The anonymous
Sir Degrevant, roughly contemporary with Chaucer’s
Troilus and Criseyde, describes the eponymous hero’s feud with the neighbouring Earl, his sudden love for the Earl’s daughter Melidor, and the eventual resolution of both the feud and the love-plot in Degrevant and Melidor’s marriage.
Sir Degrevant follows the same pattern as
Amadas et Ydoine and
Troilus and Criseyde in doubling the portrayal of resistance to love and depicting romantic a(nti)pathy as gendered both in the attitudes it elicits and the ways it is resolved. Like Troilus and Amadas, Degrevant is primarily known as a lover, ‘Sir Degriuaunt þat amerus’.
1 The Romance of Sir Degrevant, ed. by L. F. Casson, EETS, o. s., 221 (London: Oxford University Press, 1949; repr. 1970), Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.1.6 (the Findern manuscript), line 671. All quotations from Sir Degrevant are taken from the Findern manuscript version in this edition unless otherwise stated. His resistance to love is even more briefly represented than Troilus’s and Amadas’s: after a description of his military might, his royal connections as Arthur’s nephew, and his love of music and hunting, we are told
Certus, wyff wold he non,
Wench ne lemon,
Bot as an anker in a ston
He lyved ever trew. (61–4)
Degrevant is entirely uninterested in women, love, and marriage, but this is described almost as an afterthought, placed in the last four lines of a sixteen-line stanza that otherwise focuses on hunting (and, briefly, attending church). L. F.
Casson is one of only a few scholars to note Degrevant’s resistance, commenting that ‘there are a number of detailed resemblances between
Sir Degrevant and the
Lay of Guigemar by Marie’, including the protagonists being ‘indifferent to the charms of women’.
2 L. F. Casson, ‘Introduction’, in The Romance of Sir Degrevant, ed. by Casson, pp. ix–lxxv (p. lxvi). Sylvester also notes Degrevant’s initial resistance but reads this as typical for ‘the perfect romance hero’, which I do not. See Medieval Romance and the Construction of Heterosexuality, p. 18. However, the recognition of resistance to love as a widespread romance motif in this book calls into question Casson’s suggestion that a version of
Guigemar was known to the author of
Sir Degrevant. This is far from the only place the
Degrevant-poet could have found this motif and is not the work most closely resembling Degrevant’s romantic a(nti)pathy, which seems more akin to Amadas’s and Troilus’s. It is possible that
Sir Degrevant may be directly influenced by
Amadas et Ydoine, which is alluded to in the description of Melidor’s bed (1494). However, there is no evidence that
Amadas et Ydoine was circulating in England at the time
Sir Degrevant was written, and it is not possible to tell whether the author knew the romance well or was just familiar with the characters’ names.
3 See further Arthur, ‘Introduction’, in Amadas and Ydoine, ed. & trans. by Arthur, pp. 9–16 (p. 11). Sir Degrevant may be borrowing a motif from
Amadas et Ydoine, but both the early description of Degrevant’s resistance to love and the later use of it as a contrast to Melidor’s resistance to love and marry Degrevant (she says she will not ‘loue my lordys enemy’ but also ‘nel non housbond haue ȝyte’, 998, 1002) suggest a deeper engagement with this motif than simply imitating an earlier work.
The curious reference to Degrevant living ‘as an anker in a ston’ particularly stands out, suggesting an unusual perspective on romantic a(nti)pathy rather than a straightforward borrowing. This could be an ironic comment: although anchoritic solitude ‘rarely involved total isolation’, with his love of music and hunting Degrevant very clearly does not live ‘as an anker’.
4 Cate Gunn and Liz Herbert McAvoy, ‘Introduction: “No Such Thing as Society”? Solitude in Community’, in Medieval Anchorites in their Communities, ed. by Cate Gunn and Liz Herbert McAvoy (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017), pp. 1–12 (p. 5). This comparison may imply that anchorites were not living as solitary a life as they were supposed to, an anxiety evident in the early thirteenth-century
Ancrene Wisse, which warns that the devil may bring an anchoress ‘aleast makien feaste ant wurthen al worldlich, forschuppet of ancre to huse-wif of halle’ [at last to make feasts and become entirely worldly, deformed from an anchoress into a housewife of a hall].
