spreads of Lancelot striking down the unarmed Gareth. Rules of chivalry have been broken; a noble young knight has died, and raw emotions start to show. Arthur swoons "for verry pure sorow" and announces "Alas that ever I bare crowne uppon my hede!"34 The king laments "that ever thys warre began" and orders no one to inform Gawain of his brothers’ deaths, knowing full well that his nephew will demand violent retribution against Lancelot. Guinevere’s escape makes little impression comparatively, for Arthur says "quenys I myght have inow," but the death of Gareth "woll cause the grettist mortall warre that ever was."35 His words prove correct. Gawain hears the news in stages, and his disparate responses underscore the effect of real grief on him. Regarding Lancelot’s daring rescue of the queen and his collateral slaying of twenty-four knights during her liberation, Gawain says, "he hath done but knyghtly, and as I wolde have done myselff and I had stonde in lyke case."36 Then, however, Gawain asks about his brothers and cannot believe that they have been killed by Lancelot. When the account is confirmed, Gawain says "Now ys my 34

Ibid, 685. Ibid. 36 Ibid. 35

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joy gone!"37 To make the point further, Malory tells us Gawain "felle downe and sowned and longe he lay there as he had ben dede." As we have seen, knights falling unconscious at devastating news has a long history as an emotional reaction in chivalric stories. Even Gawain's expression of his "joy" being gone mimics the tales and songs described earlier in this chapter. When Gawain recovers his senses, emotions drive the great knight weeping to his uncle, the king, and they grieve together as families do⎯and have always done⎯over the loss of a loved one. Gawain at first wishes only to see his brother Gareth, i.e., his body, but the king says "ye may nat se hym," because by royal order he has already had the bodies of Gaheris and Gareth interred, knowing the sight of his dead brother would cause Gawain "double sorow." Then, Gawain simply asks the king "how slew he my brothir , sir Gareth? I pray you telle me," even though he already knows the answer; he needs to hear it again from a someone close. Moving, human scenes like this one between Gawain and Arthur often get lost or forgotten among all the pomp and combat in The Most Piteous Tale, but they do exist, and the raw feelings on display demonstrate how chivalric tales can express the often traumatic reality of medieval (or late medieval) life rather than some dreamy gloss of glory. Indeed, scenes of palpable emotion among the knights, made all the more authentic by their rarity, furnish a certain credibility to heroic stories without which such tales would be sparkling but empty puffs of fantasy.

37

Ibid.

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Of course, such moments are fleeting, and Gawain soon channels his overwhelming grief into a burning anger towards Lancelot, resulting in war and the personal duels described earlier. Again displaying his influence at court, he tells the king to raise an army, "as ye woll have my servyse and my love, now haste you thereto and assay your frendis." Consumed with grief, Gawain casts aside all of his former respect for Lancelot and avows a terrible vengeance against him: "For I promyse unto God…for the deth of my brothir, sir Gareth, I shall seke sir Launcelot thorowoute seven kynges realmys, but I shall sle hym, other ellis he shall sle me."38 From this point, a destructive trajectory begins, and neither counsel, nor chivalric courtesies, nor papal arbitration can divert its course. It matters little that Lancelot deeply regrets his inadvertent actions or that he loved Gareth dearly; Lancelot tells Gawain as much from the battlements of a besieged Joyous Garde, saying he "wolde with as good a wyll have slayne my nevew, sir Bors," but Gawain refuses to believe him. Malory makes it clear that Gawain’s wrath propels the dispute and that the king could have reached an accord with Lancelot, but Gawain "wolde nat suffir" any reconciliation. And so, a devastating war erupts with "grete destruccion and waste" as Gawain and Arthur lead an invading force into Lancelot’s lands in France. One might well wonder why Gareth⎯in particular⎯has such an effect when so many other knights (not to mention commoners) die with little or no regard in the story. What do we make of this? Clearly, Gareth is a great knight and a nephew to the king, but his exceptional worth cannot be attributed solely to membership in the 38

Ibid, 687.

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Orkney noble family. Aggravain expires with barely a notice (truly, almost a relief), and Gaheris who dies under the exact same conditions as Gareth receives far less attention. Over and over again, The Most Piteous Tale emphasizes the discrepancy between the two unfortunate brothers by either having characters refer to Gareth alone or by adding extra clauses such as Gawain’s phrase, "and in especiall my good brothir, sir Gareth." The repeated accent is surely not accidental. Gareth’s youth and comeliness are possible factors leading to enhanced grief after his death as is his lost potential as a knight, but still, these alone seem insufficient. What does Malory provide for his readers to understand this wave of emotion? Is the Gareth episode merely a somewhat clumsy plot device or the continuation of one from Malory’s source, the "Freynshe booke"? Is this further evidence of unfathomable medieval otherness or alterity? Perhaps, but it is more likely that Malory is showing us how emotional bonds of kinship and/or friendship among knights could vary greatly in depth and that an unusually strong bond could outweigh all else in the chivalric world (for good or ill). In sum, Gareth is a better knight than the others. Aggravain and Gaheris warrant no chivalric tale of their own, but their brother, first known as "Bewmaynes" does. Fulfilling the promise of having "the fayreste handis that ever may sye," Gareth succeeds in many adventures and achieves great fame as a virtuous knight along with the ethical accompaniments of proven male nobility: a lovely high-born lady with lands (Lyonesse) and the true friendship of other noble knights.

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Accordingly drawn to him, Gawain, Lancelot, and Arthur simply love Gareth more and so grieve more intensely at his passing. No single scene crystallizes this heightened sense of love, for The Most Piteous Tale is the culmination of a long romance, but Malory gives us perhaps the best indication in Lancelot’s heartfelt words of Gareth to Gawain: And [wete you well, sir Gawayne, as] for Gareth, I loved no kynnesman I had more than I loved hym, and ever whyle I lyve,’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘I woll bewayle sir Gareth hys dethe, nat all only for the grete feare I have of you, but for many causys which causyth me to be sorowfull. One is that I made hym knyght; another ys, I wote well he loved me aboven all other knyghtes; and the third ys, he was passyng noble and trew, curteyse and jantill and well-condicionde. 39 All the mentions of love in this speech make the strong bond between Lancelot and Gareth unmistakable, and Malory has built up to this by having other knights (including Gareth and Gawain himself) say almost identical lines about this rapport earlier. Taken together with the other signs of Gareth’s effect on those around him, affection distinguishes him and drives the story accordingly. In Lancelot’s speech above, we also see a glimmer of the last point in our discussion of grief in The Most Piteous Tale: the role of religious atonement. Lancelot says for the rest of his life he will "bewayle" Gareth’s death. Directly after this section, Lancelot offers to travel "barefoote" and only in his "shearte" from Sandwich to Carlyle, stopping every ten miles to found houses of religion and in them

39

Malory, 696.

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"synge and rede day and nyght in especiall for sir Gareth."40 With unrelenting anger, Gawain spurns the offer and not only prevents Lancelot taking up this spiritual mission but banishes him from England. There is, however, no reason to doubt the sincerity of Lancelot’s pledge. Amid all the chivalric combat in The Most Piteous Tale, a theme of forgiveness and redemption emerges near the end. After receiving a mortal wound during the battle with Mordred’s forces at Dover, Gawain finally realizes his errors, telling the grieving King Arthur, "And thorow me and my pryde, ye have all thys shame and disease."41 To make amends, Gawain gives up his anger and writes a letter to Lancelot asking him to return to help the king against Mordred and also to "se my toumbe and pray some prayer more other les for my soule." Arriving too late to rescue Arthur, Lancelot does find Gawain’s tomb at Dover and remains there three days to pray for the fallen knight’s soul. Lancelot never engages in combat again but adopts a priest’s habit at a small chapel near Amesbury (where Guinevere has joined a convent) and does penance for seven years. He finally falls ill after Guinevere’s passing and dies, but Malory makes clear that Lancelot has achieved salvation through a vision of the Bishop: "And I sawe angellys heve up syr Launcelot unto heven, and the yates of heven opened ayenst hym."42 Philosophical concepts and images link those who experience the deep grief of loss. After he learns of the deaths of Arthur and Gawain on top of Gareth's and

40

Malory, 696. Ibid, 709. 42 Ibid, 724. 41

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Guinevere bids him farewell, Malory tells us Lancelot’s "herte almost braste for sorowe."43 In despair, he cries aloud: "Alas! Who may truste thys worlde?"44 This contemptus mundi or contempt of the world idea, of course, was a widespread tenet of the medieval church, but here it seems to refer to individual chivalric honor more than doctrinal salvation. Immediately after Lancelot’s lament, he, too, forsakes the world, and we are told he "besought the Bysshop that he myght be his brother."45 Lastly, we come to a transcendental image: a Wheel of Fate. Before the battle with Mordred, Arthur dreams of a wheel pulling him from up high into dark water filled with serpents, and Lancelot speaks sadly of varied fortune and a "wheele so mutable" as he faces exile. Bertran also mentions a metaphysical "rai," [spoke] presumably of a wheel when talking of Geoffrey's demise: "Prez e jos de l'auzor capdoil / pel conte qe tenia l rai, / e jovenz tornatz en esmai" [Worth has turned past its highest point because of the count who held the spoke, and youth has turned to sorrow].46 These dark references confirm that the wheel was an enduring symbol of changing fortunes (for the worst) in medieval culture. Malory combines themes of war and grief into an exploration of the ruling warrior class, suggesting a keen awareness and concern over the violence and losses endemic to the honor-driven culture. In The Most Piteous Tale, the sad yet stirring end of his Arthurian series, he connects an explosion of grief over the death of young 43

Ibid, 721. Ibid. 45 Malory, 721. 46 Bertran de Born, A totz dic qe ja mais non voil in Poems of Bertran de Born, eds., William D. Paden, Jr., Tilde Sankovitch, and Patricia H. Stablein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) p. 347. 44

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knight to a wider destruction of the whole society. Adhering to old patterns in medieval thought, Gawain is out of mésure in his grief and that imbalance, which he recognizes before his death, is what wreaks havoc, not the grief itself. The figures around him fail in calming him enough as the Lady of the Lake's messenger does for Lancelot in the Lancelot-Grail cycle. In that respect, The Most Piteous Tale is a tragedy. Mourning over those of a particularly noble type, i.e., handsome, male, brave, knightly, young, remains a virtuous action, however, and proves the worthiness of both the fallen warrior but also those who deeply lament his passing, thereby validating the class system in place. Conscious choice or logical reasoning does not⎯cannot⎯supply the emotional reactions of comrades that appear over and over again in the chivalric literature of the period. Instances of intense grief from historical records confirms that the phenomenon touched the lives of actual knights as well as imaginative ones. It is possible to view the mourning of such rare, elite figures as a collective form of funneled grief for the massive casualties from war and violence in medieval times. This outlook seems more a modern, democratic wish than an engaged interpretation of the material, though. Grief was important to the elite layers of chivalric culture in the Middle Ages; it could heighten virtue, summon emotion⎯often despair⎯and sometimes lead to repentance or enhanced awareness, but it was an emotion like the love of companions reserved only for the highest ranks of the knightly bellatores.

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Chapter 5 A Transformation of Friendship

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written ambassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit. Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it, But that I hope some good conceit of thine In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it; Till whatsoever star that guides my moving Points on me graciously with fair aspect, And puts apparel on my tottered loving To show me worthy of thy sweet respect. – William Shakespeare, Sonnet 26 (to a nobleman) Sixteenth Century

Upon considering the advent of the Renaissance in the fourteenth, fifteenth, or sixteenth, centuries (rigid dates for the era are rare), most will agree that a wave of cultural and intellectual change washed across Europe. The height, direction, velocity, composition, and source of this wave, however, remain unclear and under

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debate. For instance, the great artistic developments in painting and sculpture found appreciation in only a very narrow layer of wealthy society that could afford to commission and display such works of experimental art. Those living below this top financial tier had little impression of the vibrant colors, shapes, and figures made so famous to later ages by museum trips. Literature likely had a farther reach into early modern culture as technical breakthroughs in printing around 1450 amplified the production of books, tracts, and other materials, but divides and complexities existed here as well. Early humanists celebrated a precise, beautiful Latin from the days of ancient Rome, but figures such as Dante or Shakespeare (writing centuries apart) spurred expressive development of vernacular languages. Also, certain regions, e.g., Italy and the Low Countries, experienced the Renaissance phenomenon more fully or at least earlier than others, so while a fifteenth-century aristocrat in Florence or Ghent might boast of his city's many advancements, a nobleman at the same time in Prague, Barcelona, Orléans, or London might see little sign of any corresponding progress. A relatively sudden surge of adjustment is imagined by some at a particular point, e.g., 1400, 1450, or 1500, whereas others visualize a far more gradual tide.1 Furthermore,

1

While historians generally take the longer, evolving interpretation of change when contemplating the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, superficial views remain on the subject, often with astonishing value judgments attached, ['a light appeared again after the long dark...' ] Such views tend to label all that is good, reasonable, or familiar as early modern and all that is bad, irrational, or strange as medieval. Employing elastic reasoning, objectionable practices by people after the break (whenever that is) are residual while those displaying brilliance prior to the break are forerunners. Huizinga discusses this fallacy in his essay "The Problem of the Renaissance" in Men and Ideas. To counter such views, a number of scholars starting with Charles Homer Haskins convincingly stress continuity with cultural high points in the history of Europe since the decline of Ancient Rome. They point to revivals among the Carolingians in the ninth century, the Anglo-Saxons in the tenth, the French and the Normans in the twelfth. Admittedly, these clearly important and notable

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even where (or when) a level of metamorphosis clearly occurred, discussions among historians continue as to whether a shift in notions of individuality, civics, politics, warfare, or economics (to name only a few factors) provided the impetus for change.2 Finally, a question arises over whether transformation at whatever level came from within or without, for some scholars seek a primary cause for the Renaissance in greater contact with foreign cultures and exotic commodities.3 The wave of change, then, appears protean if undeniable in its effects. An awareness of significant change⎯though points of it remain under debate⎯ informs our exploration of how elite male friendship transformed in the era known as the Renaissance. Epic poetry and romance provided the main literary mirror of noble, lay society in the High Middle Ages, and these genres of course continued through the early modern period, but in many ways professional drama had movements never reached comparable levels of transformation in the era know as the Renaissance, but they certainly reflect an undercurrent of classical interest throughout the medieval period. Despite the historical work pointing to continuity, the Renaissance retains its image as the influential starting point of modernity in the popular imagination, and studies of medieval "alterity" continue at a brisk pace. 2 In his influential work, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), Burkhardt famously argued that a sense of individuality and the private pursuit of artistic excellence in the residents of the Italian city states lay behind much of the renewed interest in the works of Ancient Rome, leading to what has come to be known as the Renaissance. He squarely placed the epicenter of the movement in Italy, amid the "genius" of its people. Historians since then have suggested that it was the friction from competing ideas and city states or simply the immense variety of political systems on the Italian peninsula that prompted Renaissance individuality and the subsequent changes; see Hans Baron's In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988) 155-181 for more on interpreting the views of Burckhardt. 3 In her book, Worldly Goods (1998), Lisa Jardine argues that the competition for expanding trade to distant regions and the acquisition of wealth from that trade prompted what we call The Renaissance. Similarly, Jerry Brotton in his provocative book, The Renaissance Bazaar (2002), decides that the influx of goods and learning from the Middle East and North Africa prompted the new movement dubbed the Renaissance in Europe. Both of these arguments minimize the role of humanism and/or a rediscovery of human dignity in the period. As a result, both of these works are also very controversial.

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come to fulfill that key reflecting capacity by the sixteenth century in England.4 This artistic development was due in no small part to the promotion of secular theatre by royal prerogative of the Tudors and the accompanying suppression of ecclesiastical drama.5 As a result, dramatic literature from leading playwrights of the period will serve as our main source material for understanding the cultural shift and its consequences.6 To start, however, this chapter briefly examines some of the broad historical currents surrounding chivalry and friendship in the Renaissance before moving on to explore how those trends were reflected in drama. The vast repertoire of early modern drama in England prohibits a comprehensive analysis; however, the histories, tragedies, and comedies discussed in the current chapter provide a representative, if limited, selection of plays that enjoyed both popularity and an acute link to the ideas of friendship: Edward II by Christopher Marlowe, 1 Henry VI and The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare plus allusions to Hamlet, 1 Henry IV by Shakespeare, and Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson. As scholars, we know far less about the circumstances of the writing or the original productions of these plays (or most of the plays presented in the English Renaissance) than we would like. Usually, a comedy or tragedy can only be dated by indirect references in the text, and that is an imperfect system at best. Histories such 4

Edmund Spenser's well-known work The Fairie Queene (1590) belongs to the romance/epic genre, but it is very deliberately allegorical and aimed specifically at educating the upper classes. The theatre, by contrast, drew attention from and to the nobility (its required sponsors) as well as the merchant classes and even the commoners by the sixteenth century. 5 Elizabeth I prohibited religious plays by law in 1558, Brockett, p. 150. 6 Richard Levin declares that the "popular drama" of Renaissance England "remains one of our best sources of knowledge about the popular mind of the period" in New Readings vs. Old Plays (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 165.

