As we talked about in class, there are too many rules of chivalry and love for a hero obey every single one, and Gawain proved that in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In life no one is perfect: everything and everyone has flaws and hamartia, even if it’s very small, but what separates the good from the great is their ability to overcome that and have the best end result. The kisses the host’s wife gave Gawain put him in a situation where he would have to break at least one of the rules. Rule 11 Courtly Love says, “Thou shalt be in all things polite and courteous,” and so he was polite to the host’s wife in accepting the kisses. But had he entirely followed the Code of Chivalry and “Avoid lying to your fellow man,” he would have caused tension between him and the host. Gawain was trying to respect both the host and the host’s wife but he couldn’t do both because of the wife’s actions. Ultimately, he had to pick between being polite to the wife and the Code of Chivalry Rule, “Avoid deception.” There’s too much overlapping to say that they must obey every single rule.

The rules of chivalry and courtly love are extensive but almost seemingly impossible. It is difficult to be in a situation where each thing has its own rules. The rules that are set seem difficult and some contradict one another.

The art of courtly love states that “nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women,” which is a contradiction of the one above that said “no one can be bound by double love.” As seen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight even though it may be a contradiction, it seems as though it could be done. Sir Gawain is aware of the rules and shows this because he is still in love with his wife, yet avoiding the hosts wife, but still being polite to the hosts wife. This allows for Gawain to be in a tough situation of being polite and providing for the hosts wife and being polite to the host, as well as keeping true to the rules. As easy as it would be for Sir Gawain to be with the host’s wife he kept true to the rules and did not allow himself to give in to her ways.

All these rules in one place are ridiculous. However I have to give kudos to Gawain because I know for a fact most people (including me) could never follow these rules and do what he did. First off the Code of Chivalry states one must be respectful of host, women, and honor. And right off the bat his host asks for this exchange game, and the host’s wife is all over the dude. He kissed her once each day, and took the gift from his wife for himself. Granted, he lied about the gift, however cut the guy a break. I think refusing for 3 days to not mess around with someone’s wife is pretty respectful to the host, and the married woman herself. Much better than what a good amount of people would do, I think.

Secondly, the Code of Courtly Love says “Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the sake of her whom thou lovest”. In that case I think Gawain did pretty. He didn’t cheat, he didn’t ruin a marriage, and didn’t get his head cut off.  If I was about to get my head cutoff, I would probably keep something that prevented it to no matter how honorable I had to be. Does that show weakness? Maybe. But the knight life is clearly not for me. These rules needed to be cut down and re-made

Looking at the handout with the rules of courtly love and chivalry, I not only found it to be some what contradictory but in a sense, almost impossible. I think that it would truly be impossible for one to follow all the guidelines or rules of courtly love and chivalry. Looking closer we can see certain tasks that are almost too ridiculous, if you will, to even take seriously. For example, Leon Gautier writes, “Thou shalt make war against the Infidel without cessation, and without mercy” (Gautier, 1). This was interesting seeing as later it says to stay away from things such as torture, or surprising the enemy, or even fighting an unarmed man. I thought this was fairly interesting because not only did the rules state to be merciless but also how to fight with honor by not doing certain things later stated in the list. This, I could only imagine, was very confusing and hard to follow. As it pertain to Gawain, I believe that he believed in chivalry but did not look at the rules and want to follow them. Those rules seemed more as suggestions because of his actions.

Now looking at the courtly rules, the first two things that struck me were, again, obviously contradicting each other. Towards the top of the list, it basically says that no one can love two people at the same time. However later, it says that both a woman and a man can be loved by two people each. This seemed interesting to me because it is describing two different aspects of love, the lover and the love-e. I can only wonder how these rules would be applied. If two people love a women and she loves them both, who is at fault here? I would then assume the women because she cannot love both, but both can love her? Maybe this is the first glimpse that we can see of a double standard. In Gawain, love and lust, in my opinion, were somewhat blurred together. At times it seemed as though lust got the best of him, especially since he did not even flinch when it came to kissing the wife. I find it hard to understand how these rules, or guidelines may been followed, or even if they were followed at all.

I do not think it is possible for a hero or knight to live up to all of the codes of chivalry and courtly love. So many of them are vague, appear open to interpretation and directly contradict each other. Throughout the reading of the Gawain text, I felt that Gawain experienced many moments when he was torn between different guidelines that he is supposed to follow.

First of all I think the establishment of the guest-host relationship posed difficulty for Gawain from a modern day perspective. The Code of Chivalry calls Gawain to “be respectful of host, women, and honor” in addition he should exhibit self control, show respect to authority (the host), respect women, avoid deception and never betray the confidence of a comrade. When Gawain agreed to play the game with the host he probably didn’t anticipate the host’s wife would try to seduce him. Throughout this three-day seduction process Gawain did a good job showing self-control. But the wife, who he should be respecting as his host and as a woman, practically begged him for intimacy. Although he overcame this temptation by showing such great self control, in the process he seemed to stop showing respect for her because he it would have been impossible for him to respect his host’s wishes and he would have been loving someone that is already committed and rule 3 in The Art of Courtly Love says no one should be bound by a double love. If Gawain had given into the wife’s seduction attempts she would have been bound by double love. However, there is direct contradiction with rule 31 because it says one woman is allowed to be loved by two men.

