SOURCE: Eadie, J. “The Authorship of The Owl and the Nightingale: A Reappraisal.” English Studies 67, no. 6 (December 1986): 471-77.

[In the following essay, Eadie suggests that The Owl and the Nightingale may have been written by a woman and that the poem is mainly concerned with love and the theme of separated lovers.]

It seems today to be fairly generally accepted that the interesting early Middle English poem, The Owl and the Nightingale, was written by one Nicholas of Guildford, and that his objective in writing the poem was to impress his ecclesiastical superiors with his worth and so gain preferment in the Church.¹ Among recent commentators on the poem only E. G. Stanley has expressed some judicious reservations on this point,² though Kathryn Hume, in her recent book on the poem, did not seem to be entirely happy either.³

In fact, the proposition that ‘Nicholas of Guildford wrote The Owl and the Nightingale’ is completely without content since absolutely nothing is known about this man, including whether or not he actually existed.⁴ The question as to whether or not Nicholas of Guildford did actually exist is, in all probability, quite unanswerable and is, therefore, quite without interest. What is important, however, is to consider whether the theory that the poem was written in order that Nicholas might gain preferment in the Church through impressing his ecclesiastical superiors with his knowledge, humanity and judicial skills has any validity. In other words, even if we were to assume that Nicholas of Guildford actually existed, that he was an ambitious, if obscure, clerk who wanted to gain promotion in the Church, and that he chose to write a debate poem with which to impress his superiors as to his fitness for high office, would he have written a poem like The Owl and the Nightingale in order to do so? The answer is that he most certainly would not.

There are two very powerful reasons why The Owl and the Nightingale would be a totally unsuitable vehicle with which any up and coming young clerk would try to further his ambitions.

In the first place, it seems clear that Nicholas is supposed to have some legal knowledge and it is usually claimed that the poem sets out to demonstrate Nicholas' qualities as a judge.⁵ If the poem is attempting to do something like this then it would appear to be singularly inept since the legal knowledge shown in the poem appears to be almost completely out of date.⁶ In the poem, of course, Nicholas does no judging at all, and we are only told at the end that he will judge the debate on the basis of an oral report made to him by the birds. It seems, however, that by the last decades of the twelfth century legal procedure, in all but the smallest courts, was characterised above all by the extensive use of the writ. No writs of any kind are ever mentioned in the course of the poem and, indeed, neither bird ever has recourse to written submissions of any kind. The knowledge shown in the poem of contemporary legal procedures is almost non-existent. Such legal knowledge as is shown can be categorised as ‘archaic’⁷ relative to the date of composition of the poem.

Now the fact that a poet writing a debate poem should choose to use one or two archaic, though possibly well-known, legal terms in order to give some kind of technical credibility to the arguments of his characters should occasion no surprise. However, the fact that someone who is putting himself forward as something of a legal luminary should show himself to be completely ignorant of contemporary legal practice would surely be a more than sufficient reason why that person should not even be considered for preferment.

The second reason why Nicholas of Guildford would not have written this poem in order to attract the attention of his superiors to his claim for preferment is even more cogent. Quite simply, if Nicholas had wanted to impress his ecclesiastical superiors with his knowledge he would not, at this date,⁸ have written his poem in English, since at this time English was a language of no prestige or status at all.

At this date, the linguistic situation in general in England is rather obscure owing, above all, to the scarcity of contemporary documents on the matter. Nevertheless, there are certain general statements which can quite reasonably be made.⁹ Contrary to what is generally believed, it seems fairly certain that most people, of whatever class, had a working knowledge of spoken English. However, it is equally clear that English was never used as a medium for learning or instruction. It was not, in other words, the official language of the court, of the law or of the church, though it might, on occasion, be used in all three. When it was used by the ruling classes it was used exclusively for talking down to the mass of the peasantry who knew neither Latin nor French.¹⁰ It was never used as a medium for communicating up the social scale to the political and intellectual élite.

There is, indeed, one very important contemporary witness to precisely this point, that knowledge of English without Latin or French was completely useless to anyone wanting to get on in the world. This witness is Giraldus Cambrensis who, in a work, the Speculum duorum written about 1208-9,¹¹ complains bitterly about a nephew of his who was considered by Giraldus to be something of a waster since he would do nothing to improve his status. Above all, he would make no attempt to learn the two languages which then conferred status among educated men in Britain, Latin and French. Giraldus bemoans at some length his nephew's inability to learn those languages which are preeminent among learned men of the time, and which anyone who wishes to make something of himself must know. In contrast to his nephew, Giraldus goes on to cite the case of one John Blund who spent a great deal of time learning French, metropolitan French that is, from two uncles, and as a result became known as a considerable scholar.

