Cheshire Dialect

The Cheshire dialect has existed for centuries and is distinct from standard British English. The works of the 14th century poets; such as, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and others (Pearl, Patience, and Purity) supposed to be by the Gawain poet are written in this dialect. According to some, this also includes the religious poem St. Erkenwald, which dates from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century.

Perhaps unsurprisingly many of the surviving commonplace dialect words in Cheshire are farming terms, particularly those relating to dairy farming, such as "shippen" (or shippon) from the Old English scypen (cow-shed, stall). It is not unusual to hear "kyne" for cattle. However Gawain is a much older text and contains words and even alphabetic characters which have long since passed out of commonplace usage, although they were at the time representative of the "standard" form of English as written in Cheshire.

As well as "Gawain" another route into the perculiar language of Cheshire are the Chester Mystery Plays, of which the written texts which survive appear to date from the 16th century. It is worth noting how much more modern the language of the Mystery Plays appears just 200 years after the date of "Gawain". Comparing Gawain with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales shows how modern English is much more clearly derived from the southern English of Chaucer than the northern English of Gawain. A major influence on the standardisation of English was the development of printing (see: Bookseller) which appears to have arrived in Chester around 1600 and was associated with the family of Randle Holme a herald-painter of the city.

Dialect Feastures
Elements of dialect include pronunciation, word use and grammar, It can be influenced by socio-liguistics and may vary over a very short geographical distance and show changes on relatively short time-scales. Consider the "r" in "arm". In the 1950's how this was pronounced showed a sudden change across a line from Chester to London, with a few islands of a strongly sounded "r" in Lancashire and on Tyneside. By 2010 the stronger pronunciation had become confined to a few areas in the west-country and had become a parody of the "country bumpkin" or pirate accent, although Tolkien himself used the trilled "r" in readings of "Mordor" from Lord of the Rings, rather that saying "Mawdaw".

On longer time scales even the letters used may change. Gawain is written in a latin text but retains the runic character thorn (þ), which would be later on replaced by "th". It also has some sounds which no longer exist in English, such as "ȝ" which sounds like the "ch" in "loch". Many of the peculiar dialect features of a text can help locate it in time and place and possibly assist in the interpretation of the meaning and purpose of what was written. Unfortunately, dialect has come to be associated with educational standard, which is one reason why variations have been erroded. Other reasons date back to the introduction of printing and the development of standardised spelling, and more recently mass-communication such as radio, film and television.

Pronunciation
What Middle and Old English sounded like is by definition speculative as only written records survive. In many cases spelling was phonetic, with a work being written as it sounded to the person writing the text down: and this can lead to some interesting spellings. In Dublin for example there is a Church of St Werburgh, but the street on which it stands is "Sráid Bharbra", which actually sounds quite like "Werburgh", as the Irish alphabet does not include 'w' and the 'gh' combination is not used. "Pure" Middle English had no silent letters, so "listen" was "list-en" and "warned" was "warn-ed". "Knight" would sound something like "Knicht" rather than "nite". Perhaos the most pronounced difference between Middle English and Modern English was brought about by the "Great Vowel Shift". In 1400 "meet" would sound like "mayt", and "meat" like "mert", whereaa "mate" would sound like "mart".

The opening lines of Gawain and the Green Knight are written:


 * "Siþen þe sege and þe assaut, watz sesed at Troye, Þe borȝ brittened and brent, to brondez and askez, Þe tulk þat þe trammes, of tresoun þer wroȝt, Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe."



Matters are complicated in that the final "e" was sometimes silent and sometimes modified an earlier vowel. However, as Gawain is a rhyming text this enables the silent and spoken letters to be identified: one reason why it is such an important text. The sound of the opening lines (using a non-phonetic notation) would be something like:


 * "Sithen the say-ger and the ass-out, watz say-sed at Tro-yer, the bor-gh brit-ten-ed and brent, to bron-dez and as-kez, the tulk that the tram-mez, of tree-zown there raw-te, watz tree-ed for his tretch-er-ee-er, the troo-est on erth-er" ("soon as the seige and assualt, was ceased at Troy, the borough battered and burnt, to brands and ashes, the trooper that the tricks, of treason their wrought, was tried for his treachery, the truest on earth,")

Many other changes to the Cheshire dialect have occured since Gawain was written, even after the development of what is recognisibly more modern English.

The "Trap-Bath Split" is probably the best-known dialectical variant in the UK. The Cheshire accent does not have this feature. Unlike in the south of England, words like bath, laugh, etc. usually have the same vowel as words like cat, trap, man. The divide between the two dialect regions runs across the Midlands from the Wash to the Welsh border, passing to the south of the cities of Birmingham and Leicester. The letter "a" has however changed somewhat in some dilects over a longer time period. In Gawain we find "mony" instead of "many". Although this latter spelling can be found as a feature in other northern dialects' texts it is an example of how an overlapping patchwork of individual linguistic features can be used to localise a document.