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as Edward II present an especially difficult case since the playwright consciously sets the action in the past, thereby separating it from the historical markers one might be able to identify. Dedications or acting company records help, but the former are not always present and the latter are scanty. An additional complication arises in that the texts themselves⎯the folios⎯almost always were printed at a much later date as collections. Occasionally, records supply us with more precise details, e.g., Jonson's Bartholomew Fair was performed at Hope Theatre, Bankside on October 31, 1614 as part of a particular event, a London fair, in 1614. The dedication to King James I is clear, and one source even notes that the play may been requested by the king as a rebuke to the Puritans who were beginning to be "troublesome."7 This level of information, however, is the exception. As a result, the texts of the actual plays generally provide our best knowledge about them. Male friendship constituted a major theme in the theatre of the times as any review of extant plays from the period will show. This fact has not escaped the notice of modern scholars, but only a small amount of their work focuses on historical investigation, and those that do look into historical content generally claim an abrupt change or new attitude about friendship tied to humanism. For example, Tom MacFaul argues that the portrayal of male friendship in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, far from following humanist precepts of ideal bonding with a true companion, actually (ironically) is a means of proclaiming one's singular identity in a shifting

7

See the introductory notes to the play in Ben Jonson: Three Comedies, ed., Jamieson (New York: Penguin, 1987), p. 321. For note on James I's request, see reference to Aubrey in E.K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923) p. 327.

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world.8 Following a related path but with a denser, psychological approach, Laurie Shannon asserts that same-sex friendship in the Renaissance possessed a distinctive entitlement not experienced before or since.9 While intriguing and informative, the present study responds to the basis of these views⎯a new focus on friendship⎯with skepticism. As we have seen, friendship among elite men had served as a popular and fascinating subject of imaginative writers for over a thousand years in the Latin West. Many do not take the longer cultural view to connect early modern ideas of male friendship to medieval ones, but a few are beginning to; I count myself among them. 10 Yes, the stages of England pulsed with exciting energy and novel ideas in the heady years of the late sixteenth century, but a connection with medieval literary themes often remained intact, if repackaged. In particular, the chivalric sense of ethical approbation toward noble friendship endured in the experimental yet popular plays of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and others. This is not to say ideas of chivalric friendship and their expression in literature were not shifting in the Renaissance. They were⎯slowly⎯along with everything else, including chivalry itself. The ethos had to adapt to circumstances that shaped broad sectors of society following the desperate challenges of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

8

See MacFaul, Male Friendship in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 9 See Shannon, Sovereign Amity (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2002). 10 For an example of the work being done, see Curtis Perry, ed., Shakespeare and the Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

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The Political/Economic Background to Cultural Change

Warfare in this time had grown in scope to consume more resources and lives than in earlier medieval conflicts. The nascent super powers of England and France along with their many allies harassed each other in a series of costly military confrontations resulting from dynastic claims to the French crown. Battles and campaigns stretched out into what has come to be known as the Hundred Years War (traditionally 1337-1453). Both sides could trumpet great victories at specific points in the conflict but also had to face serious defeats with massive casualties and costs. Social unrest among those not in the ranks of war took form in surges of criminal violence throughout the countryside as well as sweeping peasant rebellions in major cities and towns.11 Furthermore, France essentially faced civil war with Burgundy for a significant portion of the Hundred Years War, and after losing almost all territory on the Continent in the 1450s, England descended into the domestic Wars of the Roses until 1485. The knightly ruling class responsible for managing (or mismanaging) these large-scale and long-lasting engagements⎯financed with increased taxes on the lower classes⎯found itself under palpable new pressures. The sacred world that supported chivalric authority grappled with severe problems of its own. Bitter arguments over the role and behavior of clergy led to popular calls for reform, some of which were considered heresies. The followers of 11

The Jacquerie Rebellion in France broke out in the 1358 and a large-scale peasant uprising in England known as the Great Rebellion occurred in 1381. See Kaeuper War, Justice, and Public Order (1988) for a more in-depth look at the extremely violent conditions in England during this time.

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such movements, e.g., Lollardy in England and the Hussites in Bohemia, suffered brutal persecution. Furthermore, competing popes and their powerful factions quarreled with one another openly in Italy. As a result, the Papacy as an administrative unit relocated from its traditional but unstable home in Rome to the more secure locale of Avignon in the Rhône Valley. There, though ostensibly independent, the central religious institution of Latin Christendom fell under the influence of the French and predictably lost respect among France's opponents, especially England. In addition, a number of natural events caused misery across the face of Europe. Following stretches of unusually cold and wet weather that crippled crop yields, severe famines broke out early in the fourteenth century. Steady increases in population throughout the High Middle Ages (1100-1300) intensified the shortages since the existing society had already reached its maximum capacity for food production. Even more destructive, plagues known collectively as the Black Death started in 1347 and returned sporadically throughout the century, killing off a substantial fraction of Europe’s population⎯up to half by some estimates.12 The survivors of these natural disasters were often inculcated with an acute awareness of death constantly hovering over them as rampant Dance of Death images from the time show.13

12

Exact figures are almost impossible to confirm, but estimates from thirty to fifty percent are usually given. See Smith, This Realm of England (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 28. 13 So-called Dance-of-Death pictures became very popular and widespread. See Hollister, 304 and Smith, 29.

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These grim events affected chivalric society in many ways. Emerging from the Battle of Bosworth with the English crown, Henry VII methodically proceeded to curtail the power and wealth of England's great houses. He fined some into submission, executed or imprisoned others, defeated pretenders, and slowly turned his tenuous claim to royalty into a solid and solvent kingship.14 His son, Henry VIII, along with an able set of ministers continued the trend by crushing challengers, fortifying royal power then augmenting it with sweeping religious authority, and forging a more efficient state, albeit with enormous expenditures.15 Struggling against similar older systems and attitudes of localized and divided government in France with some success, Francis I fostered the opinion of Guillaume Budé, a contemporary French humanist who argued for absolute rather than limited royal power.16 Following a short bout of religious strife in mid sixteenth-century England under Mary I, Elizabeth I managed to stitch the country back together with a series of ecclesiastical compromises, rally a strong defense against attack by Spain, and return the crown to solvency. She ruled with strength for over forty years as the nation's Gloriana in what most consider a golden age: the English Renaissance. It has been claimed, of course, that more capable kings (and queens) just happened to emerge in early modern times and gather more authority around themselves, but that claim is

14

See Smith, 91-105. See Elton's The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953) for an in-depth argument on how Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell changed the way governing worked in England. Other scholars have dissented from this view; see, for instance, Coleman and Starkey, eds., Revolution Reassessed (1986). 16 Mulgan, Renaissance Monarchies (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 69. 15

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unconvincing when one views the pattern of monarchical ascent across Europe in Spain, France, and England.17 Whatever the reason, the reach of royal authority generally increased under the Tudors in England and the Valois in France. At the same time, ecclesiastical clout waned over popular disillusionment with the financially-oriented Avignon Papacy and supplemental disappointment as an especially bitter schism divided Christendom's hierarchy⎯again. Furthermore, doubts directed toward the spiritual leadership likely spread in reaction to the severe sufferings from pestilence and famine in the fourteenth century. A reasoned understanding of Heaven as taught by Thomas Aquinas, the intellectual champion of the Church, and others in the Scholastic community of thought seemingly failed to address the chaotic horrors occurring in the world. The weakening in the clergy's general respect coincided with the strengthening of secular rulers⎯sometimes in striking examples such as the dissolution of the monasteries in England⎯but also may have led to a more general cultural shift toward secular concerns and away from sacred ones, or at least away from traditional approaches.18 An indirect outcome of the dire events of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a sharper need for labor. Since so many died from the plagues and hunger and war, especially among the peasantry, those who lived found higher demand for their work and correspondingly more options. Many were able to negotiate their way out of the older agreements stipulating continual, i.e., life-long service on parcels of land. 17

See Pollard, Late Medieval England (Harlow and New York: Longman, 2000), also Mulgan. 18 See Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars for a revisionist view of contentment with traditional religion in fifteenth and sixteenth-century England.

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Former bondsmen turned into freeholders of land, and some freeholders acquired the rights to more land, amassing wealth along the way as lesser gentry.19 Landowners who did not offer better terms might find their peasants simply left to find employment (and advancement) elsewhere. Some agrarian workers in England left their plows to fill vacancies in the lucrative wool and cloth industry or other thriving mercantile ventures in the growing towns. Henry Tudor and his government noted the trend and deliberately supported the growing and wealthy urban constituency in London.20 Caution must always govern broad judgments about causes, but a middle class of professionals and merchants, though present and involved in society throughout the Middle Ages, became more numerous, prominent, wealthy, and diversified in the early modern era. This general escalation of the middle class was likely related to the described labor shifts and improved conditions. Literature of the late fourteenth century reflects these changes by mentioning new types as characters worthy of attention, e.g., Chaucer includes a shipman, a merchant, a franklin, and a man of law in The Canterbury Tales. Similarly, accounts such as the fifteenth-century Paston Letters profile the lives and families of lawyers as they attempt to rise in society amid the challenges of the fifteenth century. The slow-but-perceptibly increasing influence of this middle class often came at the expense of the clergy and the nobility. Henry VIII's dispersal of the monasteries resulted in the sale of much land to pay off royal

19

Smith, 27-34. Loades, ed., The Tudor Chronicles: The Kings (New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1990) 3435.

20

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debts and point of entry for many new estate owners, not all of whom were from the traditionally chivalric families. Though not the only source, the former monastic property helped produce a new landed gentry with a much broader make-up.21 Not all the old noble families disappeared; many thrived, but some experienced dire financial difficulties, leading them, too, to sell land to whomever had the necessary funds. Wealthy merchants, lawyers, and others of the middle classes constituted a portion of the buyers. Friction between members of the established aristocracy and the new commercial set could and did result as The Paston Letters graphically depict, but alliances formed as well based on mutual needs and practicality. Chivalry still signified the upper levels of prestige and privilege that mercantile/professional families wished to enter, and private enterprise often provided the funds for weakened houses of nobility struggling to retain their status. As the sixteenth century dawned, the population began to expand again in England, and the growth became more pronounced in the later decades.22 Along with the increase came a "prolonged bout of inflation" that had many consequences for the entire European economy, two of which were a lower standard of living for the poor and simultaneously more opportunities for social mobility (up and down).23 For those who succeeded⎯and the higher prices were a great pressure to do so⎯huge rewards could be won.

21

Smith, 123-125. J.A. Sharpe, "Economy and Society" in The Sixteenth Century 1485-1603, ed. Patrick Collinson (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. 32-3. 23 Ibid, p. 33-4. 22

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Letters, and the Reach of Friendship into Business

Interactions between levels of gentry, nobility, and the rising middle classes were unavoidable as commercial interests intersected, and friendship ideals crept into the resulting mix. A massive increase in the writing of letters occurs, predominantly as a means to manage the expanding needs of business. Commenting on the phenomenon in the period, one scholar, perhaps with some exaggeration, calls letters "the glue that held society together."24 Primary social adhesive or not, letter writing clearly became more prominent as evidenced by the sheer amount of correspondence. (Rising literacy may have contributed to the expansion or been a result of it as more jobs required the skill).25 Several letter-writing guides also appear at this time, implying greater attention to the practice. What is interesting is how the authors of these manuals use friendship as a main reason for crafting a letter. Consider a few stanzas from William Fulwood's dedicatory epistle in his popular writing guide, The Enimie of Idleness, explaining the need for a letter: For why? by letter well we may communicate our heart Unto our frende, though distance farre have vs remou'd apart By letter we may tell our joy by letter shew our griefe 24

Alan Stewart and Heather Wolfe. Letterwriting in Renaissance England (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2009) p. 10. 25 Ibid, p.14.

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By letter from our frende thereof, we may receiue reliefe 26 Although the majority of correspondence in Renaissance England clearly dealt with business matters of an impersonal nature, Fulwood emphasizes the emotional communications of friendship in his opening. It is impossible to know exactly why he does this, but it likely suggests a cultural affinity with the chivalric ideas of friendship as well as the infusion of those ideas into the world of business. Certainly, the parlance of friendship begins appearing in some of the business and legal correspondence of the sixteenth century. In one example out of many, a letter from the Earl of Dorset to a Mr. Richard Stafforton, Esq., in 1595 uses the phrase "my very loving friend" to begin. The earl, Thomas Sackville, is writing to obtain permission for lumber in an area under Stafforton's charge, but in return for the requested "favorable help and furtherance," Sackville promises "for the which I shall give you many thanks and be ready (as occasion shall afford either for yourself of any friend of yours) to do you the best friendship I can and within my power to show you."27 Even accounting for differences in style and phrases from over five hundred years, the courtesy and repeated appeals to friendship in this letter from an earl to a knight esquire (or possibly a man of law) reflects a shift in approach from medieval times. The man of higher status writes in the manner of one addressing an equal, or 26

William Fulwood, "Dedicatory Epistle" in The Enimie of Idleness (first edition 1568, ten editions to follow by 1621). The full text of this appears in Stewart and Wolfe, Letterwriting in Renaissance England, pp. 26-7. 27 Thomas Sackville (Buckhurst), HM20095, April 17, 1595, The Huntington Library, my transcription/translation with thanks to Mary Robertson at the Huntington for some help deciphering a few of the garbled phrases.

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someone worthy of respect and at least a show of traditional amity in order to accomplish his business goals.

Courtiers, Friends, and a Changing Chivalry

Ideas and practices of chivalric friendship necessarily transformed to meet the changing circumstances in the lives of the elite. While an ethical core of ideas remained, the accessories, the settings, and the forms of expression surrounding noble friendship shifted. Some will say 'you can't have chivalry without the horse and the lance.'28 For those, then, chivalric friendship as a related concept slowly evaporated in the early modern era as the stirrups and saddles were packed up into the recreational stables of the gentry. Arthur Ferguson has argued that many of the foundations of chivalry had "crumbled" by the sixteenth century, but he also admits how seriously many contemporaries valued knightly ideals at that time.29 Johan Huizinga writes of a chivalric mentality growing exhausted, brittle, and illusory by the mid fifteenth century, but Maurice Keen and many others have challenged that view.30 As with the larger Renaissance itself, judging the degrees of cultural change to chivalry is exceedingly difficult. Elite orders of chivalry such as the Knights of the Garter in England and the Toison d'Or in Burgundy retained respect throughout the

28

Joachim Bumke, for example, in The Concept of Knighthood in the Middle Ages, tr. Jackson (New York: AMS Press, 1982). 29 See Arthur Ferguson, The Indian Summer of English Chivalry (Durham: Duke University Press, 1960). 30 See Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages and Keen, Chivalry (1984).

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early modern era. Crusading efforts to re-conquer the Holy Land declined, but crusader-type alliances, e.g., at Lepanto, still formed in order to meet the very real Islamic threat of the Ottomans. Tournaments, those hallmarks of knightly prowess, continued during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with greater protections for participants (better armor, blunted weapons, etc.) and an exponential increase in pageantry. 31 Diplomacy often became the overriding rationale for these lavish government events in the Renaissance, whereas tournaments had had more varied goals and sponsors in the Middle Ages. Early modern scholar Paul Oskar Kristellar acknowledges the retention of many elements of medieval civilization even as humanist ideals spread, with the stipulation that a greater focus on secular concerns slowly emerged in the period.32 Chivalric society certainly had to adjust to new conditions and the secular turn, but several recognizable features of elite male friendship endured within the broader developing culture and literary arts of the Renaissance. The expansion of royal power, for instance, presented no barrier to friendship customs but rather a catalyst. Lowly knights serving at court could rise high as favored courtiers.33 Great lords, like it or not, often had to do the same and act essentially as courtiers in order to gain prominent appointments with corresponding

31

See Alan Young, Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments for an in-depth look at the phenomenon. 32 Kristellar, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (1979). 33 Henry VIII's friend, Charles Brandon, came from a family of some standing, but Charles surged in prominence as a companion to the king and achieved the title Duke of Suffolk. Similarly, James I elevated his beloved companion, George Villiers, to the level of Duke of Buckingham.

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influence and sources of income. Providing service to the realm⎯in the person of the monarch⎯by rendering administrative assistance at court or leadership of royal armies in the field proved far more lucrative than operating as an independent chief in one's own domains. Moreover, choosing not to participate at the royal court could be dangerous for a member of the baronage; it usually signified disfavor from the crown, a withering proposition by the sixteenth century. Armed rebellion against the monarchy remained an alternative, but since the destructive Lancaster-York contentions in England and the Armagnac-Burgundian struggles in France, that avenue held fewer chances of successful regime modification and greater chances of imprisonment (or worse). By contrast, friendship of the noble, chivalric tradition flowed easily into the expanded courtier mode⎯in many ways it had always been there during the Middle Ages in the form of comrades and councilors to the king⎯but the fit in the Renaissance was not always without tension or concern.34 Several plays from the early modern period in England deal specifically with questions of male courtiers who enjoy close relationships with royalty. A cursory review of Shakespeare's most well-known histories and tragedies (the plays about monarchs) may find that the courtier-friend characters seem less than honorable, if not utterly depraved. One thinks of famous associates to princes who fail to measure up on the moral scale, such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet or Falstaff in 1 Henry IV. These characters represent the darker, self-serving side of friendship. It

34

See Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), though he asserts that clerical culture was the main force behind courtiers in the Middle Ages.

