Iudicium Dei, iudicium fortunae:Trial by Combat in Malory's

Le Morte Darthur

By Jacqueline Stuhmiller

In an entry for the year 1455-56, the Chronicle of William Gregory, Skinner'recalls that some years previously, an alleged thief named Thomas Whythorne, orWhytehorne, had been captured in New Forest and imprisoned at Winchester. Inorder to postpone his own execution, he had become an approver: at regularintervals he appealed—that is, turned king's evidence on—many men, some ofwhom were presumably his former associates, but many of whom were probablyinnocent. Whythorne had kept himself alive in prison by appealing all and sundryand had even drawn a daily wage of one and a half pence for his services. Thisstate of affairs had continued unchallenged for nearly three years, and no doubtit would have persisted for many more except that Whythorne, grown careless ordesperate, accused one Jamys Fyscher, "that outerly sayde that he was fals in hysappelynge, and sayde that he wolde preve hyt with hys hondys, and spende hyslyfe and blode a-pone hys fals body." Fyscher was offering to prove his owninnocence by way of trial by combat.

Trial by combat—variously known as "trial by combat (or battle)," "judicialbattle (or combat or duel)," and the duellum—was a bilateral form of the judicialordeal (iudicium Dei). It was, at least in theory, a way of allowing God to providea verdict when human authorities could not or would not do so. Two combatantsof equal skill and strength fought until one yielded or was killed; since God hadpresumably ensured the winner's victory, his cause was considered to be vindi-

I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who has helped me shape my ideas over the years:Carol Kaske, Karen Cherewatuk, Andy Galloway, Pete Wetherbee, Richard Kaeuper, and my anony-

1 The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, ed. James Gairdner,Camden Society, n.s., 17 (Westminster, 1876), pp. 199-202. Many scholars have made note of thisgrotesque incident. See George Neilson, Trial by Combat (Glasgow, 1890), pp. 154-58; Edward J.White, Legal Antiquities: A Collection of Essays upon Ancient Laws and Customs (St. Louis, Mo.,1913), pp. 131-32; William Brown, "Trial by Combat," Yorkshire Archaeological journal 23 (1915),300-307, at p. 301; Frederick C. Hamil, "The King's Approvers: A Chapter in the History of EnglishCriminal Law," Speculum 11 (1936), 238-58, at pp. 256-57; John G. Bellamy, Crime and PublicOrder in England in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto, 1973), p. 132; M. J. Russell, "Trial by Battleand the Writ of Right" and "Trial by Battle and the Appeals of Felony," Journal of Legal History 1(1980), 111-34 and 135-64, at pp. 114 and 154; Victor R. Scherb, "The Tournament of Power:Public Combat and Social Inferiority in Late Medieval England," Studies in Medieval and RenaissanceHistory 12 (1991), 107-28, at pp. 115-17; and Keith Swanson, "'God Woll Have a Stroke': JudicialCombat in the Morte Darthur," Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 74(1992), 155—73, at p. 156. However, the trial is of such relevance to my argument that I feel justified

Speculum 81 (2006)

428 Trial by Combat

cated. Any attempt to sway the outcome of the duel, whether by pitting unequally

matched men against each other or through magical intervention, was likely to

invoke divine wrath.

The duellum, which was probably imported into England from Normandy,2

was, for hundreds of years, one of the most popular methods for determining

justice in certain cases.3 By the later Middle Ages, two main types of judicial battles

had emerged, the "duel of law" and the "duel of chivalry."4 The duel of law was

fought by civilians in cases both civil (various civil actions, most often the "writ

of right,' invoked by a claimant of land or other real property who could not

2 The Anglo-Saxons practiced unilateral forms of the judicial ordeal such as the ordeal by hot wateror hot iron, but the duellum was probably unknown in the British Isles until the Norman Conquest.For a discussion of the possibility that trial by combat might have existed in Anglo-Saxon England,see Morton W. Bloomfield, "Beowulf, Byrhtnoth, and the Judgment of God: Trial by Combat in Anglo-Saxon England," Speculum 44 (1969), 545-59. Bloomfield admits, however, that the evidence is far

3 For an extensive descriptive overview of the various types of ordeal as practiced in Europe through-out the Middle Ages, see Henry Charles Lea, Superstition and Force: Essays on the Wager of Law—the Wager of Battle—the Ordeal—Torture (Philadelphia, 1892), esp. "The Wager of Battle," pp. 101 -247. Chapter 6 ("Trial by Battle") of Robert Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval JudicialOrdeal (Oxford, 1986), examines the duellum in relation to unilateral forms of the medieval Europeanordeal. Neilson's Trial by Combat is still the classic study of the duellum of medieval England andScotland. Chapter 4 ("Trial by Battle") of White's Legal Antiquities is largely derivative from Neilson.For a brief and cogent summary of the history of civil and criminal judicial battles in England, withsome reference to Wales and Scotland, see Russell, "Writ of Right" and "Appeals of Felony." For an

M. J. Russell, "Accoutrements of Battle," Law Quarterly Review 99 (1983), 432-42. Finally, thereare the medieval lawbooks themselves. For late-twelfth-century law, see Ranulph cle Olanvillc, TheTreatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England Commonly Called Glanvill, ed. and trans.G. D. G. Hall (Oxford, 1993), 2 .1-5, pp. 22-26 (civil cases), and 14.1, pp. 171 -73 (criminal appeals).For mid-thirteenth-century law, see Henry Bracton, De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. and

67, and 4.7.1, 5:2-17, esp. pp. 8-11 (civil cases); and 3.2.18-21, 2:400-451 (criminal appeals). Forlatc-thirteenth-century law, see Fleta, ed. and trans. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, vols. 2-4 ,Publications of the Selden Society 72, 89, and 99 (London, 1955-84), 5.6, 4:28-29 (civil cases), and1.31-33, 2:79-89 (criminal appeals). For early-fourteenth-century law, see Andrew Home, The Mir-

pp. 130—32, (civil cases)^ 2.13, pp. 54—55 (cnmina.1 appeals)^ and 3.2,3—2.5, pp- 103—12 (civil andcriminal cases). For the English-language version of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century rules regu-

Twiss, ed., Monumenta juridica: The Black Book of the Admiralty, 4 vols. (London, 1871 -76), 1:300-329. See also nn. 29 and 31, below. For a (somewhat arbitrary) summary of the above lawbooks, seechapters 26 ( Trial by Combate in Cases Civil, PP- 65—71) and 28 \ Tryal by Combate in CasesCriminal," pp. 75-86) of William Dugdale, Origines juridiciales, or, Historical Memorials of theEnglish Laws . . . , 2nd ed. (London, 1671). John Selden's The Duello or Single Combat (London,1610) is a treatise on all forms of the single combat but is mostly concerned with the "ancient" customof the duellum (civil, criminal, and chivalric). I have been unable to obtain a copy of Nadine RuthEynon's "The Use of Trial by Battle in the Work of Sir Thomas Malory" (thesis, University of Sas-katchewan, 1974).

4 In this paper I will follow Neilson's practice and use the words "duellum" and "duel" interchange-ably, even though the latter usually refers to a later, extralegal type of ritualized combat that wasfought only to settle questions of honor and was not intended in any way to be a iudicium Dei. For amore comprehensive list of differences between the "duel of law" and the "duel of chivalry," seeNeilson, Trial by Combat, pp. 188-89.

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otherwise prove his claim)5 and criminal (the Appeal of Felony, of which Why-

thorne v. Fyscher is an example).6 The duel of chivalry, which emerged under

Edward III (1327-77), became very fashionable during the reign of Richard II

(1377-99); it was usually, but not always, fought by aristocratic combatants,

primarily at the allegation of treason.7

Within a few generations of its introduction into England, Ranulph de Glanville

(d. 1190), author of the first English lawbook, already recognized that trial by

jury was far superior in every way to trial by battle.8 Although the Fourth Lateran

Council of 1215 forbade priests from participating in judicial combats and judges

increasingly discouraged the practice, it managed to survive for hundreds of years.

Its survival was at least partly due to the fact that the criminal duel of law not

only rid the country of "undesirables" but was also a highly effective tool for

extortion and revenge. Well into the fifteenth century, after both civil and chivalric

duella had fallen out of favor, men9 accused by approvers still retained the option

of defending their innocence via trial by combat rather than trial by jury, though

very few challenges actually came to battle.

* A practice subjecr to notorious abuses. Not even the church was above settling its land disputeswith hired champions. For case histories of champions and the disputes for which they fought, seeV. H. Galbraith, "The Death of a Champion (1287)," in Studies in Medieval History Presented toFrederick hAaunce Powtcke, co. R. W. Hunt, W. A. Pantin, and R. vv. Southern (Oxford, 1948),pp. 283-95; and M. J. Russell, "Hired Champions," American Journal of Legal History 3 (1959),242—59. For a fuller explanation of the writ of right see Frederick Pollock and F. ̂ /. iVlaitland TheHistory of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nded., 2 vols. (London, 1968), 2:62—63. SeeRussell, "Writ of Right," pp. 125-26, for a discussion of civil actions other than the writ of right inwhich trial by battle was an accepted alternative to trial by jury.

<• For the various allegations that were considered felonies, see Russell, "Appeals of Felony," pp. 135-39. For a comparison between the battle procedures in civil and criminal cases, see M. J. Russell,"Trial by Battle Procedure in Writs of Right and Criminal Appeals," Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis51 (1983), 123-34.

7 For a description of the social and political context in which the duel of chivalry arose, see G. D.Squibb, The High Court of Chivalry (Oxford, 1959).

8 Glanville 2.7, pp. 28—29: "Est autem assisa ilia regale quoddam beneficium clemencia principis de

ut in iure quod quis in libero soli tenemento possidet retinendo duelli casum declinare possint hominesambiguum. Ac per hoc contingit insperate et premature mortis ultimum euadere supphcium, uel salternperhempnis infamie obprobrium illius infesti et uerecundi uerbi quod in ore uicti turpiter sonat con-

celeracius expeditur." (This assize [the Grand Assize] is a royal benefit granted to the people by thegoodness of the king acting on the advice of his magnates. It takes account so effectively of both humanlife and civil condition that all men may preserve the rights which they have in any free tenement,while avoiding the doubtful outcome of battle. In this way, too, they may avoid the greatest of allpunishments, unexpected and untimely death, or at least the reproach or the perpetual disgrace whichfollows that distressed and shameful word which sounds so dishonourably from the mouth of thevanquished. This legal constitution is based above all on equity; and justice, which is seldom arrived

deformities) were exempt from battle. Clerics were exempt from battle only after 1176. The citizensof London were granted exemption from trial by battle by Henry I in the early twelfth century; manytowns followed London's example and sought to win or purchase charters of exemption for their own

430 Trial by Combat

Although technically permissible, therefore, Fyscher's request for trial by battlewas highly irregular. Nevertheless, for reasons unknown, the presiding judge al-lowed the contest to proceed, first being careful to ascertain that both partiesunderstood its consequences. If the approver were to win the battle and therebydemonstrate the validity of his appeal, he would return to prison and receive thesubstantially higher per diem of two pence for as long as the king suffered him tolive; but if he were to lose and survive the battle, he would be hanged for man-slaughter. )0 If, on the other hand, the appellee happened to kill the approver inbattle, he would have proved the justice of his own cause but would be hangedanyway (the approver, although a criminal, was considered a valuable employeeof the king, and therefore the appellee would be guilty of manslaughter), unlessthe king chose to pardon him; if he were to lose without being killed outright, hewould be hanged for perjury in addition to his other crimes. Neither party, ofcourse, would be given a Christian burial.11 It is not clear why Fyscher requestedtrial by battle, since he would very likely be put to death even if he won. Whyt-horne, on the other hand, stood to gain a great deal by the contest—and, in anycase, he had very little left to lose.

Furthermore, possibly in order to deter future requests for trial by battle, thejudge ordered the duel to proceed under the most humiliating circumstances pos-sible. The combatants were to "make hyr foule batayle a-pone the moste sory andwrecchyd grene that myght be founde a-bowte the towne," fasting and clothedfrom head to foot, including hands and face, in white sheep's leather. They wereto fight with three-foot-long batons tipped with curved pieces of iron in the shapeof rams' horns. When these weapons broke, the battle would become a free-for-all, with each man using whatever body parts he could, in any way that he could,to subdue his opponent. Of these stipulations, the chronicler says, with properdisapproval, "hyt ys to schamfulle to reherse alle the condyscyons of thys fouleconflycte/' before he proceeds to divulge the most shameful condition of all: "andyf they nede any drynke, they moste take hyr owne pysse."

When inquiries were made about the characters of the two men, no one couldbe found who could vouch for Whythorne's character, as he had never remainedin one place for longer than a month. On the other hand, the people who testifiedon Fyscher's behalf vigorously protested the contest: Whythorne, they said, wastoo strong. No one seemed to think that God would uphold the cause of aninnocent man if he could not uphold it for himself.

Nevertheless, the "foule conflycte" took place as planned, and doubtless manyof those who had been angry at the inequity of the contest turned out to watchthe spectacle. When one of the iron weapons broke, the men fought first with their

101 use Ha mil's interpretation ("The King's Approvers," p. 256) of the chronicler's rather ambiguousstatement: "For in presses the kynge may by the lawe put hym to dethe, as for a man sleer, bycausethat nys pelyng, fals or trewe, hathe causyd many mannys dethys, for a very trewe man schulde withyn xxmj howrys make opyn to be knowe alle suche fals hyd thyngys of felony or treson, yf he be nottconsentynge unto the same felowschyppe, undyr payne of dethe; and thys peler ys in the same cas,wherefore he moste nedys dy by very reson."

11 Although the law recognized that trial by combat was sometimes a necessary juridical expedient,

(before 1215), the judge, and any other aiders or abettors. See, e.g., Fleta 1.32, p. 83, lines 29-36.

Trial by Combat 431

fists and then with their teeth: "And thenn the fals peler caste that meke innocentdowne to the grownde and bote hym by the membrys, that the sely innocent crydeowt. And by happe more thenne strengythe that innocent recoveryd up on hyskneys and toke that fals peler by the nose with hys tethe and put hys thombe inhys yee, that the peler cryde owte and prayde hym of marcy, for he was fals untoGod and unto hym." Whythorne, begging for mercy and forgiveness, admittedthat he had wrongfully accused Fyscher. "And thenn," serenely concludes thechronicler, "he was confessyd ande hanggyd, of whos soule God have marcy.Amen." Fyscher received a full pardon, became a hermit, and died shortly there-after of causes unknown.