English frequently replaces the "l" after a vowel with the softer "w", such that "balk" becomes "bawk" and "talk" becomes "tawk". The Chester accent does not take this to the extreme seen in Lancashire where "talk" may be pronounced "torque", but it would change "old" to "owd", "cold" to "cowd" and "always" to "awways".

The "Foot-Strut Split" is also absent from the Cheshire dialect accent, although it is found south of a line from the Severn to the wash. To the north of this line "foot" sounds like "fut", and rhymes with "cut".

In the Cheshire dialect the "h" is often dropped. An example being "Cestrian" rather than "Chestrian". "Headland", uncultivated area left at the end of a furrow where the plough turns, becomes "adland". "Hounds" become "Ainds".

A lack of "ng fusion" is highly characteristic of the Cheshire and Lancashire accents. "Kingly" and "singly" rhyme in Cheshire but not in London. This is also seen in the various ways in which the word "tongue" is spoken (as "tong"/"tung" with or without the "n" and "g" being clearly separated). This occurs in Gawain, where the extra g/k sound is added.

Puting all this together, the sound of some words such as "five" or "find" can be used to localise speech quite accurately. In Gawain the rhyme stucture is one element which localises the text in time and place.

Word Use
The vast majority of the words from the extract quoted above are of Germanic origin (Anglo-Saxon). All these evolved directly from Old English up to Middle English. These incule: borȜ (OE "burg"), brittened (OE "brytnian"), brondez (OE "brond"), and trewest (OE "trew"). There is occoasional a bit of French influence, with "quile" being used instead of "while". We also find words of Norse origin "brent" (burnt: from the ON "brenna") and "askes" (ashes: from the ON "aska"). "Bonkes" which occurs later in Gawain is from the Old Norse "banki", meaning bank. Borrowings from French include the words for "seige" and "assault", "treason" and "treachery". It is not that the Anglo Saxons did not have these forms of warfare (they beleagered and attacked) or politics (they betrayed and tricked), merely that the French term became commonplace.

Grammar
One of the difficult things for the native English speaker to grasp when trying to learn other languages (such as Latin) is the use of infexions at the end of words. Modern English has lost many of these and even by the time Gawain was written they had started to go, which also helps to date and localise the text.

Gawain


"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. Various clues suggest that the anonymous poet of Sir Gawain came from the vicinity of Wirral. The poem itself is written in the medieval dialect spoken in Cheshire, and it is noticeable that the topography of Arthur’s kingdom is vague until it reaches North Wales and Wirral. In 1925, J.R.R. Tolkien and colleague E.V. Gordon published a scholarly edition of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". The book, featuring a text in Middle English with extensive scholarly notes, is frequently confused with the translation into Modern English that Tolkien prepared alongside those of Pearl and Sir Orfeo, later in his life. Many editions of the latter work, first published in 1975, shortly after his death, list Tolkien on the cover as author rather than translator. It is therefore also amusingly common to see Sir Gawain erroneously ascribed to Tolkien as the original author.

Gawain appears in other works and is one of the most pervasive figures of the Arthurian tradition. He appears in nearly all of the major Arthurian stories, medieval and modern, and plays a central role in many. There are, in fact, more medieval romances devoted to Gawain's exploits than to those of any other of Arthur's knights, including Lancelot, Tristan, and Galahad. In Chrétien de Troyess' Perceval, for example, more than half of the narrative focuses on Gawain rather than the title character, and in Thomas Malory, Gawain figures prominently throughout, and plays key supporting roles in both the Grail quest and in the Morte Arthur. Gawain's importance in the Arthurian world stems in part from his familial relationship to Arthur, which is established in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (written about 1136). Though Gawain may in fact appear in earlier Arthurian tales — he is sometimes associated with Gwalchmai, a figure who appears in Culwch and Olwen and some of the Welsh Triads — it is in the History that Gawain is first presented as the son of Loth of Lothian and Arthur's sister Anna.

The "Green Knight" is one of the best known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs, the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight appears before Arthur's court during a Christmas feast, holding a bough of holly in one hand and a battle axe in the other. Despite disclaim of war, the knight issues a challenge: he will allow one man to strike him once with his axe, with the condition that he return the blow the next year. At first, Arthur accepts the challenge, but Gawain takes his place and decapitates the Green Knight, who retrieves his head, reattaches it and tells Gawain to meet him at the "Green Chapel" at the stipulated time. Unfortunately, the Green Knight does not mention where the Green Chapel is, placing Gawain in the awkward situation that he must not only search for it's location but expect to die there when he arrives. The Green Man is a recurring theme in literature. Sometimes the figures of Robin Hood and Peter Pan are associated with a Green Man, as is that of the Green Knight in Gawain. The tradition of the Green Man being carved on to Christian churches exists across Europe, including examples such as the Seven Green Men of Nicosia carved into the facade of the thirteenth century St Nicholas Church in Cyprus. There are early Romanesque foliate heads in 11th century Templar churches in Jerusalem. Some tentatively suggest that the symbol may have originated in Asia Minor and been brought to Europe by travelling stone carvers. There is certainly some early middle eastern evidence for sources which have a "Green Man" being dismembered and reborn: such as Khidr and Osiris.

