Practical Horsemanship in Medieval Arthurian Romance 6158122245, 6158122252, 6158122246, 9786158122245

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CONCLUSION
Selected Bibliography

Citation preview

To Fizz, the horse who taught me horsemanship the way only a horse could.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

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CHAPTER 1: Mounts as Social Identifiers: Describing Knights and Ladies through Their Horses

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CHAPTER 2: Feeding the Horse of an Errant Knight: Practical and Symbolic Aspects of Horse Care

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CHAPTER 3: Women and Manly Dirt: Gendering Equestrian Skills in the Queste del Saint Graal and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

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Conclusion. Displays of Horsemanship Skills Beyond the Arthurian Romance

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Selected bibliography

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Introduction The figure of the knight on horseback is at the core of chivalric culture and literature. The romance of chivalry is the story of a knight seeking adventures on horseback. An unhorsed knight, the one who loses his horse through mesaventure (misadventure) or is travelling by any other means than seated on a proud warhorse is suspect of losing his status. These facts have long been emphasized by scholars, and, for most part, they are intuitively seized by a reader of medieval romance. However, very little has yet been written about the horsemanship and horse lore that underwrites chivalric culture and that was taken for granted by the authors and audiences of medieval romance. Although there have been certain studies of horses in medieval literature, Arthurian romance included, there is still much to learn about the ethical, moral and spiritual undertones of representing horses in romance, as well as the practicalities which were familiar to medieval audiences. With the rise of interest in animal studies, there hse been a growing interest in understanding the relation between the knight and his warhorse in chivalric literature. One idea, which has gained much currency, is grounded in posthumanism, understanding the relation of the medieval rider and the horse through their blending in order to create a new, collective identity. This representation of the self as a hybrid composite figure has been advocated by Jeffrey J. Cohen,1 Susan Crane,2 and, recently, by Karen Campbell.3 Cohen argues that “the inhuman circuit of the Deleuzoguattarian horse have more immediate medieval relevance than for the rigorous training of subjectivity and Jeffrey J. Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003); see, in particular, chapter 2, “Chevalerie,” 36-77. 2 Susan Crane, “Chivalry and the Pre/Postmodern,” Postmedieval 2 (2011): 69-87. 3 Karen Brown Campbell, “Reriding Chivalry: Humans, Horses, and Social Systems in Medieval Chivalry,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Texas Technical University, 2012. 1

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body that is chivalry, the code of idealized masculinity at the heart of knighthood. Like the masochist’s program described by Deleuz and Guattari, this medieval technology of the self relies upon a complex assemblage capable of catching up human, animal, objects, and intensities into what also might be called a nonhuman body.”4 Chivalric literature provides a theoretical framework through which this view of the hybrid self was codified and disseminated to all those who belonged or aspired to chivalry. Scholars of medieval literature, and of Arthurian tradition in particular, have long ago recognized the significance of the horse and rider figures in their sources. Beryl Rowland and Richard Rex have studied the horse in Chaucer’s works, most importantly The Canterbury Tales, where references to horses and equestrian skills are used to characterize the pilgrims and where horses also appear in some of the tales told by the pilgrims.5 Concerning Arthurian literature, studies have been devoted to the Celtic Arthurian tradition, with Sioned Davies discussing the horses in the Mabinogion.6 There have likewise been studies on horses in the English, German, French, and Italian Arthuriana, focusing on the horse in either the individual romance or a group of related romances.7

Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines, 46. Beryl Rowland, “The Horse and Rider Figure in Chaucer's Works,” University of Toronto Quarterly 35:3 (1966): 246-259; Richard Rex, “Wild Horses, Justice, and Charity in the Prioress’s Tale,” PLL: Papers on Language & Literature 22:4 (1986): 339-351. 6 Sioned Davies, “Horses in the Mabinogion,” in The Horse in Celtic Culture. Medieval Welsh Perspectives, ed. Sioned Davies and Nerys Ann Jones, 121-140 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997). 7 Many of these studies have been published in other languages than English. The contributions to the collected volume Le cheval dans le monde médiéval (Presses universitaires de Provence, 1992) all consider medieval literary texts, and many of them study Arthurian romances. A volume based on papers presented at a conference devoted to the medieval horse examines the horse in medieval literature and myth, with an article by Philippe Walter examining the Arthurian horse, arguing that the horse heightens the rider’s honour in the Arthurian tradition: Philippe Walter, “Le cheval dans la littérature arthurienne,” in "Sonò alto un nitrito". Il cavallo nel mito e nella letteratura [“There was a sound of neighing.” The horse in myth and literature], ed. Francesco Zambon, 121-133 (Pacini, Pisa 2012). Beate Ackemann-Arlt has written a monograph on the horse in the Middle German: Beate Ackemann-Arlt, Das Pferd und seine epische Funktion im mittelhochdeutschen “Prosa-Lancelot” [The horse and its epic function in the Middle German Prose Lancelot”] (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990). 4 5

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The aim of this study is to examine some of the key factors in understanding horses as they appear in medieval romance: not only warhorses, but also other elite and non-elite equines, including coursers, palfreys, rounceys, and mules. The texts for this objective were chosen from the considerable corpus of one of the most popular medieval romance tradition, the Arthurian literature. Not only does the Arthurian literature represent ideal knighthood, chivalry as it ought to be, it was also a pseudo-historical model to which participants in chivalric culture aspired from the twelfth century onwards. Moreover, many of Arthurian romances are highly realistic in their use of information about social status, religious ritual and even some practical details, so that representation of horsemanship in it can – with some reservations – be used to deepen our understanding of historical equestrianism. Thus, experimental studies of the medieval warhorse often draw on the romances of Chrétien de Troyes (examined in the first chapter of this study).8 The authors of medieval romance are often economic in their use of daily detail, and a simple mention of the type of horse ridden by a character can serve to identify the character’s social status, his or her upbringing, and even his or her moral and spiritual condition. By sparing indications about the diet of horses, authors also regularly draw a larger picture of the welcoming or hostile settings in which the characters are located, the hardships they suffer or the comfort they enjoy, as well as providing some indication about the hardiness of both the horses and riders. This way, horses become participants in their riders’ social and economic status, sharing in the prestige and fortunes of their human owners, but also contributing to their owners’ public persona. Horse food as the indicator of the rider’s social and spiritual status is mentioned at the end of the first chapter and considered in Adeline Dumont, a French experimental archaeologist focusing on the twelfth and thirteenth century warhorse, has used information gleaned from Arthurian romances, especially those by Chrétien de Troyes, on numerous occasions (see, for instance, Adeline Dumont, “Du cheval au destrier: dressage, matériel et utilization en reconstitution militaire,” Bien Dire et Bien Aprandre. Revue de Médiévistique 33 (2018): 235248; also confirmed by private correspondence with her in December 2018. Likewise, information on equestrian equipment and practices presented in romance can be used by archaeologists; see the discussion of the spurs by Blanche M. A. Ellis, “Spurs and spur fittings,” in The Medieval Horse Equipment c. 1150-c.1450, ed. John Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), 124-150, 124. 8

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detail in the second chapter, focusing on the physical and spiritual nourishment in the anonymous French Queste del Saint Graal. The third chapter of this study is devoted to the relation between horse type and the portrayal of horses and the rider’s gender. While the iconic horse of the medieval knight is the destrier (warhorse), knights regularly rode other types of horses, particularly coursers and palfreys, although they occasionally even rode rounceys and mules. Ladies, on the other hand, rode only palfreys, amblers and mules. The characteristics and capacities of these equines are very different, and so are the purposes for which they were used. Each animal, moreover, corresponded to a certain set of social expectations: palfreys were expensive, comfortable animals, but their use by knights was reserved to out-of-combat situations. A knight riding a palfrey was, by definition, unprepared for battle, and certain reservations about his masculinity could be intimated. A lady riding a palfrey was expected to ride in a graceful, gentle manner, as palfreys were not suitable for highspeed, arduous journeys that could be undertaken with coursers and, in romance, with destriers. Again, in the Queste del Saint Graal, female messengers riding their palfreys at speed are alarming to both knights and the audience, as their unusual manner of riding is an indicator of urgency. The best example of the set of social expectations associated with each kind of animal, its equipment, including saddles, and the way in which it was ridden is provided in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which, together with the Queste del Saint Graal, is examined in the third chapter. While Canterbury Tales itself is not an Arthurian romance, it participates in the Arthurian tradition by its inclusion of one Arthurian romance in its structure, the tale narrated by the wife of Bath. Some of the riders in the Tales, both male and female, are representative of the chivalric culture in which Arthurian romances were produced and consumed. Moreover, their manner of riding, their horsemanship and their mounts are subject to intense scrutiny by Chaucer, who, by evoking one or two details, can convey a wealth of information to his medieval audience. Even the different positions in the saddle of the female riders – riding astride, as the wife of Bath, or side saddle, as the religious women – are indicative of the women’s social aspirations and characters.

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While examining the riding postures and equestrian styles of all characters in Canterbury Tales is beyond the scope of this short study, it has to be noted that, over the course of the Middle Ages, riding styles and equipment diversified depending on the purpose, gender, and affluence of the rider. Towards the end of the Middle Ages (when instruction literature conveying information about various skills and accomplishments associated with social elites becomes increasingly popular) the first equestrian manual, Dom Duarte’s Art of Horsemanship, is written.9 The treatise is unfinished and never enjoyed – and was probably never meant to enjoy – large audience beyond Duarte’s immediate circle. However, it records the existing equestrian practices and registers the emergence of the nobleman as accomplished rider who not only sits strongly but also looks well in the saddle. The burgeoning literature on horsemanship printed from the early sixteenth century onwards documents the development of equestrianism into the modern sport of dressage, where the horse and the rider are to appear elegant and harmonious – an art which has little practical application on the battlefield, but which was expected among the standard accomplishments of the courtier. The chapter concluding the present study presents a brief outline of the riding styles described by Dom Duarte, their evolution in the early modern period, and their analogies in the various equestrian disciplines of today.

Duarte I of Portugal, The Book of Horsemanship by Duarte I of Portugal, trans. Jeffrey L. Forgeng (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2016). His father, John I of Portugal, wrote a treatise on hunting, Livro da Montaria, which includes some information about equestrian skills required for this dangerous pastime, which was viewed as practice for war. The latter treatise has been edited in 1918; no translation into any other language has been made: João I, King of Portugal, Livro da montaria feito por D. João I, Rei de Portugal publicado por ordem da Academia das Sciências de Lisboa, por Francisco Maria Esteves Pereira [Book of riding by John I, King of Portugal, published by the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon for Francisco Maria Esteves Pereira] (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1918). 9

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Acknowledgements The material in this study was presented over the course of years on various occasions, and I would like to thank the organizers and the audiences for their patience and their comments on early versions of the chapters. In particular, some material from chapter 1 was presented at the International Medieval Congress 2018 in a session organized by the Medieval Animal Data Network (MAD), under the title “Beautiful and Ugly Horses in Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, ou le Conte del Graal.” The material in chapter 2 was presented at the International Medieval Congress in a session organized by Dr. Timothy Dawson and myself, as “Feasting and Fasting with Horses in the Late Medieval French Romance Cycle Lancelot-Graal.” Some of the material from chapter 3 was presented at the Gender and Medieval Studies conference, at Bangor University in January 2015, under the title “Women and Manly Dirt: Ladies, Damsels and Horses in the Queste del Saint Graal”, and, earlier, at the Medieval Graduate Conference, held at the Ioannou Centre, St Giles, Oxford, in April 2013, as “'lancelos encontre une damoisiele ki cheuauchoir tote seule': Riding as a Gendered Skill.” Finally, some of my conclusions were tested on my long-suffering colleagues, who listened to an early version entitled “Influence of Technical and Terminological Developments on Equestrian Sport in Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods” in the course of the International Scientific Conference held at the Latvian Academy of Sport Education in March 2016. Further on, I am very grateful to the supervisors of my doctoral research, Prof. Raluca L. Radulescu and Prof. Tony Brown, who have provided me with guidance on all things Arthurian and whose expert advice was crucial in my formation as scholar. I am very grateful to Teodora Artimon for encouraging both the present publication and the entire series on horse history, of which this very brief work marks the beginning. I would like to thank my husband, Edgar, for reading and correcting early drafts of the chapters and for his continuous participation in and encouragement of the pursuit of historical truth, whatever that may be. Also, to my adorable sons, for providing me (occasionally) with the time and (continuously) with the inspiration to pursue research into equestrian history. Finally, to my horse Fizz, who was my best, if 6

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sometimes strict, teacher about real horses and suffered all my experiments in historical and contemporary equestrianism. Needless to say, all errors and inaccuracies are entirely my own.

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CHAPTER 1 Mounts as Social Identifiers: Describing Knights and Ladies through Their Horses

The knight, his steed and chivalric romance The idea that a knight in the Middle Ages somehow blended with his mount, creating nothing less than a composite, an assemblage, has recently gained considerable currency in academic circles.10 Naturally, the rise of chivalry is not contemporaneous with the rise of the mounted warrior: in the early medieval period, mounted warriors were not knights, as they came to be known to us through the so-called “code of chivalry.” In fact, Latin texts of the period distinguish between “milites” and “pedites,” and the milites in question are not knights: they are simply mounted soldiers; another term used in early sources is equites or equestres, which was interchangeable with milites.11 A horse, thus, is only one of characteristics making a knight: the Jeffrey J. Cohen argues that, although “noble households ordinarily possessed numerous types of horses: hunters, chargers, palfreys, and a variety of workhorses,” none of them “gained the numinous aura of the aristocratic warhorse (destrier, magnus equus, grant chival), the knight’s beloved companion and the sine qua non of chivalric identity” (Jeffrey J. Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 84). Cohen’s notion of posthumanism is used, for instance, by Karen Brown Campbell in her discussion of the relations between the rider and the horse in chivalric culture (Karen Brown Campbell, “Reriding Chivalry: Humans, Horses, and Social Systems in Medieval Chivalry,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University, 2012 and “Writing Bodies, Riding Equipment, Reading Horses: The Equestrian Canon and the Code of Chivalry,” in The Horse in Premodern Europe, ed. Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson (MIP: forthcoming). 11 Conor Kostick, The Social Structure of the First Crusade (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2008), 160-186. 10

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ceremony of dubbing a knight is of singular importance in transforming a mounted warrior into a noble knight, a member of military elite who is, at least in theory, both physically and morally superior to his undubbed peers. In this chapter, we will consider the transformation of a warrior into a knight, and the associated change of mount, which marks the passage to a new social status, in Chrétien de Troyes’s famous romance Perceval, ou le conte del Graal. Indeed, Perceval motivates his refusal to descend from his horse when he first comes to Arthur’s court by referring to the knights he saw in the forest, all of whom were on horseback: “Ja n’estoient pas descendu cil que j’ancontrai an la lande, et vos volez que je descende! Ja, par mon chief, n’i descendrai, mes fetes tost, si m’an irai” (ll. 984-988).12 It is believed that Chrétien de Troyes wrote Perceval around 1182, having previously completed several Arthurian romances, among them Le Chevalier de la charrette (“The Knight of the Cart”), and Yvain ou Le Chevalier au lion (“Yvain, or the Knight of the Lion”). On the literary scene, the period in which Chrétien was active is contemporaneous with the lays of Marie de France, troubadour songs and chansons de geste. What is different about Chrétien’s romances, is not only their form, but also the content. Romances are usually dedicated to the matter of the ancient times and the “matter of Britain.”13 Moreover, romances usually foreground the individual achievements of the hero, and, in Chrétien’s romances, the focus is on the hero’s social and psychological dynamics. Furthermore, Chrétien often inscribes the social and political realia of his time in his romances, and he is attentive to issues of social status. Thus, the crux of Le Chevalier de la charrette is Lancelot’s dilemma to compromise his knightly honour if he decides to ride in a cart to save the queen or his love, in case he rejects the manifestly “unknightly” means of transport. The moment of hesitation costs him the queen’s favour, yet Chrétien’s were sure to understand Lancelot’s unease, as the

All references are to Chrétien de Troyes, Conte du Graal (Perceval), ed. Pierre Kunstmann. Ottawa/Nancy, Université d’Ottawa /Laboratoire de français ancien, ATILF, 2009. http://catalog.bfm-corpus.org/perceval (accessed 23 November 2018). Further references to line number are given parenthetically in the text. 13 For an accessible introduction to the historical context of Chrétien’s Perceval, see Micheline de Combarieu, Perceval ou le conte du grail: Chrétien de Troyes (Rosny: Bréal, 2003). 12

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only proper way of travelling for a knight was on horseback, and on a good horse at that.14 Thus, a horse, its appearance and its trappings, signal the status of its rider in Chrétien’s romances. Begoña Aguiriano argues that Dans ce récit l’accès du héros à un niveau différent est marqué par le changement de monture et d’armes. A la cour arthurienne, de façon tout à fait surprenante et se laissant guider par son propre élan, il a réussi à vaincre le Chevalier Vermeil qui avait contredit le droit du roi Arthur sur sa terre. Sa victoire lui procure les armes et le destrier du vaincu, et il devient donc le “Chevalier Vermeil.” Il accède à une nouvelle façon d’être qui n’est pas encore parfaite comme on verra à son passage par le Château du Graal. On peut dire que les armes et le cheval lui donnent “l’apparence” d’un chevalier ; à partir de maintenant, il lui faudra atteindre l'essence de la chevalerie. [In this narrative, a hero’s achievement of a different level is marked by the change of mount and arms. At Arthur’s court, surprisingly, guided by his impulsion, he (Perceval) succeeds in defeating the Red Knight, who opposes King Arthur’s right to the land. His victory brings him the arms and the destrier of the defeated knight, and he thus becomes the Red Knight himself. He gains access to a new way of being, which is still imperfect, as one shall see through the events at the Grail Castle. One can say that the arms and the horse give him the ‘appearance’ of a knight. From now on, he will need to achieve the core of chivalry.]15 Lancelot’s humiliation when having to use a cart instead of a horse is also rendered in the prose Lancelot, which post-dates Chrétien’s romance. For a discussion on the way in which Chrétien systematically stresses Lancelot’s humiliation by insisting that riding in a cart is dishonourable for a knight and a comparison to the prose Lancelot, see Michel Zink, L’humiliation, le Moyen Âge et nous [Humiliation, the Middle Ages and us] (Paris: Albin Michel, 2017), 199-204. 15 Begoña Aguiriano, “Le cheval et le départ en aventure dans Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes,” in Le Cheval dans le monde medieval [The horse in the medieval world] (Aix-enProvence: Presses universitaires de Provence, 1992), 11-27, 21. Translations from French here and elsewhere, unless otherwise indicated, are my own. 14

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Remarkably, the horse could also signal the rider’s moral and spiritual status. In this respect, the text of Chrétien’s Perceval and its illuminations eloquently exemplify the importance of the horse in determining the rider’s social status and adherence to the chivalric elite. While having a knightly horse and donning on a dead knight’s armour does not turn an unpolished youth into a courtly knight, they do seem to influence the rider’s behaviour and perception of himself, to say nothing of the way others perceive the armoured rider. Manuscript Perceval

Background

and

Summary

of

Chrétien’s

As compared to the later prose Arthurian romances, especially the socalled Lancelot-Grail romances, Chrétien’s works survive in relatively few copies. In all, there are forty-five manuscripts and fragments of Chrétien’s romances.16 Perceval, however, has eighteen extant copies, which is more the other four romances composed by Chrétien have (Érec et Énide, Cligès, Yvain ou le chevalier au lion, Lancelot ou le chevalier de la charette).17 In general, few texts of Chrétien’s romances are not illustrated with miniatures.18 One manuscript of Perceval, however, A thorough edition and study of all the surviving manuscripts of Chrétien’s romances is Les Manuscrits De Chrétien De Troyes/The Manuscripts of Chrétien De Troyes, ed. Lori Walters (Author), Keith Busby, Terry NIXON, Allison Stones (Rodopi: Brill, 1993). 17 In all, the textual variations in different manuscripts are insignificant for the purpose of the present study, as these variations usually concern the spelling and, in some cases, details of description and dialogue. There is also an early printed copy of Perceval, dated 1530: Tresplaisante et recreative hystoire du trespreulx et vaillant chevallier Perceval le Galloys, jadis chevallier de la Table ronde. Lequel acheva les adventures du Sainct Graal. Avec aulchuns faictz belliqueulx du noble chevalier Gauvain et aultres chevalliers estans au temps du noble roy Artus, non au paravant imprime. Library access code: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Arsenal, RESERVE 4-BL-4249. Available at (accessed 03 December 2018). This is a luxurious printed edition, with historiated capitals and full-page illustrations. 18 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 1429, dated thirteenth century, has the text of Perceval decorated with penwork initials. The text could have been introduced with a miniature on the first page, which is now damaged (only a small part of the first page survives). The black-and-white facsimile is available at (accessed 03 December 2018). 16

