[In the following essay, Delany sketches the historical background of Havelok the Dane, summarizes its plot, and asserts its importance in describing the beginnings of social mobility and change in thirteenth-century England.]

In claiming romance for the 'mythos of summer', Northrop Frye associates the genre with 'wish-fulfillment dream'. At the same time, Frye introduces an important qualification to the utopian or fantastic dimension of romance: the quest-romance 'is the search of the libido or desiring self for a fulfillment that will deliver it from the anxieties of reality but will still contain that reality' (p. 193). The Middle English verse romance Havelok the Dane exemplifies this double perspective in the two dimensions in which it explores the nature of kingship—a topic of the first importance in English public life of the thirteenth century, when Havelok was composed. The poem operates simultaneously on mythic and political levels, defining kingship in the same terms as were used in contemporary discussions of kingship: a compromise between the royal prerogative conferred by divine ordination, and the practical limitations imposed on royal power by social structure. That compromise is incarnated in the person of Havelok, who rules in two registers: as theologically ordained monarch and figural hero, saviour of the kingdom; and as socially responsible leader of a multi-class nation united under law.

A brief resumé of the historical background must precede my reading of the poem.

By the late thirteenth century, the Norman and Angevin effort to centralise government had produced in England a strong sense of national unity. It had also engendered significant baronial resistance to royal power. And, especially with the thirteenth-century boom in the wool trade, a powerful bourgeoisie was clamouring—or, more accurately, manoeuvring—for extended influence in local governments and in Parliament.¹ The net result of these social forces was neither an outright rejection of absolute monarchy, nor thorough repression of dissidence and ambition.

Instead, a balance was eventually achieved between royal power and the rights of subjects of various classes, which some scholars have called a 'partnership' of the interested parties: king, barons, wealthy merchants and burgesses (Tout, p. 135; Wilkinson). From a modern point of view this balance remains a conservative one, in which theocratic notions were not fully replaced but were rather tempered by the exigencies of English class structure.

Such an adjustment appears, for example, in the Great Charter of 1215. John, 'by the grace of God king of England', acting 'by the will of God,… to the honour of God and for the exalting of the holy church and the bettering of our realm', is forced nonetheless to limit the power of the Crown, to specify the rights of barons and other classes, and, in article 61, to reassert the legal right of resistance.²

But Magna Carta is a programmatic and not a theoretical document. A more fully developed statement of limited monarchy appears in the work of the jurist Henry Bracton (d. 1268), De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae. So finely balanced is Bracton's treatise that it was quoted during the seventeenth century by royalists and parliamentarians alike. Bracton conceives the king both above and below the law, divinely appointed but, just because of this, obliged to govern properly:

The king himself must be, not under Man, but under God and the Law, because the Law makes the king.… For there is no king where arbitrary will dominates, and not the Law. And that he should be under the law because he is God's vicar, becomes evident through the similitude with Jesus Christ in whose stead he governs on earth. For He, God's true Mercy, though having at His disposal many means to recuperate ineffably the human race, chose before all other expedients the one which applied for the destruction of the devil's work; that is, not the strength of power, but the maxim of Justice, and therefore he wished to be under the Law in order to redeem those under the Law. For he did not wish to apply force, but reason and judgment.³

The success of Bracton's book (it became the basis of legal literature in the reign of Edward I) reflected the attempts being made in historical practice to redefine the nature, rights and obligations of kingship. Those attempts were evident throughout the century in several ways: the constant claims of barons and burgesses to participate in government, the baronial crisis of 1298 and the subsequent Confirmation of Charters, the development of Parliament as a legislative organ.

