Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature

by William Burgwinkle

  The impact of this discursive innovation – to identify, isolate, accuse, destroy, or banish through excommunication – on the developing cat- egory of knighthood cannot be overemphasized.49 Mark Jordan closes a discussion of Peter Damian’s Liber Gomorrhianus in his Invention of Sodomy with a crucial question: who is being addressed in the second person in this text? His answer is that Peter is speaking directly to the sodomite within the monastic ranks who has not yet acknowledged his own guilt, who can still be saved before losing his soul to the monster within him. This reading allows that homophobic discourse can create its own interlocutor. It situates the reader or listener of the text in the sub- ject position of sodomite, and induces in all such readers the obligation to act as inquisitor of his or her own psyche. Peter’s claim to interpellate: “I know you, I see you, I have the answer” is then associated with the voice of the institutionalized Other, Mother Church. Knights, monks, and clergy were increasingly subject to enhanced scrutiny in response to such discourse during, and especially after, the twelfth century, and they were expected to adhere to increasingly rigid norms, especially as relating to interpretation of dogma and celibacy.50 Potential sodomites and the heroes of the early Grail romances have in common this inter- pellation into a disciplinary practice with which they must collaborate as a condition of their salvation.

  R. Howard Bloch hypothesized in his Medieval French Literature and Law that the move from battlefield to trial by inquest was a gradual development symptomatic of a profound crisis within the ranks of the feudal aristocracy, a move which favored commercial interests and the centralizing claims of monarchy.51 It would seem that it also favored the interests of institutions which required a young male population trained in military arts and keen to enhance their personal reputation, independent of the power struggles of aristocratic family lines. The Grail romances’ institution of the figure of the holy knight was a move toward greater institutional control of the individual subject – fictionalhero and reader – and the accusation of sodomy was an important tool in setting the parameters of gender-appropriate behavior and compulsive heterosexuality. The sense of shame and doom that such accusations occasioned in the fictional heroes generally led either to public rituals, quests, and inquests through which men could defend their name by revealing fantasy lovers (as in Lanval and Graelent) or revelations of true identity. In the process, the individual hero and reader, especially the young, male reader, finds himself caught in a form of double-bind: guilty because accused and thereby obliged to establish his masculine credentials through service to a higher cause which happens to be that of his accusers.

  The terms of victimization that underlie the rhetoric of chivalric knighthood found in Chre´tien’s text are given much fuller development in Robert de Boron’s Didot-Perceval. Essentially a translation of Robert’s verse romances into prose, the Didot-Perceval has been called the first great text in French vernacular prose and it is here that the essential topoi of the international Grail tradition were definitively set.52 After the death of Christ, the imprisoned Joseph of Arimathea begins to receive instructions from a voice that emanates from a sacred vessel (chalice or grail) in his subterranean cell. He is told to build a table in memory of the Last Supper, a table at which he would preside, and to seat Bron, his brother-in-law, on his right. All those among them who believed in Christian doctrine would find a place at this table. One seat, however, must remain empty as it is reserved for Bron’s unborn grandson, the future savior of his people. The Grail legends are thus complicit, from the beginning, with a system of discrimination, in which some are included and others rejected. The test of the Grail’s powers arises when Moys, a Jew who claims to have converted to the teachings of Christ, seeks his place among the faithful. When, despite the trepidation of those present, he lowers himself into the one vacant seat, “si fu fondus tant tost et sambla que il n’eu st onques este´” (he was destroyed on the spot so completely that it seemed he never existed [l. 60]). The author explains that the criterion for this extermination is the candidate’s level of grace. Moys has received none; nor, as the text establishes, would any Jew, for their progeny carry the stain of their fathers’ sin against Jesus.53

  This story is recounted in the first of the three narratives which make up the Didot-Perceval but it apparently met with some success andresurfaces in both of the others as well. In the Merlin, the one original table has multiplied to three, and twice more it is reiterated that only those who have never been touched by sin may approach the empty seat. By the time we reach the final portion, the Perceval proper, the table motif has taken on added importance. The young knight, Perceval, first approaches it as a cocky warrior, certain that he can meet the newly enunciated standard: best knight in the world. Perceval is no longer the awkward youth of Chre´tien’s tale. Confident that his prowess as fighter and lover will suffice, he takes his place at the table against the advice of all those gathered:

  li piere fendi desous lui et braist si angoisseusement que il sambla a tous c¸aus qui la estoient que li siecles fondist en abisme. Et del brait que li terre jeta si issi une si grans tenebrous que il ne se porent entreveir en plus d’une liue... (ll. 204–205)

  [the stone broke beneath him and let out such a sound that all those who heard it thought that the world would be disappear into the abyss. And from the noise that the earth let loose there came such a cloud of darkness that no one could see anything as far as the eye can see.. .]

  This reaction from Nature is a result of Perceval having sinned not of his own volition but through ignorance. He must now find the Fisher King, witness the grail procession, ask the appropriate questions, and cure the king. Only then will the breach in the rock on which the empty chair sits close and only then will the curse on the country fall.

