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Julie Matsen
10 September 2012
HON 494 – Cambridge Arthurian Legends
Professor D. Facinelli
Women and Power in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
1
On its surface, the title of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is fairly self-explanatory. On
New Years’ Day, Round Table knight and closet-antifeminist Sir Gawain must keep his promise to allow the Green Knight, whose head had been cut off by our hero the New Years’ before, to return the favor. There is a protagonist, Gawain, and an apparent antagonist, the Green Knight.
However, the Green Knight (who turns out to be the local baron Bercilak) doesn’t turn out to be the biggest antagonist to Gawain. Rather, it is the women of the story that pose the greatest threat to this knight of the Round Table. Despite the fact that the main storyline of Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight revolves around the exploits of two men, it is the actions and the very presence of the female characters Lady Bercilak, Morgan le Fay, Queen Guenevere, and notable Biblical women that are the driving force of the plot.
Though Morgan’s scheming is at the crux of the story, the Lady Bercilak herself is the woman who is seen the most. She is the most beautiful woman Gawain has ever seen, even more beautiful to Gawain than Guenevere herself (paraphrased, ll. 943-5). This lady also acts as quite the temptress, eager to try and become the feminine half of the courtly-love archetype. When that doesn’t quite work, she tries taking on “masculine” traits—most notably in giving him beautiful gifts instead of taking them. When he claims he cannot give her presents, she says, “Though you be loath to give [presents], / Ye shall take, by right.” (ll. 1815-6) She first offers Gawain “a rich
1 The edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight used is the one provided on the class Blackboard site. I am uncertain of the translator or origin of this edition.

M a t s e n | 2 ring, wrought all of gold, / With a splendid stone displayed on the band / That flashed before his eyes like a fiery sun” (ll. 1817-19).
2 This gift, despite being described as beautiful and “worth a king’s wealth,” is ultimately rejected by Gawain (l. 1820). Gawain only accepts the Lady’s beautiful green girdle because of its professed magical qualities, which audiences never get to see in action because the Green Knight never actually planned to kill Gawain (paraphrased, ll.
1829-65). For all we know, she deceived him into taking a useless scrap of fabric that had no magic in it at all—but the relevant matter is that she convinced Gawain to take her gift. As
Sharon M. Rowley
3
succinctly puts it, “the Lady’s display of feminine wiles and gender-bending flirtations” are more than a manipulation of “the tropes of femininity” – by “mimicking the way a male courtly lover should woo a lady,” the Lady succeeds in asserting herself as the dominant partner in the relationship (Rowley 159-160). The Lady’s actively “masculine” actions in this regard ostensibly reduce Sir Gawain to the submissive, “feminine” role.
Despite that supposed show of power, she seems to have taken her husband’s orders when she tried to seduce the knight.
4
Rowley points out that modern translations and structuring of the poem “allow the Lady to appear as if she were seducing Gawain because of her own desire, until Bertilak reveals the whole plot to Gawain at the very end of the poem—an act that famously invites a final reassessment of the evidence.” (Rowley 159) It’s worth noting, though, that the wife’s complicity in her husband’s plan to test the knight is only implied and inferred, and never stated outright. The Baron states that his wife “made trial of a man most faultless by
2 I am no expert on medieval romances, but in stereotypical modern love stories, the ring-giver is generally male and the ring-taker is usually female. By reversing this dynamic, the Lady seems to be ignoring her gender role.
3 Rowley, Sharon M. "Textual Studies, Feminism, and Performance in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ." The
Chaucer Review Vol. 38.No. 2 (2003): 158-77. JSTOR . Web. 07 Sept. 2012.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/25094243>.
4 I can’t imagine how that conversation must have gone, with the Baron compelling the Lady to try and seduce
Gawain. “What do you mean, you want me to try and sleep with this random knight who just showed up at our house? Do you think I’m some strumpet?” Or, perhaps more realistically: “Wait, so I have permission this time?”