It is absolutely clear from this that anyone trying to further his career among the learned classes c1200 through the exclusive use of English would be doomed to failure and disappointment, if not ridicule. No one with any ambition at this date would try to impress those above him by writing a work of any kind in English. The Owl and the Nightingale was not, therefore, written by Nicholas of Guildford in order to gain preferment in the Church.

But, if the poem was not written by Nicholas in order to further his career in the Church, in what circumstances, then, was the poem written? In my view it is highly unlikely that the poem was written by Nicholas at all. I believe that the poem was probably written by a woman, whose name we are unlikely ever to know, and that, in a very important critical sense the poem is about love, or at any rate, it is about the pain suffered by lovers, above all by women, who are separated, for one reason or another, from their sweethearts or husbands.

In most criticism of the poem attention is invariably directed at the differences between the two birds, a fact which is not altogether surprising given that the poem is, formally, a debate. Yet this concentration on the differences in their attitudes has undoubtedly concealed from most critics the very basic agreement on a number of fundamental points which there is in the birds' discussion of love and the separation of lovers, an agreement which is, to some extent, highlighted and given a structure by their petty squabbling on other matters.

The discussion proper about love begins when the Owl accuses the Nightingale of encouraging women to be unfaithful¹² and tells the story of the nightingale who was put to death by a knight when she had tried to console his lady. The Owl claims that it was right for the nightingale of the story to be put to death in the cruel way she was, and the Owl rejoices in her distress (lines 1063-6). The Nightingale, naturally, is enraged at the charge and, after due consideration, replies that it was the knight of the story whose reputation in the end suffered most. The fact that it was the knight who was in the wrong is underlined by the King's ordering him to be outlawed—

‘þat underyat þe king Henri—
Iesus his soule do merci!—
He let forbonne þene kniȝt,
þat hadde idon so muchel unriȝt
Ine so gode kinges londe’.

(lines 1091-5)

The Owl makes no attempt to challenge this ruling which comes direct from the King. Clearly the Nightingale's point, that it is right for her to console women suffering emotional distress, even when their husbands object, is accepted completely by the poem.

Once the Nightingale's argument is accepted she then resumes her attack on the Owl claiming that she is hated by mankind. This argument, like the subsequent one as to whether or not the Owl knows anything about astrology,¹³ does not, of course, advance the discussion about love and separation, but it is structurally important in the poem, as we shall see.

The discussion about love is resumed at line 1331 with the Nightingale defending herself against charges that she leads women into adultery. Her defence against the Owl's accusation is simply that whatever she sings about, it is always possible for people to take it the wrong way. But much of her speech is taken up, not with defending herself, but with defending women in general, and young women in particular, against charges of lustfulness that might be brought against them. Men, she says, will accuse women of lustfulness yet, themselves, be worse sinners through pride (lines 1413-6). A woman may conduct herself wrongly when she is in love, but usually only when led astray by a man (lines 1435-40). In these circumstances young women suffer greatly in love and the Nightingale takes pity on them—

‘Ne mai ich for reoþe lete,
Wanne ich iseo þe tohte ilete
þe luue bringþ on þe ȝunglinge,
þat ich of murȝþe him ne singe.
Ich teache heom bi mine songe
þat swucch luue ne lest noȝt longe’.

(lines 1445-50)

Through her song the Nightingale tries to show women that though the experience of love can be acutely painful, nevertheless, in time, the pain will pass.

When she turns to married women the Nightingale explains that she does not like to see them behaving sinfully—‘Loþ me beoþ wives utschute’ (line 1468), but she condemns even more strongly men who sleep with other men's wives and, as she makes clear, many women have got a great deal to put up with from their husbands—

‘ȝef hire lauerd is forwurde,
An unorne at bedde & at borde,
Hu miȝte þar beo eni luue
Wanne a swuch cheorles buc hire ley buue?’

(lines 1491-4)

When the Owl comes to reply to the Nightingale it is clear that, in general, she is pleased with what the Nightingale has said but that she feels very strongly that some of the criticisms which the Nightingale voiced about married women in the latter part of her speech were rather severe and did not take all the relevant facts into account—

þe Hule was glad of swuche tale;
Heo þoȝte þatte Nihtegale,
þah heo wel speke atte frume,
Hadde at þen ende misnume.(14)

(lines 1511-4)

She then proceeds to defend the conduct of married women in all circumstances, including those where the Nightingale had been somewhat critical. When there is disharmony in marriage, she claims, it is the husband who does wrong and proceeds to pursue other women, leaving his wife at home with the house falling to pieces about her. When he does come home he is likely to abuse and ill-treat her—

‘An oft, hwanheo noȝt ne misdeþ,
Heo haueþ þe fust in hire teþ.’

