Loyalty and Treason in Some Middle English Breton Lays

Abstract

Middle English Breton lays often depict a feudal world that rests on mutual trust and fealty between a lord and his vassals, and in which love relations are conceived in terms of a covenant that binds the knight to his beloved, whether mortal or fairy. Be it at court, in a family or simply a married couple, the harmonious unity of a social group depends on the loyalty of its members to its representative, values and beliefs. The stability and order of a group and the lovers’ unbreakable vow of fidelity are always jeopardised by a felonious character that acts as a treacherous opponent in thwarting the designs of the hero or heroine in their quest for self-fulfilment. The severance of close political, familial, marital and amorous ties at the hands of a traitor brings about a crisis that needs to be resolved. Though a secondary figure in the plot, the villain actually fulfils a significant dramatic role, that of the blocking agent bent on impeding the main protagonist’s progress to successful recognition by the community and/or the beloved. The study of the Breton lays and the Franklin’s Tale focuses on a multi-faceted key notion in the Middle Ages: pledging and keeping one’s word and its opposite, breaking one’s promise or betraying one’s pledge.