A new Morgan le Fay text

I've been meaning to post this for a while; finally getting around to it!

I think one of the most fascinating parts of history and literature is when people make new discoveries in archives. While conducting research for my short paper on Morgan le Fay, I came across an article in the journal of Arthurian Literature by a fellow who discovered a short letter purportedly written by Morgan to a bachelor in her household.

In translation, the letter says:

"[Salutation: ] Morgan, by the grace of God empress of the wilderness, queen of the damsels, lady of the isles, long time governor of the waves (of the) great sea; to our royal bachelor Pomelyn, guardian of the Perilous Point: Greeting.

[Text: ] When Piers the Fierce was peer to peers, then Piers forgot all his peers. Now is Piers without peer and peers. By the man one is able to learn, for he loses this plainly who does not want to wait his time. Suddenly he begins to fly and greatly he pains [himself] to change his place [i.e. his station in life] when he wants to take the moon, because he makes his flights at will without avail. Now to explain to you: It is much better to wait for Fortune than hastily to ascend and suddenly to descend.

[Closing: ] Issued at our Castle of Diamond, on the Rock of Gold, above the Ruby Road, alongside the Plain of Sapphire."

Piers Gaveston was a "special friend" (probably a lover) of Edward II, and suffered a particularly nasty downfall in 1312.

This letter is significant because of when it was written and how it portrays Morgan, within a context of increasing character assassination by the Church and later writers.

To excerpt from my short paper:

"Although the origins of the character of Morgan le Fay are unclear, it is clear that she did not become a problematic figure in Arthurian literature until the Vulgate cycle in the early 13th century. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini, Morgan is Morgen, a “priestess who rules the Blessed Isle ‘under a system of benign laws’ and teaches her followers ‘how to cure sickness.’” This portrayal of Morgan as a benevolent, wise healer continues in Chretien de Troyes’s 12th-century romances. In Erec et Enide, she makes the ointment that heals Erec’s wounds. Although the demonization process begins in the early 13th century, there exists a mock letter by Morgan le Fay that portrays her as a wise empress and “lady of the isles” advising a bachelor on the power of Fortune. The letter is tentatively dated to the first half of the 14th century, but its existence demonstrates the existence of a tradition of Morgan as wise and benevolent even as it was threatened and, eventually, suppressed by her demonization.

In the early 13th century, a series of Grail tales appeared, known to us as the Vulgate Cycle, in which the demonization of Morgan le Fay began in earnest. She became “‘the most lustful woman in all of Great Britain,’ a jealous and malicious queen, ‘inspired with sensuality and the devil,’ who is hateful towards Guinevere especially” (Carver 36). Carver attributes this blackening to misogynistic Cistercian monks who “took these popular tales and edited them to suit their own didactic purposes” (David Day, qtd. Carver 36). These purposes included the desire to condemn not only women as sexual temptresses who threatened the spiritual lives of men but also to condemn magic and healing as a devilish force. These Cistercian monks and other clergy were “inclined to share the misogynist views current in the medieval church. Thus when they write about enchantresses, they often use them as vehicles for the critique of dominant values” (Larrington 3). The clergy united two contemporary religious problems with Arthuriana and targeted Morgan as a figure in which they could ‘hit two birds with one stone’: demoting both women and extra-Church mysticism and healing. By condemning Morgan as an evil, malicious female sorceress, the monks ‘re-wrote’ the Arthurian mythos to their own time, removing from it the lone strong, educated female healer who wasn’t affiliated with the Church. This re-writing continued in Sir Thomas Malory’s 1485 Le Mort Darthur, as Morgan plots to kill Arthur, steals his scabbard and enchants Lancelot into a deep sleep, entrapping him in her castle. However, Malory’s Morgan is not entirely bad — she reconciles with Arthur at the end, on the boat to Avalon. Furthermore, the plot element of Morgan as Arthur’s lover and Mordred’s mother didn’t emerge until latter-20th-century Arthurian literature (Carver 40); in Le Mort Darthur and even T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, it is Margawse/Morgause who mothers Mordred. In a twist of irony, modern women writers, including Marion Zimmer Bradley, who seek to redeem Morgan’s character continue this process of negative re-writing by continuing to cast her as Arthur’s lover and Mordred’s mother."

It is interesting, indeed, that the image of Morgan as wise adviser continues into the fourteenth century. I wonder whether this image was preserved in oral re-tellings of Arthurian tales after the mid-1300s, but could not be written down because most writing was done in monasteries. It would be nice if we somehow could pinpoint when the nice Morgan disappeared from the Arthurian legend altogether.

Twomey, Michael. “’Morgan le Fay, Empress of the Wilderness’: A Newly Recovered Arthurian Text in London, BL Royal 12.C.IX.” Arthurian Literature XXV. Eds. Elizabeth Archibald and David F. Johnson. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008. 67-91.