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presents an exception: Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine, Montpellier, H249 not only bears a relatively high number of miniatures, but many of the miniatures engage with the text and present a visual commentary on its meaning.19 Thus, on fol. 15r, Perceval is presented on a white destrier (the significance of this detail is explained below). Another spectacular manuscript is the fourteenth-century Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 12577, whose initial folio presents the storyline of Perceval meeting knights for his battle against the Red Knight.20 Chrétien’s Perceval is an unfinished romance, to which subsequent authors appended continuations in order to take the adventures of its two principal characters, Perceval and Gawain, a step further. The focus of the present chapter is on the early part of the text, before the attention is directed away from Perceval to Gawain; therefore, only this part of the text is summarized here. Perceval is raised in a forest, away from courtly life, by his mother, whose husband has been killed and whose sons, except from Perceval, perished in knightly pursuits. An ignorant youth, Perceval does not even know his own name, let alone the rudiments of chivalry. One day, while hunting on horseback with his courser, he meets Arthur’s knights, who are pursuing five knights running away with three maidens. The knights want to know if the young rustic man has seen the knight they are looking for, but young Perceval has his own concerns. Initially, he Available online at:

(accessed 08 November 2018). The manuscript is dated between the thirteenth and the fourteenth century. The surviving manuscripts of Chrétien’s Perceval postdate the composition of the romance. In the case of the Montpellier manuscript, produced after Chrétien’s death, it is impossible to conclude on the author’s or the early audience’s reactions to the text based on this manuscript. Another illuminated manuscript is Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 1453, where the first of the miniatures, fol. 15r, shows Perceval in King Arthur’s hall, where he arrives on his courser, carrying three javelins. This is contrary to the text, as Chrétien specifies that Perceval’s mother made him leave two of the javelins when he departed. Available at . (Accessed 03 December 2018). 20 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 12577, fol. 1r. Available at . (Accessed 03 December 2018). 19

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has taken the knights to be demons, due to the noise they were making, and then he believes they are angels, as they are the most beautiful creatures he has ever seen. When he learns they are knights, he wants to know what every single item of their equipment is called and what it serves for. At last, he takes them to his peasants, who may have seen where the knights with the maidens have passed, but not before he ascertains that, to become like one these shiny beings, he needs to come to the court of King Arthur, who makes knights. He returns home, terrifies his mother by announcing his decision to become a knight, and learns about his past. He listens to his family history less attentively then he listened to the explanations about knightly accoutrements, and he has even less patience with his mother’s final pieces of advice on the proper knightlyconduct. What he remembers he fatally misapplies, taking a tent for a church and robbing a lady in the tent of her ring and a kiss. When he departs, Perceval is the epitome of a rustic, a Welshman fitted out in peasant’s clothes and riding in a manifestly unknightly manner. On his way to Arthur’s court, he chances upon the unlucky lady, mentioned above, at whose expense he feasts, provoking the justified suspicions and anger of her own knight. The latter decides to take revenge on his lady, while looking for the opportune youth. One of the items that signal the deprivations to be suffered by the lady is the neglect of her horse: it is to be deprived of basic care, and, if the horse dies, the lady is to follow her knight on foot. When Perceval arrives at Arthur’s court, he commits another faux pas: he enters the hall on horseback and nearly rides over Arthur, who is deeply upset by the fact that a certain Red Knight has offended the queen and no knight of the court dares to avenge the perpetrator. Accidentally, Perceval has met the Red Knight on the way to Camelot and decided he wants the Red Knight’s armour. Kay, King Arthur’s most uncourtly knight, mocks Perceval by saying the young man should take the armour himself. This joke provokes Arthur’s wrath, but it is too late, as Perceval has already departed to seek the Red Knight and his armour. When they confront, the Red Knight hits Perceval with the wooden shaft of his spear across the shoulders, stressing that the young man is not his match. Perceval, angered to the utmost, shoots one of his Welsh javelins and penetrates the Red Knight’s brain. Subsequently, he has 13

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considerable difficulty in extracting the dead man from the armour and would have never succeeded it if not for the help of Yvonet, a young and courtly page from Arthur’s court. Perceval subsequently puts on the armour but refuses to wear the silken tunic of the dead knight, preferring his own coarse garments – a decision that signals, symbolically, the fact that his transformation into knight is only superficial and that, at the core, he remains an uninstructed young man. However, he also exchanges his own courser for the knight’s warhorse, granting the courser to Yvonet. This gesture seals his identity as that of a knight-in-making and sets him on his course of becoming a knight. During his later adventures, he learns the rudiments of knightly combat and behaviour, saves a besieged damsel, and, fatally, fails to ask the question about the Grail at the Castle of the Fisher King. When Perceval joins King Arthur’s court as a knight who has learned proper manner and committed deeds of chivalric prowess, he is suddenly reminded of his failure at the Fisher King’s Castle. An Ugly Damsel, riding a mule, appears at the feast, berates Perceval for his silence at the Castle and challenges Arthur’s knights to undertake numerous adventures. Following this challenge, Perceval and other knights, including Gawain, depart. Perceval, seeking to amend his former shortcomings, almost turns into a madman, forgetting about the passage of time, but returns to his senses when he meets a group of penitents and learns it is the Lenten season. Perceval comes to a hermitage, makes a full confession and, at this point, Chrétien leaves Perceval to take up the adventures of Gawain. As the romance is unfinished, later continuators took up the adventures of Perceval and Gawain, but it is impossible to know what transformation Perceval and his horse would have undergone if Chrétien had finished the story. Horse types and their functions in medieval Europe A variety of horses, other equids and beasts of burden inhabited the medieval landscape, performing various functions, from driving a cart or agricultural vehicles, to carrying baggage to bearing knights in tournaments, knights and ladies while travelling, hunting, or during pageants. All these activities required different types of horses, which, presumably, could be easily identified by medieval people as belonging to a certain type, within the context. Joan Thirsk, in the ‘Foreword’ to 14

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Ann Hyland’s influential monograph The Horse in the Middle Ages, explains that “horses for society’s wealthy were usually classified as destrier, great horse, courser and palfrey, although the latter was also found among those people in the middle income bracket. Rouncies, sumpters, hackneys, pads and hobbies served in the middle income sector. Carthorses, not the modern stamp were used by all social classes.”21 While medieval authors are frequently unspecific in their references to horses and riding, the instances when they do mention the type of horse, equid or beast of burden are likely to be significant. Chrétien de Troyes mentions specific animals working in harness, for instance, to evoke particular associations or create a picture of rural or urban landscape for his audience. Thus, on the morning when Perceval meets Arthur’s knights for the first time in his life, he is out to check on his mother’s workers labouring the field. Chrétien’s reference to the animals working in the field and the context in which the work takes place is specific; there are twelve oxen and six ploughs, that is, a team of two oxen per plough, cultivating the land: “Et pansa que veoir iroit hercheors que sa mere avoit, qui ses aveinnes li herchoient; bués .xii. et sis hierches avoient” (ll. 81-84). At the time, oxen, which are slower than horses but also cheaper to acquire and maintain, were ubiquitous in agricultural works. With time, horses increasingly came to replace oxen when speed was essential, though oxen were still employed on smaller or poorer farms. In certain cases, both horses and oxen would be used on the same farm. The fact that the farmers of Perceval’s mother are using oxen rather than horses would signify, to Chrétien’s later audience, that her farm was not at the forefront of agricultural progress, though the number of ploughs (six) shows that it was not very small, either.22 Joan Thirsk, “Foreword.” In The Horse in the Middle Ages, Ann Hyland (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), i. 22 For the shift from oxen to horses in the English countryside, see John Langdon, Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation: The Use of Draught Animals in English Farming from 1066-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). For France, see Floriana Bardoneschi, Le cheval de trait et son harnachement (entre Meuse et Loire, XIIe-XVIe siècle). Symboliser, habiter et cultiver les campagnes. [The workhorse and its harness (between Meuse and Loire, 12th-16th century). Symbolising, inhabiting and working the countryside] Unpublished doctoral thesis. 2 vol. (Paris: Université Paris Diderot, 2017). It should be noted that horses and oxen could be used in the same household for the same tasks. Oxen were slower than horses, but cheaper to maintain. 21

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On another occasion, on his way to Arthur’s court, Perceval meets a coal burner, who uses a donkey to transport his goods: “et li vaslez tant chevalcha qu’il vit un charbonier venant, devant lui .i. asne menant” (ll. 832-835). Donkeys and mules were common beasts of burden, and much lower down the social scale than most horses. While mules could be used as mounts for ecclesiastics of high status and ladies in certain regions of Europe,23 donkeys were considered to be very lowly animals. However, they also came to signify humility, as Christ entered Jerusalem on a donkey rather than a horse. In a thirteenth-century French romance, La Queste del Saint Graal, Hector has a dream, where he sees Lancelot riding a donkey. He is aggrieved at first, but a hermit explains that this is a good omen, as it signifies that Lancelot is going to deplore his former pride and will be saved through humility. Indeed, Lancelot is likened to Christ, who likewise entered Jerusalem on a donkey, not on a warhorse or palfrey: “[Nostre Sires] ne n’i volt pas venir sur destrier ne sur palefroi, ainzi vint sur la plus rude beste et la plus vilaine, ce est sur l’asne”24 [(Our Lord) would not come upon a war-horse or even a palfrey, but preferred to come upon an ass, the poorest and meanest beast, in order that poor and rich alike might take it as an example).25 In Chrétien’s Perceval, however, the figure of the coal burner is introduced to add realism to the scene and highlight the contrast between Perceval, who, despite his homespun clothes, is a noble person, riding a courser, and a person of low social status, who has to content himself with a donkey. Asking the way to Carduel, Perceval stresses the man’s status as a peasant by referring to the donkey to ensure the man understands he is being addressed: “Vilains, fet il, ansaigne moi, qui l’asne mainnes devant toi, la plus droite voie a Carduel” (ll. 835-837). In medieval Catalonia, it was also acceptable for noblemen to ride mules on certain occasions, probably given the fact that the terrain was often easier to negotiate riding a mule than a horse. Both horses and mules regularly appear in Catalan wills of the early medieval period; for details, see Pierre Bonnassie, La Catalogne du milieu du Xe à la fin du XI siècle. Croissance et mutations d’une société [Catalonia from the mid-10th century to the end of the 11th century. The growth and changes of a society] (Toulouse: Association des publications de l’Universitéde Toulouse - Le Mirail, 1976), vol. 2, 927-930. 24 La Queste del Saint Graal, ed. Albert Pauphilet, 3rd edn. (Paris: Champion, 1923), 158, ll. 25-26. 25 The Quest for the Holy Grail, trans. W. W. Comfort (Cambridge, Ontario: In parentheses Publications, 2000), 144-145. 23

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Slightly higher up the social scale, horses like rounceys and hackneys were used for riding, and servants often appear in French romances riding a rouncey. These horses were inferior in quality but enduring enough to enable a servant to complete the same demanding journey a knight would undertake. Knights, on the other hand, never rode these horses, unless compelled by necessity. In the Queste del Saint Graal, Perceval, whose horse is killed, asks a servant for his rouncey (“roncin”) to chase a knight who has stolen a horse. However, the rouncey proves inferior in speed and manoeuvrability, no match for a knight’s destrier.26 Palfreys were horses of comfortable gait. They could be reserved for ladies and for ecclesiastics, but noblemen also would ride palfreys as the occasion demanded. In the prose Lancelot, Lancelot’s father, an aged man, rides a palfrey when he escapes from a besieged castle with his wife and infant Lancelot. When riding for pleasure, over great distance, and in those cases when speed was not essential, knights could use palfreys. Coursers were distinguished by their speed, and they could be used by knights for hunting, travelling and pleasure riding. In romances, however, the implication is that an errant knight should be riding a destrier. When a knight is riding a courser, he seems, in some sense, to be less than a knight: either he is engaged in activities other than knightly pursuits, such as warfare and tournaments, with a hint that he may have fallen from the status of an ‘adventurous knight’, or he has not attained the status of a knight yet. In the prose Lancelot, young Lancelot arrives at King Arthur’s court on a courser, accompanied by the Lady of the Lake, who is riding a palfrey: La dame si [fu] atornee moult richement Car ele fu uestue dun blanc samit cote & mantel a vne pene dermine & sist sour vn petit palefroi soef amblant qui estoit si biaus & si bien taillies com len le poroit miex deuiser Moult fu li palefrois riches & biax si fu li frains de fin argent blanc esmere & li po[i]trax autresi & li estrier & la sele estoient diuoire entaillie moult soutilment a ymages menus de dames & de cheualiers Et la sambue estoit toute blanche & trainans dusques vers terre & del samit meisme don’t la 26

La Queste, 175, l. 6. 17

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dame estoit vestue Ainsinc appareillie de cors & de palefroi est la dame deuant le roi venue Et dales li fu li valles & fu vestus dun blanket breton qui moult fu bons si fu beaux a merueilles & bien taillies & sist desus vn chaceor fort & isnel qui tost le porte. 27 [She was richly turned out, for she was dressed in a tunic and cloak of white samite, trimmed with ermine, and she rode a little white palfrey, as beautiful and well formed as anyone could describe. It was very fine, and its bridle was of pure silver, as were the breast-strap and the stirrups, while the saddle was of ivory, most skilfully carved with small figures of knights and ladies. The saddle-housing was of the same white samite as the lady’s clothing, and reached down to the ground. Thus attired and mounted, the lady came before the king. Beside her was the youth, dressed in an excellent white woollen cloth. He was wonderfully handsome and well formed, and mounted on a strong and swift hunter, which carried him rapidly along.]28 In yet another Arthurian romance, the Middle English Sir Launval, which is related to the French lay Lanval, attributed to Marie de France, Lanval, who has left Arthur’s court and spent all his money due to his generosity, lives in poverty in a town, being universally despised. One day, he wants to take a ride for pleasure, but he is so poor that he has to borrow a saddle and a bridle from the mayor’s daughter. When riding in a park, Lanval’s courser slips in the mud, and the unfortunate knight makes a fall to the derision of the onlookers. In this case, the fact he is mounted on a courser rather than a warhorse, albeit this is appropriate in the context of pleasure riding, stresses Lanval’s fall from the status of a knight, as a knight ought to ride warhorses and to participate in tournaments, rather than take airs in the park. Lanval’s actual fall emphasizes the knight’s predicament and may suggest than Lanval’s courser has been in some way neglected, e.g., may have lost one or more of his shoes, which lead to its slipping in the dirt.

Le Livre de Lancelot del Lac, ed. H. Oskar Sommer, vol. III, p. I (Washington: The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1910), 121-122. 28 Lancelot of the Lake, trans. Corin Corley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 64. 27

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A warhorse or destrier is different from the other elite horses, that is, the palfrey and the courser, in its appearance, physical and psychological qualities, and training. While a palfrey must have gentle gaits and a courser must be swift, a destrier should be, first and foremost, a brave horse. There is almost no information in textual sources about the kind of training warhorses received in Chrétien’s time, that is, in the second half of the twelfth century. However, based on the knowledge of cavalry tactics in the medieval period and some experimental work, it has been concluded that medieval warhorses were highly trained, tractable animals, who could work in collection, including collected canter, and changed the lead at canter.29 These are not extraordinary skills, but they are beyond the grasp of a novice rider. Today, these skills would be taught to a young horse towards the end of its training, usually at the end of the third or at the beginning of its fourth year.30 Still, it has been suggested that the age at which a warhorse would begin its work in the Middle Ages would coincide with the age at which a horse (a stallion) reaches full physical maturity, that is, seven; today, many specialists recommend to wait until the age of six for a horse to do “serious” work.31 In a study of the warhorse in the early medieval period, Jürg Gassmann argues that “training for a cavalry horse cannot sensibly begin until the horse is four years old, and will take 2-3 years to complete.”32 Thus, growing and training a warhorse required a considerable investment of time and means: providing the nutrition to allow the horse to develop well, as well as ensuring skilled training, so that the horse could be tractable and obey the rider. Fitting out a warhorse, too, would necessitate a considerable outlay of money, even in the period when no armour was used for a horse. When Perceval arrives at Arthur’s court and demands to be knighted, the type of horse is remarked by the King, who courteously greets Perceval and invites him to descend from his horse and entrust the courser to a servant: “Amis, fet li rois, descendez et vostre chaceor See Jürg Gassmann, “Combat Training for Horse and Rider in the Early Middle Ages,” Acta Periodica Duellatorum, 6.1 (2018): 63-98. For the warhorse in the thirteenth century, the experimental work of Adeline Dumont is most useful: see Dumont, “Du cheval au destrier,” 235-248. 30 Reference to Ann Hyland, Foal to Five Years (London: Ward Lock, 1992), 95. 31 Isabella Edwards, “When Are Horses Mature?” Equine Wellness (7 April 2014). https://equinewellnessmagazine.com/horses-mature/ (accessed 26 November 2018). 32 Gassmann, 72. 29

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randez cel vaslet” (ll. 977-979). Perceval, however, refuses to do so, because the knights he saw in the forest were on horseback. How does Arthur know that Perceval’s horse is a courser, not a hackney, a palfrey or even a destrier? Does the King’s correct recognition signify that a medieval observer familiar with horses would be able to place the horse into the correct category instantly? Were these categories fixed one and for all, or could they be changed by training and equipment? It is impossible to give a definite answer in the absence of detailed materials on horse training in the period, as the earliest books of marshalcy date to the thirteenth century and contain more material on horse care and treatment than on training. However, the characteristics that distinguish horse types according to use are well known, so that apparently an experienced horse observer, such as King Arthur ought to be, should be able to distinguish between horse types at a glance. The equipment of the horse is important here, but also the horse’s conformation and movement can be assessed to determine its type. Thus, a destrier should be heavier, to be able to bear a knight with his arms and armour and, later, when horse armour came into use, also its proper armour. Heavy horse armour was designed primarily for tournaments and came into general use later, so that the destriers Chrétien’s Perceval has observed were unarmed, and they would have needed to bear only the weight of their armed riders. A twelfth-century destrier would then have been a relatively big horse, heavier than a courser, and of considerable endurance. A courser is a horse of light build, whose main characteristic is speed rather than strength. The difference between a courser and a destrier would then roughly be the same as between a modern show-jumper and a race horse: however, a race horse can be retrained into a show-jumper, building the necessary muscles in the process. This brief overview of the types and functions of horses and other equines allows us to appreciate the fact that, in referring to horses and equines by specific categories, Chrétien provides his audience with indications about the rider’s social status, aspirations and the way in which others would see the rider. In this context, Perceval’s change from a courser to a warhorse becomes meaningful as a step up the social ladder, yet the audience is reminded that, from the very beginning, Perceval has a rightful place in the chivalric community.

