Guy of Warwick
Encyclopedia
Guy of Warwick
is a legendary English hero of Romance
popular in England
and France
from the 13th to the 17th century. The story of Sir Guy is considered by scholars to be part of the Matter of England
.
and become a knight; in order to do this he travels widely, battling fantastic monsters such as dragon
s, giants
, a Dun Cow
and great boar
s. He returns and weds Felice but soon, full of remorse for his violent past, he leaves on a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land
; later he returns privately and lives out his long life as a hermit
(according to local legend in a cave overlooking the River Avon
, situated at Guys Cliffe).
In one recension, Guy, son of Siward or Seguard of Wallingford, by his prowess in foreign wars wins in marriage Felice (the Phyllis of the well-known ballad), daughter and heiress of Roalt, earl of Warwick. Soon after his marriage he is seized with remorse for the violence of his past life, and, by way of penance, leaves his wife and fortune to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land
. After years of absence he returns in time to deliver Winchester for Athelstan of England
from the invading northern kings, Anelaph (Anlaf or Olaf) and Gonelaph, by slaying in single fight their champion, the giant Colbrand. Winchester tradition fixes the duel at Hyde Mead, before the Abbey
near Winchester
. Making his way to Warwick, he becomes one of his wife's beadsmen
, and presently retires to a hermitage in Arden
, only revealing his identity, like Saint Roch
, at the approach of death.
, passing into children's literature and local guidebooks before dying out in the twentieth century. The kernel of the tradition evidently lies in the fight with Colbrand, which symbolically represents some kernel of historical fact. The religious side of the legend finds parallels in the stories of St Eustachius
and St Alexius, and makes it probable that the Guy-legend, as we have it, has passed through monastic hands. Tradition seems to be at fault in putting Guy's adventures anachronistically in the reign of Athelstan; the Anlaf of the story is probably Olaf Tryggvason
, who, with Sweyn I of Denmark
, harried the southern counties of England in 993 and pitched his winter quarters in Southampton; this means the King of England at the time was Æthelred Unready II. Winchester was saved, however, not by the valour of an English champion, but by the payment of money. This Olaf was not unnaturally confused with Anlaf Cuaran
or Havelok the Dane
.
The Anglo-Norman warrior hero of Gui de Warewic, marked Guy's first appearance in the early thirteenth century. Topographical allusions show the poem's composer to be more familiar with the area of Wallingford, near Oxford, than with Warwickshire.
Guy was transformed in the fourteenth century with a spate of metrical romances written in Middle English
. The versions which we possess are adaptations from the French, and are cast in the form of a roman; the adventures open with a long recital of Guy's wars in Lombardy
, Germany
and Constantinople
, embellished with fights with dragons and surprising feats of arms. The name Guy entered the Beauchamp family, earls of Warwick, when William de Beauchamp IV inherited the title in 1269 through his mother's brother, named his heir "Guy" in 1298. A tower added to Warwick Castle
in 1394 was named "Guy's Tower", and Guy of Warwick relics began to accumulate.
"Filicia", who belongs to the twelfth century, was perhaps the Norman poet's patroness, occurs in the pedigree of the Ardens, descended from Thurkill of Warwick and his son Siward. Guys Cliffe, near Warwick, where in the fourteenth century Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick
, erected a chantry, with a statue of the hero, does not correspond with the site of the hermitage as described in the Godfreyson (see Havelok).
The narrative detail of the legend is obvious fiction, though it may have become vaguely connected with the family history of the Ardens and the Wallingford family, but it was accepted as authentic fact in the chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft (Peter of Langtoft) written at the end of the thirteenth century.
The adventures of Reynbrun, son of Guy, and his tutor Heraud of Arden, who had also educated Guy, have much in common with his father's history, and form an interpolation sometimes treated as a separate romance. A connection between Guy and Guido, count of Tours (flourished about 800) was made when Alcuin
's advice to the count, Liber ad Guidonem, was transferred to the English hero in the Speculum Gy de Warewyke (c. 1327), edited for the Early English Text Society
by Georgiana Lea Morrill Morrill, 1898.
Today Guy of Warwick's Sword
can be seen at Warwick Castle
.
in Histoire littéraire de la France
(xxii., 841-851, 1852). A French prose version was printed in Paris, 1525, and subsequently (see Gustave Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. "Guy de Warvich"); the English metrical romance exists in four versions dating from the early fourteenth century; the text was edited by J. Zupitza (187.51876) for the Early English Texts Society from Cambridge University Library, Paper MS. Ff. 2, 38, and again (pts. 1883-1891, extra series, Nos. 42, 49, 59), from the Auchinleck manuscript
and Caius College MS.