  The real success of this si`ege p´erilleux motif can be measured by its next major reappearance, in Gerbert de Montreuil’s Continuation, the last or next to last of the four texts that claim to complete Chre´tien’s romance. Gerbert’s scene may be inspired more by the regal ambience of the Arthurian court found in Chre´tien than the austere and monastic setting of Robert de Boron, but the narrative core comes straight from Robert. Arthur’s court has been assembled for a magnificent dinner. Perceval, returning from an extended absence, is an honored guest. As the crowd moves forward to take their places, more than twenty of the finest knights of the land, including Gauvain, Lancelot, Erec, and Yvain, stand to the side, staring at an empty seat. Perceval, seeing that they do not move, follows their collective gaze to a strange-looking but richlydecorated golden chair at the head of one of the tables. He first imagines that it must be reserved for the King, but when he notices that Arthur is already seated, he asks those around him why this one chair stands empty. He wants to know if they are expecting an important guest, a king or prince for whom the chair would be suitable; otherwise he does not see why some guests are still standing. The King tries to put him off, telling him not to worry about what does not concern him, but Perceval, warning him not to lie, vows never to eat at the court again until he finds the answer to his question. The king breaks down and the assembled guests begin to cry. Even Keu, with whom Perceval has fought, weeps and curses the day that the chair was brought to them. Perceval is amazed at the reaction but remains unmoved and perseveres. Finally the King reveals his secret: the chair was a gift from the Fairy of Roche Menor, and she made him promise, before he knew any better, that it would forever more be placed at the head of his table at every high feast. The chair acts as a lure: only the one person capable of bringing honor and glory to his name by learning the secret of the grail and lance might ever sit on it unharmed. Arthur admits to having lost six knights already on account of that promise. As soon as the knights, enticed by the prophecy, lowered themselves to the seat, the earth opened up, the chair dislodged them, and they disappeared into the abyss below.54

  Inevitably, Perceval follows his predecessors’ lead. As he approaches the chair, the Queen faints, Gauvain c
ries out for death and the King rises up, wailing. Perceval sits down just the same and there is heard a loud groan. As the earth opens beneath it, the chair hovers, suspended in mid-air, with Perceval holding tight. Then, just as the earth is closing over and the chair is about to settle on the newly solid ground, the six knights, presumed until now to be dead, are vomited back up and land, fully alive, at his feet. Amidst the general chaos, Arthur moves in to question them about what it was like “down there” (l. 1553). Their answer is worth citing in full:

  Et il li ont trestot conte´ / Qu’il ont eu molt paine et mal / Et que cil qui sont desloial / Qui plus aiment les jovenciaus / que puceles, sachiez de ciaus / Que c’est merveille coment dure / Soz als la terre; en grant ardure / Seront al jor del jugement. / Et sachiez bien certainement / Que la fee qui vous tramist / La chaiere ne s’entremist / Fors por che c’on seu st le voir / Quel guerredon cil doit avoir / Qui entechiez est de tel vische. / Sachiez qu’al grant jor del juise / Seront el parfont puis d’enfer / Plus noir que arrement ne fer. / Et la fee tres bien savoit / Que cil qui le Graal devoit / Assomer et savoir la fin / A tant le cuer loial et fin / Qu’il nous osteroit de l’abisme. (ll. 1554–1575)

  [and they immediately told him how they had suffered great pains and said that as for those who are disloyal, who love young men more than young ladies, all should know that it’s a wonder how those men can stand it under the earth, for they will be found burning on the day of judgment. And you should know for sure, that the fairy who gave you this chair did so only so that anyone who is stained with such a vice might know the truth about what recompense awaits him. Let it be known that on the great day of judgment they will be in the deepest pit of hell, blacker than ink or iron. And the fairy knew very well that he who would take up the Grail quest and learn its secret has a heart so loyal and true that he would free us from the abyss.]

  The six knights then recognize Perceval as their savior. He has liberated them from “molt laide paine” (most horrible pain) and because of him they have been “en molt grant joie remis” (returned to a state of great joy [ll. 1580, 1582]). What they do not say is why they ever ended up there to begin with. I suppose we are to presume that they have shown intemperate pride in approaching the seat and have dared to assert their right to public recognition. Yet everything in their knightly training to this point would have prepared them to do just what they did: lay their claim to superiority over other knights.55 Perhaps we could see them as guilty of having “stormed the gates of heaven,” i.e., claiming as their own what they have not yet earned, but if so, it points out again the inherent contradictions between knightly and religious training.56

  Arthur then feels compelled to reiterate the lesson to his assembled knights in the passage cited earlier:

  Cil qui sont entechie´ / De si tres orrible pechie´ / Pueent estre tot esmari,/ Je meismes m’en esmari / Quant j’en oi ore parler./ Honis sera au par aler / qui en tel pechie´ sera pris,/ De mal fu soit ses cors espris / Que n’ai cure de tel deduit. / Beneois soit cil qui conduit / Sa feme ou sa mie et bien l’aime / Et por loial ami se claime, / Si fais deduis soit beneois. (ll. 1589–1601)

  [Those who are stained with such a horrible sin might well be stunned. I myself was when I just heard about it. Anyone who dies in such astate of sin will be disgraced in the hereafter. Let the body of anyone who cares about such pleasures be taken by an evil flame. Blessed is he who watches over his wife or lady friend and loves her and calls himself her loyal friend. And may this sort of pleasure be blessed.]