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Horses as mirrors of the riders’ social status Perceval’s progress from a courser to a destrier At the beginning of the romance, we are introduced to Perceval, a careless, naïve youth, who rose up one morning, and saddled his courser, without a care on his mind: “se leva, et ne li fu painne aue il sa sele ne meïst sor son chacheor” (ll. 76-78). It is remarkable that the type of horse is signaled right away: rather than mentioning a generic ‘cheval’, Chrétien specifically refers to a “chacheor” or “chaceor,”33 and, until Perceval gives away his horse, the type of the horse is mentioned time and again, which is rare in medieval romance.34 Clearly, the fact that the horse is a courser is significant. Perceval’s initial purpose was to check on his mother’s peasant working in the field, but, rejoicing in the freshness of the morning, he took off his horse’s bridle to let it graze freely, while he himself threw javelins in an apparently haphazard fashion: “Por la dolçor del tans serain osta au chaceor son frain, si le leissa aler peissant par l’erbe fresche verdeant” (ll. 91-94). In romance, errant knights often let their horses graze, but this usually happens at the end of a long riding day, or when they come to a place where no special food is available for the horse, such as a hermitage.35 Taking the bridle off the horse has both practical and symbolic meaning. Obviously, a horse must be released of the bridle and bit, which would interfere with its grazing. On the other hand, the bridle symbolizes restraint and control. In romance and folklore, a rider would release the reins and let the horse take him wherever it wishes to go, at moments of indecision, or simply by way of announcing the rider’s obedience to fate or nature. Perceval, apparently, has complete trust in his steed and is not concerned that the horse might wander away. To prevent a horse wandering away, it can be hobbled, an action The word “chacheor” can be translated as “courser” or, literally, as a “hunting horse.” In the Middle Ages, a courser was a swift horse, lower down the hierarchy of elite horses than the knight’s warhorse, a destrier. 34 See, for instance, l. 305, when Perceval takes Arthur’s knights to the peasants laboring the field: “Li vaslez prant son chaceor.” 35 The implications of horses grazing and eating special food, including oats and hay, are discussed in chapter 2, ‘Feeding the Horse of an Errant Knight’. 33

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occasionally specified in romance, but here, Chrétien stresses that Perceval allowed his horse to go wherever it would, “si le leissa aler peissant” (l. 93). Just as he is not concerned with controlling the movements of his horse, Perceval himself abandons self-control and engages in playing, throwing his javelins at will and for no apparent purpose. In this scene, not only the horse is moving in a haphazard fashion, but also its young rider. Both have abandoned control and let nature dominate them, the horse grazing in abundant, fresh grass and the rider rejoicing in the forest. The arrival of Arthur’s knights signifies a turning point in Perceval’s life. In contrast to the free play of the horse and the young man, the knights and their horses epitomize control, self-restraint, culture, or ‘nurture’ (education) as opposed to nature. The knights arrive noisily, their armour clanking and glistening in the sun. The knights’ horses are not mentioned, as Perceval’s questions relate only to the knights’ arms and armour. However, the contrast between his own courser and the knights’ warhorses is implicit, and Perceval later abandons his courser to ride upon the Red Knight’s horse. While riding a courser does not necessarily signify his rustic upbringing, nor the fact he is a Welsh man, Perceval’s clothes, equipment and riding style clearly do: “congié prant, et la mere plore, et sa sele li fu ja mise. A la meniere et a la guise de Galois fu aparelliez” (ll, 598-601). First, there are the garments of simple materials made by his mother, in which he is arrayed, his large hobnailed boots and the javelin he carries. Furthermore, while knights use spurs to control their horses, Perceval carries a whip to send his courser on its way: “Une reorte en sa main destre porta por son cheval ferir” (ll. 610-61.13). While a knight would be carrying a lance or a sword in the right hand, Perceval, who is not yet a knight, carries a whip. His javelin could be held in the left hand, in which a knight would be carrying a shield and holding the reins. Both Arthur’s knights earlier in the episode and Perceval depart in a speedy manner. However, the movements of their horses and the actions of the riders are described differently, and this is significant. The knights are simply said to be eager to catch up with those five knights they are pursuing, so they depart “at fast galop” (“les granz galoz,” l. 360). Presumably, they use spurs to initiate the horses’ movement, and, as this is a normal action among knights, Chrétien 22

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does not specify it. Perceval, in turn, uses his whip, lashing the horse’s rump with it, making the horse take of ‘at great speed’: “Et cil ceingle de la reorte son chaceor parmi la crope, et cil s’an va, qui pas ne çope, einz l’an porte grant aleüre parmi la grant forest oscure” (ll. 625-628). Subsequently, Perceval rides all day without stopping, while it was light: “et chevalcha des le matin tant que li jorz clers aparut” (ll. 629-630). Here, while it is likely that the horse departs at a galop, the speed is evoked, as this is the more important characteristic. Thus, while the horse’s natural qualities seem to be excellent – it is speedy and enduring, able to ride all day, just as proper knights’ horses – in difference to the destriers of Arthur’s knights, it is nevetheless inferior, and its training is deficient as well. While the knights’ horses obey the riders immediately, without apparent effort from the riders, Perceval’s courser needs a strong blow to make it take off. Moreover, Perceval does not appear to be a proficient rider, or at least his equipment is of such quality as to make easy, flowing transitions and turns unforthcoming. When Perceval finally arrives at Arthur’s court, he enters the feasting hall on horseback, refusing to dismount. Arthur is so immersed in his sad thoughts about the Red Knight who had offended the Queen that he fails to notice the impertinent young man, even when Perceval addresses the King directly. Disappointed, Perceval decides that this mute king would never make him a knight and intends to leave. He is so clumsy that, when he was turning his horse to leave, the knocks the King’s cap off: “Tantost del retorner s’atorne, le chief de son chaceor torne, mes si pres del roi l’ot mené a guise d’ome mal sené, aue devant lui, sanz nule fable, li abati desor la table del chief .i. chapel de bonet” (ll. 929-935). Perceval’s clumsiness is evoked specifically. To begin with, it was imprudent of the young man to ride up so close to the King, suggesting Perceval either did not care or was unable to stop and hold his horse in a precisely chosen spot. He made his faux pas worse when he turned the horse’s head, possibly because his bridle was not good enough, his courser was a little resistant, or Perceval was no good at precision exercises. A courser is, of course, a less costly and less prestigious horse than a destrier; it may also be less highly trained, more excitable and less manoeuvrable, though this is hard to ascertain in the absence of detailed information on horse training in this period. At the same time, there is nothing inherently dishonourable in Perceval’s riding a courser, 23

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because it is a common mount for young men who have not yet been knighted: as we have seen, Lancelot arrives at Arthur’s court on a courser, too. When King Arthur greets Perceval and asks him to alight from his courser, the King implicitly acknowledges the youth’s rightful place among the men who rightfully aspire to be knights but who have not yet attained this status. Subsequent events show that Perceval, indeed, is physically ready to become a knight, as he easily overcomes the Red Knight, yet he is psychologically and culturally immature and not prepared to bear the responsibilities and obligations of knighthood. Perceval gains a new horse and a set of armour when he defeats the Red Knight in a manifestly unknightly manner, dashing the Red Knight’s brains out with a javelin. With the help of Yvonet, Perceval undresses the dead knight and puts on the Red Knight’s armour, refusing his fine clothes, as he prefers his own coarse garments and boots, cursing Yvonet for his “foolish” suggestion: “Deable, est ce or gas, que je changerai mes bons dras que ma mere me fist l’autr’ier por les dras a cest chevalier! Ma grosse chemise de chanvre por la soe, qui mout est tanve, voldriez vos que je lessasse? Ma cotele, ou aigue ne passe, por celui qui n’an tanroit gote? Maudite soit la gole tote qui changera n’avant n’aprés ses bons dras por autrui malvés!” (ll. 11601170). In fact, Chrétien invites his audience to laugh at Perceval’s obstinacy in preferring his coarse clothes over the fine garments of the Red Knight, noting that it is useless to teach a fool (“Grief chose est mout de fol aprandre,” l. 1171) – and, at that point, Perceval remains a naïs - a naïve, foolish person. Indeed, while Perceval receives a new horse and new means of controlling it, leaving his whip behind, he does not entirely abandon his rustic habits, and he must learn to use the new equipment attained from the Red Knight. Here, again, Yvonet helps the youth by putting his foot in the stirrup: “Puis li met le pié an l’estrier, sel fet monter sor le destrier. Einz mes estrié veü n’avoit ne d’esperon rien ne savoit, fors de cinglant ou de roorte” (ll. 1181-1185). Chrétien stresses that Perceval is unfamiliar with both the spurs and the stirrups. Presumably, the saddle he used on the courser did not have stirrups, and, as already mentioned, Perceval only used a whip for his horse. Again, Chrétien designates the horse by a specific term, “destrier,” rather than by the generic “cheval,”

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because the change from a courser to a destrier constitutes an important step in Perceval’s career. As Perceval is about to depart, he leaves his courser to Yvonet by way of thanking him for his assistance and also because in his new status as a knight he has no need for a courser any longer: “Amis, prenez mon chaceor, si l’an menez, qu’il est mout bons, et jel vos doing por che que je n’an ai mais soing” (ll. 1189-1192). The gift is entirely appropriate, because Yvonet is a servant, and Perceval’s courser is a good representative of its class. Perceval praises the quality of his horse, and the audience has no reason to doubt his words, as it has been mentioned earlier that the courser was capable of riding at great speed. It is remarkable that, in one manuscript of Chrétien’s romance, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine, Montpellier, H249, the change from a courser to a destrier is visually highlighted, as the horses are represented as dark grey and silver grey. Perceval is initially shown riding a dark grey horse; the young man holds three javelins in his right hand and is dressed in simple, brown clothes (Fig. 1). The illumination is placed on the first folio, before the prologue to the romance, apparently illustrating Perceval’s initial foray into the forest on a spring morning when he met Arthur’s knights. The text of the romance is written in two columns, and the square miniature is the same width as the column it introduces, suggesting that the manuscript patron was ready to go to certain expense for his manuscript, which also includes a considerable number of painted and penwork initials and miniatures throughout the text (there is, for instance, a painted “Q,” eight lines high, just below the miniature). The care that went into preparing the manuscript illuminations and decoration seems to indicate that the manuscript patron or producer was interested in having a high-quality product, so that illuminations could have been thought-through and planned to enhance or comment on the meaning of the text. It is remarkable that the representation of Perceval on a grey horse is consistent throughout the text: for example, on fol. 4v, Perceval is shown departing from his mother, also riding a grey horse (Fig. 2). The quality of the miniature makes it impossible to make judgements on Perceval’s clothes and arms, if any, but he seems to be wearing brown boots, probably representing the large hobnailed boots Chrétien describes on at least two occasions: when Perceval prepares to

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leave and when he puts on the Red Knight’s armour but retains his own coarse clothes.

Fig. 1. Perceval sets out on a courser. From Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine, Montpellier, H249, fol. 1r

Fig. 2. Perceval takes leave of his mother. From Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine, Montpellier, H249, fol. 4v. 26

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On becoming a “knight,” Perceval is shown on a white horse in at least one of the illuminated manuscripts of Chrétien’s romance: the illuminator of the Montpellier manuscript shows Perceval in red armour riding a white horse on fol. 15r (Fig. 3). Though the colour of the horse is not mentioned in the text at this point, the white horse could point to Perceval’s relative maturity or to his position as a “hero.” The “white” or, more precisely, the silver grey colour is symbolically important, as heroes are usually represented riding white horses: in the Queste del Saint Graal, Galahad is known as a “white knight,” and many, though not all illuminations, show him in white armour riding a white horse. White horses were also more prized than horses of other colours, including grey and dapple grey, as can be seen from lists of horse colour hierarchies.

Fig. 3. Perceval in red armour on a white horse. From Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine, Montpellier, H249, fol. 15r.

Moreover, as grey horses become lighter with age, the new destrier is a more mature and, presumably, better prepared, better trained and more experienced horse than Perceval’s dark grey courser. Symbolically, Perceval’s change from a dark grey to a silver-grey horse denotes his passage from naivety to relative spiritual maturity. If Perceval does not 27

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become a mature person at once, by donning a knight’s armour and mounting a destrier (and his courteous speech to Yvonet, as well as his recognition that he has no more need of his courser indicate he does become a little more mature), he is at least expected to change, and the silver grey horse will be his teacher, at least in that it requires spurs rather than a whip to control.

Fig. 4. Perceval converses with penitents. From Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine, Montpellier, H249, fol. 40v.

Perceval is shown riding a white horse on other miniatures as well. On fol. 40v, introducing his return to his senses after a period when he 28

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forgot about God and the passage of time, he is represented seated on a white horse, holding a lance and a red shield, in conversation with three penitents (Fig. 4). On fol. 66r, he engages in battle on a knight seated on a bay horse, wearing red colors, as on the previous occasions. It is remarkable that, although Chrétien does not specify the colour of Perceval’s courser and the Red Knight’s destrier in the romance, the illuminator is relatively consistent in his representation of the hero and his horses, suggesting that the colour is significant, making Perceval easy to distinguish from other knights. In yet another manuscript, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 12577, fol. 1r., the battle between Perceval and the Right Knight has Perceval on a grey horse, while the Red Knight is mounted on a white one (Fig. 5). This illustration is part of a complex tableau, illustrating Perceval’s adventures from the beginning of the romance (Fig. 6). In other parts of the illustration, Perceval is shown riding either a grey or white horse, so here the representation of the courser as grey and of the destrier as white is not consistent.

Fig. 5. Perceval's battle against the Red Knight. Fragment of illustration from Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, 29

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Français 12577, fol. 1r.

Fig. 6. Perceval's adventures at the beginning of the romance. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 12577, fol. 1r.

Perceval’s progress up the social hierarchy and his passage from nature to culture, from rusticity to chivalry, and from youth to maturity is thus rendered more graphic by means of the horses he rides and the manner of his riding. The horse is part of the young man’s identity, and, as his social and psychological identity changes, so do his horses. 30

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Moreover, Perceval’s journey takes place through landscape populated with horses and other equines and beasts of burden, so that the social and symbolic landscape, and the characters he meets are also defined and distinguished from Perceval through their mounts and beasts of labour. In this respect, the appearance and representation of two ladies and their mounts in the romance is meaningful. Orgeuilleux de la Lande punishes his lady by punishing her horse In the course of Perceval’s journey to Arthur’s court, the youth sees a tent and, taking it for a church, enters it. He finds there a beautiful lady and, following the advice of his mother, which he grotesquely misinterprets, he eats the food and takes a ring from the lady before continuing the journey. The lady’s knight, Orgeuilleux de la Lande, does not believe his paramour’s explanation and is enraged, suspecting the worse and blaming his lady. He decides to capture the importune young man, in the meantime punishing the lady: “Antree estes an male voie, antree estes an male painne” (ll. 818-819). As he begins his speech dwelling with detail on each part of the punishment to which he is about to subject the lady, he begins, perhaps surprisingly, with the horse. First, the lady’s horse will be fed inferior food, excluding oats: “ja ne mangera d’avainne vostre chevax” (ll. 820821). Not having any oats means, for a horse about to take the lady on a prolonged, trying journey, subsisting only on hay. This is insufficient for a horse doing hard work, which is used to having oats. After a while, the horse will drop weight considerably and will have a very bony appearance. The horse will also be deprived of basic veterinary care, bleeding, up to the point when the knight takes his vengeance: “ne n’iert seniez tant que je me serai vangiez’ (ll. 821-822). Brigitte Prévot explains that ‘La saignée […] est un remède très utilisé par les hippiatres, à titre curatif, mais aussi préventif’ [bleeding is a remedy used very often by veterinarians, both as curative and preventative measure].36

Brigitte Prévot, “Le cheval malade : l'hippiatrie au xiiième siècle,” [The sick horse: hippiatric medicine in the 13th century] in Le Cheval dans le monde medieval [The horse in the medieval world], 451-464 (Aix-en-Provence: Presses universitaires de Provence, 1992). 36

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Another essential point of horse care is shoeing, which, for a horse working on hard or uneven surfaces, such as travelling on stony or muddy roads, was indispensable. An unshod horse could soon go lame if working on a hard surface for hours; it could also develop cracks in the hoofs, which is another cause of lameness. In the Middle Ages, working horses were shod. Re-shoeing horses at regular interval is also important. Today, the interval of four to six weeks between shoeing is recommended,37 although six to eight weeks is equally acceptable. 38 However, depending on the workload and the structure and shape of the individual horse’s hooves, a horse may need to be shod with relative frequency. A horse which has not been reshod at the proper time is more likely to lose a shoe, and, if it continues working with one or two shoes off, it is likely to go lame in the unshod foot. Besides, as its feet would then be on different levels, a horse without a shoe will lose the evenness of gaits, which would be particularly onerous for a palfrey, a horse prized for its even gates. Therefore, the next item in the Orgeuilleux de la Lande’s long list is particularly important: in fact, he says that, if the lady’s horse loses a shoe, it will not be reshod (“et la ou il desferrera, ja mes referrez ne sera” (ll. 823-824). At this point, the audience will be able to imagine the physical and moral discomfort to be suffered by the hapless lady. It is likely that she would ride on a bony, stumbling horse – a formerly pampered, goodlooking palfrey – which, in addition, is likely to suffer all kinds of health issues that bleeding was meant to cure or prevent. The ride would probably be not only uncomfortable, but also humiliating. In this context, the final words concerning the horse are cruel, but hardly surprising; the knight threatens that, if the horse dies, the lady is to follow the knight on foot: “S’il muert, vos me sivroiz a pié” (l. 825). In comparison to the poor horse, the deprivations to be suffered by the lady come as an anti-climax. Of course, they are hard and Cited in John Clark, “Horseshoes,” in The Medieval Horse and Its Equipment c. 1150c.1450, ed. John Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), 75-123, 83. 38 The recommended period of six to eight weeks is current practice for hobby horses, i.e., horses who are not worked intensively (private communication with Latvian farriers). However, note an example reported by Evans of a Suffolk blacksmith, Clifford Race, who explained that the local country horses used to be re-shod once every three months (G. E. Evans, The Horse in the Furrow (London, Faber & Faber: 1960), 194). It is likely that medieval practice on the period for re-shoeing would be closer to the latter than to the former. 37

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humiliating, but, given the treatment of the horse, it hardly comes as a surprise that the lady is not allowed to change her clothes: “ne ja mes ne seront changié li drap don vos estes vestue” (ll. 826-827). The knight concludes that the lady would follow him naked, on foot – as the horse is unlikely to survive mistreatment for long – until the knight meets Perceval and beheads him: “einz me sivrez a pié et nue tant que la teste an avrai prise” (ll. 828-829). Remarkably, although the supposed crime of unfaithfulness has been committed by the lady, the principal sufferer appears to be the lady’s horse. It is the horse, not the lady, who will be malnourished and deprived of basic veterinary care. The lady, by comparison, will only be unable to change her dress, which could be a source of some physical discomfort, but mostly a source of humiliation. When Perceval, dressed as a knight and having acquired the rudiments of chivalry, meets the lady again, she is riding on a sorry nag, trying to hold together her dress, which is literally falling apart. Perceval defeats the Orgeullieux de la Lande and, having explained that the lady was guiltless, requires him to restore her to her former degree of comfort, before the two would travel to Arthur’s court to tell the king of Perceval’s victory. It is to be hoped that, like the lady, whose well-being is to be restored, the horse will be well fed and cared for, but the text does not specify it. In the Middle Ages, horses could often appear as expendable animals, unless they merited from a special relation to their owner (in this case, the horse is usually given a name in the medieval text). The point that Chrétien makes here, however, is not about the well-being of the horse: the horse is only one of the factors that, like the clothes, indicate the status of the person. In this case, the deplorable condition of the horse reflects the lowering in status of the owner, just as a change to a higher-status horse signals Perceval’s step up the social ladder. Signalling abnormality by describing the Ugly Damsel’s mule The poor lady who fell victim of Perceval’s naivety and her knight’s jealousy, is not the only female character in the romance whose status is reflected by the equine she rides. Another such person is the notorious Ugly Damsel, who enters King Arthur’s court riding a mule. Mules were used by ladies, and, in romance, female messengers and servants 33

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often appear on the back of a mule. In Sir Launfal, for instance, when the maids of Triamour come to Arthur’s court, the first ten maids are described as riding, without the description of their mounts, and the next ten have Spanish mules (“They ryd upon joly moyles of Spayne”39). The maids are described as exceedingly beautiful and welldressed, so, presumably, their mules are well turned-out equines, worthy of carrying their comely and honourable riders. In another Arthurian romance, The Awntyrs off Arthure, Guinevere appears riding a white mule (“On a mule as the mylke”40). In Perceval, the situation is different. The damsel who comes to the court is riding a mule of yellow colour, which is not the most distinguished or fashionable hue. Centuries later, Alexander Dumas famously depicts his d’Artagnan on a yellow gelding, and the animal’s colour makes the rider an object of ridicule among the onlookers. In medieval hierarchies of horse colours, the most valued colours are silver grey or, alternatively, dark bay with a white mark, dappled grey, bay, etc., down to coal black. The damsel is holding a whip, which is quite appropriate for someone riding side-saddle, though she could just as well be riding astride, as the detail is not specified in the text, and the illuminator of Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 12577, depicts the Ugly Damsel riding astride on fol. 27r (Fig. 7). However, ladies who were proficient riders and needed to travel at speed could also sit astride and use spurs, just like men. Sitting side-saddle was common when ladies and damsels were riding with decorum, e.g., in procession. The Ugly Damsel’s entry to King Arthur’s hall, thus, suggests some decorum, but the yellow colour of the mule and especially the Ugly Damsel’s own appearance underlie this pretension. Moreover, when the Ugly Damsel addresses Perceval, her reproaches are so vociferous that, in combination with her appearance, the overall impression is either grotesque or uncanny – or both. This is in sharp contrast with other scenes where female messengers riding horses or mules appear in romances, such as the somewhat later Queste del saint graal and the Middle English Sir Launfal, which is based on Mari “Sir Launfal,” in Middle English Romances, ed. Stephen H. A. Shepherd (New York, London: Norton & Company, 1995), 214, l. 886. 40 “The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne,” in Middle English Romance, 220, l. 25. 39

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De France’s Lanval. Probably Chrétien’s intention was to alert the audience to the unusual nature of the occasion by presenting a remarkably unsavoury damsel on a mule of unfashionable colour riding straight into Arthur’s hall.

Fig. 7. The Ugly Damsel arrives at Arthur's court. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 12577, fol. 27r.