M a t s e n | 3 far,” but doesn’t mention her degree of involvement beyond that (l. 2362).
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However, the poem’s narrator describes the lady as having “guile in her heart” when she visits Gawain for the second time, coming “at him with all her art / To turn his mind her way.” (ll. 1472-5) Whether that guile is directed at a husband she is trying to keep in the dark or the knight errant she is trying to deceive and seduce is a bit muddled in this translation. Ultimately, it seems that the Lady is trying to deceive Gawain and not Bercilak. Rowley, citing several modern translations of the poem that have differently handled the Lady’s perspective on the events, alleges on page 161 of her essay that some translators have opted to cut a part of the text that reveals the Lady’s foreknowledge of the Green Knight’s plot. The passage “warrants emendation,” according to editors who chose to emend it, “because the Lady’s knowledge of the upcoming ordeal would signal to the reader too soon that Gawain’s host is the Green Knight” (Rowley 161-2). Paul
Battles 6 also argues that “even as feminist critics have… shown that women are central to the poem’s action, editors have obscured or even erased their role in the text” (Battles 323). Battles also questions the Lady’s complicity in her husband’s plans: “Is she his obedient pawn or coconspirator?” (Battles 325) While editing too-obvious foreshadowing out for the sake of preserving the plot is just, in this instance it drastically makes the Lady more ambiguous (and possibly more powerful) than she was originally intended to be. If she is following her husband’s orders or acting as his co-conspirator, then she must be keeping Gawain in the dark; that is more likely, because if she is acting independently (the less likely but still possible option), Bercilak should not have known about the kisses or the girdle.
5 If someone took the Mists of Avalon -style approach to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , i.e. from the female point of view, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Lady was written as just wanting an excuse to try and sleep with Gawain, and convincing her husband that he had thought up the idea of the trials himself.
6 Paul Battles. "Amended Texts, Emended Ladies: Female Agency and the Textual Editing of Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight ." The Chaucer Review 44.3 (2010): 323-343. Project MUSE . Web. 7 Sep. 2012.
<http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/>.

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As it was stated before this paragraph, the Green Knight reveals that the scheme to have his own wife test the resolve and loyalty of Gawain was completely his idea (paraphrased, ll.
2359-68). However, the rest of the plot was not thought up by him:
“Bercilak de Hautdesert this barony I hold,
Through the might of Morgan le Fay, that lodges at my house ….
She guided me in this guise to your glorious hall,
To assay, if such it were, the surfeit of pride
That is rumored of the retinue of the Round Table.
She put this shape upon me to puzzle your wits,
To afflict the fair queen, and frighten her to death
With awe of that elvish man that eerily spoke
With his head in his hand before the high table.”
(ll. 2445-6, 2456-61)
The wooing of Gawain by the Lady may have been the Baron’s idea, but the Baron here plainly admits that the rest of the events were orchestrated by Morgan le Fay, “mistress of Merlin” and accomplished scientist and sorceress (ll. 2447-8). It is unclear why the Baron would be so keen to follow the orders of a woman, unless one considers that he is Baron only because of “the might of Morgan le Fay” and not because of his own power. Morgan here is not an obviously terrible and externally powerful figure like the Baroness; rather, she is an “old withered lady” who seems almost inconsequential, despite her enigmatic air (l. 2463). Where the Lady is young and beautiful, Morgan is old and ugly (paraphrased, ll. 943-969). However, at the Christmas feast, the ancient (and at that point unnamed) lady sat at the highest position, and “the lord at her left hand leaned” (ll. 1001-2). The fact that she exhibits this sheer power over the barony and has the authority to transform the Baron into the Green Knight may have given readers and audiences of the time pause concerning the dangerous amount of influence she wields in this story. Curiously little has been written in recent scholarship regarding Ms. le Fay’s involvement in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , despite her huge role behind the story’s scenes. While the

M a t s e n | 5 power she wielded was neither unheard of nor unprecedented, controlling a baron who is essentially your figurehead takes a large amount of land-based, political power, which would have been a very big deal considering the feudal setting. This power, in addition to her scientific knowledge and her magical abilities, should make Morgan le Fay one of the most feared characters in this story. And yet, the elderly (and ugly) witch is mentioned in passing as being held in high regard in Bercilak’s court, and as being a companion of Lady Bercilak; and the
Green Knight reveals that she essentially holds dominion over the barony he supposedly rules.
Not one character thinks that is too much power for a woman, especially a witch who might know too much about her half-brother Arthur and his kingdom?
These two previously mentioned women are not the only influential ladies in this story.
Queen Guenevere, though she hardly appears in this story, is a marginally important figure
(though she is not nearly as central to the story as the Lady and Morgan). One of the reasons why
Morgan had the Green Knight terrorize Arthur’s house was so that the sight of “that elvish man that eerily spoke / With his head in his hand before the high table” would “afflict the fair queen, and frighten her to death” (l. 2460). And, when Gawain decides to fight the Green Knight initially, he is among those chosen to be sitting by Guenevere (paraphrased, l. 339). In line 945, she is the yardstick that Gawain compares the Lady’s beauty to (though the Queen does come up short in that regard). He might not be in love with Guenevere the way Sir Lancelot is in other legends, but Gawain and the poem’s author still see her as a catalyst for his adventures.
Another surprising set of important figures (though not so surprising if one considers the religious era in which this poem was composed) come from Gawain’s references to the Bible.
Chief among these Biblical women is the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus and Queen of heaven.
While she never physically shows up, she is alluded to multiple times in the earlier sections of

