Sir Eglamour of Artois: Coastal Identities
Sir Eglamour of Artois features a titular hero who falls in love with Cristabel, his lord’s daughter (and heir to Artois). The lord poses three challenges to Eglamour to gain Cristabel’s hand: two involving animals associated with giants (deer and then a boar), and a third focused on defeating a dragon. Before leaving for the third challenge, Eglamour sleeps with Cristabel. While Eglamour is away recovering from his dragon fight, Cristabel gives birth to a son; her father, furious, casts her and her child adrift in a rudderless boat. She washes ashore on an island, where a griffin abducts her infant; he is later rescued and raised by the King of Israel. Cristabel then comes ashore in Egypt, where the local king takes her in. After Eglamour spends years in the Holy Land, a series of tournaments bring the family back together (with some mistaken-identity Oedipal incest narrowly avoided), and they all finally return home to claim rule in Artois.
Keywords: forest; coastline; sea travel; boar
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Citation
Middle English passages on this page have been quoted from:
Anonymous. 2006. Four Middle English Romances: Sir Isumbras, Octavian, Sir Eglamour of Artois, Sir Tryamour, 2nd Edition, ed. Harriet Hudson. Medieval Institute Publications. Click here to access this edition.
All Modern English translations were done by the website author, with recourse to the Middle English Dictionary and glosses in the cited edition(s).
Possible Provenance:
The map of Great Britain above highlights the possible provenance(s) — that is, place(s) of composition — suggested by scholars for this romance. The numbered markers denote the areas depicted by 360-degree photos or videos I have included on this page, listed in the order that they appear in my discussions below.
In the map, click the box icon in the upper-lefthand corner to display the legend.
This map is based on information regarding provenance supplied in the cited edition(s) of this romance, along with the linguistic analysis found in: Purdie, Rhiannon. 2008. Anglicising Romance: Tail-Rhyme and Genre in Medieval English Literature D.S. Brewer.
Scene 1: Boar on the Beach
Forth he wente, I undyrestonde,
A fortnyght jurnay on the londe
And als mykyll be the see,
Tyll agayn an evyn tyde
In a forest ther he gan ryde
As the bore was wont to be.
Tokenyng of hym sone he fond:
Sleyn men on ylke a hond,
That grymly it was to se.
Sir Eglamour rest hym undur an ake
Tyll on the morn that he gan wake,
The sonne rose and schone.
Aftyr into the forest he drowgh,
Of the see he herde a swowgh
And thydur the knyght ys gon.
Bryght helmes fond he strowed wyde where
That men of armes had leved there;
The wykked bore had hem sleyn.
Tyll a clyf of stone then rydes he
And seys the bore com fro the see;
Hys morn drynke has tane (ll. 361-81).
He went forth, I understand,
A fortnight’s journey on the land
And as much by sea.
[He travelled] Until on an evening
In a forest he rode
Where the boar was wont to be found.
He soon found tokens of him [the boar]:
Slain men lay on every side,
That was grim to see.
Sir Eglamour rested himself under an oak,
Until he awoke in the morning,
[When] the sun rose and shone.
Then he drew himself into the forest;
He heard the swell of the sea
And there the knight is gone.
Bright helms he found strewn all about,
That men of arms had left there;
The wicked boar had slain them.
To a cliff of stone he then rides
And sees the boar come from the sea;
He has taken his morning drink.
This scene features one of the most extended descriptions of affective environmental experience in the romance, as Eglamour follows his senses through the forest to the sea. As in Avowying, the boar’s lair here is surrounded by the material and corporeal remains of past knights; as in Amadace, these remains seem to abut, and perhaps flow out onto, the shoreline that the boar has claimed, and where the battle will take place.
This image shows a seaside hill topped with vegetation, and separated from a sandy beach (and exposed mudflats) by a retaining wall. This beach extends into the Humber Estuary from the Tetney Marshes.
I have elsewhere paired this scene with 360-degree images of the tidal island at Spurn Point on the Yorkshire coast. Here, I instead jump to the other side of the Humber Estuary, and present an image taken on the beach at Tetney Marsh, looking out across the mudflats of the low-tide Humber towards the Spurn. Occasional bits of washed-up trash and vegetation, along with an abandoned support post, thankfully take the place of armor and human bones. The reinforced seawall behind the photographer evokes an artificial cliff, while the shrubs peaking over the rise evoke at least the scrub ecotone between forest and beach from which Eglamour pauses to observe the sea-drinking boar. Usefully, this section of the beach is marked by many paw, foot, and tire prints, as such a space would be remade by the tracks of the boar on its regular way to “take his morning drink.” The strand becomes a space of confrontation and comingling between past, present, and future, the sea about to erase such footprints only for future traffic to remake them.
This photograph shows stony cliffs abutting a beach of rock and sand on Cayton Bay; the promontory visible in the (northern) distance in the initial view hosts the remains of Scarborough Castle.