The concern with the nature of kingship that dominated English public life in the thirteenth century was given literary expression in Havelok the Dane. In its Middle English version, Havelok was probably composed during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307), though the precise date is uncertain.⁴ The stylistic simplicity of Havelok. its humor and energy, and its attention to physical detail have caused many critics to call it 'bourgeois romance'. Yet since the medieval bourgeoisie included a very wide range of wealth and social status, from great banking families and mercantile magnates down to the local brewer and baker, the adjective 'bourgeois' does little to pinpoint the actual politics of a given work. My view of Havelok is that the main purpose of the poem is to define the nature of kingship in the person of its eponymous hero. What emerges is the characteristically English resolution, familiar from thirteenth-century theory and practice: Havelok reigns by divine right and also by consensus; he is born to rule, but, unaware of this, he earns the right to rule. In this chapter, therefore, I want first to show that Havelok is established as theocratic king, and then to indicate how that status is qualified and limited by contractual notions.

The single extant copy of Havelok is found in a collection of saints' lives (MS. Laud Misc. 108, Bodleian), and its imposing title seems more appropriate to a religious story than to romance: Incipit Vita Havelok Quondam Rex Angliae et Danemarchie. This placement need not be coincidental, for the romance presents Havelok as a worker of miracles. As rightful king, moreover—king by heredity and divine right—he is not only protected by God but becomes the instrument of divine justice. In this sense, Havelok is a figural hero: not a Christ-figure, but one whose literal or historical role in the narrative duplicates the archetypal victory of good over evil.

After an invocation to Christ (15-22), the story opens with a description of the idyllic reign of Athelwold, the English king whose daughter Havelok will marry and whose ideal government he will duplicate. The description is a conventional one, with many antecedents and analogues in medieval literature and historiography.⁵ Yet the convention serves a special literary purpose here, and is tailored to show particular virtues. Athelwold's piety takes the form of justice, as it ought to do when the king is God's representative on earth; in Bracton's phrase, 'Dum facit justiciam, vicarius est Regis Eterni, minister autem diaboli dum declinat ad iniuriam' (f. 107b). As we will see, the story includes both types. Athelwold, however, administers the strait retributive justice expected of 'vicarius Regis Eterni'.

He lovede God with all his might,
And holy kirke and soth and right.
Right-wise men he lovede alle,
And overall made hem forto calle.
Wreyeres and wrobbers made he falle
And hated hem so man doth galle; …
(35-40)

Friend to fatherless, protector of widows and maidens (71-97), Athelwold practises the primary Christian virtue of caritas, feeding the poor and winning Christ's reward in duplicating Christ's goodness (98-105). Loved by all, Athelwold is mourned by all in his fatal illness. He entrusts his small daughter Goldeboru to the wardship of Earl Godrich of Cornwall. It is a sacred trust, and the ceremony is a religious one which includes

     the messebook,
The caliz, and the pateyn ok,
The corporaus, the messe-gere
(186-8)

Thereupon the king takes to his deathbed; his preparation is that of a saint and includes prayer, confession and self-flagellation. Then Athelwold distributes all his goods and money (218-25), an act which reminds us that 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God' (Mark 10:25). Athelwold dies calling on Christ and repeating Christ's dying words (from Luke 23:46; lines 228-31).

After the sorrow of the populace is somewhat abated, bells are rung and masses sung,

That God self shulde his soule leden
Into hevene bifom his Sone
And ther withuten ende wone.
(245-7)

The extended portrait of Athelwold and his reign has thus set a standard for godly rule which will not be easily met.

The idyllic condition of England ends abruptly, less by Athelwold's death than by the treachery of the evil Earl Godrich. Despite his holy vow to guard both Goldeboru and England, Godrich establishes a strict and oppressive bureaucracy (248-79), and when Goldeboru comes of age withholds the kingdom from her. As Athelwold was linked with Christ and the saints, Godrich is compared with Judas and Satan (319, 1100-1, 1133-4). Like Judas, Godrich betrays God and his leader for material gain: he has broken a religious vow and usurped the throne from its divinely ordained occupant. The author calls for miraculous intervention to restore Goldeboru (and, by implication, England), like Lazarus, to her former condition (331-3).

