Abstract
This essay examines the relationship between Bevis and his horse, Arondel, in the Middle English Bevis of Hampton. In the romance, all the key characters attempt to gift or obtain Arondel to demonstrate their largesse as rulers or gain prestige from possessing the remarkable horse. In this respect, the romance depicts horses as an important form of social currency in lord–vassal relations. However, Arondel cannot be easily circulated within the gift economy of feudal relations because he resists objectification. Acknowledging Arondel's agency, Bevis himself treats the horse more as a feudal subject than an exchangeable possession and their relationship dramatizes how fealty and vassalage can cross species lines. While anthropocentric in many respects, their relationship does not confine human-horse interaction to animal subservience for human benefit. Instead, Bevis suffers and sacrifices on Arondel's behalf, ultimately forfeiting a leading place in the English aristocracy and his ancestral lands to save Arondel's life. Through these acts of loyalty and reciprocity, Bevis and Arondel illustrate the possibilities for inter-species communication without suggesting that the gulf between man and horse can be definitively bridged.
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Notes
For example, in October 1277, Edward I granted a vast amount of property to John de Greilly ‘to hold in fee simple at the rent of a sore goshawk at every removal of the lords of that fee’ (CPR, 1893–1901, 1:230). On 8 June 1310, Edward II granted Robert de Malo Lacu a castle and manor for an annual rendering of a ‘sore-hawk’ (CPR, 1894–1904, 1: 230). Still under the Earl of March's influence in August 1329, a young Edward III complied with Roger Mortimer's request to pardon William de Kerdif of ‘the arrears of rent due from him’ for a manor held ‘by the service of rendering yearly to the king one hound’ (CPR, 1891–1914, 1:439).
These gifts were made on credit. For example, the entry for 2 Nov, 1242 is a ‘[m]andate to the seneschal of Gascony to let John de Plesseto have a destrier of the price of 30 marks of the king's gift, and the king will pay him out of the first money that comes from England’ (CPR, 1901–1913, 3:342).
Appadurai, for example, observes that even though the commodity has traditionally been associated with ‘the profit-oriented, self-centered, and calculated spirit’ while the exchange of gifts is associated with ‘reciprocity, sociability, and spontaneity,’ this simple dichotomy can distract us from ‘looking at the commodity potential of all things’ (Appadurai, 1986, 11, 15). For a critique of Mauss's interpretation of the ethnographic material that may have contributed to making the distinctions between gift and market economies firmer than they are, see Godelier (1998), especially chapter one.
Discussing hospitality by using Mauss's observation regarding the obligatory nature of giving, Gautier shows how Anglo-Saxon generosity was expressed as spontaneous, honorable giving as well as regulated by obligation and law (Gautier, 2009, 28). Dealing with the competitive nature of the counter-gift, Andrew Cowell finds that giving in medieval epics is a way to accrue the social capital of honor and the ultimate goal of establishing one's integrity (Cowell, 2007, 23–25).
This incident does not occur in the Anglo-Norman Boeve de Haumtone. There, the first battle is against a monstrous boar and Boeve rides an unnamed ‘good, fast horse’ (Weiss, 2008, 33). Calkin comments that the Christmas day insertion emphasizes the religious tensions within the romance, as the skirmish originates in Saracen taunts that prompt Bevis to fight in defense of Christianity (Calkin, 2005, 70). By naming Arondel as Bevis's horse in a moment when Bevis's identity comes under assault, the Middle English poem constructs a unique bond between horse and rider even before Bevis formally receives Arondel as a gift and is bound to use Arondel to fulfill his feudal obligations to Ermin.
Citations of Bevis of Hampton are by line number to E. Kölbing's edition of the Auchinleck manuscript version of the poem. The scene appears to be a knighting ceremony, but the feudal contract is also implied. Bevis swears by the cross that he will serve Ermin – ‘Bleþelich … be þe Rod!’ (l. 968) – and even though the Christian oath might render his loyalty to the Saracen king suspect, Bevis proves his loyalty to Ermin by telling Brandemond that he has sworn allegiance to Ermin and performs his will – ‘Icham iswore to King Ermin./Al þat ich do, it is his dede’ (ll. 1050–1051) – when the latter tries to wrangle from Bevis a deal that will prevent his capture.
