Of hermits and knights

Don’t you love it when you read one book and it reminds you of another book you love?

Recently, knowing what a medieval nerd I am, Angelina Stanford told me about a book on chivalry written in the 1200s, and translated into English by William Caxton in 1484. One of my first thoughts was, “I’ll bet Edmund Spenser read this book,” so of course I bought myself a copy of it (in updated English).

I have not been disappointed.

Ramon Lull’s Book of Knighthood and Chivalry opens with an aging knight who decides it is time to put knighthood behind him and begin to contemplate his death and the answer he will make to God when he faces him at the last day. He becomes a hermit and lives in a forest, subsisting off the fruit he can find.

In one part of the same woods was a fair meadow in which was a tree well-laden and charged with fruit, upon which the knight of the forest lived. And under the same tree was a fountain fair and clear that quenched and moistened the entire meadow. In that same place was the knight accustomed to come every day to pray and to adore God Almighty . . . .

One day, while sitting beside the fountain saying his daily prayers, a squire on horseback wanders into the meadow.

And then to him came the knight who was very old and had a great beard, long hair and a feeble gown worn and broken from overlong wearing. And by the penance that he daily made was discolored and very lean. By the tears that he had wept were his eyes wasted and had the regard and countenance of a very holy life. Each marveled at the other, for the knight who had been so long in his hermitage had seen no man since he had left the world.

The two men observe one another quietly for some time before the hermit speaks, knowing that “the squire would not speak first out of his reverence.”

“Fair friend, what is your intent and why have you come hither to this place?”

The squire says that he was on his way to the king’s court to be knighted, “But my travel and journey have been long, and while I dozed my palfrey went out of her right way, and has brought me to this place.”

At the mention of knighthood, the hermit grows quiet and pensive, remembering the old days. When the squire asks him what he is thinking about and learns that this old hermit used to be knight, he asks the old knight to teach him what he needs to know in order live honorably as a knight “after the ordinances of God.” The rest of the book is the knight’s lessons on chivalry.

I’m thinking of a scene that closely parallels this one, only with notable differences.

In Book I, Canto I of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, the Redcrosse knight also encounters a hermit in the woods.

At length they chaunst to meet upon the way
   An aged Sire, in long black weedes yclad,
   His feete all bare, his beard all hoarie gray,
   And by his belt his booke he hanging had;
   Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad,
   And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent,
   Simple in shew, and voide of malice bad,
   And all the way he prayed as he went,
And often knockt his brest, as one that did repent.

The hermit greets Redcrosse with a low bow, and Redcrosse eagerly asks the old man whether he knows of any “straunge adventures, which abroad did pas.”

   “Ah, my dear Sonne” (quoth he) “how should, alas,
   Silly old man, that lives in hidden cell,
   Bidding his beades all day for his trespas,
   Tydings of warre and worldly trouble tell?
With holy father sits not with such thinges to mell.”

But in the very next line he contradicts himself by telling Redcrosse of some strange goings on nearby that the young knight will surely be interested in. This is still early in his career and Redcrosse has not yet learned to tell the difference between the seeming and the reality—he listens to the words spoken but doesn’t realize when the speakers behavior or previous words contradict what he’s hearing, so he’s taken in by this “hermit” who is really the evil magician Archimago.

Of course, the obvious difference is that Lull’s hermit is an honorable man, living honestly, who offers help to one who seeks it, while Spenser’s is an enemy to Redcrosse and is bent on destroying him. Archimago can put on the clothes of a hermit and mimic his speech to an extent, but he can’t disguise who he truly is for long.

Another difference is in the way the squire and Redcrosse interact with the hermits. The squire is humble, considerate of the hermit, and asks him for wisdom and guidance. Redcrosse is hasty, rushing straight from a perfunctory greeting to asking the hermit to tell him where to go for adventure, something he really should not have expected a true hermit to know about.