“For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil; But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell” (Proverbs 5:35).
It is much more obvious how the lens of adultery can be concretely applied to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight than it is with Lanval. The relationship between Sir Gawain and Bertilak’s wife, while never resulting in intercourse, can still be considered adulterous because there is a physical aspect to it. Furthermore, since Bertilak knows about and even orchestrates his wife’s relationship with Sir Gawain, Bertilak himself would have been subject to punishment under medieval law; husbands who condoned their wives’ extramarital relations could be punished as pimps under both civil and religious laws (Bullough 11).
Bertilak’s wife is flirtatious and very upfront about her attraction to Sir Gawain. She clearly states her intentions to him, saying, “You’re free to have my all,/do with me what you will” (Gawain 1237-1238). After she “charmed him and she chased” (Gawain 1260), she convinces Sir Gawain to let her kiss him. Not only does Gawain let Bertilak’s wife kiss him once, he allows her to kiss him multiple times over the subsequent days.
Interestingly, the people involved in this adultery are largely portrayed as positive characters. Like Lanval’s love, Bertilak’s wife is said to be more beautiful than Queen Guinevere, which signifies her high status and value as a woman in medieval times. Sir Gawain himself is portrayed as chivalric and upstanding, and this is consistently upheld throughout the adulterous scenes. Even Bertilak, who would have been considered a pimp under medieval law, is portrayed as a gracious host and a fine knight.
Despite all of these positive characteristics, each of the characters involved in the adultery do have a downfall of some kind. Bertilak is under the power of Morgan le Fay and has been deceiving Sir Gawain the entire time. His wife was simply following his and Morgan le Fay’s orders to seduce Sir Gawain, and she is therefore stripped of her semblance of power over Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain himself has the greatest fall. He is humiliated and brought down by Bertilak. His downfall, however, is not the adultery, but the fact that he lied about the girdle Bertilak’s wife gave him. He is punished for being afraid of losing his own life, not for his adulterous relationship with Bertilak’s wife.
Sir Gawain repents, however, and Bertilak says he has done penance by confessing. This confession and penance is for his cowardice and lying, but it could also be interpreted as penance for his violation of Bertilak’s property rights (through his wife). Sir Gawain brings up that Adam, Solomon, Samson, and David all fell because of women (Gawain 253), which could be interpreted as him saying that Bertilak’s wife was his downfall and he feels the need to repent for his adultery, as an adulterer in the Middle Ages would have been required to do by the church.
The adultery in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is clearly much more concrete than that in Lanval and reflects more of the aspects of civil and religious laws surrounding adultery in the Middle Ages. While Bertilak and his wife do not face much punishment for their roles as pimp and adulterer, Sir Gawain confesses and does penance for his crimes, reflecting the proper actions of an adulterer in the Middle Ages.
Works Cited
Bullough, Vern L. “Medieval Concepts of Adultery.” Arthuriana, vol. 7, no. 4, Scriptorium Press, Winter 1997, pp. 5-15.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 2018, pp. 204-256.