And so—after a fashion and quite incidentally—justice was served. But no oneharbored any illusions about the effectiveness of battle as a judicial tool. Thespectators knew, and the chronicler of the event knew, that Fyscher's victory hadbeen brought about, not by divine intervention on the side of the just cause oreven by the man's own strength, but "by happe." The duellum was nothing morethan a shameful but strangely fascinating spectacle that captured the popularimagination and absolved the presiding magistrates of all responsibility for theverdict, and that was precisely the point.

That was trial by combat as Thomas Malory probably would have known it:nasty, brutish, and extremely rare. During Malory's lifetime, the duellum wasmoribund; by the time he completed Le Morte Darthur,12 in the year that beganon 4 March 1469, the practice was extinct, or very nearly so.13 By the mid-fifteenthcentury, trials by battle of any sort, whether civil or chivalric, had become souncommon that they were treated by chroniclers and spectators alike as curiosities,bizarre survivals of an earlier era.

Given the unappetizing nature of the fifteenth-century duellum, to say nothingof its negligible role in the English legal system, it is striking that Malory places

12 Unless otherwise noted, references to Le Morte Darthur are from The Works of Sir ThomasMalory, ed. Eugene Vinaver, rev. P. J. C. Field, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1990). Malory's orthographyis notoriously inconsistent. Out of respect for the author and his text, I have chosen to use the mostprevalent spellings of proper nouns as they occur in the Winchester manuscript, rather than morepopularized spellings. In order to determine which spellings are the most common, I have consultedTomomi Kato, ed., A Concordance to the Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Tokyo, 1974).

'•' There is some dispute over the date of the last judicial battle in England. According to Russell,the last English duellum in a writ of right action took place ca. 1300; the last criminal appeal wasdecided by battle in 1456 {Whythorne v. Fyscher, recounted above); and the last chivalric duel wasfought in 1447 ("Accoutrements of Battle," p. 432, and "Writ of Right," pp. 127 and 154). Neilsonand Lea identify the last judicial duel of any kind (a treason duel of chivalry) as caking place in 1492(Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 203; Lea, Superstition and Force, pp. 242-43). Waldo F. McNeir givesthe date of the last true judicial battle in England as 1548 ("Trial by Combat in Elizabethan Literature,"Die neuevcn Spfuchen, n.s. \5 (19661, 101 — 12, p. 104). White <ind Vale assert the latest date of all:according to their reckonings, the last battle waged in the court of common pleas at Westminster wasin 1571 (White, Legal Antiquities, p. 132; Malcolm Vale, "Aristocratic Violence: Trial by Battle in theLater Middle Ages," in Violence in Medieval Society, ed. Richard W. Kaeuper |Woodbridge, Eng.,2000], pp. 159-81, at pp. 180-81). When the judicial battle fell out of favor, men satisfied their needfor personal revenge by means of private duels, which were, by definition, extralegal affairs. Oversight,mixed with a certain amount of jingoism, kept the duellum on the English lawbooks until it wasabolished by Parliament in 1819.

432 Trial by Combat

as much importance on the practice as he does. Judicial battles fought by knightsappear with surprising frequency and regularity throughout the Morte Darthur.Beverly Kennedy notes that Malory's fondness for such contests even caused himto revise his French sources, going "out of his way to add two dramatic examplesof trial by battle without any warrant from his source and to eliminate the onlyexample of an alternative judicial process, the judgment of Guinevere by the bar-ons in the Mort Artu."'4 Kennedy overstates the case somewhat: there are alter-natives, however few and far between, to trial by combat in the Morte Darthur.Yet there can be no doubt that Malory was far more fascinated by the duellumthan were the authors of his sources.

The Morte Darthur seems to make frequent allusion to English or French law,and a number of critics have speculated about the legal knowledge of Malory andhis intended audience. Though opinions differ slightly, the scholarly consensusseems to be that Malory knew something about the law but had no formal trainingin it and that his intended readership was about as knowledgeable as Maloryhimself.15 Certainly, Malory knew a great deal about the duel of chivalry (but not,apparently, the civil or criminal duels of law). However, whether he derived thisknowledge from formal legal training, independent reading (of legal treatises, chi-valric or war manuals, chronicles, romances, or the like), hearsay, or direct ex-perience is impossible to tell.

If we assume, as most scholars do, that Sir Thomas Malory was a Warwickshireknight with a very checkered career,16 then he could have gathered informationabout the judicial battle from several sources. If he was, as P. J. C. Field posits,born between 1414 and 1418, then it is possible that he might have seen some ofthe last chivalric or criminal duels with his own eyes, especially since such eventswere widely attended. It is not implausible that he might have learned somethingabout judicial duels from his relatives as well. He was a descendant of a fourteenth-century justice of the king's bench and directly related to a politically powerfulchurchman, Sir Robert Malory. Our knight also had an unusual amount of directexperience with the law; not only was he an M.P. for Warwickshire and active inlocal government, but he also spent a great deal of time m the civil and criminalcourts, sometimes as a plaintiff but mostly as a defendant. Although Malory might

14 Beverly Kennedy, Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, 2nd ed., Arthurian Studies 11 (Woodbridge,

the Rede Knyght. In my opinion, it is not fair to assert that Malory added Gareth's combat "withoutany warrant," since no direct source for the Book of Gareth has yet been identified.

knowledgeable about the law ("JVlalory and the Common Law: riusty jougcttient in the Tale or theDeath or King Arthur,1" hAedievdliu et htttfidttisticu, n,s., 22 [1995], 111—40, at pp. 113 and 112).Elizabeth Edwards agrees that Malory "understands the legal elements" in his sources but points outthat he takes care to differentiate the law "in tho dayes" from contemporary English law {The Genesisof N&wcttwe in AA&loTy's "Movte Dizvthuv," Arthurian Studies 43 [W^oodbridge, Eng., 2001 j , p. 156).

knows the criminal law of the fifteenth century" but who nevertheless shows no signs of "formal legaltraining" {Wiulovyi Texts and SOUTCSS, Arthurian Studies 40 [Woodbridge, Eng., 1998], p. 283^ TheLife and Times of Sir Thomas Malory, Arthurian Studies 29 [Woodbridge, Eng., 1993], p. 68).

" For the case in favor of the Warwickshire Malory, see Field, Life and Times of Malory.

Trial by Combat 433

have absorbed information from any or all of these sources, his extremely precisedescriptions of judicial battles suggest that he likely derived most of his infor-mation from literature: lawbooks, manuals of chivalry, perhaps even the Frenchand English romances he used as the basis for his own text.

Critics who have studied the uses of the duellum in the Morte Darthur havetended to consider it a nearly infallible instrument of justice. However, becausethe practice of trial by battle is so clearly prone to error in fiction no less than inlife, these critics have put much of their energy into explaining away its frequentand sometimes tragic failures. Kennedy suggests that there were two competingpoints of view regarding trial by battle in Malory's day: the rationalist, which wasmore orthodox, and the religious or providentialist. The rationalist viewpoint (towhich "Worshipful" knights such as Arthur and Trystram subscribe) held that it

a miracle that defied the laws of nature was to risk provoking divine anger; Arthurhimself, Kennedy asserts, is as skeptical of judicial battle as any late-medieval king.The religious viewpoint (endorsed by "True" knights such as Uwayne, Bors, andLauncelot) maintained that God would fight on the side of the right, though itwas again important not to incite his anger by forcing him to provide a miraclewhen the combatants were not evenly matched. The outcome of every judicialbattle can thus be interpreted in at least two ways. Of course, such interpretiveflexibility does nothing to address the troubling fact that the outcomes of judicialbattles are sometimes obviously wrong, and even Kennedy agrees that it is oftenimpossible to know whether or not justice has been served. Rather than callingattention to the wrong verdict provided by the duel between Arthur and Accolon,she explains it away by hypothesizing that an alternate and more subtle judicialprocess must simultaneously be at work: God may pass judgment on the causefor which a knight fights, but he may also pass judgment on the character of theknight himself.17 Kennedy ignores the faulty duellum between Arthur and Accolonwhen she identifies the only "clear-cut case of trial by battle producing a wrongverdict"18 as that between Marke and Amaunte. Despite the problematic natureof the evidence she has just offered, she concludes, "On balance, therefore, wehave much more reason to believe that trial by battle has resulted in justice thanwe have to believe the opposite."19

17 The idea that God might judge the character of a man as well as his cause was strongly operative

medieval commentators in an attempt to account for the fact that trial by ordeal often delivered an

pp. 78-81; and Paul R. Hyams, "Trial by Ordeal: The Key to Proof in the Early Common Law," inOn the Laws and Customs of England: Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Thome, ed. Morris S. Arnold,Thomas A. Green, Sally A. Scully, and Stephen D. White (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981), pp. 90-126, atpp. 102-3. Gilbert Hay, whose opinion Kennedy invokes on the matter (Knighthood in the Morte

of Knychthede (1456), 3 tfcinslstion of Reimon Lull's Libfo del ovden de cabullcvid. Lull docs not ssyanything of the sort in his own work, however.

IX Kennedy, Knighthood in the Adoftc T)dtthut, p. 47.19 Ibid.

434 Trial by Combat

Keith Swanson takes Kennedy's theory in a different direction. He contendsthat Malory clearly favors the rationalist viewpoint and encourages his readers todo the same by demonstrating that judicial combat does not reliably provide ab-solute truth and that human judgment must sometimes supplement or supplantsupernatural authority. By the final tales, judicial combat functions as a means bywhich personal goals can be fulfilled and emotional commitments honored, allunder the guise of impartial justice. Still, Swanson maintains, "Malory's skepti-cism about judicial combat's supernatural claims does not lead to a rejection ofthe procedure in favour of some more rational method, but to a more positive,pragmatic understanding of it."20 In the end he agrees with Kennedy about therevelatory power of the duellum: "Most judicial combats in the Morte concludesatisfactorily with victory vindicating the just cause."21

In this paper I hope to prove that these critics give far more credit to the efficacyof trial by combat than it deserves: the fact of the matter is that such battles resultin a demonstrably just verdict less than half of the time, even worse than whatpure chance would predict. In the majority of cases, trial by battle is neither arequest for divine judgment (as Kennedy would have it) nor a front for humandecisions (as Swanson would have it). Rather, it is a complete and voluntary—albeit temporary and reversible—relinquishment of human control to a higherpower, though whether that power is God or chance is an uncomfortable ambi-guity that is never resolved. Sometimes men ignore or reverse the rulings of judicialcombat, but generally they do not; in any case, it is not always possible to tellwhy a particular verdict was discarded or whether an amended verdict is any morecorrect than the original one. Justice in the Morte Darthur, no matter who or whatdelivers it, is always something of a crapshoot.

Yet despite such pervasive institutional flaws, no one ever thinks to supplanttrial by combat with something more foolproof. Every battle is undertaken seri-ously, and almost every verdict is accepted without question; even when a patentlyunjust verdict must be discreetly amended by human judgment, no one thinks toquestion the underlying assumption that the winning knight must represent thejust cause. Andrew Lynch probably comes closest to the truth about the relation-ship between victory and moral righteousness in the Morte Darthur with hisshrewd observation that martial prowess is itself perceived as a marker of "good-ness": when one man kills another in battle or a private duel, his superior strengthand skill are considered to be justification enough for his actions.22

Furthermore, I will show that Malory's feelings about the practice of trial bycombat are very mixed. Elizabeth Edwards has noted that "[fjor Malory, thatantiquated law [i.e., that of ordeal justice] is not an object of criticism but ofnostalgia."2' Kennedy even suggests that Malory "himself may have favoured it[trial by battle] in certain circumstances,"24 though such a view seems uncom-fortably speculative to me. The text does indeed display a certain amount of qual-

20 Swanson, "Judicial Combat," p. 173.21 Ibid., p. 156.2i Andrew Lynch, Malory's Book of Arms: The Narrative of Combat in "Le Morte Darthur;' Ar-

thurian Studies 39 (Woodbridge, Eng., 1997), pp. 43-44.u Edwards, The Genesis of Narrative, p. 164.

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ified nostalgia for certain aspects of the judicial battle: its pageantry, its emphasison chivalric values and martial prowess, and its strict formality. Yet Malory, likeany sensible and not overly religious man of the fifteenth century, was as fascinatedby the idea of judicial combat as he was appalled by the suggestion that suchcombat could provide a just ruling. I agree with Swanson that Malory did notreject judicial combat because its tenets are faulty, but, I contend, he could notwholeheartedly embrace it, either. Thus there is always a bit of Whythorne v.Fyscher in his trials by combat. Behind all of the ceremonial language and ritualgestures, they are unregulated and barbaric contests, which seem to provide ver-dicts "by happe" that are harmful at worst and equivocal at best. Although theform and content of Malory's judicial battles are generally similar to those found

on the duels while destroying our confidence in them.It is difficult to say whether the judicial battles of the Morte Darthur are in-

tended to be "judgments of God" because Malory takes care to secularize thetheoretically sacred process of the trial by battle. In the French sources combatantsmay swear to the justice of their own causes on holy relics or pray or hold vigilsin a church on the night before a battle, but in the Morte Darthur the combatantsexchange gauntlets and do not usually allude to God except in passing. Maloryeven takes much of the spirituality out of Bors's trial by combat, the only one thattakes place during the Quest for the Holy Grail. In the Queste del Saint Graal,Boors prays for assistance from God in his battle with Priadan le Noir, which isto take place the next day. Awakened in the middle of the night by troublingreligious visions, he makes the sign of the cross, commends himself to God, anddoes not sleep for the rest of the night. In the Morte Darthur, Bors does not praybefore bed and does not hold a sleepless vigil. Malory's Bors wins the field aseasily as the Queste author's Boors but with far less spiritual torment—and, we

Although the duellum has little or nothing to do with late-medieval or modernconcepts of justice, it plays a vital role in the Morte Darthur as both a mechanismof social control and a metaphor for Arthurian society itself. Judicial battles fulfilla number of practical objectives: they release community tensions, appease thepublic's desire for spectacle, punish known offenders who can be brought to justicein no other way, resolve conflicts with minimal bloodshed, and force a dividedcommunity to accept a single verdict. Judicial combats even serve some of thesame functions for the reader as they do for the characters themselves: they satisfyour desire for pageantry, continually remind us of the glory of Arthurian Logres,and facilitate periodic emotional catharsis. On a more abstract level, trial by com-bat is both a symbol and a gauge of the peace that was created, and of the justicethat is continually enforced, by the Round Table. For as long as the kingdomprospers, the duellum remains an effectual institution. When society begins tocrumble, judicial combat is replaced by tyranny, anarchy, and chaos.

