Chapter 21 - Why did Gower Write the Traitié?

Summary

R. F. Yeager's 2005 article asks: ‘Why did Gower write two sequences of ballades in French?’ In this essay I want to reopen the question of why one of the two sequences, the Traitié pour essampler les amantz marietz, was written, and propose a new reason for its composition, a new intended audience and perhaps a new date. It must be said that the Traitié's framing material discourages this kind of investigation: Gower makes clear statements about the reason for its composition and its intended audience. The modern title of the poem, given to it by Macaulay, comes from the prose passage that appears after the Confessio Amantis and before the Traitié in most Traitié manuscripts. Gower says that he has written ‘a tout le monde en general un traitie selonc les auctours pour essampler les amantz marietz, au fin q’ils la foi de lour seintes espousailes pourront par fine loialte guarder, et al honour de dieu salvement tenir’ (‘a treatise for all the world generally, following the authorities, as an example for married lovers, in order that they might be able to protect the promise of their sacred spousal through perfect loyalty, and truly hold fast to the honour of God’). There is also an apparently clear indication of the date of composition. The poem ends with some Latin verse, of which the final lines are: ‘Hinc vetus annorum Gower sub spe meritorum | Ordine sponsorum tutus adhibo thorum’ (‘Thus I, Gower, old in years, in hope of favour, / Safely approach the marriage bed in the order of husbands’). Since we know that Gower married Agnes Groundolf in 1398, Macaulay makes the reasonable assumption that it must have been written around that date, in 1397–8. In some ways it seems a pity to unsettle all this. However, the poem's glaring unsuitability either as an occasional piece written for the author's own marriage or as a poem of advice on how to maintain a good Christian marriage must prompt a reassessment.