The Grene Knight In Two Parts

This is a late, popular version of the old romance of ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, preserved amongst the Cottonian MSS. (Nero A. X. fol. 91) edited by Sir Frederick Madden for the Bannatyne Club in 1839 and by Richard Morris Esq. for the Early English Text Society in 1864. The old romance, written, according to Mr. Morris, about 1320 ad, by the author of the Early English Alliterative Poems also printed by the E.E. Text Society, is lengthy, is written in alliterative metre, and is as difficult as the old alliterative poems usually are.

To dissipate this besetting obscurity, to relieve this apparent tediousness, the present translation and abridgement was made. The form is changed; the language is modernized. In a word, the old romance was adapted to the taste and understanding of the translator’s time. Moreover, it was made to explain a custom of that time – a custom followed by an Order that was instituted, according to Selden and Camden, some three-quarters of a century (ad 1399) after the time when, according to Mr. Morris, the poem first appeared. It explains why

Knights of the bathe weare the lace

Untill they have wonen their shoen,

Or else a ladye of hye estate

From about his neeke shall it take

For the doughtye deeds hee hath done.

On this point Somerset Herald has kindly furnished us with the following note:

College of Arms, June 8.

It appears to have been the custom of Knights of the Bath, from at least as early as the reign of Henry IV, to wear a lace or shoulder knot of white silk on the left shoulder of their mantles or gowns, (“theis xxxii nw knights preceding immediately before the king in theire gownis, and hoodis, and tookins of white silke upon theire shouldeirs as is accustumid att the Bath:” MS. temp. Edw. IV, fragment published by Hearne at the end of Sprott’s Chronicle, p. 88). This lace was to be worn till it should be taken off by the hand of the prince or of some noble lady, upon the knight’s having performed “some brave and considerable action”, vide Anstis’s History of the Order. What this custom originated in does not appear, and the writer of the poem has only exercised the allowed privilege of his craft, in attributing the derivation to the adventure of Sir Gawaine and ‘”the Lady gay” in this legend of ‘The Green Knight’.

In the Statutes of the Order, 11th of George I 1725, it is commanded that they shall wear on the left shoulder of their mantle “the lace of white silk antiently worn by the said knights,” but there is no mention of its being taken off at any time for any reason.

J.R. Planché.

The recast belongs then to an age which was beginning to study itself, and to enquire into the origin of practices which it found itself observing. It is an infant antiquarian effort. But the poem has lost much of its vigour in the translation. It is in its present shape but a shadow of itself. Moreover, the following copy appears much mutilated. Several half-stanzas have dropped out altogether, probably through the sheer carelessness of the scribe.

The two leading persons of the romance are the well-known Sir Gawain, of King Arthur’s court, and Sir Bredbeddle of the West country – the same knight who appears in King Arthur and the King of Cornwall, vol. i. p. 67. The main interest rests upon Sir Gawain. His “points three” – his boldness, his courtesy, his hardiness – are all proved. He is eager for adventures; he unshrinkingly pursues them to the end; he bears extreme hardships patiently; his courtesy is shown in his nobly resisting the overtures made him by his host’s wife, whom Agostes has brought to his bedside.

The ladye kissed him times three,

Saith, “Without I have the love of thee,

My life standeth in dere.”

Sir Gawaine blushed on the Lady bright,

Saith, “Your husband is a gentle Knight,

By Him that bought mee deare!

To me itt were great shame.

If I shold doe him any grame,

That hath beene kind to mee.”

All these provings are given much more fully in the original romance. But enough is given here to uphold the fame of the chivalrous knight. See the Turk and Gowin.