It is notable that all of the above functions were also served by real-life iudiciaDei, especially those dating from the early Middle Ages; this parallel has someinteresting implications. An ordeal-based judicial system is effective in a very par-ticular type of society: it must be small enough that every man's character andstrengths are known, but large and diverse enough that it cannot be dominatedby any one individual; above all, its members must be motivated by a desire to

436 Trial by Combat

preserve communal cohesion at any cost.25 Similarly, the duellum is an effectivecommunal instrument in Logres so long as Arthurian society adheres to this par-ticular demographic configuration. I do not wish to argue that Malory aspired toor attained historical accuracy, merely to observe that, for whatever reason, theduel functions in much the same way in the Arthurian world as it did in the early-medieval world, though its general form tends to imitate that of the late-medievalduel of chivalry.

Yet in spite of all of the useful functions that trial by combat serves in the MorteDarthur, readers are never allowed to forget that it is (as they had always sus-pected) a fatally flawed method of justice. Malory, very aware of his audience'ssimultaneous fascination with and skepticism of judicial combat, presents us witha series of thrilling and oftentimes nerve-racking chivalric duels, many of themaccompanied by the elaborate procedures and pageantry dictated by the old lawsof England and France. At the same time, he gives us no reason to believe that thejudicial battle is anything more than an empty ceremony. To borrow the phrasethat R. Howard Bloch uses to describe trial by combat in La mort le roi Artu, itis, for a brief time, "a judicial system that succeeds despite itself."26

It is interesting to note that although judicial combat is the usual method ofdetermining justice in the Morte Darthur,27 Arthurian society seems vaguely con-scious of, and made uneasy by, its obvious shortcomings as a juridical instrument.The Round Table oath, particularly in Caxton's version, appears to regard it witha good deal of healthy suspicion:

. . . thenne the kyng stablysshed all his knyghtes and gaf them that were of londes notryche, lie gaf them londes, and charged hem neuer to doo outragyousyte nor mordre,and alweyes to flee treason. Also by no meane to be cruel, but to gyue mercy vnto hymthat asketh mercy, vpon payn of forfeture of their worship and lordship of Kyng Arthurforeuermore, and alweyes to doo ladyes, damoysels, and gentylwymmen socour vponpayne of dethe. Also that no man take noo batails in a wrongful quarel for noo lawe,ne for noo worldes goodes.28

25 For discussions of the social and psychological underpinnings of the ordeal and the types of

Daedalus 104 (1975), 133-51, at pp. 137-42; Hyams, "Trial by Ordeal," pp. 95-99; and Bartlett,Trial by Fire.

26 R. Howard Bloch, Medieval French Literature and Law (Berkeley, Calif., 1977), p. 31.27 The usual method but not, as Kennedy suggests several times (Knighthood in the Morte Darthur,

pp. 39, 42, and 158), the only method. (On p. 47 Kennedy contradicts herself and acknowledges that

as when Arthur orders Gwenyver to be burnt (20.7, p. 1174, lines 19-29). Trial by jury is a morecommon alternative. N4arke orders his barons to condemn Trystram to death, but they instead banishhim for ten years (9.22, pp. 502, line 34-503, line 4). A jury of twelve knights judges Palomydesguilty, and Saphir not guilty, of the death of their lord (10.84, p. 775, lines 7-9). Oddly enough, trialby )ury seems to be an illegitimate expedient to which villainous characters resort.

2S Caxton's Malory, ed. James W. Spisak, 2 vols. (Berkeley, Calif., 1983), 3.15, 1:92, lines 30-36,emphasis mine The final article or the oath in the Winchester manuscript reads, "Also, that no mantake no batayles in a wrongefull quarell for no love ne for no worldis goodis" (3.15, p. 120, lines 2 3 -

emphasize the necessity of ascertaining the legitimacy of a claim before agreeing to defend it. In otherwords, the real judgment should take place before, and not during, the duellum.

Trial by Combat 437

If trial by battle were truly effective, then God would wreak his vengeance on theman who championed the wrong side. As it is, the knights must swear on theirhonor not to take up a "wrongful quarrel," apparently because chances are verygood that the wrong, when defended by a skillful knight, will prevail.

Prior critics have tended to consider Malory's duels in terms of their corre-spondences with late-medieval judicial procedure, as described by the lawbooks.A legalistic analysis can indeed be an illuminating way to approach the topic, solong as we remember that the Arthurian world is not a replica of late-medievalEngland or France. Although the lawbooks provide us with helpful tools for un-derstanding the multifarious ritualized battles in the text, we would be unwise totake them too seriously because Malory does not always stick to them: he ignorescertain rules and bends others in ways that both increase the grandeur of his duelsand emphasize their fallibility. In general, the Arthurian rules exaggerate the prob-lems that are inherent to the judicial battle. As a result, the Arthurian duel provideseven less reliable justice than does its historical model.

The most striking difference between Arthurian and late-medieval trials by com-bat is that Malory makes no distinctions between duels of law and duels of chiv-alry. He treats all of his duels as though they were chivalric, regardless of thereasons why they are fought or the evidence available. It may or may not besignificant that the duel of law was never an event in which anyone would havebeen proud to participate. Combatants (champions in the case of the civil duel,the appellor and appellee in the case of the criminal duel) had to shave their heads,wear leather suits, and fight with horn-tipped batons, as in the account of thebattle described above. Whether Malory altered the legal procedures out of design,ignorance, or simple carelessness, the effect is the same: the land-claim battlesseem to be conducted under the same conditions and with the same ceremony asthe treason duels, thereby effectively romanticizing a practice considered disrep-utable even at the height of its popularity. Thus the only kind of duel that Malorydepicts is a type of ritualized combat that generally corresponds with the late-medieval English and French duels of chivalry, which will be described below.

According to the 1306 ordinance of Philip the Fair,29 a case must meet fourcriteria before it is worthy of being settled by a chivalric duel: the crime must be"notorious and certain"; the crime must be capital; combat must be the onlymeans of obtaining conviction and punishment; and the accused must be "noto-riously suspected."30 The French ordinance was later adapted for the Ricardiancourt of chivalry by Thomas of Woodstock.31 The English rules are less restrictive

29 The French ordinance is found in Recueil general des anciennes lois frangaises, 29 vols. (Paris,1822-33; repr. Ridgewood, N.J., 1964-66), 2:831-45. The treatise "De materia duelli" is an almostidentical Latin text (Black Book [above, n. 3], 1:330-44).

30 After Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 161.31 The Old French document generally supposed to have been drawn up by Thomas of Woodstock

is untitled but is widely known, because of an early editor's decision, as "The Order of Battel in theCourt of Chivalry"; an English translation is titled "The Ordenaunce and Fourme of Fight) ng withinListes." A facing-page transcription of both documents is found in Black Book, pp. 300-329. Anotherversion of the English ordinance is reproduced in Harold Arthur, Viscount Dillon, "On a MS. Collec-tion of Ordinances of Chivalry of the Fifteenth Century, Belonging to Lord Hastings," Archaeologia57/1, 2nd ser., 7 (1900), 29-70, at pp. 61-66. Yet another version ("The Manner of Ordenaunce

438 Trial by Combat

than the French edict but still preserve the crucial third condition, which allowsthe chivalric duel only "whan they may not preve their cause by witnesse nor bynoon oothir maner"32—that is, only when the regular laws have failed. Both theFrench and the English ordinances specify the exact words with which the chal-lenge must be framed and the precise physical conditions under which the combatmust be fought. Every measure was taken to ensure that combat was the only wayto settle the question and that neither man would have an unfair advantage overthe other.

However, the edict of the Arthurian court (which by analogy I dub "the Arthu-rian ordinance") hardly attempts to regulate the process at all: "For the customwas suche tho dayes that and ony man were appealed of ony treson othir ofmurthure he sholde fyght body for body, other ellys to fynde another knyght forhym. And alle maner of murthers in tho dayes were called treson" (8.20, p. 405,lines 2—5). The ambiguity of this "custom" may suggest that Malory wished tomake judicial combat permissible in as many situations as possible. However, hisrather confused use of legal terminology here and in subsequent passages, as wellas his after-the-fact legal explanations (e.g., 18.4, p. 1050, lines 2-3), suggeststhat he was far more interested in the combats themselves than in the legal pro-cesses that were supposed to instigate and regulate them.33

The nebulous and unsystematic Arthurian ordinance is loosely modeled on late-medieval practices, but it has some notable peculiarities. First of all, ordinarymurders are not treasonous, even by the fairly loose standards of the late-medievalcourts.34 More disconcerting is the fact that the Arthurian ordinance does notstipulate that the charge must be thoroughly investigated; as an accusation is theonly necessary prerequisite for battle, combats can be, and sometimes are, foughtto the death over questions whose answers could easily have been determined byhuman judgment. Nor does the accused have any alternative to trial by battle, asituation that was unheard of by the twelfth century.35 Consequently, the otherwise

withinne Lists") is found in Dugdale, Origines juridiciales, pp. 79-86. A treatise on trial by battle in

mourer and Sergeant in the Office of Armoury with King Henry IV and King Henry V," is described

Scottish version of the English ordinance, see "The Order of Combats for Life in Scotland," in TheMiscellany of the Spalding Club, 5 vols. (Aberdeen, 1842), 2:383-90.

u "Ordenaunce," Black Book, p. 305.•'! Malory's lax attitude toward legal matters may explain why the Arthurian ordinance specifies

that men who are appealed of treason must prove their innocence through a legal duel but neglects tosay what women should do when they are accused of the same crime. In fact, women are the plaintiffsand defendants (though never the combatants) in many of the judicial battles of the Morte Darthur.

>" See J. G. Bellamy, The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, Eng.,1970).

•" Kennedy suggests that Malory was attempting a historical reconstruction of the legal practices ofArthurian times: "He may have believed that the only modes of trial in existence in King Arthur's dayswere the ancient sacral modes" [Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, p. 39); it is a thesis that she

hot water, cold water, or hot iron) predated trial by battle in the British Isles, these practices areconspicuously absent from the Morte Darthur. Unilateral ordeals do appear in some texts from the

Trial by Combat 439

progressive Arthurian world is absolutely dependent on an archaic system forsettling differences that is as inherently flawed as it is violent and flamboyant.

We can refine our understanding of the Arthurian ordinance by noting thatMalory uses the word "treason" in a number of ways, four of which are particu-larly important to this discussion: as something like "premeditation"; as a type ofserious crime often synonymous with first-degree murder of peers or superiors; asa general designation for something underhanded or cowardly; and in the usualsense of "committing, or intending to commit, injury against the king." In book20 Launcelot twice denies accusations of treason that incorporate, rather indis-criminately, all four of these definitions. When accused of having sexual relationswith and later abducting Gwenyver, he swears that he was never a traitor to theperson of the king and offers to prove the truth of his words by way of the duellum(20.11, p. 1188, lines 6-16). A few pages later, he assures Gawain that he killedGareth and Gaherys accidentally, not "be forecaste of treson" (20.11, p. 1190,line 2). "Treason" often refers to the manner of a victim's death as well. WhenPatryse dies from eating a poisoned apple, his cousin Madore appeals Gwenyverof treason, "For the custom was such at that tyme that all maner of shamefulldeth was called treson" (18.4, p. 1050, lines 2-3). A death is apparently consid-ered "shameful," and therefore the act of killing treasonous, if the killer has anunfair advantage over his victim. Attempted first-degree murder can also be trea-son, as long as the would-be murderer intends to give his or her victim a shamefuldeath; thus Morgan le Fay is guilty of treason for instructing thirty men to lie inwait for Launcelot (9.23, p. 504, line 36-505, line 2), regardless of the fact thathe is not even hurt by the ambush. To sum up, then: a homicide is classifiable as"murder" only if it is premeditated or results in an ignoble death of a peer orsuperior; furthermore, all murder is treason (but not all treason is murder). Theseare distinctions that, as we will see, even God sometimes makes a point of ob-

On the one hand, Malory weakens the stringent laws that regulated judicialcombat in late-medieval England and France in order to emphasize the unrelia-bility of the practice. On the other hand, he revels in the chivalric duel's attendantpomp and ceremony. Thus his characters formally accuse each other, exchangegauntlets, present their appeals to higher authorities, and make appointments toduel with each other. The dueling grounds are well attended by aristocratic spec-tators, staffed by heralds, and presided over by a king or two. The combatantsjoust, then fight with swords on foot until one kills the other or forces him to yield(a procedure with its own formalities) or until the presiding officials stop thecombat and reconcile the dueling parties.

But if the highly mannered ceremony of the judicial duel serves to glorify theprocedure and the society that practices it—as well as, by extension, the medievalsociety that inspired it in the first place—it also produces some very unsettlingeffects. The knights' nearly mechanical adherence to legal procedures only throws

same tradition: see Ernest C. York, "Isolt's Ordeal: English Legal Customs in the Medieval TristanLegend," Studies in Philology 68 (1971), 1-9. For a discussion of various types of legal redress in theArthurian tradition, see Ernest C. York, "Emendable Crimes: Legal Anachronism in Arthurian Litera-ture," McNeese Review 29 (1982-83), 46-52.

