This idea parallels St. Augustine’s theories of concupiscence. Warner defines concupiscence as ” ‘the tendency to sin,’ a weakening of the will that makes resistance difficult, that is the permanent legacy of the Fall, the part of original sin not remitted in baptism. It is related to desire and the evils of the flesh. St. Augustine felt that it was not the act of intercourse that was sinful but the passion necessary to perform it. It is the bodily passions that are mistrusted in Medieval Catholicism, for they weaken reason and will. This is exactly what happened to Gawain, his passion was aroused by his ‘luf-talk’ with the Lady, weakening his will and opening him up to other sins which are perhaps not as serious as a loss of chastity but are destructive to the workings of the feudal system.
The poet demonstrates that his actions weaken the feudal system by showing that the consequence of his acceptance of the girdle is that he must then conceal it from his host and in the process break his agreement with Bertilak. While he has upheld his bargain with the Lady, and performed with spotless courtesy in the game of courtly love, he has had to break his word and disobey the Lord to do it. Again we see the symbolism of the archetypes at work. Mary, in her role of Mother of God, is a symbol of obedience. Eve, in her role in the Fall, represents disobedience. He has chosen disobedience over obedience. This is where the Gawain poet makes his strongest point; the game of courtly love will ultimately break the male social bonds which hold feudalism together. Only the traditional Christian hierarchies, from which chivalry was born, can provide an adequate support. Christian love and Courtly love are antagonists.
This is reinforced by the final exchange between Gawain and the Green Knight where the poet shows the way he feels feudalism should work–by banishing courtly love and women from the code of chivalry. Sheila Fisher shows how the power the women hold is reappropriated by the men in order to support the male social order. First we see that the outcome of the beheading game, and therefore Gawain’s life, rests on his performance of the ‘exchange of winnings’ agreement, that is to say, on his fidelity to Lord Bertilak. Secondly, after the Green Knight reveals the meaning of the test, he states that the Lady acted at his behest and thereby appropriates the power she seemed to hold. Later in the scene, he reveals that Morgan sent him to Arthur’s castle in the guise of the Green Knight; however, by the time he reveals this, he has already appropriated the plan for his own purposes. It is also possible that the bartering game, which becomes the basis for the judgment, is his own invention since he does not attribute this to Morgan’s agency. This enables him to then turn her plan, which was hatched for destructive purposes, to a noble and elevating test which serves the high moral purpose of teaching Gawain a lesson–hold true to the ideals of the Christian doctrine as a support for the chivalric code.
Gawain, in his confession and absolution, goes through a similar shifting of power and blame. When the Green Knight first reveals Gawain’s failure of “cowardice and covetousness” (2374), Gawain shows deep shame and self abnegation (2369-75). However, after he has been absolved by the Green Knight, he launches into a tirade about women, all biblical temptresses, in which he becomes one in a long line of male victims unwittingly duped by women (2413-28). In this way he displaces the blame and is able to regain his power within the story by returning not as a failure but as a fully reinstated knight of honor.
This tirade against women seems to have another motivation. Hamilton points out that “When Gawain realizes that he cannot achieve perfection through chivalry, his immediate reaction is to dispense with courtesy, that chivalric value of which he is the paragon in this poem” (115). Now he is much more concerned about having been caught in the sins of cowardice and covetousness than whether he is polite.. And not only does he dispense with courtesy but he is finished with women as well. He refuses to return to the castle to make peace with Bertilak’s wife and Morgan, even though Morgan is Arthur’s half-sister. They are effectively banished. All the external threats they represent, and the internal conflict they generated, are eliminated. Power is back in the hands of the appropriate authority, and Gawain’s loyalties are redefined.
This shifting of blame and power is demonstrated through the path the girdle takes as a symbol and who it is associated with (Fisher 89-95). First, it is offered by the lady as a love token made with her own hand. It is a woman’s garment, a symbol of female sexuality. Then, it becomes a token endowed with the magic to protect his life, still a female garment, but worn by a man. When the confession and absolution scene occur, it becomes a possession of the Green Knight. He then redefines it as a token “of the great adventure at the Green chapel” (2399). Gawain takes it up as a symbol of his shame. When it returns to Arthur’s court, all the men of the Round Table decide to wear it, and it becomes a symbol of honor and a standard part of the male outfit.
This is not the end of the message. While Gawain has clearly learned the lesson and wears the girdle now as a symbol of his shame, the other Knight of Arthur’s court have not; they laugh at Gawain’s story and proudly take the girdle as a symbol of honor. Guinevere and Morgan will return, and since the knights have not learned their lesson about the dangers of courtly love, they will be destroyed. This story becomes a message, not for Arthur’s court, but for the Aristocratic readership of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_, for they know what will happen to Arthur’s court as a result of not heeding this message. By the time Gawain was written, the demise of Camelot was a common part of the lore.
I believe that this is suggested by the bookend references to Troy, for I learned in _Alone of All Her Sex_, that the Virgin’s girdle has “direct mythological antecedents in the West” (279). At the judgment of Paris, Aphrodite gives Paris her girdle and promises him his pick of the most beautiful woman. He, in turn, gives her the apple of discord. All of the men of the round table have taken the girdle, and despite its redefinition as a male token, the associations with female sexuality remain. In time, Arthur’s court will face the fate of Troy, destroyed by the discord between men brought about by the desire to possess the most beautiful woman. The message is clear. For the bonds between men to remain strong, trafficking with women, in the tradition of courtly love, must be banished.