  Arthur claims to be stunned at learning of such a sin, but the romance’s readers would have been less so. Sodomy had long since become a feature of romance narratives, where it operated frequently as an open secret. What still stuns today, however, is the melding of the quest motif, the Grail, the fairy’s chair, the sacrificial victims, the sin of sodomy, and the Christ-like liberator, Perceval, into one coherent whole. The young knight whose path has been set by anonymous seers, mysteri- ous cousins, and magical chessboards learns at his moment of triumph that just beneath his feet there stretches a hollow chasm which supports both the Round Table and the cult of elite masculinity for which it stands. Who is this fairy who controls the portals of sodomy and its punishment and for whom is she working? Why would the unfortu- nate knights who failed to maintain themselves on the infamous si`ege p´erilleux find themselves so unceremoniously dumped into the pit of hell and why, once there, are they among the sodomites rather than another class of sinners? What link between knighthood, competition, pride, and sodomy was so obvious that it might have allowed such a scene to pass with so little further comment, either within the text or in subsequent criticism? It has been claimed, on the basis of these pas- sages, that sodomy was indeed rampant in knightly circles, and that this author is simply echoing an ecclesiastical imperative to extirpate it. That might be the case, but it needs to be nuanced. It is far from obvious, for example, that ecclesiastical authorities approved of and shared in the ideology perpetrated by the Grail material. Many clergy actually recog- nized the danger of fusing Christian revelation and popular romance and warned against reading these narratives as contemporary gospel. It is more productive to imagine the text as actually producing in some sense its own reality rather than serving as a vessel for some pre-textual message. Read metaphorically, we might see the whole incident as redo- lent of a ritual initiation. All men, in order to accede to the homoso- cial circle (here, symbolized by the Round Table), must pass, however fleetingly, through the transient identity of subordinated and abjectedmasculinity so as to glimpse the horrifying alternative to coercive homo- phobic heterosexuality.

  There is an incident in the First Continuation with which the Fairy Chair incident shares some affinity. The young Arthurian knight, Caradoc II, is the son of Arthur’s niece, Ysaive, and her lover, the magi- cian Eliavre´s. Years before, while Ysaive was married to Caradoc I, King of Vannes, Eliavre´s conspired to keep Ysaive for himself by transform- ing first a greyhound, then a sow, and finally a mare into the semblance of the young bride so as to trick her husband. As the King made love to these animal figures, Ysaive was off conceiving a son, to be named Caradoc II, with her magician/lover. The boy Caradoc is then raised as the legitimate son and heir of the King. Years later, when Arthur is once again ready to call a Pentecost court, to which knights and dignitaries from all lands will be invited, Caradoc is in training as a knight at his uncle’s court. One of those who accepts the invitation is Caradoc’s true father, the magician Eliavre´s. Upon arrival, he poses a challenge to the assembled knights. Eliavre´s claims to have the power to rejoin body parts. He offers to prove his point by volunteering to let any willing knight cut off his head. If the knight can do so with one smooth blow, he promises to return a year later to do the same for him (ll. 2270–

  2272).57 Of course, none of the knights take the bait, and why should

  they when there is nothing to be gained? The young Caradoc never- theless sees it as a chance to establish his reputation and steps forward to strike the fatal blow. The headless Eliavre´s then calmly rejoins his severed head and trunk, and Caradoc spends the next year awaiting retribution.

  The logic behind both incidents is similar. The young knight is lured into performing an action that will establish his reputation but, as in the case of the Fairy of Roche Menor, the deck is stacked against him. Eliavre´s has set up this challenge not to allow the young knight to prove himself but to force him to uncover a hidden truth. Through the ritual of decapitation and the one-year wait, a debt is both paid and renewed: young Caradoc avenges his mother’s shame but sets in motion a cycle of vengeance in which he will finally be captured. Eliavre´s’ “sin” is redeemed and he “pays” with his head; but, being a wizard, he had nothing to lose. He can replace the head and move outside the cycle of exchange, without eradicating the cycle of violence. Caradoc, on theother hand, stands to lose all – his inheritance, his noble name, his loving adoptive father, and his devotion to mother. Essential
ly, he will atone for his parents’ sin as a sacrificial victim. The challenge to decapitate serves as a pretext to inculpate him, induce him to wrong Eliavre´s so that he, in turn, can be killed. The sin is not his, but through his action it will be symbolically atoned for, bringing to a close the cycle of violence. In Alexandre Leupin’s reading of this episode it is the story, the text itself, which comes to stand in for the lack (of father, of head):