he becomes a woman [sed infeminatur], because his spirit changes into feminine weakness [in femineam transit impotenciam], so that he runs after his desires without a thought like women do—a lamb inwardly, but outwardly a lion—and the one who levels the castles of foreigners becomes castrated [castratus] by domestic concerns; he grows soft, weeps, begs, and cries. She, like neither a virgin nor a virago, but like a man, renounces, scorns, and shoves him into despair in every way she can.150
Like Chrétien’s Erec, Rhys’s devotion to love, to Magister Amor, has made him womanly. Moreover, Rollo’s wife maintains control of her emotions and her restraint, making her more of a man than her suitor. When it comes to gender, Walter is an assuredly unsubversive writer, and this story’s ending, which restores normative gender roles, is unsurprising given the three romances that have preceded it. Male order and control is reasserted, and female variability is scorned once again.
The four romances in distinctio 3 all explore love triangles, and they all praise homosocial male friendship, even if that friendship is, in one instance, with a horse. Each romance, moreover, introduces an element of inconstancy at a different point in the triangle, creating a series of romances that speak to one another. These romances are also notable for what they lack—courtly love. But this does not mean that Walter was not aware of the concept. Indeed, this sequence of romances seems to delight in being as opposed to courtly love as possible. Trysts are thwarted; Master Love leads knights astray; and by the end of the stories women are dismissed altogether. The fact that Walter consistently teases readers’ expectations by setting up familiar courtly love situations, only to dash them, shows that he was very familiar with this popular literary concept. Tony Davenport, speaking specifically of the story of Rollo and Rhys, finds acknowledgment of courtly love in “its reference to Ovid and its obvious awareness of contemporary interest in debating degrees of honor and love.”151 Walter’s romances are meant as a clerical satire of, or remedy to, courtly love in popular vernacular romances. Walter Map, like Marie de France and Geoffrey Chaucer, enjoys generating debate by asking readers to compare and contrast similar stories and by subverting generic expectations. The interconnected themes of Walter’s romances demonstrate that he could approach the genre with a high deal of sophistication and expertise.
Walter Map knew contemporary romance, and he wrote romance himself; in spite of some misguided suggestions otherwise, nothing should be controversial about this.152 Latin literature in the twelfth century, especially that associated with Henry II’s court, found a fruitful partner in French-language literature. In terms of genre and style, influence sometimes flowed from French to Latin, in reverse of the normal medieval pattern.153 And Latin literature could easily become a vehicle for romance or for other genres more closely associated with the vernacular.154 Even though Walter wrote his romances in Latin, they display a consistent and unmistakable engagement with contemporary vernacular literature.
Reconstructing a Literary Reputation
Literary reputations are admittedly difficult to reconstruct, with opinions shifting depending on geography, chronology, and audience. Even so, the reputation that the Lancelot-Grail Cycle imagines for Walter—a writer with connections to Wales (thus ancient Britain) and to romance—agrees with several facets of Walter’s own work. He presented himself as an expert on the Welsh, and he wrote romances. These two elements alone would have been enough to make Walter a plausible auctoritas for the Cycle, but another factor doubtlessly helped to cement his inclusion: his presence at the court of Henry II. It may be that Henry II’s patronage of Arthurian literature was in reality less than has been commonly thought, but regardless of the king’s actual involvement (or not) in the literary culture surrounding his court, the numerous references to Henry and Eleanor as patrons of literature show that, in the popular imagination at the very least, they are strongly associated with romance.155 The compilers of the Lancelot-Grail Cycle believed this association to be important: twice, the Cycle invokes Henry II alongside Walter Map.156 Thus, for an early thirteenth-century reader, invoking Walter Map could call to mind at least three elements strongly linked to Arthurian literature: Henry II’s court, romance, and Wales.
Walter Map may not have written a true Arthurian romance—at least one that survives—but that does not mean that he had no interest in ancient Britain. Chapters 4 and 5 demonstrate that Walter made use of Welsh literary material and that he could also write imaginative and clever literature set in ancient Britain. However, before exploring these aspects of Walter’s work, this book must address a larger critical problem looming over Walter Map—his reputation for carelessness. Indeed, the incongruity of Walter’s modern reputation as an unfocused author with the extended narrative of the Cycle has been one of the major reasons that critics believe Walter Map to be a poor or ironic choice for an auctoritas. He seems to have lacked the attention to detail necessary to complete such a long work. The next two chapters show that this view of Walter is mistaken.
Chapter 2
Works Frozen in Revision
Walter Map’s De nugis curialium survives in a state of textual disarray. In the midst of sections that seem to have been written in the early 1180s, the work occasionally references events that occurred much later, making the internal chronology difficult to accept. Henry II is alive, then dead, then alive once again. Similarly, the De nugis curialium at one point references two “Bretons, about whom more is told above.”1 Yet, this passage refers to episodes that occur later in the work and not earlier. The rubricated chapter headings occasionally lapse into descriptions that are dull or vague even for the workaday conventions of medieval headings: in a book full of marvelous, otherworldly creatures and miracle-working saints, headings such as “a wonder” or “another wonder” offer little help to readers searching for specific passages. Moreover, the rubricated chapter headings almost disappear entirely toward the end of the work, with several folios having no chapter headings whatsoever. Curiously, the last chapter of the De nugis curialium ends with what the headings call “a recapitulation of the beginning of this book, differing in expression but not substance.”2 This recapitulation, however, does not echo the beginning of the book in an artistic fashion—as does the funereal ending of Beowulf, for example—but appears to be merely a different version of the book’s first several chapters, maybe even their first draft. Several other doublets exist in the work as well, which gives the peculiar effect that Walter is at times plagiarizing himself. But perhaps the greatest oddity is that, set roughly in the middle of the work, distinctio 4 begins with a prologue that its editors think is meant for the entire book, and immediately following this invasive prologue lies an equally invasive epilogue. It, too, seems to have been meant for the whole of the work, according to the editors at least. Strange things are certainly afoot in the textual history of the De nugis curialium.
It is therefore hard to disagree with the characterization of the De nugis curialium as an “inchoate book,” of its content as “miscellaneous and unedited,” and of its structure as “jumbled and irregular.”3 It is frequently likened to a commonplace book, laden with personal recollections, topical folktales, fiery invective, and whatever else seems to have struck Walter’s fancy at any given point over the span of a decade or two. Indeed, Walter himself seems to confirm the desultory nature of its composition when he writes, “I have written this little book by snatches on loose sheets at the court of King Henry.”4 This remark, coupled with the imperfect textual state of the De nugis curialium, has all but cemented the work’s status as the product of a harried courtier who only took the time to craft a relatively unconnected series of short narratives and vignettes, without any consideration of a larger plan. In this account, the De nugis curialium is a piecemeal
