journal article
Open Access
Jan 01, 2025
The Vagrant Knight: Loving the Stranger in Amis and Amiloun
Abstract
The fourteenth-century Middle English romance Amis and Amiloun takes Cicero’s claim that a true friend is like a “second self” literally. The doubling of the protagonists, however, is at odds with the romance’s account of perfect friendship, as Amis and Amiloun’s love for one another comes to resemble self-love. This essay examines how the romance navigates this problem, focussing on Amiloun’s period of vagrancy and leprosy. The episode renders Amiloun unrecognisable to Amis, and he loses all he once shared with his friend: his appearance, his health, his sense of place and social status, and his knighthood. When Amiloun appears at Amis’s gate as a beggar, he is rendered an abject “foule […] thing," wholly dissimilar from his friend. The text provides Amis with the opportunity to prove that his love for Amiloun transcends those features he shares with him, and instead is extended outward, to a stranger in need, more closely resembling the Christian virtue of caritas, or charity.
Topics
No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →
References
39
[1]
AELRED OF RIEVAULX (2010): Spiritual Friendship, translated by BRACELAND, L.C., Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 160 p.
10.31826/9781463218232
[3]
ARISTOTLE (1986): Nicomachean Ethics, translated by , OSTWALD, M., New York, Macmillan, 352 p.
[4]
BALDWIN, D. (1980): “Amis and Amiloun: The Testing of Treuþe,” Papers on Langague and Literature : 16: 353-365.
[5]
CHESTRE, T. (1995): “Sir Launfal,” in LASKAYA, A. & SALISBURY, E. (eds.), The Middle English Breton Lays, Kalamazoo, Medieval Institute Publications.https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/laskaya-and-salisbury-middle-english-breton-lays.
[6]
CICERO (1964): “De Amicitia,” in FALCONER, W.A. (trans.), De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, p. 108-211.
[8]
DANNENBAUM [CRANE], S. (1983): “Insular Tradition in the Story of Amis and Amiloun,” Neophilologus : 67: 611-622.
10.1007/bf02352420
[9]
CHRÉTIEN DE DE TROYES (1991): “The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot),” in KIBLER, W. W. (trans.), Arthurian Romances, London, Penguin, p. 207-294.
[10]
DELANY, S. (2004): “A. A. and B: coding same sex union in Amis and Amiloun,” in MCDONALD, N. (ed.), Pulp Fictions of Medieval Romance, Manchester, Manchester University Press, p. 63-81.
10.7228/manchester/9780719063183.003.0004
[11]
ECKERT, K. (2013): “Amis and Amiloun: A Spiritual Journey and the Failure of Treuþe,” Literature and Theology : 27.3: 285-296.
10.1093/litthe/frt026
[13]
FOSTER, E. (ed.) (2007): “Amis and Amiloun,” in Amis and Amiloun, Robert of Cisyle, and Sir Amadace, Kalamazoo, Medieval Institute Publications. https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/foster-amis-and-amiloun.
10.2307/j.ctv2j6xqr3
[14]
FUKUI, H. (ed.) (1990): Amys e Amillyoun, London, Anglo-Norman Text Society, 30 p.
[15]
GEREMEK, B. (1994): Poverty: A History, translated by A. KOLAKOWSKA, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 320 p.
[16]
HAUGHT, L. (2015): “In Pursuit of ‘Trewth:' Ambiguity and Meaning in ‘Amis and Amiloun',” Journal of English and Germanic Philology : 114: 240-260.
10.5406/jenglgermphil.114.2.0240
[17]
HUME, K. (1973): “‘Amis and Amiloun' and the Aesthetics of Middle English Romance,” Studies in Philology : 70.1: 19-41.
[18]
HURLEY, G.M. (2020): “‘Togedir alon:' Isolation and Community in the Narratives of Amis and Amiloun,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology : 119.1: 67-88.
10.5406/jenglgermphil.119.1.0067
[19]
JONES, M. (1990): “Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art II: Sexist Satire and Popular Punishments,” Folklore : 101.1: 69-87.
10.1080/0015587x.1990.9715780
[22]
KÖLBING, E. (ed.) (1884): Amis and Amiloun, Heilbronn, Greb. Henninger, 256 p.
[23]
KUEFLER, M. (trans.) (2000): “Life of the Dear Friends Amicus and Amelius,” in HEAD, T. (ed.), Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, London and New York, Routledge, p. 441-458.
[24]
LE SAUX, F. (ed.) (1993): Amys and Amylion, Exeter, Exeter University Press, 150 p.
[25]
LEACH, M. (1937): Amis and Amiloun, London, Oxford University Press, 145 p.
[26]
MALORY, T. (1968): Works, ed. E. VINAVER, Oxford, Clarendon, 832 p.
[29]
MCSPARRAN, F. et al. (eds.) (2018): “Fen n. (2),” in Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED15578/track?counter=3&search_id=70700280.
[31]
PRESTWICH, M. (1996): Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience, New Haven, Yale University Press, 406 p.
[32]
RADULESCU, R. (2021): “Emotions and War in Chaucer's Knight's Tale,” in MCILROY, C. & SCOTT, A.M. (eds.), Literature, Emotions, and Pre-Modern War: Conflict in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Leeds, Arc Humanities Press, p. 45-63.
10.2307/j.ctv1k76hsr.7
[33]
[34]
ROSENWEIN, B. (2006): Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 248 p.
[35]
SAUNDERS, C. (2013): “‘Greater Love Hath No Man:' Friendship in Medieval English Romance,” in BREWER, C. & WINDEATT, B. (eds.), Traditions and Innovations in the Study of Medieval English Literature, Cambridge, Boydell & Brewer, p. 128-143.
10.1515/9781782041177-012
[36]
SMITH, D.V. (2003): Arts of Possession: The Middle English Household Imaginary, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 340 p.
[37]
[38]
WEISS, J. (trans.) (2009): “Amis and Amilun,” in The Birth of Romance in England, Tempe, AZ, ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), p. 171-188.
[39]
WELCH, C. & BROWN, R. (2021): “From Villainous Letch and Sinful Outcast, to ‘Especially Beloved of God:' Complicating the Medieval Leper through Gender and Social Status,” in WEIKERT, K. & WOODACRE, E. (eds.), Medieval Intersections: Gender and Status in Europe in the Middle Ages, Oxford, Berghahn Books, p. 48-60.
10.1515/9781800731561-007
Metrics
0
Citations
39
References
Details
- Published
- Jan 01, 2025
- Vol/Issue
- 59
- License
- View
Authors
Cite This Article
Emily Dolmans (2025). The Vagrant Knight: Loving the Stranger in Amis and Amiloun. Recherches anglaises et nord-américaines, 59. https://doi.org/10.4000/148cy
Related
You May Also Like
« Chikhansink » : cartographie européenne et contre-cartographie amérindienne dans la vallée du Delaware au xviie siècle
Agnès Trouillet · 2023
2 citations
Foreword—The Porosity of Medieval Insular Romance
Morgan Dickson, Fanny Moghaddassi · 2025
Beyond What We Know: On Epistemic Limits in Sir Orfeo
Michael Reid · 2025