440 Trial by Combat

into greater and more ironic relief the sometimes base motivations behind judicialcombat, to say nothing of the haphazard and oftentimes damaging verdicts thatsuch combat tends to produce. Pageantry easily slides over into parody, leavingthe reader with the rather uneasy feeling that Malory must be making fun ofsomeone or something, though the nature of the joke and the identity of its target

This rather ambiguous humor, if we can consider it that, is most apparent inthe formulaic challenges that instigate judicial combat. French and English lawrequired that both parties in a duellum (whether civil, criminal, or chivalric) giveand accept challenges to battle according to strictly prescribed formulae that oftenrefer conspicuously to the hands and bodies of the participants. Thus the appellantin the Appeal of Felony had to swear to prove the truth of his accusation "by his[own] body" (per corpus suum) or "by the body of so-and-so his brother" (percorpus talis fratris).i6 Jamys Fyscher offered to prove the truth of his claim "withhys hondys," upon the body of his accuser. Similarly, the third and final oath thatboth parties were required to swear before a chivalric duel reads, in part, "thoutoday this day shall doo all thy true power and the entente, by all the weyes thatthou best may or canste, to preve thyne entente on C. de B., thyne adversarie anddefendoure, to make hym yeelde hym up into thyne hande, and creaunt to cry orspeke, or elles make hym dey by thyne hande."'7

Malory knew the legal terminology well, and his knights regularly threaten eachother using the very exact vocabulary of judicial procedure. A common challengetakes the following form: "I will prove (and/or 'make it good') with my hands (or'body')." The challenger can use the word "prove" in two senses: he may threateneither to prove the legitimacy of his claim or to prove his opponent's crime; hemay append, further, that he will make his proof on his opponent or his opponent'shead or body.38 The text is replete with such precisely worded accusations, but,more often than not, they do not seem to have any legal implication. In most casesthey appear to be no more than formulaic taunts, or ritualized expressions of

"challenges," therefore, signify nothing and come to nothing. In consequence, thelanguage of the duel quickly becomes meaningless from overuse, which in turnbrings the status of the duel itself into serious question.

When these ritualized challenges do come to blows, the formality of the knights'language often serves to accentuate the senselessness of their conflicts. A particu-larly egregious example of this phenomenon is the brawl between Lamorak andMellyagaunce over the question of whose lady is fairer.

So sir Lamerok departed fro them, and within a whyle he metre with sir Mellyagaunce.And than sir Lamorak asked hym why he loved quene Gwenyver as he ded, "for I wasnat far frome you whan ye made youre complaynte by the chapell."

«• Fleta 1.31, 2:80, lines 22-33.'7 "Ordenaunce," Black Book, p. 319.iy For a discussion or the legal and metaphorical implications of these formulat

" 'Hand for Hand' and 'Body for Body': Aspects of Malory's Vocabulary of IdentiRegard to Gareth and Lancelot," Modern Philology 91 (1994), 269-87.

Trial by Combat 441

"Ded ye so?" seyde sir Mellyagaunce. "Than woll I abyde by hit. I love quene Gwe-

"Whatwoll ye with hit?""I woll preve and make hit good that she ys the fayryste lady and moste of beaute in

the worlde.""As to that," seyde sir Lamerok, "I say nay thereto, for quene Morgause of Orkeney,

modir unto sir Gawayne, for she ys the fayryst lady that beryth the lyff.""That ys nat so," seyde sir Mellyagaunce, "and that woll I preve with my hondis!""Wylle ye so?" seyde sir Lamorak. "And in a bettir quarell kepe I nat to fyght."(9.13,

p. 486, lines 4-20)

The two knights wound each other seriously and stop fighting only when Laun-celot and Bleoberys intervene. However, once Launcelot finds out that Lamorakdared to exalt Morgause's beauty over Gwenyver's, he, too, becomes enraged outof measure and threatens Lamorak using the language of the duel: "And thereforemake the redy, for I woll preve uppon the that quene Guenyver ys the fayryst ladyand most of bounte in the worlde" (9.14, p. 487, lines 6-8). Fortunately, Lamorakcapitulates, and Bleoberys convinces Launcelot that the quarrel is not worthy ofcombat. The episode is clearly intended to be comic, but it is also deeply disturb-ing. Malory may or may not be mocking his own knights and their discomfitingquickness to turn to violence, but the episode is certainly an ominous reminderthat the effectiveness of the duellum is dependent upon the good judgment of itsparticipants.

Critics who have tried to count the number of duella in the Morte Darthur havenot managed to come to any consensus. Kennedy mentions that there are sixteentrials by battle in Malory, though she lists only fifteen.39 Swanson adopts this listbut rejects the two duels between Launcelot and Gawayne. Ernest York identifiesonly ten trials by battle, though he lists eleven: ten duels of law and a single duelof chivalry.40 These critics have tended to concentrate on only the most ostenta-

•w (t) Marhalte v. Trystram, 8.6-7; (2) Elyas v. Trystram, 10.30; (3) Arthur v. Accolon, 4.8-10;(4) Uwayne v. Edwarde and Hew of the Rede Castell, 4.27-28; (5) Gareth v. the Rede Knvght of theRede Laundis (Sir Ironsyde), 7.16-17 (Kennedy says 7.18); (6) Bors v. Prydam le Noyre, 16.7-8;(7) Blamour v. Trystram, 8.21-23 (Kennedy says 8.21); (8) Amante v. Marke, 10.14-15 (Kennedysays 10.15); (9) Archade v. Palomydes, 10.43; (10) Corsabryne v. Palomydes, 10.47; (11) Madore dela Porte v. Launcelot, 18.6-7 (Kennedy says 17.7); (12) Mellyagaunce v. Launcelot, 19.9; (13) Ga-

(15) Palomydes v. Helyus and Helake (10.63-64). Kennedy divides the battles into three categories:holmganga, nos. 1-2 (see n. 44, below); land claims, nos. 3-6; and "treason duels of chivalry," nos.7-15 {Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, pp. 46-47).

« Ernest C. York, "The Duel of Chivalry in Malory's Book XIX," Philological Quarterly 48 (1969),186—91. The ten l duels of law ' that York identifies (with the corresponding Kennedy reference in n.

(3) Archade v. Palomydes (9); (4) Madore v. Launcelot (11); (5) Arthur v. Accolon (3); (6) Uwayne v.Edwarde and Hew (4); (7) fights or jousts between Gareth and a number of adversaries: Launcelot,Kay, six thieves, two knights 3t a ford, and the Blak Knyght of the Blak Laundis, 7.2—•~I\ (8) Gareth v.the Rede Knyght (5); (9) Gonereyes v. Palomydes, 10.41; and (10) Bors v. Prydam (6). York dividesthe battles into two categories: "murder cases" (his nos. 1-4) and "pleas of land" (his nos. 5-10).The only duel that York considers to be a "treason duel of chivalry" is that between Mellyagaunceand Launcelot in book 19. He bases this distinction on two pieces of evidence: first, Gwenyver is being

442 Trial by Combat

tious or the most significant duels. Yet even a cursory examination shows thatthere are, in fact, more than ten or fifteen or even twenty battles that might beconstrued as "judicial." The truth is that compiling a definitive list of judicialduels is a Sisyphean task: there are too many variables, and often Malory doesnot give us enough information.

In the first place, there is the question of what set of rules we should use todetermine whether or not a duel is lawful and necessary. Since the Arthurian lawsgoverning trial by combat seem to differ markedly from the late-medieval regu-lations, most formal knightly conflicts in the Morte Darthur would have beenconsidered extralegal duels under French and English law. In fact, a majority ofjudicial battles do not even seem to be permissible under Arthurian law. Manyduels are fought over crimes that do not fall under the rubrics of "murder" or"treason" (as Malory defines them); many other duels are fought merely to settlepoints of honor or defend subjective standpoints. In the latter category are theduel between Gareth (Bewmaynes) and the Blak Knyght, which is supposed toprove whether or not Gareth is a gentleman (7.7, p. 304, lines 10-21); the duelbetween Mellyagaunce and Lamorak, recounted above, which is intended to provewhich knight's lady is fairer; Trystram's challenge to duel any comers in order toprove that Isode is more beautiful than Sir Brewnor's lady (8.25, p. 414, lines 19-22); and Pelleas's open offer to fight anyone who dares to suggest that Ettarde isnot the fairest lady in the world (4.21, p. 166, lines 26-28). It would be hard tomaintain that conflicts over such petty matters could be true indicia Dei or thatthe issues at stake could fall under the jurisdiction of any government. Yet theirparticipants speak and act as if they are engaging in (or threatening to engage in)legitimate judicial battles.41

Then there is the problem of procedure. Although the French and English lawsstrictly regulate the procedure of the judicial duel to the point that even a smallirregularity might be sufficient to invalidate a ruling, Arthurian law, at least asMalory presents it to us, specifies no procedure at all. Most duels seem to followthe general pattern of Thomas of Woodstock's treatise, but a few duels clearlyviolate its stipulations, and most are not described in full detail. Even the mostminutely recounted combat (that between Launcelot and Mellyagaunce) is missingcertain key parts of the ritual, such as the formulaic oaths sworn by both parties.Yet we should probably not attribute too much importance to Malory's omissions:the ceremonies of the Court of Chivalry were long and not particularly dramatic,and his decision to exclude most of them is a wise one, at least from a literarypoint of view.

tried for treason, not adultery; and second, the formal procedures of this trial more closely correspondto those found in the French and English ordinances than do those or the other trials. This seems tobe an overly nice distinction, given A/talory's other inaccuracies and omissions. York himself admitsthat there is no absolute distinction between the "duel of chivalry" and the "duel of law" in the MorteDarthur (p. 187, n. 7).

41 For the argument that Chaucer is a critic of the contemporary practice of using trial by battle tosettle relatively insignificant disputes, see Richard Firth Oreen, ralamon s Appeal of Treason in theKnight's Tale,'" in The Letter of the Law: Legal Practice in Medieval England, ed. Emily Steiner andCandace Barrington (Ithaca, N.Y., 2002), pp. 105-14.

Trial by Combat 443

To further complicate the matter, there are a number of "borderline" cases: ajudicial duel may be reported but not actually depicted (e.g., 10.45, p. 661, lines7-12); a challenge to duel may not be accepted (e.g., 1.21, pp. 45, line 7-46, line15; 6.3, p. 258, lines 4-6 ; 8.25, p. 414, lines 19-22; 8.40, p. 447, lines 16-34);or a challenger may deliver an appeal in the future subjunctive (e.g., 18.17,p. 1086, lines 15-18). Given all of these factors, it is difficult to say how a "valid"duel might be distinguished from other, "invalid" ones.

Moreover, there are several ways that we could define the word validity in thiscontext. We might, for example, interpret "validity" as meaning "lawfulness"; bythis definition, a valid trial by combat would be one that would have been con-sidered lawful by late-medieval or Arthurian standards. Or we might take anothertack and consider "validity" to mean "strict necessity": that is, a valid judicialduel settles a question that is truly irreconcilable by any other available means.Or we could take a larger view and say that a valid duellum works for the greatersocial good (a process that may or may not include meting out justice), whereasan invalid duellum does not. Or, again, we might construe "valid" as meaningsomething like "providing a definite answer." Finally, we might take "validity" tomean "accuracy," in which case the only valid duels would be those that delivera just verdict.

In this section I will explore the validity (in all of the senses mentioned above)of fifteen ritualized battles culled from the rosters of Kennedy and York.421 muststress again that these are by no means the only battles that are framed as trialsby combat, nor do their procedures necessarily more closely reflect those ordainedby medieval law than those I will not consider. They are merely those that arefought to determine the most important questions, whose outcomes are the mostcritical, or whose circumstances are described in the most detail. Some of themare obscure, but others are among the best-known episodes in the Morte Darthur.

42 In order of occurrence they are (1) Arthur v. Accolon; (2) Uwayne v. Edwarde and Hew; (3) Garethv. the Rede Knyght; (4) Marhalte v. Trystram; (5) Blamour v. Trystram; (6) Amante v. Marke; (7) Elyasv. Trystram; (8) Gonereyes v. Palomydes; (9) Archade v. Palomydes; (10) Palomydes v. Helyus andHelake; (11) Bors v. Prydam; (12) Madore v. Launcelot; (13) Mellyagaunce v. Launcelot; (14) Gawaynev. Launcelot, 1; and (15) Gawayne v. Launcelot, 2.1 have replaced Corsabryne v. Palomydes (Kennedy's10) with the duel between Gonereyes and Palomydes (York's 9). The contest involving Corsabryne isa joust instigated by a duplicitous damsel rather than a true trial by combatj no accusations are madeby either party. I have also omitted 7.2-7 (York's 7). The three battles contained within this section(which York classifies as "pleas of land") are only preliminary jousts before Gareth's critical duel withthe Rede Knyght. None of them is particularly important, and none of them is fought over land claims.It is difficult to identify any significant pattern in the placement of, or circumstances surrounding, theseduels. Judicial battles are, on the whole, isolated and isolable events: they tend to occur suddenly, andtheir outcomes do not usually have any lasting effects. Launcelot and Trystram each fight a numberof duella, as we might expect; but then again, so does Palomydes. All of the judicial combats on mylist occur after the Round Table oath in book 3, and no treason duella occur before the Arthurianordinance in book 8 (though the ordinance is predated by several land-claim cases and one trewagecase). The judicial battles seem to be concentrated during the Book of Sir Trystram (8-13) and thefinal books (17-20). Again, however, I hesitate to assign too much significance to this distribution:the former grouping seems natural, insofar as the Book of Sir Trystram consists mainly of the serialmartial adventures of various characters; the latter grouping is, as I will show, due to the fact that theend of the Morte Darthur is concerned with the demise of judicial combat.

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For reasons of clarity, I will refer to all fifteen of these contests as "judicial com-bats" or some variant thereof, even though their lawfulness is sometimes dubious.

If we follow the lead of earlier critics and consider the duels according to theirlate-medieval legal status, we find that thirteen of the duels appear to correspond,at least in general terms, with established judicial categories. Five duels (Gareth v.the Rede Knyght, Uwayne v. Edwarde and Hew, Gonereyes v. Palomydes, Bors v.Prydam le Noyre, and Arthur v. Accolon) are fought to settle questions of landrights and therefore would have been treated as civil duels of law in twelfth- andthirteenth-century England.43 Eight duels (Blamour v. Trystram, Amante v. Marke,Archade v. Palomydes, Palomydes v. Helyus and Helake, Madore v. Launcelot,Mellyagaunce v. Launcelot, and the two battles between Gawayne and Launcelot)are instigated by the accusation of treason (a designation that, as already noted,includes murder) and so would have qualified as chivalric duella. There are nocriminal duels for the simple reason that none of the criminals are ordinary civil-ians. The remaining two battles, Trystram's contests against Marhalte and Elyas,are unlike any legal duels described in the late-medieval lawbooks: they are sym-bolic single combats designed to reduce a war between two kingdoms to a singlecombat between their respective champions.44 In real life, of course, inquirieswould have been made into these disputes, and therefore very few, if any, of themwould have been allowed to come to battle.