5 Ancrene Wisse, ed. by Robert Hasenfratz, TEAMS (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000), iv. 552–3. My translation. However, the comparison of Degrevant to an anchorite may also reflect ironically upon Degrevant and the romance tradition, suggesting the hyperbole of romance representations of resistance to love. Another possibility is that this could be a serious and unintentional instance of that very same hyperbole. Degrevant is a pious man, who ‘lovede well almosdede, / Powr men to cloth and fede’ (81–2): living ‘as an anker’ may simply be an exaggerated instantiation of his piety and virginity, or a uniting of religious and lay perspectives on virginity and masculinity. While we cannot know how medieval readers interpreted this reference, the differing content of the two manuscripts of
Sir Degrevant may have fostered alternative interpretations. Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.1.6 (the Findern manuscript) is comprised mostly of ‘lyrics and texts meditating on aristocratic conventions of love’, within which Degrevant’s anchoritic lifestyle might well seem an ironic or satirical feature.
6 Michael Johnston, Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 129. Lincoln Cathedral Library, MS 91 (the Lincoln Thornton manuscript), on the other hand, includes works by Richard Rolle – a hermit and mystic – alongside which a comic reference to anchoritism seems more unlikely.
7 For a full list of the Lincoln Thornton manuscript’s contents, see Susanna Fein, ‘The Contents of Robert Thornton’s Manuscripts’, in Robert Thornton and His Books: Essays on the Lincoln and London Thornton Manuscripts, ed. by Susanna Fein and Michael Johnston (York: York Medieval Press, 2014), pp. 13–65 (pp. 21–48). Fein also discusses the religious focus of many of the texts Robert Thornton copied and the way ‘he considered scribal work to be pious work’, pp. 15, 19–20 (quotation at p. 19). In the Thornton manuscript, Sir Degrevant appears between the Life of Saint Christopher and Sir Eglamour of Artois. These broader contexts may have encouraged different interpretations of the striking comparison between Degrevant’s romantic a(nti)pathy and anchoritic life.
While the reference to anchoritism is intriguing and unusual, the primary significance of Degrevant’s resistance to love is, as for Amadas and Troilus, its interaction with and reflection upon the resistance of the romance heroine, Melidor. Although Degrevant is initially averse to love and marriage, when he sees Melidor, his enemy’s daughter, the impact is instant:
Wyth loue she wondus þe knyȝt;
In hert trewly he hyeght
That he shall loue þat swet wyȝt,
Acheue how hit wold. (477–80)
While there is a brief, conventional reference to how Melidor ‘wondus’ Degrevant, Degrevant’s conversion to love is accomplished briefly and unproblematically. There is little sense of Degrevant being subjected to love, or of any contradiction between his earlier reluctance to take a wife and his sudden passion for Melidor. Degrevant simply does not wish to love, then sees Melidor and changes his mind. There is some suggestion that this acceptance of love is the correct course of action, as the Earl (Degrevant’s enemy) later declares that
Couþe he loue par amoure,
I knew neuer hys mak. (1063–4)
This positions Degrevant’s initial a(nti)pathy towards love as a flaw. The narrative trajectory also endorses Degrevant’s acceptance of love, as this benefits him socially and financially, and eventually reconciles him with the Earl. Yet Degrevant is not criticised for his resistance to love when it is first introduced: although Casson’s marginal summaries suggest that Degrevant ‘was fond of music / and hunting, /
but would have nothing to do with women’, this adversative conjunction is not implied by the romance.
8 Sir Degrevant, p. 5 (my emphasis). In some ways,
Sir Degrevant offers the most idealistic conversion from resistance to acceptance of love, as it relies solely upon the beauty and attractions of one particular woman – in contrast to the more subversive portrayal in
Guigemar.