Conclusion The first assessment of a rider is done through his or her mount, which is natural, just as today people are often assessed by the brand and model of a car they drive. A change of one horse for a different one thus becomes meaningful: it can signal the change of a person’s status, occupation and moral condition as well as the transition from adolescence to relative maturity, as is the case with Chrétien’s Perceval. Perceval’s change from an uncultured, rough youth is related to a 35

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change of mount, from his own courser which obeys only a whip to the Red Knight’s destrier, for which Perceval needs spurs. In describing the courser and the destrier, Chrétien relies on the audience’s ideas about the two kinds of elite horses. The main characteristic distinguishing a courser is its speed, which is implied in Perceval’s speedy departure from his house. When Perceval gives his courser to Yvonet, the audience already knows the horse meets the basic requirements set for this type of equine, and there is no reason to question Perceval’s explanation that it is a good horse. Nothing is said about the destrier, presumably because it goes without saying what a knight’s warhorse should be like: powerful, obedient, and enduring. In real life a noble man could ride a variety of horses: coursers (for hunting and amusement), palfreys (for travelling with comfort) and destriers (for tournaments, and in many, but not all cases, for war). In romances however, the transition from one horse type to another is symbolic. Thus, coursers are associated with youth and immaturity, as well as a step back from noble, knightly occupations. When Lanval mounts a courser to leave Arthur’s court or while living away from the court (in Sir Launfal), the audience is likely to feel that he has taken a step down the social ladder, and the change of mount is related to Lanval’s fall into poverty. In fact, during a pleasure ride, for which Lanval borrows a saddle and bridle for his courser from the mayor’s daughter, Lanval’s courser actually slips and falls in the mud, to the derisive laughter of the passers-by: “He rood with lytyll pryde; Hys hors slod and fel yn the fen, Wherfore hym scorned many men Abowte hym fer and wyde.”41 In Sir Launfal, the marvellous white destrier given to the knight by his fairy mistress ensures that the knight becomes universally victorious and is related to Lanval’s triumphant return to the court and his subsequent successful performance in numerous tournaments. The name of the fairy horse is Blaunchard, possibly an allusion to its coat colour; furthermore, the horse is capable of fighting on the part of his master, as when Lanval dismounts in a battle with the Earl of Chester and Blaunchard continus kicking the enemies: “Thorugh Launfal – and hys stedes – dent, Many a knight, verement, To ground was i-bore.”42 In romance, travelling in search of adventures, jousting and going to war are the only worthy pastimes for 41 42

“Sir Launfal,” 196, ll. 213-216. “Sir Launfal,” 203-204, ll. 484-486. 36

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a knight, which is why a destrier is the only fitting mount for a true knight when the knight is properly occupied. In real life, warhorses were indispensable only for jousting, while coursers could be used by poorer knights or on certain campaigns, such as Edward III’s chevauchées.43 The latter campaigns, however, could not be regarded as strictly chivalric, if judged by the standards of romance. Moreover, towards the end of the medieval period, as the arms and armour used in tournaments evolved and became safer and heavier, the qualities required from a good tournament horse became different from those sought in a good warhorse, so further specialisation occurred. This specialisation is not reflected in romance and, anyway, it did not take place until long after Chrétien’s time. While the descriptions of the courser and the destrier in Perceval are minimal, much more attention is paid to the palfrey ridden by the mistreated lady. The Orgeilleux de la Lande’s threats begin with the punishments to be suffered by the mount rather than its hapless rider. When Perceval meets the lady, Chrétien first describes the pitiful appearance of the equine and only then the lady. Here, the bad treatment suffered by the horse is a sign and a shorthand for the punishment to which the lady is subjected, while the distress caused by the ill condition and poor appearance of the horse amplify the physical and moral unease of the lady. Anyone looking at the lady can see that she has fallen down the social ladder – not because she is seated on a horse of a different type, but because the horse she rides is in a very poor state, is very bony, and the riding equipment is in disrepair. The fourth type of equine discussed in this chapter is the Ugly Damsel’s mule. Only two details are given about the animal: its yellowish colour and the fact the Damsel uses a whip. These two details are important for the medieval audience, which can immediately see that the animal is less than spectacular, signalling that its rider would not be the paragon of elegance, either. The following detailed description of the Ugly Damsel with her grotesque deformities confirms this initial impression.

On the development of the chevauchee during the Hundred Years’ War, see, for instance, Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), 10-12. 43

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CHAPTER 2 Feeding the Horse of an Errant Knight: Practical and Symbolic Aspects of Horse Care

Introduction. Food for horses in romance Little is known about the day-to-day realities of horse care in the Middle Ages, and this is true even for elite horses, on which more information is available than on those lower down the social scale (packhorses, plough horses, the “dung mare,” etc.). Naturally, horses needed to be fed and provided with water, their boxes had to be cleaned, and the animals exercised regularly to maintain their serviceable life. Hippiatric treatises, from Jordanus Rufus onwards, not only give us treat medicine for horses, but often provide information on breeding, training and daily care.44 However, it is not certain to what extent the glimpses of daily horse care that can be obtained from hippiatric treatises reflect contemporary practice, as the knowledge of 44 Jordanus Rufus’ influential treatise was translated into French and copied well into the fifteenth century, see Brigitte Prévot, La science du cheval au moyen âge. Le Traité d’hippiatrie de Jordanus Rufus [The science of the horse in the Middle Ages. Jordanus Rufus’s hippiatric treatise] (Paris: Klincksieck, 1991). An example of the English hippiatric treatises that include information on horse care, breeding and training is the Boke of Marchalsi, edited by Bengt Odenstedt (Stockholm: Stockholm Thesis in English 10, 1973). For an overview of the practicalities of stabling, feeding and equipping the medieval horse in France, see Jean-Jacques Schwien and Yves Jeannin, “Loger, nourrir, équiper le cheval: un essai de synthèse pour la seconde partie du Moyen Âge dans l’Est de la France et ailleurs,” in Le cheval dans les sociétés antiques et médiévales. Actes des journées d’étude internationals organisées par l’UMR 7044 (Étude des Civilisations de l’Antiquité), Strasbourg, 6-7 novembre 2009 [The horse in ancient and medieval societies. Proceedings of the international conference organised by the UMR 7044 (Study of the Ancient Civilisations), Strasbourg, 6-7 November 2009], ed. Stavros Lazaris (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 113-134.

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horseflesh was more likely passed through apprenticeship than by learning from books.45 For once, we know little about the internal architecture of European stables and the equipment used for stabling individual horses, although archaeological excavations of stable structures can provide valuable information about stabling and horse care. Such research can show, for instance, the types of food horses were fed in different seasons. In a stable excavated at Veselí nad Moravou, it was found that, over the summer months, “meadow grasses as well as woody vegetation, millet, oat, and less commonly hemp, wheat and rye.”46 This is in line with the information obtained from administrative documents, which contain the expenditure related to keeping horses and may specify horse foods, such as hay, barley and oats, necessary for maintaining horses in a castle or during a campaign. Meanwhile, the problem of dietary needs of horses arises as it varies significantly while at rest and during active work.47 It is also important to know whether horses are led out to graze, how many times they are fed, and what is the amount of food given in one feeding time. Having some idea of stabling arrangements is also helpful, as horses tend to waste more food with certain feeding contraptions than with others. Moreover, the amount of necessary food would depend on the nutritional quality of the hay or grain,48 or the quality of the grazing. In For the different audiences of English treatises on horsemanship and their expectations, see Eline Cotterill, “How to make a white mark on a black horse: Middle English hippiatric medicine, common diseases and their remedies,” in The Horse in Premodern Europe, ed. Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson (Michigan: MIP, forthcoming). On different ways of transmitting hippiatric knowledge in the ancient world, see Stavros Lazaris, “Learning and memorising hippiatric knowledge in the late Antiquity and in Byzantium,” in Le cheval dans la culture médiévale, ed. Bernard Andenmatten, Agostino Paravicini Bagliani and Eva Pibiri (Firenze: Sismel, 2015), 269294. 46 Miroslav Dejmal, Lenka Lisá, Miriam, Fišáková Nývltová, Aleš Bajer, Petr Libor, Petr Kočár, Romana Kočárová, Ladislav Nejman, Michal Rybníček, Zdenka Sůvová, Randy Culp, Hanuš Vavrčík, “Medieval horse stable: the results of multi proxy interdisciplinary research” PLOS one 9(3) (2014): e89273. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089273. 47 For an estimate on the nutritional needs of a horse accepted today, see Gillian Higgins and Stephanie Martin, Horse Anatomy for Performance. A Practical Guide to Training, Riding and Horse Care (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 2012), 76-77. 48 Ann Hyland, Foal to Five Years (London: Ward Lock, 1992), 114-117. On the nutritional needs of horses and the content of the vital nutrients in the grains typically 45

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short, there are so many unknowns in discussing the feeding of medieval horses, even elite horses, that one would hesitate to approach this topic. Medieval romance can help bridge some gaps in our understanding of horse care in the high and late medieval periods. In the previous chapter, an example was given from Chrétien’s Perceval, where the Orgeuilleux de la Lande deprives his lady’s horse of oats as the first item in the list of various punishments to which the unlucky lady is subjected. Nevertheless, the information given in romances should be approached with caution: we should not express precise indications of the amounts of horse food and feeding times. Even the types of food given to horses can be subject to literary convention, stylistic requirements, or the preoccupations of the author. In this chapter, we will explore the practical and symbolic significance of references to horse food in medieval chivalric romance, focusing on the Queste del Saint Graal. Feeding an errant knight’s horse in chivalric romance Let us consider a typical episode in the life of an errant knight on the move, taking as example, Sir Owain, the hero of Welsh tale “Owain or The Lady of the Fountain.”49 One morning, Owain gets up in the middle of the forest, saddles and bridles the horse that has been grazing all night and rides to the castle of a hospitable Earl. As Owain has already obtained a lion for his companion (which is significant in view of the subsequent arrangements in the castle), the Red Book of Hergest specifies that he was honourably received in the castle, yet the presence of his companion, the lion, rose certain logistic problems:

fed to horses, see Katrine Boniface, “Bread for My Horses,” in The Horse in Pre-modern Europe, ed. Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson (Michigan: MIP, forthcoming). 49 “Owain or The Lady of the Fountain” is part of the Mabinogion collection of tales, preserved in the White Book of Rhydderch (composed around 1350) and the Red Book of Hergest (dated 1375-1425). The Welsh story of “Owain” closely resembles Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain ou le chevalier au lion. 40

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Ac yna y kyweirywys owein y uarch. Ac y kerdawd racdaw trwy y ryt yny welas y gaer. Ac ydoeth yr gaer. Ae aruoll awnaethpwyt idaw yno yn enrydedus. Achyweiriaw y uarch yndiwall. adodi dogyn o vwyt rac y uronn. Amynet aoruc y llew y bresseb y march y orwed. Hyt na lyfassei neb or gaer ynet ygkyfyl y march.50 [And Owain accoutred his horse, and passed across by the ford, and came in sight of the Castle. And he entered it and was honorably received. And his horse was well-cared for, and plenty of fodder was placed before him. Then the lion went and laid down in the horse’s manger; so that none of the people of the Castle dared to approach him.]51 The text highlights that the horse had plenty of food; in this case, it is likely that hay is implied. The manger in question is likely to be very capacious, if a lion can install itself in it. The horse probably appreciated its food better when the lion departed to join Owain in the feasting hall, where he lay down at Owain’s feet and received scraps of meat from the table, just as an ordinary hound would do, since, as argued, the representation of “dogs as cosseted domestic companions that are dependent on humans reflect an ongoing medieval reality.”52 In this short episode, two patterns emerge for the horse of an errant knight in romance: grazing while the knight is on the move and having plenty of stock feed when the knight stays over at a castle, monastery, or another inhabited place. The details of the latter could reflect medieval realia: thus, hay, supplemented by oats were, and still are in some cultures, fed to horses doing heavy work. The description could also reflect the author’s preoccupations and even aesthetic choices, as The Mabinogion, from the Llyfr Coch o Hergest and other Ancient Welsh Manuscripts: with an English Translation and Notes by Lady Charlotte Guest, ed. and trans. Charlotte Guest, vol. I (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1838), 32-33. 51 Guest, The Mabinogion, 78. 52 John Block Friedman, “Dogs in the Identity Formation and Moral Teaching Offered in some Fifteenth-Century Flemish Manuscript Miniatures,” in Our Dogs, Our Selves: Dogs in Medieval and Early Modern Art, Literature, and Society, ed. Laura D. Gelfand (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2016), 325-362, 331. The different treatments allocated to medieval hounds and dogs is the subject of Froissart’s poem, The Debate between the Horse and the Greyhound (“Le Débat dou cheval et dou levrier,” in Jean Froissart. An Anthology of Narrative and Lyric Poetry, ed. and trans. Kristen M. Figg and R. Barton Palmers (New York: Routledge, 2001), 459). 50

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in The Awntyrs of Annwn, an alliterative poem where the author chose the word that ensures alliteration and preserves the meter of the line. Horse nutrition and feeding horses in the Middle Ages Before we discuss the description of horse food in the Queste del Saint Graal, it is useful to understand the horse’s nutritional needs and the ways in which elite horses were stabled and fed in the Middle Ages. It is likely that both the author of the Queste and his audience would have at least some familiarity with horse management, and, naturally, the audience would read the romance with this knowledge at the back of their minds. I do not imply that the Queste, or most of the other chivalric romances are reflective of the ways in which warhorses and other elite mounts were commonly treated and cared for. In romance, we usually see the errant knights travelling on a certain horse, which is also his warhorse and, in some cases, his famous and treasured companion, like Launfal’s horse, the gift of his fairy mistress Triamour, or Gawain’s Gringolet. War historians, including Matthew Bennett, have explained how knights on a campaign would use remounts and would as much as possible avoid riding the valuable destrier while on the march, if they could afford bringing remounts. Moreover, on campaigns, knights would have a little retinue with them, necessitating several equines. In the Queste, as in many other chivalric romances, knights errant usually travel alone, except for a short episode at the beginning of the Queste where Galahad is accompanied by the son of the King of Denmark, who wants to seek adventures in Galahad’s company and begs him to ride as his squire. This ends abruptly, as the young squire decides to attack the first adventure he meets, contrary to Galahad’s plans, and is punished for his presumption. Remarkably, some late manuscripts of the Queste show knights with squires in certain episodes, where, according to the text, the knights travel alone.53 Normally, the nutritional needs of a horse could be satisfied by grazing alone, but only if the grazing area and the quality of grass is One such episode is Perceval’s visit to the recluserie, where he discovers his aunt, for example, in a late-fifteenth-century manuscript, BNF, f. français 112 (3), fol. 18v. https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc42531j/ca19825395 (accessed 3 January 2019). 53

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sufficient, and the horse’s workload is relatively moderate. In the medieval period, this option would not normally be available to elite horses, which would be stabled most of their out-of-work time. The Welsh law even specifies that a destrier would lose its status if it were let to graze for several nights in a row outside the specific months (from mid-May to mid-April and in October) when it would be “out of active service,” and probably running with the mares in spring.54 Still, archaeological evidence suggests that horses could be fed grass during the summer months:55 this would probably be mowed grass brought inside the stable. In winter, hay would be given, though the amount of hay necessary to satisfy a horse’s needs would, again, vary, depending on the quality of hay, which is determined not only by the composition of grass and by the soil but also by the season in which it was mowed and by the conditions in which it was dried and stored.56 Moreover, hay and grass could be wasted by horses, if left on the floor, so placing hay in special racks or feeding troughs (large enough to accommodate a lion, if we believe the Welsh Owain) would make a considerable difference. Grass of hay alone, however, would hardly be sufficient for an elite horse to be kept in good condition: oats would be given to a horse which works actively, while barley could be given to a horse during the period of rest. Oats is the source of energy and, in a horse kept indoors or with little exercise, excess of oats would lead to restlessness, which, in turn, may make the horse contract bad habits or behave in ways dangerous for the animal and its carers, not to mention possible digestive problems. During the later medieval period, special horse feeds were developed, including purpose-baked “horse breads,” the use of which increased in the early modern period, and which were the forerunners of modern muesli and mixed feeds for horses.57 This exception is made in the Iorweth redaction of the laws of Hywel Dda (Hywel Dda: The Law, ed. Dafydd Jenkins (Gomer Press, Llandysul, 1990), 173). For the commentary on this provision, see Edgar Rops, “The Horse in Welsh and Anglo-Saxon Law,” in The Horse in Pre-modern Europe, ed. Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson (Michigan: MIP, forthcoming). 55 The excavations of a medieval stable show the remains of meadow grass, see Dejmal, “Medieval Horse Stable,” 9. 56 Hyland, Foal to Five, 115. 57 For a detailed discussion of horse bread, see Boniface, “Bread for My Horses.” There is earlier and more detailed evidence on bread given to elite dogs, and Kathleen Walker54

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Even today, the price of hay can be dramatically augmented by bad harvest, which can be caused by rain during the mowing season (inability to dry and remove hay) or by drought in late spring and early summer, when the grass is growing. These fluctuations would be even more pronounced in the Middle Ages. Thus, accounts from different baronial estate in England, analyzed by Hyland, demonstrate how expenditure could vary over certain periods. Fluctuations of expenditure from year to year would be caused by variations in the price of horse feed, while short-term fluctuations could indicate the arrival to or departure from the estate of large numbers of horses. Hyland has examined the thirteenth-century accounts of Eleanor, wife of Simon de Montfort, for an estate where thirty to forty horses were stabled, in addition to mares and foals, provided with grazing. Hyland’s hypothesis is that the fluctuations of costs from one month to the other were due to the dispatch of messengers, one of whom had travelled for nearly 1,000 km over the season. The horses used by such messengers were coursers, similar to the courser originally ridden by Perceval in Chrétien’s romance, and these would need to be fit and well-fed, using high-energy food, primarily oats. While we should avoid reading excessive realism into medieval romance, we can imagine knights errant travelling at a more leisurely pace most of the time, with occasional bursts of energy needed when a knight would be attacking or pursuing another knight. At certain points, the knights of chivalric romance would be riding all day, stopping for no food or drink, but these are clearly exceptional cases, and expected to be read metaphorically, as such pace is not sustainable for horses in the long term.58 Different types of travelling and workload would necessitate purpose-tailored amounts and composition of horse feed. Studies of horse fodder expenditure during King Henry’s Scottish campaigns and the shipping of horses over the Mediterranean by King Louis XII show a nuanced understanding of basic feeding needs: according to J. H. Meikle maintains that “For pet dogs the staples were bread, often of a fine quality, and milk, occasionally with meat” (Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Medieval Pets (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012), 41. 58 In modern terms, this kind of effort would be found in endurance riding (for an accessible introduction to modern endurance riding, see Ann Hyland, The Endurance Horse. A World Survey from Ancient Civilizations to Modern Competition (London: J. A. Allen, 2008)). 44

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Pryor, a horse on Louis IX’s crusade in 1270 would be provided four modia of barley by the measure of Acre, a barrel of hay 3 ft 3 in by 5 ft (approximately 1 m by 1.5 m) and over 6 imperial gallons of water (27.9 l).59 Thus, the shipped horses were given barley rather than oats, very wisely, in view of the amount of quick energy available from oats. In assessing the amounts, Hyland comments that these are often in excess of the horse’s needs.60 At the same time, we do not know how much of this food would be consumed by the animals rather than wasted (some horses do not eat the oats and hay lying around on the floor, on which they have trampled, though other horses have no such qualms), neither do we know the quality of the food. For hay, it is also impossible to assess the density of the bails, though they were certainly loser than modern machine-packed hay bales. Also, the hay and oats affected by mold, which is a regular occurrence, cannot be given to horses, as this would cause colic. Modern research shows that giving “plenty of fodder,” as is the case with Owain’s horse, is wise, while a large manger would prevent the horse from wasting its food by trampling on it. Today, it is recognized that horses need to be chewing most of their waking time, in other words, approximately twenty hours a day, and, if regularly left without food for over three hours, they can develop problems with the digestive system (hernias) and behavioural vices (biting other horses, windsucking, chewing on wood, etc.). Moreover, contrary to the previous practice of leaving a horse without food for about an hour before training, research has shown that a moderate amount of food immediately prior to training would do no harm and would even reduce the risk of ulcers.61 Hence, it is entirely acceptable for a knight to retrieve his horse, which has been grazing all night, as is usually the case in romances when knights lodge under the stars, to saddle it and ride on immediately. When the knights were better lodged, their horses, respectively, would receive a supper and breakfast of oats, with, again, plenty of hay for the night.

J. H. Pryor, “Transportation of Horses by Sea during the Era of the Crusades, eighth century to AD 1285,” Marriner’s Mirror 68 (1982): 9-27, 123 ff., 108-110. 60 Hyland, The Medieval Warhorse from Byzantium to the Crusades (Stroud: Sutton, 1994), 146. 61 Higgins, Horse Anatomy, 70. 59

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Different contraptions are used in stables today to ensure horses do not waste their fodder, such as hay nets, racks and mangers, and it seems that the practice was also known in the Middle Ages. In one of the illuminated manuscripts of the Queste, the fifteenth-century BnF, Français 111, fol. 249v produced in France, a horse is drawn eating fodder from a high rack in a hermitage (see Fig. 8). The horse seems to be tied up, using a rope headcollar, possibly because the stable or barn where it is left is not partitioned into boxes. The inclusion of such realistic detail in the miniature is in line with the tone of realism in the entire romance: although all, or nearly all adventures of the errant knights are subject of exegesis by hermits, monks, recluses or even saints and angels, it is repeatedly stressed that the adventures are real. In other words, the events of the Queste, paradoxically, take place on the spiritual and material planes simultaneously. Thus, a knight and his horse who part on an empty stomach have genuine hunger, but this hunger may often have religious significance – for instance, that of holy fast.62 The Queste del Saint Graal is a romance of chivalry where all chivalric adventures are also spiritual adventures. In that, it is different from contemporary romances, including Chrétien’s Perceval, where “le graal” is simply a marvellous object among others. In the Queste, the Grail is a holy relic which, like many relics, has an agency of its own: like the marvellous icons of its age, it can appear and disappear apparently at will. It can heal the sick, but it can also punish the sinful, as it happens to Lancelot, who wants to assist in the Grail mass while morally unfit to do it. The contemplation of the Holy Grail can have the effect of revealing divine wisdom, and Galahad, looking inside the vessel at the end of the romance becomes privy to the divine mystery, to an extent that he can no longer dwell in this world. The quest for the Grail, from the very beginning, is, thus, a spiritual undertaking, where only the perfect, sinless Christian knights, pure (virgin) in thought and deed can succeed. At the same time, the usual chivalric adventures – jousts, fighting other knights, even battling dragons – are equally present, but, apart from very painful physical wounds, they can have spiritual repercussions, with the victory or defeat being predicated not on the For the significance of fasting in medieval culture, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast. The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987). 62

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individual knight’s physical prowess, but on his virtue. Lancelot and Gawain, both of whom are accomplished in deeds of arms, have no chance, because they are worldly and sinful. Indeed, Gawain disgraces himself by inadvertently killing other Round Table knights – a mesaventure rather than aventure. In turn, Lancelot has a chance of success if he could disavow his affair with Guinevere, but he never fully does it, and yet he fully realises his limitations and is ready to repent.

