Justin Smalley
12/12/00

Lancelot's Penance and Perfect Knighthood in
Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur

Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur has generally been referred to as the first historical text that has encompassed the whole story about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and, therefore, has been the most influential source for future authors that have carried on the legacy of the Arthurian tradition. Within Malory's work, one of the main characters is Sir Lancelot of the Lake. He is definitely the greatest Knight of the Round Table after his son Galahad, but there is one characteristic that is keeping Lancelot from achieving perfect knighthood. This characteristic is his love for King Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere. In order to attain the stature of perfect knighthood, a knight must be proficient in the three aspects of knighthood. These three aspects are that a knight must be a courtier toward people in need, especially women; a strong warrior in tournaments and battle; and a devout Christian. Lancelot was proficient in only two of these aspects of knighthood–courtier and warrior, but he was lacking in the most important of the three aspects–a devout Christian. Although Lancelot could not be considered a perfect knight throughout most of Malory's work, he does achieve this respected stature by the end of the book. The only way that Lancelot is able to attain perfect knighthood is by finally achieving the Christian aspect of knighthood. Lancelot is only able to receive this final aspect of Christianity by going through the process of penance. Penance leads Lancelot to the salvation of becoming a devout Christian and helps him ultimately transform to a perfect knight by the final ending of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur.

There are two scenes in Le Morte D'Arthur where Lancelot goes through the process of penance–the quest for the Holy Grail and the death of Guinevere, but the first scene proves to be an unsuccessful attempt for Lancelot. The first time that the Lancelot goes through the process of penance occurs during the Holy Grail quest. During the quest, Lancelot makes it all the way to the chamber where the Holy Grail is located. This chamber is the tomb of Simeon. As Lancelot is at the door of this chamber, he loses control over his bodily senses and falls asleep, as if in a deadly slumber:

"Right so entered he into the chamber, and came toward the table of silver; and when he came nigh he felt a breath, that him thought it was intermeddled with fire, which smote him so sore in the visage that him thought it burnt his visage; and therewith, he fell to the earth, and had no power to arise, as he that was so araged, that had lost the power of his body, and his hearing, and his seeing. Then felt he many hands about him, which took him up and bare him out of the chamber door, without any amending of his swoon, and left him there, seeming dead to all people" (Malory, 356).

Lancelot remains asleep for twenty-four days, and upon the twenty-fifth he awakes in the presence of many people. These people ask Lancelot what he has seen in his deep slumber. Lancelot responds, "'I have seen,' said he, 'so great marvels that no tongue may tell, and more than any heart can think, and had not my sin been here afore me I had seen much more'" (357). After Lancelot says this to the people that were present at his awakening, they tell him that he had slept for twenty-four days. At this comment, "Lancelot thought it was punishment for the four and twenty years that he had been a sinner, wherefore Our Lord put him in penance four and twenty days and nights" (357). This penance for Lancelot during the Holy Grail quest was one where God put Lancelot into the process by putting Lancelot in a deep sleep and making him realize that it was his sin that kept him acquiring the Holy Grail. This sin was his love for Guinevere.

Although Lancelot was able to realize the Lord wanted him to repent by keeping him from attaining the Grail and putting him in a deep slumber to get this point across, Lancelot is not able to push aside his sinful love for Guinevere. When Lancelot returns to Arthur's Court after his attempt for the Holy Grail and his dream of repentance, he sees Guinevere. Lancelot does not get over her very easily. In fact, his love for Guinevere takes over his repentance that he achieves through his dream from the Lord:

"Then, as the book saith, Sir Launcelot began to resort unto Queen Guenever again, and forgat the promise and the perfection that he made in the quest. For, as the book saith, had not Sir Launcelot been in his privy thoughts and in his minds so set inwardly to the queen as he was in seeming outward to God, there had no knight passed him in the quest of the Sangrail; but ever his thoughts were privily on the queen, and so they loved together more hotter than they did toforehand, and had such privy draughts together, that many in the court spake of it, and in especial Sir Agravain, Sir Gawain's brother, for he was ever open-mouthed" (373).

With the relationship of Lancelot and Guinevere getting even more involving than before the Holy Grail quest, there is no possible way that Lancelot is going to be a devout Christian. Thus, Lancelot is not able to reach perfect knighthood and the Lord's penance for Lancelot proved to be an unsuccessful attempt because Lancelot could not fully see that his love for Guinevere was an adulterous sin against the will of God.