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is important to remember, however, that Shakespeare presents the vice-ridden if amusing Falstaff as an identity for Prince Hal to reject on his way to becoming the noble, chivalric hero at the end of the play. The repudiation reflects the real Henry V's actions in regard to his former close comrade, John Oldcastle, whose name was originally going to be used for the John Falstaff part.35 Taken together with Hotspur's heartfelt camaraderie with Douglas and Mortimer⎯rebels all⎯and Worcester's hurt feelings toward the king in the play, "It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks / Of favor from myself and all our house," one could say issues of friendship drive the entire text of 1 Henry IV.36 As for Hamlet, while the bard saddles the title character with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (who both receive due punishment for their duplicity), Shakespeare also provides the troubled Prince of Denmark with Horatio, the most loving, loyal, and ethical of companions. True friendship among the male nobility still signifies virtue and status in early modern theatre, but not surprisingly given the dramatic medium that requires conflict, recognizing such friendship is more difficult. 35

John Oldcastle served with distinction alongside Henry V and had the close friendship of the king, as described in Holinshed's Chronicles, but Oldcastle later became involved in religious controversy and rebellion. Henry V had him executed for the latter. Shakespeare planned to name the John Falstaff character John Oldcastle, but later changed it, possibly at the behest of a descendant of Oldcastle's who served at Elizabeth's court. See historical notes in the Folger Henry IV Part 1, Mowat and Werstine, eds. (New York, 1994), pp. 235-241 or The Oldcastle Controversy, Corbin and Sedge, eds. (Manchester, 1991). 36 Worcester's quoted lines are from 1 Henry IV, 5.1.31-2. Shakespeare's treatment of Hotspur and the other rebels is very interesting. They behave in noble, chivalric fashion with bravery and genuine friendship for one another in their rebellion. The stage direction at the end of 5.2.2 says "they embrace," and the scene was played with solemnity and intensity at a recent well-reviewed production at Shakespeare's Globe in London (2010). The rebels are clearly in the wrong in Shakespeare's play, yet they conduct themselves⎯generally⎯with honor. This, I think, is a case of the master playwright adding complexity to the drama and reflecting the real difficulties in judging friend from foe.

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Marlowe, Edward II, and a Beloved Minion

Christopher Marlowe offers perhaps the sharpest dramatic exploration of courtiers and friends to the monarchy in his influential masterpiece, Edward II (1592), set during the early fourteenth century. As soon as the young King Edward recalls his beloved companion, Gaveston, to England from exile in France at the beginning of the history play, vociferous complaints erupt from the (over) powerful English nobles. They promptly attempt to coerce the new king as Mortimer Junior’s angry speech from Act I shows: Mine uncle here, this earl, and I myself Were sworn to your father at his death That he [Gaveston] should ne’er return into the realm; And know, my lord, ere I will break my oath, This sword of mine that should offend your foes Shall sleep within the scabbard at thy need,37 Such intimidation infuriates Edward, and he answers with threats of his own, promising to make Mortimer "Rue these words" and telling the nobles "You shall know / What danger ‘tis to stand against your king."38 Mortimer replies darkly saying "let us leave the brainsick king / And henceforth parley with our naked swords."39 Rankling continues until the nobles break into an open rebellion. Although King

37

Marlowe, Edward II, 1.1.81-88. Ibid, 1.1.90, 95-6. 39 Ibid, 1.1.124-5. 38

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Edward prevails in the first round of battle, his enemies manage to capture and murder his friend Gaveston before their defeat. Mortimer escapes, however, and eventually he and Edward’s wife⎯Queen Isabella⎯collaborate politically and amorously to lead an invasion of England with backing from the Valois King of France. Edward meets the challenge on the field of battle, but the tides of war turn against him, and Mortimer’s followers capture King Edward. Mortimer quickly becomes drunk with power, and among other tyrannical and twisted actions, orders the imprisoned king’s brutal murder. This horrible regicide at the end of a red-hot poker leads in turn to Mortimer’s execution at the command of the young prince, Edward III, who takes over at the end to restore order in the war-torn nation. As the violent action of war, threats, and murder plays out in Edward II, no doubt to the delight of spectacle-hungry Elizabethan theatergoers, a more subtle struggle between the chivalric and courtier approaches to friendship also would not escape notice. The nobles in the play want the balance of power to remain the same as it was under Edward I, a balance in which they⎯the warrior barons of the realm⎯hold significant land, wealth, and authority by virtue of their military service and family lines. A new king with court favorites of less than noble birth like Gaveston (and later Spencer) on which to lavish titles, money and power upsets this applecart. It enrages and frightens the nobles when Edward names Piers Gaveston an earl and tells the new lord: "Want’st thou gold? Go to my treasury."40 His devotion to Gaveston drives the king to award his "minion" state powers as well as funds: 40

Ibid, 1.1.160.

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Receive my seal; Save or condemn, and in our name command Whatso thy mind affects or fancy likes 41 Edward’s actions here and elsewhere in the play may seem beyond reason, but the underlying issue of a king’s right to shift power from more traditional military, i.e., chivalric leaders to court figures remains a serious concern. Extrapolating a little, one can see how re-allocating political power and advancing outsiders causes friction, especially when the leader of a nation shows questionable judgment or makes unpopular decisions. Debates around this subject extend far into the past and continue today. What if any action should be taken under these circumstances? Answers to such questions prove difficult and frequently dangerous. Marlowe presents what happened in England's fourteenth century when rebels seize the king and his entourage, but the playwright also seems to suggest that what occurred might not have been the best solution. In the latter half of Edward II, the captive king begins to transform and display more virtue under pressure while the rebel leaders, Mortimer and Isabella, unmask themselves as remarkably wicked villains. The result is a continuous cycle of destruction. Mortimer sinks deeper into depravity while Edward discovers inner strength to endure the tortures awaiting him. In the play, the king dies at the hands of Mortimer’s killer, Lightborn, a fictional creation of Marlowe's not in the historical chronicles he likely used.42 The playwright

41

Ibid, 1.1.160-69. Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Ireland, and Scotloand (1587) and also Fabyan's Chronicle (1559) and possibly Stow's Chronicles of England (1580). Martin Wiggins and

42

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makes an oblique comment through the fictional assassin’s unusual name, a rough translation of Lucifer.43 Given these elements, the Marlowe's sympathies would seem to lie with Edward. Also, justice arrives very swiftly following the murder of the king, almost as if a divine hand were helping. Mortimer's henchmen kill Lightborn, and then one loses his nerve and publicly reports the whole sordid tale. With his crimes exposed, Mortimer is captured at once by the other nobles who now follow Edward’s young son, Edward III. When hauled before the new king, the villain refuses to apologize or beg for mercy from "a paltry boy," announcing he would "rather die."44 He gets his wish, and we see a final episode in the warrior-courtier tension of Edward II as an articulate but unproven youth⎯more a courtier at this point than a knight⎯takes over the kingdom from an corrupt usurper. What to make of this in regards to friendship, nobility, and ethics? Marlowe paints a very complex picture in Edward II, but the emotions of the king and his beloved friend provide some guidance. The linchpin of all the trouble⎯or in Edward's case, all the love⎯is a young, handsome man named Piers Gaveston. His intense friendship and likely ongoing sexual liaison with the king⎯by itself⎯does not constitute a problem for the great English nobles. The senior Mortimer explains: "The mightiest kings have had their minions / Great Alexander loved Hephestion / The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept," restating the old equation between heroic

Robert Lindley, "Introduction" in Edward the Second, second edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007) p. xiv. 43 Cole, 117. While the Lightborn character is Marlowe's creation, most historians agree that Edward II was murdered at Mortimer's behest. 44 Marlowe, Edward II, 5.4.56-7.

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virtue and close male friendship.45 The junior Mortimer's response, however, shows that while he can abide Edward having a companion, the king has pushed the case of this favorite too far: Uncle, his wanton humour grieves not me, But this I scorn – that one so basely born Should by his sovereign's favour grow so pert, And riot it with the treasure of the realm While soldiers mutiny for want of pay ...I will not yield to any such upstart. 46 What Mortimer, Warwick, Lancaster, and the rest object to so strenuously is the combination of Gaveston's extravagance and his birthright, or the lack thereof. Piers comes from a lower stock of nobility, and of a non-English variety, specifically French.47 The chivalric aristocracy balks at a lower-level knight supplanting them in the king's favor. Edward's inordinate elevation of Gaveston breaks not only with tradition but with the important sense of a great chain of being. In this widely-held early modern view, everything had an ordered place in the universe.48 Giving a lowly man power and status far beyond his station could only lead to strife, for he would certainly abuse his position and, in this instance, the affection of the king. Yet, a competing principle of ethics articulated by the Senior Mortimer also bears on the matter. As we have seen from the time of Cicero up through the Middle Ages, true

45

Ibid, 1.4.390-2. Ibid, 401-5, 423. 47 Piers Gaveston was the son of a minor knight in Gascony. 48 See C.A. Patrides Premises and Motifs in Renaissance Thought and Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982) for more on this concept. Also see Smith, 105-109. 46

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friendship between men signifies nobility in the West. Marlowe directly evokes that idea in Edward II with telling lines from the king such as "Thy friend, thy self, another Gaveston!"49 This is the exact vocabulary of friendship, bolstered into refreshed prominence with the rise of humanism. And whatever his faults may be, Gaveston's emotions in the matter are no act; he does love the king. The young Frenchman's soliloquy from the first act when he hears of his recall to England establishes his feelings and also hints at his downfall: Sweet prince, I come! these, thy amorous lines Might have enforc'd me to have swum from France, And, like Leander, gasp'd upon the sand, So thou wouldst smile, and take me in thine arms. The sight of London to my exil'd eyes Is as Elysium to a new-come soul: Not that I love the city or the men, But that it harbours him I hold so dear,-The king, upon whose bosom let me lie, And with the world be still at enmity.50 The classical references and imagery supply structure for his emotion, not deception. He is alone in the scene, speaking to himself⎯a stage convention of Elizabethan times to reveal inner thoughts⎯and this glimpse into Gaveston's soul reveals a highly romantic nature. Great romance, however, requires great obstacles, and Gaveston excels at erecting those. He adores Edward, but recognizes the enemies awaiting him in England. The two conditions enhance each other, driving Gaveston jealously to 49 50

Marlowe, Edward II, 1.1.142 Ibid, 1.1.6-15.

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demand a unique and perilous status: "My knee shall bow to none but to the king."51 Soon afterwards, he talks of hiring poets and musicians to draw "the pliant king which way I please."52 Piers wants to divert Edward into a pleasant world of shared sensuality rather than into tyranny or wickedness. While Gaveston displays a resentful arrogance toward the nobles and doubtful judgment, malice is conspicuously absent. Marlowe could easily have marked the Frenchman as a monster with this opening scene, but he significantly does not. On the contrary, in a close reading of the lines above, the playwright portrays Gaveston as being aware of a clear danger to himself if he rejoins the king in London yet willing to risk it for love. For his part, the young Edward prizes his Gaveston above all others, certainly more than his wife, Isabella, or the powerful chivalric lords at court. When Piers returns in the play, the king rushes forward to embrace his friend, telling him: "I have my wish, in that I joy thy sight."53 Soon after the happy reunion, another separation looms. Edward can barely stand this parting, so ordered by the papal legate operating in league with the barons. First, he thinks of hiding his companion somehow, then realizing that endeavor would fail, resolves to send him away. One line later, though, the king immediately calls his friend back, saying "Stay, Gaveston; I cannot leave thee thus."54 The lines portray one nearly helpless in his ardor for another. 55

51

Ibid, 1.1.19. Ibid, 1.1.52. 53 Ibid, 1.1.150. 54 Ibid, 1.4.135. 55 In his book, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, Stephen Greenblatt strangely quibbles over why Edward loves Gaveston, suggesting his passion for the young Frenchman (whether sexual or not) is a manner he adopts and then quickly transfers to the Young Spencer. While Marlowe 52

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Referring to the connection of Edward and Piers in the play as intense understates it, while calling it noble overstates it. Marlowe ultimately apportions a degree of honor to their passionate friendship, but any muted respect comes only with complications and pain. The love of these two male characters is certainly not the tender, inspiring camaraderie of Roland and Oliver, nor the beautifully romantic fin'amor of Lancelot and Galehaut. Infatuation perhaps describes Edward's relationship with Gaveston best, for in this play an interpretation of male-male desire can hardly be avoided. Modern observers might call it a crush, though the feelings apparently last over several years, and medieval French knights would declare the king out of mésure (measure) in his love for Gaveston. Whatever the label, their friendship leads the kingdom into chaos and, thereby must be judged ethically problematic, but the playwright takes care to depict Mortimer's remedy as equally destructive if not worse. With the murder of England's king, the great chain of being had surely been torn totally asunder. Marlowe leaves the audience to wonder just how terrible it might have been to let "the peasant" Gaveston enjoy some power and titles if it pleased the king.56 The promotion of his beloved favorite⎯unearned and irksome as it is⎯might be preferable to the slaughter which engulfs the country in one rebellion after another. To many in the sixteenth-century golden age of England, questions about the status of courtiers and warriors were more than fanciful. True, Elizabeth had legally

does have Edward turn to Spencer later in the play, one wonders why Greenblatt does not question the intense loves of other characters in Renaissance literature. 56 Marlowe, Edward II, 1.4.218.

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forbidden any direct political (or religious) connotation in theatrical offerings, but a roundabout reference here or there was allowed.57 Whereas a thorough examination of possible Marlovian commentary on the Elizabethan political scene is beyond the scope of this study, a brief mention may be worthwhile.58 Some suggest that James, the heir apparent to the throne of England or possibly Henry III of France, may have been thinly-veiled models for the king in Edward II.59 Others wonder whether Marlowe secretly considered Elizabeth herself the inspiration for his version of Edward in the play.60 The queen certainly had favorites among the court, and the attention she lavished on some of them no doubt prompted jealousy in others.61 For example, Elizabeth named Robert Dudley the Earl of Leicester early in her reign, and gossip about a supposed romantic relationship between the two of them apparently circulated widely.62 Many historians peg the Tudor era as one expressly famous for the successful royal promotion of the court as a crucial power base with a corresponding decrease in the regional power of nobles.63 Henry VIII’s kingship usually stands as the prime example of this phenomenon though some have argued the expansion of court power over traditional structures was more of a perennial

57

Brockett, 200. Interpretation of Marlowe’s work is a rich field with many books published on the subject. A few of these are The Overreacher by Levin (Harvard University Press, 1952), Christopher Marlowe and the Renaissance of Tragedy by Cole (Greenwood, 1995), Christopher Marlowe – A Literary Life by Hopkins (Palgrave, 2000), and Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy by Honan (Oxford University Press, 2005). 59 Hopkins, 107 and Wiggins/Lindsey Introduction. 60 Hopkins, 107. 61 Levin, Carole, 21. 62 Ibid, 18. 63 Elton, 212. 58

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complaint.64 Whenever the tension between chivalric lords and knightly courtiers started, concerns in Elizabethan England about political advancement of court favorites or friends was genuine, and many contemporaries would have recognized the issue in Edward II as more than historical curiosity. Questions around this topic were surely of interest to Marlowe himself, who, as a playwright, was essentially a courtier to the nobles in Tudor England from outside the traditional lines of chivalric families. Marlowe did, however, enjoy aristocratic patronage at the highest levels, for powerful nobles used the attention of drama much like the spectacle of tournaments to enhance their prestige. The queen supported top acting troupes, including Marlowe's, paying for a number of productions at the royal court each year.65 Elizabeth and her government passed laws regulating actors but also giving them legal status year-around, provided they were members of an acting company under the official protection of a high nobleman (i.e., at least a baron).66 Given these laws and the production costs involved, playwrights and actors generally became tied to the royal court in London and understood it was important to please one’s aristocratic funder. Furthermore, literary critics have long conjectured that characters in Marlowe’s plays serve as representations of the

64

See Walker, Greg "Henry VIII and the Invention of the Royal Court," History Today, 1997. Brockett, 201. This practice increased under the monarchs who came after Elizabeth. 66 Before this, actors could only claim status during a proscribed season of employment under a nobleman’s estate. During the off-season, actors were vagabonds in the eyes of the law and could be punished as such - Brockett, 200. 65

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playwright.67 Specifically in Edward II, a speech by Spencer reminds one of Marlowe’s scholarly past as a theology student: 68 Then, Baldock, you must cast the scholar off, And learn to court it like a gentleman." … … And saying ‘truly, an’t may please your honour’, Can get you any favour with great men.69 This lesson in garnering the attention of a nobleman does make one wonder if there are shades of the playwright in Spencer or even the Gaveston character. Christopher Marlowe did enjoy the favor and support of several aristocratic patrons in his short life, including Sir Francis Walsingham in the 1590s. Some historians even believe Marlowe had a physical/romantic relationship with Thomas Walsingham, Francis’ nephew.70 At the very least, the two appear to have had an extremely close friendship. The delicate crafting of Edward II tends to indicate that Marlowe recognized the practical dangers and ethical quandaries involved with courtier favorites yet still endorsed such attachments if a strong emotional component existed.