The above approach has the advantage of tidily dividing the combats into a fewclear-cut categories, but it has some serious drawbacks. First, as has been notedthroughout, Malory selectively disregards or conflates certain aspects of late-medieval judicial combats, so the legal categories do not hold up to serious scru-tiny. Second, and more importantly, if we concentrate on legal distinctions, werisk losing sight of the purposes that the duels actually (and not just officially)serve. As I have noted above, validity can mean a good deal more than "strictlegality" when we are talking about judicial combat in the Morte Darthur.

Only about half of the battles (eight out of fifteen) could be construed as trueindicia Dei—in other words, formal petitions to God for judgment in cases wherehuman understanding fails (allowing for the fact that a careful investigation ofthe allegation is not standard procedure in Logres): Blamour v. Trystram, Gone-reyes v. Palomydes, Archade v. Palomydes, Amante v. Marke, Madore v. Laun-

« Presumably. This categorization is complicated by a number of factors. In the first place, the civilduel of law had to be fought by champions. Of the five conflicts mentioned above, only the last twoadhere to this stipulation: Bors and Prydam fight as the representatives of two sisters; Accolon andArthur are the proxies for Damas and Outlake, respectively. Second, as has been discussed, the lawdemanded that champions fight under humiliating circumstances with nonstandard weapons. Finally,and most problematically, all of the combatants in these battles are knights, not civilians.

Though the lawbooks do not mention this practice, Selden makes note or (and commends) it inDuello, chap. 2. Kennedy, taking her cue from Neilson, refers to the trewage battles of the MorteDarthur as holmganga [Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, p. 156). Although I am including theseritualized battles in my discussion of judicial combats, I hesitate to adopt Neilson's and Kennedy'sterminology. There is no reason to assume that Malory is alluding to ancient Scandinavian law. At anyrate, scholars do not agree whether the contest known as the holmganga was a type of iudicium Dei,a way to reach a verdict when normal legal processes failed, or an extralegal duel. See Olav B0,"Holmganga and Einvigi: Scandinavian Forms of the Duel," Mediaeval Scandinavia 2 (1969), 132-48, at pp. 136-37.

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celot, Mellyagaunce v. Launcelot, and the two battles between Gawayne andLauncelot. If this seems like an unsettlingly low percentage, we should keep inmind that the percentage of fifteenth-century duels that were considered true indi-cia Dei was effectively zero.

However, whether or not it is a genuine iudicium Dei, and regardless of its legalstatus or its combatants' intentions, almost every single one of the ritualized battleson my list functions as a spectacle: that is, a focus for public attention and a safetyvalve for potentially disruptive emotions. Nearly all are open to the public andattended by great crowds of people;45 they typically take place during larger mar-tial events such as tournaments, sieges, or standoffs of hostile armies. These com-bats attract much the same attention, and provoke much the same response, asdo modern-day sporting events. Each spectator cheers on the man who representshis or her own side and lives vicariously through his experience, as in the uncertainbattle between Trystram and Elyas:

And ever sir Trystram traced and traverced and wente froward hym here and there, and

for sir Elyas had gyvyn hym twenty strokes ayenste one. Than was there lawghyngeamonge the Sessoynes party, and grete dole on kynge Markis party.

"Alas," seyde the kynge, "we ar all shamed and destroyed for ever!"For, as the booke seyth, sir Trystram was never so macched but yf hit were of sir

Launcelot.Thus as they stode and behylde bothe partyes, that one party laughynge and the othir

party wepynge, sir Trystram remembird hym of his lady, La Beale Isode, that lokeduppon hym, and how he was never lykly to com in hir presence. Than he pulled up hisshylde that before hynge full lowe, and than he dressed hym unto sir Elyas and gaff hymmany sad strokys, twenty ayenst one, and all to-brake his shylde and his hawberke, thatthe hote bloode ran downe as hit had bene rayne. Than began kynge Marke and all

Both armies expend their emotional energy so completely in laughing and weepingthat when Elyas is overcome and dies from his wounds, the Saxons depart withoutcomplaint and the Cornish let them go—although Marke, ever tireless in revenge,demands exorbitant reparations for all of the trouble to which he has been put.Likewise, the continuously seesawing balance of the combat serves first to heighten,then to purge, the audience's own emotions; by the end we are as exhausted, andas relieved, as is the Cornish army.

Malory uses the duellum to intensify dramatic effect on a larger scale, too. Thistechnique is most obvious in the critical duels of the final books, all of which arein close proximity to each other: Madore v. Launcelot, Mellyagaunce v. Launcelot,and the two battles between Gawayne and Launcelot. Malory borrows these duelsfrom his source materials (the prose Lancelot, La mort le roi Artu, and the stanzaic

« There are one or two exceptions to this rule. The battle between Arthur and Accolon takes placein a sequestered location that may or may not be in fairyland, with no spectators except Morgan andthe Damesell of the Lake. The contest between Uwayne and Edwarde and Hew may also have beenconducted in private (Malory makes no mention of any spectators), or it may have been conducted inthe usual manner, in full view of the inhabitants of the Castle of the Lady of the Roche and the retainersor armies of the two brothers.

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Le Morte Arthur), but he reshapes and repositions them in order to increase thesuspense of the individual episodes and heighten the tension of the final books,while always focusing the reader's attention on the dubious efficacy of the duelsthemselves.46

In addition to their value as cathartic spectacles for both Arthurian society andMalory's readers, a majority of the ritualized battles are also staged in order tofufill two other important social functions. In some cases they are instruments forpunishing known offenders; in others they are minimally destructive means ofworking out national, familial, or personal rivalries.

Four battles (Uwayne v. Edwarde and Hew, Gareth v. the Rede Knyght, Palo-mydes v. Helyus and Helake, and Bors v. Prydam) are fought so that waywardcriminals can be brought to justice. Because of the lax governmental regulationsof Logres, there appears to be no way to punish a recalcitrant lawbreaker otherthan to lure him into a duellum and then destroy his morale by soundly trouncinghim in front of his friends. For whatever reason (Malory makes no mention ofdivine influence), trial by battle is reasonably good at delivering appropriate pun-ishments in these cases: Helyus and Helake (who are self-acknowledged murder-ers) are both killed in battle; of the reasonably villainous Rede Castell brothers,Edwarde is killed, but Hew survives; Prydam, who is only the champion for thetrue criminal, surrenders; and the Rede Knyght, who has a legitimate reason forharassing Arthur's knights, not only reconciles with his challenger but becomesquite friendly with him afterward.

At least seven battles (Marhalte v. Trystram, Blamour v. Trystram, Elyas v. Trys-tram, Archade v. Palomydes, Madore v. Launcelot, and Gawayne v. Launcelot, 1and 2) are fought in order to end rivalries that threaten to cause widespread havoc.In the cases of Trystram's two battles against Elyas and Marhalte, the hostilities

46 In the French sources the duels are widely scattered and occur in a different order: Lancelos duelswith Meleagans in the prose Lancelot 39, and later with Mador and Gauvains in La mort le roi Artu81—85 and 151—57, respectively. Malory also removes a number of unrelated episodes in the Lancelotsurrounding Lancelos's duel with Meleagans so as to concentrate the reader's attention on the equivo-cal cause for which Launcelot fights. Furthermore, Malory makes small but important changes to eachof these three final duels; in each case the changes serve both to increase the dramatic power of theepisodes and to undermine our confidence in trial by battle. In La mort le roi Artu Boorz agrees tofight on Guenievre's behalf against Mador unless someone else comes to champion her, but he neveractually takes the neld^ in the isAovte Dtxvthu?, however, Bors and N^ador are already facing off on thedueling grounds when Launcelot rides up at the last possible moment. In the Mellyagaunce episode,Malory takes pains to emphasize the equivocal nature of Launcelot's oath (in the prose Lancelot theequivocal claim is delivered by Genievre herself, and it is not in the strictly defined form of the judicialoath)^ Mellyagaunce traps Launcelot in the dungeon before, rather than after, the duel^ and Launcelotfinishes off Mellyagaunce at the end of the duel instead of letting him go free—an equivocal ending ifever there was one, since neither combatant was completely in the right. Gauvains and Lancelos fightone duel in La mort le roi Artu, and Gawayne and Launcelot fight two in the stanzaic Le Morte Arthur;Malory chooses to use the latter version as his model, presumably because the pattern of repeatedcombat extends the suspense and emphasizes Gawayne's fatal ruthlessness. (References to the prose

1978-83], 2. References to La mort le roi Artu are from La mort le roi Artu: Roman du Xllle siecle,ed. Jean Frappier, 3rd ed. [Geneva, 1964]. Here and elsewhere, I use the most prevalent forms of the

or with the forms found in the Morte Darthur.)

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are racial or national (Cornwall against Saxony and Ireland) and most likely per-sonal (Marke against everyone). In the other cases the hostilities are ostensiblyfamilial (Blamour accuses Marke of murdering his cousin; Archade accuses Pal-omydes of murdering his brother; Madore accuses Gwenyver of murdering hiscousin; Gawayne accuses Launcelot of murdering his two brothers), but, like mostthings in Malory, they are probably also personal as well. There are undoubtedlyother, less obvious instances in which the duellum is used as the means by whichfeuding parties work out their differences: for example, the battle between Arthurand Accolon is an arena for the hostility between Morgan and Arthur, and perhapsbetween Morgan and the Damesell of the Lake as well. Furthermore, most of theduels or duel-like battles that I am not considering here in any detail are duels ofhonor whose only real purpose is to defuse high emotions and settle rivalries whileinflicting the least amount of damage.

In addition, challenges are issued for a constellation of reasons that are less easyto categorize. Mellyagaunce accuses Gwenyver of adultery and fights Launcelotto prove his charge in order to direct attention away from his own crimes. Ga-wayne appeals Launcelot of treason in order to take revenge for his brothers'deaths and, perhaps, to commit suicide if he cannot take revenge. The reasonswhy champions agree to fight for either side are even more complicated and di-verse: Arthur fights for Damas because he is coerced; Accolon fights Arthur (whomhe does not recognize) out of love for Morgan; Trystram fights for Angwysh inorder to win Isode for Marke. No matter what their other motivations may be,most knights take up others' causes in order to win earthly or spiritual rewardsfor themselves. Knights can refuse to accept challenges, too, but in no case do theydecline battle specifically because they are afraid that God will punish them forperjury.

However, it is perhaps less pertinent to group these ritualized battles accordingto their legal status or social functions than by their effectiveness in producing ajust verdict: after all, this is supposed to be the real issue at stake. When weapproach the question this way, we find that, of the aforementioned fifteen battles,two provide patently unjust outcomes; three provide a questionably just verdictthat hinges on legal technicalities; five deliver equivocal justice; and only five sup-ply indisputably just rulings. This haphazard justice is all the more frustratingbecause we are silent witnesses to most of the alleged crimes. Consequently, wehave a clear view of combat's inability to provide impartial justice, even as wemay be relieved that our heroes always triumph over their opponents despite thevalidity of their causes.

When we compare the list of duella that seem to be true iudicia Dei (responsi-bility for the decision is officially put into God's hands because the question cannotbe resolved by means of human agency) with the list of effective duella (the knightwho represents the right side prevails), we see that only a single one of these justoutcomes is a product of a legitimate and necessary judicial battle. Most strikingof all, although the battle is affected or decided by an external influence in six outof fifteen cases, in no instance is that influence clearly divine.

The two unjust outcomes (Arthur v. Accolon and Amante v. Marke) are dis-turbing reminders that God, if he is watching at all, is not always attentive. Inorder to free himself and twenty other knights from prison, Arthur agrees to cham-

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pion the cause of Sir Damas, who unjustly withholds the lands of his brotherOutlake. Although Arthur is pained at the thought of fighting for the wrong side,he nevertheless does not seem to fear that God may punish him for doing so.Morgan, the engineer of this bogus contest, has no illusions that God will punishArthur for fighting on the wrong side, so she leaves nothing to chance. She givesArthur a sorcery-forged simulacrum of Excaliber and gives the real sword to Ac-colon, who will champion Outlake. Before long, Arthur is bleeding from manywounds and grasping the hilt of his shattered sword; although he refuses to yield,he has clearly lost. For the moment, the outcome of the battle upholds the rightcause, regardless of the fact that the event was rigged to begin with. However, the

Whan the Damesell of the Lake behelde Arthure, how full of prouesse his body was,and the false treson that was wrought for hym to have had hym slayne, she had gretepete that so good a knyght and such a man of worship sholde so be destroyed. And atthe nexte stroke sir Accolon stroke at hym suche a stroke that by the damesels inchaun-temente the swerde Excaliber fell oute of Accalons honde to the erthe, and therewithallsir Arthure lyghtly lepe to hit and gate hit in his honde, and forthwithall he knew hitthat hit was his swerde Excalyber. (4.10, p. 144, lines 19-28)

The opposing forces competing for control of the battle's outcome are not justiceand injustice, or even God and the Devil, but good and bad magic.47 French andEnglish law (and, we may assume, Arthurian law, as well), strictly prohibited theuse of magical devices during duella.48 Morgan's weapon switching is undoubtedlyillegal, but it is not clear why Arthur felt justified in using an enchanted swordand scabbard in the first place. It is clear, however, that he had no worries thatGod might smite him for taking an unfair advantage in what was supposed to bea divinely adjudicated ordeal.

Once Arthur divests his opponent of the blood-stanching scabbard and regainsthe real F.xcaliber, he is able to overcome his opponent easily—further proof (ifany is necessary) that it is the power of the sword, and not the power of God,that is the key to victory in this battle. Accolon's admission of defeat serves onlyto emphasize the irony of the situation:

"Sle me ye may well," seyde sir Accolon, "and hit please you, for ye ar the beste knyghtthat ever I founde, and I se well that God is with you. But for I promysed," seydeAccolon, "to do this batayle to the uttirmyst and never to be recreaunte while I leved,therefore shall I never yelde me with my mowthe, but God do with my body what Hewoll." (4.10, p. 145, lines 9-14)

Although Arthur seems to expect neither God's aid nor his censure, Accolon im-mediately interprets his own failure as a sign that God backs Arthur's cause andthat he, working through Arthur, will deal the death blow. Accolon's earnest ref-

ie conclusion, though she does not "seriously advocate" such an interpre-le {Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, p. 45).

e for thee, by the which thou trusteth the be bettir to ovircome the foreseide C. de B. thynarie . . ." ("Ordenaunce," Black Book, p. 317).