The story later contains an account of Gawain's journey in search of the "Green Chapel", and includes some recognisable places:


 * alle þe iles of anglesay on lyft half he haldez and farez ouer þe fordez by þe forlondez ouer at þe holy hede til he hade eft bonk in þe wyldrenesse of wyrale wonde þer bot lyte þat auþer god oþer gome wyth goud hert louied (All the isles of Anglesey on his left side he holds, And fares over the ford by the forelands, Over by the Holy Head, until he again had the shore. In the wilderness of Wirral dwelt there but few, That either God or man with good heart loved.)

Several scholars have attempted to find a real-world correspondence for Gawain's journey to the Green Chapel. The Anglesey islands, for example, are mentioned in the poem. In line 700, Gawain is said to pass the "Holy Head", believed by many scholars to be either Holywell or the Cistercian abbey of Poulton in Pulford. Holywell is associated with the beheading of Saint Winifred. As the story goes, Winifred was a virgin who was beheaded by a local leader after she refused his sexual advances. Her uncle, Saint Beuno, put her head back in place and healed the wound, leaving only a white scar. The parallels between this story and Gawain's make this area a likely candidate for the journey. Chester has its own version of the Winifred legend see: Shoemaker's Row.



Few would suggest that Gawain is actual history. One explanation for its topographical references is that the author knew of places that had a reputation for mystery, danger or a mythical association and wove these into the tale. It is more a moral tale which places a large emphasis on the number five, and for this reason Gawain bears the pentacle as his arms. In fact, while the symbol is much older, Gawain is the first work which contains the word "pentacle".

The middle section of Gawain contains a series of scenes which alternate between the beautiful Lady Bertilak's attempts to seduce Gawain and her husband's hunting exploits. Three times the lady attempts to seduce Gawain, who resists (just barely), and during each of these three episodes her husband is out hunting. In the end she gives him her "girdle", which he agrees to wear and which is generally taken to be a reference to the Garter Knights.

At the end of the poem it is revealed that the entire Green Knight plot has been instigated by Gawain's aunt, Morgan le Fay who takes an appearance of an elderly woman (contrasting from the beautiful Lady Bertilak), as a test for Arthur and his knights and to frighten Guinevere to death. Morgan's importance to this particular narrative has been disputed and called a deus ex machina and simply an artistic device to further connect Gawain's episode to the Arthurian legend, but some regard her as a central character and the driving force of the plot. Opinions are also divided regarding Morgan's intentions and whether she succeeds or fails, and how the story's shapeshifting and enigmatic Morgan might be, or might be not, also Lady Bertilak herself.

Only one copy of "Gawain" has survived, known as "Cotton Nero A.x.", following a naming system used by one of its owners, the sixteenth century Robert Bruce Cotton, a collector of Medieval English texts. Before the Gawain manuscript came into Cotton's possession, it was in the library of Henry Savile in Yorkshire. Little is known about its previous ownership, and until 1824, when the manuscript was introduced to the academic community in a second edition of Thomas Warton's History edited by Richard Price, it was almost entirely unknown. Even then, the Gawain poem was not published in its entirety until 1839. Whether the document was ever widely known has not been determined with any certainty. However a later poem, simply known as "The Greene Knight" appears to have been intended for popular recitation. This poem mentions the Delamere Forest (line 87) and the Green Knight is here Sir Bredbeddle (line 40). The poem mentions very few other places but does include a reference to "Hutton Castle". Hutton is a fairly common place name and could even be a mis-reading of Halton or Hooton.

Arrowe Park
The "Wilderness of Wirral" is one of the few locations of which the Gawain author has a specific description, with a reference to its possibly pagan inhabitants and/or outlaws. Gawain seems to reach it by a ford, which is possibly a reference to a ford across the River Dee. The suggestion in Gawain that the inhibitants of Wirral are, in effect, godless outlaws has been the subject of much debate. Some read it as a condemnation, others as simply an illustration of the strange landscape through which Gawain travels.