Courtiers and Warriors in Shakespeare's 1 Henry VI

Shakespeare presents his own analysis of noble friends and courtiers by comparing and contrasting the two in Henry VI, Part 1 (1594), a history play set near 67

See Hopkins for a good list of critics with this opinion, 104. Marlowe earned an advanced degree in theology from Cambridge University. Hopkins, 39. 69 Marlowe, Edward II, 2.1.31-40. 70 Hopkins, 103. There were rumors about a homosexual relationship between the two, and Marlowe resided at the country house of the Walsinghams with Thomas. 68

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the end of the Hundred Years War with a cross-channel theme similar to Edward II. At the beginning of the play, Lord Talbot, the chivalric hero, inhabits a prison cell in France after being captured at Patay, but his devoted friends among the English commanders desperately want him returned. The Duke of Bedford promises to spend whatever is needed, "His ransom there is none but I shall pay / I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne; / His crown shall be the ransom of my friend."71 After Talbot's release, the English besieging Orleans are jubilant; the Earl of Salisbury sums up the general feeling by declaring, "Talbot, my life, my joy, again returned!"72 The language strangely recalls that of the king in Edward II talking to his beloved Gaveston, though here, the older, chivalric emotional bond of friendship is clear. 73 At court in London, however, a fractious atmosphere rules among the nobles and their courtier followers. In a disturbing but arresting scene outside Temple Hall, the Duke of Somerset and Richard Plantagenet (later the Duke of York) withdraw to along with other nobles and lawyers in order to continue a heated legal dispute too loud for the interior chambers. Plantagenet calls on the assembly to choose sides in the contention by plucking a particular color of rose from a nearby brier bush to select the winner: white for Plantagenet, red for Somerset. One by one, the members of the group step forward and ominously divide themselves into factions with their floral choices. As the white roses outnumber the red, Plantagenet taunts his opponent: "Now, Somerset, where is your argument?" to which Somerset replies menacingly,

71

1 Henry VI 1.1.151-3. Ibid, 1.4.23. 73 See earlier in this chapter, Edward II 1.1.150. 72

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"Here in my scabbard, meditating that / Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red."74 Threats then mount between the two until violence is assured, though postponed for the present. Somerset exits with his main advocate Suffolk without recognizing the majority decision, and Plantagenet leaves with his supporters seemingly unworried about the obvious potential for national strife. Nonchalantly, he tells his adherents: "Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say / This quarrel will drink blood another day."75 Nothing tender or loving shows itself in this scene, only bitter antagonism foreshadowing worse events to come. We never learn exactly what the original argument concerns in this invented though at least conceivable garden scene. The conspicuous lack of information regarding a topic suggests triviality, a "trifle," and highlights a major theme throughout the play of divisive rancor among the aristocracy leading to catastrophe. Destructive feuding in privileged circles defined the darker side of elite friendship in England's late-medieval cultural context, and an Elizabethan audience would recognize the behavior and its perilous national repercussions. As King Henry states later in the play while trying to quell a dispute between lords Basset and Vernon arising from the same rose color controversy, "That for a toy, a thing of no regard, / King Henry's peers and chief nobility / Destroyed themselves and lost the realm of France!"76 The sense of ruinous discord⎯the conspicuous lack of friendship⎯recalls

74

1 Henry VI 2.4.59-61. Ibid, 2.4.134-6 76 1 Henry VI 4.1.146-8. 75

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Cicero's warnings in De amicitia and the feud between Roland and his uncle, Ganelon in The Song of Roland. Although Talbot does not appear in the scene outside Temple Hall, his absence in this episode of the English nobility's petulance and malice is a marked one, for Shakespeare works some of his best theatrical magic with contrasts. In the scenes just prior to the garden debate, we see Lord Talbot acting with great courage and loyalty on behalf of his country and his companions; he embodies the virtuous side of chivalry in the cultural milieu. In Act II.i, Talbot boldly attempts a surprise attack on the fortified French city of Orleans. His lines before scaling an assault ladder reveal the classic ideal of bravery and loyalty: And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave. Now, Salisbury, for thee and for the right Of English Henry, shall this night appear How much in duty I am bound to both.

77

From this speech, we see that Talbot is prepared to die if need be in the military venture, a nod to the chivalric example of Roland. Furthermore, Talbot's immediate motivation arises from a strong connection to his fallen comrade in arms, the Earl of Salisbury, who was killed near Orleans literally by a lucky shot from a gun⎯a nonchivalric weapon⎯in a previous scene. The declared reasoning behind Talbot's attack on the city, an emotional bond to his lost friend, raises Talbot's status both in an abstract moral way and also in more concrete ways since his fellow warriors in the battle cannot help but observe the level of devotion Talbot has for his dear 77

Ibid, 2.1.37-40.

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companion.78 The idea that someone close would exercise such bravery in your memory should you fall in battle is an inspiring testament and a hallmark of perfect chivalry. Moreover, in thematic terms of 1 Henry VI, this strong male fellowship of warriors in battle serves as a sharp distinction to the ugly dissension of Plantagenet, Somerset, and the other nobles in council as they mingle with lawyers outside Temple Hall. Adjacency magnifies the competing concepts in each scene. The monarchy and the kingdom itself come under threat when one of the courtier-nobles in the play who has ingratiated himself to the king, Suffolk, seizes a helpless Margaret of Anjou in France only to fall secretly in love with her. Rather than try to win Margaret directly as his bride, however, Suffolk hatches a twisted plan to woo her for the king. Once he persuades Margaret and the king to marry, he apparently plans to enjoy an adulterous affair with the queen while manipulating the arrangement to increase his power at court: "Margaret shall now be queen and rule the King / But I will rule both her, the King, and the realm." Cue evil laughter. Shakespeare's unmasking of Suffolk as an outright villain in this play contrasts distinctly with Marlowe's enigmatic portrayal of Piers Gaveston. In 1 Henry VI, the polarity continues between the intriguing courtier lords and the valiant knights in the field until the two worlds collide horribly in Gascony. Talbot arrives with an army at the gates of Bordeaux only to find a huge French force 78

The historical record of the events at Orleans does not match Shakespeare's version exactly, but the two are close. The attack involving Talbot described in 1 Henry VI matches the assault on the city of Le Mans, near Orleans. Salisbury did die from a stray bullet while inspecting a tower near Orleans, and Holinshed's Chronicles tell us there was great sorrow over his death, though the Duke of Bedford, not Talbot, is specifically mentioned as the one "most stricken."

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waiting for him in Act IV. Recognizing the danger, Talbot nevertheless resolves to fight, comparing his outnumbered army to hunted English deer turning back on the hounds and holding them off. As the battle rages, we learn through a series of short, interspersed scenes that the feuding York and Somerset have failed to send desperately needed reinforcements to Talbot. Each blames the other for the delay like whining logistics clerks rather than bold leaders. Somerset even condemns Talbot along with York for having "rashly plotted" the campaign. When William Lucy challenges Somerset's opinion, Somerset accuses York of "lies," saying York never requested help, and he goes on to say "I owe him little duty and less love."79 This line reveals the crux of the problem, signaling the defeat of England and the death of Talbot in battle. The lack of amity among the lords at court leads to a political and ethical disaster. As in Edward II, Shakespeare crafts 1 Henry VI to question fractious behavior and⎯more directly than Marlowe⎯to plead for a better course of governance in the present.

Comedies and Friendship: Jonson's Fayre, Shakespeare's Venice

Playwrights predictably portray happier outcomes of male bonding in comedies of the period. Noble characters of the chivalric tradition appear in these theatrical offerings as well, but a discernible shift shows in the type of middle or lower class friends with whom they associate freely and honorably. Such fluidity

79

1 Henry VI 4.4.34.

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may suggest greater social mobility (up or down) as well as a transfer of the wealth and power formerly linked with only the nobility or high clergy. The flexibility among differing classes in the comedies may also reflect an increased level of identity manipulation in the period, i.e., consciously shaping one's character to fit the situation.80 While people have probably always employed chameleonic qualities for advantage, the rise of theatre as a popular medium in the Renaissance would seem to indicate a surge in this regard. We will explore some of the ramifications of this possibility for ideas of friendship in the following chapter. Ben Jonson's satiric plays have little room for love as they try to correct society's foibles, but a rare glimpse of good-natured camaraderie shows up in his rowdy comedy, Bartholomew Fair (1614). Amid a crowd of bawds, thieves, and tricksters, a gentleman named Ned Winwife attends the famous fair at Smithfield (North London) with Tom Quarlous, his "gamester" companion. In an indirect fashion, these two characters may represent the overlapping boundaries of aristocracy and middle class (or commoner) as well as the transformation of knights to lesser levels of nobility, e.g., esquires.81 Tellingly, Ned is described only as a gentleman. His associate and sometimes rival, Tom, resembles an enterprising rogue more than a noble, but he does display a certain concern for Winwife throughout the flurry of fights, foibles, and misadventures in the play. The bond these two share appears in

80

See Stephen Greenblatt's Renaissance Self-Fashioning for a full treatment of this idea (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 81 Keen suggests this process begins at the close of the thirteenth century when fewer sons of the nobility took on the official mantle of full knighthood and lower forms began to be recognized or created, see "The Idea of Nobility" in Chivalry, pp. 143-148.

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subdued ways such as Tom playfully calling Ned "an unmerciful companion" for departing early in the morning without him to inquire at Proctor Littlewit's.82 Tom informs us he has been seeking his friend for hours, and that after a hard night of drinking. Although both men seek the hand of the lovely Grace Wellborn, Tom Quarlous eventually elects to step aside for Ned's sake and marry the rich widow, Dame Purecraft, instead. Moreover, Quarlous supplies the (pilfered) marriage license for Ned to marry Grace and convinces Justice Overdo to overlook all the "enormities" of the fair and invite everyone back to his house for a meal at the end. In Jonsonian terms, Tom Quarlous' behavior is noble indeed, even ethical in a skewed way. The inclusion of a deeply distorted Damon and Pythias in the Act V puppet show described with the phrase "pretty passages there are o' the friendship" cements the sardonic playwright's unusual but obvious nod to the virtues of male friendship.83 Shakespeare's comedy and famous problem play, The Merchant of Venice, ostensibly profiles a new early modern world built on commercial enterprise, credit, and international trade, but much of the drama follows a medieval theme of romance. The plot seems clearly based on a number of older tales from the Middle Ages, especially the fourteenth-century Il Pecorone, but Shakespeare has taken the existing narratives and added enough to make it into something innovative.84 Leaving aside

82

Jonson, Bartholomew Fair 1.3.3 in Ben Jonson: Three Comedies, Jamieson, editor (New York: Penguin, 1983), 341. 83 Ibid, 5.3.120. 84 The Italian story, Il Pecorone, contains much of the recognizable plot of Merchant, but other earlier tales include distinct connections as well, e.g., The King and the Seven Sages

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heavily-discussed questions as to the bard's rendering of Shylock and the ugly antiSemitism that has haunted Europe for over a thousand years, the present study explores the medieval spirit that Shakespeare weaves into his play through the intense emotional bond between the noble, though prodigal, Bassanio and his very close friend, Antonio. While the protagonists in The Merchant of Venice do not ride forth into the forest to seek adventure or do battle with lance and sword, they do possess a number of the virtuous, knightly qualities depicted in romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For one, Antonio and Bassanio share a deep affection that drives the dramatic plot but leaves some modern readers (and directors) nonplussed. They may not know what to make of it. Some theatrical productions today minimize it, and a few interpret the characters' strong friendship as overt homosexual desire, complete with displays of physical affection (embraces, kisses, etc.).85 Such efforts, while intriguing from a modern standpoint, veer sideways from medieval and early modern association of close male friendship with nobility and ethics. The friendship must be addressed if one is to understand the play because male-male affection serves as the initial, albeit mysterious, concern of The Merchant of Venice. Antonio, the title character, speaks of a mysterious ailment he suffers from in the opening lines:

from the twelfth century and versions of the thirteenth-century Gesta Romanorum. See Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare for a useful survey and summary. 85 See the 2004 film version directed by Michael Radford or the 2010 Broadway production, both starring Al Pacino as Shylock.

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In sooth, I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me, you say it wearies you. But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, That I have much ado to know myself. 86 Antonio's lament resembles the lovesickness described in several romances of the medieval era featuring good knights in pain from a mysterious malady.87 Lancelot's affliction over Guinevere is likely the most well-known, but the pattern in descriptive language appears over and over again. Shakespeare himself uses a similar vocabulary of melancholy for love struck characters in other works, e.g., Orsino in Twelfth Night, and Troilus in Troilus and Cressida, to name only a few. In The Merchant of Venice, steeped in mercantile considerations, Salarino and Solanio immediately suggest that commercial anxiety is to blame for their friend Antonio's unhappiness, but the diversified Antonio insists otherwise, saying "my merchandise makes me not sad."88 Here, an important contrast comes into view that begins to define his character in a positive way: Antonio is troubled not by a preoccupation with business and profits

86

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice Edited by Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine, Folger Shakespeare Library series (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992) 1.1.1-7 87 See, e.g., the Yvain character in Yvain or The Knight with the Lion who is wounded by love and falls for Laudine, the wife of his enemy, Palamon and Arcite in Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, or any number of knights in the stories of Marie de France. 88 Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, 1.1.46.

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but by something more profound. Solanio hits upon it when he follows up with "Why then you are in love."89 Antonio's denials of "Fie, fie" do not quite convince. But if he is in love, the question becomes with whom? Shakespeare provides no direct answer, but Bassanio is the only credible candidate in the play. Modern critics sometimes view this love as a tension, a source of emotional or even sexual rivalry with Portia, but they miss another, older aspect that is also important for interpretative history. The intense friendship Antonio expresses for Bassanio marks him as a noble man in medieval terms just as Bassanio's affection for Antonio brands him virtuous, for as Cicero (and others) teach, true friendship only touches the good. Once Gratiano and the others depart, an intimate scene of shared confidences and promises develops between the two companions with Bassanio declaring, "To you, Antonio / I owe the most in money and in love."90 This line establishes their amity but also casts their relationship, like so many in Shakespeare's Venice, in terms of debts and bonds. The metaphor is not entirely misplaced for these two, nor is their meeting without an agenda. Too much largesse on Bassanio's part, another classic chivalric trait, has left his estate financially "disabled" and led him to request a substantial loan⎯another substantial loan⎯from his dear friend, Antonio. The advance, Bassanio says, will enable him to "get clear of all the debts I owe."91 Unlike other transactions in the play, no haggling or doubts or recriminations ensue; rather, warmth and goodwill imbue the exchange.

89

Ibid, 1.1.47. Ibid, 1.1.137-8. 91 Ibid, 1.1.141. 90

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Antonio, his earlier gloom apparently forgotten in Bassanio's presence, asks only one stipulation of his companion before providing full support: whether the proposed enterprise lies "within the eye of honor."92 Such phrasing constitutes a clear nod to the chivalric ideals of virtue in which honor is always paramount. As discussed earlier, the reference was no anachronism in Shakespeare's time but a serious cultural component. Chivalry, the ethos tied to the Middle Ages, arguably reached its zenith in the Renaissance. As a governing ideal, knighthood faded over time, but the process was exceedingly slow, and honor surely remained an immense concern for aristocratic men and women in the early modern period. So, with the overarching principle of honor in place, Antonio states that he will do his "uttermost" to aid Bassanio, even though he himself must borrow the requested money, since his current "fortunes are all at sea."93 Antonio is wealthy, and his credit in Venice is considerable, but a real possibility of danger exists, and of course all the danger is realized (and then some) as the play progresses. So, the main plot turns on this early agreement between close friends, but Shakespeare also takes care to create an ethical sense around these two characters by demonstrating the clear trust each has for the other. Antonio's willingness to hazard both his credit and himself⎯"my purse, my person"⎯for his beloved companion raises his honor in particular.

92 93

Ibid, 1.1.144. Ibid, 1.1.184.

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Other characters in the play's early scenes, by contrast, rate lower on the ethics scale.94 Among Bassanio's other friends, Gratiano seems good enough and has certainly much to say but manages only to "speak an infinite deal of nothing."95 Solanio and Salarino similarly appear superficial or at least ineffectual. Lorenzo may fare best in an estimation of values at the beginning but only because he speaks the least, remaining a sort of attractive blank. Jessica feels morally torn between her familial "blood" and her attraction to a young man of different customs who would never win the approbation of her father. Likewise, the servant with the Arthurianinspired name, Lancelet, wavers humorously between two devils, one his repugnant master, the other an inner "fiend" who prompts him to run away and seek employment elsewhere. Even Portia, far from her moral triumphs in the end, comes across as petulant, impatient, and a bit spoiled in Act I, ridiculing her suitors and chaffing under restrictions imposed by her father's will. Shylock is portrayed worst of all on the moral measure, obsessed with money and old hatreds as his Act I aside speech about Antonio, the Christian merchant, shows: How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for he is a Christian, But more for that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. 94

For those who doubt that Shakespeare, the naturalist, was concerned with the ethics of his characters, see Colin McGinn's interesting argument to the contrary in Shakespeare's Philosophy (New York: Harper Collins, 2006). 95 Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 1.1.121.

