7 - Evil Will and Shameful Death: Revisiting Law in Malory’s Morte Darthur

Summary

‘Law’ is a word that does not occur often in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur. Perhaps for this reason, Arthur's sorrowful and reluctant response to the accusations against Guinevere in the final book resonates so powerfully: ‘she shall have the law’ (883.10; 456v). At this fateful moment, Arthur is revealed as the ultimate arbiter of justice, as king, which of course he has always been, behind the chivalric dream of a non-hierarchical joint project as represented by the Round Table. He may lament that ‘the Rounde Table ys brokyn for ever’ but he must now be the impartial judge: ‘I may nat with my worshyp but my quene muste suffir dethe’ (882.8–11; 456r). This is the damage done by the accusers Agravaine and Mordred, who are sheltering their jealous feud behind the mask of the laws. That the accusation and punishment are quite precisely legal in nature has been well established for the Morte, and indeed for the main source text for this section, the Vulgate Mort Artu. The accusation and trial of Guinevere (or accusations, for her legal troubles began in the previous Tale in relation to the poisoned apples and to Meleagant's charges) are successful here and mark the beginning of the end; they signal the descent into civil war, revenge feud, and betrayal – pretty much the situation that prevailed before Arthur ever established himself. Recourse to law is, I will argue, a debasement, a descent from the principles inherent in Round Table chivalry, which has been governed (ideologically if not in practice) by an aspirational code of chivalric behaviour, often held to be represented by the Round Table Oath. The chief difference between law and the code of the order of chivalry is that the former is sovereign, external, and imposed by force, while the latter is a commitment to an internal and subjective disposition, to a supererogatory ethics, and a self-imposed code of action. It will soon appear that this primary distinction is more than a little murky, though in its large lineaments it is supported by a common critical understanding best expressed in Elizabeth Archibald's seminal work on fellowship in the Morte, in which she foregrounds the senses ‘of loyal friendship and of an organized and permanent knightly order’.