Sir Gowther is a MIDDLE ENGLISH verse ROMANCE in
12-line TAIL-RHYME stanzas. It is composed in a
northeast Midland dialect, and tells the popular
story known generally as “Robert the Devil”—the
story of the violent deeds of a man sired on a mortal
woman by a devil. The best-known and earliest
written version of the story is a 12th-century
French poem of 5,000 lines called Robert le Diable,
which is associated with the father of William the
Conqueror, Robert, the sixth duke of Normandy—
a man whose violence and cruelty were legendary.
While some have assumed the French poem to be
the source of the English one, the story existed in
a number of languages in chronicles, miracle plays,
sermon exempla, romances, and in oral and written
folktales. Sir Gowther is known as one of the
Middle English “Breton LAIS,” though it also bears
some similarities to the genre of SAINTS’ LIVES.
In the poem Gowther’s mother is unable to
have a child with her husband, and prays desperately
for a baby. The Devil hears her prayer, and engenders
Gowther with her, apparently in the guise
of her husband. But Gowther’s demonic heritage
manifests itself quickly: He grows teeth as an infant.
He also grows prodigiously, and his voracious
appetite kills nine wet nurses, before he ultimately
bites off his own mother’s nipple. As he grows up,
he engages in a series of barbarous acts, including
raping a convent of nuns. His father, in an effort
to rein in his wild lawlessness, has him baptized
and makes Gowther a knight, but the chivalric
code means nothing to Sir Gowther, and he continues
his evil ways until, one day, an old earl reveals
to Gowther that his father was thought to be
a demon. The shock of this leads Gowther to confront
his mother at knifepoint to discover the
truth.
It is the truth that sets Gowther on the road to
redemption. After first going to Rome and confessing
his sins, he begins a long period of penance. He
is made mute, cut off from humanity in the wilderness,
and condemned to eat only the food brought
to him by dogs. From here he enters the emperor’s
court, where he assumes the role of Hobbe the Fool,
taking a position under the table with the dogs,who
continue to bring him food, now from the hand of
the emperor’s mute daughter, with whom Gowther
carries on a chaste relationship despite their mutual
silence. During a three-day tournament between the
forces of the emperor and the Saracen forces of a
sultan who is a suitor for the hand of the emperor’s
daughter, Gowther prays each day for a shield,
horse, and armor to fight the Saracens. His mute
prayers are answered, and on three successive days,
he defeats his foes on the battlefield in disguise, and
returns each night to his position under the table.
Only the daughter knows of his exploits. But when
he is wounded in the shoulder, the lady is so distressed
that she leaps from a tower. She lies comatose
for three days, but finally awakens and,
miraculously, is able to speak. She absolves Gowther,
and in doing so ends his penance, restoring him to
his full humanity. The two marry. Gowther ends up
inheriting the German Empire, marrying his
mother to a new husband, and building an abbey to
atone for his sins against the nuns.
Sir Gowther survives in two 15th-century manuscripts—
British Museum Royal MS 17 B.43, and
the National Library of Scotland MS Advocates
19.3.1.While the manuscripts are substantially the
same, the British Museum manuscript (which is
the younger of the two) leaves out the description
of Gowther’s ravishing of the nuns. It also adds a
section identifying Gowther with the eighth century
English saint Guthlac,who founded Croyland
Abbey. It seems likely that the two manuscripts
were intended for different audiences—that the
audience of the British Museum manuscript was
more refined, less interested in the violent or scurrilous
details, and more interested in hearing a
saint’s life. Clearly the popular folktale had a broad
appeal across different social classes.
Bibliography
Hopkins, Andrea. The Sinful Knights: A Study of Middle
English Penitential Romances. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990.
Marchalonis, Shirley. “Sir Gowther: The Process of a
Romance,” Chaucer Review 6 (1971): 14–29.
Sir Gowther, in The Middle English Breton Lays, edited
by Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury. Kalamazoo,
Mich.:Medieval Institute Publications, 1995.