Kitchen Knights in Medieval French and English Narrative: Rainouart, Lancelot, Gareth

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Cooks, kitchen staff, and house servants, such as carvers and table servers who are not knights, figure in many medieval narratives too numerous to cite here, for instance in all five of Chrétien de Troyes's twelfth-century Arthurian romances and in the Tristan tradition as well as in thirteenth-century texts such as Le Bel Inconnu and the Mule sans frein. Space has limited this exploration to three kitchen knights but there are many analogues, such as Ganelon and the cooks in the Chanson de Roland and the Havelok tradition. There are many episodes in which Lancelot undergoes a period of madness in the French and English verse and prose Arthurian traditions. Though in other episodes he eats raw food, as does Yvain in the Chevalier au Lion, this is the only episode in which his gluttony, cookery, and eventual obesity become major factors. Translations and paraphrases from the Old French and Malory are my own. Jeanne Wathelet-Willem has put forth the origin of this nickname as related to the carrying device Rainouart uses to carry buckets of water and as a kitchen utensil and weapon. See also Herman. A variant of this culinary detail in the Chanson de Guillaume (G2) is “Et faire .I. poivre et .I. oisel torner” [And make a pepper sauce and turn a bird]. See Suard's study of battlegrounds and other epic spaces in Aliscans. Other elements of what I have called culinary comedy not treated by the present study, such as food fights between knights, drunkenness, ruses involving food, and food stealing, in other romances are explored in my “Culinary Comedy in French Arthurian Romance.” In one of the few existing studies on Rigomer, Neil Thomas has seen the romance as an ironic counterfeit of French Grail romances and notes analogues in other Gauvain romances as well. Elsewhere in Rigomer Lancelot engages in nontraditional fighting, such as fighting with a piece of wood from the cooking fire as a weapon or fighting against cats. See Felicity Riddy (60–83) on the didactic context for Malory's Tale of Gareth and contemporary courtesy books. P. J. C. Field suggests that the name Beaumains may be Malory's translation back into French, albeit bad French, from a lost English source of the tale (69–70). See Paul Beekman Taylor on the etymology and mythological origins of the name Gareth; Taylor's study suggests a link with mythological artificer figures. Thomas L. Wright makes a case for the French prose Suite du Merlin as a source of Malory's Tale of Gareth. Dhira B. Mahoney argues for Ipomedon, Havelok, and other influences. Kay himself appears in Malory and the wider Arthurian tradition as Arthur's foster brother with the title of Cupbearer, Steward, or Seneschal. He often oversees table service at feasts, accompanied by other knights (such as Griflet and Lucan), and this service is never depicted as shameful or lowly, but rather as an honor. Furthermore, he is shown as the keeper of customs; for instance, in Malory before Galahad's arrival on Pentecost, he reminds Arthur of his custom never to eat at a feast before adventure comes to court. Keu, Sir Kay's name in the French verse and prose traditions, echoes the word for cook as in the title of maître-queux. See Gowans for a history of the figure of kay in Europen literature. Additional informationNotes on contributorsSarah GordonSarah Gordon has a PhD from Washington University and MPhil from Oxford. She is assistant professor of French at Utah State University, has an upcoming book on Culinary Comedy in Medieval French Literature, and has published in journals such as Medievalia et Humanistica