Category: Departments & Disciplines

Posted on

Mearcstapan: Monsters Across the Border

The language of monstrosity has long been used to demonize the other, the foreigner, the alien and the immigrant.

In the Old English poem, Beowulf, the Grendelkin are quintessential outsiders—lurking in the shadows and haunting the wilderness as scuccan ond scinnan “demons and monsters” (939). But the Grendelkin are also characterized with a measure of sympathy. Grendel is depicted throughout as a human suffering in exile, portrayed as rinc “man” (720), who is dreamum bedæled “bereft of joys” (721, 1275), and as feasceaft guma “miserable man” (973), forced to wræclastas tredan “tread the paths of exile” (1352).

Early in the poem, the narrator introduces Grendel as:

Wæs se grimma gæst   Grendel haten,
mære mearcstapa,   se þe moras heold,
fen ond fæsten;   fifelcynnes eard
wonsæli wer   weardode hwile (102-05).

“The grim spirit was called Grendel, the famous mark-stepper, he who held the marshes, fens and strongholds, the unlucky man guarded the realm of monsterkind a while.”

Grendelkin fleeing Hroðgar’s Danish patrol. Image from Sturla Gunnarsson’s ‘Beowulf and Grendel’ (2005).

The narrator names Grendel a mearcstapa, a compound generally understood to mean “border-walker,” in reference to his wandering in the wild. And later in the poem, Hroðgar characterizes both Grendel and his mother in virtually identical terms:

Ic þæt londbuend,   leode mine,
selerædende,   secgan hyrde
þæt hie gesawon   swylce twegen
micle mearcstapan   moras healdan,
ellorgæstas (1345-49).

“I have heard that the land-dwellers, my people, and hall-counselors say that they saw two such foreign-spirits, great mark-steppers holding the marshes.”

In this passage, the Danish king describes his monstrous neighbors as mearcstapan “mark-steppers” and as ellorgæstas “foreign-spirits” (a compound that highlights their status as other). Although Manish Sharma makes a compelling argument for “marked wanderer” as a possible translation of mearcstapa—referring to the mark of Cain and corresponding to descriptions of the Grendelkin as Cain’s progeny, in Caines cynne “in Cain’s kin” (107)—nevertheless, “border-walkers” remains the preferred interpretation of the Old English compound.

However, a third available translation of mearcstapa is “border-crosser” and this interpretation of the Old English compound focuses on the Grendelkin’s liminality and sorrowful journeying between the Danish kingdom and realm of monsters. Interpreting mearcstapan as “border-crossers” aligns the monstrous Grendelkin with immigrants, migrants, exiles and foreigners—the very groups actively demonized and discriminated against by the current administration, as demonstrated by executive orders and enforcement practices, including (but by no means limited to) President Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban and Zero Tolerance Policy.

A family of asylum seekers are taken into custody by Border Patrol near McAllen, TX on June 12th, 2018. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

In Allison Meier’s recent blog “How Medieval Artists Used Monsters as Propaganda,” discussing the Morgan Library and Museum in New York’s exhibit, Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders, she draws modern-medieval parallels regarding the monstrous characterization of marginalized groups. She notes how Trump’s rhetorical strategies often rely on this sort of stereotyping and fear-mongering, as demonstrated by statements during his announcement of his presidential candidacy in 2015 that those crossing the US-Mexican border were “people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Donald Trump announces his run for presidency at the Trump Tower Atrium in Manhattan on June 16, 2015. Photo by Linda Rosier.

Meier’s point that Trump’s rhetoric on immigration appropriates the language of monstrosity in order to demonize undocumented immigrants and asylum-seeking refugees resonates with the sentiments of the exhibit’s curators, Asa Simon Mittman and Sherry Lindquist, who argue in their accompanying catalogue, “Monstrous imagery was often associated with members of socially disadvantaged groups in order to suggest that they were less than human; such a strategy rationalized repression and could even be used to instigate violence.” I can only add my voice in harmony with those calling for resistance against recent nationalistic and xenophobic (especially anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim) rhetoric, which targets and dehumanizes specific groups of marginalized peoples by characterizing them as monstrous and other.

