The Courteous Monster: Chivalry, Violence, and Social Control in The Carl of Carlisle

In medieval romances, chivalry and violence are natural companions. The chivalrous knight not only treats his peers with courtesy but also impresses them with violent displays of physical prowess. Based on the dual importance of prowess and courtesy, contemporary scholars typically see the ideals of chivalry as both controlling and legitimizing the exercise of violence; the romance genre reflects this understanding and participates in the constant reformation of chivalric ideologies.¹ This essay focuses on the fourteenth-century Middle English romance The Carl of Carlisle, a romance that probes the connections between chivalry and violence through its titular character, the giant Carl of Carlisle. This romance suggests both that violence can be detrimental to the social goals of chivalry and that chivalry can never fully control either monstrous or knightly violence. The Carl’s monstrous body and behavior challenge the boundaries of chivalry. Significantly, however, the behavior of his foil, the ideal Arthurian knight Gawain, also challenges these boundaries. These challenges undermine the web of connections among chivalry, prowess, nobility, and social control. The Carl thus presents a complex view of chivalry that simultaneously affirms its social usefulness, rejects its connections to nobility and martial violence, and points to its failure to control the behavior of its practitioners. Most criticism of this romance focuses either on how chivalry is portrayed or on the social implications of the interactions between the aristocratic Gawain and the nonnoble Carl. My argument focuses instead on the ways in which the romance uses the intersections between chivalry and social class to evaluate traditional chivalry and chivalric violence in particular. I argue that the romance has, on the one hand, an optimistic view that violence and chivalry can be disentangled to the benefit of society, and on the other, a pessimistic view that any chivalric ideology can successfully control the violent behavior of its adherents. By questioning the success of chivalry in the world of romance, the Carl leads its audience to consider what the social use of chivalry might be in the late medieval world.

In its earliest extant form, The Carl of Carlisle is a 650-line stanzaic romance in Middle English dating to ca. 1400; a later ballad version also exists, preserved in the Percy Folio.² For reasons discussed below, this essay focuses primarily on the stanzaic version, although the narratives are virtually identical until the end. In the romance, Gawain and two companions from Arthur’s court seek shelter at the Carl’s castle, despite repeated warnings that the Carl mistreats his guests. They discover that the Carl is a giant whose physical form and denials that he knows courtesy confirm his separation from the chivalric world.³ Yet as the Carl tests Gawain and his companions, the romance reveals that the Carl is not as ignorant of chivalry as he claims; indeed, his reputation as a horrendous host stems from his inability to find a truly chivalrous guest. Gawain, as is typical in Middle English romances, plays the role of the perfectly chivalrous and obedient guest, thereby freeing the Carl from his oath to kill his guests. Once Gawain frees the Carl from this violent oath, he integrates the Carl into the Arthurian court: at Gawain’s request, Arthur knights the Carl, and then Gawain marries his daughter, ending the romance with a happily-ever-after conclusion for every character.

The difference between the stanzaic and ballad forms comes in the way in which Gawain brings the Carl into Arthurian chivalry. In the ballad version, Gawain must first disenchant the Carl by beheading him; this beheading restores him to his original, human form and also restores his noble status. The earlier, stanzaic version lacks this beheading scene and thus also lacks any physical transformation, as Gawain’s courtesy transforms the Carl’s behavior but not his form. This absence of a physical change suggests that what has separated the Carl from Arthurian chivalry is not enchantment, his physical appearance, or his social class, but his exercise of excessive, monstrous violence against his guests. Moreover, courtesy rather than chivalric violence successfully counters the...