It seems as if much of what we have read this semester shows a world trying to grapple with massive social change. The books present a perspective which nostalgically supports a dying social structure, that of the feudal economy Unwittingly, these books have also shown how the feudal system, and the religious doctrines which support it, no longer fit comfortably with a more complicated world where the standard basis for exchange and loyalties is being undermined. From our perspective, _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_, has the unintentional effect of pointing out the moral complexities facing Fourteenth Century feudalism.
The conflict Sir Gawain confronts becomes a metaphor for other problems facing the Fourteenth Century aristocracy. Gawain’s bargaining with Bertilak’s wife, a bargain outside of the traditional aristocratic exchange system, raises the question of who one should bargain with, if the acceptable venues for bargaining–among Aristocratic men –is no longer the only basis for exchange. Bertilak’s chastisement and reinstatement of Gawain in the social order, at the end of the beheading game, makes us realize that the traditional loyalties within the hierarchies were not longer enforceable. Aristocratic men could not simply reappropriate the power for their own purposes as Bertilak did in _Sir Gawain_, for by the Fourteenth Century, power was already diffused by the rise of the mercantile class, the growth of the cities and the shift in peasant labor. Finally, we know that the traditional Christian doctrine, which the Gawain poet suggests as the answer, is itself being tested by the new social structure which did not grow out of it, as feudalism did, and so does not fit so neatly. This perspective makes _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ a nostalgic tale where religion held all the answers and the old system held all the power.
Bibliography
De Roo, Harvey. “Undressing Lady Bertilak: Guilt and Denial in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The Chaucer Review 27 (1993): 305-24.
Fisher, Sheila. “Taken Men and Token Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings: Essays in Feminist Contextual Criticism.. Ed. Sheila Fisher and Janet E. Halley. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. 71-105.
Fries, Maureen. “The Characterization of Women in the Alliterative Tradition.” The Alliterative Tradition in the Fourteenth Century Ed. Bernard S. Levy and Paul E. Szarmach. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1981. 25-45.
Green, Richard. “Sir Gawain and the Sacra Cintola.” English Studies in Canada 11 (1985): 1-11.
Gold, Penny Schine. The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude, and Experience in Twelfth-Century France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Hamilton, Ruth. “Chivalry as Sin in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” University of Dayton Review 18 (1987): 113-17.
Kamps, Ivo. “Magic, Women, and Incest: The Real Challenges in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1(1989): 313-36.
Morgan, Gerald. “The Action of the Hunting and Bedroom Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Medium Aevum 56 (1987): 200-16.
Warner, Marina. Alone of all Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1976.
The Role of Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Annotated Bibliography
Lili Arkin
De Roo, Harvey. “Undressing Lady Bertilak: Guilt and Denial in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The Chaucer Review 27 (1993): 305-24.
De Roo argues that Gawain was enjoying his ‘luf-talk’ with Bertilak’s wife so much that it makes him too attached to life. He draws a connection between the sexual temptation in the bedroom scenes and the acceptance of the girdle.
Fisher, Sheila. “Taken Men and Token Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings: Essays in Feminist Contextual Criticism. Ed. Sheila Fisher and Janet E. Halley. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. 71-105.
Fisher presents a feminist perspective which demonstrates that Morgan, and the other women in the story, are deliberately marginalized because they represent an external threat the male dominated social order of chivalry.
Fries, Maureen. “The Characterization of Women in the Alliterative Tradition.” The Alliterative Tradition in the Fourteenth Century. Ed. Bernard S. Levy and Paul E. Szarmach. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1981. 25-45.
Fries shows that the characterization of women in the Alliterative Tradition is not confined to that of the romantic heroine but presents a variety of female archetypes and richly drawn characterizations.
Green, Richard. “Sir Gawain and the Sacra Cintola.” English Studies in Canada 11 (1985): 1-11.
Green suggests that the poet’s use of a girdle as a symbol may be related to the apocryphal story of the Virgin Mary’s gift of the girdle to Doubting Thomas at the Assumption. He details the ironies it suggest in the story.
Gold, Penny Schine. The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude, and Experience in Twelfth-Century France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
In Chapter Three, Gold looks at the relationship of the Virgin Mary to other women in Medieval religious iconography and concludes that the Virgin Mary’s image is unique among women.
Hamilton, Ruth. “Chivalry as Sin in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” University of Dayton Review 18 (1987): 113-17.
This article suggests that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight presents a broad critique of aspects of chivalry such as Gawain’s attention to form over substance and his confusion between chivalry and religion.
Kamps, Ivo. “Magic, Women, and Incest: The Real Challenges in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1 (1989): 313-36.
Kamps examines some of the disruptive influences and anxieties facing Arthur’s Camelot–specifically women, magic, adultery, and incest–with Morgan representing a trope for all the ills.
Morgan, Gerald. “The Action of the Hunting and Bedroom Scenes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Medium Aevum 56 (1987): 200-16.
Morgan argues that a moral struggle is suggested by the juxtaposition of the hunt scenes and the bedroom scenes, with the Lady in the role of the hunter and Gawain as the hunted.
Warner, Marina. Alone of all Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1976.
Warner’s book details the special importance of the Virgin Mary throughout Christianity and explores her religious and secular meaning. She discusses such things as the Church’s attitude toward virginity, the role model of the Virgin martyr, the Virgin’s relics, and her role as an intercessor with God.
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