Godrich's usurpation figurally re-enacts the archetypal Christian conflict of good and evil; plainly the hero who can perform the prayed-for feat of liberation must be Christ's agent.

The narrative turns now to Denmark, where the preceding story of betrayal is repeated (though it is told less amply). Birkabein, the good and holy king, entrusts his heirs to Earl Godard. Godard kills the two girls in a particularly bloody way (465-75), and arranges to have Havelok killed by his serf, Grim. Godard's momentary pity on the boy is called 'miracle fair and good' (500), and Godard, like his English counterpart, is compared to Judas and to Satan (422-5, 482, 496, 506, 1409, 1411, 2229, 2512). Christ's curses are heaped on him (426-46), and another miracle is prayed for so that Havelok may avenge himself (542-4). In fact a sequence of 'miracles' has already begun, as noted above. The first of them (not explicitly labelled as such) was that which caused 'the dumb to speak': the seven-year-old Havelok's extraordinary access of rhetoric which had prompted Godard's pity. Another providential miracle occurs immediately after the prayer: in the dimness of their cottage, Grim and his wife see a light shining from Havelok's mouth 'als it were a sunnebem'; they also notice the 'kine-merk' on his shoulder (later we discover that it is a golden cross: 1262-3, 2139-40). These signs of divine appointment cause Grim to commit himself to Havelok rather than to the diabolical Godard. He does so in a prayer-like passage which deliberately exploits the ambiguity of the words 'lord' and 'freedom':

'Loverd, have mercy
Of me and Leve, that is me by!
Loverd, we aren bothe thine,
Thine cherles, thine hine …
Thoru other man, loverd, than thoru thee
Shal I nevere freeman be.
Thou shalt me, loverd, free maken.
For I shall yemen thee and waken;
Thoru thee wile I freedom have.'
(617-31)

The theological dimension of this speech is intensified by the resemblance of Grim's repentance to that of Peter after he denies Christ; as Peter 'broke down and wept' (Mark 14:72) so Grim 'sore gret' (615). We may add that Grim, like Peter, is a fisherman; that he is Havelok's first subject, as Peter was the first apostle; and that his role as founder of the town of Grimsby parallels Peter's as founder of the Church (Matthew 16:18). Again the symbolism is a deft and unobtrusive reminder of Havelok's theocratic role.

With his family and Havelok, Grim sails to England, settles at Grimsby, and becomes a prosperous fisherman and merchant. Havelok finds work in nearby Lincoln, where his good qualities endear him to all (945-88). So well-known is Havelok that Godrich, attending Parliament in Lincoln, decides to use him in order to rid himself of Goldeboru. Having promised to wed Goldeboru to the 'hexte' (highest) man in the land, Godrich thinks he will observe only the literal meaning of that promise (the tallest man), unaware that in so doing he providentially fulfills its moral and social meanings as well (the best man, the most exalted) and prepares his own downfall. The forced marriage is performed by the Archbishop of York, who 'cam to the parlement / Als God him havede thider sent' (1179-80). Thus the marriage is consecrated by the highest ecclesiastical authority.

Havelok now returns with his royal bride to Grimsby, where the holy marks of kingship are revealed for the second time. Goldeboru does not understand their full significance until an angel's voice interprets them and reveals Havelok's destiny. With this heavenly communication Goldeboru is able to interpret Havelok's prophetic dream and to help him plan a strategy for winning the throne of Denmark. Havelok consecrates his project at church, and sets sail for Denmark.

In Denmark Havelok does battle with a group of thieves who, as 'Caimes kin and Eves' (2045) participate in the nature of archetypal Biblical sinners. After this victory the holy king-marks are again revealed, this time to the royal justice Ubbe. Recognised at last as rightful heir in his own land, Havelok is able to bring Godard to the hideous death he deserves. Returning to England, Havelok engages in climactic single combat with Godrich. He shows his mercy by offering to forgive if Godrich will renounce all claim to the throne. When mercy is rejected, justice must be done, and Godrich meets as painful a death as Godard had done. Havelok is made king, rewards are distributed, fealty is taken 'on the bok'. A new golden age begins for England under a divinely appointed king who equals Athelwold in strength, virtue and piety.

