Social Disorder and Discontent in Thomas Chestre's Sir Launfal

Presumably Launfal hopes that one day he will rejoin the community of Carlisle, but, if it
is such an inclusive and accepting community, why should he be so concerned with the
court’s opinion of him? He worries because that community has changed. Its lady is a
tramp, the furthest thing from honour and virtue possible. Like Caerleon, her values are
not his values, and the text prompts us to consider whether at this stage Launfal actually
has a home to return to. The mayor and Guinevere, representatives of this new order,
undermine Launfal’s place in society by undermining the values upon which his ideal
society was based.
In Caerleon, his isolation continues. Ostracised by those of rank, Launfal is not
invited to their feast “for his poverté” (line 187). Yet his exclusion from the festivities
marks a turning point in Launfal’s fortunes. In the absence of the members of this
mercantile society, the kindness of the mayor’s daughter, who invites him to dine with
her, becomes the precursor to his return to society. Her kindness represents the last
vestige of the old order in Caerleon, and her role as the traditional wayside damsel who
aids the hero harks back to the traditional perception of an ideal society that Carlisle
represented before the arrival of Guinevere. That he declines is not as important as the
fact that she has asked, and, in loaning him a saddle and bridle, she precipitates his
meeting with Triamour.
The introduction of the fairy world of Dame Triamour in Sir Launfal is, as Boitani
has observed, “gradual, gentle and rhythmic” (Boitani, 1982, p. 56). The slow, dignified
approach of the “gentil maidenes two” (line 231) is heightened by its contrast to the
immediately preceding account of the jeering men who mock Launfal as his horse slips
in the mud. The maidens’ courteous words and manner and the oriental richness of the
pavilion to which they bring him provide a counterpoint to the mud and mockery of
Caerleon.
Yet despite this ceremonial introduction, Chestre’s treatment of the supernatural
elements of the story is far more matter-of-fact than in Marie’s Lanval. For a start, the
borderline between the world of Lanval and his fairy lover is very definite in the French
lai: Marie uses a river as the boundary line that separates the two realms, water being a
common divide between the real and the magical. There is no such boundary in Chestre’s
tale for Launfal to cross, and even the fear that Lanval’s horse displays in Marie’s lai
before the knight’s encounter with his mistress is absent. Estranged from Carlisle as a
result of Guinevere’s malevolence, and from Caerleon as a result of his poverty, Launfal
is no longer at home in his own world. He already exists in a twilight world somewhere
outside society.
Chestre makes some other significant changes pertaining to the magical elements of
the tale. While we sense that Marie’s fairy is not of this world, details are avoided,
adding to the mystery. There is no concrete description of her, she is not named and we
are not told where she is from. The story is related, in Stemmler’s words, “mit dem
Schauder des Ungewissen” (Stemmler, 1962, p. 250), with a quiver of the uncertain. This