(lines 1537-8)

It is no wonder if women in such circumstances deceive their husbands and, there are plenty of husbands like that—‘Swucche men beoþ wel manifolde’ (line 1551). Moreover, the Owl claims, in cases such as these men sometimes lock up their wives to prevent them looking for lovers. It is then that the Owl comforts the lady and hopes she will soon find a better bed—

‘Wel neh min heorte wule tochine
Hwon ich biholde hire pine.
Mid heom ich wepe swiþe sore,
An for heom bidde Cristis ore,
þat þe lauedi sone aredde
An hire sende betere ibedde’.

(lines 1565-70)

It must, of course, be pointed out that the Owl's role here is rather similar to that of the nightingale in L'Austic story.¹⁵ The point is not that we have here caught the Owl out in a logical inconsistency—logical consistency is not the strong suit of either bird—but rather that each bird is prepared in broadly similar circumstances to help women in trouble, that is, women who are unhappy and unsatisfied in love. The poem, in other words, is making it absolutely clear that it is perfectly reasonable for women who are unhappy to seek consolation away from their husbands.

Finally, the Owl emphasises her concern for women in love by pointing out that where there are happily married women, of whatever rank, who, for one reason or another, are separated from their husbands and as a result become lonely and desolate then she will come to these women and do everything she can to comfort them in order that the period of separation might be less unbearable (lines 1575-1602).

The discussion about love had begun with the Owl's charge against the Nightingale in L'Austic story and had come near to a conclusion with the Owl's claim that she performed a similar role to that of the nightingale in the story in parallel situations. Likewise, the Nightingale's defence of her namesake's conduct in L'Austic story had culminated in her charge that the Owl was hated by mankind. It is, therefore, especially significant that it is when the Owl replies to that charge (lines 1607ff.), immediately after her speech about comforting wives who are lonely, and admits it that she not only brings to a conclusion the arguments about love, but she also brings the whole debate to an end.¹⁶ It seems clear that the poem has been most carefully structured over these five hundred and fifty lines or so (lines 1043-1706) in order that the basic agreement between the two birds in questions concerning women and love should be emphasised, whatever their differences might be on other matters.

What is most truly remarkable about the birds' extended discussion of love is the extent to which the whole matter is seen from a woman's point of view. It is always the feelings of women that the poem is interested in, never those of men. Men are referred to merely as the oppressors of women, or as their faithful husbands. The poem never asks us to feel pity for the plight of men in love as it does for women because in this poem it is only women who love and suffer and it is only the emotional well-being of women that the poem is concerned with.

Towards the end of the poem the claim is made for Nicholas of Guildford that, ‘þurh his muþe & þurh his honde / Hit is þe betere into Scotlonde’ (lines 1758-9). Such a claim is clearly absurd and would have been seen to be absurd when the poem was originally written. It would have been quite impossible for the doings of an obscure provincial clerk to have made any difference to anyone who did not live within two or three miles of Nicholas himself. Why, then, were such obviously exaggerated claims made?

When Petrarch was reading the letters of Heloise and Abelard,¹⁷ he came across a passage where Heloise says of Abelard, ‘What king or philosopher could equal your fame? What region, city or town did not burn to see you?’ And Petrarch sympathetically noted, ‘Here she tells of Peter's fame—if love does not make her testimony suspect.’

It is not, I believe, going too far to suggest that the praise of Nicholas of Guildford in our poem falls into the same category, and it may not be going too far to speculate that the concern in the text for lovers who are parted is a consequence of the separation of Nicholas¹⁸ and his beloved, the author of our poem. Whatever be the truth about the relationship of Nicholas and our author, there can be little doubt that she is responsible for the most imaginative, the least dogmatic and the most human treatment of love in Middle English literature before the time of Chaucer.

Notes

1. This theory was first put forward by R. M. Lumiansky in ‘Concerning The Owl and the Nightingale’, Philological Quarterly, 32, 1953, pp. 411-17. See also Peter Dronke, ‘Peter of Blois and Poetry at the Court of Henry II’, Mediaeval Studies, 38, 1976, pp. 185-235.

2. See his discussion on the qustion of the authorship of the poem in E. G. Stanley (ed.), The Owl and the Nightingale (London and Edinburgh, 1960), Introduction, pp. 19-22. All references to and quotations from the poem are from this edition.