To read Havelok from a religious point of view reveals a king who is virtually a saviour-figure: he defeats diabolical opponents, avenges those who have been wronged, and brings a new reign of harmony, love and peace. But the poem also develops another aspect of Havelok's rule, simultaneously with the theocratic. That is the political or contractual side of his rule, to which I now turn.

Reviewing the beginning of Havelok, we find that England's golden age under Athelwold is defined in political as well as in religious terms. The king is distinguished by his ability to make and enforce good laws (27-9), and his reign by a remarkable consensus among all social classes:

Him lovede yung, him lovede olde,
Erl and barun, dreng and thain,
Knight, bondeman, and swain,
Widwes, maidnes, prestes and clerkes,
And alle for hise gode werkes.
(30-4)

The theme of consensus is constant in the story, and it is as important a key to judgment as the religious symbols discussed above. Again and again the author emphasises that the good ruler governs on behalf of and with the approval of his population, at least the middle and upper classes. Thus when Athelwold falls ill,

He sende writes sone anon
After his erles evereich on:
And after hise baruns, riche and povre,
Fro Rokesburw all into Dovere …
(136-9)

This council of earls and barons chooses Godrich as ward of Athelwold's daughter, just as Godard is chosen ward of Birkabein's children by a similar council of Danish barons and knights (364-82).

Havelok's influence when he works as a cook's helper in Lincoln transcends class lines (955-8), a trait which anticipates the contractual character of his rule. When Goldeboru interprets Havelok's prophetic dream, she is careful to include among his future loyal subjects 'Erl and baroun, dreng and thain, / Knightes and burgeys and swain' (1327-8). When Ubbe discovers Havelok's holy light, he summons his entire retinue of 'knightes and sergaunz'. The formulaic list is repeated when Ubbe promises that Havelok shall take fealty of the entire population (2138-85), when he summons them (2194-5) and when the oath is sworn (2258-65). When the ceremony is done, Ubbe sends out an even more general writ throughout the entire country to castles, boroughs and towns, knights, constables and sheriffs (2274-89). When Godard is caught, his sentence is decided by a popular assembly which includes knights and burgesses (2465-73). Godrich is judged by a more limited but still representative jury of his peers (761-5).

In contrast to Athelwold and Havelok, the usurpers Godrich and Godard govern autocratically. Godard makes decisions solely on the basis of personal will (249-59). He demands a loyalty oath from all subjects without admitting any to partnership in government (260-2), and Godard does the same in Denmark (437-42). Godrich rules by fear alone, creating an oppressive bureaucracy in order to enforce his ambitious schemes (266-79). When Godrich rallies his barons for battle with Havelok, not only does he fail to seek their advice, but he coerces by threatening to reduce them to thralls (2564-5)—a flagrant and unheard-of violation of custom and law.⁶

Although consensus is an important feature of kingship in Havelok, the poem puts forth nothing like what we would now call a 'democratic' social ideal—nor did political and legal theory of the time. The 'partnership' mentioned earlier included barons, smaller landholders (knights) and the upper bourgeoisie. Peasants and labourers were not considered to have legitimate class interests other than what was defined for them by their lords or employers: this was to remain generally true in England well into the seventeenth century, and even through the Civil War (MacPherson, Part 3). The interests represented in Havelok are those of the newly powerful propertied classes: they hoped to share the privilege of government, but had no intention of extending that privilege beyond themselves.

Among Athelwold's virtues is his prompt attention to crimes against property. Thieves are the particular object of his hatred (39-43), and his zeal against them makes England a safe place for wealthy people and travelling merchants (45-58).⁷ Indeed the prosperity accruing from commercial activity seems to constitute a large part of England's 'ease' in praise of which the author concludes this passage (59-61).