The second penance scene for Lancelot occurs near the end of Le Morte D'Arthur. When Arthur dies, Guinevere enters a nunnery at Almesbury and begins the repentance stage of her life. She enters the nunnery because she realizes that her love for Lancelot caused the collapse of Arthur's reign as king and the fall of the Round Table. After Guinevere is at the nunnery, Lancelot comes to reclaim her, but Guinevere does not go with him. At this first interaction with Lancelot, she informs the other sisters at the nunnery of her sin when she says, "'Through this man and me hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for though our love that we have loved together is my most noble lord slain'" (523). Because of this grave sin on the part of Guinevere, she feels that it is only necessary for her to repent and live the rest of her life in the grace of God. Guinevere tells Lancelot to leave her alone and wants him to find a woman to marry and live his life joyously. She tells him, "'Sir Launcelot, go to thy realm, and there take thee a wife, and live with her joy and bliss; and I pray thee heartily, pray for me to Our Lord that I may amend my misliving'" (523). After hearing this from Guinevere, Lancelot forbids that he would ever do such a thing; so therefore, he follows in the footsteps of his only true love and becomes a priest living his life according God's will.

During this priesthood for Lancelot, he finally goes through the process of penance, but not until he witnesses Arthur and Guinevere buried next to each other. After Lancelot has been a priest for a year, he has a vision three times in one night that indicates the death of Guinevere:

"And thus upon a night, there came a vision to Sir Launcelot, and charged him, in remission of his sins, to haste him unto Almesbury: 'And by then thou come there, thou shalt find Queen Guenever dead. And therefore take thy fellows with thee, and purvey them of an horse bier, and fetch thou the corpse of her, and bury her by her husband, the noble King Arthur'" (526).

After this dream, Lancelot rides to Almesbury on horseback and gets to the nunnery, at which Guinevere has already been dead for half an hour. When seeing the body of Guinevere, Lancelot "wept not greatly, but sighed" (526). He then goes through all the ceremonial rituals for the funeral of Guinevere and takes her body back to Glastonbury where she is buried next to Arthur. When Guinevere's body is put in the earth, Lancelot just swoons and remains there for a long time. Eventually, the hermit, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury awakens Lancelot and says to him, "'Ye be to blame, for ye displease God with such manner of sorrow making'" (527).

After this comment from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lancelot finally goes through the process of penance because he realizes his sin fully and completely within his own self. Lancelot says in response to the Archbishop:

"'Truly,' said Sir Launcelot, 'I trust I do not displease God, for he knoweth mine intent. For my sorrow was not, nor is not, for any rejoicing of sin, but my sorrow may never have end. For when I remember of her beauty, and of her noblesse, that was both with her king and with her, so when I saw his corpse and her corpse so lie together, truly mine heart would not serve to sustain my careful body. Also when I remember me how by my default, and mine orgule and my pride, that they were both laid full low, that were peerless that ever was living of Christian people, wit you well,' said Sir Launcelot, 'this remembered, of their kindness and mine unkindness, sank to mine heart, that I might not sustain myself'" (527).

At this self-realization comment by Lancelot, he finally realizes that his love for Guinevere and his selfishness of being boastful and brash of all his knightly endeavors was truly a sinful act against the marital love of Arthur and Guinevere and the humility of being a Knight of the Round Table. This scene in Le Morte D'Arthur is the true moment of Lancelot's penance to the Lord for his sinful ways.

After his penance, Lancelot leads his life to its own death by not taking care of the needs of his body and finally achieves eternal salvation in heaven. He eats and drinks very little and spends all of his time praying at the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere. "For evermore, day and night, he prayed, but sometime he slumbered a broken sleep; ever he was lying grovelling on the tomb of King Arthur and Guinever" (528). Within six weeks, Lancelot becomes very sick and lies in his bed until he dies. When Lancelot dies, a very important occurrence happens to his soul. The Archbishop witnesses this occurrence and makes it known to the other fellows that are in the priesthood at Glastonbury. He says of the occurrence, "'Truly,' said the Bishop, 'here was Sir Launcelot with me with more angels than ever I saw men in one day. And I saw the angels heave up Sir Launcelot unto heaven, and the gates of heaven opened against him'" (529). The soul of Lancelot went unto heaven after his death on earth, but his body remained with a smile on it in his bed. "When Sir Bors and his fellows came to his bed they found him stark dead, and he lay as he had smiled, and the sweetest savour about him that ever they felt. Then was there weeping and wringing of hands, and the greatest dole they made that ever made men" (529). Lancelot was able to achieve eternal salvation in heaven after he discovered his sinful ways and repented for them.