However, Melidor’s own conversion to loving Degrevant is not so clear-cut or idealised; as in Amadas et Ydoine and Troilus and Criseyde, women’s resistance and consent seem to be perceived as more complex and problematic issues than men’s attitudes towards love and marriage. Melidor’s feelings for Degrevant are often described in ambiguous ways. When they first see each other,
Þe Eorlus doughder be-held
That borlich and bolde;
For he was armed so clen
[…]
Was ioy to be-hold. (467–72)
The passive construction implies that Melidor enjoys looking at Degrevant but avoids stating this outright: as Louise Sylvester argues, ‘the author of the romance is careful to reveal only Degrevant’s feelings’, as he instantly falls in love.
9 Sylvester, Medieval Romance and the Construction of Heterosexuality, p. 18. The protagonists’ attitudes to love are thus contrasted through their initial reactions to each other. Similarly, when Degrevant breaks into the Earl’s castle, fully armed but seeking to plight troth with Melidor, her response is ambiguous: she
was gretely affraid,
But naþeles hoo was wel paid,
He was so ryally arayd. (701–3)
Melidor’s fear and her complaint that Degrevant ‘not dost ryȝth’, because ‘þou comyst armid on werre / To maydenus to afferre’ (707–10) emphasise the coercive elements within this scene of two armed men surprising two women relaxing in their castle gardens.
10 For an analysis of Melidor’s and Degrevant’s agency in terms of speech acts during this encounter, see Ibid., pp. 22–5. As James Brundage notes, canon lawyers took a broad view of the kind of force necessary to constitute coercion: ‘the sight of a group of armed men under the command of the attacker might be held to constitute violent force, even if no physical assault actually occurred’.
11 James A. Brundage, Sex, Law and Marriage in the Middle Ages (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993), p. 68. This may be reflected in Degrevant’s ‘martial approach to courtship’ here, which is further echoed in his second attempt to win Melidor’s love by interrupting a feast hosted by her father, where he ‘chalangys þat fre’ (1220), claiming Melidor as his tournament prize.
12 Arlyn Diamond, ‘Sir Degrevant: what lovers want’, in Pulp Fictions of Medieval England: Essays in Popular Romance, ed. by Nicola McDonald (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 82–101 (p. 86). While these strategies do not succeed, Degrevant may be seen as first threatening Melidor and then making her consent irrelevant.
Their next encounter does focus on Melidor’s will but only as mediated through her actions, as she leads a horse to Degrevant in the tournament and declares she will ride ‘by my lemmanus syde’ (1319). The Middle English text is a little unclear here, but Melidor seems to be supporting Degrevant and even going so far as to declare him her lover. By this point, then, her reluctance has apparently transformed into love, but the process by which this happens has been obscured from the reader, leaving an emotional lacuna in place of narrating her feelings and therefore offering no insights into how and why she decides to develop their relationship. The contrast between representing Melidor’s transformation from unwilling to willing lover through actions only and Degrevant’s own transformation, where his emotions are communicated to the reader, reveals the opacity with which romance sometimes treats women’s emotional lives. The vital thing here is the outcome of Melidor’s acceptance of Degrevant – their marriage, the end of Degrevant’s feud with Melidor’s father, and his social advancement as her husband – rather than the process through which she accepts him. The elision of how Melidor’s feelings for Degrevant change is only compounded when she later tells him
Þe ferste tyme Y þe mette,
Myn hert on þe was sette. (1538–9)
This erases her own resistance and offers a further comparison with Degrevant as she remodels her desire upon his. Degrevant’s unwillingness may seem insignificant, barely commented upon and swiftly overcome, but it provides an important contrast to Melidor’s resistance to love or marry Degrevant. Melidor’s reluctance combines elements of anxiety about her familial obligations, as she rejects Degrevant when she knows he is her father’s enemy (733–60), a dual fear and fascination of Degrevant’s intrusions into the castle, and potentially some concern with social status, as Melidor’s maid comments that Degrevant’s status is below that of Melidor’s other suitors (857–60). While Degrevant’s attitude to love changes according to his spontaneous desire, Melidor’s reluctance is grounded in social concerns and is susceptible to both consensual and coercive persuasion, rather than solely responsive to her own feelings. Like Amadas et Ydoine and Troilus and Criseyde, Sir Degrevant demonstrates that both the means of overcoming resistance and the challenge it poses are differently inflected in relation to gender. These representations not only respond to, but actively construct, contemporary ideas of gender, suggesting that women ought to consider the social consequences of love.