The Problem of "Rondolesette Halle" in The Awntyrs off Arthure

The Middle English poem The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn is known for a number of interesting features, including its intricate alliterative and rhyming stanzaic system, its enigmatic bipartite structure, and its extensive and confident utilization of local place-names from northwestern England and southwestern Scotland, particularly within Inglewood Forest, the former royal hunting preserve situated south of Carlisle.¹ In this last area, much work has been done to identify the many local place-names inserted by the anonymous author into his story, and to understand the roles that these locations play in the poem's narrative.²

The principal action of the Awntyrs takes place at three sites. In the poem's first half (lines 1-338), the court is hunting near the Tarn Wadling (a now-defunct lake widely associated in the Middle Ages with spectral apparitions³) when Queen Guinevere and Sir Gawain are confronted by the ghost of Guinevere's mother, who condemns the Arthurian court's excessive pride and foretells its eventual downfall. Shaken by this experience, Guinevere and Gawain are rejoined by the hunting party, which adjourns to "Rondolesette Halle" for a feast (lines 339-474), at which point the second half of the poem begins. As the meal is getting underway, a strange knight, Sir Galeron of Galloway, appears and announces his intention to win back by battle lands that Arthur has unjustly seized from him and given to Sir Gawain. Arthur agrees that if Galeron will wait until the following morning, when a suitable champion and field of engagement can be found, he may have his trial. In the meantime, the knight is led to a pavilion where he is clothed, fed, and cared for in the best tradition of Arthurian hospitality. Once the feast has ended, Arthur confers with his knights, whereupon Gawain volunteers to fight Galeron, and the following morning, after the saying of Mass, the court leaves "Rondolesette Halle" for "Plumton Land," where the battle is held (lines 475-689). After a brutal contest that produces no clear victor, the two knights are reconciled, and the court returns to Carlisle and the Round Table for a brief coda (lines 690-715) in which gifts are distributed, Sir Galeron weds his lady and joins the Round Table, and Queen Guinevere appoints masses to be said for the soul of her mother.

While two of the poem's three main locales, the Tarn Wadling and "Plumton Land" (commonly identified with Plumpton Wall, site of the ancient Roman fort of Voreda) are unproblematic, the third has been the source of considerable uncertainty. The present article will examine the location and physical characteristics of this third site, "Rondolesette Halle," and will investigate the nature of the events that take place there in the poem and its role in the poem's larger structural and conceptual framework.

The term regularized here as "Rondolesette Halle" appears only once in The Awntyrs off Arthure, at line 337, the moment at which Arthur and his court leave behind the terrifying experience of the Tarn Wadling and ride to "Rondolesette Halle" to partake of "þe suppere" (line 338). It is at the ensuing feast that Sir Galeron appears to demand the return of his lands in southern Scotland, thereby setting in motion the events of the poem's second half. The four surviving manuscripts⁴ of the Awntyrs give differing readings of the line in question, as follows:

• MS T:  Wente to  randolfe sett  haulle

• MS L:  Rode  to  Randilsete  halle

• MS J:  þay wente to  Rondall sete  hall

• MS  D:  Went  to  Rondoles  halle

The line is emended by Ralph Hanna, in his 1974 edition of the poem, to read: "Rayked to Rondolesette Halle," although Hanna subsequently abandoned the overly interventionist "Rayked" in favor of the more editorially supportable "Went."⁵

As previous commentators have noted, the poem gives no hint as to where "Rondolesette" is meant to be, nor what sort of hall would have been located there. From the context of the poem, we may assume that it is some distance from the...