The popularity of the legend is shown by the numerous versions in English: John Lydgate
claimed Guy of Warwick, his English verse version composed between 1442 and 1468, was translated from the Latin chronicle of Giraldus Cornubiensis (fl.
1350); Guy of Warwick, a poem (written in 1617 and licensed, but not printed) by John Lane
, the manuscript of which (in the British Library
) contains a sonnet by John Milton, father of the poet
; The Famous Historie of Guy, Earl of Warwick (c. 1607) by Samuel Rowlands
; The Booke of the moste Victoryous Prince Guy of Warwicke (William Copland, London, n.d.); other editions by J. Cawood and C. Bates; chapbook
s and ballad
s of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: The Tragical History, Admirable Atchievements and Curious Events of Guy, Earl of Warwick, a tragedy (1661) which may possibly be identical with a play on the subject written by John Day
and Thomas Dekker, and entered at Stationers' Hall on the 15th of January 1618/19; three verse fragments are printed by Hales and F. J. Furnivall in their edition of the Percy Folio MS. vol. ii.; an early French MS. is described by J. A. Herbert (An Early MS. of Gui de Warwick, London, 1905). In the Valencian book "Tirant lo Blanch" appears a character based on Guy Whose name is "Guillem de Varoic"
Warwick
Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England. The town lies upon the River Avon, south of Coventry and just west of Leamington Spa and Whitnash with which it is conjoined. As of the 2001 United Kingdom census, it had a population of 23,350...
is a legendary English hero of Romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
popular in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
from the 13th to the 17th century. The story of Sir Guy is considered by scholars to be part of the Matter of England
Matter of England
Matter of England, "romances of English heroes" and "romances derived from English legend" are terms that 20th century scholars have given to a loose corpus of Medieval literature that in general deal with the locations, characters and themes concerning England, English history or English cultural...
.
Plot
The core of the legend is that Guy falls in love with the lady Felice ("Happiness"), who is of much higher social standing. In order to wed Felice he must prove his valour in chivalric adventuresChivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
and become a knight; in order to do this he travels widely, battling fantastic monsters such as dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
s, giants
Giant (mythology)
The mythology and legends of many different cultures include monsters of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed examples: the gigantes of Greek mythology.In various Indo-European mythologies,...
, a Dun Cow
Dun Cow
The dun cow is a common motif in English folklore. "Dun" is a dull shade of brownish grey.-Dunsmore Heath:The Dun Cow of Dunsmore Heath was a savage beast slain by Guy of Warwick...
and great boar
Boar
Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...
s. He returns and weds Felice but soon, full of remorse for his violent past, he leaves on a pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
to the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
; later he returns privately and lives out his long life as a hermit
Hermit
A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...
(according to local legend in a cave overlooking the River Avon
River Avon, Warwickshire
The River Avon or Avon is a river in or adjoining the counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in the Midlands of England...
, situated at Guys Cliffe).
In one recension, Guy, son of Siward or Seguard of Wallingford, by his prowess in foreign wars wins in marriage Felice (the Phyllis of the well-known ballad), daughter and heiress of Roalt, earl of Warwick. Soon after his marriage he is seized with remorse for the violence of his past life, and, by way of penance, leaves his wife and fortune to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
. After years of absence he returns in time to deliver Winchester for Athelstan of England
Athelstan of England
Athelstan , called the Glorious, was the King of England from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder, grandson of Alfred the Great and nephew of Æthelflæd of Mercia...
from the invading northern kings, Anelaph (Anlaf or Olaf) and Gonelaph, by slaying in single fight their champion, the giant Colbrand. Winchester tradition fixes the duel at Hyde Mead, before the Abbey
Hyde Abbey
Hyde Abbey was a medieval Benedictine monastery just outside the walls of Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was dissolved and demolished in 1538....
near Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
. Making his way to Warwick, he becomes one of his wife's beadsmen
Beadsman
Bedesman, or beadsman was generallya pensioner or almsman whose duty it was to pray for hisbenefactor....
, and presently retires to a hermitage in Arden
Arden
- Europe :*Arden Municipality, Denmark, a former municipality, including the Town of Arden*Arden, Warwickshire, England*Arden, Argyll and Bute, Scotland*Arden, Dunbartonshire, Scotland*Arden, Glasgow, Scotland- United States :* Arden, Arkansas...
, only revealing his identity, like Saint Roch
Roch
Saint Roch or Rocco ; lived c.1348 - 15/16 August 1376/79 was a Christian saint, a confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August; he is specially invoked against the plague...