 The effects of this normalized rhetoric are manifesting and have paved the way for ongoing atrocities and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the United States government. The current administration’s dehumanizing policies on immigration—including separating families, concentrating people in detention centers and holding children in cages—will undoubtedly have lasting social ramifications and could result in future blowback and retaliatory violence.

Son and father from Honduras are taken into custody by Border Patrol near the U.S.-Mexico Border near Mission, Texas. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

Cyclical violence is a frequent occurrence in the martial world of Beowulf. Yet, Grendel’s mother, who comes to avenge the death of her son, surprises Beowulf when she appears in the form of blowback resulting from Grendel’s defeat at the hands of the Geatish champion. Hroðgar, however, is not at all shocked by the monster’s reciprocal violence, and even goes so far as to implicate Beowulf in perpetuating the feud between the Danes and Grendelkin. The Danish king explains that:

Heo þa fæhðe wræc
þe þu gystran niht  Grendel cwealdest
þurh hæstne had   heardum clammum,
forþan he to lange   leode mine
wanode ond wyrde.   He æt wige gecrang
ealdres scyldig,   ond nu oþer cwom
mihtig manscaða,   wolde hyre mæg wrecan,
ge feor hafað   fæhðe gestæled (1333-1340).

“She (Grendel’s mother) then avenged the feud because you (Beowulf) killed Grendel yesternight, through violent nature, with hard grips, since he too long wasted and destroyed my people. He fell at war, guilty of life, and now another mighty criminal-slayer comes, she wished to avenge her kinsman, and has carried on the feud from afar.”

Grendel as a child. Image from Sturla Gunnarsson’s ‘Beowulf and Grendel’ (2005).

In this passage, Hroðgar seems to sympathize with Grendel’s mother’s plight, twice described as a sorhful sið “sorrowful journey” (1278, 2119), and frames her vengeful response to the death of her son in terms of his own feuding culture and revenge obligations. Nevertheless, the Danish king appears able to empathize with his enemy—a mother who has lost her child—perhaps because her situation is all too familiar to the human experience, then as now.

Richard Fahey
PhD Candidate in English
University of Notre Dame


Further Reading:

Baird, Joseph L. “Grendel the Exile,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 67 (1966): 375-81.

Higley, Sara Lynn. “Aldor on Ofre, or the Reluctant Hart: a Study of Liminality in Beowulf,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 87 (1986): 342-53.

Meier, Allison. “How Medieval Artists Used Monsters as Propaganda.” Hyperallergic (July 2, 2018).

Mittman, Asa and Peter Dendle. The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous. New York, NY: Ashgate Publishing, 2013.

O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine. “Beowulf, Lines 702b-836: Transformations and the Limits of the Human.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 23.4 (1981): 484-494.

Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript.  Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Schulman, Jana K. “Monstrous Introductions: Ellengæst and Aglæcwif.” In Beowulf at Kalamazoo: Essays on Translation and Performance, edited by Jana K. Schulman and Paul E. Szarmach, 62-92. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2012.

Sharma, Manish. “Metalepsis and Monstrosity: The Boundaries of Narrative in Beowulf.” Studies in Philology 102 (2005): 247-279.

 

Posted on

Undergrad Wednesdays – An Ugly, Bad Witch

[This post, part of an effort to merge our undergraduate and graduate blogs, was written in response to an essay prompt for Kathryn Kerby-Fulton's undergraduate course on "Chaucer's Biggest Rivals: The Alliterative Poets." It comes from the former "Medieval Undergraduate Research" website.]


A mensk lady on molde mon may hir calle, for Gode!

Dorothy may well have been familiar with Gawain and the Green Knight. When asked whether she is a good witch or a bad witch, the poor girl responds, “I’m not a witch at all. Witches are old and ugly,” perhaps referring to the foul description of Morgan le Fay found in the fourteenth-century Arthurian poem (quoted in full at the end of this article). Glinda, however, may have read the same passage with a greater level of moral heavy-handedness: “Only bad witches are ugly.”

Dorothy and Gawain both challenge green villains – hers an ugly woman, his a fiercely handsome man. At the end of his adventure, however, Gawain learns that the Green Knight derived both his purpose and his greenness from Morgan; ultimately both heroes come up against someone old, ugly, female, and bad.

