Introduction to Middle English Popular Romance

1. Introduction to Middle English Popular Romance

2. 20th century perceptions ‘The praise which this romance has received may be due in part to its inclusion of a faithful dog among its chief actors, but it is on the whole a skilful rehash of conventional motifs with a quite intricate plot. There may not be much interest in what is going on, but at least there is always something going on.’ Derek Pearsall, ‘The Development of Middle English Romance’, Mediaeval Studies 27 (1965), 91-116

3. Definitions • ‘a narrative about knightly prowess and adventure, in verse or in prose, intended primarily for the entertainment of a listening audience’ (Manual of Middle English Prose) • ‘Romance is notoriously difficult to define...The central medieval sense is of narratives of chivalry, in which knights fight for honour and love, but it also has to serve as a term for historical adventures in a courtly setting, tales of recovery of lost fortune and of virtues tested but in the end triumphant over evil. In English the word ‘romance’ first conveyed the origin of stories in French...but it eventually became identified with the content rather than the language.’ (Tony Davenport, Medieval Narrative, p. 130) • ‘a space…in which cultural norms and divergences from those norms are negotiated and articulated’ (Nicola McDonald, ‘A Polemical Introduction’) • ‘the principal secular literature of entertainment in the Middle Ages’ (Pearsall)

4. Matters of romance ‘N’en sont que trois matere a nul entendant; De France et de Bretaigne et de Romme la grant..’ Jean Bodel, Roman de Saisnes, ll. 6-7 (There are only three subjects for anyone of understanding: France, Britain and great Rome ..) Men covettes rimes for to here And romance rede of mony maner: Of Alisander the Conquerour, Or July Cesar the emperour, Of Grece and Troy the grete strife Ther mony thousande lost thaire life, Of Brute that was bolde of hande First conquerour of Ingelande, Of king Arthorow that was rike, In his tyme was nane hym like Cursor Mundi, in The Idea of the Vernacular, ed. J Wogan-Browne et al, p. 268.

5. French romance ‘It happened more than seven years ago that I, alone like a peasant, was riding along in search of adventures, fully armed as a knight should be; I discovered a path to the right leading through a thick forest’. … “Now it’s your turn to tell me what sort of man you are and what you’re seeking”. “I am, as you see, a knight seeking what I cannot find; I’ve sought long and yet find nothing.” “And what do you wish to find?” “Adventure, to test my courage and my strength. Now I pray and beseech you to advise me, if you know, of any adventure or marvellous thing.” Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain, or The Knight with the Lion, in Arthurian Romances, trans. William Kibler, Penguin Classics (2004) pp. 297, 299.

7. Anglo-Norman romances • Anglo Norman romance flourished 1150-1230. Romances include Horn, Boeve de Haumtoune, Lai d’Haveloc, Gui de Warewic, Ipomedon.

8. Middle English popular romances • Begin c. 1300. Earliest romances are versions of Anglo-Norman originals—Horn, Bevis of Hampton, Havelok. • Hanning identifies 3 common central elements: 1. Movement of the hero from loss to recovery 2. Development of the hero from immaturity or faultiness towards maturity or perfection 3. A love relationship which unites the hero with a heroine who has also been the victim of injustice.

9. Style • Development of formulaic vocabulary, e.g. in Amis and Amiloun: So faire of boon and blood (60) Bituix hem tuai, of blod and bon (142) That riche douke, comly and kende (229, 265) With levedis and maidens bright in bour (430) And icham a bird in bour bright (578) Mocked by Chaucer: Ful many a mayde, bright in bour (Chaucer, Sir Thopas 742) • Stock characters e.g. evil stewards, and type scenes, e.g. carnage: thai sprad al of blod (AA, 1317) His sides were al blood (Ch, Thopas, 773)

10. Audiences Orfeo l. 23 ‘herkneþ, lordinges þat beþ trewe' Bevis of Hampton, ll. 1-18 ‘Lordinges, herkneth to me tale!Is merier than the nightingale,That I schel singe;Of a knight ich wile yow roune,Beves a highte of Hamtoune,Withouten lesing.’ Chaucer’s Thopas ‘Listeth, lordes, in good entent, And I wol telle verrayment Of myrthe and of solas, Al of a knyght was fair and gent In bataille and in tourneyment; His name was sire Thopas.’ (ll. 712-17)

11. Audiences The social complexities of the fourteenth century – of increasing literacy, of new modes of book production and of the mixed audiences provided by a household – indicate a considerable range of possible audiences. These may have been religious or lay, urban as well as provincial, and may well have read romances from household volumes containing religious or utilitarian material. That the fictional audience is always secular, almost invariably male, often drunk and always collective, is no reason to exclude from our picture of the actual audience the solitary reader, the clerical, the female, or even the sober. Rosalind Field, ‘Romance in England’, p. 169

12. Manuscripts • Auchinleck MS contains earliest copies of eight romances: http://auchinleck.nls.uk/contents.html http://auchinleck.nls.uk/editorial/physical.html#miniatures

14. Breton lays Popularised by Marie de France in the 12th century

15. Middle English Breton Lays Prologue to Sir Orfeo: We redeth oft and findeth y-write, And this clerkes wele it wite, Layes that ben in harping Ben y-founde of ferli thing: Sum bethe of wer and sum of wo, And sum of joie and mirthe also, And sum of trecherie and of gile, Of old aventours that fel while; And sum of bourdes and ribaudy, And mani ther beth of fairy. (ll. 1-10)

16. Prologue to The Franklin’s Tale: ‘Thise olde gentil Britouns in hir dayes Of diverse aventures maden layes, Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge, Whiche layes with hir instrumentz they songe Or elles redden hem for hir plesaunce; And oon of hem have I in remembraunce, Which I shal seyn with good wyl as I kan.’