The second image, meanwhile, is from Cayton Bay, further up the Yorkshire coast. The keep of Scarborough Castle can just be seen on the promontory to the north, while closer in the foreground a twentieth-century concrete pillbox decays into the sand, being deconstructed by the waves. The dramatic cliffs abutting the beach evoke the perspective of Eglamour arriving to observe the coastal landscape, demonstrating how topography shapes one’s approach to, and understanding of, an environment as one enters it. The wall of cliffs also helps to focus the viewer’s attention on the meeting of sea and land on the strand – just as in the romance, while Eglamour arrives through the forest, his observation of the boar focuses the scene on the surf, an ecotonal space surrounded by cliff and sea with the boar framed at its center. After the battle, of course, Eglamour will take the boar’s place, and be himself observed by travelers at the cliff’s edge.
Scene 2: Cristabel Comes Ashore in Egypt
All nyght on the roche sche lay,
A wynd rose agayn the day
And fro the lond here dryves.
Sche had nothere mast ne rothere
Butt ylke storme strengere then odur
Strongly with her stryves.
As the boke of Rome sayes,
Sche was meteles syx dayes:
Hyr herte for care hyt clevys.
Butt the sixte day or none
God sent here socoure sone:
In Egypte up sche ryves.
The kyng of Egypt stod in a toure
And sygh the lady whyte as floure,
Was wroken on the sonde.
He commaundyd a sqwyere to go and se
And loke what in the schyp may be;
The wynd has dryven hit to londe.
For feyntenes sche spake no worde;
The lady lyfte up hyr hode
And made sygnes with here hond.
To the schyp sche come full tyte,
And on the syde gan he smyte:
The lady gan up stoned.
He wyste never what sche ment;
Agayn to the kyng ys he went
And kneled on hys knee.
“Lord, in the yondur schip nothyng ys
But a woman in lykenes
That rose and loked on me.
A fayrer thyng sawe I never non,
Nothere of flesch, blode ne bon,
But hyt were Mary fre.
Sche makes me synes with her hond
As sche were of another lond
Beyonde the Grekus see.”
“Be Jhesu!” sayde the gentyll kyng,
“I wyll se that swete thyng.”
And thethureward he gose.
Into the schip he goth anone
And bad here speke in Goddys nome (ll. 857-900).
All night on the rock she lay,
A wind rose again [when it was] day
And from the land drives her.
She had neither mast nor rudder
But each storm stronger than the other
Strongly strives with her.
As the book of Rome says,
She was without food for six days:
Her heart cleaves on account of her care.
But [on] the sixth day, before noon,
God soon sent her succor:
She comes ashore in Egypt.
The King of Egypt stood in a tower
And saw the lady, white as a flower,
[Who] was wrecked upon the sand.
He commanded a squire to go and see
And look what might be in the ship;
The wind has driven it to land.
Because of faintness she spoke no word;
The lady lifted up her hood
And made signs with her hand.
To the ship [h]e came quite quickly
And he smote the side [of the ship];
The lady stood up.
He never knew what she meant;
Again to the king he went
And kneeled upon his knee.
“Lord, in yonder ship there is nothing
But one in the likeness of a woman
Who rose and looked upon me.
I have never seen a fairer thing,
Neither of flesh, blood, nor bone,
Unless it was noble Mary.
She makes signs to me with her hand
As [if] she were from another land
Beyond the Greek’s [i.e., Mediterranean] Sea.”
“By Jesus!” said the gentle king,
“I will see that sweet thing.”
And [to her] there he goes.
Into the ship he quickly goes
And bade her speak, in God’s name.
In this environmental episode, Cristabelle, parted from her son, disconsolately lies in her rudderless boat as storms drive it once more to sea. Eventually, her vessel wrecks on the coast of Egypt, as seen by the local king from his seaside tower. Partially objectified by both king and squire, Cristabel embodies here the perilous position of people, animals, and items washed ashore in a strange land. The beach invites (re)categorization and (re)definition; for more examples, see further Chapter 2 in my monograph.
This image shows the view of North Sea beaches (to north and south) visible from the top of a wall tower on the grounds of Scarborough Castle. The remains of the castle keep are visible behind the photographer (that is, to the north).
The paired image here shows the view from the southern tower of Scarborough Castle, on the Yorkshire coast. Beaches can be seen to the north and south from the high promontory that provides the castle’s foundation, while the remains of the castle keep display two windows framing the sky, the architectural reminder of a lookout point perhaps even better suited to the vantage of the Egyptian king. Even in its degraded state here, the remains of the castle dominate the local landscape, town and beach alike, providing a clear view for miles in all directions. The beach here immediately abuts the township, an extension of human industry and, in medieval times, the local lord’s authority towards the water’s edge. The pride flag flying overhead, along with the mask worn by the photographer, place front-and-center the juxtaposition of past and present in this place – a contrast especially appropriate, of course, to coastal environment. As Cristabelle finds herself washed ashore and questioned as an outsider – with a clear undertone of threat, initially, to the squire’s entreaties – so the viewer must try to reconstruct the presented literary scene with pieces known from the “foreign land” of modern-day experience. Cristabelle, at first, can only communicate in signs; the beach environment invites rewriting one’s own history as one also seeks to negotiate the new land, its denizens, and their customs. The romance here imagines all Christian aristocrats as once community, with the king invoking God’s name in order to communicate with Cristabelle. But as such cultural homogeneity was itself a medieval fantasy, so to is the idea that access to modern vantages of medieval castle can provide any but a partial glimpse of past environments.