Acquisition of wealth and property appears in the poem as an honourable pursuit and one requiring virtuous character. Grim's loyalty to Havelok, as well as his industry, is rewarded by prosperity, which, by the time he dies, amounts to a large family fortune in money, goods and livestock (1221-8). Even as Godard's thrall, Grim had not been badly off; he owned substantial livestock (699-702) and a well-equipped ship sturdy enough to sail to England (706-13). Still, Grim is not free, and he acknowledges that only Havelok can make him free (618-31). This would seem at first to infringe contemporary feudal law, for a serf could be directly manumitted only by his overlord (in this case Godard), not by the king. The only way in which the king could be said to confer freedom was through the law of year and day. This privilege, included in many borough charters, provided that any person who lived peacefully in the borough in his own house for the stipulated period, would automatically become free.⁸ What Grim seems to anticipate, the, is that his path to freedom lies through the borough privileges which were the essence of the alliance between king and upper bourgeoisie.

As a youth, Havelok heartily adopts the middle-class work ethic; he helps Grim to sell fish, for

It is no shame forto swinken;
The man that may well eten and drinken
That nought he have but on swin long;
To liggen at hom it is full strong.
(799-802)

But a shortage ('dere') of grain forces Havelok to seek full-time work in Lincoln instead. The situation there is grim. Havelok remains unemployed and hungry for two days, until

The thridde day herde he calle;
'Bermen, bermen, hider forth alle!'
Povre that on fote yede
Sprongen forth so sparke of glede,
Havelok shof dune nine or ten
Right amidewarde the fen,

And stirte forth to the cook,
Ther the erles mete he took
That he boughte at the bridge;
The bermen let he alle lidge,
And bar the mete to the castel,
And gat him there a ferthing wastel.
(867-78)

Noteworthy in this passage are, first, the large number of unemployed who, at the cook's call, 'spring forth like sparks from a coal'; and, second, Havelok's brutal fervour in shoving his hungry competitors into the mud. The incident is repeated the next day. So impressed is the earl's cook with this eagerness that he offers Havelok a steady job. Havelok accepts, stipulating no other wages than enough to eat (901-20). Havelok is as conscientious a worker as we might expect from his behaviour so far: he does everything (931-42) and afterward does more:

Wolde he nevere haven rest
More than he were a best.
Of alle men was he mest meke,
Lauhwinde ay and blithe of speke;
Ever he was glad and blithe;
His sorwe he couthe full well mithe.
(943-8)

In short, Havelok is presented as an ideal worker. Yet we must acknowledge that he is an ideal worker only from the point of view of an employer. He is extremely competitive with other workers, works for nothing, gladly works to the point of exhaustion, and never complains but always smiles. None of this behaviour could be considered either realistic or admirable by an audience of ordinary workers, though it would suit the taste of their urban employers or manorial supervisors.

With Havelok's experience in Lincoln we see that his movement through the story, after Godard's usurpation, is to be a progression from lowest to highest social class. He begins as the foster-child of a serf, at Grimsby becomes a free fisherman's assistant, and at Lincoln an employee in the earl's household. That progression continues when, after marrying Goldeboru, Havelok returns to Denmark as a merchant, is knighted by Ubbe in token of his victory over the thieves, and finally achieves the throne. Presumably Havelok's experience of all classes will enlarge his political sympathies when he is king, and teach him the needs of his entire population. At the same time Havelok's social ascent permits him to display, in each condition, the noblest side of his nature and the one most appropriate to the particular class, whether cheerful acquiescence or valiant self-defense.