Fig. 8. Lancelot at the hermitage. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 111, fol. 249v

The Queste del Saint Graal: outline, signification, and material afterlife In this context, food, as all other aspects of the knights’ material existence, takes on spiritual signification. The nourishment knights take in is symbolic, and so is the fodder given to their horses, even if the latter is never explicitly referred to as such. However, it cannot be otherwise, because, as Cohen has argued, the horse was part of the 47

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knight’s identity.63 For Susan Crane, who builds on Cohen’s ideas, the medieval knight is an “assemblage,” a hybrid creature, almost a centaur who makes one with his horse.64 The animal, who shares the knight’s adventures and misadventures, thus, suffers or rejoices depending on whether his master’s rise or fail, and, indeed, the same may be true of the ladies’ palfreys in certain cases. Indeed, in the medieval discourse on salvation, the rider on horseback became the symbol of the Christian, with the horse signifying the body and the rider – the soul. This notion inspires Gautier de Coincy’s expression in his rendering of the Theophilus legend: “our horse, our mare, is our tired carcass.”65 Given the bewildering alteration of fast-paced, violent adventure narrative and slow-paced, laborious exegesis of the Queste, one might expect its lack of popularity with the general audience. However, if the Queste may not seem particularly enticing for the modern reader, it appears to have held considerable appeal from the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century throughout Europe. Part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, which consists of L’Estoire del Saint Graal, L’Estoire de Merlin, Lancelot, La Queste del Saint Graal, La Mort le roi Artu.66 Remarkably, apart from Lancelot, the Queste seems to have been the most popular of these romances. It is preserved in fifty-six manuscripts presenting the complete Queste or its fragments67 out of approximately 200 copies of

Jeffrey J. Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 84. 64 Susan Crane, “Chivalry and the Pre/Postmodern,” postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 2 (2011): 69-87, 70. See also Susan Crane, Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). 65 “Nostre cheval, nostre jument, / C’est nostre lasse de charoigne”. Gautier de Coinci, Le miracle de Théophile ou comment Théophile vint à la penitence [The miracle of Theophilus or how Theophilus came to repent], ed. and trans. Annette Garnier (Paris: Champion, 1998), ll. 660-661. 66 For a discussion of the manuscript context of the Queste and the underpinning discourse of chivalry, see Anastasija Ropa, “Historical Contexts for the Queste del Saint Graal and Thomas Malory’s ‘Tale of the Sankgeal’,” in Texts and Territories, ed. Hülya Tafli Düzgün (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2018), 217-237. See also Anastasija Ropa, “Representations of the Grail Quest in Medieval and Modern Literature.” Unpublished doctoral thesis (Bangor University, 2013). 67 Fanni Bogdanow, “A Little Known Codex, Bancroft ms. 73, and Its Place in the Manuscript Tradition of the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal,” Arthuriana, 6:1 (1996), 1-21, 2. 63

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parts of the cycle,68 while the complete cycle appears in nine manuscripts only.69 Many of the Queste manuscripts are richly illuminated or at least include some decoration, as Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS P.A. 77, which has initials in red and blue.70 Most of the manuscripts were produced in France, but there are also manuscripts from the Low Countries, England and Italy.71 The date of the Queste composition is unknown, but it is usually considered to be in the early decades of the thirteenth century. The Queste is dated 1214-27 by Pauphilet,72 while Jean Frappier dates it 1225-30.73 The earlier date is more likely, as Alison Stones dates the first illustrated Lancelot manuscript to the 1220s, suggesting that the entire Lancelot-Graal cycle, including the Queste, was probably written prior to 1220.74 Enjoying steady popularity in manuscript format, the Queste was printed by Antoine Vérard from 1488 onwards.75 Finally,

Alison Stones, “Seeing the Grail, Prolegomena to a Study of Grail Imagery in Arthurian Manuscripts,” in The Grail: A Casebook, ed. Dhira Mahoney (London: Garland Publishing, 2000), 301-366, 302. 69 Miranda Griffin, The Object and the Cause in the Vulgate Cycle (London: Legenda, 2005), 2-3. 70 The Lyon MS does not have illuminations, but it is decorated with red and blue penwork initials. http://weblex.ens-lsh.fr/pub/kq (accessed on 13 April 2017). 71 According to Roger Middleton, the Lancelot-Graal manuscripts of English provenance are BL, MS Royal 20 A. II; BL, MS Egerton 2515; BL, MS Royal 19 C. XIII; BL, MS Royal 20 C. VI; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 45; and BL, MS Royal 19 B VII (Roger Middleton, “Manuscripts of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle in England and Wales,” in A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, ed. Carol Dover (Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 2003), 219-236, 223). For examples from other countries, see, for instance, the Flemish BnF, MS f. fr. 1424 produced in Tournai about 1330-40, BnF, MS f. fr. 122 dated 1344, and BnF, MS f. fr. 343 produced in Italy (Pavia or Milan) about 1380-85. The dating and origin of the manuscripts are available from http://mandragore.bnf.fr (accessed 17 November 2018). 72 Albert Pauphilet, Études sur ‘La Queste del Saint Graal’ attribué à Gautier Map (Paris: Champion, 1921), 12. 73 Jean Frappier, Étude sur ‘La mort le roi Artu’, roman du XIIIe siècle (Geneva: Droz, 1961), 138. 74 Alison Stones, “The Earliest Illustrated Prose Lancelot Manuscript?” Reading Medieval Studies 3 (1977), 3-4. 75 Vérard also printed editions of the Lancelot, Mort Artu and the Tristan. see C. E. Pickford, “Antoine Vérard: Éditeur du Lancelot et du Tristan,” in Mélanges de langue et de literature françaises du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance offerts à Charles Foulon (Rennes: Institut de français, Université de Haute-Bretagne, 1980), vol 1, 280-284. On Vérard’s editions 68

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Thomas Malory, in composing the Mort dArthur, used the Queste as the single source for his “Tale of the Sankgreal,” following his French source closer than he did any other in the romance, even though he made considerable abbreviations to the Queste, especially in condensing exegetic passages.76 Although long-lasting fame does not guarantee the romance’s faithfulness of realistic detail, information about horse care and nourishment did not occasion much objection in Malory. Indeed, he does not correct anything, but only augments the realism of the text in certain passages concerning the treatment of horses by the questing knights. In the episode where the elect knights depart by ship to seek the Holy Grail overseas, they must leave the horses behind, and Malory specifies that the knights removed the tack before letting their steeds free.77 The horses feast and fast with their masters in the Queste del Saint Graal Most of the time, the Queste del Saint Graal knights spend their nights away from any habitation, and, having taken the saddle and bridle off the horse, they let the animal graze overnight. Sometimes, the horses wander away, and the knights have to seek them. To prevent this, a horse may be tied up to a tree, as Lancelot wisely does when he chances upon a ruined chapel: “Et il resgarde vers la croiz et voit une chapel mout anciene, et il s’I adrece car il cuide trover gent. Et quant il est auques pres, si descent et atache son cheval a un chesne et oste son escu de son col et pent a l’arbre.”78 [And of Arthurian romances, see Mary Winn, “Vérard’s Editions of Tristan,” Arthuriana 19:1 (2009): 47-73. 76 On the French and English sources that were possibly available to Malory, see, most recently, P. J. C. Field, “Malory and the Grail,” in The Grail, the Quest and the World of Arthur, ed. Norris Lacy (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008), 141-155. 77 Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, ed. P. J. C. Field (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2013), 2 vols. For a discussion of Malory’s representation of horses in the romance, see Elina Harjula, “Horses in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur.” Unpublished MA thesis (Bangor University, 2010). 78 La Queste del Saint Graal. Roman du XIIIe siècle, ed. Albert Pauphilet (Paris: Champion: 1967), 57. 50

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looking about the cross, he saw a very ancient chapel whither he turned in the hope of finding someone. When he was close to it he dismounted and, tying his horse to an oak tree, he removed his shield from his neck and hung it on the tree].79 In one case, Lancelot’s horse is taken away by the knight whom the Holy Grail has healed, leaving the former flower of chivalry continue his journey on foot. Normally, knights find their horses easily in the morning, put the saddle and bridle on, and continue their way. In practice, horse care for a travelling knight was likely more extensive, involving, for instance, re-shoeing a horse that has lost a shoe, providing it with oats and ensuring basic medical care, such as bleeding. All these items are essential for Chrétien, because, as we have seen, the Orgeuilleux de la Lande deprives his lady’s palfrey of these necessities. In the Queste, these things are silently glossed over, much as the basic needs for the knights themselves. Meanwhile, it is remarkable that many of the illuminated Queste manuscripts show the knights’ horses grazing not only when their masters stop for the night, but also when they dismount on other occasions. In BnF, f. français 343, a manuscript produced in Pavia or Milan and containing a high number of illuminations for the Queste del Saint Graal, horses are shown grazing on several occasions.80 Fol. 17r shows Gawain in conversation with a hermit (see Fig. 9). The knight is seated on a stool in front of the hermitage, and the hermit is addressing him from a small house. Gawain’s shield is hung on a tree, as knights usually do during stopovers (see Lancelot’s actions at the ruined chapel, cited above). The horse, which is bending behind Gawain with surprising suppleness, has the saddle and bridle still on, which does not prevent it from nibbling the grass. The same manuscript shows a horse grazing in much the same posture, this time wrapped around a tree, in the episode at the ruined Grail chapel (see Fig. 10). The quotation cited above states that Lancelot tied up his horse to an oak tree before hanging his shield on a tree. Subsequently, he inspected the chapel and found it empty, but Quest, 56. The manuscript is dated 1380-1385. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84584343/f46.image (accessed 3 January 2019). 79 80

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could not enter it. He decided to spend the night next to the chapel thus witnessed one of the Grail miracles. It is specified in the text that Lancelot returned to his horse, took it by the bridle and let it to the cross that stood near the chapel. Before donning off his own armour, he took the equipment off his horse and let it graze. Only then did he undo his own helmet and his sword and lay down on his shield to sleep: “Et quant il voit qu’il n’I porra entrer, si est tant dolenz qu’il se part de la chapel et vient a son cheval et l’en meine par le frain jusqu’a la croiz; puis il oste la sele et le frain et le lesse pester; et deslace son hiaume et le met devant soi, et oste s’espee et se couche sor son escu devant la croiz et s’endort assez legierement.”81 [So he examined the grill, and when he found he could not go farther, he was so distressed that he left the chapel and led his steed back by the bridle to the cross, where he took off the saddle and bridle and let him browse. Then he unlaced his helmet and set it down before him, and he removed his sword and lay down upon his shield in front of the cross and being weary fell into a light doze].82 Malory in his “Tale of the Sankgreal” translates the passage almost word for word: “Than was he passing hevy and dismayed, and returned alien and cam to hys horse, and dud of hys sadyl and brydyll and lette hym pasture hym, and unlaced hys helme and underge hys swerde and layde hym downe to slepe uppon hys shylde tofore the crosse.”83 A sick knight was brought in a litter and prayed on his knees to be healed. The Holy Grail appeared at the chapel, healing the knight. Lancelot saw the Grail through his slumber or lethargy, but could not arise, which made the healed knight and the knight’s servant conclude, justly, that Lancelot was a sinner, who could not profit from the presence of the Grail due to his sins. They take away Lancelot’s horse, as the healed knight has arrived in a litter, but, returning to health, was eager to participate in the Grail adventures. Arising in the morning, Lancelot has nothing to do but walk on foot, which is a disgracing and not very efficient travelling mode for a questing knight. Queste, 58. 57. 83 Malory, Le Morte Darthur, vol. 1, 693. 81

82Quest,

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Fig. 9. Gawain at the hermitage. Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. français 343, fol. 17r

Fig 10. Lancelot at the Grail chapel. Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. français 343, fol. 18 53

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The episode at the Grail chapel is an important one illustrated in several of the Queste manuscripts, including BnF, f. français 112 (3). This manuscript is dated approximately a century later than BnF, f. français 343, to c. 1480, and was produced in Poitiers. The different place and date of production is evident from the style of illumination, the equipment of the knight and the horse, and even from the landscape.84 Whereas the background of outdoors scenes in BnF, f. français 343 is rendered in brown-yellowish tones, the grass in BnF, f. français 112 (3) is drawn with bright to pale green hues, with the details of some vegetation at the lower edge of the miniature. On fol. 15v, Lancelot is seated languorously, looking towards the altar on which the Grail is placed, with the sick knight kneeling in front of the altar. Further away, from the left of Lancelot, his horse is grazing (only the head of the horse is shown, see Fig. 11). The horse is shown having the cloth still on, but no bridle, though the illuminator may not be particularly careful about this level of detail in illumination, although the closest miniatures on fols. 14r, 15r and 18v show horses with curb bridles, with the reins attached to clearly visible curb shanks.

Fig. 11. Lancelot at the Grail chapel. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 112 (3), fol. 15v The illuminator of BNF, f. français 112 (3) is Evrard d’Espinques. Susan Blackman analyses the illuminative programme of this manuscript in Susan A. Blackman, “A Pictorial Synopsis of Arthurian Episodes for Jacques d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours,” in Word and Image in Arthurian Literature, ed. Keith Busby (London: Routledge, 1996), 357. 84

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Lancelot is not the only knight who sleeps by a deserted chapel and is missing the horse in the morning. Two other knights of the Round Table, Gawain and Hector des Mares, meet by chance and decide to ride together. Their meeting is illuminated in BnF, f. français 343, on fol. 34v, which shows the knights embracing, an occasion from which Gawain’s brown horse profits to graze (see Fig. 12). The other horse, a dappled grey, has its head raised and might be listening, which is natural behaviour in a horse herd, where one of the animals would be “on the lookout” for possible danger while the herd is grazing.

Fig. 12. Lancelot at the Grail chapel. Bibliothèque nationale de France f. français 343, fol. 34v, Gauvain and Hector des Mares

Having ridden for a week with no adventures, Gawain and Hector find an old, apparently deserted chapel on the mountain side and decide to spend the night there. They unarm themselves, leaving the lances and shields, then unsaddle their horses and let them graze freely on the mountainside: “Au soir lor avint qu’il troverent entre deus roches, en une Montaigne, une chapel vielle et anciane qui tant ert gaste par semblant qu’il n’I repertoit ame. Quant il vindrent la, il descendirent et 55

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osterent lor escuz et lor lances et lessierent defors la chapel lez la paroi. Puis ostent a lor chevax les frains et les seles et lessent pestre par la montaingne.”85 In the chapel, they pray by the altar and are rewarded with visions whose explanation they later obtain from a hermit. Two of the visions and dreams have horse-related elements. Hector sees Lancelot falling off a horse, which is interpreted by the hermit as Lancelot’s fall from pride. Both knights also see a hand holding a halter, which, symbolically, reminds the knights of the need to discipline their bodily instincts, including, by implication, their love of food, which must be curbed by fasting.86 Interestingly, they have trouble finding their horses in the morning: “Quanz li jorz fu venuz, il alerent veoir ou lor chevaus estoient, si les quistrent tant qu’il les trouverent.”87 Either the horse had been disgusted by the knights’ sinfulness, or roamed away in search of lusher vegetation, which could have been scarce on the mountain slope. Though the Queste does not offer a symbolic reading to the disappearance and eventual finding of the horses, a reader may be tempted to seek the signification of this small incident, because many of such small details prove to be meaningful in the course of the narrative. Moreover, the horse’s wandering away is discovered after Gawain’s dream, in which a herd of bulls, which signify Arthur’s knights, decide to seek better pasture, which is an allegory of the knights departing on the Grail quest. The bulls that come back are exhausted and emaciated, because they had been roaming over waste lands, and, upon their return, they begin struggling for want of food. Indeed, food, feasting and fasting are omnipresent throughout the Queste narrative and references to food usually have religious overtones: the food in question is often spiritual, referring to the Eucharist or to God’s nourishing grace. While horses could not, naturally, partake of spiritual nourishment, knights could, and, because of the blending between the actual and the symbolic in the Queste, the feasts and fasts of Queste, 148-149. [When evening came, they found between two rocks on a mountain an ancient chapel, which appeared to be in such a state of ruin that no one frequented it. On arriving there, they dismounted and removed their shields and lances and left them outside the chapel against the wall. Then removing the bridles and saddles, they allowed their horses to pasture on the mountain. (Quest, 136)] 86 For the visions, see Queste, 149-150. 87 Queste, 151. [When day dawned, they went to see where their horses were, and sought for them until they found them. (Quest, 139)] 85

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the horses are inextricably linked with the spiritual welfare of their riders. The different ways in which horses could be fed even when knights were lodged are illustrated by two episodes: in the first one, Perceval is received at an abbey, while in the second one, Lancelot spends a night in a hermitage. On the former occasion, Perceval, who has been travelling all day without meeting a soul, hears the church bells ringing after vespers. Guided by the sound, he arrives to an abbey, which must be of considerable influence, as it is also defended by walls and moats: “ce est une meson de religion, qui ert close e murs et de fossez parfonz.”88 He is well received, and so is his horse, which is provided with plenty of fodder: “Et quant cil de laenz li voient armé, si pensent lues qu’il est chevaliers erranz: si le font disarmer et le reçoivent a mout bele chiere. Si prennent son cheval et l’en eminent en l’estable et li donent fein et aveine a grant plenté.’89 Perceval is likewise lodged well and provided with everything the friars could provide best: ‘uns des freres l’en meine en une chambre por reposer. Si fu cele nuit hebergiez au mielz que li frerent porent.”90 In addition to physical repose and nourishment, his spiritual nourishment is ensured, as in the morning he is awoken to hear the mass in the abbey: “au matin li avint qu’il ne s’eveilla devant hore de prime; et lors ala oïr messe en l’abeie meismes.”91 Remarkably, the reception of Perceval’s horse is described immediately after Perceval is disarmed and before he is taken indoors. It is possible that Perceval, as a good master for his horse, has ensured that the animal did not lack anything. The Queste author highlights that Perceval was welcome at the house of religion, and the details of horse care serve to confirm this information. One of the Queste manuscripts, BnF, f. français 111, fol. 239 has an illumination of a horse being led by a monk of the white abbey (see Fig.

Queste, 81. [it was a religious house surrounded by walls and deep moats] (Quest, 77). Queste, 81. [then those within saw that he was fully armed, they thought at once that he was a knight-errant; so, they had his armour removed and welcomed him gladly. And they took his horse to the stable and gave him plenty of hay and oats.] (Quest, 77). 90 Queste, 81. [one of the friars took Perceval to his room to rest, and that night he was lodged as well as the friars could afford.] (Quest, 77). 91 Queste, 81. [ In the morning he awoke before the hour of prime and went to hear mass in the abbey.] (Quest, 77). 88 89

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13).92 In the illumination, a monk dressed in white habit is holding the horse by a thin rope, which is likely to be a lead rope attached either to the ring in the bit of the bridle or to the halter, invisible in the picture. As medieval warhorses were, with few exceptions, stallions, leading such a horse in a bridle is wise and would save the monks some troubles and, possibly, even injuries. The monk in the Queste manuscript, indeed, seems to be looking at the horse with a certain attention or distrust, holding it in extended arm, while the horse is looking back at its handler, its ears pricked forward. The depiction of the horse is not thoroughly realistic, because it is entirely coloured brown, including hoofs, and such even colouring does not occur in nature. Still, the posture of the horse, its stocky conformation, with short, thick neck, and the way it holds its head and pricks its ears in attention are masterfully depicted, suggesting that, if the illuminator was not concerned with accurate depiction of coat colour, the shape of the horse and its characteristic mode of communication was still important for the manuscript viewers.