Morgan makes her loathsome appearance hand-in-hand with the beautiful wife of Bertilak; the two women are contrasted through Gawain’s judgmental male gaze – he sexualizes their physical differences, just as Glinda moralizes the appearances of the witches of Oz. Marie Borroff’s translation of the passage is generally accurate, but she constantly weakens the all-important comparisons which, in the original, so vividly reveal Gawain’s misogynistic mind.

The passage begins in line 941: “Þenne lyst þe lady to loke on þe knyȝt.” Borroff translates “lyst,” which means only “it pleases [her]” to the melodramatic “longed,” which confuses the wife’s motivations from the very start. The wife’s attitude toward Gawain is meant to be ambivalent throughout; twists and turns in the story make it unclear whether she loves him or is merely playing a trick on him. Perhaps Borroff had already transitioned into Gawain’s perspective; the deluded, conceited Gawain already assumes that the lady “longs” to look at him. If so, she has moved into his head too early; “lyst,” neutral as it is, is one of the few verbs we can ascribe to the wife’s true motivations.

Two lines later, the poet has leapt into Gawain’s judgmental gaze: “Ho watz þe fayrest in felle, of flesche and of lyre / And of compass and color and costs, of alle oþer” (943-4). Borroff, however, has left Gawain’s head: “The fair hues of her flesh, her face and her hair / And her body and bearing were beyond praise.” Gawain, in the original, is already comparing women; female beauty for him is always relative. In translation, praising the lady is “beyond” the talent of the narrator, but she is not compared to anything. Borroff’s translation of each noun, however, is admirable; though “lyre” means “cheek,” Borroff’s “hair” is closer to it in sound, and she excellently exchanges the three c-alliterations for b-alliterations. Her use of “hues,” however, is confusing, since “bearing” cannot show a “hue.”

Perhaps the most unfortunate mistranslation in this passage comes in the next line: while the poet cleverly blends adjective and noun through alliteration and assonance – “And wener þen Wenore, as þe wyse þost” – Borroff writes “And excelled the queen herself, as Sir Gawain thought” (945). Borroff’s line employs no alliteration; while she could not use the poet’s w-alliteration, she could have used g-alliteration: “more gorgeous/gracious than Guinevere,” which would also alliterate with “Gawain.” Even this g-alliteration loses the incredible similarity between “wener” and “Wenore” which makes Gawain’s unforgiving comparison of the two women so powerful that it extends even to the level of spelling.

The next line’s mistranslation is debatably even worse: from “Ho ches þurȝ þe chaunsel to cheryche þat hende,” to “He goes forth to greet her with gracious intent” (946). Again, Borroff robs the wife of one of her few verbs; she is meant to “ches” to him, not the other way around. The Pearl poet’s woman pursues Gawain with ambiguous feelings; Borroff’s woman is pursued by Gawain, a man for whom she apparently “longs.”

Finally, Morgan appears. Borroff excellently translates the next few lines, especially 949, in which Borroff maintains the h-alliteration by stretching out the verb to “held in high honor,” since modern English has no h-word for “haþelez,” “knights.” Borroff’s translation of “ȝep” and “ȝolȝe” to “fresh” and “faded” gets across the meaning and alliteration, but it loses the sexualized connotation of “ȝep” and the yellowness of “ȝolȝe” – an undesirable loss in a poem in which color symbolism is so rich and important (951).

The following lines also loses subtlety in color: in Middle English “red” meant everything from purple to pink, and while Borroff’s translation makes “red” modify the wife’s vivid clothes, the poet probably intended “red” to modify her healthy pink skin, to contrast with Morgan’s “ronkled” skin (952-3). However, Borroff’s use of f-alliteration – “Flesh hung in folds on the face of the other” – captures the unpleasant softness of elderly skin more vividly than the poet’s r-alliteration: “Rugh rankled chekez þat oþer on rolled” (953). In this rare example, the translation exceeds the original.