One source of evidence for paganism in Wirral is to be found in place names and field names containing the element "harrow". This possibly derives from the Old English "hearg", meaning a pagan shrine, related to the Old Norse hörg. A harrowe hay is recorded in Heswall in 1293, while a group "harrow" field names is to be found not far from the apocryphal Thor’s Stone (often wrongly assumed to be the origin of Thurstaston). Possibly the best known occurence is "Arrowe Park", with its possible connections to the Gawain legend through nearby Woodchurch and perhaps more importantly, the mysterious stone circles of Overchurch. A ninth century stone found at Overchurch by the Victorians was for many years in the Grosvenor Museum.



Human activity in the Wirral is truly ancient, with with excavations near Greasby Copse between 1987 and 1990 by archaeologists from the Museum of Liverpool revealing a substantial settlement with stone floor, pits, large working hollows and a fireplace together with over 12,000 early stone tools. At that time, the site was dated at 7000 BC or earlier and ascribed to the Mesolithic period. Later work dates the site to around 8,500 BC.

Greasby was an Anglo Saxon settlement, as witnessed by the form of the name, Gravesberie, in the Domesday Book. Gravesberie derives from the Old English gräf (a grove) and burh (a fortified place). This has been recorded as meaning "grove farm/settlement", or alternatively, a "stronghold or fortification by a grove, trench, canal or wood". The name was Scandinavianised to Greasby, under the influence of Old Norse speakers in Wirral (gräf and býr, with býr meaning "settlement" or "farmstead"). The story of Viking settlement in Wirral is told elsewhere on this site, but it seems likely that at the time Gawain was written the area might well have been considered somewhat mysterious, especially if remains which would now be considered archaeology were still visible and if traces of the Vikings (such as family names) were still apparent.

The "stone circle" at Overchurch may be a co-incidence, and unfortunately the site has been so disturbed by building such that the remains of any potential circle have largely been lost. Statistically, that three points will lie on a circle is a trivial certainty (unless they lie on a straight line). For four points the odds are much lower. At Overchurch five of the six stones marked on the OS map lie very close to a circle, with four being close to the sextile angles and the fifth being the midpoint of s sextile chord. The site of the original church, where the runic memorial stone was found is close to the center of the circle. Nothing is known of the person whom the rune-stone commemorates. Æthelmund is an Old English masculine name formed from the elements æðel "noble" and mund "protection". The name had been widely used in England since the eighth century, but by the end of the tenth century was perhaps becoming both less common and geographically restricted to western Mercia. The Domesday Book places a cluster of the occurances of the name in southern Shropshire with an outlier on Merseyside and there was a notable Æthelmund who was Ealdorman of Hwicce in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. He was killed in 802 at the Battle of Kempsford by Ealdorman Weohstan and the levies of West Saxon Wiltshire while seemingly opposing the succession of Ecgbert, but there is nothing substantial to connect him with the Overchurch Stone.

Ludchurch


Gawain's journey does not end on the Wirral, although no placenames are mentioned after his departure from there. Many interpretations form a consensus and have him continuing to Ludchurch in the Staffordshire Moorlands north of Leek. This district was first suggested by Mabel Day (1940). Later work by R. W. V. Elliot built upon the idea that this was one of the key settings for the climax of the poem's story – "The Green Chapel" – in May 1958. Elliot went on to give a scholarly modern explication of most of the local landscape elements in a series of essays in scholarly journals. His general claim that "The Green Chapel" must be somewhere in that district was supported by other scholarly work suggesting the location as somewhere near "Thor's Cave", above the former railway station at Wetton Mill, to the east of Leek. Both of these locations are interesting to visit, but they are far enough apart that the author of Gawain may have taken some licence with his geography.

One connection with Chester is that nearby Dieulacres Abbey was a Cistercian monastery first established between 1153 and 1158 (under Ranulph De Gernon) at Poulton in Cheshire. It moved, under Ranulf de Blondeville, to the Dieulacres site at Abbey Green near Leek, Staffordshire in 1214, possibly in part as a result from raids at the former location by the Welsh. One issue that was current among clerics at the time was whether they could marry and all four of the poems touch on this issue or the related subject of clerical authority. The development of the society and the economy at the time meant that there was a great demand for clerics and notaries who did little religious work and were mostly concerned with tax and record-keeping. In Cheshire "chaplains" whose work was mostly administrative and could be described as "household scribes" outnumbered all other clerks, monks, canons, rectors and vicars combined. The tension between the spiritual and the worldly is one of the themes which is used both to ironic and comic effect in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" written between 1387 and 1400.

How "Lud's Church" gets its name is something of a mystery. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's legendary History of the Kings of Britain and related medieval texts, Lud was a king of Britain in pre-Roman times who founded London and was buried at Ludgate. Lud, son of Shem, turns up as the grandson of Noah. Lud's Church is also associated with the Lollards, and may (according to folklore) take its name from a Sir Walter de Lud-Auk (or Ludank) who preached there, or in an associated cave, although some have cast doubt on this. Ludank was supposedly arrested there. "Lud" as a place-name element has also been associated with the Old English "hlud" - meaning "loud" - as in "Ludlow" ("tumulus by the loud waters").

