Chivalry: You're Doing It Wrong (Series, Part 11)

Part 11: That’s All, Folks!

Warning: Spoilers

So, basically, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, chivalry had very ambiguous consequences and was Sir Gawain’s downfall in order to critique the social usefulness of chivalry.  The end.

Chivalry: You're Doing It Wrong (Series, Part 10)

Part 10: Chivalry Now

Warning: Spoilers

The complicated issues of chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight remind me of the Songof Ice and Fire Series by George R. R. Martin (Or, if you’re like me and really only pay attention to the title of the first book in a series, the Gameof Thrones books). 

Like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, A Song of Ice and Fire is a commentary on the complicated and negative aspects of chivalry.  Like Sir Gawain, Ned Stark is very proud of his chivalric values and never deviates from them, but finds that they cause more problems than they solve.  Like Sir Gawain, he is threatened with beheading after refusing to bend in his beliefs, and this causes him to deviate from his values.  Unlike Sir Gawain, however, he actually does get beheaded, proving even more clearly than Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that chivalry can actually be detrimental to your health.

            









Another way in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Game of Thrones (this particular comparison doesn’t go farther than the first book) are similar is that both have a striking dearth of magic considering that they are both Medieval-style romances.  I was expecting dragons in both of these books. 

While both did deliver some (Sir Gawain fights them on his journey, and Daenerys hatches some dragon eggs), the dragons in each were only the focus of attention for a few pages. 

Instead, each plot focused on politics and court intrigue, and how these things can take a turn for the deadly. 

Each has powerful female characters, although The Game of Thrones actually takes the time to name its strong women, while Sir Gawain and the Green Knight just leaves us to call Lord Bertilak’s wife Lady Bertilak for want of a better title.  While the plots of the two books are very different, it is clear that George R. R. Martin drew heavily off of the Medieval romance genre encapsulated in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Chivalry: You're Doing It Wrong (Series, Part 9)

Part 9: Piety and Courage

Warning: Spoilers

That piety is one of the pentangle virtues in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was a bit of a mystery to me because Sir Gawain is a pretty secular dude.  J. J. Anderson even referred to his obsession with chivalry as a kind of “secular religion”.  Beyond the religious imagery presented with the pentangle at the beginning, the only other event that involves Sir Gawain’s religion is when he prayed for a place to stay on Christmas, and was shown the way to Hautdesert.

Yet Sir Gawain’s chivalry is not separate from religion, but fused with it.  More than anything, Sir Gawain relies on his religion to protect him and give him courage.  We are shown this through the parallel between the five wounds of Christ, the five knightly virtues, and the five joys of Mary.  The five joys of Mary, especially, are the source of Sir Gawain’s courage, so much so that he puts a picture of Mary on his shield to give him courage.

If Sir Gawain’s piety is interpreted as synonymous with his courage, then once again it is a virtue in which he falls short.  His main fault was fear of getting beheaded.  This moved him to betray Lord Bertilak by keeping the green girdle, and caused him to flinch the first time the ax came down.  On the other hand, as Gerald Morgan put it “it would be gross to suggest that Gawain lacks courage”.

Despite his fear leading him to keep the green girdle, in all of the other events of the poem Gawain displays immense courage. He protects his king, goes on a long and difficult quest to seek out his own death, and doesn’t flinch from the ax after being reprimanded the first time. 

For this reason, the Green Knight says he lacks only a little. Also, in the final scene, Sir Gawain refuses to run away from his oath.  During this scene, Sir Gawain twice invokes God as the only source of comfort or aid he may receive in the coming struggle. Piety thus both uplifts and fails Sir Gawain in respect to courage.

Chivalry: You're Doing It Wrong (Series, Part 8)

Part 8: Courtesy and Pragmatism

Warning: Spoilers

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, courtesy, though highly praised, is an impediment to Sir Gawain behaving both honorably and pragmatically.  When Lady Bertilak throws herself at him in his bedroom, he has to be courteous, walking a thin line between offending his hostess and dishonoring his host. 

Lady Bertilak realizes this and uses it against him, playing on his reputation and forcing him to play along with her at the risk of losing his reputation.  This makes it very difficult for him to refuse her honorably.  It would have been better for him to have removed himself from the situation, but courtesy forbid him from doing so.  When he is offered the green girdle, at first he politely refuses, but after Lady Bertilak pretends that he has hurt her feelings, he gets second thoughts.  If he had point-blank refused her, he wouldn’t have been tempted.  In this way, courtesy, which should have been the main bolster of Gawain’s knighthood, was one of his failings.

Courtesy means more than just being polite.  It actually encompasses most aspects of chivalry.  In fact, Gerald Morgan wrote that all of the pentangle virtues can be encompassed by courtesy.  Courtesy thus provided a stark contrast between chivalry and pragmatism throughout the entire poem.  In the first beheading scene, King Arthur put thoughts of honor over thoughts of his life, and thus forced Sir Gawain to do the same.  It also goes against common ethical sense that none of King Arthur’s court seems to find anything wrong with beheading someone; indeed, they find it both honorable and entertaining. 

Surely something was amiss with courtesy in the middle ages.  In Hautdesert, Sir Gawain was once again forced to choose between honor and personal safety, and while the Green Knight chides him for choosing his life, it is never really clear why or whether honor should be valued above pragmatism.  Even the Green Knight cannot truly blame Sir Gawain for loving his life too much.  Thus, though courtesy is a valuable trait, when the poem measures it against pragmatism, it is found wanting.