For the sake of alliteration, Borroff changes “Kerchofes” to “a high headdress,” a confusing shift which moves the reader’s eye from the wife’s breast to her head, again de-sexualizing the imagery and removing readers further from Gawain’s gaze (954). This censorship continues when she changes “bare displayed” to “fair to behold” (955). Her wording does not do justice to the wife’s sexualized clothing – whether she is wearing it of her own choice or on her husband’s orders is not stated – nor to Gawain’s observation of it. Furthermore, for the second time, she refuses to use comparisons: the original wife’s breast is “schyrer” than the snow, while the translated wife’s breast is equal to it (956).

Borroff understandably changes “gorger” and “gered” to “wimple” and “wore,” though “wimple” is technically incorrect since it implies that the cloth wraps around the entire head (957). More oddly, Borroff changes “blake” to “swart,” a word which she annotates as “dark” (958). “Swart” blends excellently with “swaddled” and “swathed,” but it is an archaic word, and it loses the direct colorization of “blake,” which can mean “swarthy” and “black” and also carries connotations of sin. Glinda’s morality and Gawain’s sexuality cannot of course be separated; Gawain is also searching Morgan for signs of evil in her ugliness, and he may find it in her “blake” chin.

It is unfortunate that the English language has lost three beautiful words which describe medieval cloth – “chymbled,” “Toret,” and “treleted” – whatever words Borroff uses can only fall short of the original (958, 960).

Borroff translates the next lines accurately, including the essential color imagery in “blake broȝes” to “black brows” and the disgusting rawness in “naked lyppez” to “naked lips” (961-2). However, in two cases she neglects to describe one half of a sensory image, which makes comparison of the two women impossible. Though she describes Morgan’s modesty, she earlier neglected to emphasize the wife’s bare skin; this visual connection is therefore severed in translation (955, 961). She also translates “soure” as “unsightly,” which not only makes the s-alliteration awkward but loses the connotation of “sour taste,” which, in the original, contrasts starkly with the “lykkerwys on to lyk,” “sweet to taste,” younger woman (963, 968). The imagery of taste is the most sexual comparison, and it appears dramatically at the end of the stanza, so its loss takes much away from the characterization of Gawain as a sexual being.

While the bob and the line above it in the original are rich with sarcasm, Borroff’s translation is simply confusing. The Pearl poet calls Morgan “mensk,” which most directly means “honored,” as an elderly person ought to be honored, but it also has connotations of “beautiful,” “honoring one’s wife or mistress,” and even “virginity” (964). Morgan’s sexual history later becomes a method of identifying and denigrating her, so the use of “mensk” here is rich with irony. The joking tone is enforced by the exclamatory bob: “For Gode!” (965) Borroff, on the other hand, writes, “A beldame, by God, she may well be deemed, / of pride!” (964-5). “Beldame” is archaic; “pride” has no source in the original; and the exclamation is lost by burying it in a longer line rather than making it the bob.

The wheel is the most obscene and saddening portrayal of women in the passage, and Borroff excellently captures its imagery and strict rhyme scheme. Gawain’s role as critical observer becomes most vivid in the last two lines: “More lykkerwys on to lyk / Watz þat scho hade on lode;” “More toothsome, to his taste / Was the beauty by her side” (968-9).

By comparing the two women, the narrator – Gawain’s mind – shows scorn for Morgan, whose blackness is not menacing enough to distract from her elderly yellowness, and desire for the wife, whose pinkness and whiteness attract the young knight. However, just as Dorothy’s initial awe for the Wizard turns out to be unfounded, Gawain’s initial impressions of the two women prove false: Morgan is powerful, and the wife’s temptation is Bertilak’s scheme. Marie Borroff’s translation fails to depict the extent to which comparisons consume both this passage and Gawain’s perspective on women. If Dorothy was familiar with Gawain, it was probably only in translation.

