Guilty as Charged? Subjectivity and the Law in La Chanson de Roland and "Lanval"

Katherine Kong

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

    La Chanson de Roland and Marie de France's lai "Lanval," both seminal French texts of the twelfth century, touch on aspects of legitimacy, legality and the power of the sovereign. As such, they provide excellent opportunities for exploring the bounds of subjectivity in the law, especially in their trial scenes. In examining the figures of Ganelon, "who has committed treason,"1 and Lanval, "accused of felony, but also of lying,"2 one sees two roles developing: that of traitor and that of felon, identities delimited by transgression of the king's law. I will examine these categories of traitor and felon more closely, and read the scenes of trial in La Chanson de Roland and "Lanval" with the following questions in mind: how are guilt and crime configured, and what are the implications of these formulations for medieval subjectivity? What does it mean to be outside of the law, and what kind of subject position might this enable? More to the point, how does literature imagine this subject position? These questions give rise to an exploration of an individual subjectivity, how one comes to bear guilt, and even an identity and subjectivity under the law of the sovereign. I propose to examine the relationship between an individual and a culpable subjectivity created by the legal systems represented in these two texts. While it would be beyond the scope of this essay to establish a link between these two stories and medieval French law of the period, I do not mean to employ "law" as merely a figure of speech, or to reduce it to the status of metaphor; for it is the dominant discourse of power in these stories, and it is as such that I reference it here.

   From Richard Southern's charting of the "impulse towards individual expression"3 to Colin Morris's notion of the "discovery of the individual,"4 the

   The first of the two trials I will examine takes place in La Chanson de Roland, which offers a curious lack of surprise regarding the figure of Ganelon. He is identified as the villain from the outset: "Guenes i vint, ki la traïsun fist / Dés or cumencet le cunseill qu'en mal prist" (178-179; Ganelon arrived, who committed treason/so began the council of woe." The strategy behind this lack of suspense has been discussed at length by critics. It may be part of the formulaic style of the poem, or it may be a concession to a twelfth-century audience familiar with the story. I suggest that perhaps it is deliberate; in revealing in advance how Ganelon will be judged, the author allows the audience to consider his guilt. Knowing the direction in which the plot will turn, one can turn attention to how it is that the plot turns and ask if Ganelon is really so villainous and Roland really so heroic. This opening up of space for questioning might reflect an anxiety about facile determinations of hero and villain, good and bad, innocent and guilty.

   In a presage of his eventual defense, Ganelon proclaims his enmity for Roland:

This declaration demonstrates that Ganelon is divided between Roland and Charlemagne, between his allegiance for one and his enmity for the other. This split sentiment will prove vital later, for his action against Roland--setting the Saracen army against Roland's rear guard, separated from the rest of Charlemagne's army--will be construed as an action against Charlemagne and therefore treasonous. Ganelon not only declaims a lack of love for Roland but declares his hatred for him, for Olivier, and for the twelve Pairs. He thus prepares his later defense: "Desfi les ci, sire, vostre veiant" (326; "I disavow them, sire, in your presence"). It is noteworthy that every part of Ganelon's defense will consist of comments made before the crime was committed. This suggests, perhaps, that Ganelon was very careful, but more concretely reveals a narrative strategy suggesting that the categories hero and villain, innocent and guilty, were not as clear-cut as one might initially believe.

   After the battles, the narrative returns to domestic matters: the barons are summoned, and the trial begins. Ganelon is in chains, and the verdict is rendered in his description before the trial is concluded: "Dés or cumencet le plait e les noveles / De Guenelun, ki traïsun ad faite" (3747-48; "So begins the trial, and the troubles of Ganelon, who committed treason"). While "innocent before proven guilty" is a phrase consonant with the present time, this description of Ganelon's trial reveals a very different notion of justice. Here, guilt is assumed, and innocence is what must be proven. This strategy of marking Ganelon in advance creates room to consider whether he is indeed traître. When this marking is coupled with Ganelon's defense, also prepared for in advance, the narrative presents us with a unique problem: what is a guilty subject? If accusation alone can create culpability, what possibilities, what safeguards, are there for self-defense? It would appear that Ganelon has thought of at least one safeguard. By proclaiming his intent and motive for action before he even acts, he establishes a defense based on intentionality, a defense spoken before a charge is levied.