Nearly two hundred lines are lost from that portion of the poem which narrates the crossing to Denmark, a project supported and financed by Grim's (now wealthy) sons. When the text resumes we find Havelok conversing with Ubbe. It is Ubbe's function, as justice, to grant foreign merchants permission to sell their goods, and to receive for that privilege a toll or hanse: in this case a very valuable gold ring (1632-4). Ubbe invites Havelok and Goldeboru to dine with him, guaranteeing, with an elegant play on her name the safety of Havelok's most valuable property':

'And have thou of hire no drede;
Shall hire no man shame bede.
By the fey I owe to thee,
Thereof shall I myself boru be.'
(1664-7)

Despite this assurance, Havelok worries lest someone abduct his wife (1668-73), and Ubbe himself, acknowledging the possibility, sends a special guard to Havelok's lodging. When the attack occurs, its motive is unclear. Huwe Raven is sure that raptus is the aim of the sixty armed invaders (868-70), but Havelok's wealthy host Bernard Brun thinks it is robbery (1955-9). Though the local burgesses agree with Bernard, rejoicing that he has lost no property ('tinte no catel', 2023). Ubbe continues to emphasise the protection of Goldeboru.

Beside letting the poet display some of his most vigorous verse, and Havelok his formidable courage and strength, the battle episode underscores the need for a strong just king and a centralised administration. Again this point of view coincides with the interests of the upper bourgeoisie, whose property and fortunes could be protected, whose liberties and privileges could be granted and maintained, only by a strong centralised government. When we recall that under Athelwold no merchant travelling in England would have encountered the least trouble (45-8), the entire episode shows Godard's abysmal failure to sustain the moral tone of Denmark and to make it safe for the middle classes. Since Godrich has been unable to establish a judicial system or a public police force, Ubbe, fearing retaliation from friends of the slaughtered thieves, removes Havelok to his own well-protected house—where of course the recognition scene occurs.

A curious feature of Havelok's accession to kingship is its complete secularity. In Denmark, Ubbe summons the population, who confer the kingdom upon Havelok (2316-19). Of the English accession we hear only that the feast lasted more than forty days (2948-50). The Danish accession emphasises the ancient electoral principle, and conspicuously absent from both accounts is any mention of a traditional coronation ceremony. There is no reference to a crown; no bishops or other ecclesiastical figures are present; Havelok is neither consecrated nor anointed with holy oil; he wears no coronation robes, so closely resembling sacerdotal vestments; nor does he take anything resembling the traditional English coronation oath with its promise to safeguard the Church.

My argument is admittedly ex silentio: nonetheless the omission of a coronation -ceremony, with its heavy ecclesiastical overtones, is significant. First, such a ceremony could have provided the author with an ideal opportunity for ceremonial description, an opportunity most medieval authors welcomed in such events as weddings, dubbings, battles, and so on. Indeed we have already seen that our author enjoys and excels at physical description and detail: the death of Athelwold, the battle at Bernard's, and other loci prove that. Second, even more surprising than the poet's bypassing a splendid literary opportunity is his ignoring an event which in his own time was an extremely important one in English public life, and which had been important for generations.⁹ Both literary and social tradition, then, suggest that a coronation scene would be an obvious climax in the poem. Its omission, however, is neither accidental nor inconsistent.

In part the secularity of Havelok's accession may reflect the nationalistic sentiment that infused thirteenth-century English public life, for that sentiment was largely a product of England's assertion of sovereignty against papal intervention to emphasise the rights of regnum over those of sacerdotium. It stresses the inviolable unity of the nation.

But beyond this, the secular coronation rounds out the new definition of kingship offered in Havelok, and here a historical analogue cannot be ignored. Like Havelok, Edward I became king in an unusual manner. Since he was abroad when his father died in 1272, Edward's succession was proclaimed immediately by hereditary right and will of the magnates. This was confirmed by oath of fealty from knights and burgesses, and Edward began to reign from the date of his election. It was the first time that full legal recognition had been extended to an heir before coronation, for Edward was formally crowned—that is, he received ecclesiastical approval—only two years later, on his return to England. Thus Edward's accession itself showed that the English notion of kingship had already moved well away from the theocratic extreme, and that the will of those governed had become as significant a factor as the will of God. 'The double note, of conservatism and experiment, which was to sound throughout his reign, seemed already struck before he began it' (Johnstone, p. 393). It is the same double note that Havelok strikes.