In Le Morte D'Arthur, Malory uses Lancelot's sin as the key component that holds the Arthurian story together. "Lancelot's earthly love is the theme that holds the whole last part of the Morte Darthur together–a recurrent concern in the Grail quest, the main subject of Lancelot and Guinevere, and in The Death of Arthur the immediate cause both of the fall of the Round Table and of Lancelot's own salvation" (Benson, 234). Although Lancelot is used as the cause of the fall of Arthur's reign and the Round Table, Malory changes this antagonistic view of Lancelot as a character to one of a positive outlook by the end of the book:

"Malory gives us a hero in the final tales of the work. In adapting the account he inherited, Malory has . . . transformed Lancelot. Malory's Lancelot has a past and a future, and his conduct in the Grail Quest is determined less by his place on a moral and religious spectrum than by the nature of his own continuing biography. In the course of Lancelot's quest, the dichotomy of public and private life which dominated his earlier career is replaced by the more fundamental dichotomy of earthly and heavenly chivalry. Within this new dichotomy, which Lancelot . . . comes gradually to understand and appreciate, both his public reputation and his private life are included in the earthly chivalry which he must struggle to abandon" (Atkinson, 148).

Malory intends for Lancelot to change as a character in this book to indicate that Lancelot was not just a mere foe in the Arthurian tradition, but a hero in how people may achieve eternal salvation under God's will.

Malory demonstrates that the transformation of Lancelot only could have occurred if he went through the process of penance. Malory is indicating a special importance on the practice of penance through the character of Lancelot. This importance is that "in a world of mutability, where prosperity, happiness, and human life itself are mere incidents in the downward rush of things, there is no trust to trust in, save in penance for past sin and mortifications that may open the gates of Heaven" (Whitehead, 113). Therefore, Malory was trying to portray a religious message through the penance of Lancelot. Malory was trying to get across to his audience that it takes full awareness of one's sins before he/she can repent for them. If and only if this awareness is achieved on the individual's part can that person lead his/her life according to God's will. If this trend of living according to the moral path continues, then one may achieve eternal salvation in Heaven beside God after his/her physical life on earth is completed. Malory firmly believed in this religious message and had the hero of Le Morte D'Arthur go through this transformation through the process of penance.

In understanding how Malory depicted Lancelot's penance to his audience in Le Morte D'Arthur, it is important to understand the historical basis behind this Christian concept. "In medieval ecclesiastical literature the word 'penance' is used to connote different but interrelated practices: (1) a public liturgical rite; (2) a private liturgical rite; (3) expiatory acts, particularly fasting, imposed on sinners who had acknowledged their sins; (4) interior dispositions of repentance, sorrow, conversion" (Payer, 487). All of these different practices of penance formed on the basic definition of what penance was according to the early Christians. They saw penance as a way to achieve salvation through divine mercy:

"His [God's] precursor preached repentance as a prerequisite for the cleansing of the souls, so that whatever the filth resulting from ancient error, whatever the defilement of the human heart resulting from ignorance, repentance might sweep it up and scrape it away and throw it out of the house, making ready the heart as a clean dwelling place for the coming visitation of the Holy Spirit, in order that, with His heavenly blessings, He might gladly there take up His abode. There is just one reason why these blessings are conferred, and that is the salvation of man–once his former sins have been effaced. This is the reason for repentance and this its office: to further the work of divine mercy, a thing advantageous to man and of service to God" (Tertullian, 16).

This definition of penance provided for by the early Christians was one that looked upon penance as forgiveness by God. God's forgiveness is a special type of forgiveness because it comes from the divine purity of God. Therefore, this forgiveness from God leads to something greater than just a simple absolution. It leads to eternal salvation.

