LBST 302 - S9701                               John Black

         From Gawain to Conkers: Is Chivalry Dead?
                               
                               
A. Introduction:

Is chivalry dead?  Should chivalry be dead?  What exactly is
chivalry?

I want to discuss the nature, transmission and appropriateness
of chivalric values, using the text as an example which will
illuminate all three questions.  Note that what I find in the
text may in many ways be conditioned by my own situation - as
an English male brought up in an atmosphere which was redolent
of those values, albeit in somewhat diluted form.  I am not
suggesting that a Canadian woman, for example, would find the
same features interesting or noteworthy.

Before looking at the three main topics, let's talk about the
text itself: its main narrative features, its precursors and
its uniqueness.



B. Narrative Features:

The poem is written in the context of what is called Mediaeval
Romance: a story written to demonstrate the superiority of
chivalric over warrior values (Larry Benson).  Its precise
relation to this tradition I shall examine later.

A combination of two traditional motifs: the Beheading Game and
the Temptation.  We give these precedence because they occur
many times throughout precursive literature.  I shall
concentrate on the Beheading Game.

Precursors:

The Temptation of the Hero goes back as far as the story of
Potiphar's Wife in the Bible (pointed out by Bob Lane as a
characteristic of hero stories).  Its more immediate source
(for SGGK) is believed to be "Yder," an Anglo-Norman Romance
written probably towards the end of the 11th century.  The
Temptation is a role-reversal of the ideal of Courtly Love,
where the man is supposed to "lay siege" to the heart of the
Lady of one of his superiors.  
[Read from Duby's article, History of Women Vol. II, 
 pp. 250-2, if time.]

The Beheading Game occurs in 11 surviving precursor texts
(Kittredge), most notably the Irish "Fled Bricend" (circa 1100)
and the French "Caradoc" (12th century).  The game is different
in each of these texts.  In most of the earliest, the order of
blows is reversed: the Hero escapes because the Challenger
misses, then kills the Challenger.

In one of the two versions in "Fled Bricend," the Challenger
offers this reversed order, but is talked down by the Hero who
accepts the Challenge (Irish Jokes?).  The offer made in SGGK,
of course, has the feature that the Hero expects to make it
impossible for the Challenger to reply.  The QUEST FOR
CERTAINTY here is subtly converted, however, from an attempt at
bravado to a journey towards doom.

Uniqueness:

SGGK is unique, in relation to its precursors, in the following
ways:

1) the two main narrative features are organically interwoven
to form a more complex plot: the Temptation is not something
which just happens to Gawain on his way to the Green Chapel -
it is the real test and determines the outcome of the
Challenge; the relationship between the two is underlined by
the interweaving of a third game, that of the Exchange of
Winnings.

2) the Challenger does not remain a monster/demon and is not
overcome - there is a reconciliation and recognition of the
Challenger's humanity;

3) Gawain is not an utterly blameless hero - he reveals flaws:
in his morality (lying about the girdle) and in his physical
courage (flinching);

4) the chivalric values expressed are represented as in
conflict with each other - e.g. loyalty to the host and
courtesy to his wife: a more sophisticated view of morality
than before;

5) because of this, SGGK can be (and by Benson is) seen as a
satire against Romance - it distances itself from the virtues
and, along with King Arthur, his knights and their ladies at
the end of the poem, laughs at Gawain.


C. The Values of Chivalry:

However equivocal the commitment of the poet to chivalric
values, these can be identified as such virtues as:

     Courage (Willingness to Take Risks)
     Fortitude (Sticking to the Consequences of a Risk Gone
     Sour) Fidelity (Truth to One's Word and Contract)
     Honesty
     Loyalty (to Individuals)
     Hospitality and Respect for Hospitality
     Continence
     Chastity
     Courtesy
     Diplomacy

Some of these (courage, hospitality, respect for hospitality) are
traditional warrior values (cf. Homer); others are Christian 
additions, aiming for the ideal of a noble, gentlemanly warrior.  
The values as represented in the text are clearly male-focused,
though some of them may in reality have broader, human
relevance.  SGGK admits they can come into conflict, that the
grafting of Christian values onto warrior ideals is difficult
and may be impossible.