The Lollards were followers of John Wycliffe (c. 1320s – 31 December 1384) an anti-monastic reformer during the time of Richard II and one of the first to oppose the established church. However, there is no firm evidence for Lollard activity at Lud's Church during the reign of Richard II and Walter de Ludank appears to have flourished well after the lifetime of the Gawain poet. There was however Lollard activity in Richard's court in the form of the "Lollard Knights" who were a notably cultured group and had associations with the poets of the time, including Chaucer.

Printing was first introduced into Britain by William Caxton around 1476. Chaucer (c.1340s – 25 October 1400) was one of the first authors that he published and English at the time was rapidly becoming the language of the English nobility. Richard's reign, during which the Gawain poem was written dates from before the advent of printing. After the deposition of Richard (1399), works such as "Richard the Redeless"  appeared which were critical of Richard. They are also written in more recognisably modern English than Gawain.



Summing-up the linguistic and place-name evidence, it is clear that Gawain is somehow associated with Cheshire.

Cheshire in the time of Richard II
One major cause of religious, social, and economic upheaval, with profound effects on the course of European history was the "Black Death" a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Afro-Eurasia from 1346-53. The Black Death hit the monasteries very hard because of their proximity with the sick who sought refuge there. This left a severe shortage of clergy after the epidemic cycle. Eventually the losses were replaced by hastily trained and inexperienced clergy members, many of whom knew little of the rigors of their predecessors. New colleges were opened at established universities, and the training process sped up. This undoubtedly fed the debate as to whether clerics should be celibate or not. At the same time the feudal order was slowly breaking down and middle-ranking figures rendered military, political, legal, or domestic service in return for money, office, or influence rather than for land.

Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard's father, Edward, Prince of Wales otherwise known as the "Black Prince", died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III. Upon the death of Edward III, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne. During Richard's first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of regency councils, influenced by Richard's uncles John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock. England then faced various problems, most notably the Hundred Years' War. The king's dependence on a small number of courtiers caused discontent among the influential, and in 1387 control of government was taken over by a group of aristocrats known as the Lords Appellant. By 1389 Richard had regained control, and for the next eight years governed in relative harmony with his former opponents. In 1397, he took his revenge on the Appellants, many of whom were executed (by beheading in many cases) or exiled. Also in 1397, Richard II created the title "Prince of Cheshire", which he awarded to himself. On 13 July 1397, he ordered the sheriff of the county of Chester to collect 2,000 archers for royal service. These troops were used to overawe the parliament which met in September - sometimes known as the "Revenge Partiament". The next two years have been described by historians as Richard's "tyranny". In 1399, after John of Gaunt died, the king disinherited Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke, who had previously been exiled. Henry invaded England in June 1399 with a small force that quickly grew in numbers. Meeting little resistance, he deposed Richard and had himself crowned king. Richard is thought to have been starved to death in captivity, although questions remain regarding his final fate.

Richard built a considerable power-base in Cheshire, drawing his personal guard from the locals forming his own private military retinue, larger than that of any English king before him, and gave them livery badges with his White Hart (the possible origin of many pub signs). The climax of the campaign to depose him took place in North Wales and Chester, and possibly forms the basis of the legends that his Royal Treasure was hidden at Beeston Castle.

There is little evidence to tie Richard directly to patronage of poetry, but it was nevertheless within his court that this culture was allowed to thrive. The greatest poet of the age, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s – 25 October 1400), served the king as a diplomat, a customs official and a clerk of The King's Works while producing some of his best-known work. Little has been written on whether Gawain was influenced by the political developments in Cheshire at the time. The supposed creation dates of 1370 to 1400 span a whole range of phases in Richard II's rule: in 1388 the "Merciless Parliament" was convicting many of Richard's court of treason following his retainer de Vere's defeat at the Battle of Radcot Bridge, and in 1397 Richard counter-attacked and had Richard Fitzalan, 4th Earl of Arundel beheaded. Tradition holds that Arundel's final words were said to the executioner, "Torment me not long, strike off my head in one blow".



Given the "wrong" timing Gawain could easily have been presented to Richard as an almost seditious work - Arthur, the king, is portrayed as childish and Richard had also been a child-king; it has beheadings and counter-beheadings; a henchman stepping in to behead someone who challenges the king, and the Wirral, a part of Richard's self-declared Principality described as "the wilderness of Wirral" where "dwelt there but few, that either God or man with good heart loved".

The "Lollards" may have been active at Richard's court. Lollard Knights (act. c. 1380–c. 1414), is the name conventionally given to a close-knit group of influential courtiers, accused by contemporary chroniclers ( Henry Knighton and Thomas Walsingham) of promoting heretical Lollard doctrines during the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV. Several of the Knights were apparently acquaintances of Geoffrey Chaucer, as they stood surety for him when a charge of "raptus" (abduction) was lodged against him in 1380.