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If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.96 Some struggle to defend the Shylock character in The Merchant of Venice as a sympathetic villain shaped by the ill will of Christian society around him and harboring a valid complaint against Antonio.97 The speech above constitutes a compelling counter-argument to such views, however, for the playwright would hardly provide this disturbing glimpse into the character's psyche if no moral judgment against Shylock were intended. Shakespeare employs similar tactics with Edmund in King Lear and Iago in Othello⎯evildoers with few redeeming traits or apologists. Again, the ambiguity with which Marlowe paints Gaveston in Edward II distinguishes the character from utter villains in other contemporary plays. Beyond Shylock's anti-Christian attitude (especially troubling in Elizabethan England where Christianity is so dominant), Shakespeare takes special care to stress a miserly side in the referenced aside. Hoarding wealth carried a general negative impression from older times, for misers and usurers were widely scorned (or worse) in the Middle Ages.98 Moreover, since largesse was one of the prominent, defining elements of chivalry, knights supposedly held misers in a heightened form of

96

Shakespeare, 1.3.41-47. Bullough, 454. Tellingly, the 2004 movie directed by Radford drops this speech. 98 Much of the disgust for misers sprang from New Testament teachings as well as many religious orders of monks or knights (e.g., the Templars) during the Middle Ages that demanded its adherents to give up all wealth upon entry for spiritual enlightenment. The mendicant friars pushed this idea to its limits, though it is ironically true that some monasteries and orders as a whole often became quite rich in the medieval era. 97

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contempt.99 So by skillfully tapping cultural archetypes of the medieval era, Shakespeare sets up an ethical disparity on multiple levels between Antonio and Shylock. Audiences would interpret the former's deep friendship with Bassanio favorably and the latter's fixation on money adversely, if pitiably. One could argue that these views are simply part and parcel of an encompassing religious prejudice that the playwright furthers (perhaps unconsciously), but the signals are too intentional, specific, and well-placed. Shakespeare always finds intriguing ways to render his characters early on; the practice is a trademark of his.100 In The Merchant of Venice, he does so by invoking cues from the world of chivalric romance to strengthen first impressions, shading characters in contrasting moral tones for a sharper dramatic effect. These subtle indicators in the play, however, also help us as historians to understand how leading playwrights in the English Renaissance could communicate indirectly to audiences. As the action of the play moves forward, the ethical examination of the characters deepens as they have to meet new challenges, a stamp of early modern drama drawing from morality plays.101 In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio and Bassanio each undergo tests⎯difficult tests⎯just as knights do in various romances, but neither Venetian falters in his devotion for the other and both ultimately succeed. In the more obvious trial sequence, Bassanio faces the challenge of the caskets in

99

Other main elements of chivalry were prowess, loyalty, franchise, and courtesy. See Chivalry by Keen for more on these. 100 Brockett, Oscar, History of the Theatre (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1987), p. 195. 101 Brockett, p. 140-3.

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Belmont, an episode likely drawn from a combination of popular medieval stories.102 He chooses rightly and also wins his lady Portia's love, but Bassanio could never have embarked on his errand to Belmont had Antonio not first provided the means. Also, once he gains his bride and her fortune in Belmont, Bassanio rushes back to Venice to try to rescue his friend and benefactor from the teeth of Shylock's gruesome bargain. For his part, Antonio must endure a series of misfortunes while maintaining a sense of honor.103 His beloved friend's departure is the first ordeal. During the farewell, Antonio bravely tells Bassanio not to worry about Shylock's threat and to take whatever time is needed for the courtship with Portia. "Slubber not business for my sake" and "Be merry" are Antonio's words of advice, but the words alone do not reveal his pain. Shakespeare crafts the leave-taking scene as a description by Salarino to Solanio in order to show Antonio's emotions and his efforts to cover them up. Salarino reports the parting as achingly difficult for the merchant: And even there, his eye being big with tears, Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, And with affection wondrous sensible He wrung Bassanio's hand – and so they parted.104 Cultural ideals of male emotion intertwine with nobility in Antonio's behavior during this scene. The one proves the other according to traditional models of chivalry, i.e., 102

Boccaccio's Decameron has a version of someone having to choose the correct casket as do the Gesta Romanurum and Gower's Confessio Amantis. 103 Mary Beth Rose has written about endurance of hardship becoming more important than the active components of battle to the heroic identity in the Renaissance as part of the "gendering" of heroism. Her argument is interesting, though I would suggest that enduring hardships had always been part of the chivalric/heroic identity. See her book Gender and Heroism in Early Modern English Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 104 Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 2.9.48-51.

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only those of high honorable bearing could be capable of feeling friendship to such a degree; it was a signifier of nobility. Antonio does not wish to trouble or burden his friend, so he hides (or at least tries to hide) his reaction from Bassanio, suffering the burden with courage alone. To underline the effect, Shakespeare then has Solanio sum up Antonio's friendship with Bassanio: "I think he only loves the world for him."105 As Bassanio's fortunes rise in Belmont, Antonio's founder in Venice. With his ships overdue and reported lost, the Christian merchant cannot pay the debt he owes. Shylock has Antonio arrested for defaulting on the bond and gleefully prepares to collect his grisly payment, "the pound of flesh." Antonio tries twice to talk with his uncompromising enemy but refuses to fall to begging for his life, announcing, "I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers."106 Always honorable, Antonio does not blame Bassanio, nor ill fortune, nor even Shylock for his bleak situation. He accepts the circumstances calmly, "with a quietness of spirit"⎯as men of integrity should, as knights were expected to do⎯resigning himself to death. He does, however, extract some contentment from suffering for his friend's sake in a medieval tradition of sacrifice. Antonio's thoughts in jail turn only to his beloved Bassanio and the hope of seeing him a last time.107 The ethical axis then shifts to Belmont and pulls the noble Bassanio back to Venice to defend his companion. No doubt emerges as to whether or not he will go. 105

Ibid, 2.9.52. Ibid, 3.3.22. 107 Antonio's state is one that shows up often in Shakespeare's sonnets to his fair male friend, e.g., Sonnet 29. 106

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A less virtuous man might ignore the news now that he had won the wealthy, beautiful Portia and her extensive estate, or at least delay a few days (an hour?) to enjoy the marriage bed, but Bassanio leaves as soon as the (offstage) wedding ceremony concludes. Upon his entry in Venice, he immediately offers to pay Antonio's elapsed monetary debt twice over. Shylock, however, remains implacable and doggedly persists in his demand to cut the flesh personally from his enemy, Antonio. Bassanio promises his body, "my flesh, blood, bones, and all" before his friend comes to harm, but Antonio rejects this rash course, arguing that he is "meetest for death" and that if one of them must die, Bassanio should live.108 Portia then arrives and famously solves all the problems by turning the legal screws back on an obstinate Shylock, but she also fulfills the larger ethical equation in the play. Bassanio and Antonio's close friendship extends to her from two sides, and she enters into it, no longer a young woman who merely complains or mocks others. How does this transformation happen? First, and most important overall, she falls in love with Bassanio. Next, and directly related to the friendship theme, Portia's love for Bassanio translates into concern for those he loves. When Salerio brings the fateful letter to Belmont telling of Antonio's state, Portia reacts in sympathy with her intended husband before even knowing the details, "I am half yourself, / And I must freely have the half of anything / That this same paper brings to you."109 She has joined the friendship unconsciously and becomes further ennobled by it. When she

108 109

Ibid, 4.1.113 and 4.1.117. Ibid, 3.2.258-260.

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learns of the dire threat and the high esteem in which all hold Antonio, Bassanio especially, Portia considers Antonio in her mind: I never did repent for doing good, Nor shall not now; for in companions That do converse and waste the time together, Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love, There must needs be a like proportion Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit; Which makes me think that this Antonio, Being the bosom lover of my lord, Must needs be like my lord. If it be so, How little is the cost I have bestowed in purchasing the semblance of my soul From out the state of hellish cruelty! 110 She befriends Antonio without ever meeting him, for she reasons that he must be as pleasing to her as Bassanio. Continuing the thought, Portia resolves to act on her realization and try to rescue the man so like her beloved husband. Her inspired success at the court in Venice demonstrates the reach or the enhancement of her abilities when engaged in a worthy enterprise: true friendship. Despite the victory and the new arrangement of Bassanio, Antonio, and Portia, a few matters, e.g., the surrender of Portia's ring, still need to be worked out late in the play. Tension over the ring and Bassanio's support of his friend at the trial have led some scholars to interpret Antonio and Portia as rivals for Bassanio's emotional attention or even his sexual desire. Drama thrives on struggle, so modern theatrical 110

Ibid, 3.4.10-21.

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artists may predictably advance the notion of an emotional contest⎯any contest⎯with a winner (Portia) and a loser (Antonio). Strangely, psychoanalytical critics often claim a similar friction between Bassanio's friend and his wife, one comparing Antonio to Shylock as characters forced "outside" to live unhappily alone at the end of the play.111 Lastly, some gender/queer theorists see a heterosexist tradition to reevaluate by suggesting a homosexual relationship between the two male lovers disrupted by and in conflict with the new wife.112 Shakespeare's text, however, provides little actual support for these views stressing competition. Portia saves Antonio, after all, and clearly welcomes him into her home twice "notwithstanding" his connection to the ring dispute. The target of her trick is really Bassanio, whom she gives a difficult if not impossible choice over the ring, an echo of the original caskets decision. This time, however, Portia has merely assembled a ruse. Her ploy still makes a point and has an effect, though, for it draws Bassanio, Antonio, and herself into a new joint pledge involving the ring⎯symbolically another marriage. Interestingly, the first, traditional wedding occurs hurriedly and offstage in Act III, diminishing its significance. Antonio volunteers himself as the "surety" for this more important ceremony of commitment 111

See Thomas MacCary's viewpoint in Friends and Lovers: The Phenomenology of Desire in Shakespearean Comedy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 160-170. Patterson also sees the Antonio/Bassanio friendship as a failure in his article "The Bankruptcy of Homoerotic Amity in Shakepeare's Merchant of Venice" in Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 50, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), 9-32. The 2004 film version, directed by Michael Radford, also emphasizes this competition view with a scene of Antonio wandering the house unhappily alone at the end. 112 See Arthur L Little Jr.'s surreal piece on the displacement of hymeneal blood in "The Rites of Queer Marriage" in Shakesqueer, Ed. Menon (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 216-224.

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in Act V, and the harmonious friendship is forged anew with three loving companions instead of two. The emotional structure of this male-male-female relationship at the end of The Merchant of Venice differs from the triangle built on competition between two men for a woman as ably described by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in Between Men.113 The arrangement, however, is strikingly similar to the formalized triad of best comrade, knight, and lady that occurs in The Prose Lancelot with Galehaut, Lancelot, and Guinevere and to a lesser extent in the male-male-female triangle at the end of Amis and Amiloun.114 Gender theory critics wishing to destabilize how we understand male-male relationships in the past may well have a different option to examine in that regard. The ring episode also combines the monetary and chivalric themes in The Merchant of Venice for the band represents shared bonds of service and prosperity owed to each member of the successful trio at the end. After the resolution in court, the Duke of Venice commands Antonio to "gratify" his legal benefactor, the disguised Portia, telling the merchant "For in my mind you are much bound to him."115 Antonio agrees and admits that he "stands indebted, over and above, / In love and service to you evermore."116 The language of obligation that Shakespeare employs here skillfully invokes a financial connotation as well as an older sense of loyalty or homage . The layering continues when the question of giving Portia's ring 113

See especially the first chapter "Gender Asymmetry and Erotic Triangles" of Between Men (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). 114 Norris Lacy, Ed., Lancelot-Grail Vol. II, 116, 146. See chapter three of the present study for more on this. 115 Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 4.1.425. 116 Ibid, 4.1.432-3.

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in tribute arises. Bassanio hesitates over relinquishing it to the supposed doctor of law, saying "There's more depends on this than on the value," but eventually gives it up at Antonio's request. 117 Upon returning to Belmont, however, Portia clashes with her new husband over the loss, and Bassanio defends himself in chivalric terms: "I was beset with shame and courtesy / My honor would not let ingratitude / So much besmear it."118 The controversy over the lost ring is strikingly reminiscent of medieval romances, e.g., Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain or The Knight with the Lion. In that tale, the title character loses his mind when he breaks his promise to return by a certain date to his new wife, and she withdraws her love from him in response, demanding the return of a ring she gave him as a token. Half of the romance deals with the heroic if tardy Yvain's recovery and redemption. No madness or quest is needed in Shakespeare's play to resolve the situation, though; Portia unravels the passel of confusions easily "like the mending of highways in summer." Besides the removal of guilt for Bassanio, her rewards include excellent commercial news for Antonio regarding his argosies. Essentially, she salvages his material losses after saving his life, drawing Antonio to her in love and responsibility as she already is drawn to him. The combination of monetary obligations with older forms of ethical commitment anchored in medieval honor, i.e., protection from physical harm, signal a deliberate cultural modulation by the playwright from the tropes of pure medieval romance but one still firmly tied to notions of chivalric virtue. With ring returned, identities 117 118

Ibid, 455. Ibid, 5.1.233-5.

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revealed, and finances confirmed, the three characters are bound to one another contentedly on multiple levels. Shakespeare's portrayal of friendship in The Merchant of Venice retains the moral/emotional tone handed down from the Middle Ages. With the help of his companion, the nobleman in the play marries a beautiful, principled, rich damsel and wins her land and love as just reward for his ethical conduct. Clearly, however, something is different: a merchant fulfills one of the traditionally chivalric roles, a woman enters the realm of high friendship, a legal battle achieves victory rather than an armed conflict at the end, and wealth pours to the heroes from commerce as much as from property.119 Shakespeare also renders his male companions in a more understated manner, e.g., Antonio turning his head away to hide a tear, than would be usual for medieval epic or romance where knights routinely faint and sob over each other.120 Whether a more restrained approach to emotion was a stylistic choice or indicative of a wider cultural shift, Shakespeare nevertheless shows us how intense feelings between men could be and how important they are to an heroic identity in the Renaissance. All of the playwrights discussed in this chapter turned their poetic skills to the subject of ethics and male friendship as those ideas expanded into broadening layers of early modern society. Given the commercial nature of theatre in London, we have 119

Literary precedents exist for female characters to become true friends of knights in the Middle Ages, e.g., Lunette, in Yvain or The Knight with the Lion, earns the friendship of the hero as does Guinevere in The Prose Lancelot. 120 King Arthur habitually collapses over missing or lost comrades in tales from the Middle Ages. The Lancelot-Grail Cycle and the chansons de geste are full of these emotional episodes, see chapter three of the present study for specific examples.

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to assume they were giving huge crowds in the public theatres as well as smaller audiences in the private halls what they wanted. Being creative writers, Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare and their contemporaries tinkered with the theme of friendship, peppering their lines with classical images and humanistic allusions, pulling in references from the changing urban world around them, deliberately making connections between the past and the present. Yet, the chivalric sense of strong emotions defining an ethical friendship⎯as transmitted through medieval romance and epic⎯still endured as a central model in dramatic literature.

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Chapter 6 Celebrations and Suspicions

Credo adunque che ben sia amare e servire l'un piú che l'altro, secundo i meriti e 'l valore; ma non però assicurarsi tanto con questa dolce esca d'amicizia, che poi tardi se n'abbiamo a pentire [Therefore, I think it is well to love and serve one person more than another according to merit and worth; and yet never be so trusting of this sweet lure of friendship as to have cause later to regret it.] – Baldesar Castiglione, Il Libro del Cortegiano [The Book of the Courtier] Sixteenth Century

Early modern society honored ideas of male friendship from the chivalric tradition in conjunction with the new, self-consciously classicist or humanist movement, but the culture simultaneously expressed new fears and new approaches. Humanism, the intellectual movement that emphasized secular thought as a consequence of reengagement with the literature and art of ancient Greece and Rome, influenced ideas of friendship as it did most ideas in the era. Renaissance authors read the ancient masters; many attempted to emulate them or at least allude to them

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often. Of course, a type of humanism had been in effect throughout the Middle Ages in varying degrees in regards to some of the Roman authors as we have seen,1 but certainly interest increased greatly in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This keen attention to the ancient classics coupled with the rise of more powerful central monarchies allowed ideals of elite male friendship to reach new heights in some quarters but also to face new challenges in others. Within the customs of cherished male amity, flattery, deception, and favoritism became conspicuous hobgoblins to elite friendship in the courtier-heavy society of Renaissance England, France, and neighboring states. Perhaps more disturbing while seemingly innocuous, a dispassionate approach to friendship arose in the work of empirical writers. Whereas the previous chapter focused specifically on friendship ideas/treatments in the popular, revitalized medium of drama in England, this chapter widens the lens considerably. The resulting exploration inevitably leaps around more in time, geography, and perspective, reflecting the diversity of thought on friendship in the Renaissance. The works selected for discussion offer a broad exploration of both canonical and non-canonical sources in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some praising friendship in almost mystical terms as Michel de Montaigne inimitably does, others questioning it under certain circumstances or even rethinking its place in the world as Francis Bacon does. Moreover, while the overall view of noble friendship among men remained positive and ethical, anxieties and new 1

See Charles Homer Haskins The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927) and also see R.W. Southern, “Medieval Humanism,” in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford, Blackwell, 1970); Willemien Otten, From Paradise to Paradigm – A Study of Twelfth-Century Humanism (Boston: Brill, 2004).