In every direction Gawain turned in this situation, he would be violating one of the rules he was supposed to follow. Also, by thinking of his own safety he lied to his host. Lying directly violates the rules: avoid lying to your fellow man, never betray a comrade and avoid deception. It was clear that Gawain knew the rules of the game and on the third day he kissed his host but did not hand over the girdle. This is a direct violation of the rules listed above, but if your twist the rules he could be obeying rule 6 which says many people should not know of your love affair, although there was not an affair the girdle could be viewed as a token to give someone after an affair which could have given the host the wrong impression of the days activities. It turns out that Gawain did not hand over the girdle for the greater good. This just creates the question: is one small falsehood acceptable if it saves your own life? In my opinion Gawain would have been an even greater hero if he had handed over the girdle because it would have shown he valued the codes he was to follow even more than his own life, and this selfless act (along with stepping up to play with the Green Knight) would be a great example for other Celtic knights and heroes to follow.

In class today we discussed principals of chivalry and what made a good, noble, brave and thoughtful knight in their time. We dove into the topic of Gawain and how he exemplifies a proper knight and a prime example of being in order spiritually and physically. While throughout the story, Gawain does uphold the standards of chivalry he does eventually break down and breaks the code of “maintaining ones principals” when it came to his relations with a married female.

When it comes to Courtly Love, Gawain again follows the principals set forth for the most part but ends up falling victim to being mindful to avoid falsehood. We see as the story progresses he loses his attention to detail and becomes almost “sloppy” with his practices and it leads to some poor lifestyle choices (With the Lord’s wife being the prime example of this.)

Examining Courtly Love: Rule Number 7: Being obedient in all things to the command of ladies, thou shalt ever strive ally thyself to the service of love

In my opinion obeying this rule could get a knight into trouble. In many situations obeying a woman’s commands could not be the best course of action. For example, if a married woman asked for a knight to be her partner in adultery it could cause shame on the knight and an cause him to have an untrustworthy reputation. In Sir Gawain and The Green Knight he could have ultimately been killed by the Green Knight had he obeyed, and fell victim to the hosts wife’s attempts to seduce him.

Examining The Code Of Chivalry: Rule number 8: Thou shalt never lie, and shall remain faithful to thy pledged word.

I think it may be useful for a knight to diverge from his word in certain instances. If lying means the knight has saved his people or completed his assigned goal or task then it may not be seen as shameful. On the other hand this rule is very important to a knights’ prestige, if he is able to always stay true to his word he will be prestigious and heavily admired. In Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Sir Gawain breaks this code and his lie is shameful, he makes a deal with the host at the castle that they will exchange their winnings when Gawain receives the magic girdle he does not exchange his winnings breaking his pledged word.

Many parts of both The Art of Courtly Love and The Code of Chivalry contradict with one another. In my opinion, it is near impossible to follow these rules. However, I will say this was a very different time period, and we interpret these rules very different than knights back then would have. To them these rules could make perfect sense and be easy to abide by.  In The Code of Chivalry it is stated that a true knight should avoid lying, and talks about honesty and respect playing a large role in the beliefs of a knight. In sir Gawain and the Green Knight, sir Gawain is tested and fails to tell the truth about the green guarder he receives. And this trick the green knight played on sir Gawain was less than honorable. Neither of the two fell under these beliefs of chivalry in the story.

In The Art of Courtly Love, it states nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women. However, in the bible it talks about the belief in the church which strongly disagrees with polygamy. Now the king can make different rules to have more than one wife if he shall please, but this contradicts the knights beliefs because he is to not only follow the church, but also support and protect the king. Again, the green knight, who is supposed to be loyal to the king fails to do so in the story.

          The rules of chivalry and courtly love are vast and extensive to a point where seemingly impossible.  To be placed in such a situation where everything has its own rule and consequence would be extremely difficult. The rules that are set forth are very extreme and some of the rules contradict.

          The art of courtly love makes it apparent that “No one can be bound by a double love”, but farther down the list it reads that “nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.” This is a major contradiction, but after reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight it appears as though both were achievable. Sir Gawain was very aware of the courtly love rulings and evaded breaking these laws by fiercely loving his wife and carefully avoiding the hosts wife; although, Gawain is fearful of also breaking the code of chivalry by not being “polite and attentive” to his hosts wife. This puts Gawain in a difficult predicament as he is suppose to keep up his demeanor as a chivalrous knight and to obey all the rules set in front of him whilst temptation is closing in and uphold his word to the Green Knight.