Sir Launfal

(Launfalus Miles)

(ca. 1375–1400)

   Sir Launfal is a late 14th-century ROMANCE in a southeastern dialect of MIDDLE ENGLISH, generally categorized (like SIR ORFEO and the LAI LE FREINE) as a Breton LAI. The poem contains 1,044 lines in 12-line TAIL-RHYME stanzas, and is the best known of several Middle English retellings of MARIE DE FRANCE’s well-known 12th-century lai of LANVAL. Sir Launfal is the only identified production by the poet who calls himself Thomas Chestre, of whom nothing else is known. Based on style and language, some scholars have suggested that Chestre is also the author of the romance called LIBEAUS DESCONUS, but this is only conjecture.

   Sir Launfal follows the general plot outline of Marie’s Lanval, but with some alterations that show the Middle English poem to be less a courtly than a bourgeois entertainment. It begins by introducing the protagonist, Launfal, as a very courteous knight of King ARTHUR’s Round Table. Launfal, however, is slighted by Queen GUENEVERE, and leaves the court, taking up lodging with the mayor of the city of Caerleon. Here, his natural generosity eventually impoverishes him, so that he does not even have decent clothing to wear. One day he rides off by himself into the woods, where he is surprised to be invited by two beautiful ladies-in-waiting into the pavilion of a fairy princess named Tryamour. She promises to be his love, provides him with a purse with an endless supply of cash, promises to make him victorious in any knightly battles, and pledges to come to him whenever he calls to her—but all on the condition that their love remain completely secret. Should Launfal reveal her existence to anyone, he will forfeit her love and all her gifts. From this point, Launfal regains his noble reputation, and he returns to Arthur’s court as a prosperous and respected knight. The queen, however, becomes attracted to Launfal and makes sexual advances to him.When he rebuffs her, Guenevere becomes angry, declares he must not be attracted to women at all, and accuses him of homosexuality. The incensed Launfal answers that he has a mistress whose lowliest maid is more beautiful than the queen. Stung, the queen goes to King Arthur and accuses Launfal of treason. She tells the king that Launfal tried to seduce her and repeats his insulting words.

   Launfal is brought to trial and ordered to produce his mistress so that the court can judge her beauty compared with that of the queen. But Launfal has lost his love. She will no longer appear to him because he has broken his vow not to boast of her. But at the last moment, Tryamour appears at the trial. She reveals the truth of Guenevere’s guilt, and when she breathes on the queen’s eyes, Guenevere becomes blind. In the end Tryamour rides off with Launfal to the fairy land of Olyroun, where they live happily forever. Scholars speculate that Sir Launfal was based not directly on Marie’s Lanval but on a lost intermediary translation. Some of the changes, such as Guenevere’s ill treatment of Launfal in the beginning and her blinding in the end, are intended simply to further vilify the queen and provide for her a “just” punishment. Some additions, like the tournament scene and Launfal’s battle with Sir Valentine, seem added to appeal to a romance audience expecting adventure and feats of arms. But the biggest change from Marie’s courtly lai is the bourgeois sensitivity displayed in the narrator’s fascination with unlimited wealth and possessions. Launfal’s lodging with the wealthy burgesses of Caerleon is just another indication of the poet’s appropriating a courtly genre for a middle-class audience.

   Bibliography

   ■ Anderson, Earl R. “The Structure of Sir Launfal,” Papers on Language and Literature 13 (1977): 115–124.

   ■ Martin, B. K. “Sir Launfal and the Folktale,”Medium Ævum 35 (1966): 199–210.

   ■ Miles, M.“The Composition and Style of the ‘Southern’Octavian, Sir Launfal, and Libeaus Desconus,” Medium Ævum 31 (1962): 88–109.

   ■ Nappholz, Carol J. “Launfal’s ‘Largesse’:Word-Play in Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal,” English Language Notes 25 (1988): 4–9.

   ■ Spearing, A. C.“Marie de France and Her Middle English Adapters,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 117–156.