, at the approach of death.
Historical basis
Velma Bourgeois Richmond has traced the career of Guy of Warwick from the legends of soldier saints to metrical romances composed for an aristiocratic audience that widened in the sixteenth century to a popular audience that included Guy among the Nine WorthiesNine Worthies
The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural and legendary personages who personify the ideals of chivalry as were established in the Middle Ages. All are commonly referred to as 'Princes' in their own right, despite whatever true titles each man may have held...
, passing into children's literature and local guidebooks before dying out in the twentieth century. The kernel of the tradition evidently lies in the fight with Colbrand, which symbolically represents some kernel of historical fact. The religious side of the legend finds parallels in the stories of St Eustachius
Eustace
Eustace is the rendition in English of two phonetically similar Greek given names:*Εὔσταχυς meaning "fruitful", "fecund"; literally "abundant in grain""; its Latin equivalents are Fæcundus/Fecundus...
and St Alexius, and makes it probable that the Guy-legend, as we have it, has passed through monastic hands. Tradition seems to be at fault in putting Guy's adventures anachronistically in the reign of Athelstan; the Anlaf of the story is probably Olaf Tryggvason
Olaf I of Norway
Olaf Tryggvason was King of Norway from 995 to 1000. He was the son of Tryggvi Olafsson, king of Viken , and, according to later sagas, the great-grandson of Harald Fairhair, first King of Norway.Olaf played an important part in the often forcible, on pain of torture or death, conversion of the...
, who, with Sweyn I of Denmark
Sweyn I of Denmark
Sweyn I Forkbeard was king of Denmark and England, as well as parts of Norway. His name appears as Swegen in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and he is also known in English as Svein, Swein, Sven the Dane, and Tuck.He was a Viking leader and the father of Cnut the Great...
, harried the southern counties of England in 993 and pitched his winter quarters in Southampton; this means the King of England at the time was Æthelred Unready II. Winchester was saved, however, not by the valour of an English champion, but by the payment of money. This Olaf was not unnaturally confused with Anlaf Cuaran
Olaf Cuaran
Amlaíb mac Sitric , commonly called Amlaíb Cuarán, in Old Norse: Óláfr kváran, was a 10th century Norse-Gael who was king of Northumbria and king of Dublin. His byname, cuarán, is usually translated as "sandal"...
or Havelok the Dane
Havelok the Dane
Havelok the Dane, also known as Havelok or Lay of Havelok the Dane, is a Middle English romance considered to be part of the Matter of England. The story, however, is also known in two earlier Anglo-Norman versions. Most scholars place Havelok the Dane at the end of the thirteenth century, between...
.
The Anglo-Norman warrior hero of Gui de Warewic, marked Guy's first appearance in the early thirteenth century. Topographical allusions show the poem's composer to be more familiar with the area of Wallingford, near Oxford, than with Warwickshire.
Guy was transformed in the fourteenth century with a spate of metrical romances written in Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
. The versions which we possess are adaptations from the French, and are cast in the form of a roman; the adventures open with a long recital of Guy's wars in Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, embellished with fights with dragons and surprising feats of arms. The name Guy entered the Beauchamp family, earls of Warwick, when William de Beauchamp IV inherited the title in 1269 through his mother's brother, named his heir "Guy" in 1298. A tower added to Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle is a medieval castle in Warwick, the county town of Warwickshire, England. It sits on a bend on the River Avon. The castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068 within or adjacent to the Anglo-Saxon burh of Warwick. It was used as a fortification until the early 17th century,...
in 1394 was named "Guy's Tower", and Guy of Warwick relics began to accumulate.
"Filicia", who belongs to the twelfth century, was perhaps the Norman poet's patroness, occurs in the pedigree of the Ardens, descended from Thurkill of Warwick and his son Siward. Guys Cliffe, near Warwick, where in the fourteenth century Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick
Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick
Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick, Count of Aumale, KG was an English medieval nobleman and military commander.-Early Life:...
, erected a chantry, with a statue of the hero, does not correspond with the site of the hermitage as described in the Godfreyson (see Havelok).
The narrative detail of the legend is obvious fiction, though it may have become vaguely connected with the family history of the Ardens and the Wallingford family, but it was accepted as authentic fact in the chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft (Peter of Langtoft) written at the end of the thirteenth century.
The adventures of Reynbrun, son of Guy, and his tutor Heraud of Arden, who had also educated Guy, have much in common with his father's history, and form an interpolation sometimes treated as a separate romance. A connection between Guy and Guido, count of Tours (flourished about 800) was made when Alcuin
Alcuin
Alcuin of York or Ealhwine, nicknamed Albinus or Flaccus was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York...
