11 - Virtus, Vertues, and Gender: Cultivating a Chivalric Habitus in Thomas Malory’s Tale of Sir Gareth

Summary

Although Caxton's “Preface” has long provided insights into Malory's Morte, it is also a masterful ethical dodge: by attributing motivation for this sprawling imprint to “many noble and dyvers gentylmen” (“many noble and diverse gentlemen”), Caxton avoids responsibility for the ideals circulating within the vast domain of Arthur's court. This association, though, is also an impressive moral pitch: by suggesting his hand was moved by elite audiences, Caxton elevates the violence of Arthur's knights, rendering what might otherwise be a petty conflict between powerful men into a tragic struggle over chivalric values. Those “sayd noble jentylmen” (“said noble gentlemen”) take themselves to be the historical inheritors of Arthurian ethics, even if, as Caxton enigmatically muses, “dyvers men holde oppynyon that there was no suche Arthur” (“said noble gentlemen… diverse men hold opinion that there was no such Arthur,” p. cxliv). As scholars generally agree, Malory establishes a powerful fiction of chivalric identity, one that relies on individual and collective excellence, as well as horizontal and vertical bonds between knights. This form of masculinity, as the genealogy of worthies provided by Caxton's preface affirms, at least purports to inherit an earlier model of heroic excellence, or virtus. And while Malory develops this ideal using decidedly medieval concepts – most notably chivalry – Caxton's preface is here again telling, for he iterates the excellences that might accrue by reading his expensive production: “For herein may be seen noble chyvalry, cortosye, humanyté, friendlynesse, hardynesse, love, friendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, and synne” (cxlvi) (“For herein can be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin”). In doing so, he makes only passing reference to classical or Christian ideals; the very term “vertue” is bundled together with a host of other qualities, then mobilized to offer a prescriptive parting address to prospective audiences: “But al is wryton for our doctryne, and for to beware that we falle not to vyce ne synne, but t’exersyse and folowe vertue…” (cxlvi) (“But all is written for our doctrine, and in order to warn us so that we do not falle into vice nor sin, but rather to exercise and follow virtue”).