With this penance that comes from the divine mercy of God, God helps lead individuals toward this penance; but one must want the grace of God, not just assume they will get it. When an individual sins, he/she is falling "short of the good which befits one according to one's nature" (Aquinas, 141). In order for a person to overcome his/her sins, he/she must restore what he/she has lost through the action of sinning. For this restoration, a person must turn to God to return to the moral path of life. A person needs help from God in two ways. "First, he [or she] needs a habitual gift by which his corrupt nature may be healed, and thereafter raised to perform works such as merit eternal life, which exceed what is commensurate with his nature. Secondly, he [or she] needs the help of grace by which God moves him [or her] to act" (154). These two ways that God can help a person are necessary for the individual in living a moral life and achieving eternal salvation because humans "cannot fully know what is for our good, because we do not even know ourselves perfectly. . . . We must therefore be guided and protected by God, who knows ourselves perfectly" (154). Although it is necessary for an individual to achieve this help from God because humans have limitations to their capabilities, it is of most importance for the sinful individual "to ask God for this gift of perseverance even after he [or she] has been justified by grace, so that he [or she] may be delivered from evil until the end of life" (155). Therefore, God's help on how to live life on a moral path toward eternal salvation must be accomplished by the sinful individual once he/she realizes that he/she wants God's grace in his/her life at all times. God's grace can thus be acquired through the sinful individual going through penance.

The Christian concept of penance was first practiced as a public rite in the early Christian Church during the fifth and sixth centuries; but when private penance made its foundation in the Church, both public and private penance developed side by side during the Middle Ages. Public penance was "a severe practice that could be undertaken only once in a lifetime and that carried heavy disabilities. Those who underwent public penance could not marry if they were single, could not engage in sexual relations during and after public penance if they were already married, could not enter military service, and were barred from becoming clerics in the future" (Payer, 488). Public penance was a very serious matter and a tough decision for anyone to go through because of the repercussions of the penance.

The beginnings of the practice of private penance went back as early as the popularity of public penance in the fifth and sixth centuries, but it did not begin to become practiced as much as public penance until the middle of the Middle Ages in the ninth century. This private penance was "penitents confessing their sins to a priest and receiving forgiveness" for these sins (488). Since both private and public penances were practiced in the Middle Ages, they were grounded in different principles: "secret (private) penance for secret sins, public penance for public sins" (488). By the late Middle Ages in the thirteenth century, three forms of penance developed from the ancient practice of private and public penance. These three forms were solemn, public, and private:

"Solemn penance was, in effect, similar to the ancient public penance and carried with it the harsh disabilities of the latter. Public penance (nonsolemn) referred to the openness of the penance, such as going on a pilgrimage, and could be imposed by an ordinary priest at any time. Private penance was the penance that took place before the priest–what in more recent times is generally called confession" (489).

After the Middle Ages, the practice of private penance or confession became the normal form of penance and is practiced in this way as a sacrament in the Catholic Church.

With this historical background on this Christian concept, it can now be seen that Lancelot's penance in Le Morte D'Arthur can be compared to an example of public penance. There are two characteristics during the evolution of public penance that can be attributed to Lancelot's penance. These two characteristics are "public acknowledgement of sins to the bishop" (Frantzen and Braswell, 594) and "pilgrimage" which is "the main form of nonsolemn public penance" (Mansfield, 125). With the first characteristic, Lancelot announces his true repenting statement to the hermit, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury. This statement to the Archbishop could have been stated to another fellow priest, but instead Lancelot tells the Archbishop. This event indicates that Lancelot's sin of his love for Guinevere was not just one of mere privacy, but one that affected all of Briton. Therefore, it only seems right that Lancelot should ask for pardoning from a higher cleric who is looked upon as being closer to God. With the second characteristic, Lancelot does not necessarily go on a pilgrimage to a far off land, but he does go on a journey to the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere. The interesting part is that Lancelot stays there for six weeks, not just a few days. While Lancelot is at the tomb, he prays and remembers why he is there: for his own penance. The public acknowledgement of his sin to the Archbishop and his pilgrimage to the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere help Lancelot remain on the moral path to eternal salvation.

