Medieval Balladry and the Courtly Tradition: Literature of Revolt and Assimulation by Gwendolyn A. Morgan (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER GWENDOLYN A. MORGAN. Medieval Balladry and the Courtly Tradition: Literature ofRevolt and Assimulation. American University Studies, vol. 160. New York and Bern: Peter I.ang, 1993. Pp. 148. $36.95. This book treats the domestic, chivalric, and outlaw ballads of the Child canon as a cohesive body of literature, produced in the late Middle Ages by illiterate peasants, on the one hand having an ideology of social protest against the chivalric courtly tradition of the ruling class and, on the other hand, portraying, in the outlaw ballads, aspects of assimilation to the courtly tradition by the new yeoman class. The first sections of the book (they are designated only by tide, not as chapters) treat the history of the times in rather broad strokes showing labor unrest, repressive measures by the ruling class, and a kind of upper­ class revival of courtly behavior, an afterglow of knighthood in Tudor times. Within this context the ballads are seen as exhibiting the feelings of the common people. The views expressed are commonsensical, prosaic, cynical. They represent the hardships of life and nature, the dominance of lower-class wit over power, and a lack of sentiment. The attacks of the rural, illiterate poets (Child 63) on chivalry were "ruthless and unrelent­ ing" (Child 62). The interpretations of individual ballads, as, for instance, "Sir Patrick Spens" (Child 58), "The Twa Corbies" (Child 26), "The Boy and the Mantle" (Child 29), are forced into this mold ofpeasant and com­ moner derision of the pretenses and codes of the chivalric, courtly system. How ridiculous to follow a code (or establish a code) which guarantees death at sea. How powerful a condemnation of knighthood's courtly pre­ tensions is "The Twa Corbies." How plainly does "The Boy and the Man­ tle," "significantly a peasant child" (dressed in wealthy clothes? More likely a supernarural visitor) present "a commoner's prosaic perception of the Arthur myth" (p. 61). The dictates of her thesis cause the author to be necessarily rigid in interpretation. Certainly Arthur is debunked here as elsewhere, but the folkloric evolution known as the "degeneration of the hero" might have been mentioned as a possible alternative view. These sections on "The Common View" and "Chivalry and Common Sense" are not without merit and are even fun to read if one takes pleasure in seeing what kind of an ideological spin can be put on ballads whose agenda has not been questioned or examined before. The conclusions drawn from the readings may appear to some scholars simplistic and reduc­ tive, but there is no question that the ballads do show a definite cynical downbeat view of life: mayhem, incest, murder, greed are portrayed often 242 REVIEWS among earls, lords, and knights, and aspects of some ballads ("Sir Patrick Spens," for instance) could be interpreted as being critical of the preten­ sions and stupidity of the aristocracy. The section on "Yeomanry: The Common Ground" examines in the ballads a "softening of rebelliousness [of earlier fierce anti-establishment sentiment} into a desire for assimilation" (p. 93). Robin Hood, who shows his kinship to romance heroes, is just as courteous as the chivalric class desires to appear. Nor are these outlaws poor or starving; Robin Hood is shown to be of "yeoman or knightly origins" in possession of a large trea­ sure hoard. He poaches not to break the king's law, but, if "we understand the king's deer as a symbol for the aristocracy, the outlaw-as-poacher makes sense" (p. 88). In "The Hunting of the Cheviot" (Child 162), there is an example of "a yeoman asserting his equality to the knight by adopting aristocratic behavioral standards" (p.86). The reference in the ballad is, however, to "a squyar off Northombarlonde / Richard Wytharyngton was his name." Squires would appear to have been attached to the knightly class, rather than the yeomanry, if Chaucer, among others, is to be trusted. The last two sections of the book attempt to place the ballads within the continuum of English literature. "A Common Heritage" shows their "En­ glish" qualities of common sense, lack of sentimentality and empathy, etc., to be in tune with Yvor Winters's...