's advice to the count, Liber ad Guidonem, was transferred to the English hero in the Speculum Gy de Warewyke (c. 1327), edited for the Early English Text Society
Early English Text Society
The Early English Text Society is an organization to reprint early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes are in Middle English and Old English...
by Georgiana Lea Morrill Morrill, 1898.
Today Guy of Warwick's Sword
Guy of Warwick's Sword
The Guy of Warwick sword reputedly belonged to the legendary Guy of Warwick who is said to have lived in the 10th century.Guy of Warwick's most successful feat was the defeat of the Danish giant Colbran to save the English Crown for King Athelstan, who reigned from 925 to 940 when Guy of Warwick...
can be seen at Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle
Warwick Castle is a medieval castle in Warwick, the county town of Warwickshire, England. It sits on a bend on the River Avon. The castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068 within or adjacent to the Anglo-Saxon burh of Warwick. It was used as a fortification until the early 17th century,...
.
Manuscript tradition
The French romance has not been printed, but is described by Emile LittréÉmile Littré
Émile Maximilien Paul Littré was a French lexicographer and philosopher, best known for his Dictionnaire de la langue française, commonly called "The Littré".-Biography:Émile Littré was born in Paris...
in Histoire littéraire de la France
Histoire littéraire de la France
Histoire littéraire de la France is an enormous history of French literature initiated in 1733 by Dom Rivest and the Benedictines of St. Maur but it was abandoned in 1763 after the publication of volume XII...
(xxii., 841-851, 1852). A French prose version was printed in Paris, 1525, and subsequently (see Gustave Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. "Guy de Warvich"); the English metrical romance exists in four versions dating from the early fourteenth century; the text was edited by J. Zupitza (187.51876) for the Early English Texts Society from Cambridge University Library, Paper MS. Ff. 2, 38, and again (pts. 1883-1891, extra series, Nos. 42, 49, 59), from the Auchinleck manuscript
Auchinleck manuscript
The Auchinleck Manuscript, NLS Adv. MS 19.2.1, currently forms part of the collection of the National Library of Scotland. It is an illuminated manuscript copied on parchment in the 14th century in London. The manuscript provides a glimpse of a time of considerable political tension in England...
and Caius College MS.
The popularity of the legend is shown by the numerous versions in English: John Lydgate
John Lydgate
John Lydgate of Bury was a monk and poet, born in Lidgate, Suffolk, England.Lydgate is at once a greater and a lesser poet than John Gower. He is a greater poet because of his greater range and force; he has a much more powerful machine at his command. The sheer bulk of Lydgate's poetic output is...
claimed Guy of Warwick, his English verse version composed between 1442 and 1468, was translated from the Latin chronicle of Giraldus Cornubiensis (fl.
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
1350); Guy of Warwick, a poem (written in 1617 and licensed, but not printed) by John Lane
John Lane (publisher)
-Biography:Originally from Devon, where he was born into a farming family, Lane moved to London already in his teens. While working as a clerk at the Railway Clearing House, he acquired knowledge as an autodidact....
, the manuscript of which (in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
) contains a sonnet by John Milton, father of the poet
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
; The Famous Historie of Guy, Earl of Warwick (c. 1607) by Samuel Rowlands
Samuel Rowlands
Samuel Rowlands , English author of pamphlets in prose and verse, which reflect the follies and humours of the lower middle-class life of his time, seems to have had no contemporary literary reputation; but his work throws considerable light on the development of popular literature and social life...
; The Booke of the moste Victoryous Prince Guy of Warwicke (William Copland, London, n.d.); other editions by J. Cawood and C. Bates; chapbook
Chapbook
A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...
s and ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: The Tragical History, Admirable Atchievements and Curious Events of Guy, Earl of Warwick, a tragedy (1661) which may possibly be identical with a play on the subject written by John Day
John Day (dramatist)
John Day was an English dramatist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Life:He was born at Cawston, Norfolk, and educated at Ely. He became a sizar of Caius College, Cambridge, in 1592, but was expelled in the next year for stealing a book...
and Thomas Dekker, and entered at Stationers' Hall on the 15th of January 1618/19; three verse fragments are printed by Hales and F. J. Furnivall in their edition of the Percy Folio MS. vol. ii.; an early French MS. is described by J. A. Herbert (An Early MS. of Gui de Warwick, London, 1905). In the Valencian book "Tirant lo Blanch" appears a character based on Guy Whose name is "Guillem de Varoic"