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erences to divine will are almost painful to read, since we know that the duellumhas not been a iudicium Dei but a iudicium magi. Once Arthur wins the field, hepardons Accolon and reverses the judgment of the battle, awarding all of Damas'slands to Outlake and devising humiliating punishments for the would-be usurper.Arthur is never condemned for defying God's will both during and after the battle,

The outcome of the duel between Amante and Marke is even more disturbing:not only does God again fail to protect the right, but this time the damage causedby his negligence cannot be rectified. The conflict arises when Marke commandshis two most trusted knights, Bersules and Amante, to destroy Trystram in anyway that they can. Bersules declares that he will have nothing to do with the plot,resigns his position, and is immediately murdered by the enraged king. Horrifiedat the death of his fellow, Amante swears that he will appeal Marke of treasonbefore Arthur; he promises not to reveal his former lord's name to the court,though it is not clear how he intends to make an appeal without naming hisappellee (10.7, pp. 578, line 9-579, line 10). Some time afterward, the two meetat Arthur's court to do battle in front of the king. The description of their duel isbrief and dispassionate: "And so lyghtly the kynge commaunded them to do ba-tayle. And by mysadventure kynge Marke smote sir Amante thorow the body;and yet was sir Amaunte in the ryghtuous quarell" (10.14, p. 592, lines 24-27).The dying Amante relates his story to two of Isode's handmaidens, who cry, "A,swete Jesu that knowyste all hydde thynges! Why sufferyst Thou so false a tray-toure to venqueyshe and sle a trewe knyght that faught in a ryghteuous quarell!"(10.15, p. 593, lines 11-13). The prose Tristan accounts for this miscarriage ofjustice by explaining that Marc did not swear the pretrial oath invoking God'said, but the Morte Dartbur offers no such comforting rationalization. Kennedysuggests that "Malory prefers to leave it unexplained except as the inscrutablewill of God."50 The trial's disturbing outcome seems more likely due to the in-exorable force of chance, which grants glory-winning adventures to knights errantwhile allowing Marke an inglorious victory "by mysadventure." This episodeforces us to the faintly blasphemous conclusion that if "swete Jesu" does in factknow all hidden things, he has not bothered to impart his knowledge through thejudicial battle held in his name.

There are three questionably just outcomes, the accuracy or inaccuracy of whichdepends upon minor legal details. Mellyagaunce's accusation of Gwenyver is un-comfortably accurate, though the wording is imprecise enough to allow someroom for maneuvering: "a wounded knyght thys nyght hath layne by you," "a

49 Kennedy sidesteps the dilemma of this clearly unjust outcome by suggesting that this incident isintended to show that the religious and rationalist points of view are irreconcilable. Arthur believesthat he has won because of superior strength; Accolon believes that Arthur has won through a miracle;either one could be right (Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, pp. 44-45). This does nothing to addressthe real problem: regardless of the reason for Arthur's victory, it is still unjust. Later Kennedy suggeststhat, in fact, the combat is just, since God must have been judging Arthur for his good intentions, notthe cause for which he fought (ibid., p. 158). As Swanson points out, however, such reasoning is notcompatible with the busic assumptions of trial by battle ("Judicial Combat" [above, n. 1] pp. 160—61).

50 Kennedy, Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, p. 47.

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wounded knyght thys nyght hath layne by the quene" (19.6, p. 1132, lines 22and 32-33). The wounded knight was, in fact, Launcelot himself. When answer-ing the challenge, Launcelot subtly rephrases the indictment so that it is not tech-nically true: "I say nay playnly, that thys nyght there lay none of thes ten knyghteswounded with my lady, quene Gwenyver, and that woll I prove with myne hondysthat ye say untrewly in that" (19.7, p. 1133, lines 30-33).51 Before the duel,Mellyagaunce warns Launcelot not to put his body and soul into jeopardy: "forthoughe ye ar never so good a knyght, as I wote well ye ar renowmed the besteknyght of the worlde, yet shulde ye be avysed to do batayle in a wronge quarell,for God woll have a stroke in every batayle" (19.7, p. 1133, lines 25-28). YetLauncelot proceeds to champion Gwenyver in a fundamentally "wrong quarrel,"easily defeating his opponent in a victory that upholds the letter, if not the spirit,of justice. We may infer that God appreciates a good lawyer but not that he hasmuch interest in making the truth known.

In contrast, the accuracy of the verdict provided by the two battles betweenLauncelot and Gawayne hinges on a loose, rather than a strict, legal interpretation.Gawayne possesses "suche a grace and gyffte that an holy man had gyvyn hym,that every day in the yere, frame undern tyll hyghe noone, hys myght encresedtho three owres as much as thryse hys strength" (20.21, p. 1216, lines 31-34).52

This ability allows him to gain the upper hand in the early part of both battleswith Launcelot. Each time, however, Gawayne's ascendancy lasts only until noon;once he regains his normal strength, he is quickly defeated. Perhaps God doeshave a hand, however equivocal, in these battles. In any case, there is certainlysomething a bit miraculous about Launcelot's ability to prevail over Gawayne'sGod-given (or at least God-sanctioned) strength. Launcelot is vindicated bothtimes, and in both cases the verdict is not strictly in line with justice. Although hedid not preconceive the deaths of Gareth and Gaherys, they did die "shamefully"at his hands because they were unarmed bystanders when they were cut downduring the queen's rescue. Technically, therefore, he is guilty by Arthurian law ofmurder and treason. Launcelot, who represents the nominally just but morallyunjust side in Gwenyver's quarrel with Mellyagaunce, and the nominally unjustbut morally just side in his own quarrel with Gawayne, manages to win everytime. Either God unconditionally favors Launcelot, regardless of the side he rep-

51 Swanson suggests that Malory partly justifies Launcelot's equivocal oath by presenting Mellyagaunceas a particularly loathsome character ("Judicial Combat," p. 168). However, this is precisely the kindor slippery reasoning for which he criticizes Kennedy (see n. 49, above). The judicial battle must judge

medieval literature, see Ralph J. Hexter, Equivocal Oaths and Ordeals in Medieval Literature (Cam-bridge, Mass., 1975).

52 "And for hys sake kynge Arthur made an ordynaunce that all maner off batayles for ony quarelsthat shulde be done afore kynge Arthur shulde begynne at undern . . ." (20.21, p. 1217, lines 1-4). Itis impossible to ignore Arthur's dishonorable attempt to weight the duellum in his and Gawayne'sravor, though this duphcitousness is perhaps mitigated by the fact that Gawayne does not fight anyjudicial battles before book 20. It seems not unlikely that Arthur's "ordynaunce" is an attempt toexplain the origins or the practice of dueling between 9:00 A.M. (undern or terce) and nones (whichcorresponds with either noon or 3:00 P.M., although it clearly means the former in this case). See"Ordenaunce," Black Book, pp. 311 and 313.

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resents, or God favors no one and Launcelot always wins because he is a betterfighter. Neither conclusion is particularly comforting.

In four instances the justice meted out is equivocal at best: there is no indicationas to whether or not the winning cause is the just one. Two of these are trewagecases in which Trystram fights on behalf of Marke, once against Elyas (the captainof the Saxons) and once against Marhalte (the champion of the Irish). Trystramroundly defeats both of his opponents, vindicating Marke and Cornwall in theprocess. These acquittals are immediately suspicious because it seems unlikely thatany cause endorsed by the villainous Marke could be just. Indeed, all the availableevidence suggests that Marke is in the wrong in both of these cases. King Angwyshof Ireland demands the tribute "that Cornuayle had payde many wyntyrs, and atthat tyme kynge Marke was behynde of the trwayge for seven yerys" (8.4, p. 376,lines 2-4). It is understandable that Angwysh should be "wrothe" at Cornwall'spersistent refusal to discharge its traditional economic obligations; it is also un-derstandable that he should resort to force where diplomacy has been provenineffective and ask Marhalte "to do batayle for oure trwayge that we of ryghtought to have" (8.4, p. 376, lines 19-20). If established custom can be consideredde facto entitlement, then Ireland does indeed have the right to demand payment.The Saxons are a little more uncouth in their collection practices and besiegeTyntagyll without warning. But again, they are apparently demanding only whatwas established long ago as their own. The tradition of annual payments is solong-standing that even the Cornish refer to it as "the olde trewage" (10.30,p. 624, line 11).

Ultimately, we cannot know whether the question here is a moral one (whetheror not Ireland and Saxony are justified in demanding tribute from Cornwall) ora practical one (whether or not Cornwall will have to pay). If it is the former, thenthe battles may or may not provide justice, as we do not know the circumstancesunder which payments were first levied from Cornwall. If it is the latter, then theoutcomes are more clearly faulty. Custom dictates that Ireland and Saxony havea just claim to the homage that Cornwall tacitly consented to pay for "manywyntyrs."

The verdict provided by the battle between Elyas and Trystram is even morequestionable in light of the fact that Trystram's miraculous victory apparentlycomes from a less-than-divine source. Trystram, crippled by wounds, is on thebrink of defeat within an hour, and it looks as if the Saxons will have their tribute,after all. Suddenly, however, "sir Trystram remembird hym of his lady, La BealeIsode, that loked uppon hym, and how he was never lykly to com in hir presence"(10.30, p. 625, lines 27-29). This powerful memory spurs Trystram to give twentyblows to Elyas's every one so that he easily kills his opponent within half a page.It would appear that the critical force determining the outcome of this battle isnot divine will but love.

It is true, of course, that a knight should be sustained by thoughts of his lady.Trystram himself admonishes the cynical Dynadan that "a knyght may never beof proues but yf he be a lovear" (10.55, p. 689, lines 5-6). However, in the caseof the duellum, the prowess of a knight should be immaterial: it is the justice ofhis cause that should be all-important. Either Malory cannot reconcile the theoryof courtly love with the theory behind the judicial ordeal or (more likely) he does

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not notice, or is not troubled by, their essential incompatibility. If we insist onattributing Trystram's victory to God's grace, then we are forced to reason thatGod must have put the thought of Isode into Trystram's head in order to give himthe necessary strength to defeat his opponent—a conjecture that creates manymore complications than it resolves. It seems more reasonable to conclude thatthis contest is not a true indicium Dei, though we may call it a indicium amoris.

Two equivocal trials by battle are fought by Palomydes during the Tournamentof Surluse. After the first day of fighting, Palomydes agrees to champion a maidenwho claims that Sir Gonereyes has unjustly taken her lands. The duel is over in amoment:

And anone they flange oute their swerdis, and sir Palomydes smote sir Gonereyse downeto the erthe. And than he raced of his helme and smote of his hede. Than they wente tosouper.

And this damesell loved sir Palomydes as her paramour, but the booke seyth she wasof his kynne. (10.41, p. 656, lines 1-6)

We never find out whether the damsel's cause is the right one, but she certainlyseems less than savory, especially in light of the fact that the incest between Arthurand Morgan will play a key role in the fall of the Round Table. From the availableinformation, we cannot tell whether she was Palomydes' mistress before this duelor whether she became his lover because of it. The former assumption furtherweakens the belief that God may champion either a knight or his cause; the latterassumption does not change our assessment of the effectiveness of the duellum,but it also reflects no great credit on Palomydes or the damsel. All other thingsbeing equal, it seems unlikely that God would choose to punish a thief rather thanan incestuous fornicator.

The ramifications of this battle surface after the jousting on the second day ofthe tournament, when Archade appeals Palomydes of the death of his brother,Gonereyes. Palomydes easily defeats this branch of the family tree, as well: "Andthan sir Palomydes alyght and drewe his swerde, but sir Archade myght nat aryse.And there sir Palomydes raced of his helme and smote of his hede. Than the HautePrynce and quene Gwenyver went to souper" (10.43, p. 658, lines 26-29). Inboth cases the good appetites of the spectators are notable. At least half of Ar-chade's accusation is true: there is, after all, no question but that Palomydes killedGonereyes. The justice of the outcome (if it is justice at all) must therefore rest onthe question of whether Palomydes is guilty of treason—in other words, whetherhe is guilty of premeditated homicide or of denying his victim a noble death. Thereseems to be no reason to suspect him of such a crime, though we cannot knowfor certain. If we assume that God has a stroke in this battle, Palomydes' defeatof Archade would seem to suggest that Palomydes rightfully prevailed over Go-nereyes on the previous day and, by extension, that the incestuous damsel's ac-cusations must have been legitimate. But this line of reasoning requires a lot ofassumptions, probably more than we can comfortably make. As with Trystram'sduels against Elyas and Marhalte, we can reasonably conclude only that Palo-mydes' judicial battles may deliver justice and that the justice may be divinelyordained.

The final instance of equivocal justice is unique in that the duellum provides an

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ambiguous verdict that is subsequently discarded by the judges. Trystram fights athird duel, this time on behalf of his former enemy, King Angwysh of Ireland, whohas been accused by Bleoberys and Blamour de Ganys of murdering their cousin(8.20, pp. 404, line 16-405, line 11). Earlier Marke had ordered Trystram toprocure La Beale Isode; now Trystram jumps at the chance to "wynne the love"of Isode's father by fighting as his champion. However, he will consent to par-ticipate in the legal duel only if certain conditions are met:

"Sir," seyde sir Trystrames, "for the good lordeshyp ye shewed unto me in Irelonde andfor my lady youre doughtirs sake, La Beale Isode, I woll take the batayle for you upponthis conducion, that ye shall graunte me two thynges: one is that ye shall swere unto methat ye ar in the ryght and that ye were never consentynge to the knyghtis deth. Sir,"than seyde sir Trystramys, "whan I have done this batayle, yf God gyff me grace tospede, that ye shall gyff me a rewarde what thynge resonable that I woll aske you."(8.21, p. 407, lines 20-28)

Trystram's motivation in questioning his prospective employer's association withthe alleged crime remains opaque. To use Kennedy's terminology, we cannot becertain whether Trystram is religious (and, because he believes in the efficacy ofthe trial, does not wish to fight on the wrong side) or a rationalist (and does notwish to champion the wrong cause since there is a good chance that he will win).Furthermore, Trystram requests his boon only conditionally: Kyf God gyff megrace to spede." As if responding to the pervading sense of divine apathy, he seemsto feel that, even if the cause for which he fights is just, God still may not granthim victory. In any event, it is worth noting that although Angwysh quickly agreesto Trystram's second request, he never responds to the first, either in the positiveor the negative, nor does Trystram ever acknowledge or attempt to remedy theomission. We cannot know why Trystram bothers to inquire into the alleged crimein the first place, unless he is dutifully confirming that he will not be fighting in awrongful quarrel, as required by the Round Table oath.

