Sir Gowther

(ca. 1400)

   Sir Gowther is a MIDDLE ENGLISH verse ROMANCE in 12-line TAIL-RHYME stanzas. It is composed in a northeast Midland dialect, and tells the popular story known generally as “Robert the Devil”—the story of the violent deeds of a man sired on a mortal woman by a devil. The best-known and earliest written version of the story is a 12th-century French poem of 5,000 lines called Robert le Diable, which is associated with the father of William the Conqueror, Robert, the sixth duke of Normandy— a man whose violence and cruelty were legendary. While some have assumed the French poem to be the source of the English one, the story existed in a number of languages in chronicles, miracle plays, sermon exempla, romances, and in oral and written folktales. Sir Gowther is known as one of the Middle English “Breton LAIS,” though it also bears some similarities to the genre of SAINTS’ LIVES. In the poem Gowther’s mother is unable to have a child with her husband, and prays desperately for a baby. The Devil hears her prayer, and engenders Gowther with her, apparently in the guise of her husband. But Gowther’s demonic heritage manifests itself quickly: He grows teeth as an infant. He also grows prodigiously, and his voracious appetite kills nine wet nurses, before he ultimately bites off his own mother’s nipple. As he grows up, he engages in a series of barbarous acts, including raping a convent of nuns. His father, in an effort to rein in his wild lawlessness, has him baptized and makes Gowther a knight, but the chivalric code means nothing to Sir Gowther, and he continues his evil ways until, one day, an old earl reveals to Gowther that his father was thought to be a demon. The shock of this leads Gowther to confront his mother at knifepoint to discover the truth.

   It is the truth that sets Gowther on the road to redemption. After first going to Rome and confessing his sins, he begins a long period of penance. He is made mute, cut off from humanity in the wilderness, and condemned to eat only the food brought to him by dogs. From here he enters the emperor’s court, where he assumes the role of Hobbe the Fool, taking a position under the table with the dogs,who continue to bring him food, now from the hand of the emperor’s mute daughter, with whom Gowther carries on a chaste relationship despite their mutual silence. During a three-day tournament between the forces of the emperor and the Saracen forces of a sultan who is a suitor for the hand of the emperor’s daughter, Gowther prays each day for a shield, horse, and armor to fight the Saracens. His mute prayers are answered, and on three successive days, he defeats his foes on the battlefield in disguise, and returns each night to his position under the table. Only the daughter knows of his exploits. But when he is wounded in the shoulder, the lady is so distressed that she leaps from a tower. She lies comatose for three days, but finally awakens and, miraculously, is able to speak. She absolves Gowther, and in doing so ends his penance, restoring him to his full humanity. The two marry. Gowther ends up inheriting the German Empire, marrying his mother to a new husband, and building an abbey to atone for his sins against the nuns. Sir Gowther survives in two 15th-century manuscripts— British Museum Royal MS 17 B.43, and the National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19.3.1.While the manuscripts are substantially the same, the British Museum manuscript (which is the younger of the two) leaves out the description of Gowther’s ravishing of the nuns. It also adds a section identifying Gowther with the eighth century English saint Guthlac,who founded Croyland Abbey. It seems likely that the two manuscripts were intended for different audiences—that the audience of the British Museum manuscript was more refined, less interested in the violent or scurrilous details, and more interested in hearing a saint’s life. Clearly the popular folktale had a broad appeal across different social classes.

   Bibliography

   ■ Hopkins, Andrea. The Sinful Knights: A Study of Middle English Penitential Romances. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

   ■ Marchalonis, Shirley. “Sir Gowther: The Process of a Romance,” Chaucer Review 6 (1971): 14–29.

   ■ Sir Gowther, in The Middle English Breton Lays, edited by Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury. Kalamazoo, Mich.:Medieval Institute Publications, 1995.