3. Kathryn Hume, ‘The Owl and the Nightingale’. The Poem and its Critics (Toronto and Buffalo, 1975).

4. The search for an historical Nicholas of Guildford has produced a few Nicholases of about the correct date, and one or two curiosities. For a possible alternative explanation of the name see below, n. 18.

5. See Lumiansky, art. cit. See also D. L. Peterson, ‘The Owl and the Nightingale and Christian Dialectic’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 55, 1956, pp. 13-26.

6. For a detailed account of contemporary legal procedures, see R. C. van Caenegem, Royal Writs in England from the Conquest to Glanvill, Selden Society, 77, London 1959. See also, H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, Select Cases of Procedure without Writ under Henry III, Selden Society, 60, London 1941; F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, History of English Law, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1898); M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record. England 1066-1307 (London, 1979).

7. The term is van Caenegem's. The belief that the legal material in the poem is based on the practice of the ecclesiastical courts does not seem to be soundly based, since an essential feature in the procedure of the ecclesiastical courts was the direct scrutiny of witnesses by a judge. See van Caenegem, op. cit., p. 54.

8. It is generally accepted that the poem was written within a few years either side of 1200.

9. For a general picture of the linguistic situation in England c1200 see the following: O. H. Prior (ed.), Cambridge Anglo-Norman Texts (Cambridge, 1924), Introduction; M. Dominica Legge, ‘Anglo-Norman and the Historian’, History, 26, 1941-2, pp. 163-75; R. M. Wilson, ‘English and French in England, 1100-1300’, History, 28, 1943, pp. 37-60; G. E. Woodbine, ‘The Language of English Law’, Speculum, 18, 1943, pp. 395-436; W. Rothwell, ‘The Teaching of French in Medieval England’, Modern Language Review, 63, 1968, pp. 37-46; W. Rothwell, ‘The Role of French in Thirteenth Century England’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 58, 1975-6, pp. 445-66; J. C. Holt, ‘A Vernacular French Text of Magna Carta, 1215’, English Historical Review, 89, 1974, pp. 346-64; H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Governance of Mediaeval England (Edinburgh, 1963), passim.

10. See, for example, the comments of Jocelin of Brakelond on Abbot Samson's use of English, with a Norfolk accent, to preach to the people in H. E. Butler, ed. and trans., The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond (London, 1949), p. 40.

11. For a full discussion of Giraldus' text, see Yves Lefèvre, ‘De l'Usage du Français en Grande Bretagne à la Fin du XIIe Siècle’, in Études de Langue et de Littérature du Moyen Age, Offertes à Félix Lecoy (Paris, 1973), pp. 301-5. What follows is based entirely on Lefèvre's article.

12. Lines 1043ff.

13. The view that the birds have an argument about the value of astrology, see, A. C. Cawley, ‘Astrology in The Owl and the Nightingale’, Modern Language Review, 46, 1951, pp. 161-74, is probably mistaken. The Nightingale, far from questioning the value of astrology itself, points out that it is perfectly possible for a man to be well versed in the subject, lines 1317-20. What she does question is the Owl's claim to be able, from her limited understanding, to be able to interpret what is in the stars.

14. Stanley appears to think that these lines refer to an earlier passage in the Nightingale's speech. See Stanley, ed. cit., n., line 1432. But it is clear from lines 1513-4 that the contrast the Owl is drawing is between the beginning of the Nightingale's speech, ‘atte frume’, when she had been talking about unmarried women, and the end when she had criticised married women in a way the Owl disapproved of.

15. See above, lines 1045-66.

16. The fact that it is the Owl who makes the mistake is something which has been carefully prepared for in the course of the debate. On almost every occasion before she speaks, the Nightingale is described as considering at some length what she should say next. The Owl, on the other hand, invariably rushes into the argument without any such consideration, and consequently ends up by making a technical slip.

17. Petrarch's attitude to the letters of Heloise and Abelard is discussed in Peter Dronke, Abelard and Heloise in Medieval Testimonies (Glasgow, 1976), p. 56, from where these quotations come.

18. It would seem to me to be just possible, however unlikely, that the name Nicholas could derive from the Nicolaitans, the collective name used for married clergy from about the eleventh century onward. See C. N. L. Brooke, ‘Gregorian Reform in Action: Clerical Marriage in England 1050-1200’ in C. N. L. Brooke, Medieval Church and Society (London, 1971), pp. 69-99. If the name were derived from this source Nicholas of Guildford would be something like ‘the married clerk from Guildford’.