   Ganelon is described in the stock manner reserved for pagans: "S'il fust leials, ben resemblast barun" (3764; "If he had been loyal, he would have resembled a noble"). Pagans are curiously figured in this text; as has often been remarked, they are described as almost Christian, almost noble, almost preux, but for the fact of their pagan status. Their military and social structures seem parallel to those of the Franks, suggesting that perhaps what is wrong with the pagans is that they are not different enough, and that this is what causes anxiety. If the enemy seems not so different

   What exactly are the processes for determining guilt in this story? As we have seen, Ganelon's identity is marked in advance, and in Charlemagne's formal accusation of him, the germs of what might be understood as a culpable subjectivity take shape:

For Charlemagne, treason consists of siding with another against group the king, depriving the king of his valued men, and betraying the king's favorites for personal gain. However, in his defense, Ganelon fashions a different conception of culpability:

[Ganelon says: "I am a traitor if I hide it! Roland erred in wealth and possession, and for this I sought his death and destruction; but I never committed any treason."]

Ganelon asserts further: "Serveie le par feid e par amur" (3770; "I served [Charlemagne] with faith and with love") and "Vengét m'en sui, mais n'i ad traïsun" (3778; "I avenged myself on [Roland], but I did not commit treason"). Ganelon does not deny that he sought Roland's death and even provides reasons for his actions. But because his vengeance was personal and not directed at Charlemagne, he claims that it was not treasonous.

   At this point Charlemagne's barons urge that the trial be set aside, and that Ganelon be exonerated. Roland is dead and done is done, and to engage in combat over this matter would be "fols," senseless. This is not what Charlemagne wants to hear, and he calls the barons themselves "felun" (3814). Here the accusation is cast, but the crime is not enunciated; does this indicate that "felon" was a label that carried little weight, or rather that all those going against the ruler's wishes, all those sympathetic to the accused, become similarly accusable? It is at this point that Thierry provides Charlemagne with the critical twist that allows Ganelon to be deemed a traitor:

Thierry suggests that respect due to the person of Charlemagne is extended to Roland, who acts in the emperor's service. This extension of personhood reveals a model of subjectivity that seems more like intersubjectivity, in that it is shared, both in symbolic representation and in bearing affront. If injury to the person of Roland, representing Charlemagne, is construed as damage to Charlemagne himself, notions of individual subjectivity seem necessarily muddied. Ganelon, too, is in service of the emperor; why is the symbolic extension of the emperor's status extended to Roland but not to him?9 Perhaps the extension is due to Roland's favored status, or perhaps Ganelon, having acted out of personal interest, forfeits his insider status. In either case, his action, taken on his own behalf, escapes

   This intersubjectivity is also at play in the treatment of Ganelon's parenz. When Thierry wins the combat and Ganelon is hanged, a decision is made: "Hom ki traïst, sei ocit e altroi" (3959; "The man who betrays, brings death on himself and others"). Thirty parenz (3781) accompany Ganelon to trial, but it is unclear who they are. They are likely related to Ganelon, but they could also be members of his household, or supporters: "Pur Guenelun erent a plait venuz." (3949; "They came to the trial for Ganelon").10 What is vital here is that, just as the respect due the emperor was extended to respect for those in his service, punishment of the traitor extends to those in his service. While the implication of the parenz in Ganelon's punishment might be explained by the notion of blood guilt, I think it is more fruitful to consider their implication with Ganelon's guilt as analogous to the implication of Charlemagne's injury with Roland's. In the categories of injury and guilt, identity is intersubjective, shared along lines of parenté, sanguinity, agreement, and community. Ganelon, however, insists on the individual--and it is perhaps this claim that most marks him as culpable. In a political system in which lines of identity overlap and are fluid, Ganelon actions on his own personal interest mark him, as does his betrayal, as culpable.

    To the extent that the notion of subjectivity is itself a difficult terrain to navigate, intersubjectivity must seem doubly so. However, in using this term as an analytic tool, I mean to indicate a way of understanding these characters that is not only relational, but also specifically dependent. The subject position of favored vassal inhabited by Roland is inseparable from its dependence on Charlemagne's subject position as powerful sovereign. Therefore, when Ganelon acts in his own self-interest, he ruptures the unity of this intersubjectivity, and paves a route to agency through accessing an individual subject position. Ganelon asserts a notion of injury limited to the individual directly harmed. He chooses to occupy the subject position of an avenger who kills, but he is not wholly outside the law, for he is brought to trial within it. Yet he is figured as a Saracen, an outsider who is yet inside; he is, thus, a truly liminal figure. Although Ganelon is killed, in his insistence on an individual notion of injury, and his right to his own defense in terms reasonable to himself, he promotes a notion of individual subjectivity, breaking away from the group, shared, extended subjectivity. His peers do not even address his defense. This suggests that they reject it, that what the accused has to say in his own defense is irrelevant, or perhaps that they are unable or unwilling to treat openly the issues introduced by such a defense. Whatever the case, the failure of Ganelon's defense suggests that an individual subjectivity is necessarily implicated with a culpable subjectivity.

