Sir Gawain and the green knight and the literary achievement of the north-west Midlands: the historical background

Abstract

The author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the other verse in BLMS. Cotton Nero A x ranks with his contemporaries, Chaucer and Langland, as one of the three great Middle English poets. Whilst this anonymous master and associated writers have been confidently ascribed to the north-west Midlands in the reign of Richard II, the social context of this literary achievement is still inadequately understood. Drawing on wider research on the social history of the region, and focusing on the career of one identifiable Cheshire poet of Chaucer's generation, this paper attempts to show what factors made this superficially inauspicious milieu at all conducive to high cultural attainment.The basic argument is that the richness and sophistication of the best north-west Midlands work are only comprehensible in terms of the considerable social mobility evidenced amongst the local population in this period. Large numbers of men from Cheshire and its environs can be traced in all corners of England, seeking their fortunes as soldiers, lawyers, clerks and merchants. This was the vibrant world in which the Gawain-poet and his fellows found not only appreciative audiences and generous patronage but also the new cultural influences and the courtly sophistication which characterise their more polished pieces.It is no coincidence that the last years of Richard II's reign, which witnessed the composition of the verse of BL MS. Cotton Nero A x, also saw the fortunes of local careerists soar to their apogee. In addition to their solid achievements in the professions, men from almost every family in Cheshire were being recruited into the royal household from 1397 onwards. With his well attested taste for fine literature, and with his extravagant generosity towards his Cheshire retainers, it is clear that if an aristocratic patron for the Gawain-poet is pre-supposed there is no more credible candidate than Richard II himself.

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