These uncertainties are only compounded by the equivocal outcome ot the trial.Trystram overpowers his opponent without much difficulty, although Blamourrefuses to yield and Trystram refuses to kill him. The laws of the English chivalricduel dictated that one party must either kill the other or force him to declarehimself "creaunt" (defeated); the Arthurian ordinance does not make any suchspecification, though this rule seems to be in effect during Malory's other judicialbattles. As it stands, it is impossible to tell whether Blamour has lost (and his claimproven unjust) or whether the contest is a draw (and nothing proven, one way orthe other). In the end, the verdict, whatever it was, becomes irrelevant. The judgesunexpectedly command that the parties be peacefully reconciled, and so they are;apparently, the question of Angwysh's guilt or innocence is also discarded.53 Thisduellum does not undermine our faith in judicial combat, but it does not bolster

•" According to the English ordinance, the king has the right to end a duel atthat the parties forget their differences. In societies that relied upon ordeal-basreconciliation or confession was always considered preferable to an ordeal. Offic

Hyams, "Trial by Ordeal," p. 98.

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it either; it merely reminds us that determining the truth is sometimes far lessimportant than providing a sanctioned public forum in which the kinsmen of thedeceased can vent their anger.

When all is said and done, only five out of the fifteen battles unequivocallyuphold the just cause, and it is impossible to ignore the fact that a 33 percentaccuracy is far worse than what we would expect from chance alone. Of these fivebattles, only three are not influenced by some obvious external cause; and of thosethree, only one truly serves the purpose of determining who is in the right whenthe available evidence is ambiguous.

Gareth (Bewmaynes) fights on behalf of Lyonesse against the Rede Knyght ofthe Rede Laundis, an impostor who has taken her lands but entertains a delusorynotion that he has been fighting as her champion. It is obvious which side is inthe right; the duel that follows is merely an act of law enforcement, with Garethstanding in as Arthur's deputy. The two knights are evenly matched, and there isno clear winner by the time they are forced to rest at evensong. But when Garethcatches sight of Lyonesse watching from the window, "his herte waxed lyght andjoly," and he commands the Rede Knyght to pick up his weapons again:

And than they laced on their helmys, and avoyded their pagys, and yede togydyrs andfought freysshly. But the Rede Knyght of the Rede Laundys awayted hym at an over-thwarte and smote hym within the honde, that his swerde felle oute of his honde. Andyette he gaff hym another buffette uppon the helme, that he felle grovelynge to the erthe,and the Rede Knyghte felle over hym for to holde hym downe.

Than cryed the maydyn Lynet on hyght and seyde,"A, sir Bewmaynes! Where is thy corrayge becom? Alas! my lady my sistir beholdyth

the, and she shrekis and wepys so that hit makyth myne herte hevy."Whan sir Bewmaynes herde hir sey so, he abrayded up with a grete myght, and gate

hym uppon hys feete, and lyghtly he lepe to his swerde and gryped hit in his honde anddowbled his pace unto the Rede Knyght, and there they fought a new batayle togydir.(7.17, p. 324, lines 3-19)

Had Lynet not called from the window at exactly the right moment, and hadGareth not been sufficiently enamored with Lyonesse that he feared to be shamedin front of her, he would no doubt have been the next knight to be strung up inthe sycamore tree. As with Trystram's battle against Blamour, this duellum appearsto be more of a iudicium amoris than a indicium Dei.

The outcome of Palomydes' fight against Helyus and Helake (a battle that, ashas been discussed, is also disciplinary, rather than oracular, in nature) also seemsto be determined by factors that have little to do with divine will. It is only "byfortune" (10.64, p. 718, line 11) that Palomydes disables Helake in the first joust.Fortune abandons Palomydes soon afterwards, however, and after two hours,Helyus is able to knock the exhausted knight "ovirtwarte and endelonge all thefylde":

Than whan they of the cite saw sir Palomydes in this case they wepte and cryed andmade grete dole, and the other party made as grete joy.

"Alas," seyde the men of the cite, "that this noble knyght shulde thus be slayne foroure kynges sake!"

And as they were thus wepynge and cryynge, sir Palomydes, whyche had suffyrde anhondred strokes, and wondir hit was that he stoode on his fyete, so at the laste sir

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Palomydes loked aboute as he myght waykely unto the comyn people how they weptefor hym, and than he seyde to hymselff, "A, fye for shame, sir Palomydes! Why hangeye youre hede so lowe?" And therewith he bare up his shylde and loked sir Helyus inthe vysoure and smote hym a grete stroke uppon the helme and aftir that anothir andanothir, and than he smote sir Helyus with suche a myght that he felde hym to the erthegrovelynge. And than he raced of hys helme frome his hede and so smote of his hedefrom the body. (10.64, p. 719, lines 1-17)

It is the lamentation of the populace, not divine compulsion, that transforms Pal-omydes into a tireless berserker. One might perhaps argue that the weeping of thepeople could be interpreted as God's means of encouraging Palomydes to pre-vail—or, for that matter, that God used Lynet's shout to rouse Gareth to victory.Perhaps. However, it is doubtful that even an early-medieval audience, let aloneMalory's own, would have accepted this line of reasoning. The medievals wellunderstood the influence that distraction could have on the outcome of any battle,judicial or not; consequently, the person who interfered in any way with a legalbattle was heavily punished, sometimes with disfigurement or death.54 Call thebattle between Palomydes and the two brothers what we will—indicium populi,indicium pudentis, even indicium superbiae—it does not seem to be a indicium Dei.

The remaining three battles proceed without questionable outside influences,but only one of them is a legal and necessary duellum; by late-medieval standards,the other two would have been considered private contests or military peacekeep-ing maneuvers because it is clear from the outset who has been wronged and whomust be punished. Uwayne fights on behalf of the Lady of the Roche against SirEdwarde and Sir Hew of the Rede Castell, who, we are told, "had disheryted theLady of the Roche of a baronnery of londis by their extorsion" (4.27, p. 177, lines6-8). Uwayne swears that he will fight with one of them in order to "prove" thatthey have wronged the Lady, but in fact the combat only serves to prove that thisis one instance in which might happens to be on the side of right.

Bors is put in a similar position during the Quest of the Holy Grail when heagrees to take up the cause of an unnamed lady whose lands have been appro-priated by her older sister55 and whose men have been killed or turned against her.We have only the lady's word that she has been dispossessed, but her sister'sbehavior is certainly very suspicious; like Edwarde and Hew, she refuses to answeror even acknowledge the accusation. The legitimacy of the younger lady's claimis securely established when she joins Bors at her own chapel before the duel sothat they may hear the morning service together. In the Quest of the Holy Grailgenuine devoutness is an unmistakable mark of virtue—though, as has beennoted, the Morte Darthur's piety is noticeably less fervent than that of its Frenchsources. When Bors defeats Prydam in battle, the older sister flees and the landsgo back to their rightful owner. However, it is ultimately human, and not divine,agency that restores order to the land. Bors warns the lady's lieges (who are ap-parently not impressed by the results of the duellum) that they must either payhomage to her or else be destroyed.

54 See "Ordenaunce," Black Book, p. 321; and Russell, "Writ of Right" (above, n. 1), pp. 115-16.55 A squire calls them sisters (16.7, p. 957, line 1). Their relationship to each other is obscure, but

it is unlikely that they are siblings. They are perhaps stepmother and stepdaughter.

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Thus, out of the five battles whose outcomes uphold justice, four of them aresuperfluous because the villains are clearly identifiable: the vanquishing of theRede Knyght, the punishment of Helyus and Helake, and the vindication of theLady of the Roche and the unnamed lady of the Grail episode. Although theyhappen to produce the correct verdicts, these four battles are clearly ritualizedmeans of defending, and not uncovering, the just cause. Furthermore, as has beennoted, the first two contests are determined by influences that do not appear tocome from a divine source at all and that might have rendered the verdicts invalidunder real-life circumstances.

This leaves only one instance in the Morte Darthur that can be said to unequiv-ocally fulfill all of the requirements of a legal, necessary, and effective duellum byany standards: the battle is fought in order to determine a verdict that could notbe otherwise determined; it is uninfluenced by external factors such as magic, love,or meddlesome spectators; and the winner truly represents the just cause. Thissingle instance is Launcelot's battle against Madore de la Porte. Madore appealsGwenyver of the poisoning of his brother, Patryse, an earnest, if misguided, ac-cusation. The truth is impossible to ascertain through a cursory examination ofthe facts, and most, if not all, of the knights who were present at the fatal banquetbelieve that Gwenyver is guilty of the crime. A detailed inquest aside (a much morefoolproof option that nevertheless seems to occur to no one), the only recourseavailable is to hand the judgment over to God. Launcelot defeats his opponent ina fair fight, and the queen is rightfully acquitted.56 Whether this outcome is a resultof divine mandate is a matter about which Malory remains disconcertingly silent.

O n e out of fifteen is a poor record. On the face of it, it would seem that God isnot an active participant in the lives of his Malorian constituents and that (theanomalous episode of the Quest for the Holy Grail aside) his only role is to providethe name by which knights swear their most solemn oaths. Luckily, no one reallyrelies on his judgment: as in the case of the battle that mercifully brings Whythornev. Fyscher to an end, the main purpose of most judicial combats is not to determineright or wrong but rather to serve as both an instrument and a symbol of the

S6 Some critics doubt the efficacy of even this duel. Swanson points out that Nynyve's later disclosure

inherent in judicial combat. The damsel reveals more than judicial combat did, and to greater effect:she identifies Patryse's murderer and gives an account of his motives; and it is only at this point, afterthe damsel has made these facts 'opynly knowyn', that we are told that the queen was exonerated"("Judicial Combat," pp. 166—67). Hexter's conclusion is more absolute: "Unlike his source, Malorydid not consider Lancelot's victory sufficient to establish the truth" (Equivocal Oaths, p. 43). Thesecriticisms seem beside the point. There is no reason to believe that Gwenyver is exonerated as a resultof Nynyve's declaration simply because the mention of the exoneration appears after the declaration.

the crime: no one ever argued that the duellum produces anything more than a crude "yes" or "no."We could more reasonably see Nynyve's announcement in the opposite light: her revelations reinforcethe verdict already reached by judicial combat and thus serve to momentarily strengthen our trust(undoubtedly shaky by this point) in God and the effectiveness of his justice. A single correct judgmentnaturally does little to mitigate the effect of so many unjust or ambiguous rulings, but that is not thepoint. Its main purpose is to unsettle us yet again. Just when we are certain that God does not presideover indicia Dei, we are witness to a textbook-perfect duel and verdict.

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justice administered by legitimate and honorable authority. These duels providethe disputants and their communities with decisions upon which all can, and must,agree, regardless of their objective accuracy or true origin. Simultaneously, andjust as importantly, they are public spectacles that function as points of communitycohesion and facilitators of emotional release, visible reminders that justice, atleast in some form, is at work.

Throughout most of the Morte Darthur, the Arthurian world fits the templatefor a society in which an ordeal-based judicial system is effective: the status andreputation of all men is generally known; no single man, not even the king, dom-inates every aspect of life; and all members of society, particularly the companionsof the Round Table, are vigilant in their efforts to punish anyone who threatensthe general peace. Although the society never changes in size or essential com-position, communal solidarity is threatened in the final books by the aggressiveself-interest of a few of its members. It is a change that places an intolerable stresson the judicial system exactly where it is the weakest, because the duellum is uselessunless society as a whole agrees to use it prudently and accept its judgments.

When Aggravayne and Mordred offer to "prove" the existence of an adulterousrelationship between Launcelot and the queen, Arthur unexpectedly dissuades thebrothers from doing so—not, as in the past, in order to avoid disturbing the statusquo, but because he has decided to do something wholly unexpected:

" . . . we know all that sir Launcelot holdith youre quene, and hath done longe; and webe your syster sunnes, we may suffir hit no lenger. And all we wote that ye shulde beabove sir Launcelot, and ye ar the kynge that made hym knyght, and therefore we wollpreve hit that he is a traytoure to youre person."

"Gyff hit be so," seyde the kynge, "wyte you well, he ys non othir. But I wolde belothe to begyn such a thynge but I myght have prevys of hit, for sir Launcelot ys anhardy knyght, and all ye know that he ys the beste knyght amonge us all, and but if hebe takyn with the dede he woll fyght with hym that bryngith up the noyse, and I knowno knyght that ys able to macch hym. Therefore, and hit be sothe as ye say, I wolde thathe were takyn with the dede." (20.2, p. 1163, lines 7-19)

The slippage in the meaning of the word proof in this passage marks a criticaltransitional moment in the history of the Arthurian judicial system. The Orkneybrothers seem to be suggesting that they prove Launcelot's guilt via the usualmethod, trial by battle. However, for whatever reason, Arthur demands that theyproduce an entirely different sort of proof: that is, they must secure evidence thatwould persuade a human judge that Launcelot and Gwenyver are guilty as charged,not provide confirmation that God favors one cause or the other. There is noprecedent for such a demand. The rule has always been trial by combat ratherthan trial by judge or jury; nor has Arthur ever disputed the results of such trials,except in the case of his forced duel with Accolon.

Dutifully, the two Orkney brothers do their best to "take Launcelot with thedeed," lying in wait for him at the queen's chamber with twelve other men. Whenthey publicly accuse him of being a "traytour knyght," Launcelot answers themin the customary way:

. . and ye do be my counceyle, go ye all frome thys chambir dore and make you noiche cryyng and such maner of sclaundir as ye do. For I promyse you be my knyghthode,

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and ye woll departe and make no more noyse, I shall as to-morne appyere afore you alland before the kynge, and than lat hit be sene whych of you all, other ellis ye all, thatwoll deprave me of treson. And there shall I answere you, as a knyght shulde, that hydirI cam to the quene for no maner of male engyne, and that woll I preve and make hitgood uppon you wyth my hondys. (20.4, p. 1168, lines 1-10)

Launcelot, understandably enough, does not know that the kind of proof he offersto show them has become worthless currency. They ignore his challenge and con-tinue to threaten him, but even an unarmed Launcelot is more than a match forfourteen inept knights, and Mordred is the only conspirator to survive the skir-mish. The characters' various interpretations of the fight at the cjueen's chamberserve only to illuminate the vast gulf between the old and new types of proof.Mordred and Arthur believe that Launcelot's presence in the chamber is proof ofhis guilt, but Launcelot sees his victory as incontrovertible proof that his owncause is just: " 'My lorde, sir Gawayne,' seyde sir Launcelot, 'in their quarell theypreved nat hemselff the beste, nother in the ryght' " (20.15, p. 1197, lines 29-31).