Fig. 13. At the white abbey Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. français 111, fol. 239r The manuscript was produced in Poitiers c. 1480 and is a luxurious, lavishly illustrated copy containing part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle. The manuscript is digitized and available online: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 111, https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc424610 (accessed 01 January 2019). 92

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In another episode, Perceval arrives at a much more modest religious establishment, a hermitage occupied by a single hermit. Like Perceval, Lancelot had been riding through uninhabited land until he met an old hermit and asked him for hospitality. To Lancelot’s question whether he could lodge an errant knight, the hermit promised to lodge him as best he could and give him the food God has provided: “Biau sire, fet li preudons, s’il vos plest je vos herbergerai hui mes au mielz que je porrai, et vos donrai, fet li preudons, a mengier de ce que Diex m’a presté.”93 Stressing the hermit’s hospitality, the author of the Queste specifies that the hermit takes Lancelot’s horse in hand and leads it to a shed next to his own house, then takes its tack off. Acting as a stable servant, the humble old man even gives the horse its food, which consists entirely of grass: “li preudons prent le cheval et le meine en un apentiz qui estoit devant son ostel, et li oste il meismes la sele et le frain, et li done de l’erbe don’t il avoit laienz a plenté.”94 Although Comfort uses “hay” to translate “herbe,” this word is just as likely to mean “grass” in the context; cf. an earlier episode, where “hay” is designated by the word “fein.” Thus, the Middle French Dictionary gives the meaning of grass as the principal one for “herbe,” and cut grass is noted solely in relation to grass used to strew the floor. The word may also mean medicinal grass, which, again, is different from hay.95 In Le Coutumier of Hector de Chartres, the word “herbe” is used in the sense of uncut grass, in two cases meaning the grass which was left uncut and which dried up during the winter months, which is used as pasture for cattle: “Item, pour seiches herbes depuis la mi septembre jusques à la mi mars, doivent païer pour chacun vache douze deniers et pour le veel VI d.”96 Queste, 133. [“Fair sire,” the good man replied, “if you like, I will lodge you to the best of my ability, and will give you to eat of what God has loaned to me.”] Quest, 122. 94 Queste, 133. [the hermit took his horse and led him to a shed in front of his abode, removing his saddle and bridle, and giving him some hay of which there was plenty there] Quest, 122. When Galahad arrives at a hermitage, a hermit likewise takes care of the knight’s horse and then helps the knight take off his armour: “Si pense d’osteler le cheval, et li fet oster ses armes.” (Queste, 197) [he welcomed him, stabling his horse, and helping him to lay aside his arms] Quest, 180. 95 Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500) [Dictionary of Middle French (1330-1500)], s.v. “herbe,” http://atilf.atilf.fr/ (accessed 16 February 2019). 96 Hector de Chartres, “Le Coutumier.” In La Vie de la forêt normande à la fin du moyen âge. Le Coutumier d'Hector de Chartres [Life in the Norman forest at the end of the Middle Ages. The Customs of Hector de Chartres], vol. 1: La Haute-Normandie, ed. Alain 93

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Interestingly, Thomas Malory, who considerably condenses the episode, specifies that the hermit provided for the horse as best he could, omitting to mention the provisions made for Lancelot himself: “there he [Lancelot] reste with that good man all nyght and gaff hys horse suche as he [the hermit] myght gete.”97 Again, Lancelot’s stay with the hermit is illustrated in one of the Queste manuscripts, BnF, Français 111, fol. 249v (Fig. 8), which shows the horse enjoying the hermit’s hospitality, while Lancelot and the hermit are engaged in conversation. While the word “erbe” may be understood as “hay” or “grass,” the essential point is that the horse is offered a meagre diet, which does not include oats, normally provided to a knight’s horse in the more affluent households. Lancelot’s fare is as frugal as his horse’s: first, he listens to a service delivered by the hermit and then he speaks with his host for a long time before sharing the hermit’s meal of bread and beer: “Longuement parlerent ensemble entre le preudome et Lancelot; et quant il fu hore de mengier, il issirent de la chapel et s’asistrent en la meson au preudome et mengierent pain et burent cervoise.”98 Moreover, Lancelot is given a bed of dried grass, the same as the one which provided his horse’s fodder, because no other bed is available at the hermitage: “quant il orent mengié, li preudons fist Lancelot couchier sus l’erbe, come cil qui autre lit n’avoit apareillé.”99 The purpose of this episode is, of course, to make Lancelot more inclined to seek spiritual rather than earthly pleasures, to divorce him from his love of worldly luxury, and the treatment is successful, if only for a limited time.100 Like the friars who lodged Perceval, the hermit aims at giving his best to the errant knight. However, the reception must differ in quality, and the audience can judge it by the reception Lancelot’s horse receives. While we do not Roquelet (Rouen: Société de l'Histoire de Normandie, 1984), 1-339; 97, cited in the DMF (op. cit.). 97 Malory, Le Morte Darthur, 718. 98 Queste, 139. [The hermit and Lancelot talked long together; and when it was time to eat, they left the chapel and sat down in the good man’s dwelling, and ate bread and drank beer.] Quest, 127. 99 Queste, 139. [When they had eaten, the hermit made Lancelot lie down upon the grass, having no other bed at his disposal.] Quest, 127. 100 The Queste author comments that “there he slept very well, being weary and exhausted, and he did not think so much as usual about the great luxury of the world” (Quest, 127). 60

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know exactly what Perceval ate at the abbey, we know how his horse fared, and, in Perceval’s case, the horse’s well-being indicates that the knight must have been provided nutritious and varied food as well. This is very different from the reception of Lancelot and his horse; whose diet is far less varied. The horse is given only grass, though it is provided in plenty, and Lancelot himself has nothing but bread and beer, and he only receives it after listening to a service, as compared to Perceval, who arrives late and goes to the morning service. This arrangement reflects the humble situation of a single hermit, who, obviously, does not regularly accommodate errant knights. While the monks may not be used to lodging knights, the abbey is likely to have working horses, possibly even breeding horses, as many medieval abbeys did,101 so it would have a stock of hay and oats to be offered to visitors. Again, the passage from relative affluence to frugality would have its effect on both knights and their horses because, symbolically, the horse is part of the man’s chivalric identity. Subject to more rigorous demands and an increasingly meager diet, the Arthurian knight’s warhorse would lose some of its well-fed luster, and, likewise, knights would lose their well-fed, affluent appearance to become more like those spiritual warriors, hermits and monks they meet on their way. When one of the elect knights, Bors, chances upon a hermitage, the hermit first leads his guest to hear the service of vespers. Only after hearing the service does the hermit offer Bors nourishment, which consists of bread and water. The hermit warns Bors that plentiful food, as well as abundant, comfortable sleep leads a Christian knight to sin, while willful abandonment of basic necessities is the means of salvation: “quant il [vespers] les a chantees, si fet metre la table et done a Boort pain et eve et li dit: ‘Sire, de tel viande doivent li chevalier celestial pester lor cors, non pas de grosses viande qui l’ome eminent a luxure et a pechié mortel’.”102

On horse breeding in the Middle Ages, see Charles Gladitz, Horse Breeding in the Medieval World (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997). 102 Queste, 165. [When he had finished chanting the service, he had the table set and gave Bors bread and water, saying to him: “Sire, with such meat ought celestial knights to nourish their body, and not with heavy food which leads men to luxury and mortal sin.”] Quest, 151. 101

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Conclusion. Feasts and fasts for knights and their horses Why do medieval authors, including the author of the Queste del Saint Graal, specify the food given to the knights’ horses? It may be a way of adding realism to an account of chivalric adventures, especially when these adventures, as the Queste author continuously reiterates, have both a symbolic, spiritual dimension and a real, earthly one. Meanwhile, this is not the only function of such occasions: the hospitality given to horses mirrors the hospitality given to knights and, in many cases, the care of the knight’s horse precedes the description of the way in which the knight is received. The horse’s stabling and feeding is thus a precursor of the feast given to its master. On the practical level, taking good care of a warhorse was instrumental to the knight’s welfare, as well as being a means of showing respect for the travelling knight. Thus, in those cases where the horses are let to graze or are given cut grass, the implication is that the knights eat next to nothing, in fact, they are fasting, because they are travelling. For a working horse, having only grass means being on a very meagre diet, but its fasting reflects the knight’s position. The descriptions of the horses’ meals thus reflect the unity of the horse and the rider: not only their interdependence in social terms, but also their sharing of the same fate in terms of welfare, and, one is tempted to say, on the plane of spiritual becoming. Medieval romance does not document the minute practicalities of feeding warhorses, because, by its nature, the setting is not realistic – knights would rarely travel or, to be more precise, wander in search of adventures in real life. A travelling knight was likely to be accompanied by one or more servants, as is Lanval in the Middle English Sir Launfal, where he goes with the servant whom his fairy lover Triamour has given him alongside a horse and a bottomless purse. On the other hand, a messenger, who was more likely to travel alone, would be riding for speed, so the mode of travelling and nutritious demands of his courser would be different from those of a knight’s warhorse. Both a messenger and a travelling knight would likely be staying in inhabited places, be it inns, village houses, abbeys or hermitages, so the horses would be rarely left to graze in the same way as the horses of knights errant do. Meanwhile, some of the details preserved in romance reflect genuine mainstays of medieval horse care. Thus, the horse of a 62

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nobleman arriving at a castle or abbey would receive the same kind of hospitality as its owner; in particular, it would be provided with a meal of oats and have plenty of hay in its manger. During the summer months, the stabled horses may also be given grass, but this may depend on the internal provisions of the place. The supply of cut grass for many horses would necessitate a regular delivery of grass, the estimated number of horses being known in advance. Being different from hay, grass has to be consumed at once, so in case a large retinue arrives unexpectedly, the guests’ horses cannot be fed grass. On the other hand, if a knight arrives to a small hermitage where the host is not used to receiving visitors on horseback, the horses may have to graze, or arrangements may have to be made for delivering fresh grass, because there may not be a store of hay. Even if the hermit in question has livestock, the animals are more likely to be on the pastures during the summer, with the last harvest’s hay having been consumed over the winter months. Other situations are also possible, which are not covered in the Queste, at least not in detail. Horses in the Middle Ages could be shipped, and this possibility appears in the Queste, where the elect knights leave their horses on the shore when boarding the Ship of Faith. Likewise, in an earlier episode, Perceval’s sister enjoins Galahad to leave their horses on the shore, which they do, taking care to release the animals of the saddles and bridles: ‘“lessiez ci vostre cheval, car je i lesseré le mien’. Et il descent maintenant et oste a son cheval la sele et le frain, et au palefroi a la damoisele ausi.”103 Two explanations are possible: for once, there is no way to prepare hay and oats for the horses to be shipped. The symbolic implication added to the impracticalities of taking horses on an impromptu voyage is that the knights will no longer have need of their steeds. Their journey is taking them beyond the realm of chivalry, into the faraway, and somewhat otherworldly, Kingdom of Sarras, in which battle skills will no longer serve them, as they must prepare for spiritual battles. In this case, abandoning horses becomes synonymous with abandoning chivalry, yet the horses they leave on the shore have been helping them to prepare for spiritual feats of prowess, having fasted together with the knights. Queste, 199. [‘leave your horse here, as I shall leave mine.’ Then he dismounted at once and removed the saddle and bridle from his horse, and did the same for the damsel’s palfrey.] Quest, 181. 103

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CHAPTER 3 Women and Manly Dirt: Gendering Equestrian Skills in the Queste del Saint Graal and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

Cultural perceptions of dirt, gender and equestrianism Even today, certain professions and works bear gender implications, not least because of their physicality, including the kind of “dirt” they involve. One of today’s horse-related professions still associated predominantly with men is that of a jockey. Horseracing is a sport which, because of its dangerousness and physicality, is considered to be more appropriate for men. In 2014, an article about a famous female jockey, Rosie Napravnik, highlighted the jockey’s claim for a place in the “sport of kings” by alluding to the dirt that is an integral part of the environment. To prove that Napravnik is as good as any of the “lads” on the racetrack, the article denies the beautiful jockey all claims to female squeamishness: “When she gets dirt kicked in her face by a horse on the racetrack, she will wash it off with a bucket of muddy water like all the other jockeys.”104 Thus, even nowadays, working with horses in a professional capacity that involves high risks – and high gains – is considered to be proper for men rather than for women. Thinking of the Middle Ages, we imagine, often unconsciously, dirt as gendered, so that certain kinds of dirt become associated with women and others with men. The blood of menstruation and labour “Rosie Napravnik Just Might Be the First Woman Jockey to Win the Kentucky Derby,” Elle, 3 (May 2014), http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a14390/rosie-napravnik-kentuckyderby/, (accessed 5 January 2019). 104

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are the source of repulsion and horror for medieval men, who themselves are associated with blood, mud and other impurities of the battlefield. If we follow this line of thought, horse sweat, in the contexts of war, tournament and hunting, would provide an example of manly dirt. Modern historiography implicitly supports this view, with a considerable portion of studies in medieval equestrian history highlighting the role of men, with scarce or no mention of women. In the present chapter, I address this omission, arguing that, although female riders appear in fewer instances in medieval literature, chivalric romances included, they have a significant role to play, acting as messengers, fellow travellers and ladies in distress. Taking several examples from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century texts, I argue here that far from being an exclusively male kind of dirt, horse sweat has special significance for the description of women riders. In this chapter, I refer to two well-known and influential medieval texts: Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the Lancelot-Grail cycle of romances, in particular, the prose Lancelot and the Queste del Saint Graal. While the Canterbury Tales need no introduction, the Lancelot-Grail romances were even more popular in the Middle Ages, as copies and translations of the cycle or its parts were produced in France, Britain (including Wales),105 Spain, Italy and other countries. Moreover, the cycle seems to be, at least on the surface, a typical romance of chivalry, where women’s participation in quests and adventures is limited.106 A Welsh translation of the Queste del Saint Graal with some modifications and additions from another Middle French romance, the Perlesvaus, is known under the title Y Seint Greal (see Y Seint Greal, The Holy Grail. Ed. and trans. Robert Williams. Pwllheli: Jones Publishers, 1987). 106 On negative representation of women in the Queste, see Jeannine Horowitz, “La diabolisation de la sexualité dans la littérature du Graal au XIIIe siècle: le cas de La Queste del Saint Graal,” [The diabolisation of sexuality in the 13th-century Grail literature: the case of the Quest for the Holy Grail] in Arthurian Romance and Gender, ed. Friedrich Wolfzettel (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995), 238-250. and Jane Burns, “Devilish Ways: Sexing the Subject in the Queste del Saint Graal,” Arthuriana, 8/2 (1998): 11-32. On women in the Queste in general, see Jacques Ribard, “Figures de la femme dans la Queste du saint Graal.” [Female characters in the Quest for the Holy Grail] In Figures féminines et roman [Female characters and romance], ed. Jean Bessiere (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982), 33-48. On Perceval’s sister see, among other studies, Janina P. Traxler, “Dying to get to Sarras: Perceval’s sister and the Grail Quest.” In The Grail, a Case Book, ed. Dhira B. Mahoney (New York: Garland, 2000), 261-278; Susan Arenstein, “Rewriting Perceval’s Sister: Eucharistic Vision and Typological Destiny in 105

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In this chapter, I concentrate on one group of riders, ladies and damsels, in the Queste del Saint Graal, but I will also refer occasionally to other romances of the cycle. The Queste is different from other romances of the cycle in that, under the guise of a chivalric quest, it represents a spiritual quest, a quest for salvation. The knights’ earthly, chivalric adventures (participating tournaments, fighting “bad” knights, saving fair damsels, killing a dragon, etc.) are consistently interpreted by clerics – monks, priests, hermits and female recluses – through spiritual metaphors or exegesis. As a result, the Queste is more than a chivalric romance, it is also a romance of salvation. However, the narrative is homocentric, and women are often presented in a very negative light. Indeed, Jeannine Horowitz has claimed that there are only two types of women characters in the narrative: saints and demons, the latter disguised as fair damsels, whose aim is to seduce the questers.107 In fact, Horowitz somewhat simplifies the situation, as there are women in the Queste who fall into neither category but fall in between the two. In fact, the representation of King Solomon’s wife in a story told during the Ship of Faith episode is realistic in that the woman is said to be very intelligent, to the point of infuriating her husband by her ruses, yet also loving him and doing her best to further the prestige and longevity of their lineage.108 There are also several women whose actions are beyond the Queste author’s moral judgement: they are clearly neither angels nor saints, though they may belong to the Grail Castle’s inhabitants. However, the audience knows nothing of their moral character: they are messengers, but not the saintly or angelic messengers who tend to be male, such as the White Knight who tells Galahad about the shield at the beginning the Queste del Saint Graal,” Women’s Studies, an interdisciplinary Journal, 21/2 (1992): 211230; and Monika Unzeit-Herzog, “Parzival’s Schwester in der Queste. Die Konzeption der Figur aus intertextueller Perspektive,” [Perceval’s sister in the Queste. The concept of character from an intertextual perspective] in Artusroman und Intertetxtualität. Beiträge der deutschen Sektion. Stagung der Internationalen Artusgesellschaft (16-19 nov. 1989) [Arthurian romance and intertextuality. Contributions tot he German section. Proceedings oft he International Arthurian Society (16-19 November 1989)], 181-193 (Giessen: Schmitz, 1990). 107 Horowitz, “La diabolisation de la sexualité,” 238-250. 108 For a detailed study of Solomon’s wife, see Anastasija Ropa, “Solomon’s Ambiguous Wife,” in Ambiguous Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Monica A. Walker Vadillo (Budapest: Trivent, 2019). 66

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of the quest and Joseph of Arimathea, who appears to the elect knights in several episodes. Indeed, the Queste author seems wary about introducing female angels or saints, and his female messengers are thus creatures of flesh and blood, which makes studying them particularly interesting, because their behaviour, manner of riding and physical description convey stereotypes about the roles and limitations of women that circulated in chivalric culture. Gendering pilgrims’ riding in the Canterbury Tales It is likely that the pre-eminence of male, knightly riders in scholarly research on medieval horse had something to do with gendered stereotypes that date back to medieval context. In modern society, horses are mostly associated with women (at least as a hobby, for there are still some professional disciplines in equestrian sport, such as racing, where women are allowed only grudgingly).109 In the chivalric discourse, the situation is reversed. The Lady of the Lake says to Lancelot: “au commencement si com tesmoigne lescripture nestoit nus si hardis qui montast sor cheual se cheualier ne fust autant.”110 [originally, as the Scriptures reveal, no one was as bold as to mount a horse, if he was not a knight]111 Romances, too, present male riders more often than female ones. For instance, only three female riders – the prioress, the nun and the wife of Bath – are found among the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, though not many of the pilgrims belong to the chivalric community, either. They all have their own ways of riding, which reflects their social status and their personality. Thus, the knight is described as having good horses which contrast his poor clothes: “His hors were goode, but he was nat gay.”112 By contrast, the squire has elegant clothes and makes a fine figure in the saddle, but, since nothing On the stereotypes governing the representation of women in equestrian sports, particularly horseracing, see Anastasija Ropa and Nadezhda Shmakova, “Gendered Spaces and Heteronormative Discourses in Horse Racing Narratives,” Cotemporary Problems of Social Work 4 (2018): 49-56. DOI: 10.17922/2412-5466-2018-4-2-49-56. 110 Le Livre de Lancelot del Lac, ed. J. Oskar Sommer, vol. III (Washington: The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1910), 114 111 Lancelot of the Lake, trans. Corin Corley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 53 112 Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ed. Sinan Kökbugur. http://www.librarius.com/canttran/gptrfs.htm (accessed 14 February 2019), l. 74. 109

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is said about the quality of his horse, it is likely to be very different from the knight’s steed: “Wel koude he sitte on hors, and faire ryde.”113 Yet another rider, the monk, is seated on a palfrey (“His palfrey was as broun as is a berye”),114 which the audience knows must be good, as the monk possesses a whole stable of fine horses (“Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in stable”).115 This way, Chaucer characterizes male pilgrims by providing one or two details about their horses and their equestrian skills, or by omitting any information about their equestrian performance. He relies on the audience’s ability to instantly visualize the characters and enjoy the discrepancy between the way they appear and the way they should be, producing poignant social satire by these very brief descriptions. While the Prologue is silent on the ways in which the prioress and the nun ride, some information is given on the wife of Bath’s equestrian habits: “Upon an amblere esily she sat, […] A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large, And on hir feet a paire of spores sharpe.”116 The wife of Bath is riding astride and wears spurs, which reflect her energetic character and perhaps contain a hint at her ambitions for mastering not only horses but also men. Her manner of riding and the reference to spurs certainly mirror the male, even knightly style of riding; her position in saddle and equestrian equipment can be contrasted to those of Chretien’s Perceval, who at the beginning of the romance is sending his horse, a courser, with a wicker switch, before he obtains a proper warhorse and learns the use of spurs. Unlike Perceval, the wife of Bath is riding an ambler, a horse with comfortable gates associated with women and clerics, though also occasionally used by knights for travelling. It is also noteworthy that the clothes of the wife of Bath invite commentary, and Chaucer notes in particular the mantle wrapped around the woman’s legs, apparently to protect her fine scarlet stockings and new, soft shoes. This wrap or mantle is illustrated on a miniature representing the wife of Bath in the Ellesmere manuscript (Fig. 14).117 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, l. 94. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, l. 206. 115 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, l. 168. 116 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ll. 471 and 474-475. 117 San Marino, Huntington EL 26 C 9, fol. 72r. https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/iiifinfo/p15150coll7/2838. (accessed 14 February 2019). 113 114

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The Ellesmere manuscript, dated 1400-1410, is decorated with miniatures of the twenty-two pilgrims and what is believed to be the portray of Chaucer himself, as well as foliated decoration in the prologue and the beginning of each tale. While the decorations may have been the work of several artists, it seems that the illuminator who worked on the pilgrims’ figures put considerable care in drawing each person and his or her horse. The wife of Bath is depicted wearing a broad-rimmed head and a red dress, in line with Chaucer’s text. A blue mantle is wrapped around her hips so that the skirt does not come in contact with the horse or the saddle, and the mantle also envelops her feet, thus preserving the wife’s new soft shoes as well. Long spurs are laced on top of the mantle, and, as if she could not rely on the spurs alone, the wife of Bath also carries a whip in her right hand. The horse carries trappings with some ornaments, including round gilded bosses on the bridle and crupper leathers, and the stirrups seem to be gilded as well. As it is an ambler, it is shown raising both front and hind legs on the same side (the right one); its head carriage, in light collection, indicates that the animal is well trained. The head position of this horse can be compared to that of the man of law on fol. 50v; the latter horse is carrying its head drawn forward, which indicates lack of muscle and habit of moving in collection. To compare, in the same manuscript the friar is portrayed riding a tiny horse with very simple equipment: a red bridle and a red breast strap with metal bosses (San Marino, Huntington EL 26 C 9, fol. 76v). The friar’s garments are covering the saddle completely, so that it is impossible to say anything about the type or quality of the saddle. He may even be riding in a pack saddle, as his foot is dangling freely, apparently without stirrups. The trappings are the same as on the Cook’s horse on fol. 47r, where the saddle cloth and girdle are visible, but, again, no hint of stirrups. The Cook is carrying a whip in his left hand and holding his hat in his right hand, and his horse seems to have complete freedom, unlike the wife of Bath’s horse, which is moving in a deliberate and self-conscious way. The miller’s horse (fol. 34v) appears very similar in its trappings and carriage to the Cook’s and the monk’s horse, and the stooping position of its rider in the saddle emphasizes the miller’s lack of riding skills. Thus, the equipment and carriage of the wife of Bath’s horse has more in common with the horses of the knight (fol. 10r; though the 69

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knight’s tale carries a decorated breast strap, and more golden decorations on the bridle than the wife’s horse; it is also branded), the squire and the reeve (fol. 42r) than with the people of more peaceful professions.

