Carols: these were originally popular ring-dances. Their elaboration during the Middle Ages into “courtly” dances of various patterns, with accompanying songs, was due to the French. ↩
New-Year’s gifts. ↩
Ladies laughed loud: a game of forfeits in which the penalties were kisses seems to be referred to. It is curious that although Arthur’s court is constantly referred to as the Round Table, the arrangements at dinner are those of the poet’s own time. The seating is that of a modern college hall, the chief persons being at the high table on the dais, and the rest of the company at the “sideboards” along the walls. Note, however, that the seat of honour was in the middle of the high table, not at the end. ↩
Arrayed ↩
A rich stuff. ↩
Boyish. ↩
Trusty. ↩
It was during the twelve years of peace that Arthur made a practice on Feast-days of “finding adventure,” as Wace tells us in his Brut:
“Furent les mervelles provees
Et les aventures trovees.”
The Feast-days were the Christian festivals of Easter, Ascension, Whitsun, All-Hallows, and Christmas. ↩
Gawain, as the “Queen’s Knight,” sits on her right. Baldwin is at the end of the high table, and Agravain between him and Gawain. Bedwini is the name of Arthur’s domestic bishop in the Mabinogion; Baldwin, or Baudwin, is the French form, but there was a famous Archbishop Baldwin at the end of the twelfth century who brought the Welsh sees under Canterbury, and this form of the name may well have appeared even in the Welsh romances. ↩
Stewed meats. ↩
The tight-fitting coat-hardy, the mantle, the long hose, and the jewelled belt are all features of knightly dress in the time of Edward III.
The word “start” (as in red-start) here rendered “pommel” was probably an ornament at the back of the saddle, but I cannot think of any proper name for it. ↩
Breast-piece. ↩
Studs on the bit. ↩
Enamelled. ↩
Clasped. ↩
A short close-fitting tunic. ↩
Thread of gold. ↩
Lightning. ↩
Withstand. ↩
Neckpiece. ↩
Grain: this was a spike projecting beyond the axe in the line of the handle. The highly decorated double-axes or halberds with similar projections, which begin to appear about this period (see illustrations in Chambers’s Encyclopaedia) are a different weapon. ↩
Company. ↩
Valiant. ↩
Battle-axe. ↩
Without resistance. ↩
Foal. ↩
Overturned. ↩
Such bragging or “gabbing,” as it was called, is not uncommon in medieval romances. ↩
Steadfast. ↩
Covenant. ↩
Spend. ↩
Readily. ↩
Bends. ↩
Spurned. ↩
Doomed. ↩
Play. ↩
Interludes were properly plays, usually farcical, introduced between the acts of the mystery plays or moralities. So the beheading is a relief from the customary courtly carols. ↩
Tapestry behind dais. ↩
Runs by. ↩
Cold shrinks adown: the poet seems to have imagined that in summer the cold retreats from the surface to the interior of the earth. ↩
Clarence: from the proximity of the names, it is tempting to suppose that the title suggested itself because Lionel, son of Edward III, became Duke of Clarence in 1362. There is, however, a Duke of Clarence in the French Lancelot romance. ↩
Steel shoes with broad toes. ↩
Knee-pieces. ↩
Linked. ↩
Elbow-pieces. ↩
Gringolet: the form with r is French; the better form is Guingalet, of which the first element is the Welsh gwyn, “white.”
The helmet was stuffed so as to fit comfortably on the head, and stapled so as to prevent the jointed pieces from springing.
The kerchief mentioned is the “kerchief of cointise”; it was usually worn at tournaments as a lady’s favour. ↩
Saddlebows. ↩
Parrots. ↩
Doves and truelove knots. ↩
Embossed (in embroidery). ↩
Maid. ↩
Pentangle:
The symbol no doubt came from the Pythagoreans, through the Gnostics; being, like the circle, a perfect or “endless” figure, it had magical properties. Cf. Scott, Marmion, III 20:
“His shoes were marked with cross and spell,
Upon his breast a pentacle.”
“Pentacle” is the right form of the word. ↩
Speech. ↩
In Geoffrey of Monmouth, IX iv, it is Arthur’s shield Pridwen “which has on the inner side the image of holy Mary, Mother of God, that many a time and oft did call her back into his memory.” We must understand the image to be on the inner side of Gawain’s shield also. ↩
Magnanimity. ↩
Purity. ↩
Knightly virtues. ↩
In the romances Arthur is usually a mere figurehead and such criticisms of him are not uncommon. ↩
Logres: England south of the Humber, from Welsh Lloegyr. ↩
Over at the Holyhead: the description is curious,