M a t s e n | 6 the poem as a figure and source of power. Her image graces the inside of Gawain’s shield, and
“when his look on it lighted, he never lost heart.” (l. 650) On Christmas Eve, after traveling alone for a long time, Gawain prays that Mary will guide him to a safe dwelling, and beseeches her to let him spend Christmas among other people (ll. 738, 754). Where this New Testament lady is seen as virtuous, other Biblical women are not seen by Gawain in this positive a light. At the very end of the “visit” to the Green Chapel, Gawain asks the Green Knight to give his regards to the Lady of the castle, and then proceeds to go on about valiant men who had been tripped up in Biblical history by their love of women:
“But if a dullard should dote, deem it no wonder,
And through the wiles of a woman be wooed into sorrow,
For so was Adam by one, when the world began,
And Solomon by many more, and Samson the mighty –
Delilah was his doom, and David thereafter
Was beguiled by Bathsheba, and bore much distress ….
And one and all fell prey
To the women that they had used;
If I be led astray
Methinks I may be excused.”
(ll. 2414-19, 2425-28)
By using Old Testament examples of men who had stumbled because of their love of the fairer sex, Gawain seeks to absolve himself of any wrongdoing by blaming it on the evils of women of ill repute. By blaming womankind instead of only the Lady of the castle, Gawain seems to be deflecting blame from Bercilak’s wife as well. Gawain might very well be justified a few lines later, when he learns that the entire episode was orchestrated by Morgan le Fay. These two women, who have apparently hoodwinked the great Gawain quite well, have the same amount of power over the knight as Biblical temptresses (who were forces to be reckoned with in their own rights) had over their male counterparts. It’s notable but not surprising that, while Gawain is

M a t s e n | 7 listing off influential women of the Bible, he leaves Old Testament heroines off his list
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, choosing instead to focus only on those whose actions were detrimental to Old Testament heroes like David, Samson and Adam.
Each of these aforementioned women had significant influence over our hero Gawain during the course of his adventures. Most obviously, Lady Bercilak tries and tests our hero’s chastity and loyalty to a baron whom he barely owes fealty to. Morgan le Fay is the puppeteer of this tale, pulling strings behind the scenes with the seemingly sole purpose of messing with the knights of the Round Table (not to mention Guenevere). Queen Guenevere is a fixture of
Arthur’s court, one that “evil” forces like Morgan le Fay attack and Gawain must defend, much like the Virgin Mary. Even Biblical temptresses (and only one Biblical heroine) are central to defining Sir Gawain’s opinions on the nature of womankind, though those opinions appear to be less than positive. These women are central to the Green Knight as well, as he is married to the
Lady Bercilak and is in the employ of Morgan le Fay, who sent him to frighten Queen
Guenevere. Lady Bercilak and Morgan le Fay are not simply there
, clinging to the story’s outskirts the way Guenevere and the Virgin Mary do. They are catalysts, as active in their roles as are Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
7 If his list of influential Old Testament women had included Queen Esther, who saved her people when they were going to be slaughtered by her husband’s advisors; Rahab, the prostitute who helped the Israelites bring down
Jericho; Miriam, whose quick thinking saves the baby boy who would lead their people out of Egyptian slavery;
Deborah, the judge who led her people’s army against their enemies victoriously; and many, many others, perhaps he wouldn’t have been such an anti-feminist. But, of course, he focuses on the villainesses of the Bible.

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Works Cited
Paul Battles. "Amended Texts, Emended Ladies: Female Agency and the Textual Editing of Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight ." The Chaucer Review 44.3 (2010): 323-343. Project
MUSE . Web. 7 Sep. 2012. <http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/>.
Rowley, Sharon M. "Textual Studies, Feminism, and Performance in Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight ." The Chaucer Review Vol. 38.No. 2 (2003): 158-77. JSTOR . Web. 07 Sept.
2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25094243>.