The Judicial Duel on Trial
The prominence and potency of the judicial duel as a recurring motif throughout medieval literature most likely originates in its innate ability to thrillingly resolve narrative conflicts of morality and law within the plausible context of a contemporarily accepted legal procedure. This form of trial by ordeal is therefore lauded in numerous texts as an unerring arbitration ordained by the justice of God, as seen in such instances as The Song of Roland. The psychological and emotional complexities of the Arthurian romance, however, seem to complicate this legally discernable binary between good and evil. Most noticeably, the judicial duel featured in Sir Thomas Malory’s rendition of “The Knight of the Cart” appears to question the efficacy of this secularly sanctified swordfight even as the narrative’s external events apparently vindicate the trial’s spiritual premises. Both Vickie L. Ziegler and R. Howard Bloch note similar Arthurian instances in which the oaths intrinsic to a judicial duel are carefully structured so as not to incriminate the defendant. But whereas Bloch holds that these dubious oaths deliberately undermine the fundamental tenets of “Deo judicio,” Ziegler proposes that this moral ambiguity is instead the result of the paradigmatic differences between a pre-Christian tradition and Christian doctrine (Bloch 4). By considering the construction and consequences of this trial by combat in reference to these contrasting critiques, an examination of Lancelot’s clash with Meleagant might thereby indicate that the judicial duel was not merely an archaic yet irreducible institution either to be affirmed or undermined, as Bloch suggests, but that its very existence juxtaposed the pagan oath with the Christian soul. This inherent dichotomy between the external objectivity of the pre-Christian oath and the internal subjectivity of the Christian soul thus manifests within Malory’s work as a nigh-insoluble riddle concerning the justice of Nature and the nature of Justice.
In order to fully appreciate the subtle ways in which Malory operates within the framework of the trial by combat, the definitions and origins provided by Bloch and Ziegler may help to establish the historical context of the judicial duel as it pertains to “The Knight of the Cart.” According to Bloch, the trial by combat “belongs to the series of ordeals common to any primitive sense of justice in which legal process remains indistinguishable from divine process, human will from godly will, positive law from divine law” (Bloch 42). These other “archaic practices” refer to “the unilateral ordeals of trial by fire, water, burning oil, or coal and the bilateral ‘ordeal of the cross,’” but the “bilateral ordeal of combat” specifically “had its roots in Germanic times, when a fight was the remedy of choice for dispute settlement” (Bloch 40, 43 Ziegler 7). Thus, the judicial duel’s secular, pagan beginnings readily resonate with the pre-Christian origins of the Arthurian mythos. As Europe became increasingly Christianized, however, “this ancient custom received a specifically Christian framework, becoming a judgment of God” (Ziegler 7). This incorporation of the “role of God as the guarantor of justice” subsequently became a crucial determinate of innocence or guilt “in which there were no witnesses or no credible witnesses,” as will be demonstrated by the case of Guinevere; for, “in such cases” as the queen’s trial, “God was called as a witness” (Ziegler 119, 1-2). Thus, the judicial duel as it exists in this Arthurian romance combines an evaluation of both physical strength and moral righteousness, characterized by the dualistic incorporation of pagan law and Christian faith.
The underlying philosophical mechanism beneath the judicial duel, that of immanent justice, might be made most readily visible within “the actual content of the regulations” (Ziegler 8). Because of the immanent nature of the trial by combat, every aspect must thereby be considered in terms of God’s justice overruling man’s agency, even in “major areas” of the trial’s regulations such as “who was eligible to fight” (Ziegler 8). Lancelot’s success in this fight is allowed—and ultimately guaranteed—by the rule which states that “women, ecclesiastics, and those who were ill were allowed to use a champion” (Ziegler 8). Because Meleagant’s legal accusation of adultery is directed toward a woman and injured knights, this particular trial automatically entails their legal representation by a champion. This concept of championship is vital in that it does not directly involve the fighter in the legal and moral embroilment but rather allows an able-bodied individual to function as the physical proxy for the validity of the defendant’s oath, further proving Ziegler’s observation that “the combatants in a judicial duel are only the instruments of divine justice” (Ziegler 17) Thus, where Bloch’s claims that the judicial duel “represents an attempt to elicit supernatural intervention in human affairs” might hold true in that the trial by combat invokes God’s judgment, Lancelot’s involvement does not aim to “force God to show his hand” as Bloch would suggest, but rather shows the knight offering his body as “the passive [object] of divine scrutiny” (Bloch 43). When Bloch further describes “the assumption that nature remains incapable of indifference to the outcome of earthly events and that the judicial process represents but one expression of a constant dialogue between nature and man,” he does indeed affirm Ziegler’s more explicit claim that “underneath both the ordeal and the oath lay the concept of immanent justice, which presupposed divine intervention on a predictable basis in the conduct of people’s lives” (Bloch 42-43, Ziegler 2). Even Meleagant, who states that “God woll have a stroke in every batayle,” confirms not merely that the invocation of divine intervention in this “immanent legal mode” is automatically entailed by the ritualized procedures of the judicial duel, but furthermore that God, described as personally directing each “stroke” of the swords, will act “as the supreme arbiter who ensures that right triumphs” regardless of the champion’s own failings (Malory 659, Bloch 43, Ziegler 119).