After Richard II's downfall censorship of books became extreme. De heretico comburendo (2 Hen.4 c.15) was a law, "Regarding the burning of heretics", passed by Parliament under King Henry IV of England in 1401, punishing heretics with burning at the stake and is an attack on the Lollards. With the advent of printing censorship became even more oppressive effectively banning much of what was printed with the exception of the "Canterburye tales, Chaucers bokes, Gowers bokes and stories of mennes lieves". Matters may have been even more complex than that: Henry IV's great ally in his ursurpation of Richard was Thomas Arundel, a fanatical anti-reformer who may actually have been responsible for the murder of Geoffrey Chaucer.

A Political Purpose?
Is Gawain just entertainment or does it conceal a purpose? On the face of it, the poem is a medieval "romance". Medieval romance worked from both traditions and topics that were well known to the audience: historical and quasi-historical accounts of heroes, battles, and kings; stories surrounding the Trojan War; and other classical and English traditions. Although a broad category, romance is generally characterized by a central heroic character (often the knightly representative of a royal court), the presence of magic, and a quest motif.

Medieval readers and listeners looked to romance for entertainment and edification, as well as for thought-provoking material to fuel conversation and debate over important social issues. Some have seen Gawain as a debate about the nature of Arthurian kingship and courtliness produced at a time when Richard II's court was heading rapidly for tyranny. Others might interpret Gawain's struggle with chastity as a reference to the issues facing clerics. The poem portrays the king in a poor light, like Richard II he is a young, proud, and impetuous ruler: the text describes him as “childgered” [childish], “brayn wylde” [impulsive], and of “ʒonge blod” [young blood]. The Green Knight addresses Arthur’s court as a "gyng", or "gang", instead of using any of the honorific descriptors deserving of a royal court. By the time it was written Richard's "Cheshire Archers" had gained repute as a violent band of thugs, although it might be dangerous to state that openly.



That open criticism of Richard and his court would have been risky, complicates the interpretation of the poem. It may have been far safer to write in ambiguous terms, so that a passage could be read (or explained away) as simple poety, but have a sub-text which refers to actual political events. When Gawain is preparing to depart on his quest many courtiers gather to see him off. However, there is grumbling among them, especially as regards whether this a waste of a potential leader:


 * "Without wonder Gawain would become a duke, and seemed that he would make a great leader of men, and would better have been a leader than bebutchered for nothing by an evil man, all for angry pride. Who ever heard of any king to take such counsel during a Christmas game, from knights in celebration?"

One possible historical parallel is the relationship of Richard II to Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV) - who had been Duke of Hereford. According to the simple version, in 1398, a remark by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, regarding Richard II's rule was interpreted as treason by Henry Bolingbroke and Henry reported it to the king via John of Gaunt (Henry's father). In reality the situation was more complex: Mowbray appears to have been involved in the murder of Richard's uncle Thomas of Woodstock, the duke of Gloucester. Certain chroniclers tell of a meeting between Mowbray and Bolingbroke in which they discussed that they were the next to be tried for treason by the king, and likely beheaded. Bolingbroke then accused Mowbray of misgovernment in Calais and for murdering Gloucester.

The two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honour (called by Richard II) at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbray's home in Coventry. Yet before the duel could take place, Richard decided to banish Henry from the kingdom (with the approval of Henry's father, John of Gaunt) to avoid further bloodshed. Mowbray accepted his sentence and departed England on October 19, 1398. He seems to have settled down in Venice, and to have taken a trip to the Holy Land, where he contracted the plague and later died of it in Venice.

As history shows, Bolingbroke would later, a year later (just like Gawain) return to usurp Richard, but perhaps the departure of Gawain can be read in the light of Bolingbroke's exile? There are some other tentative links with Henry IV's succession: the Epiphany Rising was a failed rebellion against Henry IV of England in late December 1399 and early January 1400. Thus the rising has parallels with the Christmas/New Year celebrations which open Gawain. Gawain's symbol is a pentagram and pentagonal castles figure in the history of the time: with Bolingbroke being near pentagonal and Holt Castle, the storage place of Richard's Royal Treasure being a distinct pentagon. Holt Castle had previously belonged to Richard Fitzalan (beheaded), was taken over by Richard and later raided by Bolingbroke during his assault on Richard's stronghold at Chester. Finally, the pentagon-symmetric red rose of Lancaster (blazoned: a rose gules) was the heraldic badge adopted by the royal House of Lancaster in the 14th century. The red rose was first adopted as a heraldic badge by John of Gaunt, and a similar white rose was adopted by the House of York.