Although Launcelot and Gwenyver were surprised in what was undoubtedly acompromising situation, the door was closed and bolted and no one, includingthe reader, knows whether they were caught in flagrante delicto.57 Launcelot laterannounces to his followers that he has no idea why Gwenyver called him to herroom that night and even ungallantly manages to impute some treachery to hermotivation in doing so (20.5, p. 1171, lines 1-5). Consciously or not, Launcelotis attempting to cover his bases by offering the old type of proof (a victory in theunofficial "judicial ordeal" at the queen's chamber) while casting doubt on thevalidity of the new kind of proof presented by Mordred.

Launcelot's two-pronged defense is in vain, however, because the evidence, de-batable as it might be, is more than enough to shame the king into punishing hiswife:

"And now hit ys fallen so," seyde the kynge, "that I may nat with my worshyp but myquene muste suffir dethe," and was sore amoved.

So than there was made grete ordynaunce in thys ire, and the quene muste nedis bejouged to the deth. And the law was such in tho dayes that whatsomever they were, ofwhat astate or degre, if they were founden gylty of treson there shuld be none other

57 Kennedy suggests that Malory purposely refuses to speak explicitly about what occurred in thebedroom in order to leave some doubt as to whether or not Launcelot and Gwenyver were actually"abed" and insinuates that, in fact, they were not (Knighthood in the Morte Darthur, p. 310). Shemaintains that "Malory has altered the love story to make the 'Knight of the Cart' the only instanceof actual adultery" (ibid., p. 293). This seems to me to be a deliberately ingenuous reading: it is almost

Malory coyly'declines to specify "whether they were abed other at other maner of disportis" (20.3,p. 1165, lines 11-12). If they were not abed on this night, they were certainly so on many others, and(as even Arthur would agree) a single night's chastity cannot atone for years of adultery. Swansonreads Malory's reticence differently. Neither the narrator nor the reader, of course, has any difficultyin guessing what has happened in Gwenyver's chamber, but "Malory invites the reader to suppress arational reading of the evidence in favour of a sympathetic and emotional reading" ("Judicial Com-bat," p. 171). Both critics seem to miss the point here. The real issue at stake is a legal one, not anaffective one. It should not matter whether or not the reader knows that the couple were activelyengaged in wrongdoing at that time, only whether the avciilaule evidence is sufficient to show beyondreasonable doubt that they were—which, as Gawayne later tries to argue, it is not.

Trial by Combat 459

remedy but deth, and othir the menour other the takynge wyth the dede shulde be causerof their hasty jougement. And ryght so was hit ordayned for quene Gwenyver: bycausesir Mordred was ascaped sore wounded, and the dethe of thirtene knyghtes of theRounde Table, thes previs and experyenses caused kynge Arthure to commaunde thequene to the fyre and there to be brente. (20.7, p. 1174, lines 16-29)

This law requiring capital punishment in cases of confirmed treason, which Arthur

seems to conjure out of nowhere, has no precedent in either La wiort le roi Artu

or Le Morte Arthur but is, as several critics point out, similar to the English law

of capture.58 Arthur's new "ordynaunce" sits very uneasily with the Arthurian

ordinance of book 8, which stated that guilt or innocence would be determined

via the duellum, not by means of these new kinds of "previs and experyenses." In

effect, someone—either Arthur or Malory or both of them together—is replacing

established Arthurian law with something that looks very much like fifteenth-

century English law.59 At the same time that he authorizes an unprecedented shift

in the legal definition of proof and replaces the Arthurian ordinance with a new

law, Arthur makes an even more insidious legal emendation: he changes the nature

of the crime of which Gwenyver has been indicted. Since there is no way to prove

(by either the old or the new system) that she is guilty of adultery, he "proves"

that she is guilty of murder on the basis of nothing more than very circumstantial

evidence.

Gawayne very sensibly points out to the king that the judgment is unjust because

the available evidence is hardly sufficient to establish the truth of Mordred's al-

legation. After all, Launcelot may have come to Gwenyver's chamber for a per-

fectly innocuous reason. Furthermore, he argues, Launcelot could surely provide

definitive proof of his own innocence through the usual oracle of the duellum:

"For I dare sey," seyde sir Gawayne, "my lady, your quene, ys to you both good and

trew. And as for sir Launcelot, I dare say he woll make hit good uppon ony knyght

or "taken with the mainour" ("apprehended bearing stolen property" or, by extension, "apprehended

abridged judicial process known as "summary judgment," "summary justice," or "summary process"(Malory's "hasty jougement") (Edwards, The Genesis of Narrative, p. 160; Kelly, "Malory and theCommon Law," p. 116; E. Kay Harris, "Evidence against Lancelot and Guinevere in Malory's MorteDarthur: Treason by Imagination," Exemplana 7 [1995], 179-208, at pp. 185-86). Arthur, with the

Common Law") argues that this law is harsher and more arbitrary than the law of Malory's day and,furthermore, that it is dubious whether Gwenyver would have been convicted of anything at all infifteenth-century England, for a number of reasons: the available evidence is ambiguous; the king couldnot be the judge of a treason case because he was also the plaintiff; both summary justice without trialand execution without respite were frowned upon; the burden of guilt was usually laid on the adul-terous man, not his partner; and several technicalities mean that Gwenyver cannot be manifestly tiuiltyof being an accessory to treasonous homicide. Ernest C. York points out that by the twelfth century,"adultery was under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, which never prescribed burning at thestake" ("Legal Punishment in Malory's Le Morte Dartbur," English Language Notes 11 11973], 14-21, at p. 15). Harris emphasizes the inconclusive nature of the evidence against the couple and suggeststhat Malory is challenging contemporary "judicial and legislative interpretive practices that transform

dence against Lancelot and Guinevere," p. 184).

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lyvyng that woll put uppon hym vylany or shame, and in lyke wyse he woll make goodfor my lady the quene." (20.7, p. 1175, lines 14-18)

The logic of Gawayne's protest, like that of Launcelot's defense, is curiouslymixed: it relies both on the argument that Mordred has not provided proof beyondreasonable doubt as well as the by-now-unfashionable opinion that trial by com-bat, if given a fair chance, will exonerate the innocent and shame the guilty. Theking, however, once again refuses to allow Launcelot the opportunity to vindicatehimself by this route:

"That I beleve well," seyde kynge Arthur, "but I woll nat that way worke with sirLauncelot, for he trustyth so much uppon hys hondis and hys myght that he doutyth noman. And therefore for my quene he shall nevermore fyght, for she shall have the law.And if I may gete sir Launcelot, wyte you well he shall have as shamefull a dethe." (20.7,p. 1175, lines 19-24)

Arthur firmly denies that judicial battle has any part in "the law," and apparentlyneither does trial by inquest, judge, or jury. At this point, Arthurian law seems tobe based on little more than the persecution and shameful execution of anyonesuspected of crossing the king.

This is the first time that anyone has dared to suggest that trial by battle isanything other than a forum for divine judgment. Arthur finally recognizes oradmits that a physically superior man who trusts in the strength of his own bodywill prevail over a weaker or less skilled one; uncoincidentally, his revelation oc-curs simultaneous with a proposed duellum whose probable verdict would dis-please him. His unvoiced but obvious insinuation is that God, wherever he maybe, does not fight on anyone's side in these contests.

Even if a dispute could somehow be brought to battle in this new legal climate,the duellum would not be able to serve its usual functions. It could not convictLauncelot of his (alleged) crimes any more than it could punish him for them, asno knight is skilled enough to defeat him in battle. The contained violence of aduel might momentarily ease tensions between the warring kinship groups, butthat easement would necessarily end with the predictable conclusion of the trialand hostilities would flare up again immediately afterward. And, although trialby combat between Launcelot and Mordred or Mordred's champion would pro-vide a definitive ruling, it would not be a verdict on which the divided court couldor would agree.

The public burning of Gwenyver, however, could theoretically serve all of thesefunctions, and more: it would neatly remove a woman who was getting to be moretrouble than she was worth while at the same time preserving the king's best knight;it would provide a spectacle and a community focus, a tangible reminder of thepower of the king and of the horrible punishment that awaits traitors to the crown;it would bring a known offender (Gwenyver) to justice; it would ease Mordred'sinsistent and subversive clamoring for blood; and it would provide the most def-inite ruling possible, for who can bring the dead back to life? Seen in this light,Arthur's new ordinance is perfectly rational, even inevitable.

It is no coincidence that the ritualized combats after Gwenyver's judgment—those between Launcelot and Gawayne over the question of whether or not Laun-celot is guilty of treason for killing the good Orkney brothers—only do further

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damage to the already irredeemably tattered social fabric. These duella do notsettle the question that they are supposed to address, nor do they provide a wayfor the combatants to battle out their differences and exhaust their emotions in asocially approved forum. Gawayne loses the first battle and demands a secondone, loses the second and demands a third. He cares nothing for the "verdicts"that the battles are supposed to provide, nor does he seem to think that God isfighting on the side of either his or Launcelot's cause. His sole object is to takerevenge on the killer of his brothers or to be killed in the attempt. The third combatis prevented from taking place only because the Arthur/Gawayne faction mustreturn to Logres in order to do battle against Mordred, who, abusing his privilegesas regent, is attempting to conquer Logres and forcibly marry his aunt Gwenyver.In the fighting against Morded, Gawayne dies when he is hit on the head in thesame place where he was twice wounded during the duels with Launcelot. Theduellum, once the cornerstone of peace and order, is now the very means by whichsociety hurries to its collapse.

Derek Brewer has noted that the Morte Darthur is "extraordinarily paradoxical"in its depiction of honor,60 a phrase that is equally applicable to its representationof the duellum. Malory's own feelings about the practice are deeply conflicted,ranging from wistful sentimentality to hardheaded skepticism. On the one hand,he glorifies trial by battle as the relic of an earlier, greater time and amply indulgeshis readers' desire for rose-tinted nostalgia. In the Morte Darthur judicial combatis both an emblem and an instrument of social order, communal solidarity, and,ultimately, civilization itself. So long as the Arthurian world flourishes, the judicialbattle is used wisely and in good faith. When the infrastructure of society beginsto decay, however, judicial combat is replaced by a corrupt law based on the desiresof powerful individuals rather than the needs of the community, a law subject tochange at any time. This, in turn, is quickly replaced by anarchy.

On the other hand, Malory is very much a man of his century and has no faiththat a iudicium Dei is anything other than a indicium fortunae. Like the fascinatedbut skeptical chronicler of Whythorne v. Fyscher, he does not trust that a legalbattle will produce a just verdict or that its outcome necessarily reflects God's will;he even seems to doubt that God has any particular opinion one way or the other,though he stops short of making the profane suggestion that God does not existat all.

Even the basic tenets of trial by battle contradict some of the most fundamentalassumptions of the Morte Darthur. Malory cannot reconcile his admiration ofknightly prowess with the basic premise of the duellum, which states that thebattle's outcome should be independent of its combatants' prowess. Nor does heseem to be able to reconcile trial by combat with the system of courtly love, inwhich love for a lady, and not God's favor, propels a knight to victory in battle.In theory, judicial battle will reveal the truth, but in practice a knight must deter-mine which side is right before the battle begins—even if he decides to fight for

radoxes of Honour in Malory," in Neu

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the wrong side anyway. Part of the problem is that Malory insists on being anach-ronistic, mixing late-medieval ideas about chivalry and justice with the early-medieval belief that God regularly intervenes in human affairs.

Given the deeply paradoxical nature of judicial combat, it may seem as if theArthurian world is built on an inherently precarious foundation, one fated tocollapse. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the failure of Arthuriansociety is due to the inevitable shortcomings of the duellum or, for that matter,that Malory's largely negative portrayal of judicial combat is a warning againstthe use of violence to solve societal or personal problems. Quite the opposite, infact: the increasing ineffectiveness of the duellum is only a sign of societal degra-dation, not a cause of it. Indeed, Malory celebrates violence, as long as it is usedby the right people, in the right ways.

When a strong king is backed by strong and worthy men, they use the strengthof arms to rule justly, if not always diplomatically. When unworthy men (who arealways inferior fighters) gain power over the king, they prevent worthy men fromsettling difficult questions in combat, preferring to employ craven tactics like theuse of evidence and trial by jury. These axioms call attention to further paradoxessurrounding trial by combat: violence is the best and most humane way to keepthe peace; the evolution of the Arthurian legal system from early-medieval to late-medieval standards is a indicator of societal regression.

But as the Arthurian world devolves into Malory's England, the paradoxessurrounding judicial battle disappear, or at least become unimportant. Logres isno longer a land of anachronisms: its political intrigues, legal methods, and terriblebarbarity belong squarely to the fifteenth century. Single combats have been re-placed by large-scale wars, and the prowess of the individual knight has becomeinconsequential. The noble love that inspired men to great deeds and, as Maloryassures us, "was nat as love ys nowadayes" is supplanted by Mordred's self-serving, incestuous lust. It is not until the duellum is summarily abolished that wecan appreciate how effective and gentle (relatively speaking) an institution it was.Launcelot, the best of imperfect knights, continues to offer to prove the justice ofhis cause on the bodies of his accusers, a persistent gesture that seems more noblethan pathetic.6' Perhaps, in the final analysis, the duellum proves itself a trust-worthy oracle, after all. In the Morte Darthur the wise use of judicial combat isa mark of a strong society ruled by worthy men, while its abolishment indicatesthat the society has been abandoned by God, fortune, or both.

61 Edwards makes a similar observation: "Lancelot is the man of the past, here expressing allegianceto the law of the past, the law which has, like love and allegiance itself, been replaced with thenewfangled" (The Genesis of Narrative, p. 166).

Jacqueline Stuhmiller is a Lecturer in the Medie,

Ithaca, NY 14850 (e-mail: js99@cornell.edu).