Sir Launfal
Sir Launfal is a 1045-line Middle English romance or Breton lay written by Thomas Chestre dating from the late 14th century. It is based primarily on the 538-line Middle English poem Sir Landevale, which in turn was based on Marie de France's lai Lanval, written in a form of French understood in the courts of both England and France in the 12th century. Sir Launfal retains the basic story told by Marie and retold in Sir Landevale, augmented with material from an Old French lai Graelent and a lost romance that possibly featured a giant named Sir Valentyne. This is in line with Thomas Chestre's eclectic way of creating his poetry.
In the tale, Sir Launfal is propelled from wealth and status - the steward at King Arthur's court - to being a pauper and a social outcast. He is not even invited to a feast in his home town of Caerleon when the king visits, although Arthur knows nothing of this. Out in the forest alone, he meets with two damsels who take him to their mistress, the daughter of the King of Faerie. She gives him untold wealth and a magic bag in which money can always be found, on the condition that he becomes her lover. She will visit him whenever he wants and nobody will see her or hear her. But he must tell nobody about her, or her love will vanish at that instant.
The story of a powerful woman who takes a lover on condition that he obey a particular prohibition is common in medieval poetry: the French lais of Desiré, Graelent, and Guingamor, and Chrétien de Troyes's romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, all share similar plot elements. The presence of a Land of Faerie, or an Otherworld, betrays the story's Celtic roots. A final court scene may be intended by Chestre as criticism of the contemporary legal and judicial framework in late-14th-century England. The equation of money with worth in the tale may satirize a late-14th-century mentality.
Manuscripts
Sir Launfal survives in a single manuscript copy:- British Museum MS Cotton Caligula A.ii., mid-15th century.
It is widely accepted that Thomas Chestre was the author of two other verse romances in MS Cotton Caligula A.ii., Lybeaus Desconus and the Southern Octavian.
Plot
Sir Launfal participates in the chivalric tradition of gift-giving to such an extent that he is made King Arthur's steward, in charge of celebrations. After ten happy years under Launfal's stewardship, however, King Arthur's court is graced by a new arrival, Guenevere, whom Merlin has brought from Ireland. Launfal takes a dislike to this new lady, as do many other worthy knights, because of her reputation for promiscuity. King Arthur marries Guenevere and Launfal's fortunes take a sudden turn for the worse. He leaves King Arthur's court when Guenevere shows ill will to him by not giving him a gift at the wedding. Insulted and humiliated, Launfal leaves the court, losing his status and income.Returning to his home town of Caerleon, Launfal takes humble lodgings, spends all the money that King Arthur gave him before setting out, and soon descends into poverty and debt. One Trinity Sunday, the king holds a banquet in Caerleon to which Launfal, because of his poverty, is not invited. The mayor's daughter offers to let him spend the day with her, but he declines her offer since he has nothing to wear. Instead, he borrows a horse from her and goes for a ride, stopping to rest under a tree in a nearby forest. Two maidens appear and bring him to a lady they call Tryamour, daughter of the King of Olyroun and of Fayrye, whom Launfal finds lying on a bed in a glorious pavilion.
Tryamour offers Launfal her love and several material gifts: an invisible servant, Gyfre; a horse, Blaunchard; and a bag that will always produce gold coins however many are taken from it, all on the condition that he keeps their relationship a secret from the rest of the world. No one must know of her existence. She tells him she will come to him whenever he is all alone and wishes for her.
Launfal returns to Caerleon. Soon a train of packhorses arrives, bearing all kinds of valuables for him. He uses this new wealth to perform many acts of charity. He also wins in a local tournament, thanks to the horse and banner given him by the lady. A knight of Lombardy, Sir Valentyne, challenges him to come to Lombardy to fight with him. This section of Thomas Chestre's tale does not derive from Marie de France's Lanval or from the English Sir Landevale, but perhaps from another romance that is now lost. Launfal makes the voyage, and defeats Valentyne, thanks to his invisible servant Gyfre, who picks up his helmet and shield when Valentyne knocks them down. Launfal kills Valentyne and then has to kill many more of the Lombard knights in order to get away.