Authors
There have been many suggestions as to the identity of the "Gawain poet". All that is known for certain is that he (or she) used a Cheshire dialect and appears to have some familiarity with the area. The problem of authorship is complex as some of the "evidence" relates to the authorship of other poems which may have been written at the same time and are found in the same manuscript source. Its author appears also to have written the poems Pearl, Patience, and Purity which appear in the same single manuscript which contains all four works. Of course, it cannot be discounted (given that there is only one surviving document) that the scribe who prepared it translated it into his own local dialect, but this seems unlikely given the references to North-West and Wirral topography. The poem itself suggests that the tale existed prior to it being written down in this version: the poet claims that he heard the original story of Sir Gawain recited "in hall" (line 31), but also that it was "linked in measures meetly / By letters tried and true" (that is, it appeared in written format - lines 35–36). There is also some evidence of a previous oral version in the poem: Gawain's donning of his armour seems to be listed as an echo of a mnemonic device. Another theory is that "Gawain" is an answer to Chaucer's "Sir Thopas" one of The Canterbury Tales, published in 1387. Thopas is a rather frivolous burlesque in which the main character desires the elf-queen but is waylaid by the giant Sir Olifaunt ('Elephant'), and is often considered to be a parody of the "romantic" genre.



St. Erkenwald is an another alliterative poem of the fourteenth century, thought to have been composed in 1386. It has sometimes been attributed to the Gawain poet. It takes as its subject Earconwald, the Bishop of London between 675 and 693. The story is somewhat peculiar depicting the discovery of an undecayed and speaking corpse beneath St. Paul's Cathedral in London by workmen digging new foundations. This corpse, belonging to an ancient pagan judge, prompts an investigation of the importance of the sacraments, particularly penance and the Eucharist, by noting that he led a virtuous life and made scrupulous, even-handed judgements, but reveals that his soul is condemned to hell because he lived before England was converted to Christianity. This poem was written during a period of controversy in the church regarding whether the sacraments were necessary for the salvation of souls, and the importance of the cleric in his role as the celebrant. It can be inferred from the events of the poem that the poet's sympathies lie with orthodox thinkers, who affirmed the importance of the Eucharist and the position of the cleric.

The theories about the identity of the poet are supported by two rather shaky pillars - one being the argument that three or perhaps all four have the same author, and the other that there are clues in some manucripts which suggest authorship. These clues have been put together so as to infer the authorship of one poem and hence of the others. However the subject has attracted much debate and some of the commentary on the works might favour one author without mentioning the others proposed.

The following have been suggested who have a particular connection with the area around Chester.

John Stanley
John Stanley has been suggested as the as-yet unidentified "Gawain Poet". The Garter motto "Honi soit qui mal y pense" appears at the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (but in a different hand), and the poet exhibits a detailed knowledge of both hunting (he was Master Forester of Wirral - hence the stags on his arms) and armour. He has also been suggested as the patron of the Gawain poet. He is the same John Stanley who in 1405 was granted the tenure of the Isle of Man, which had been confiscated from the rebellious Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. The garter connection has been used to support other candidates including John of Gaunt (who was also the 14th Baron of Halton), and Enguerrand de Coucy, seventh Sire de Coucy. De Coucy was married to King Edward III's daughter, Isabella, and was given admittance to the Order of the Garter on their wedding day. The garter motto has a rough equivalent in Gawain's exclamation "corsed worth cowarddyse and couetyse boþe" ("cursed be both cowardice and coveting", v. 2374).



Stanley was very agile in his politics. Having served Richard II as deputy to Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland (and possibly Richard's lover), he turned his back on Richard and submitted to King Henry IV, the first English king of the House of Lancaster. Stanley's fortunes were equally good under the Lancastrians. He was granted lordships in the Welsh Marches, and served a term as Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1403 he was made Steward of the Household of Henry, Prince of Wales, (later Henry V). Unlike many of the Cheshire gentry, he took the side of the king in the rebellion of the Percys. He was wounded in the throat at the Battle of Shrewsbury. In 1405 he was, as noted, granted the tenure of the Isle of Man. Henry IV appointed him a Knight of the Garter. His descendants were to prove equally agile, shifting sides deftly through the Wars of the Roses and after.

Overall, the evidence that Stanley wrote, or more likely commissioned "Gawain" is very slight: he was alive at the time and associated with the Wirral, would have been familiar with hunting and forestry and was a Knight of the Garter.

John Massey
John Massey of Cotton, was a retainer in the house of Lancaster. The surname of Massey, that of a prominent Cheshire family, is associated with St Erkenwald; the names of Thomas Massey (as Thomas Masse) and Elizabeth Booth (a member of the Booth family of Dunham Massey) are written in St Erkenwald's only existing manuscript. The manuscript was made in 1477, but the poem itself was probably composed much earlier, in the 1390s or the 1400s. Curiously, there is a Saughall Massey quite close to the supposed stone circle at Overchurch. However, the reference to Massey appears to have been added much later than the date of the original manuscript. The last of the original line, Hamo de Masci, died in 1342.