The dilemmas into which these conflicts thrust Gawain are
portrayed as psychologically deep - his identity is questioned
by both the Green Knight and the Nameless Lady when he does not
display the appropriate virtue (fortitude & courtesy
respectively).  Hence the CONSTITUTION OF THE SELF is
represented as relying upon virtue, or at least renown.

Despite the uncertainty about the extent to which the work is
satirical, it might be argued that in SGGK it is the
"gentlemanly" virtues, of continence, chastity, restraint which
win out in the cases of conflict.


D. The Transmission of Chivalric Values:

The line of argument I am following represents SGGK as the
vehicle of transmission of a certain set of values; this is so
whether or not it wishes to satirise some of the values
identified as chivalric.  This is conceived of, during the
Middle Ages, as an important function of literature.  In my own
childhood experience, stories like that of Gawain, and of King
Arthur and the other Knights of the Round Table, played the
same role.  There are other mechanisms of transmission:

Games:

Among the most powerful for me were playground games; examples:

     Knuckles
     Lollysticks (proxy duelling)
     Soldiers (ribwort plantains)
     Conkers (cumulative value of a winner)
     Flat Jack (alternate buffets to head; Iona & Peter Opie:
     p.223)

     [Explain Each]   Children's Games in Street and Playground
                        1969

These games all are analogues of the Beheading Game.  Sometimes
the analogy is surprisingly close: Lollysticks, Soldiers and
Conkers all have the feature that a successful blow dealt can
destroy the capability for a return blow; Soldiers is reported
by the Opies as having the feature that "the loser feels no
loss; another stalk is quickly produced - this is the pleasure
of the game - and a new duel commences": cf. the Green Knight
surviving the first blow.

Some of them are very old (Soldiers mentioned 1219); they are
derived from the notion of duelling by alternation.  The games
are usually (not exclusively) played by boys.

Duelling by Alternation was very common in the Dark and Middle
Ages (perhaps when weapons were less efficient?), and there
were survivals as long as duelling was a common practice.  
(Cf. Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain.)  Not
surprising that the modern analogues are games (ritual
combats), since duelling by alternation is itself a
ritualisation of combat.

Cf. fighting in general and Western-style showdown, or
simultaneous duelling: these involve traditional warrior
virtues, but not the willingness to suffer a setback involved
in the alternating duels.  Hence the latter involved fortitude
as well as courage, fidelity rather than cunning.

The games themselves are tightly constrained by "moral" rules:
one never lies about the value of one's conker; one must allow
the return of a blow given; the one who flinches, refuses is a
coward etc..  They are tests of moral virtue (in a rather
restricted sense, admittedly) - notion that rule-governed
behaviour (habit), in order to be learned, requires testing.

Lack of a role for adults in the transmission of these games,
hence of the virtues they inculcate.  What is operating is a
folkmechanism, not under the control of any set of people.  The
transmission of a folk-memory.  In this sense, then, chivalry
is not dead.


E. The Value of Chivalry:

The last question was: "Should chivalry be dead?"  Is there any
value in this set of values?

And despite my having been brought up on such values, I must
face the question, since, as Aristotle argues, my moral
development after childhood is in my own hands.

The tendency to reject chivalry comes from two sources, I
think:

1) its attitude towards women; the assumption that women are to
be protected and specially helped, because weak; SGGK, however
deals very little, if at all, with this particular aspect,
though it says a lot of other strange and objectionable things
about women;

2) the context - namely war and fighting, or in more modern
times games and sports - in which chivalric virtues are
customarily expressed; we tend to reject the values because we
reject the activities where they are manifest.

However, it is important to bear in mind the advance, small
though it may be, made by chivalric values over previous
warrior ethics (restraint may be preferable to brutality), and
also the fact that the same or similar virtues may be
appropriate in some other contexts.

For example, the fidelity to one's word and willingness to
suffer setbacks recommended by the Beheading Game do have a
role to play, one might argue, in social and political
contexts.  Perfect agreement not being always attainable, the
negotiation of compromise seems essentially to involve such a
willingness to balance one's winnings against one's losses, to
put the point once again in gaming terms.  Trustworthiness is
likewise an essential factor in achieving the mutual acceptance
which is distinctive of successfully LIVING IN DIVERSITY.

We might note too that both of these virtues are involved in
the successful conduct of tutorials, which themselves are also
analogues of the Beheading Game.  And so the tradition
continues . . .