Fig. 14. Wife of Bath. The Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. San Marino, Huntington EL 26 C 9, fol. 72r.

The only exception is the parson, who, just like the wife of Bath, has spurs (fol. 206v) and his horse is moving in collection, though slightly behind the bit. The friar’s horse has red leather decorated with metal bosses, which cover the entire bridle, the reins and the breast strap, as well as the stirrups. As mastery of the horse could be symbolically equated with mastery of the body, especially one’s own body and its

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physical instincts,118 the parson’s easy, literally hands-off riding could signal the fact that, through his good, selfless work, he has obtained complete mastery of his instincts. His riding skills are still more impressive given the fact that he is not a habitual rider, as the Prologue to the Tales stresses that the parson would usually visit his parishioners on foot (“The ferreste in his parisshe, muche and lite, Upon his feet, and in his hand a staf”).119 Interestingly enough, the monk (fol. 169r), who is portrayed as a very worldly character, fond of hunting and having a stable of fine horses, is represented with two hunting dogs and on a horse literally hung with ornamental buckles, which the bridle, the reins, the breast and crupper straps. In this case, the artist also takes care to depict the horseshoes with nails or calkins, similar to the ones depicted on the wife of Bath’s horse (Fig. 14), while no shoes are visible on the second nun’s horse (Fig. 15).

Fig. 15. The second nun. The Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. San Marino, Huntington EL 26 C 9, fol. 187r

118 119

On the horse as the symbol of human body, see the previous chapter. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ll. 496-497. 71

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Remarkably, the wife of Bath is also different from the other two female pilgrims, whom the Ellesmere artists depict riding sidesaddle, even though Chaucer does not specify this in the text. The second nun, depicted on fol. 187r, is riding a grey horse, seated sidesaddle and carrying no whip. She seems to have abandoned all attempts to manage her horse, and the animal has lowered its head and neck, looking downwards with very little impulse from its hindquarters (Fig. 15). This is in sharp contrast with the horse of the wife of Bath, which carries its head high, its neck bent, moving energetically forward. Another telling difference between the wife of Bath’s horse and the second nun’s horse is that the latter has very simple equipment: only a bridle of red leather is visible, with almost no decoration save metal buckles covering the joint between the forehead strap and the edges of the bit, which could represent simple metal rings rather than buckles. Thus, the grey horse of the second nun is presented in a very simple, unassuming way and seems to be a very rank-and-file animal. Another woman riding in style is, of course, the prioress (fol. 148v, Fig. 16). The decorations on her horse are shaped as flowers, different from the simple bosses studding the leather straps of the other pilgrims’ horses, including the wife of Bath’s horse. The leathers are black, and the metalwork white or silver, reflecting the colour scheme of the prioress’s black and white religious habit. The prioress’s horse is an elegant, long-legged mount, quite unlike the simple grey horse of the second nun and the rather solid, square-shaped ambler of the wife of Bath. The eyes of the prioress’s horse have an interesting cut, and its neck is bent in a self-conscious fashion, betraying perhaps high spirits, while the shanks of the bit depicted on the muzzle suggest elaborate bitting arrangements to enable the prioress to master her fiery mount.120 The horse may be holding its head slightly behind the bit, which, again, may signal the presence of a severe curb bit. The prioress may be carrying a whip in the left hand which is holding the bridle, but the miniature does not depict it clearly, possibly because this kind of horse does not need a whip – under its current rider at least. Although the prioress’s horse is presented more elegantly than the wife of Bath’s On the bits in use in high and late medieval England, see Clark, The Medieval Horse and Its Equipment; also Clark, “Harnessing Horsepower: The Archaeology of Horse Bits in Medieval England – and Elsewhere,” in The Horse in Premodern Europe, ed. Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson (MIP: forthcoming). 120

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horse, the prioress comes through as a more timid and less practiced rider than the wife of Bath, as if the prioress’s horse were “too big” for her riding skills and temper.

Fig. 16. The prioress. The Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. San Marino, Huntington EL 26 C 9, fol. 148v

Indeed, the wife of Bath’s portrayal in the text and on the Ellesmere miniature may betray her vainglory and her desire to appear in the most elegant and advantageous way, which she does by riding in an active style associated with men. It could also give an additional hint at her character, her desire for sovereignty, because, as she eloquently proves in her tale, sovereignty is the thing women love best. The wife of Bath’s way of riding thus illustrates her pretense at sovereign power, traditionally associated with knights and kings and, in her case, comically bestowed on a woman by Geoffrey Chaucer and his illuminator. 73

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Remarkably, in the early printed versions of the Canterbury Tale, the difference between the wife of Bath and the other female riders is not sustained.121 In William Caxton’s illuminated second edition of Canterbury Tales, all female riders are portrayed sidesaddle.122 The wife of Bath, like the prioress, is portrayed riding sidesaddle, holding the reins in her left hand and with a rosary in her right hand. Her long dress is elegantly put over the horse’s crupper, and the tip of her shoe, inserted in a narrow triangular stirrup, is just visible under the hem of her skirt. Her horse, however, is unremarkable. Except for her garment, the wife of Bath resembles the prioress, whose garment is likewise draped over the horse’s crupper and who also carries a rosary in her right hand. The horse’s equipment occasionally varies depending on the pilgrim’s social class – thus, the haberdasher is riding in a pack saddle – but there is no variety among women’s horses in terms of equipment or the quality of their mounts. While there is less visual and textual evidence for travelling women than for travelling men in the Middle Ages, common sense tells us that women must have travelled some way, even if they did it on fewer occasions than men. The most common and comfortable way of travelling was mounted on a horse, mule or donkey.123 An image that would have been memorable to medieval people is Mary travelling to Bethlehem and then fleeing to Egypt. Unsurprisingly, Mary is usually represented riding sidewise on her donkey, as this was a more discreet pose, also perhaps more comfortable for holding a baby during her flight to Egypt. It seems that riding astride or side-saddle was a choice open to medieval women, in difference from the early modern times, when riding side-saddle became the norm. Riding side-saddle looked, of There were six early editions printed from the fourth quarter of the fifteenth century to the first half of the sixteenth century: two by William Caxton (c. 1478 an c. 1484), two by Pynson (c. 1490 and 1526), one by Caxton’s disciple Wynkyn de Worde (1498) and one by Goddfray (1532). For an overview of the editions, mainly from the textual perspective, see W. W. Greg, “The Early Printed Editions of the Canterbury Tales.” PMLA, 39: 4 (1924): 737-761. 122 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 2nd edition [Westminster: William Caxton, 1483]. Held by the British Library, shelfmark G.11586. https://www.bl.uk/collectionitems/william-caxton-and-canterbury-tales. (accessed 14 February 2019). 123 On travelling in the late medieval urban context, see Fabienne Meyers, “Equestrian Cities. Use of Riding Horses and Characteristics of Horse Husbandry in Late Medieval Urban Agglomerations,” in The Horse in Premodern Europe, ed. Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson (MIP: forthcoming). 121

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course, more elegant, but it also had influence on the speed, pace and distance covered – hence, on the contact with different kinds of dirt and damage done to the clothes. In another set of examples, coming from the thirteenth-century French Queste del Saint Graal and its later illuminated versions, we see that, when the lady’s position in the saddle is not specified, the illuminator would make choices that ensure the cohesion of style throughout the manuscript, i.e., portraying all female riders either sidesaddle or astride. Female riders in the Queste del Saint Graal In the Queste, there are four episodes in which women are riding on horseback of their own free will and one episode in which a damsel is abducted by her cousin, as well as a dream in which a woman riding a serpent appears. For the present discussion, I refer to three episodes in which women riders appear on their own. These episodes with lady riders are illustrated in many of the lavishly decorated Queste manuscripts, and, by comparing these illuminations, we can get some ideas how attitudes towards lady riders changed over the centuries and countries, from ladies riding astride unashamedly (Royal 14 E. III, f.91, Francais 343) to being elegantly poised side-saddle (Français 342, fol. 99, Français 111, fol. 263v). Although it is difficult to judge in the absence of surviving women’s saddles dating from the medieval period and experimental studies thereof, it seems that the latter position would not be particularly advantageous if women had to travel fast or over considerable distance. The Queste del Saint Graal begins with an episode where a damsel on a sweaty horse enters King Arthur’s hall at Pentecost: “A la veille de la Pentecoste [...] lors entra en la sale a cheval une molt bele damoisele; et fu venue si grant oirre que bien le pooit len veoir, car ses chevaus en fu tressuez.”124 [On the eve of Pentecost, … there entered the hall a very fair damsel on horseback. It was evident that she had come in great haste, for her horse was still all in a sweat.]125

124 125

Queste, 1. Quest, 7. 75

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As this episode opens the narrative, it was illustrated in many of the Queste manuscripts, although not all of them render the narrative accurately. Instead, some illuminators must have found it hard or embarrassing to portray a lady on horseback before the King in the feasting hall, and instead the lady stands on foot. In an early manuscript of the Queste, BnF f. français 342, fol. 58v, produced in 1274 in Artois, a servant is holding the horse outside the hall (Fig. 17).

Fig. 17. A servant is holding the horse, while the damsel is speaking to King Arthur. Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. français 342, fol. 58v.

Remarkably, the text does not specify that the damsel came accompanied by a servant, so the man holding her horse in the above miniature from Français 342 is likely to belong to King Arthur’s court. In another, late medieval manuscript, BnF, f. français 116, fol. 607v, the illuminator chose to give a servant to both the damsel and Lancelot when he follows her out of the court (Fig. 18). The damsel is riding what seems to be a black horse, which is slightly behind the bit, while Lancelot is riding a brown horse in perfect collection. The damsel’s horse appears to be very spirited, tossing its head as it is moving forward. The horse’s colour, together with its behaviour, may constitute a hint at the animal’s supernatural origin. In the manuscript to which Français 116 was conceived as companion, Français 112(3), fol. 2r shows Lancelot and the damsel returning, again accompanied by their servants (Fig. 19).126 Interestingly, Lancelot and the damsel appear to ride the same horses, For information and bibliography on Français 116 and Français 112(3), see the previous chapter. 126

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showing that, in this case, the illuminator of Français 116 wanted to preserve the consistency of equines at least throughout the episode. One of the few differences is that the damsel’s horse in the earlier manuscript is of a lighter brown hue than Lancelot’s horse. Did the illuminator of Français 116 consciously change the horse’s colour because it was the damsel’s horse, or did he do so for technical reasons, e.g., to increase the contrast?

Fig. 18. Lancelot riding with the damsel messenger. Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. français 116, fol. 607v.

In this episode, the sweaty condition of the horse leads the author to conclude that the damsel has been riding at great speed (“grant oirre”). However, the horse’s sweatiness can indicate other things as well. According to the word concordance provided by the Queste editor, Pauphilet, the word “tressuez” (sweaty) appears only in this episode. Knights’ horses, even during tournaments or after heavy riding, are never described as sweaty. The episode thus sets the following two 77

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questions: first, how is horse sweat related to a female rider in this episode? Second, is there a particular link between the way women’s horses are ridden and their sweatiness in given cases?

Fig. 19. Lancelot returns to Camelot. Bibliothèque nationale de France, f. français 112 (3), fol. 2r

Commenting on the hero’s horse in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parsival (1190-1210), Ann Hyland observes that a hardy horse would not sweat under stress.127 However, Hyland’s observation is based on her experience as endurance rider.128 I would argue that in some other equestrian disciplines, such as show jumping, horse sweat does not 127 128

Hyland, The Medieval Warhorse, 92. On her background, see the preceding chapter. See also Hyland, The Endurance Horse. 78

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indicate a horse’s poor physical condition or lack of preparation.129 Sweat is part of the horse’s thermoregulatory mechanism, and it can be caused by other factors than heavy riding or lack of preparation, such as riding on a warm day while the horse still has its winter coat in spring, which is a feasible situation for the eve of the Pentecost, when the damsel arrives at Arthur’s court. On the other hand, horse sweat may show, among other things, that the horse has been subjected to unaccustomed physical exercise or has been ridden too fast for a too long time. In this episode, the horse’s sweat serves as indicator of the woman’s riding speed, which the knight would not guess otherwise. As a consequence, her mission gains additional importance in the eyes of King Arthur and his retinue even before the damsel speaks a word. In fact, she has come to take Lancelot to a certain nunnery, where Galahad, Lancelot’s bastard son whom he does not know, is to be knighted. Lancelot agrees to follow the damsel without any explanation on her part, but Guinevere, possibly in a pang of jealousy at seeing her knight depart, demands that Lancelot return the next day. This would mean that he either cannot travel far or that he and the damsel would have to ride fast – or both. Later in the narrative, another damsel comes to Arthur’s court, riding very fast: “Et lors regardent tot contreval la rive et voient venir une damoisele montee sor une palefroi blanc, qui venoit vers aux molt grant aleure.”130 [They saw a maiden on a white palfrey approaching at full gallop]131 On this occasion, the horse is not described as sweaty. Thus, while the case of women riding fast is not exceptional, it indicates the importance of the situation. In this episode, the female messenger arrives to inform Lancelot that he is no longer the best knight in the world and that the Grail quest is about to begin. The episode is illustrated in a manuscript containing the Estoire del Saint Graal, the Queste del Saint Graal and the Mort Artur, BL, Royal 14 E. III, fol. 91. In the miniature, the damsel is seated astride a white horse, addressing the King, the Queen and the knights at the discovery of a Higgins, Horse Anatomy for Performance, 12. Queste, 12. 131 Quest, 41. Pauline Matarasso’s translation of “aux molt grant aleure” as “at full gallop” is not entirely precise: the Queste author may or may not be referring to a specific gait, such as gallop, here. 129 130

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sword in the stone (Fig. 20). The arrival of a stone in which a sword is inserted constitutes an allusion to the beginning of Arthur’s reign, where he took the sword out of the stone proving to be the true king. Here, it is Galahad, a king of the Holy Grail, who is destined to withdraw the sword. This repetition also signals the beginning of the end: the end of Arthur’s secular chivalry, which is to be replaced by spiritual chivalry. It is remarkable that a female messenger announces the reversal, by which the greatest earthly knight, Lancelot, is destined to lose his status to a younger, purer contestant. In the miniature, the damsel is shown conversing at ease, the reins held in her right hand and gesturing with her left towards her interlocutors. Her feet are firmly inserted in triangular stirrups, of the same red colour as the horse’s reins and the damsel’s surcoat and footwear.

Fig. 20. A damsel on white horse comes to announce that Lancelot is no longer the best knight. London, British Library, MS Royal 14 E III, fol. 91r.

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In yet another case involving palfreys and ladies travelling fast, Perceval’s sister comes to Galahad with the intention of leading the knight to the “highest adventure a knight has ever seen”: “Et je vos di que je vos mostrerai la plus haute aventure que chevaliers veist onques.”132 [I will promise to reveal to you the highest adventure any knight ever saw].133 Remarkably, Perceval’s sister must be a seasoned and hardy traveller herself, and her horse must be extremely well trained, matching Hyland’s criteria for a hardy horse. When Galahad agrees to follow Perceval’s sister, she departs at great speed: “Et cele s’en va si grant oirre com ele puet trere dou pallefroi, et cil la suit adés. [...] Si cheuachierent le grant chemin tout le jor en tel maniere qu’il ne burent ne ne mangierent.”134 [Then she rode ahead as fast as her palfrey could carry her, and he followed her. … And they rode along the highway all that day without stopping even to eat or drink.].135 Both Perceval’s sister and Galahad are travelling long and fast, and neither the riders nor their horses need rest, eat or drink. Their ride can be compared to modern endurance riding, where specially bred and trained horses cover great distances over limited time. However, not all horse breeds are suitable for this exercise: in modern endurance, Arabian horses and horses with a considerable share of Arabian blood dominate. In medieval terms, the above ride can be compared to a chevauchêe, where, indeed, mostly palrfeys were used instead of heavier warhorses (destriers).136 Although Chaucer does not specify it, the horse ridden by the squire in the Canterbury Tales might be, like the horse of the wife of Bath, a palfrey, since the squire himself “hadde been somtyme in chyvachie In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Pycardie.”137 On the whole, the Queste author refers to warhorses, destriers, on remarkably few occasions. The knights’ horses are designated usually by Queste, 198. Quest, 180. 134 Queste, 198. 135 Quest, 180. 136 Matthew Bennet, “The Medieval Warhorse Reconsidered,” in Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the Sixth Strawberry Hill Conference 1994, ed. Stephen Church and Ruth Harvey (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995), 19-40. 137 Canterbury Tales, ll. 85-86. 132 133

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the generic word ‘cheval’, and the word ‘palfrey’ is reserved for the horses ridden by women. Palfreys are described by modern historians as general riding or travelling horses with a comfortable gait, which could be ridden by both knights and ladies. At the beginning of the Lancelot romance, Lancelot’s father leaves his castle riding a palfrey. In one instance at least, the Queste author highlights the limitations of palfreys as compared to horses used by knights, such as coursers and destriers. In the above-mentioned episode, Perceval’s sister departs “si grant oirre com ele puet trere dou pallefroi.” It seems that Galahad, on a superior horse, has no difficulty in keeping up with her. Nevertheless, even if palfreys are not the best horses available to medieval riders, Perceval’s sister knows how to get the best out of her animal, as her horse is neither sweaty nor tired at the end of their ride. Having compared three episodes of women riding at speed, we can see that that only in the first episode the damsel’s riding skills are open to question. She seems to have been riding very hard, and her horse is tired and sweaty. Good riders, such as the questing knights, certainly should not be associated with horse sweat produced under such circumstances. The sweaty condition of the horse also indicates that the lady’s task is of some urgency. Indeed, she tells the court that she must take Lancelot with her and promises Guinevere to bring her knight back the next day. A sweaty horse conveys an important message to both the court and the romance’s audience: the lady has some pressing need of the world’s best knight. Perhaps there is a dragon, a menacing giant or at least a bad-mannered knight to fight? The audience may be somewhat puzzled to learn that Lancelot is required only to bestow knighthood on a boy in a nunnery. At the same time, the lady’s appearance serves several functions: it creates a moment of high tension and reverses the audience’s expectations, which are based on their previous knowledge of chivalric romance. The Queste narrative contains many such reversals, where, for instance, knights have to choose black over white or allow enamoured damsels jump from the top of a tower. By making the audience wonder why the damsel needed to ride so hard, the episode sets the stage for many further reversals. The effect of creating tension is achieved by mentioning a few details: a beautiful damsel, a sweaty horse and the implication that she had to ride hard because of some urgent need. 82

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Gendering riders, gendering mounts Is there a significant difference between the way men and women rode in the Middle Ages? We have established that genuinely good, chivalric riders have horses that never sweat, under any duress, and some exceptional women, such as Perceval’s sister, may ride for hours and perhaps even days without exhausting their palfreys. As a corollary, does it mean that normally, women would have sweaty horses because they are inexperienced, clumsy riders? I would argue that horse sweat can become gendered, but only in context: there could be situations, both in literature and in real life, where horses ridden by both men and women would get sweaty. In fact, medieval hippiatric texts discuss situations where a hot or sweaty horse must be blanketed after a hard ride, and so do other literary texts. A “hardy horse” who “would not sweat under stress,” evoked by Hyland, is an ideal, not always attainable in practice. While direct references to sweaty horses ridden by both male and female riders are comparatively rare, the implications are likely to be different depending on the rider’s gender. For men, having a sweaty horse may indicate clumsy handling and lack of training. If a woman’s horse is sweaty after a hard ride, it may tell the audience of a romance that the woman really needed to ride hard, that there is some urgency behind the ride. Horses were very important to medieval people: not only as means of transport, but also as indicators of status, and, of course, we should not underestimate the intercommunicative function of these animals. Horses were not pets – they were functional animals, but the contact between the horse and the rider must have been deep and meaningful. However, the contact between a knight and his warhorse, on which the knight’s life could depend in certain circumstances, would be different from the contact between a lady and her horse, which was used for pleasure riding, hunting and travelling. Studying the gendered use of horses is essential for our understanding of how gender was constructed in the Middle Ages.