Rather than struggle with a subjective notion of the soul’s internal innocence, “one of the major functions of the ordeal by battle,” as demonstrated by Malory, “was to combat perjury” of an external and objective oath (Ziegler 119). This notion that “the breaking of a promise was equated with perjury” is a remnant of the judicial duel’s pagan origins, and its prominence in “The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere” might therefore suggest a closer adherence on Malory’s part to the pre-Christian roots of the trial by ordeal (Ziegler 119). As a legal process, however, “accusations are therefore repeated orally, publicly and according to set formula,” which is initially issued by Meleagant as thus: “Well I am sure there hath one of hir hurte knyghtes layne with her thys nyght. And that woll I prove with myne hondys, that she ys a traytoures unto my lorde kynge Arthur” (Bloch 45, Malory 658). In this formal oath, Meleagant includes both his indictment of whom he perceives to be the guilty parties, as well as a promise to personally “prove” their guilt with his own “hondys” (Malory 658). But once the accusatory oath is delivered, “denial also takes place in accordance with a fixed pattern requiring verbatim…refutation of the charges,” which Lancelot readily delivers by swearing: “But as to that I say nay plainly, that thys nyght there lay none of thes ten knyghtes wounded with my lady, quene Gwenyver, and that woll I prove with myne hondys that ye say untrewly in that” (Bloch 45, Malory 659). In this manner, “every effort is made not only to force the parties into a situation of direct confrontation, but to establish a clear-cut contradiction between their respective allegations, the assumption being that one of the two will, of necessity, be guilty of perjury” (Bloch 45). This schema furthermore introduces “the fear of perjury in the name of a bad cause,” which prompts Meleagant to warn Lancelot “yet shulde ye be avysed to do batayle in a wronge quarrel” (Bloch 44, Malory 659). Thus, Malory’s approach to the judicial duel is intended not to ascertain the events or culprits of the crime under scrutiny so much as it functions by divinely judging which of the two directly-opposed statements holds literal, objective truth.
The obvious question in response to Malory’s representation of the oath-centered trial by combat is how Lancelot, who was guilty in that he “wente to bedde with the quene,” managed to triumph against Meleagant’s allegations of having “proved” Guinevere “wyth a shamefull dede” (Malory 657-658). As Ziegler notes, however, “according to one view, if the wording of the oath literally covered the facts, the oath was true” (4). By subscribing to this view, Malory allows that Lancelot needs only to avoid committing perjury in order to gain the moral advantage and therefore ensure his victory in the imminent duel. Thus, although Meleagant’s initial accusation against Guinevere—which claimed only “that she was false to the kynge”—would have condemned Lancelot for having taken “hys plesaunce and hys lykynge” with the queen (Malory 658, 657). But in their formal exchanges of oaths, Lancelot does not directly respond to this charge but instead defends the innocence of “thes ten knyghtes wounded,” then qualifies his oath by adding “Now, what sey ye?” (Malory 659). Rather than stand by his original oath, the hasty Meleagant falls for this breach of etiquette by readjusting the conditions of his own oath by replying, “Thus I say…here ys my glove that she ys a traytoures unto my lorde kynge Arthur, and that thys nyght one of the wounded knyghtes lay wyth her” (Malory 659). By rashly adjusting his challenge in response to Lancelot’s defense, Meleagant modifies his accusation so that, in order for his oath to prove literally true, “one of the wounded knyghtes” sleeping near the queen would have to be guilty, regardless of whether Guinevere is innocent or not (659). Thus, Meleagant’s “carelessness with words” ensures that “the Queen's originally indefensible position becomes justifiable once again,” and that rather than committing perjury, “Lancelot's cause, through the unconscious mishandling of judicial formula, unexpectedly becomes the right cause” (Bloch 46). Though Bloch had intended those prior comments to demonstrate “further doubt concerning the efficacy of the immanent legal system,” the mere fact that such a fitting evaluation can be drawn from an entirely separate trial with an altogether different source serves to further prove the validity of Malory’s interpretation of the judicial duel as reliant on the objective verification of an oath whose meaning, which needs only to be true on an externally demonstrable level, “functioned independently of bystanders” (Bloch 45, Ziegler 5).