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conceptualizations presented challenges to the institution and a patent complication to its ethical foundation from the past.

Castiglione and the Threat of Courtiers

In his famous guide to aristocratic conduct, Il Libro del Cortegiano [The Book of the Courtier] (1528), Baldesar Castiglione maps much of the shifting cultural ground on which nobles and courtiers⎯the two sets were merging⎯had to walk in the presence of an autocratic ruler. While composed in Italian, Castiglione's book was widely read outside his native land. Jacques Colin translated it into French in 1537, and Sir Thomas Hoby completed an English translation of the book in 1561, though copies in Italian and/or Latin were circulating in England and France even before the translations.2 The book had a huge and varied audience; monarchs read it, including James I and Charles V as well as the councilors, administrators, and courtiers who served such figures not to mention lawyers, merchants, and other professionals.3 Many references to the work show up the scholarship written about the period as evidence of a growing classicist/humanist influence across Europe.4 Part idealized fantasy and part troubled reality, Castiglione's relatively brief remarks on friendship in Il Libro del Cortegiano nevertheless apprehend the 2

Peter Burke, "The Courtier Abroad: Or, the Uses of Italy" in The Book of the Courtier – Baldesar Castiglione: A Norton Critical Edition, ed., Daniel Javitch (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2002) p. 391. 3 Ibid, p.392. 4 For example, see notes in Collinson, ed., The Sixteenth Century (2002), Young, Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments (1987), and Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar (2002).

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difficulties and rewards that male courtiers might encounter in the pursuit of intimate friendships. As with the book as a whole, different characters articulate disparate viewpoints on the topic for the benefit of a quintessential courtier. Federico, one of the personae, begins the discussion on friendship with an introductory statement. He emphasizes the need to enter into what he calls an "indissolubil compagnia" [indissoluble companionship] very carefully since one's reputation in the eyes of others may well depend on perceived associations. The reasoning behind this, according to Federico, is that "ché da natura par che ogni cosa volentieri si congiunga col sua simile" [everything naturally and readily joins with its like].5 From this unchallenged assertion, a short debate opens on the state of friendship. Some speak in support of friendship while others question its value in the current cultural climate. Pietro Bembo, another character in the book, takes a sullen view on the subject. He not only declares that "oggidí pochissimi veri amici si trovano" [nowadays true friends are very few], but insists that friends who live for years "in cordialissimo amore" [the most cordial love] will mislead on one another "o per malignità, o per invidia, o per leggerezza, o per qualche altra mala causa" [either out of malice, or out of envy, or out of inconstancy, or some other evil motive].6 His dismal outlook, he says, arises from personal experiences with bitter deception from those men he loved. As a result, he wonders whether it would be "ben non fidarsi mai di persona del mondo, né darsi cosí in preda ad amico" [well not to trust anyone 5

Baldasar Castiglione, Il Libro del Cortegiano (Milan: Garzanti, 1981), p. 129, the translation is by Charles Singleton (1959) from The Book of the Courtier – Norton Critical Edition, ed., Daniel Javitch (New York: Norton, 2002). 6 Castiglione, p. 130.

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in this world, nor give ourselves over to any friend].7 Anticipating theories of psychology, he further imagines that "negli animi nostri sono tante latebre e tanti recessi" [there are so many dim turnings in our minds and so many recesses] that it is difficult if not impossible to truly know another.8 Through Bembo's warnings, Castiglione raises questions about love and friendship that surely resonated darkly in the culture of his time and continue to do so down the centuries. The author, however, has Federico respond to Bembo's gloomy assessment in more positive terms. He says "Veramente, molto maggior saria la perdita che 'l gaudagno, se del consorzio umano si levasse quel supremo grado d'amicizia che, secondo me, ci dà quanto di bene ha in sé la vita nostra" [Truly, the loss would be far greater than the gain if human intercourse were to be deprived of that supreme degree of friendship which, in my opinion, yields all the good that life holds for us].9 Furthermore, Federico goes on to say that if some men profane the "santo nome d'amicizia" [sacred name of friendship], we should not dispense with this "felicità" because wicked men have committed abuses, for "l'amicizia de' mali non è amicizia" [the friendship of the wicked is not friendship].10 In his answer, the modern world may also recognize an oft-repeated pattern in our accustomed reaction to evil in many regards, i.e., not to surrender all that is worthwhile when faced with depravity. Castiglione ends the discussion by having Federico wish "'l nostro cortegiano avesse un precipuo e cordial amico" [our Courtier to have one special and cordial friend] 7

Ibid, 130. Ibid. 9 Ibid, 131. 10 Ibid. 8

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while respecting others according to their merits.11 Through this, Castiglione confirms the joys and blessings of friendship while recognizing serious dangers. Yet, the final counsel to choose one friend with care seems to arise as much from a sense of protecting oneself from exploitation as from finding that special affinity with another. Through printing and translations, Castiglione's work stretched across the principalities of Europe. Il Libro del Cortegiano carried a message that several contemporaries found interesting and undoubtedly useful, for courtiers enjoyed more opportunities than ever before as well as many potential dangers to avoid. For better or worse, the court had become a necessary arena for the operation of political power. Those who could navigate its corridors and confidences could accumulate great influence over the affairs of state, commerce, justice, education, the arts, etc., not to mention immense wealth. It was just as easy to lose it all and one's freedom or even one's life.12 In this fluctuating mix at court, the unofficial position of a sovereign's favorite could be fleeting but also incredibly rewarding⎯enough to attract many and not always those of noble intent.

11

Ibid, p. 132. Sydney Anglo describes a huge increase in dueling between courtiers at this time, amounting to a transformation of chivalric life, "How to kill a man at your ease: fencing books and the dueling ethic" in Chivalry in the Renaissance (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1990).

12

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The Problem of Royal Favorites

The term favorite in the early modern world, after all, suggests a tension, an uneasiness in the established order. David Bergeron reminds us that an historical meaning of the word, according to the OED, is "One who stands unduly high in the favour of a prince, etc."13 The negative connotation built into this word and the political/social structure it represents helps us understand the problematic ethics of friendship in the Renaissance. By contrast, medieval romances and epics often include a knightly companion or friend for the chivalric hero, but not a favorite. In The Song of Roland, for example, Oliver has great stature in his own right as a skilled knight among the Franks, separate from his special connection with Roland and arguably integral to the forging of their bond. The same goes for Galehaut or Bors with Lancelot in the Arthurian tales. Likeness and parity constitute key elements of an ideal chivalric friendship with love growing naturally for each other as a result if the two men have sufficient virtue⎯this is the underlying theme that animates so many knightly tales of the Middle Ages or later literary efforts following the medieval model. The notion of a favorite constitutes something else entirely, for inequity and excess define such associations. In addition, the presence of a favorite could imply disfavor or at least indifference to others of higher rank within the orbit of an authority figure, e.g., a king, queen, duke, or other official. Resentment, discord, and abuse easily arise within literature or real life under such circumstances. 13

As referenced in Bergeron's book King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire (Iowa City, 1999).

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Bitterness of this stripe is exactly the issue painted so deftly in the poetic language of Edward II, as discussed in the previous chapter. The theme portrayed by Marlowe on the stage proved enduring, for the monarchy in seventeenth-century England provided ample grist for speculation about abuses in this arena. If the courts of Henry VIII and his long-reigning daughter, Elizabeth, produced occasional concerns over favorites, the households and appointees of subsequent royal courts supplied regular and mounting anxieties. The profusion of royal preferment, for example, bestowed upon the court favorites of James VI and I is both startling and revealing. While he was King of Scotland (James VI) and still a teen-ager, James apparently became emotionally attached to his older cousin from France, i.e., Esme Stuart d'Aubigny, and made him a member of his Privy Council and the first Duke of Lennox in 1581.14 James followed this pattern of having other male favorites in the years that followed yet also married Anne of Denmark and fathered several children. Much later, and after James had ascended the throne of England (James I), however, the king became unusually interested in or perhaps infatuated with Robert Carr, a handsome young Scottish knight who broke his leg during a riding accident at the Accession Day Tilt in 1607.15 James visited Carr during the man's recovery and started what would eventually grow into an intense friendship with him. Several expensive gifts and royal appointments followed as the pair spent more and more time together, culminating in a powerful position (Earl of Somerset) for Carr. James had a quarrel of some type with his 14 15

Bergeron, 32-3. Ibid, 65.

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"favourite of favourites" in 1615, but he only abandoned him after Carr fell under the net of suspicion surrounding Thomas Overbury's death by poison. A new favorite soon caught the attentions of King James, though. George Villiers, an English gentleman trained as a courtier in France and renowned for his good looks, achieved a dukedom (Buckingham) and several army commands as a result of his relationship with King James I.16 As with d'Augibny, rumors and historical speculation have theorized that both Carr and Villiers were male lovers of King James, and it may well be so, but all three were certainly beloved friends to James and definitive royal favorites.17 Jealousy over the favored positions of these men led some figures at court to criticize the king's preferred associates with suggestions of inordinate or unseemly behavior, e.g., excessive touching. A few scholars have argued that these reproofs were actually a safer mode to criticize the king himself.18 Whatever the case, the opinion of royal favorites in England decreased in popularity as people heard rumors and likely fretted about the possibility of overindulgence or deception leading to governmental mismanagement and in the case of George Villiers, apparent military incompetence.19

16

Steven G. Ellis, The Making of the British Isles (Harlow, UK, and New York: Pearson, 2007) p. 302. 17 In her biography, King James (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), Pauline Croft argues that the relationship with Carr went further than with d'Augibny or earlier favorites and that the king and Carr had a physical relationship as well as an emotional one. 18 See Curtis Perry, Literature and Favoritism in Early Modern England (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006). 19 In the analysis of Lawrence Stone, by the 1630s, courtiers were so unpopular as scapegoats that they were "regarded as the embodiments of evil." See The Causes of the English Revolution, 1529-1642 (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) p. 134.

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Following James I's reign (and sometimes during it), theatrical plays in England that dealt with the convention of royal favorites were popular fare. William D'Avenant (1606-1668), though little-known today, was one of the leading playwrights during the early and mid-seventeenth century, and many of his works explored the interrelated subjects of friendship, favorites, and flattery. D'Avenant wrote more than twenty original dramas in the poetic tradition of the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, and his works were highly favored at the English court. He went into exile with Henrietta Maria, the unpopular Catholic queen of Charles I, when political circumstances prompted her departure to France, and his plays foundered along with the royalist fortunes in England. Still, he endured the Interregnum to return to the theatre during the Restoration.20 His tragedy, The Cruel Brother (1630), demonstrates some of the attitudes toward rulers and their favored courtiers in the Caroline era. Set at the ducal court of Siena but seemingly commenting on the royal court of England, D'Avenant crafts a violent story of intrigue surrounding a handsome court favorite named Lucio. From a monk visiting the Duke's household we hear a description of the young man: "O Son, your fame is of complexion clear / Such as ensnares the virtuous eye, to love / And adoration."21 Talk of ensnaring even the virtuous suggests caution and concern in managing young courtiers.

20

See Martin Butler, Theatre and Crisis 1632-1642 (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984) for more on D'Avenant's work. 21 William D'Avenant, The Cruel Brother in The Dramatic Works of Sir William D'Avenant, Vol. I (Edinburgh and London: Paterson/Sotheran & Co., 1872) p. 126.

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The Duke in the play seems to understand the prospective dangers, but cannot help himself. Like James with Carr or Villiers, the Duke treasures Lucio jealously, calling him "My glorious boy" and complaining when others intrude upon their time together. He appears happy only in the presence of his favored friend. From his speeches, though, a sad awareness emerges of his own situation: O then if I must give my heart To the command of one, send him sweet Heaven! A modest appetite, teach him to know The stomach sooner surfeits with too much, Than starves for lack of that supply 22 D'Avenant presents Lucio as a virtuous character in the play, but the implication of greed or ambition in favorites would be clear. Later in the play, the decidedly less noble Castruchio and Lorenzo seek to displace Lucio with flattery and succeed when the young man marries without consulting the Duke. Horrible acts of rape, murder, and revenge follow to accentuate the dangers of unrestrained affection for good favorites or too much trust in bad ones.

Lesser-Known Books on Friendship

Interest in the topic of friendship and favoritism went beyond the theatre and the established literary canon. Several writers of little renown in the modern age (or perhaps their own) nevertheless advanced theories and dispensed advice about male 22

William D'Avenant, The Cruel Brother, p. 130.

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friendship and distortions, especially flattery and deception. Despite these worries over corruption in practice, the larger idea of noble friendship still fascinated early modern culture, albeit with increasing caveats to prevent abuse. Many wrote about the boons of finding a true companion in this era, extending the pursuit of principled emotional friendship beyond high offices to quotidian life. Examples of the widening interest and appeal of this subject may be found in the short books of essays and/or treatises that appeared in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The subtitle for The Mirrour of Friendship (1584) by Thomas Breme, a gentleman, states its purpose: both hovv to knovve a perfect friend, and how to choose him. Finding a true friend and the method of doing so apparently commanded attention in the way self-help guides do today. The language of the book, as translated by Breme from the Italian, suggests many benefits to the one who succeeds in his search: for in this world is not founde so great a treasure that may be compared to a true and perfect friend, considering that to a true and assured friend, a man may discover the secrets of his hearte, and recounte to him all his griefes, trust him with things touching honore 23 Among these profound rewards⎯suggested especially in the last line⎯lies the old association of friendship with nobility and status from the medieval tradition.

23

This text is from an edition in the rare books collection at the Folger Library (STC 17979) The mirrour of friendship, translated by Thomas Breme, gentleman, from Italian (London, 1584). The Italian author is not mentioned.

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Similar books in the period also applaud the value of friendship but add blunt warnings as to the dangers involved. Walter Dorke's treatise, The Tipe or Figure of Friendship (1589), provides twenty precepts for readers to follow.24 The first of these states somewhat starkly "that Friendship is to be esteemed more than all worldly things." The second and third tenets in Dorke's list repeat the old ideas of Cicero that influenced medieval culture so heavily: "Friendship is onely among good men, and cannot be where vertue is not," and "A faithfull friend is as a mans owne selfe."25 After this, however, the cautions start to come: Friendship must not be desired for profit or gaine Couetousnes is a great plague to Friendship Flatterie is an bitter enemie to Friendship A man must neither grant to his Friend, nor request anie thing of him that is unlawfull or unhonest − If our friends conspire against the common wealth, we ought to forsake them and also reveale them 26 − − − −

The risks and impediments to friendship start to pile up by the end of the list, enough to tell us, as historians, that serious issues existed surrounding the cherished institution of friendship. If certain objectionable practices (in his estimation) were not occurring, the author would hardly have bothered to catalog them in a book. Walter Dorke even makes a point of differentiating the particular snares of lesser friendships to which members of various social groups in the world around him might be susceptible. Merchants, he writes, are inclined to those associations that are

24

Walter Dorke, The Tipe or Figure of Friendship (London, 1589), Folger Library STC 7060. See chapter two of the present study for more on Cicero's foundational work De Amicitia and its influence on the medieval world of Western Europe. 26 Walter Dorke, p.4. 25

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"profitable," and courtiers to those interactions that are "pleasant." Rejecting base influences of money and sex in directing human interactions, the author stresses the ethical but not religious value of a "true, perfect, and unfeyned friendship which is neither for pleasure partely nor for profit chiefely, but for vertues sake only."27 This idea of avoiding pretense, of finding "unfeyned" love in a friend becomes a significant concern in the culture, showing up often in letters where "unfeigned love and service" or the like are promised."28 Fear of deceit⎯probably a legitimate concern⎯looms large against this literary focus on truthful friendship. Charles Goldwell, an educated "Master of Artes," undertakes a very personal accounting of the authentic attributes of friendship he seeks in a short work entitled My Friend (1621).29 The opening invocation to the reader sets up the theme, when he writes it is "more laudable to be a Damon than a Damocles, a firme friend, than a fawning flatterer."30 To that end, the author states that "Equals are best in every kind / To beare two bodies of one mind." While he muses that friendships without equality might work and that "It may bee good to have such a Favourite" as others do, he has doubts because "someone as such" may be a "Camelion."31 Echoing the introductory statement to the reader, he expresses concern over the potential for deception. His fear reminds us that scholars in the time, not just historians looking at

27

Ibid, p.2. Letter by Lord Crumwell to Lord Burghhley in Lansdowne 82, #17 (1596) as one example. 29 Charles Goldwell, My Friend, (London: B.A. John Pyper, 1621) STC 11988, Folger Library. 30 Goldwell, p.2. 31 Ibid, p. 9. 28

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it from a distance, were aware of individuals who might deliberately manipulate their character to gain an advantage. Goldwell does, however, long for a deep connection in a "true Friend," one to whom the author can show an extraordinary, perhaps even a possessive love. Goldwell says he prefers his companion to be "Single that he may bee vacant for me above all others; his affections free to himselfe ... that I might be to him, a wife, a friend, an ally, a selfe." In this, we see how a fluid sense of identity had the potential for a positive, all-embracing degree of friendship, one in which the loved one could fulfill on all roles in a perfect concordance of personalities. Alternatively, it is possible to interpret these criteria as indicative of homoerotic desire on Goldwell's part, and some no doubt would surely do so. The overall theme of My friend tends toward the warmth of intellectual love rather than the fire of the passionate kind. Perhaps it should remind us, however, that notions of friendship and desire may have had similarities in the cultural milieu of the Renaissance (and the Middle Ages), whether metaphorical or not, and that Goldwell may have crafted his writing deliberately to emphasize the intensity of friendship. Actually suggesting male-male sexual desire in so otherwise conventional a work as My Friend seems improbable given the presiding association in the period of sexual acts between men, i.e., sodomy, being an unfortunate condition resulting from political subversion and/or moral depravity.32 A number of men were probably

32

See Kenneth Borris, ed., Same-Sex Desire in the English Renaissance (2004) and also the still useful analysis by Alan Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (1982).