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CONCLUSION Displays of Horsemanship Skills Beyond the Arthurian Romance

Horsemanship was a manly skill, one to be proud of and to be shown off, not only for its own sake but also for obtaining tangible and intangible benefits. At its basis, good equestrian skills could save a rider’s life, while the exhibition of outstanding horsemanship by a warrior could serve to intimidate the enemy and boost the confidence of both the rider and his party. Throughout the Middle Ages, horsemanship was intimately linked to warfare, and good riding was a sign that the rider was a good asset on the battlefield. On the other hand, riding could also be a sport, an activity done for recreational purposes, and, throughout the Middle Ages, we have references to equestrian activities performed at fares, markets, and feasts. In Ireland, racing was already known in the Early Middle Ages, and Erich Poppe argues that “horse racing emerges as a powerful cultural and social emblem in the medieval and early modern Irish system of thought.”138 On the Continent, there are references to displays of equestrian skills as part of training or preparation for war, with the chroniclers noted and described. Already in the ninth century, there are descriptions of cavalry engagements that suggest an element of playfulness, even fun, although the context is clearly serious, as a genuine battle is at stake. The author of Carmen de bello Saxonico describes the maneuver of the cavalry provoking the enemy into

Erich Poppe, “Equestrian Sports and their Social Space in Medieval Ireland,” in “…that I wished myself a horse.” The Horse as Representative of Cultural Change in Systems of Thought, ed. Sonja Fielitz, 31-45, 43 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2015). The evidence for the type of racing practiced is inconclusive; it could have been chariot racing or racing on horseback. The surviving references point to the considerable cultural significance of the activity.

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undisciplined advance by attacking with javelins or darts and falling back in the third quarter of the eleventh century: “Procurrunt equites ex agmine regis alacres / Exultantque suis flectentes colla caballis / Alternos ineunt discursus atque recursus, /Versuras celeres duplicantque decenter equestres / Ac desiderio pugnandi bella lacessunt.” [The lively knights canter forward from the king’s host / Rejoicing and arcing the necks of their horses / Taking turns to advance and fall back / And double skilfully in fast mounted turns / And with their desire for fighting they provoke battles.]139 Jumping poles and racing are attested at Smithfield and elsewhere from the High Middle Ages onwards; these activities could be done for the purpose of showing the horses for sale, while betting on the fastest horse has also been well attested. Barbara A. Hanawalt discusses an episode in which boy riders were involved in racing in York: children, who were much lighter than adults, were used as jockeys, which could lead to accidents. She concludes that “Being of light build, lads of twelve or thereabouts acted as jockeys to put horses through their paces at Smithfield.”140 At the end of the medieval period, the element of display, of looking good in the saddle is intensified, even as horsemanship performance becomes divorced, in certain context, from the practical activity of preparing for war. Tournaments, with their elaborate equipment and rules, were no longer imitations of the battlefield, though they could serve to prepare the knight, both physically and morally, for real combat situations. At the same time, at the turn of the fifteenth century, horsemanship becomes a courtly skill, where a rider could display a horse to obtain social benefits, such as winning the favour of his prince. In his famous treatise on horsemanship, Dom Duarte stresses the element of looking good in the saddle, of riding in an easy, fluent Carmen de bello Saxonico, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger, Monumenta Germaniae Historica – SS. Vol. 15.2, 1214-1235, 1227, l. 170 (Hanover: Hahn, 1888). For a commentary of this episode from the perspective of battlefield tactics, see Gassmann, “Combat Training for Horse and Rider,” 74. 140 Barbara A. Hanawalt, Growing Up in Medieval London. The Experience of Childhood in History (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press), 79. 139

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manner, without betraying any fear or distress. He provides numerous advice on how to appear at ease in any situation: for instance, when the rider is in danger of falling, Duarte advises on ways of getting hold of the saddle without anyone noticing it, which is possible, but only if the rider wears the right kind of clothes.141 The same notion of looking good is implicit in the Sege off Melayne, a Middle English romance, produced, like Duarte’s treatise, in the fifteenth century. The romance, which belongs to the matter of France tradition, opens with introducing its subject and describing Charlemagne by reference to his horsemanship: “Charlles of Fraunce, the heghe Kynge of alle / That ofte sythes made hethyn men for-to falle, / That styffely satte one stede.”142 Shepherd glosses “styffely” as “proudly”143; juxtaposed with the action of making the heathen fall, the word could also designate sitting strongly, as well as riding in a proud, gracious manner. The author uses Charlemagne’s horsemanship to introduce the famous king, as if this element of looking good on horseback would be of particular import for the fifteenth-century audience. Indeed, falling off one’s horse usually has symbolic repercussions in romance, signifying the rider’s fall from honour or from favour. It is a shameful failure, and Duarte’s treatise, which describes four manners of falling and preventing the fall, suggests that it was perceived as shameful outside romance as well. In another Middle English romance, Sir Launfal, dated to the end of the fifteenth century (only a little earlier than The Sege off Melayne), Launfal sets out for a recreational ride, backing his courser, which bears a bridle and saddle he has borrowed from the mayor’s daughter, as he is so impoverished that he has no equipment of his own. Asking for equipment, Launfal stresses that he is going to ride for no other purpose than raising his spirits: “Sadel and brydel lene thou me / A whyle for-to ryde – That I myghte confortede be / By a launde under thys cyté, Al yn thys underntyde.”144 He even has no squire or servant to prepare the horse for him. The author stresses that Launfal “rode with lytyll pryde.”145 The absence of pride Duarte I of Portugal, The Book of Horsemanship. “The Sege off Melayne,” in Shepherd, Middle English Romances, ll. 4-6. 143 “The Sege off Melayne,” 268. 144 “Sir Launfal,” ll. 206-210. 145 “Sir Launfal,” l. 213. 141 142

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could refer to the fact that he has no retinue, or the lack of his proper equipment; however, it can also hint at his mount’s poor condition or even at the fact that Launfal himself, upset by his poverty and stiff from lack of knightly exercise, sits on his horse in a less than elegant manner. To crown his misfortune and shame, the horse slips and falls in the mud, which provokes the scorn of onlookers. Furthermore, the rumours of the fall may also reach the city: “Hus hors slod and fel yn the fen, / Wherfore hym scorned many men / Abowte hym fer and wyde.”146 The implication here is that Launfal is an incompetent rider (which is not true), riding a bad or mistreated horse, suggesting that he should sit at home rather than go out in such a shameful condition. His horse may have fallen because it has been underfed or has lost its shoes,147 all because Launfal lacks the resources to maintain himself and his mount in proper condition. In this case, the unfortunate state of Launfal’s courser hinted at in the text resembles the mistreatment to which a palfray is subjected in Chrétien’s Perceval, examined in Chapter 1, where a lady is punished and shamed through having to ride an emaciated, uncared-for mount. Moreover, Launfal’s fall is also a fall from chivalry, because his riding skills are less than those required from a knight, who should ride with elegance, pride, and proficiency. Even though the fall is not in a combat situation, where the fact of being unhorsed could equal death, or in jousting, where an unhorsed knight is usually the loser, the fact that he falls in the dirt constitutes a social fall, against which Dom Duarte warns in his treatise. Thus, at the end of the Middle Ages, horsemanship becomes an art that is, in certain situations, divorced from practical application. In much the same way, chivalry and chivalric romance change in their form and function: they no longer serve to prepare a warrior elite, but become literature for a certain educated class. The ownership and consumption of chivalric romances is a marker of class, so that even the gentry and wealthy merchants could be owners and readers of Arthurian literature, even though they may have never participated in a single tournament themselves.148 Tournaments, in turn, grew so “Sir Launfal,” ll. 214-216. Medieval horse shoes had calkins designed to prevent the horse from slipping on dirty roads; see Clark, Horse Equipment. 148 For the gentry context of chivalric romance, in particular Thomas Malory’s Morte dArthur, see Raluca L. Radulescu, The Gentry Context for Malory’s Morte Darthur 146 147

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elaborate that they required special horses, saddles, and armour which were not used outside jousting, as they were not suited for the new type of warfare involving firearms.149 In the fifteenth century, in the midst of the War of Roses that tears the kingdom of England apart, Thomas Malory deplores the moral fall of his society, especially the loss of chivalric values and – so the audience suspects – exceptional horsemanship skills, which were available to such heroes as Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, and King Arthur precisely because they were chevaliers sans peur et sans reproche. Even as Malory describes the rise and disintegration of Camelot in La Morte d’Arthur, he pays attention to describing horses and the knights’ relations with their mounts.150 For Malory, knighthood is a moral institution, which nevertheless also involves such practices as warfare and tournaments, thus he relishes the descriptions of bloody combats, where horses, as well as riders, could be wounded and killed. Killing a horse was always considered a lowly action, and the fact that Malory mentions these occasions – either by following his sources or by adding this information himself – means that horses were, indeed, significant to him. While we have little evidence of affectionate bonds between knights and their horses, such bonds would have been formed in many cases, enabling a rider to show better horsemanship with a horse to which he is used. Also, raising and training a warhorse would have involved a considerable outlay of funds and time, so that killing a horse is a brutality, while capturing the horse of the vanquished enemy is a far wiser action. Pride in one’s equestrian skills and desire to display them is so pervasive that, in the sixteenth century, we find evidence from Livonia, where Balthasar Russow describes, disapprovingly, the festivities attending weddings, which featured men riding young stallions or colts. He writes that “Before the feasts [lit. supper], the guests, divided in two (Cambridge: Brewer, 2003). For an advanced discussion of the ideological context for romance in the fifteenth-century England, see Radulescu, Romance and Its Contexts in Fifteenth-century England: Politics, Piety and Penitence (Cambridge: Brewer, 2013). 149 For a recent comprehensive discussion on the evolution of jousting in one region, see Noel Fallows, Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance Iberia (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2011). 150 For horses in Malory, see Harjula, “Horses in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur.” 88

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groups – the bride’s and the bridegroom’s – exceedingly stately and magnificently rode on great and heavy warhorses [lit. stallions] and fresh young horses [in modern German, “Gaul” is a synonym for mare or workhorse], which leapt and pranced under the riders, decorated with golden chains, feathers and other ornaments, went out of the town [lit. into the fields]. Each decoration, which otherwise had no use, cost over 9 measures of rye.”151 Further, Russow notes how, “Upon returning to the town, they all rode twice through the entire town and around the guildhall, where the bride, laden so heavily with gold, pearls, gilded jewelry and her high crown that she could barely stand on her feet, together with the other ladies were watching the riders from the high stairs of the guildhall. At last, both groups would divide and gallop over all the town streets, displaying their knightly prowess with leaping and racing.”152 Russow’s reference to “knightly prowess” is clearly mocking, as he describes these “knights” heroically drinking large quantities of ale. The ostentatious display of wealth, manifested in the ornaments with which the horses are strung, and the daredevil riding of the guests receives Russow’s opprobrium in much the same way as the outfit of the bride, who is so decked out with gold and jewels she can hardly stand, and as the revels of the guests, who excel at drinking ale, dancing, and singing indecent songs. For Russow, the leaps and pranks of the horses are impractical and scandalous, and everything that is not practical must be obliterated as indecent and unbecoming, yet his remarks indicate a culture where finery and manly behaviour are intimately linked with risky riding and displays of horsemanship. In line with the evidence presented by Russow, the horsemanship treatises that were produced in Italy and later in France, from the early sixteenth century onwards, stress this courtly aspect of riding. A good rider was also a good courtier, not because he would have an advantage on the battlefield, but because he constituted a pleasant sight for his ruler. Baltasar Castiglione is explicit on the accomplishments expected in a courtier in his treatise published in Venice in 1528: “I would have our Courtier a perfect horseman in every kind of seat.”153 Indeed, some Translation mine, after Balthasar Russow, Balthasar Rüssow's Livländlische chronik, ed. Eduard Pabst (F. I. Koppelson, 1845), 72. 152 Translation mine, after Balthasar Russow, Balthasar Rüssow's Livländlische chronik, 73. 153 Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. George Bull (London: Penguin Classics, 1976). 151

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moves described in horsemanship manuals were considered useless and even dangerous to practice on the battlefield. Jennifer Jobst demonstrates that “Contrary to the modern myth that most leaps were trained as battle maneuvers, it seems that such leaps, though greatly appreciated by spectators in parades and exhibitions, were in fact discouraged in a war horse. In the late fifteenth century, [Pietro] Monte mentions that in battle, ‘those who go leaping with their horses always lose control’ and recommends that a warhorse should ‘not be given to rearing up’.”154 Performance in the manege thus became increasingly alike the modern sport of dressage, not only because many moves described in the sixteenth-century manuals are still used in dressage today, but also because these performances, later known as “horse ballet,” indicate, according to Barbara Ravelhofer, “the preference of European courts for refined forms of courtly display.”155 This activity, or, rather, performance, was cultivated for the sole purpose of sensual enjoyment, of showing a horse to the patron, rather than of preparing for war or of confirming the rider’s value as a warrior.

Jennifer Jobst, “How to Ride Before a Prince: The Rise of Riding as a Performative Art,” in The Horse in Pre-modern Europe, ed. Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson (Michigan: MIP, forthcoming). Citing Pietro Monte, Pietro Monte’s Collectanea: The Arms, Armour and Fighting Techniques of a Fifteenth-Century Soldier, trans. Jeffrey L. Foregang (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018). 155 Barbara Ravelhofer, “Equestrian Ballet as a Representative of Cultural Change in Europe, c.1500-1700,” in “…that I wished myself a horse.” The Horse as Representative of Cultural Change in Systems of Thought, ed. Sonja Fielitz, 149-173, 150 (Heidelberg: Winter, 2015). 154

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Selected Bibliography Manuscripts London, British Library, MS Royal 14 E III, http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_1 4_E_III (accessed 16 February 2019). Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS P.A. 77, http://weblex.enslsh.fr/pub/kq (accessed on 13 April 2017). Montpellier, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine, H249, http://www.biumontpellier.fr/florabium/jsp/nodoc.jsp?NODOC=2015_DOC_M ONT_MBUM_42, (accessed 08 November 2018). Parsis, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 111,

(accessed 01 January 2019). Parsis, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 112(3), https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc42531j/ca198253 95 (accessed 3 January 2019). Parsis, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 343, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84584343/f46.image (accessed 3 January 2019). Parsis, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 1429, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9007482q/f3.item#, (accessed 03 December 2018). Parsis, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 1453, https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc45084v, (accessed 03 December 2018). Parsis, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 12577, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10549434x/f5.item, (accessed 03 December 2018).

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7044 (Étude des Civilisations de l’Antiquité), Strasbourg, 6-7 novembre 2009, ed. Stavros Lazaris, 113-134. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. Stones, Alison. “The Earliest Illustrated Prose Lancelot Manuscript?” Reading Medieval Studies 3 (1977), 3-4. ----. “Seeing the Grail, Prolegomena to a Study of Grail Imagery in Arthurian Manuscripts,” in The Grail: A Casebook, ed. Dhira Mahoney, 301-366. London: Garland Publishing, 2000. Thirsk, Joan. “Foreword.” In The Horse in the Middle Ages, Ann Hyland. Stroud: Sutton, 1999. Traxler, Janina P. “Dying to get to Sarras: Perceval’s sister and the Grail Quest.” In The Grail, a Case Book, ed. Dhira B. Mahoney, 261-278. New York: Garland, 2000. Unzeit-Herzog, Monika. “Parzival’s Schwester in der Queste. Die Konzeption der Figur aus intertextueller Perspektive,” in Artusroman und Intertetxtualität. Beiträge der deutschen Sektion. Stagung der Internationalen Artusgesellschaft (16-19 nov. 1989), 181-193. Giessen: Schmitz, 1990. DeVries, Kelly. Joan of Arc: A Military Leader. Stroud: Sutton, 1999. Walker Bynum, Caroline. Holy Feast and Holy Fast. The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Walker-Meikle, Kathleen. Medieval Pets. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012. Walter, Philippe. “Le cheval dans la littérature arthurienne.” In "Sonò alto un nitrito". Il cavallo nel mito e nella letteratura, ed. Francesco Zambon, 121-133. Pacini, Pisa 2012. Walters, Lori, Keith Busby, Terry Nixon, Allison Stones, ed. Les Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes/The Manuscripts of Chrétien De Troyes. Rodopi: Brill, 1993. Winn, Mary. “Vérard’s Editions of Tristan.” Arthuriana 19:1 (2009): 4773. Zink, Michel. L’humiliation, le Moyen Âge et nous. Paris: Albin Michel, 2017.

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Teodora C. Artimon, Publisher Trivent Medieval is an imprint of Trivent Publishing dedicated to studies pertaining to the history and culture of the Middle Ages. It includes a wide range of book series, covering the time span from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance, while also going into the modern and post modern periods through studies on medievalism. TRIVENT MEDIEVAL CURRENTLY INCLUDES THE SERIES: Advances in the History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion Fabrizio Conti, series editor This series aims at advancing knowledge and the understanding of official and unofficial religious practices and their relationship with culture, society, and the construction of identity, from the Classical period through the Early modern times, with particular emphasis on beliefs, rites, institutions, emotions, cultural and social fractures, especially those revolving around the domains of magic, witchcraft, and religion. The series concentrates on Europe, although it welcomes a long-term global perspective and a comparative point of view. Cultures and Heritages Marcell Sebők, series editor The book series aims at inviting and offering works which use the conceptual and interdisciplinary frameworks of cultural studies, or are informed by fields of research in heritage studies. It views cultures not as stable and bounded entities, but rather as constantly changing and interacting sets of practices and processes. The series welcomes studies that engaged with studying historical memory, cultures of

remembrance and oblivion, the construction of intangible cultural heritage, the cultural and political processes of construing the historical past (such as medievalism), or presenting social and heritage institutions (museums, archives and libraries) - their theoretical basis and acts - in shaping notions of culture. The series also encourages to submit works on documenting heritage practices coming from the in-between fields of traditional heritage institutions, such as community and public histories, processed oral histories, and new approaches to the recently generated big (historical) data. History and Art Gerhard Jaritz and Monica Ann Walker Vadillo, series editors The aim of this series is to advance the knowledge and understanding of the history and art of Europe during the period between the 4th and the 16th centuries and its connection to the artistic enterprises that were determined by geography, religion, socio-political and economic circumstances. This series will also focus on issues of gender, the construction of identity and the important role that visual culture played for the transmission of these ideas. In addition, it will interrogate and analyse the influence of the medieval in subsequent periods, demonstrating the modernity of the Middle Ages even today. Although this series will concentrate on Europe, it welcomes other global perspectives and comparative points of view. Picturing the Middle Ages and Early Modernity Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, series editor This series is devoted to the transdiciplinary study on the conceptualization, visual construction, and transfer of knowledge from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance and Early Modernity. It welcomes original scholarly research pertaining to the fields of: history, art history, visual culture, social history, cultural history, hagiography, religious studies, textual studies, archaeology, gender studies, in a comparative perspective by highlighting the latest debates and approaches. Picturing the Middle Ages and Early Modernity is double blind peer reviewed. The series encourages critical discussions involving a wide range of disciplines. Rewriting Equestrian History Anastasija Ropa and Timothy Dawson, series editors The series is dedicated to aspects of equestrian history across all disciplines, be it art or archaeology, literary, military or economic studies, in different historical periods, from the ancient times to modernity. Volumes are built around a unifying strand or 101

idea, such as materiality, memory, etc. In many cases, the volumes are based on selected papers presented at special equestrian sessions at the International Medieval Congress, along with invited papers from outside the IMC. These volumes are focused on the medieval period, following the historical period of the Congress.

Sylloge – Library of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies Mihail Mitrea and Anna Lampadaridi, series editors

Sylloge – Library of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies publishes scholarly research focusing on late antique and Byzantine literature and culture, drawing together contributions from archaeology, art history, history, literary studies, material culture studies, philology, philosophy, theology, and related disciplines. We invite proposals for monographs, edited volumes and conference proceedings on all subjects related to late antique and Byzantine social, cultural, religious, and literary life. The series editors are interested in contributions which cross traditional disciplinary and methodological boundaries, take an innovative and comparative point of view, and address significant debates in the field, engaging a broad readership with an interest in late antique and Byzantine culture.

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