Medieval English Literature

by W. P. Ker

The alliterative poetry is almost always stronger than the tales in rhyme, written with more zest, not so much in danger of droning and sleepiness as the school of Sir Thopas undoubtedly is. But there is a great difference among the alliterative romances. William of Palerne, for example, is vigorous, but to little purpose, because the author has not understood the character of the French poem which he has translated, and has misapplied his vigorous style to the handling of a rather sophisticated story which wanted the smooth, even, unemphatic, French style to express it properly. The Wars of Alexander is the least distinguished of the group; there was another alliterative story of Alexander, of which only fragments remain. The Chevelere Assigne, the ‘Knight of the Swan,’ is historically interesting, as giving the romantic origin of Godfrey the Crusader, who is the last of the Nine Worthies. Though purely romantic in its contents, the Chevalier au Cygne belongs to one of the French narrative groups usually called epic—the epic of Antioch, which is concerned with the first Crusade. The Gest historial of the Destruction of Troy is of great interest; it is the liveliest of all the extant ‘Troy Books’, and it has all the good qualities of the fourteenth-century alliterative school, without the exaggeration and violence which was the common fault of this style, as the contrary fault of tameness was the danger of the rhyming romances. But the alliterative poem which ranks along with Sir Gawayne as an original work with a distinct and fresh comprehension of its subject is the Morte Arthure. This has some claim to be called an epic poem, an epic of the modern kind, composed with a definite theory. The author takes the heroic view of Arthur given by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and turns his warfare into a reflection of the glory of King Edward III; not casually, but following definite lines, with almost as much tenacity as the author of Sir Gawayne, and, of course, with a greater theme. The tragedy of Arthur in Malory to some extent repeats the work of this poet—whose name was Huchoun of the Awle Ryale; it may have been Sir Hugh of Eglinton.

CHAPTER V
SONGS AND BALLADS

King Canute’s boat-song has some claim to be the earliest English song in rhyme—

Merie sungen the muneches binnen Ely

Tha Knut king rew therby:

Roweth, knihtes, ner the land

And here we thes muneches sang.

If this claim be disallowed, then the first is St. Godric, the hermit of Finchale in the reign of Henry II—his hymn to Our Lady and the hymn to St. Nicholas. These are preserved along with the music (like the Cuckoo song which comes later); the manuscript of the poems of Godric is copied in the frontispiece to Saintsbury’s History of English Prosody; it proves many interesting things. It is obvious that musical notation is well established; and it seems to follow that with a good musical tradition there may be encouragement for lyric poetry apart from any such ‘courtly’ circumstances as have been described in another chapter. There is no doubt about this. While it is certain on the one hand that the lyrical art of the Middle Ages was carried furthest in courtly society by the French, Provençal, German and Italian poets, it is equally certain that the art of music flourished also in out-of-the-way places. And as in those days musical and poetical measures, tunes and words, generally went together, the development of music would mean the development of poetical forms, of lyric stanzas. Music flourished in England most of all in Godric’s country, the old Northumbria. Giraldus Cambrensis, who has been quoted already for his story of the wake and the English love-song, gives in another place a remarkable description of the part-singing which in his time was cultivated where it is most in favour at the present day—in Wales, and in England north of the Humber. Where people met to sing in parts, where music, therefore, was accurate and well studied, there must have been careful patterns of stanza. Not much remains from a date so early as this, nor even for a century after the time of Godric and Giraldus. But towards the end of the reign of Edward I lyric poems are found more frequently, often careful in form. And in judging of their art it is well to remember that it is not necessary to refer them to the courtly schools for their origin. Country people might be good judges of lyric; they might be as exacting in their musical and poetical criticisms as any persons of quality could be. Hence while it is certain that England before the time of Chaucer was generally rustic and provincial in its literary taste, it does not follow that the rustic taste was uninstructed or that the art was poor. The beauty of the English songs between 1300 and 1500 is not that of the nobler lyric as it was (for example) practised and described by Dante. But the beauty is undeniable, and it is the beauty of an art which has laws of its own; it is poetry, not the primitive elements of poetry. In art, it is not very far from that of the earlier Provençal poets. For everywhere, it should be remembered, the noble lyric poetry was ready to draw from the popular sources, to adapt and imitate the rustic themes; as on the other hand the common people were often willing to take up the courtly forms.

The earliest rhyming songs are more interesting from their associations than their own merits; though Canute and St. Godric are certainly able to put a good deal of meaning into few words. Godric’s address to St. Nicholas is particularly memorable for its bearing on his own history. Godric had been a sea captain in his youth (like another famous author of hymns, the Rev. John Newton) and St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors. Godric, whose operations were in the Levant, had often prayed to St. Nicholas of Bari, and he brings the name of the saint’s own city into his hymn, by means of a sacred pun. ‘Saint Nicholas’, he says, ‘build us a far sheen house—

At thi burch at thi bare