At the end of the romance, the theme of social mobility emerges again. The rise of Grim and Havelok has already validated social mobility, while the villainy of Earls Godard and Godrich indicates that rank cannot guarantee character. Havelok himself underlines the importance of moral, rather than social, superiority when he refers to Godard as a 'thrall' (1408); later the author calls Godrich a 'mixed [filthy] cherl' (2533), rhyming 'cherl' with 'erl' to intensify the paradox.¹⁰ Now, social mobility is extended to Havelok's supporters. Grim's three sons are elevated to knights and barons (2346-53), and Grim's daughters are raised even higher. One of them is given in marriage to the Earl of Chester, the other to Havelok's former employer, the cook, who is now by Havelok's grant Earl of Cornwall. These rewards, especially the last, may seem extravagant, and Halvorsen has called this scene 'a peasant fantasy'.¹¹ But the scene is neither fantastic, nor expressive of peasant aspirations; it represents the social reality and realistic ambitions of the upper bourgeoisie and knighthood.

I would point out, first, that a post in a noble household was often a prestigious sinecure. The Earl's 'cook' may have been himself a wealthy tenant-knight with merely supervisory duties. Though the exact duty of a nobleman's 'cook' is not known, it is known that William the Conqueror gave his 'cook' half a hide of land, and that the Count of Boulogne conferred on his 'cook' the estate of Wilmiton (Pollock and Maitland, pp. 262-71). Moreover, the period was one of rapid and often dramatic social change. Serfs left the manor to become free labourers or artisans; artisans might amass sufficient capital and property to become burgesses; recently wealthy merchants and financiers bought estates and titles, intermarried with nobility, adopted an aristocratic life-style, and aspired to participate in government. In 1307, perhaps only a few years after Havelok was composed, the young Edward II created Piers Gavaston, a knight's son, Earl of Cornwall—a title whose two previous holders had been king's sons. Joan, daughter of Edward I and widow of the Earl of Gloucester, in 1295 married a knight, to whom Edward eventually entrusted the Gloucester inheritance. However it was not only in Edward's private life that he confirmed social mobility, but also in his deliberate expansion of 'the community of the realm' to include the upper middle classes, as in the 'Model Parliament' of 1295. For Edward recognised that the upper bourgeoisie was both a valuable financial resource, and a reliable ally against the barons. Thus the reward scene in Havelok represents little that had not been, or would not soon be, accomplished in reality.

The idea of theocratic monarchy in England would long outlive the thirteenth century, though the history of Richard II shows that Tudor and Stuart monarchs could assert with impunity what their predecessors could not. Still, the origins of its demise in the Civil War of 1642 lay precisely, and paradoxically, in the 'partnership'—the gradual institutional adjustments—by which monarchy survived in the thirteenth century. To the beginning of that fruitful change Havelok the Dane bears witness.

Notes

¹ See Power and, for a convenient summary of scholarship on medieval English government and social structure, Wickson.

² Text in McKechnie. Article 61, McKechnie notes, was 'nothing more nor less than legalised rebellion' (p. 153); and though it was scarcely a feasible concession, it is nonetheless a significant one.

³ Bracton, De Leg., f. 5b, in the edition of Woodbine, vol. 2, p. 33; quoted in Kantorowiz, p. 156. See also Schulz, Pollock, and Maitland, vol. I; and McIlwain, Chapter 4.

⁴ The later limit is generally taken to be 1303, the date of composition of Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne, which seems to imitate parts of Havelok. Skeat's discussion of final -e suggests that the poem was originally written before 1300, and other internal evidence points to a date after 1296. See 'Introduction' (revised by K. Sisam) to W. Skeat's edition (Oxford, 2nd ed. 1915). All quotations in my text are from the edition of Sands. The two earlier versions of the Havelok story are Geoffrey Gaimer's Anglo-Norman Estorie des engles, and the Old French Lai d'Havelok, both twelfith century.

