Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, Langland, Wycliff.

A very important role in spreading Celtic traditions of King Authors and Knights of the Round Table was played by Galfridus Monemutensis. He was an archdeacon in Moenmuth. His “Historia Britonum” was written between 1132 -1137 yrs. He formed a number of legends that would be spread all over Europe afterwards. This refers to the legend of King Arthur.

King Arthur’s real historic existence can’t be proved now. Probably the latest legend of him was connected with one minor Celtic chief who fought against the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain. Galfrid transforms him into a powerful ruler of not only Britain but of a part of Europe.

This subject gave birth to many a literary work of Anglo-Saxon literature. Poets transformed King Arthur’s court into an embodiment of Knight’s culture.

The best English poem on the subject of Gawain – King’s Arthur’s nephew, a knight of the Round table, is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by an unknown author. It is written in alliterative metre as well as many other Arthurian poems. The poet of Sir Gawain and the Green Knights tells a tale in which a man is proven to be a hero. Through the seemingly unheroic decisions made in the course of numerous tests. What makes a man hero? Just before he leaves Camelot in search for the Green Knight, Sir Gawain gives perhaps the best possible answer to this question:

“In destinies sad or merry, true men can but try”.

The meaning of a hero changes from early medieval epics in the later medieval romances. In the former the idea of the hero based on the King who died for his people, the warriors who defeated the tribe’s enemies as if it was in Beowulf and the Song of Roland. In later medieval romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hero is no longer fighting for his people, but for his ideals.

The protest against the Catholic Church and the growth of national feeling during the Hundred Year’s War found an echo in literature. There appeared poor priests who wandered from village to village and talked to the people. They protested not only against rich bishops but also against churchmen who were ignorant and couldn’t teach people anything.

William Langland is supposed to the author of “Piers Plowman”. He was born probably at Ledbury near the Welsh marches and may have gone to school at Great Malvern Priory. Although he took minor orders he never became a priest. Later in London he apparently eked out his living by singing masses and copying documents. His great work, “Piers Plowman”, or, more precisely, the vision of William concerning “Piers the Plowman” is an allegorical poem in unrhymed alliterative verse. It is both a social satire and a vision of the simple Christian life. Langland sadly tells, as in a dream, how most people prefer the false treasures of this world to the true treasures of heaven.

John Wycliff, a priest, attacked many of the religious ideas of his time. He was at Oxford, but had to leave because his attacks on the church could no longer be born. One of his beliefs was that anyone who wanted to read the Bible ought to be allowed to do so, but now could this be done by uneducated people when the Bible was in Latin? Some parts had indeed been put into Old English long ago, but Wycliff arranged the production of the whole Bible. He himself translated a part of it.

Lecture 3.