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engaging discreetly (or secretly) in sexual activity with other men in England during these times, but few were celebrating it in literature. Still, new forces were at work regarding perceptions of male homoerotic love and sexuality in the culture. More and more of the ancient Greek corpus of literature became available to the people of Western Europe during this time through translations, some of which clearly celebrate male-male love in mental and physical terms. In Plato's Symposium, for example, descriptions of passionate embraces between men are included in a piece where the characters use philosophical reasoning to conclude that male-male love is of a higher quality than male-female love. Similarly in Plato's Lysis, Socrates discusses the experience of male friendship as an ethical state in which physical desire between men plays a natural part. At the command of early modern magnates, writers such as Marsilio Ficino translated Greek texts into accessible Latin and added commentary in works such as De Amore (1469) in which he shares⎯to say the least⎯with the ancients a broad praise of male beauty and intelligence. Furthermore, even a casual survey of the artwork and especially the statuary that appeared in Florence and other Italian cities during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would almost surely conclude that a certain fascination with ideal, often nude, male forms was in vogue.33 The many visitors to Italy from across Europe as

33

Michelangelo's David (1504) is perhaps the most famous example of the Italian Renaissance glorification of nude male beauty (homoeroticism?) in sculpture, but Donatello's influential nude David (1446) and massive statuary such as Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus (1534), Cellini's Perseus and Medusa (1554), and Ammanati's Fountain of Neptune (1575) all strongly suggest a promotion of the sensual male body as popular subject in art.

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well as the British Isles would have carried their experiences with such exalted images home with them.34 Likewise, readers of the Greek translations that valued homoerotic love would likewise convey their contact with the concept (positive or negative) to the larger culture. 35 It is impossible to tell if any of this new aesthetic on male-male love filtered down to Charles Goldwell, or if it did, what his response would have been. Most would agree that his work, My Friend, does include enough classical allusions, however, to qualify him as a humanist. The "Epistle/Dedicatorie" alone refers to perhaps the most famous Greek thinker in its personal message of affection: I kindly recommend it to your selfe, which shall ever tell you, in my absence, that I love you which (I am sure by Socrates faith) is the propertie of a true Friend.36 The master "T.A." to whom Goldwell dedicates My Friend is unknown to us, though presumably was well-known to the author. Speculation on the exact nature of their relationship with so little information would have little value, except to say that an emotional component seems clear and that the comment on "in my absence" may imply a separation, though the details remain unclear. While inscribing it to this

34

The idea and practice of a tour to Italy started long before the eighteenth century. For more on this, see Edward Chaney, The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998). 35 Some historians have found evidence and argue for the emergence of a type of homosexual identity in the early modern period. See Bray Homosexuality in Renaissance England (London: Gay Men's Press, 1982) and Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 36 Goldwell, p.1.

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undisclosed master, Goldwell uses the subjunctive form throughout the treatise to propose an ideal, not necessarily a reality or an actual male friend in his life. Still, Goldwell does make it personal in My Friend; he writes in the first person, and he aims to educate neither distant princes nor kings indirectly with this work. He explicitly advises against choosing a friend with "greatnesse" since that quality is commonly attended by "ambition." Similarly, he says he would prefer a fellow of modest means since "riches will transport him farre from reason."37 Rather, Goldwell employs a celestial analogy to describe how his ideal friendship would operate: I would haue him to me as I would bee to him: when occa∫ion shall make me the Orbe, then him to be the Planet, and on the conrrary: that we might follow one anothers motion: and helpe finish each others course, more then our owne.38 An ethical yet poignant charm still lies within this lovingly rendered image to show us, centuries later, how seriously and tenderly some early moderns outside the circles of royal power in England regarded friendship in their lives. At points, the feelings expressed in these short works by Breme, Dorke, and Goldwell recall the deep emotional bonds of knightly companions in medieval literature even as they reflect ideas of a new era.

37 38

Ibid, pp. 7-8, 10. Ibid, p. 4.

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Montaigne and the Personal Zenith of Friendship

Each of the above three writers as well as D'Avenant and others in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, including Shakespeare and Marlowe, may (or may not) have been influenced to varying degrees by Michel de Montaigne (15331592), a literary giant of the period as well as a statesman and aristocrat.39 He first published the Essais in 1580 as a wide-ranging work on many subjects that interested him, including friendship. Subsequent printed editions⎯with additions and updates⎯appeared in 1582, 1588, and 1595.40 The first known English translation of Montaigne's Essais was in 1603 by John Florio. Montaigne's work is discussed at length in this chapter as opposed to the previous one not only because it is unclear when⎯or to what extent⎯Montaigne's essays reached the playwrights in England but also because Montaigne pushes the understanding of intense male friendship to new heights of ethics as a culminating point in completing the transmission of knowledge from the ancient world to the early modern. In his essay, De l'amitié [On Friendship], Montaigne writes in philosophical terms about the idea of a perfect friend, but he simultaneously describes his direct 39

Most in academia agree that Shakespeare borrowed from Montaigne's essay "Des cannibales" ["On the Cannibals"] for a speech in his later play The Tempest (usually dated ca. 1612), but beyond that instance, claims of a wider direct influence on Shakespeare and his dramatic works by Montaigne have failed to convince a majority of scholars. Both writers (and their other contemporaries) had access to philosophical works by the ancients that discuss many of the subjects Shakespeare and Montaigne address. For more on this, see Alice Harmon's "How Great Was Shakespeare's Debt to Montaigne?" in PMLA Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1942), pp. 988-1088. 40 Stanley Appelbaum, Introduction "The Essays" in Selected Essays / Essais Choisis (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2007) p. vii.

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experience of one. Étienne de la Boétie and Michel de Montaigne met in Bordeaux when each was in his twenties, and they commenced a close friendship that ended only when Étienne died five years later in 1563. Montaigne wrote De l'amitié more than ten years after the death of his friend, and a loving grief underpins this essay that explores what aristocratic male friendship means in the sixteenth century from the perspective of a living witness. Adjusting a pattern used by Cicero in his De amicitia and alluding to the ancient Roman author directly at several points, Montaigne starts by declaring how rare the noble friendship he shared with de la Boétie was, "si entière si parfaite que certainement il ne s'en lit guère de pareilles, et, entre nos hommes, il ne s'en voit aucune trace en usage." [so entire and perfect that surely one scarcely reads about similar ones and, among men of our day, not a trace can be seen in practice].41 As with Cicero and the whole literary tradition of true friendship marking noble status through the Middle Ages, Montaigne describes the connection as highly unusual, remarkable in that such a friendship might appear only once in "trois siècles" [three centuries]. Cicero claims a similar infrequency in his De amicitia, but he writes of an ethical friendship only heard about in the past⎯perhaps as a critique of the troubled first century (BC) in which he was living.42 Montaigne, by contrast and with some conceit, situates perfect friendship within his lifetime, indeed within his life. Of course, a sardonic observer might note that if Michel's and Étienne's was the pure

41

Michel de Montaigne, De l'amitié, in Essais choisis / Selected Essays, ed. Stanley Applebaum (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2007), p. 98. 42 See chapter two of the present study for more on this concept in Cicero's work.

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instance in the 1550s/1560s then no similar flare of friendship could be expected until the nineteenth century. Hyperbole would seem the best defense against this type of gloomy, exacting interpretation of a contemplative work clearly attempting to promote a higher ideal of friendship. Still, it cannot be denied that much of Montaigne's essay describes what true friendship is not. Several factors in human relations fail to meet the Frenchman's criteria. First, any association founded upon the desire for something other than friendship itself must be relegated to the sidelines. If "la volupté" [sensuality], "le profit" [gain], or "besoin" [necessity] enters into consideration, then the friendship dwindles in virtue. These standards are customary and match the principles of many ancient writers on the subject of ideal friendship, if not always the reality of historical figures. Montaigne goes beyond this level of refinement to also exclude familial affection, for example, whether of a paternal or fraternal nature. He does not deny the value of family relationships, and he speaks fondly of his own father, but he reasonably points out that parents cannot discuss all topics openly with their children and that brothers often have divergent characters from one another.43 Obligation drives these relationships, thus depriving them of the freedom and totally open communication that the author values so highly. Women fare rather poorly overall in Montaigne's view of friendship. Mothers and sisters do not rate a mention in his section on⎯and dismissal of⎯family love in regards to his subject. As for the possibility of true friendship between a man and a

43

Montaigne, p. 100.

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woman, Montaigne thinks it unlikely if not impossible. (He never considers a friendship between two women). Montaigne does recognize the passion of erotic male-female love in his essay, but he differentiates such "désir forcené" [mad desire] as a fleeting and/or fitful fire that unlike friendship holds only "un coin" [a corner] of a person.44 In marriage, the conventional institution of male-female interaction, Montaigne says the compulsory aspect along with a "mille fusées étrangères" [thousand outside entanglements] prevents the development of "une vive affection" [a lively affection] between husband and wife.45 Furthermore, and especially disturbing to a twenty-first-century perspective, Montaigne supposes that females lack the required firmness of mind "soutenir l'étreinte d'un nœud si pressé et si durable" [to sustain the pressure of a knot so tight and lasting] for true friendship, and that "par le commun consentement des écoles ancienne en est rejeté" [the general consensus of ancient philosophers bars them from it].46 As we have seen, female characters in at least some medieval romances and early modern plays do enter into the world of noble friendship, so either Montaigne discounts such imaginative portrayals or remains unaware of them.47 His views do, however, generally align with or perhaps help to shape the assumption in other treatises of the period (by male authors) that the benefits of l'amitié belong only to men. Moreover, Montaigne seems unconcerned⎯as Goldwell is in My Friend⎯that a relationship with a woman might

44

Ibid, p. 102. Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 See chapters three and five of the present study. 45

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interfere with or distract one man from committing totally to a true friendship with another. Montaigne appears equally untroubled by the possibility of homoerotic love impinging on the status of male friendship, but he nevertheless raises some concerns indirectly over this issue in his essay. Referring to the "tout les insolents et passionnés efforts" [all the insolent and passionate acts] of male-male love as that "license grecque" [Greek license], Montaigne says it is "justement abhorée par nos mœurs" [rightly abhorred by our customs].48 Then, however, the author explains his understanding of the ancient approach to this type of love and can hardly help including a small measure of admiration within his general rejection of it. Using a classical/medieval concept of mesure, whether consciously or not, Montaigne views homoerotic love as out of balance. He charges that the "ardeur immodérée" [immoderate ardor] in the Greek tradition arises in response to the outward physical beauty of a youth, a "fausse image," rather than the true inner beauty of a mature mind. The focus on sensuality and physicality makes it unworthy of higher friendship. So far, so good. Next, Montaigne discusses how an ignoble man who was seized by "cette fureur" [that furor] might go about pursuing the object of his love. He says such a man would offer money, gifts, "faveur à l'avancement des dignités" [promotion in public office], and other "basse marchandise." Essentially, Montaigne describes a brand of desire-based male favoritism as applicable to his own time as to antiquity, hence the indirect concern. He leaves the discussion in the frame

48

Montaigne, p. 104.

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of a critique of past practices by the Greeks, but it seems unlikely that Montaigne, the master rhetorician, would be unaware of the potential correspondence. After considering what an unprincipled man would barter for the attentions of a male favorite, Montaigne moves to examine what a man of nobler heart might supply in this system. The worthy "entremises" [incentives] could include "enseignements" [lessons] in philosophy, religion, and law but also in "mourir pour le bien de son pays" [dying for the good of one's country] and examples of "vaillance" [valor].49 In the latter two ideas, a sense of chivalric honor may be detected. Montaigne continues by elucidating the ancient ethical argument for male-male love whereby "l'aimé" [the beloved] becomes virtuous and appreciative of mental beauty by learning nobility from "l'amant" [the lover].50 The larger community ultimately benefits in the ancient model since the men so involved would both contribute to "de l'équité et de la liberté" [the equity and the liberty] of society just as the heroic pair, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, did.51 Montaigne writes that only violent tyrants and cowardly people opposed the idea, and that the majority of ancient Greeks thought the loving arrangement of such noble male couples "sacrée et divine" [sacred and divine]. Although Montaigne notes the separation in time and cultural mores in regards to what he calls the license grecque, by the end of his explanation of it in De l'amitié, the initial condemnation seems distant and lacking. Words expressing abhorrence no longer appear. After describing the potentially positive outcomes of 49

Ibid. Ibid. 51 According to legend, Harmodius and Aristogeiton were supposedly lovers who struck together down a tyrant and thereby helped Athens on its path to democracy. 50

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male homoerotic love in the philosophical perspective of the early Greeks, he cannot seem to muster up a full denunciation. General admiration or affinity for the ancients may partially account for the mitigated stance, but it is Montaigne's astute method of connecting much older ideas with his sixteenth-century vision of friendship that offers a solution. He writes "Enfin tout ce qu'on peut donner à la faveur de l'Academie, c'est dire que c'était un amour se terminant en amitié" [Finally, all that can be said in favor of the Academy is that it was a love ending in friendship], and he quotes Cicero to close his case: " 'Amorem conatum esse amicitiæ faciendæ ex pulchritundinis specie' " ['Love is an attempt to create friendship on the basis of beauty'].52 One almost forgets that Montaigne is still talking about male-male desire. With rhetorical dexterity, he manages to criticize marginally and then praise with more gravity, connecting his affirmative view of male friendship with the ethics of bygone wisdom. Even Montaigne's rejection of distasteful or objectionable love between men is muted by his emphasis on mental beauty and the moral power of male friendship as the ultimate end to such relationships. Only when the underlying character of a male lover (or beloved) is flawed does trouble arise. If virtue presides, Montaigne suggests that such feelings of love between men of honor will⎯or at least may⎯transform into a noble friendship, with all of its attendant benefits. The perfect amity of Étienne de la Boétie and Michel de Montaigne did not spring from any inceptive physical desire, though, according to Montaigne. In De l'amitié, he writes that reports of their respective ideas and abilities drew them

52

Ibid, 106.

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together mentally as each heard about the other, stating "nous nous embrassions par nos noms" [we embraced each other with our names]. He refers to the exhibited mental prowess of literary works and thoughts on philosophy or religion, but the language⎯whether intended or not⎯bears a striking similarity both to descriptions of learned ecclesiastics in the Middle Ages writing letters to counterparts of like disposition as well as knights in medieval romances seeking one another in friendship based on reports of battle prowess and valor. Examples of the latter occur regularly in chivalric tales of Lancelot and Gawain and to some extent occurred in reality if we can rely on sources such as the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal. In that thirteenthcentury biographical work, many knights and lords wish to find, befriend, and/or employ William after hearing of his fighting ability.53 The notion of reputation leading naturally to worthy friendship among members of the male nobility endured through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and perhaps further. In addition to renown, Montaigne attributes other more transcendent factors to the origin of his mental attraction to de la Boétie and their resulting friendship. A force "inexplicable et fatale" [unexplainable and fateful] lies behind the union of their lives in Montaigne's opinion. Interestingly, he does not identify the Christian God or any deity as the motivating agency; he only says "par quelque ordonnance du ciel" [by some decree of heaven].54 The imaginative door on this point is left open in the essay. Such ambiguity may reflect the general secular turn in life alluded to in chapter five, or it may, of course, simply mean that the author is unsure. It could, 53 54

Histoire, Vol. I, 4329, p.221, for example. Montaigne, p. 106.

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however, also be a deliberate humanistic attempt to replicate the manner of the ancient philosophers who often refer to an unknowable One at the center of the universe, similar to Plato's unnamed "prime mover" in the Timaeus. Whatever the reason, Montaigne creates a sense of mystery with such an approach while still impressing an ethical stamp on the forging of the friendship. Montaigne extends the inscrutable pattern as he describes the unusual nature of the connection between himself and de la Boétie. He writes metaphorically of a mental bond "si universel" [so universal] that "la couture" [the seam] separating them is impossible to find. Moreover, in Montaigne's most decisive statement on the friendship, he writes: "Si on me presse de dire pourquoi je l'aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer, qu'en répondant: 'Parce que c'était lui; parce que cétait moi'" [If one presses me to say why I loved him, I feel if can only be expressed by replying: 'Because he was he; because I was I'].55 Why does the author employ such extraordinary terms? Signs would seem to indicate that he truly experienced a profound link with de la Boétie. However, Montaigne also wishes to present this special friendship as an ideal, an ethical zenith of human fulfillment that some may approach but no more than the best may achieve, and those few only with support from an incomprehensible force that aids the worthy. Rarity makes true friendship valuable yet also confirms a sense of privilege for the ruling nobility, the old chivalric class of which Montaigne was a member.

