The Treacherous Lists

Is honour but "a mere scutcheon" as Falstaff would say, an inevitable road to hypocrisy and madness, or is it a manifestation of what's truly fine and beautiful in the human heart? Sir Walter Scott offers a balanced argument ultimately in favour of the latter in his 1819 book, Ivanhoe.

I've already talked about the love and care Scott took in conjuring a late 12th century England in his prose. There's tremendous, evident love in his descriptions of Rotherwood, a manor house, of the jousting tournament, of the characters, from swineherd to king to none other than Robin Hood himself.

Despite the title, the character called Ivanhoe plays a relatively minor role in the book. There are many characters and conflicts which are only loosely connected but if I were to name one plot as more prominent than the rest, I would say it's the relationship between the Templar knight, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and the young Jewish woman, Rebecca.

Bois-Guilbert is portrayed as simultaneously zealously committed to knightly codes of conduct and habitually negligent of them. It's a fascinating contradiction that makes his character easily the most interesting in the book as well as likely being an insightful portrait of many hypocrites. Despite his vows of chastity and even his commitment to fighting or persecuting heretics, he develops an obsession with the beautiful Rebecca, whom he kidnaps with the intention of forcing her to become his lover. When he takes her to a Templar stronghold, he's surprised to find the head of his order present, a tyrannical enforcer of dogma with the harshest of interpretations. He wants to burn Rebecca at the stake as a witch because she's renowned for her healing abilities.

As a pure, innocent victim, Rebecca is a simple character and perhaps not an interesting one. Yet, her dialogue with Bois-Guilbert is captivating. As she awaits a champion to appear for her in a trial by combat, her arguments in the face of Bois-Guilbert's steadfast hypocrisy are exquisitely beautiful constructions of logic and poetic language. He is destined to appear as her opponent, required to do so by Templar rules, despite obviously not wishing her death. Rebecca is not reluctant to point out how the strictness of his adherence to Templar rules tends to vary.

". . . If I appear, then thou diest, even although thy charms should instigate some hot-headed youth to enter the lists in thy defence.”

“And what avails repeating this so often?” said Rebecca.

“Much,” replied the Templar; “for thou must learn to look at thy fate on every side.”

“Well, then, turn the tapestry,” said the Jewess, “and let me see the other side.”

“If I appear,” said Bois-Guilbert, “in the fatal lists, thou diest by a slow and cruel death, in pain such as they say is destined to the guilty hereafter. But if I appear not, then am I a degraded and dishonoured knight, accused of witchcraft and of communion with infidels—the illustrious name which has grown yet more so under my wearing, becomes a hissing and a reproach. I lose fame, I lose honour, I lose the prospect of such greatness as scarce emperors attain to—I sacrifice mighty ambition, I destroy schemes built as high as the mountains with which heathens say their heaven was once nearly scaled—and yet, Rebecca,” he added, throwing himself at her feet, “this greatness will I sacrifice, this fame will I renounce, this power will I forego, even now when it is half within my grasp, if thou wilt say, Bois-Guilbert, I receive thee for my lover.”

“Think not of such foolishness, Sir Knight,” answered Rebecca, “but hasten to the Regent, the Queen Mother, and to Prince John—they cannot, in honour to the English crown, allow of the proceedings of your Grand Master. So shall you give me protection without sacrifice on your part, or the pretext of requiring any requital from me.”

“With these I deal not,” he continued, holding the train of her robe—“it is thee only I address; and what can counterbalance thy choice? Bethink thee, were I a fiend, yet death is a worse, and it is death who is my rival.”

“I weigh not these evils,” said Rebecca, afraid to provoke the wild knight, yet equally determined neither to endure his passion, nor even feign to endure it. “Be a man, be a Christian! If indeed thy faith recommends that mercy which rather your tongues than your actions pretend, save me from this dreadful death, without seeking a requital which would change thy magnanimity into base barter.”

Bois-Guilbert piles his weak arguments higher and higher but with such conviction, augmented by the customs of his environment and companions, it's quite plausible that a thin, shaky foundation can be rationalised by him as firm and immutable. Yet, truth is truth, and Rebecca consistently shows his tangled rationalisations for what they are.

This conflict is the sharpest example of one Scott presents in various forms between different characters. The loose morals of Friar Tuck are presented as charming and to the advantage of the heroes, yet even he is ultimately not portrayed as a purely good man. King Richard is portrayed as a saviour and yet Scott is critical of Richard's lack of commitment again and again.

Scott gives the reader ample food for thought in a deeply pleasing package. It's a lovely book.

The Disinherited Knight Appears

I've been reading Walter Scott's 1820 novel Ivanhoe again lately. I read about half of it a year ago and got distracted reading other things so I started it again. I'm enjoying it much more, which I partially attribute to reading it in paperback instead of on my Kindle. The physical paper and ink somehow suits the dignity of the novel better. That dignity is certainly integral and part of the reason I found it difficult to read before.

Scott is clearly in love with The Canterbury Tales and The Faerie Queene among many other medieval and romantic works. Sometimes it prevents Ivanhoe from breathing its own life and even when I'm enjoying it it's certainly on a more nostalgic, distant level than I enjoy the more red-blooded Shakespeare plays Scott quotes from. Nonetheless, the jousting tournament Scott describes has many thrilling, even cinematic, moments.

The trumpets had no sooner given the signal, than the champions vanished from their posts with the speed of lightning, and closed in the centre of the lists with the shock of a thunderbolt. The lances burst into shivers up to the very grasp, and it seemed at the moment that both knights had fallen, for the shock had made each horse recoil backwards upon its haunches. The address of the riders recovered their steeds by use of the bridle and spur; and having glared on each other for an instant with eyes which seemed to flash fire through the bars of their visors, each made a demi-volte, and, retiring to the extremity of the lists, received a fresh lance from the attendants.

And I do share Scott's sentiment in moments where he drags the action to a halt just to muse on the things that have come and gone.

At length the barriers were opened, and five knights, chosen by lot, advanced slowly into the area; a single champion riding in front, and the other four following in pairs. All were splendidly armed, and my Saxon authority (in the Wardour Manuscript) records at great length their devices, their colours, and the embroidery of their horse trappings. It is unnecessary to be particular on these subjects. To borrow lines from a contemporary poet, who has written but too little:

“The knights are dust,
And their good swords are rust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust.”
[Scott quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge]

Their escutcheons have long mouldered from the walls of their castles. Their castles themselves are but green mounds and shattered ruins—the place that once knew them, knows them no more—nay, many a race since theirs has died out and been forgotten in the very land which they occupied, with all the authority of feudal proprietors and feudal lords. What, then, would it avail the reader to know their names, or the evanescent symbols of their martial rank!

I also appreciate some of the extensive detail he goes into when describing clothing and faces, particularly in the early chapters. If you slow down and really work with him, you'll find he conjures some really vivid pictures. And some of it really conveys a unique sense of medieval places. I particularly liked this bit:

No fewer than four silver candelabras, holding great waxen torches, served to illuminate this apartment. Yet let not modern beauty envy the magnificence of a Saxon princess. The walls of the apartment were so ill finished and so full of crevices, that the rich hangings shook in the night blast, and, in despite of a sort of screen intended to protect them from the wind, the flame of the torches streamed sideways into the air, like the unfurled pennon of a chieftain. Magnificence there was, with some rude attempt at taste; but of comfort there was little, and, being unknown, it was unmissed.