Foxy Lady, Foxy Knight. Animals and Chivalric Identity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Abstract

This thesis analyses the interconnection between chivalric identity and conceptualisations of the animal in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It discusses medieval thinking about the animal, fourteenth-century socio-economic developments in chivalric culture and attitudes to non-human nature in late-medieval theology and philosophy. In the light of this context emerge two different notions of chivalric identity that are coupled with different attitudes to the animal in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain upholds an absolutist understanding of chivalric identity, a hostile attitude to the natural environment and cannot deal constructively with his own animalistic nature. Gawain’s point of view is grounded in High- Medieval concepts of divine order in society and the natural world, which had begun to lose credibility in the fourteenth century. For Bertilak is chivalry not an essentialist account of the aristocracy but rather an ideal for all to aspire to. This notion emerged in the context of late- fourteenth-century upward social mobility, and for Bertilak it goes hand in hand with a respectful attitude to animals and the natural environment. Bertilak is also lenient towards human “animal” inclinations: that even the greatest knights fall short of the chivalric ideal is cause for forgiveness rather than despair. Drawing on contemporary theological debates on human nature and the will, the Gawain-poet reinforces his argument for Bertilak’s understanding of chivalry by showing how Gawain’s archaic ideology is spiritually crippling, while Bertilak’s chivalric ideal emulates the Christian core values of love, forgiveness and spiritual regeneration.