   Turning to Marie de France's "Lanval," we find an the outsider knight who is forgotten by the king in the distribution of lands and women. It is said of Lanval that "ne nuls des soens bien ne li tint" (20; "no one takes his part"), and the problem again is with the liminal figure who is neither fully within nor fully outside the law. As Marie writes, "huem estranges, descunseilliez / mult est dolenz en altre terre, / quant il ne set u securs querre" (36-38; "a foreign man, with no counsel / suffers greatly in another land when he knows not where to turn for help"). Lanval is alone, with no one to speak for him--no kin-group, no community, and no means to redress his grievance. When the lady arrives, the situation reads, as R. Howard Bloch notes, "almost as a parody of the damsel in distress rescued by the valiant knight."11 The opening lines of her offer to Lanval can be seen as a vindication of his later defense and an assertion of the exemplarity of their love: "Se vus estes pruz e curteis, / emperere ne quens ne reis/ n'ot unkes tant joie ne bien" (113-15; "If you are valiant and courtly, neither emperor nor count nor king will ever have the joy you hold"). As is the case with Ganelon in La Chanson de Roland, this passage offers a foreshadowing of later defense; here it is provided by the unnamed lady. The relationship between Lanval and the lady is contractual, and its commencement parallels fealty-swearing between a noble and his vassal. She offers terms, he accepts, she gives him a gift, they swear allegiance, embrace, and seal their agreement over a meal. She does what Arthur the king does not, thereby inserting an alternative or parallel jurisdiction. Lanval returns to the king's community and he, in turn, is enabled to do what Arthur neglects to do, which is to distribute largesse. In a very tangible way, the lady supplants the king, introducing a parallel jurisdiction, which scripts a competing intersubjectivity. Again, in speaking of intersubjectivity, I do not simply mean relationality; I mean instead to indicate a situation in which a subject is defined in relation and in concert with another. The status of this subject depends on its inseparability from another, dominant subject; in this case, these dominant subject are the king and the lady.

   Lanval's wants are supplied by the lady: once he was neglected, alone, a foreigner; now he is cared for and has a lady who appears at his bidding. His subjectivity is coded as an individual one, marked by neglect and lack, and grounded in his economic situation.12 When Arthur's unnamed queen makes advances toward Lanval, he refuses in language resonating with that of his later defense; in refusing her love, he refuses the position of traitor:

("Long have I served the king, I do not wish to perjure my faith. Neither for you nor for your love would I act against my lord!")

Angered, the queen accuses Lanval of being interested in men, not women, to which Lanval replies that he loves and is loved by a woman superior to any other, and whose lowliest serving girl is worth more than the queen in respect to beauty and numerous other person qualities.

   Recall that the queen accuses Lanval of attempted seduction after he refuses her advances. His defense reads:

He denies having solicited love from the queen, and admits and repents his boast, not because it was untrue or because by it he insulted the queen, but because by it he lost his amie. Like Ganelon, Lanval admits to part of the charge, but insists on innocence in his own terms. The last part of his defense is curious, for it reaffirms the original insult which got him in trouble--namely, that his lady is fairer than the queen--and he regrets it for reasons of self-interest alone.

   Lanval is accused of a mesdire, a misspeaking; what, then, is the basis for the accusation against him? He is accused of making advances toward the queen, insulting her, and boasting that his lover is better-looking. It is questionable whether these charges stand on the basis of injury to the queen alone. Arthur takes up her case, but this could be because of women's limited room for maneuver in the medieval legal system. Lanval's actions are classified as misspeaking and felony; as felony had to do with breaches of feudal oath and conduct, there seems to be a Guinevere-Arthur extension, similar to the Roland-Charlemagne extension, and in contrast with Lanval's treatment and action as an individual subject. On the basis of

   Lanval's trial is continually interrupted--by his inability to produce his lady, by the arrival of the lady's attendants, and finally by the arrival of the lady herself. She is described in terms of the women associated with Aeneas, his mother, lover, and second wife, with whom he reputedly founded Rome. While the influence of classical literature and of Virgil in particular in the Middle Ages is of no small moment, it is significant that allusion is made to Aeneas, for the lady and Lanval are outsiders who at the end of the lai disappear to another realm, possibly to carry out the alternative jurisdiction she introduces. Here, however, the lady, and not the male protagonist, is the founder of the new order, capable of interrupting and escaping Arthur's court. The force and form of the lady's testimony implies her equal footing with Arthur:

(" Arthur," she says, "hear me, and these barons whom I see here! I loved one of your vassals. There he is! It is Lanval! He was accused in your court [I do not wish that he come to harm] for what he had said. Know this, that the queen was wrong: he never sought her out. As for his boasting, if he can be acquitted by me, let him be delivered by your barons!")