Another characteristic of Lancelot's penance that is not necessarily indicative of public penance in the Middle Ages is the monastic way of life that Lancelot lives by after his self-realization statement to the Archbishop. Although this characteristic did not pertain to public penance, the monastic way of life was popular in the sixth century for devoutly, religious Christians. This monastic way of life considered "the hideous maceration of the body . . . as the highest proof of excellence" (Lecky, 264). Lancelot lives in this lifestyle after he declares his sin to the Archbishop as a sign of repentance to the Lord. Lancelot feels that he must rid himself of all earthly pleasures as recompense for the fall of Arthur's reign and the Round Table. He rids himself of all basic necessities of life by starving and thirsting himself to sickness and to eventual death. Although Lancelot does this as a sign of repentance, he is also doing it as a proof of excellence to the Lord. Besides simply ridding himself of all earthly pleasures, Lancelot is also praying to the God any chance that he gets. With a combination of getting rid of all earthly temptations and praying to the Lord, Lancelot can be considered a true follower of the monastic way of life and, therefore, a devout, religious Christian.

Through the reading of Le Morte D'Arthur, Malory was trying to get across to his readers the importance of penance and how it could lead a person to eternal salvation. Malory did this by attributing two characteristics of public penance and the characteristic of the monastic way of life to the hero's penance in this story about the Arthurian tradition. As Lancelot goes through these characteristics of penance, Malory finally has him achieve eternal salvation. Malory makes this known to his readers when the Archbishop tells the fellow priests that he saw many angels lift Lancelot up to Heaven after he died. This event signifies that Malory wanted to portray to his audience that Lancelot fully repented for his sinful love for Guinevere and was able to receive eternal salvation. Malory has the hero of this story achieve eternal salvation only after he goes through the process of penance because Lancelot is the character that the audience is going to remember the most. He is the foe throughout Le Morte D'Arthur until his penance when he finally becomes the hero of the Arthurian tradition.

Although Malory has Lancelot reach eternal salvation through penance in this work, the character of Lancelot also achieves something else that is perfect. At the end of this work, Lancelot is about as perfect as a human being can be. "He achieved the highest degree of perfection attainable in this world because he never lost the love and dread of God which enabled him sincerely to repent his sins and ask for grace" (Kennedy, 455). This perfection as a human being is primarily grounded in the ideal that now Lancelot is a devout Christian. This devout Christian quality was the key aspect that Lancelot was missing in his chance of achieving perfect knighthood. Once Lancelot becomes a devout Christian after his penance, he fully grasps hold of becoming a perfect knight within the Arthurian tradition.

In conclusion, the fact that Lancelot reaches perfect knighthood is important for the Arthurian tradition because Lancelot is the most human-like character within Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. Most of the other characters within this work are surreal in that they come from a fantasy world and have too many mystical powers that enable them to do phenomenal feats. This is not to say that Lancelot is not surreal in some ways because he is. He does many unbelievable endeavors as a knight and where he is actually from is a mystery in and of itself. But putting all these things aside, Lancelot does have a human side to him that many of the Arthurian characters lack. This human side is sin. The fact that Lancelot is able to overcome his sin through the act of penance provides a certain hope to all readers of this work. This hope is that they can be guided toward the moral path of life if they truly realize their sins and repent for them under God. Just as Lancelot achieves this through penance, readers can actually go through this process of penance in their own lives. Penance is not a surreal thing like many aspects of the Arthurian tradition, so people can actually relate to it because it is a true reality experience.

Works Cited

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Atkinson, Stephen. "Malory's Lancelot and the Quest for the Holy Grail." Studies in Malory. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publishers, 1985. 129-152.

Benson, Larry. Malory's Morte Darthur. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Frantzen, Allen and Mary Braswell. "Penitentials." Medieval England: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998. 593-595.

Kennedy, Beverly. "Malory's Lancelot: 'Trewest Lover, of a Synful Man." Medieval and Renaissance Studies 12 (1981): 409-456.

Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. "The Ascetic Saints." In Allison R. Ensor, ed., A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1982. 334-336.

Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte D'Arthur. 2 vols. London: Penguin , 1969.

Mansfield, Mary C. The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Payer, Pierre. "Penance and Penitentials." Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Vol. 9. New York: Scribner, 1982. 487-493.

Tertullian. Treatises on Penance: On Penitence and on Purity. Trans. William P. Le Saint. Westminister, MD: Newman Press, 1959.

Whitehead, F. "Lancelot's Penance." Essays on Malory. London: Clarendon, Oxford, 1993. 104-113.