Gawain and the Green Knight, lines 941-969:

Þenne lyst þe lady to loke on þe knyȝt, / Then it pleased the lady to look on the knight,
Þenne com ho of hir closet with mony cler burdez. / Then she came from her closed pew with many fair ladies.
Ho watz þe fayrest in felle, of flesche and of lyre, / She was the fairest in skin, of flesh and of cheek,
And of compas and colour and costes, of alle oþer, / And of proportion and complexion and qualities, of all others.
And wener þen Wenore, as þe wyȝe þoȝt. / And more lovely than Guinevere, as the knight thought.
Ho ches þurȝ þe chaunsel to cheryche þat hende. / She made her way through the chancel to greet that man.
An oþer lady hir lad bi þe lyft honde, / Another lady led her by the left hand,
Þat watz alder þen ho, an auncian hit semed, / Who was older than her, an old lady it seemed,
And heȝly honowred with haþelez aboute. / And was highly honored by the knights around.
Bot vnlyke on to loke þo ladyes were, / But dissimilar to look upon those ladies were,
For if þe ȝonge watz ȝep, ȝolȝe watz þat oþer; / For if the younger was fresh/virile, withered/yellowish was the other;
Riche red on þat on rayled ayquere, / Rich pink was arrayed everywhere [on the skin of] on that one,
Rugh ronkled chekez þat oþer on rolled; / Rough wrinkled cheeks on that other one rolled;
Kerchofes of þat on, wyth mony cler perlez, / Kerchiefs of that one, with many clear pearls,
Hir brest and hir bryȝt þrote bare displayed, / Her breast and her pure white throat bare displayed,
Schon schyrer þen snawe þat schedez on hillez; / Shone brighter that snow that falls on the hills;
Þat oþer wyth a gorger watz gered ouer þe swyre, / That other with a gorget was covered over the neck,
Chymbled ouer hir blake chyn with chalkquyte vayles, / Wrapped up over her black chin with chalk-white veils,
Hir frount folden in sylk, enfoubled ayquere, / Her forehead wimpled in silk, covered everywhere,
Toreted and treleted with tryflez aboute, / Made with embroidered edge and latticed with fine stitching all over,
Þat noȝt watz bare of þat burde bot þe blake broȝes, / That nothing was bare of that lady but the black eyebrows,
Þe tweyne yȝen and þe nase, þe naked lyppez, / The two eyes and the nose, the naked lips,
And þose were soure to se and sellyly blered; / And those were unpleasant/sour to see and exceedingly blurred;
A mensk lady on molde mon may hir calle, / An honored/lovely/virginal lady on earth man may call her,
for Gode! / by God!
Hir body watz schort and þik, / Her body was short and thick,
Hir buttokez balȝ and brode, / Her buttocks swelling and broad,
More lykkerwys on to lyk / Sweeter to taste
Watz þat scho hade on lode. / Was she who she had with her.

Karen Neis
University of Notre Dame

Image from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 1939 film ‘The Wizard of Oz’.

Posted on

Practicality over Politics: Jean Gerson and the Dukes of Burgundy

Jean Gerson was perhaps the most influential religious figure in the fifteenth century, reaching nearly all Western Christendom through his preaching, his teaching, and especially his promulgation of his works to an eager body of readers and listeners. Modern scholars of Gerson have shown how widespread the writings of the French prelate were, reflecting a long-standing scholarly consensus that Gerson spoke, intentionally so, to the minds and hearts of the non-elites of the late medieval West. Gerson’s effectiveness as a religious communicator cannot be denied, yet such a conception strangely still understates his work’s reach and efficacy. Examining the surviving manuscripts in the ducal library of the Dukes of Burgundy, we see that Gerson’s works resonated even with those who personally despised the man.

Gerson had a complicated relationship with the Burgundian Dukes. He first made their acquaintance by helping to expel Duke Philip the Bold’s agents at the French court during the Immaculate Conception controversy in 1388. Gerson’s actions led directly to a loss of Burgundian power in France, a loss which Duke Philip spent much of the 1390s trying to recoup. Philip did not punish Gerson for his past transgressions against Burgundian interests. Instead, Gerson’s part in the Immaculate Conception controversy convinced Philip that he needed this talented theologian in his own camp. The duke offered the lucrative position of dean of St. Donatien’s in Bruges to Gerson, hoping the bountiful benefice would entice the theologian to his party. Gerson accepted the position and went to Bruges in 1399. Installing Gerson in Bruges was a coup for the Burgundians: it removed the most talented of the French theologians from the University of Paris, and it ensnared Gerson within the economic web of Duke Philip. Philip undoubtedly hoped his financial offerings would persuade Gerson to permanently abandon French interests for those of Burgundy.