Although the Church would have deemed Lancelot’s “false oaths that were literally true” as “deceptions,” the likes of which Bloch has argued “only serve to undermine credence in the fundamental tenets of feudal justice,” both Bloch’s analysis and the Christianized “social frame of reference” regarding efficacy of the oath fail to fully consider “the obvious seriousness of arriving for trial without a defender” (Ziegler 3-5, Bloch 42, 50). Because “failure to defend oneself or to provide for representation carries the force of confession,” Lancelot was faced with a choice of either allowing Guinevere to be “brought tyll a fyre to be brente” or to doom them both by “defending a cause in which defeat is a foregone conclusion:” (Malory 661, Bloch 44). His early absence, however, proves through the other members of the court that Guinevere’s cause is not a “wronge quarrel” at all (659). Here, despite Bloch disparagement of “the feudal accusatory system of Arthur’s court” in favor of “the inquisitory system,” Arthur reveals that, as the mortal judge presiding over this trial, he has personally investigated the details of the case, having “spokyn with all the ten wounded knyghtes” to find that “there ys nat one of them, and he were hole and able to do batayle, but he wolde prove uppon sir Mellyagaunce body [that it is fals that he puttith upon Arthur’s] {lady}” (Malory 661). Because “in medieval legal life a witness made a fact true by his willingness to put his life on the line,” the readiness of these ten knights to defend Guinevere, despite having witnessed the evidence of “that bloode” which put Meleagant “at suche avauntayge,” proves that Meleagant’s accusation is not as morally sound as he had presumed, especially when Lancelot unveils “the treson of sir Mellyagaunte,” which renders the entire court “ashamed on hys behalffe” (Ziegler 3, Malory 658, 662). Based on “the premise that God judges according to the comparative moral status of the two contestants,” this endows the secretly sinful Lancelot, who is defending the truthfully treasonous Guinevere, with a moral standing relatively superior to the continually shameful and treacherous deeds of Meleagant (Bloch 43). By the time the actual duel commences, judgment has already been passed, putting Lancelot and Guinevere’s cause so far in God’s favor—compared to the oath-breaking Meleagant—that Lancelot wins half-armored and with one hand literally tied behind his back.
Despite the Christianization of Europe, which initially rejected the Germanic externality of the trial by combat and eventually abolished the practice altogether, the judicial duel which forms the climax of “The Knight of the Cart” operates by recalling its feudal origins in a singularly pre-Christian frame of reference. Whereas R. Howard Bloch makes no distinction of the underlying dichotomy that defines the Arthurian trial by ordeal, Vickie L. Ziegler proposes two contemporaneous interpretations of the judicial duel: that of the pagan tradition, which allows the oath to objectively function based on literal fact; and that of the Christian doctrine which, which hinges instead on the subjective truth within the soul. Because this trial proves itself to be “structured around a well-defined and undeviating series of binary options,” it seems Malory is granting this feudal procedure one last chance to redeem itself through the transient manifestation of its traditional pagan form (Bloch 48-49). But, caught as it is between the convoluted complexities of the “Poisoned Apple” trial and the catastrophic consequences of the “Vengeance of Sir Gawain” duel—both of which viciously deconstruct the tenuous equilibrium that holds the trial by combat intact—it seems this final affirmation of feudal law is merely an artificial sense of legal stability which, in its inability to truly reconcile the doctrines of two diametrically opposed moralities, ultimately prefigures the downfall of the feudal Arthurian order.
Works Cited
Bloch, R. Howard. "From Grail Quest to Inquest: The Death of King Arthur and the Birth of France." The Modern Language Review 69 (1974): 40-55. JStor. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3725198>.
Sir, Malory, Thomas. Works [of] Malory. Oxford [Eng.]: Oxford UP, 1977.
Ziegler, Vickie L. Trial by Fire and Battle in Medieval German Literature (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture). New York: Camden House, 2004.