55

Montaigne, 106.

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With the ideas his essay entitled De l'amitié, Montaigne in effect closes the circle on the cultural history of elite male friendship in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His expansive view, broad knowledge, and literary skill allow him to encompass much of the ancient Greek and Roman philosophical opinions on friendship while also including a significant level of the Christian and medieval attitudes (at times indirectly). Plus, he adds a personal, individual element⎯his friendship with Étienne de la Boétie⎯that is an important hallmark of the Renaissance. Of course, some elements are left out and no literary work is perfect, but the result is a remarkably coherent vision and thus particularly consequential to the present study. Montaigne demonstrates how the noble tradition of friendship ideals could all fit together.

Francis Bacon and an Empirical View of Friendship

Even as the cultural pieces interlocked in France for Montaigne, across the channel at roughly the same time, another man of the nobility espoused a very different approach to elite male friendship and one destined to disturb the traditional view of it. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) held several governmental posts in England during his life; he was a Member of Parliament and received the official honor of Knighthood in 1603. Often remembered more for his work supporting the scientific method and empiricism, Bacon also wrote The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall (1625), and one of these essays was a short, highly practical guide to the

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business of friendship. Bacon published various forms of his Essayes from a very early version of ten short essays in 1597 to a large compendium of fifty-eight essays with more structure and many additions in 1625. 56 Not surprisingly given his scientific interests, his essay entitled On Friendship often sounds medical in its discussion of the phenomenon. For example, Bacon writes that "A principall Fruit of Friendship, is the Ease and Discharge of the Fulnesse and Swellings of the Heart."57 In Bacon's view, having a close friend functions much like therapy or a healing curative for the emotions. His main goal in examining friendship, however, is to understand its mechanics for the best possible use in the civil service of sixteenthcentury government. Bacon notes that the highest figures seem to require the balm of friendship the most. He writes "It is a Strange Thing to observe, how high a Rate, Great Kings and Monarchs, do set upon this Fruit of Friendship."58 The reason behind this, he explains, involves the power such potentates possess because they "cannot gather this Fruit" themselves but must raise one up⎯a favorite⎯to fulfill this role. Again, the notion of inequality appears, if indirectly, as a problem for the more autocratic rulers of the Renaissance. While lordly knights with huge resources and followings could present a number of political problems to medieval kings, ideally they also provided an outlet in the form of actual peers, and occasionally a friend of similar rank. 56

The quotations in this chapter are from the 1625 edition, which is generally considered the most complete edition. See "The Evolution of the Essayes" in Kiernan's introduction, p. xxxi - xlvi. 57 Francis Bacon, "Of Friendship" in The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, ed. Michael Kiernan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 81. 58 Bacon, "Of Friendship," p. 81.

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Obtaining such a friendship for a monarch with unrivaled authority may have dangerous consequences, for as Bacon says "they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their owne Safety, and Greatnesse." Following humanistic fashion, the author alludes to examples from the ancient Roman past, e.g., Sylla raising Pompey, but the pertinence to English politics in his own day can hardly be missed. After his discussion of how friendship helpfully tempers the "Affections," Bacon moves on to describe how a friend improves the judgment and extends the abilities of men. Good "Counsell" is the important benefit to judgment, and Bacon applies this element as a corrective to both the unreliable advice of a "Flatterer" and even more dangerous flattery of a "Mans Selfe." Here again, the cautionary alarm about deception in the culture can be heard in the background. As a response to such threats, the author declares "The best Preservative to keep the Minde in Health, is the faithfull Admonition of a Frend."59 Lastly, Bacon takes the ancient maxim that "a Frend is another Himselfe" and pushes it farther to say "a Frend is farre more then Himselfe."60 He refers to the idea that friends will help ensure the safekeeping of family or business affairs after one's death. Likewise, he points out with perceptive insight that "A Man can scarce alledge his owne Merits with modesty, much lesse extoll them," whereas such praise sounds "Gracefull in a Frends Mouth."61 In

59

Bacon, p. 85. Ibid, p. 86. 61 Ibid. 60

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addition, a trusted associate can sometimes speak to a man's "Sonne," "Wife," or even "his Enemy" far more productively than the man himself.62 Bacon also wrote a separate shorter essay entitled "Of Followers and Friends" that focuses more specifically on the political concerns of monarchs in the style of Niccolò Machiavelli, whom Bacon admired. This very brief work turns a cold, detached, but nevertheless piercing eye on the necessary building and maintenance of supporters. For example, he opens by saying "Costly Followers are not to be liked; Lest while a Man maketh his Traine Longer, hee make his Wings Shorter."63 He also advises to avoid "Factious Followers" since they are more concerned with hurting another than with "Affection" for the current leader. "Glorious Followers" can prove problematic as well since they may "Export Honoour from a Man, and make him a Returne in Envie."64 Perhaps the most troubling piece of advice in the essay directs a prince to recognize that a following composed of those with virtue is the most honorable but not the most effective: "And besides, to speake Truth, in Base Times, Active Men are of more use, then Vertuous."65 The articulation of such an attitude reflects an awareness of dangers in the era while simultaneously contributing to those dangers by effectively abandoning virtue, the essential bond of chivalric ethics in the medieval world.

62

Ibid, p. 87. Bacon, "Of Followers and Friends," in The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, ed. Michael Kiernan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) p. 147. 64 Ibid, p. 148. 65 Ibid, p. 149. 63

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All of the advice in Bacon's essays about friendship has a very pragmatic bent to it. He recognizes the benefits of friendship as a means to several ends but not as an end in and of itself and that is where is parts company with the cultural tradition of friendship. Similarly, Bacon dispenses wisdom regarding the phenomenon but includes little warmth and still less love. The lack of feeling in his approach to friendship is not very surprising since his short essay entitled "On Love" concentrates on the difficulties it brings rather than the rewards. He calls love "this weake Passion" and states that "in Life, it doth much mischiefe."66 His outlook differs so distinctly from Montaigne's or Goldwell's that they hardly seem to be writing about the same thing. In a sense, they are not. The sharply contrasting views reflect not only a divergence of interests but a deeper divide of beliefs. In the medieval period when deep friendship between two knights served as a marker of honor and nobility, proven battle prowess along with landed wealth had provided an (imperfect) entrance exam of sorts to the ruling class. Ability in this aspect was difficult to falsify, and fighting together against an armed enemy tended to forge strong emotional bonds. Rulers in the Renaissance still desired those ties, however, and the ethical tradition built around chivalric concepts of honor demanded it. As the setting shifted primarily to the court in the early modern era, manners, beauty, and the capacity to entertain a monarch became the important factors. Nobles with little real power of their own became courtiers to a monarch, as in Castiglione's work, and it was more difficult for either to be sure of where one stood in the 66

Bacon, "Of Love" in The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, ed. Michael Kiernan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) p. 31-2.

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emotional regard of the other. The rise of theatre as a popular art form under such conditions was probably no accident. Scholars have noted the "theatricality" of society in the sixteenth century as people consciously adopted roles in their lives just as actors did on stage.67 While liberating and useful as the mental detachment apparent in Bacon's work shows, assuming a flexible character could also lead to anxiety and uncertainty over one's identity. This is not to say chaos ensued. Society still functioned; indeed many great advancements arguably occurred. Emotional male friendship retained its connection to ethics and nobility in this era as can be seen so clearly in the synthesis of Montaigne, but if some considered love to be weak or friendship a tool, then the moral value of these ideas could only suffer.

67

This view coincides with the views of Stephen Greenblatt in Renaissance Self-Fashioning. See also, Brian Walsh, Shakespeare, The Queen's Men, and the Elizabethan Performance of History (Cambridge, 2009).

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Chapter 7 Legacies of Friendship

– and there's your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle and away you go, to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one. – Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Nineteenth Century

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Christian notions of fellowship and brotherhood mixed with Roman ideals of affinity among the elite and the strong "barbarian" traditions of comitatus loyalty to encourage the approbation of male friendship among the chivalric ruling class. Mutual cooperation in this social stratum underpinned the culture as a necessary component of a society with no central authority; secular friendship among the knightly class became the ideal for this coordination. As medieval culture blossomed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, notions of fin'amor developed by the troubadours influenced themes of emotional love between worthy male nobles and emerged as a ethical celebration of chivalry in

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epic poems and romances. The best knights in these literary works have a recognized chivalric companion, the elite friend who signifies high honor. Feelings and actions resulting from them define the companion relationships and also establish the rough ethics of the age; love-inspired loyalty constitutes the highest attribute. Chivalric companions cared for each other, fought for each other, and grieved for each other. Bellatore nobles sometimes followed the examples of the literature or perhaps provided the illustrations. Even as power structures of the culture shifted with the increasing authority of monarchs and the rising leverage of merchants, lawyers, and other professionals in the early modern age, ideas of elite friendship and emotional ethics adhered to cultural thinking and transferred to new literary forms such as the popular drama of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. While complications appeared in the criticism of royal favorites (favored friends of the king), the potential for flattery leading to deception, and an increasingly empirical view of the custom, friendship retained its value in the work of notable humanists as a worthy pursuit of the virtuous. The portrayal of male-male friendships among the elite in the imaginative literature of these periods could be very intense, often highly emotional and at times sensual. Some critics have suggested this quality suggests a competition or disruption to conventional male-female love and/or marriage structures in society. I believe this view amounts to a misguided interpretation. As analysis in the present study argues, a number of the romances and plays in which male friendship figures highly also include a lady love or a wife, often creating a consciously positive triad. In short, the

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ethics of chivalric literature suggest that marriage could accommodate honorable friendship, or perhaps, that honorable friendship could accommodate marriage. Either way, the two institutions were compatible. As for the intensity of the male friendships and the language of desire sometimes used to describe them, rather than dismissing it as unimportant as some scholars do, I think the sensuality of it generally represents a method employed by medieval or early modern writers to distinguish the most exceptional friendships from other, more customary bonds between warriors. In addition, not having experienced the effect Michel Foucault describes in A History of Sexuality⎯i.e., that Western bourgeois society since the seventeenth century has talked about sexual activity more extensively as it has repressed it and that the two phenomena are linked⎯earlier writers (and audiences) may have been more comfortable with ambiguity in regards to descriptions of male-male love, e.g., kisses, longing, embraces, etc. In other words, the hint of sensuality or even sexuality between chivalric men may not have been a concern as long as all the other hallmarks of upstanding knighthood (prowess, largesse, loyalty, franchise) were present. On the contrary, a limited degree of passion in a male-male friendship⎯metaphorical or otherwise⎯could be perceived as another distinctive signal of high honor. Attaining or recognizing distinction in honor, after all, underlies the whole ideological system of nobility. In that respect, close friendship may be appreciated as a facet of status in the cultural knightly code⎯only the best had sufficient virtue to attract a notable, devoted companion. Chivalry held itself together in this way,

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through bonds of mutual esteem that forged an ethic in and of itself. Virtue, the definition of which could be difficult to pinpoint, served as a condition or quality to delineate a select, privileged group: knights. If you demonstrated enough of it, you could⎯in theory⎯enter the ranks. In practice, nobility was more a collection of wealthy, extended families who governed the rest of society and tried to maintain their position. Special courtesy and friendship shown to those inside the circle was a means of perpetuating the elite culture of chivalry and the many rewards it could offer (respect, land, influence, wealth, exemptions) as well as potential risks connected with combat. In the best of cases⎯usually in literature⎯loving emotion animated these bonds between knights, and the result fascinated medieval/early modern culture as attested to by the popularity of romance. Chivalric or noble friendship, then, depends on recognizing the high status (or honor) of the knights who comprehend chivalry. It was conceived as an essentially undemocratic feature reserved for the old senatorial class in Rome and then adopted along different lines by later warrior aristocracies. Always in the literary works though, some inner virtue revealed nobility of character and mysteriously attracted others of like composition. With the rise of science and empirical outlooks in the seventeenth century, as discussed in the previous chapter, a divergence of views over elite friendship and nobility itself occurred, a fork in the cultural road that continued into the following centuries and extending in many ways to today.

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Noble Friendship in the Modern Era?

The place of friendship in the twentieth and twenty-first century is often viewed as a practical, quantifiable element of everyday human interaction, beneficial certainly, but not particularly ethical in any mysterious or transcendent way. For example, in a recent article by Philip Moeller entitled "Why good friends make you happy," the journalist collects the opinions of several health experts, mostly psychologists, on the subject of friendship.1 These professionals state that the sharing of confidences and interests with close friends leads to beneficial health results through validation and simple attention. The outlook of the article shares the essential thrust of Bacon's early seventeenth-century outlook. It bears little resemblance, however, to the ideas written about friendship and love by Cicero, Bertran de Born, the anonymous authors of medieval romances, Shakespeare, or Montaigne. The popular view of friendship as reported by Moeller lacks something: noble ethics. Did the old sense of moral, emotional love between men of virtue slowly vanish along with so many other elements of the ancien regime in the Enlightenment? It would seem that égalité tends to prohibit noble status. And, yet, the answer depends on how one defines concepts such as nobility or virtue. One may argue as to whether an hereditary aristocracy of wealth and privilege continued into the 1

Philip Moeller, "Why Good Friends Make You Happy," in U.S. News and World Report Money, March 15, 2012. http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/03/15/why-good-friendsmake-you-happy

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nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, and many might say if it did/does then virtue or goodness do not naturally follow (and perhaps rarely did in the reality of the past, despite the ethical framework). Such an assertion about the affluent, however, does not dispense with the possibility of virtue in the modern West; it just makes recognizing it more difficult since no set class has a presumed monopoly. Given its founding in rebellion against a monarchy, much of America certainly remains wary toward anything smacking of elitism in government or society, but if literature does indeed "provide a detailed representation of the inner experience of being alive in a given time and place," then perhaps ideas of virtuous male friendship from the Middle Ages lives on. In the brief excerpt from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at the beginning of this chapter, Twain gently mocks the situations of chivalric romance with Tom's references to digging moats and "trusty vassles" engineering a daring escape to "Langudoc or Navarre." Still, the author cannot help exemplifying a joyful friendship between Huck and Tom by using knightly allusions. Beyond the endearing silliness, the two boys act in accordance with a rough set of ethics to free their older friend, Jim. The whole book, often lauded as the greatest example of American literature, is basically an extended adventure story of friends on a quest, as its full title suggests (though it is far more than that, too). Twain thought of Jim and Huck as "close friends, bosom friends, drawn together by community of misfortune"2 In

2

Mark Twain, notebook 35, 1895, as quoted in Axel Nissen, "'Huckleberry Finn,' Romantic Friendship , and the Homeless Man" in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 60, No. 1 (June 2005) p. 59 (originally from "Mark Twain's Revisions for Public Readings 1895-1896").

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Huckleberry's contemplation of Jim's supposed criminality as a runaway slave and Huck's emotional/moral decision to join him in an escape down the river, we see that the related ethical dimension of male friendship remains. Other respected literary works in the modern era of the West also retain a sense of noble⎯though not necessarily aristocratic⎯friendship. From Melville's books, Moby Dick and Billy Budd, to Somerset Maugham's novel, The Razor's Edge, to Michael Curtiz's movie, Casablanca, to Harold Pinter's plays, The Dumb Waiter and Betrayal, to Tony Kushner's drama, Angels in America, to Kathryn Bigelow's film, The Hurt Locker, male friendship continues to attract artistic attention as a potent theme around which questions of ethics and emotion figure highly. From these examples (to which many more could be added), it would appear that interest in exploring inner virtue connected to close friendship in literature⎯the d'amistat fina that Marcabru wrote of⎯still resonates within Western culture as more than a general health additive. Moreover, arcana amicitiarum [the mysteries of friendship] and associated respect continue to influence history directly in politics and economics. In the summer of 2010, General David Petraeus, then U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, publicly warned of the dangers involved in simply distributing funds to regional warlords in the fractured country and expecting benevolent cooperation from them in return.3 Behind the general's financial concern lies a questioning of American and NATO practices regarding honor and lasting alliance (or friendship) 3

Article by Rachel Martin, "In Afghanistan, Paying for Friends Doesn't Buy Loyalty" NPR Morning Edition, August 30, 2010.

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with Afghan leaders.4 Medieval dukes and Renaissance monarchs knew all too well how the mere purchasing of allegiance could fail. Whether many centuries in the past or fifty years ago or today, attaining the respect of one's peers in battle or politics (or other forums) through some type of emotional connection and sustaining that esteem is an important factor, one too often overlooked as we seek explanations and understanding of humanity in the world. Likewise, immoral or destructive actions in the world that seem difficult to comprehend may be clarified if we figure in a sense of betrayal arising from once solid friendships and loyalties gone awry.

4

In his interesting essay, "The Warrior's Honor," Michael Ignatieff discusses the rudimentary elements of military respect⎯or laws of war⎯that the Red Cross has leveraged (with limited success) among the combatants in zones of chaotic civil war such as the Balkans and Afghanistan during the 1990s. His essay appears in a book by the same name: The Warrior's Honor (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997) pp. 109-163.

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