Launfal's reputation for martial prowess and generosity reaches new heights and word at last reaches King Arthur. Launfal is summoned again by the king, after a long absence, and asked to serve as steward for a long festival beginning at the Feast of St. John. During some revelry at the court, Guenevere offers herself to Launfal. Launfal refuses, Guenevere threatens to ruin his reputation in retaliation by questioning his manhood and Launfal blurts out in his defence that he has a mistress whose ugliest handmaiden would make a better Queen than Guenevere. Guenevere goes to Arthur and accuses Launfal of trying to seduce her and of insulting her as well. Knights are sent to arrest him.
Launfal has gone to his room, but his faerie mistress does not appear and Sir Launfal soon realises why. Tryamour will no longer come to him when he wishes for her since he has given away her existence. Soon, her gifts have disappeared or changed. Now he is brought to trial. Since the jury of his peers all know that the Queen is more likely to have propositioned Launfal than the other way around, they believe Launfal's version of the encounter. However, for his insult he is given a year and a fortnight to produce the beautiful lady as proof of his boast; Guenevere says she is willing to be blinded if he manages to produce such a woman. As the day of the proof progresses, the Queen presses for him to be executed while others express doubt, particularly when two parties of gorgeous women ride up. Finally Tryamour arrives and exculpates Launfal on both counts. She breathes on Guenevere and blinds her. Gyfre, now visible, brings his horse Blaunchard, and Tryamour, Launfal, and her ladies ride away to the island of Olyroun, which in Marie's 12th-century version of the tale is Avalon. Once a year, on a certain day, Launfal returns and his horse may be heard neighing and a knight may joust with him, although he was never seen again in Arthur's land.
Geography
In this story, Arthur is king of England and holds court in Carlisle and Glastonbury, particularly during such summer feasts as Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. There is ambiguity, though. Kardevyle, where the opening scene of the story takes place, can be interpreted as Carlisle, in northern England, where King Arthur holds court in many Middle English romances, such as the Awntyrs off Arthure and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. But it can also be interpreted as Cardiff, in South Wales, which is King Arthur's residence in Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, and might sit more comfortably with the other locations in Sir Launfal, such as Caerleon and Glastonbury. Marie de France's poem Lanval, along with other Old French Arthurian works, has this city as "Kardoel", which, given the confusion, must have sounded, even to a late-Medieval English ear, like a conflation of Carlisle and Cardiff. In Marie's poem, however, the intention seems clearly to be Carlisle, since King Arthur is fighting against Scots and Pictish incursions there.Guenevere is stated by Thomas Chestre to be from "Irlond", possibly Ireland, the daughter of King Rion, who is an enemy of King Arthur in most other medieval Arthurian stories and usually hails from North Wales. Launfal's home base seems to be Caerleon, in South Wales. The realm of Fayrye is located on the island of Olyroun. Being the realm of Fayrye, however, it might not be expected to have a specific location in the real world. Marie de France relates that Lanval was taken by his Faërie lover to Avalon, "a very beautiful island," and was never seen again; just as Connla was taken by a daughter of the Irish god Manannan to a land across the sea that "delights the mind of everyone who turns to me", in an ancient Irish legend. Also mentioned are knights of Little Britain, and the need to cross the salt sea to reach Lombardy.
Arthurian legend
Evolution
Marie de France's lai was composed at a time when the story of King Arthur was not fully developed, and probably before the story of the love between Lancelot and Queen Guinevere had been added to it by Chrétien de Troyes in his Knight of the Cart. Thomas Chestre describes a 10-year period during which Launfal prospers at Arthur's bachelor court, followed by Arthur's marriage to Guinevere. In the 13th-century French Arthurian romances, Merlin warns against this marriage; in Chestre's poem, he arranges it, betraying Chestre's willingness to adapt an established legend in his own way.Such adaptation is further evident in Guinevere's blinding. Marie de France describes no such mutilation of the Queen, and it sits uncomfortably with the climax of King Arthur's reign, well-known from the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail Cycle, in which Lancelot and a seeing Guinevere play their part in King Arthur's final days.