London, British Library MS Harley 4379; Fol. 170v.

Gerson’s working relationship with Burgundy changed after the death of Philip the Bold in 1404. The new duke, John the Fearless, despised Gerson. Duke John lacked his father’s willingness to forgive Gerson for his actions against the Burgundians in the 1380s. Near the time of his ascendancy to dukedom, Duke John removed the Saint Donatien ecclesiastical benefice from Gerson’s possession, citing the canons’ dissatisfaction with Gerson’s methods of governing the church. Historians are unclear as to the root cause behind Duke John’s personal animus toward Gerson, suggesting that the duke viewed Gerson as a French loyalist and thus an obstacle to John’s own ambition at the French court. The tension between the two men reached its apex when Gerson personally sought a condemnation of Duke John by the Council of Constance in 1414 for the assassination of his political rival Louis d’Orleans. The council was a gathering of all the most powerful churchmen in the West, and a public condemnation would have been a devastatingly blow to Burgundian political standing in France. Gerson failed in this venture in Constance, ultimately succumbing to the Burgundian delegation at the council. Nevertheless, by 1414, Gerson’s name had become anathema in Burgundian circles, particularly at the Burgundian court.

What is especially striking is that it was at exactly this moment at the height of the Burgundian and Gersonian feud that the works of Gerson entered the Burgundian court through the patronage of the ducal family. A member of the ducal household commissioned a manuscript of Gerson’s Opus Tripartitum around the year 1410 (Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België MS 11133-35). The Opus was a collection of three small treatises addressing the Ten Commandments (De praeceptis Decalogi), confession (De confessione), and death (de arte moriendi). The Opus Tripartitum was a short work, meant to serve as a practical guide to laypeople and less-educated priests on proper methods for handling these weighty religious issues. The treatise was an international best-seller, gaining even more popularity with the advent of printing and becoming one of the most widely published religious works in the fifteenth century. It enjoyed sixteen printings in the fifteenth century, with versions published in Latin, Spanish, Swedish, German, and Flemish.

So, why did the Burgundian ducal family want a copy of the Opus Tripartitum, a piece crafted by one of the household’s most prominent enemies? If they solely sought thorough theological instruction on the contents of the Opus Tripartitum, there were many such other works readily available to them, such as the Guido of Monte Rochen’s Manipulus Curatorum. If the ducal family sought personal religious instruction, they had their own bevy of Parisian-trained theologians to personally oversee their religious lives. Their choice of Gerson’s Opus Tripartitum indicates that the dukes were not seeking sophisticated explanations of these weighty theological concepts. They instead wanted clear, concise instruction on how to approach issues that weighed on the mind of any conscientious Christian at the time. That the dukes of Burgundy patronized Gerson’s Opus in the early years of the fifteenth century, a period characterized by fraught relationships between the Burgundians and the French (and by extension between the Burgundians and Jean Gerson) speaks to the overwhelming efficacy of Gerson’s work.

As the fifteenth century waned, the popularity of Gerson’s writings waxed at the Burgundian court. By the death of the last Valois Duke Charles the Bold in 1476, the dukes possessed at least five manuscripts by Gerson, and most likely had more. Of the surviving ducal library housed in the Royal Library of Belgium (Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België), Gerson authored the largest number of manuscripts in the dukes’ theological holdings. Despite their political rivalry with the cleric, the Dukes recognized the efficacy of Gerson’s writings, and they put political prejudice aside for their own spiritual instruction. His work was simply the best at what it did. Even his enemies would have been remiss to ignore it.

Sean Sapp
Ph.D. Candidate

Further Reading:

Bernard Guenée, Between Church and State: The Lives of Four French Prelates in the Late Middle Ages trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

Bernard Guenée, Un Meurtre, Une Société: L’assassinat du Duc d’Orleans 23 Novembre 1407 (Paris: Gaillimard, 1992).

E. Steenberghe, Gerson A Bruges Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 31, no. 1 (1935): 5-51.