A further problem is that Cheshire had more than one John Massey, de Massey, or de Mascy. There were so many in fact that John de Mascy of Puddington fought for Henry IV against John de Mascy of Tatton who supported Henry Percy and both died in the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403).

The evidence that John Massey (Masse, Macy...) is associated with Gawain is also very slight. The names of some of his relatives appear in the manuscript but may well have been added later. It has been suggested that his name appears part hidden in the illumination, but this is by no means agreed upon by all scholars. Others have claimed to found anagrams buried in the text but this may be co-incidence. Relatives of the Massies are associated with sites on the Wirral, but the gentry of Cheshire were so inter-married that it is generally easy to find such links. For example, in the 1830's tithe maps the site at Overchurch is owned by the Stanley-Massey family.

Summary


There are many other examples of work by early "Cheshire" authors, but Gawain and the Chester Mystery Plays are two of the more accessible examples with interesting connections to local history and local linguistics. Others include the writings of Lucian the Monk and the Polychronicon but these are written in Latin rather than an earlier version of English, and do not share the interesting feature that their authors are completely unknown. We know something of the religious/political controversey over the Mystery Plays, but far less, if anything, about the politics associated with Gawain.

The "Green Chapel" has been identified with "Lud's Church" (near Leek), which itself became associated with the anti-monastic and generally anti-clerical Lollards. The Lollards were active in the time of Richard II, who had a close association with Cheshire, making himself "Prince" of Cheshire and spending the last days of his reign in an attempt to reach his power-base (and treasury) there. Interpreting Gawain in the light of Richard's kingship and his association with Cheshire is difficult as the potential meaning shifts depending on whether the initial assumption is that the writer was pro- or anti-monastic or pro- or anti-Ricardian (or indifferent on both counts). While attempts have been made to associate authorship with known historical figures in Cheshire (Massey or Stanley), there is no real consensus. Finding locations in the Wirral that might have been associated with the Gawain legend is also only supported by very weak evidence: there may have been a stone circle at Overchurch on land possibly owned by either the Masseys or the Stanleys and this could have been the basis for adding some "mystery" to Gawain's travels.

"Gawain" comes from a time (around 1400) when the monasteries had lost their effective monopoly on the production of books, but printed books were not yet known in Britain: the first dated prints in England are an indulgence dating to 13 December 1476. So if the document was widely circulated this could only have been done by making a hand-copied version. The period included the "Manuscript Culture" and the "Devotio Moderna", when non-printed documents were being circulated outside of the monasteries. Criticism of authority can be found in some of these manuscripts, such as in "Richard the Redeless" and other documents in the "Piers Plowman tradition".

Whether there is a deliberate "political" message intentionally hidden in Gawain, or whether it just made use of tropes from its time remains undecided. There are other theories: Carole Robinson makes out a detailed case in "The Green Knight: A quest for historical identities" as published in "Cheshire History" (51)

Related Pages

 * Stanley Palace;
 * Three Hares;
 * Bishop Lloyd's House;
 * Royal Treasure: the politics of Cheshire at the time (under Richard II);
 * Chester Mystery Plays;
 * Shakespeare and Chester;
 * Bookseller;
 * Randle Holme;

Glossaries

 * A glossary of words used in the county of Chester, Robert Holland (1886);


 * A Glossary of Words Used in the Dialect of Cheshire, Egerton Leigh (1877);


 * Old Cheshire Dialect;


 * Cheshire Proverbs by Joseph Bridge;

Green Knight

 * on Wikipedia;
 * Original Text;
 * Overchurch at Megalithic Portal;
 * Hidden Wirral on ancient sites in the area;
 * Video of the remains at Overchurch;
 * THE SITE OF OVERCHURCH, UPTON, WIRRAL: A SURVEY;
 * OVERCHURCH AND ITS RUNIC STONE;
 * The Overchurch Stone;
 * The Overchurch Mystery: Book by David Gregg;
 * John de Mascy and the Pearl poems;
 * A "vetted" list of sources;
 * Is Ludchurch Sir Gawain’s Green Chapel?;
 * Sir Gawain and the green knight and the history of medieval rhetoric;
 * Orality and Memory within ​Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
 * Tolkien and the Gawain-poet;

Other References



 * Some South Cheshire Dialect - mostly dairy farming terms;
 * From Cilgwri to Westernesse - Wirral in Medieval Legend;
 * The Language of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
 * Sir John Stanley (c. 1350-1414) and the Gawain-Poet, Arthuriana, vol. 14 no. 1, 2004, p. 15-30.
 * The Politics of Pearl: Court Poetry in the Age of Richard II by John M. Bowers;