   Who gets to address the king in such a peremptory manner, not only addressing him by first name, but exclaiming it as her first utterance? It was Lanval's words that got him into trouble: he boasted and defended, was charged with felony and mesdire, and he is now mute, defended by the proclamation of a sovereign rivaling the king. The lady not only sup-

   With Lanval we are in realm of discourse; in the trial, however, the lady employs a combination of parole and geste, with her testimony and with her body, when her physical presence is all that is required. Sharon Kinoshita suggests that the lady's "declaration of his innocence is less important than her appearance itself, for her unsurpassable beauty immediately vindicates his boast."14 It is significant, however, that she does not supply her presence alone but employs both her presence and her verbal testimony. Instead of a judicium dei, "Lanval" supplies a supernatural, marvelous apparition, the force of whose presence and testimony speaks to the inadequacy of law to determine truth when two parties are opposed, and its inadequacy in matching categories to crimes. The lady's success reinforces the possibility of multiple, alternative jurisdictions, challenging the dominant legal system. That she nevertheless does participate in the trial suggests that the dominant system is not undone by the marvelous system, but must seriously be called into question when rival sovereigns and jurisdictions can exist and find ways out of it.

   This escaping is what is enabled by a culpable subjectivity. Ganelon and Lanval are characters acting in their self-interest. When accused of wrongdoing, they defend themselves according to their intention, in their own terms. This starkly individualistic subject position seems to have no place in the world constructed by these texts. Ganelon's champion loses the judicium dei, and, forsaken by the god of that world, he is killed. Lanval has a better fate, for his champion arrives to support his claim and is empowered to carry him away. That neither character can remain in his world, within the categories of its social and legal system, suggests that the culpable subject position is one of difference, possibility, and escape.

   Both Ganelon and Lanval defend themselves, denying charges of treason and felony. That they admit to some portion of wrongdoing implicitly critiques the capacity of legal categories to encompass adequately crimes and their doers. This avowal of partial guilt functions as a kind of legal confession--a confessing of intent and deed in exchange for absolution. The defense of each knight rests on the fact that his actions are reasonable to himself. Significantly, each judges himself based on his own authority to interpret his deeds. That they seem to be judged, however, on the basis of the consequence and not the intent of their actions indicates that the

   In addition to revealing a high degree of self-awareness, the defenses of Ganelon and Lanval provide a nuanced understanding of their culpable subjectivities. Their defenses function in a way as legal autobiography, for, in his defense, each performs a self-representation, a narrative of his deeds, his intentions, and how he understands them. Ganelon's defense calls for a delimiting of injury to individuals alone, implying an individual subjectivity, inflicting injury and bearing guilt, alone. He seems to have the barons convinced, save for Thierry, who reaffirms the shared nature of injury and, by extension, of subjectivity. This shared subjectivity, or intersubjectivity, is reinforced by the hanging of Ganelon's thirty parenz; as injury is shared, communal, so is guilt, which bleeds onto those who ally themselves. With Lanval, that we are in a universe of iteration, of utterance, is highlighted by his defining moments: his promise and his boast. For his character, utterance--and, by extension, its lack--are everything. He, too, engages in a sort of plea-bargaining, negotiating the terms of his guilt, and is fortunate to have in the place of Thierry a saving lady, who intervenes with a parallel jurisdiction, providing a way out of the inadequacies of Arthur's legal system.

   Ganelon and Lanval provide models of a culpable, self-interpellating subject,19 each calling into existence his own subjectivity, assessing his intentions and guilt in his own terms. Ganelon elects and defends his culpable subject position, although he must know how his action will be construed by his community. Lanval is goaded into blurting out the truth; while he insists on his innocence and guilt in his own terms, the court is unable to find him innocent. The lady arrives and defends him, and together they leave. His abandonment of the court leaves his status suspended in guilt; he abandons the system before the barons can render a