⁵ Thus Bede's History (2:16) praises the great peace in Britain under King Edwin, commenting on the king's special care for travellers. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1087 commends the righteousness and piety of William the Conqueror, his mildness to good men and severity to bad; his reign is described as a time when 'a man might go over the kingdom unhurt, with his bosom full of gold'. The Peterborough continuation of the Chronicle claims that under Henry I a man could carry treasure anywhere without being molested. For some details in my account of the religious theme, I am indebted to a paper by V. Ishkanian, my graduate student at Simon Fraser University.

⁶ The reduction of free men to servile status was not in itself unheard of in the later thirteenth century, for it was a widely debated legal question whether performance of base services over several generations could make free stock servile (Pollock and Maitland, p. 410). Opinion generally ran that it could not. As applied to magnates the threat can have had no real social analogue, and is meant to show the hyperbolic viciousness of Godrich's nature, as well as his contempt for the law of the land.

⁷ This may allude to Edward's special campaign against robbery, embodied in the Statute of Winchester (1285). The Statute specifies the duties oftowns and hundreds, lords, sheriffs and bailiffs in expanding roads, cutting forests, guarding estates, and general surveillance against strangers: see Records of the Borough of Northampton (Northampton, 1889) vol. I, pp. 416-19. This was only one of Edward's many attempts to investigate and correct the bureaucratic abuses of the previous regime and his own; the results of his official inquiries appear in the Hundred Rolls and in various county assize rolls.

⁸ Pollock and Maitland add that the same law applied to serfs who escaped to the king's domain. As a borough privilege, the law of year and day helped to create a pool of free labour required by the bourgeoisie. Encouraged partly by this law, serfs and villeins deserted the manors in considerable numbers; see Dobb, Chapter 2.

⁹ See Richardson. A convenient guide to scholarship on the coronation ceremonies and oaths is the bibliography in Hoyt. Schramm provides a full study of the ceremony and its tradition.

¹⁰ The relation of rank and character is a familiar theme in the literature of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. It is debated in De Arte Honesti Amandi of Andreas Capellanus (Dialogues two and three). In Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose, Reason shows that the nobleman who seeks only pleasure becomes Satan's serf (4396-8). Chaucer, following Jean, would take up the question of true 'gentilesse' in his Wife of Bath's Tale, and it would be illustrated (through from a different angle) by Langland in the person of Piers Plowman.

¹¹ While I admire Halvorsen's wish to place Havelok in its social context, his concept of class is vague and inaccurate. He suggests, for instance, that 'middle class' is preferable to 'bourgeois' as a designation for this type of literature, because the former term is more inclusive, ranging from 'the villager and peasant at one end [of the social spectrum] and powerful burgher and even petty nobility at the other'. But it is just this inclusiveness that produces imprecision: witness Halvoren's inclusion of peasants in the middle class with no specification as to rich or poor peasant, servile or free, etc. My argument is that Havelok is by no means as diffuse in its ideology as Halvorsen implies: its range of social consciousness does not include that of villagers and peasants but is limited to that of burgesses and barons. One would be surprised to find a work of literature so false to social reality that it could claim identity of values among classes so divergent in their interests.

Such, however, appears to be the vision of David Staines, whose discussion of Havelok is hopelessly confused as far as class and class ideology are concerned. For Staines, the poem expresses social ideas suitable to royalty and 'the lower classes' alike. This would be quite a juggling act, even if Staines had enlightened us as to the referent of 'lower classes' and explained what they are lower than: lower than the king? lower than the bourgeoisie? lower than the artisanate? The article beautifully illustrates the need for precision in class terminology.

Susan Crane rightly rejects the peasant view, arguing that Havelok 'attends to some interests that the barony shared with the emerging professional and mercantile class' (p. 44); she characterises the poem as 'a utopian vision of harmony and happiness' (p. 44), 'a romance of the law' (p. 48).