The deliberate nature of Ermin's ‘re-gifting’ is not emphasized in the Anglo-Norman Boeve de Haumtone. There, Arondel falls into Yvor's possession because the horse comes with Josian.
The life of Alexander circulated in several Middle English versions. For Middle English accounts of Alexander mounting and riding Bucephalus, see the metrical romance Kyng Alisaunder (Smithers, 1957, ll. 682–710, 777–794), The Prose Life of Alexander (Westlake, 1913, 8–9), and the alliterative Romance of Alexander (Alexander A) (Skeat, 1867, ll. 1154–1189). Thus, apart from being a deep source for Bevis of Hampton's depiction of the horse–rider relationship, Alexandrian romance may also have been a contemporary influence.
Seaman shows how Josian acts with great agency throughout the romance. Her comment that Josian ‘overtly confirms the norms of a romance heroine, [and thus] is able simultaneously to “go undercover” as a shadow hero of the romance’ (Seaman, 2001, 56) is a particularly apt description of Josian's tactic to preserve her sexual agency.
In the Auchinleck version of the poem, two other occurrences of the adjective ‘lel’ describe Arondel's loyalty. Arondel is first introduced as ‘a stede good and lel’ (l. 590) in the Christmas day battle. In another sequence unique to the Middle English romance, the battle in London's narrow lanes, Arondel's loyalty is emphasized as he fights with great courage: ‘Faste faught with hertte lel’ (‘But as ever, Arondel his horse fought bravely with a loyal heart’; l. 4448). This belief that horses were loyal is evident in medieval bestiaries: ‘Some of them … will only recognize their proper masters and will stop being tame if these are changed. Some will let nobody on their back except their master’ (White, 1984, 85). Several classical examples, including Bucephalus, are listed after this observation.
William Fitzstephen's description of London in the mid-twelfth century describes ‘a much frequented show of fine horses for sale’ where races between the best horses – ‘When a race between such trampling steeds is about to begin … a shout is raised, and horses of the baser sort are bidden to turn aside’ (Fitzstephen, 2001, 158–159) – are narrated as the logical outcome of proving the value of these horses.
Alexander the Great commemorates Bucephalus in a similar way. When the horse dies, he builds a city that he names after the horse.
I thank Susan Crane for this observation. See Crane (2008, especially 72–76), for more on medieval cross-species communication.
This narrative detail is significant because at least one manuscript of the romance, MS. Manchester, Chetham's Library 8009, does not dramatize any verbal commands (or incentives) issued by Bevis: ‘But Beuys with his sporys his hors smote,/ On Arondel, so sayth the boke/ In the myd way he them ouertoke’ (ll. 3278–3280).
Citations of Boeve de Haumtone are from A. Stimming's edition. Translations are from J. Weiss (2008).
The Middle English romance emphasizes that a ceremonial hanging is to be meted out to Arondel – ‘hii mi3te do him no wors,/ Boute lete hongen is hors’ (ll. 3571–3572) – implying that Arondel is judged as a malicious murderer rather than disposed as a dangerous animal. The Anglo-Norman poem takes a different tack, regarding Arondel as property that should be given to Edgar in recompense for the prince's death: ‘C’il refuse le bon chival de pris,/ nus I veum qu’il deyt estre garis’ (‘If he gives up the good and prized horse, we consider he ought to be spared’; ll. 2591–2591 [Weiss, 2008, 73]). For the secular trials of animals in late medieval society that would have applied in Arondel's case, see Cohen (1993, 110–119).
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Lim, G. ‘A Stede Gode and Lel’: Valuing Arondel in Bevis of Hampton. Postmedieval 2, 50–68 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2010.51
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2010.51