Located at the interface of two languages, two literary genres, two national identities and two social classes, the most marginalized and overlooked literary genre of the English Middle Ages is the vernacular chronicle. The first of this genre, Geffrei Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis, has puzzled modern critics by its unorthodox style and apparently inconsistent historical perspective, which blends Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, local legend, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Gaimar's chronicle was written for a woman, Constance, wife of Ralf FitzGilbert, one of the lesser nobility from Lincolnshire.1 Although not one of the great land-owners himself, Ralf FitzGilbert seems to have been well connected and rather typical of the men raised to prominence through an advantageous marriage. He was an undertenant of the Archbishop of York and held land of various magnates in Lincolnshire, one of whom was Gilbert of Gaunt, son-in-law of Ranulf le Meschin, Earl of Chester.2 He also had estates in Hampshire, which seem to have come to him by virtue of his marriage to Constance, since they are not recorded in Domesday.3 Gaimar tells us in his epilogue that Constance commissioned his history, and that he used a variety of sources in "English, Latin, and French." His statement that "Cest estorie fist translater / Dame Custance la gentil" implies that she directed him to write an English history and may suggest that she had in mind a translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Gaimar also mentions that Henry I's queen, Adelaide, commissioned from a poet named David a work about her husband, and that Constance possessed a copy of this work, for which she paid one silver mark, "ars e pesé," and which she often read in her room ( "en sa chambre sovent le lit," l. 6490).4 The book is thus for private reading by an obviously very literate woman, though not instructed in

    Yet the stories of Gaimar's outlaw heroes reflect a political vision that is consistent with the values and aspirations of the class to which his patrons belonged. An examination of Gaimar's rebel heroes--Sïebrit (from the Cynewulf story in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), Buern Bucecarle, and Hereward--reveals that Gaimar inverts precisely the legitimizing value the stories had in their sources by praising rebels and outlaws while kings are shown to be villains. And yet, far from undermining the value of legality or exalting rebellion, Gaimar's chronicle affirms the value of law over force at every turn. All of the outlaws are victims who are pushed outside the law by a breakdown of the accepted code of legality and right on the part of a king. Each time the feudal code is broken and the settlement of disputes declines from legality into force, a concatenation of events is set in motion that proves impossible to stop until all the parties involved have been destroyed. The breakdown of the mutual obligations of the feudal bond and the failure of law to restrain violence and protect the rights of individuals, whether from assaults by kings or vassals, result in the moral justification of the victim and the validation of his desire for redress. But no matter how understandable, morally justifiable and even inevitable the rebellion of the wronged individual, the result is nevertheless a downward and destructive spiral of violence that ultimately brings disaster to the nation. Gaimar's chronicle reflects, even before the end of the first half of the twelfth century, an ideal of law based on a contractual model of rights and obligations that encompasses, binds, and punishes the king as well as his vassals, lords as well as tenants. Gaimar idealizes the feudal bond as a symbol of the relationship of reciprocity and mutuality that represents Gaimar's ideal of justice. By writing a history that values the contribution of individuals to the success or failure of the nation not according to their rank or lineage but according to the extent to which they uphold a code of right and law, Gaimar appropriates to the noble classes the authority that the royal histories were claiming for the monarchy.

    The Norman fiction that they were the heirs and continuators of Edward

    The detailed record of lands, estates, and holdings accumulated through the Domesday Book and made possible by the existing framework of English governmental divisions of hundred and shire gave the Norman kings unprecedented control over land and inheritance. At the same time, the English monarchs' attempts to centralize their power through the legal system meant that in England a concept of legality developed that offered vassals increasingly greater recourse against the arbitrary will of a lord. By giving the king authority over the transmission of virtually all significant property rights, Henry I's Charter established the precedence of the King's law above the myriad local laws and customs that prevailed in different parts of the country.9 Thus the law promised to offset, to a degree, what was lost to an unusually centralized monarchy. Vassals who felt themselves unjustly treated by their lords as well as lords whose vassals failed to respect the terms of their grants could appeal directly to the king, who was frequently involved in the resolution of disputes regarding land.10 Recently, in contrast to the older view denying the existence of rights before there was a common law to uphold them, work by scholars such as P. R. Hyams, John Hudson and others has shown that by the twelfth century, although lordship was in theory an absolute submission of vassal to lord, in customary practice it was felt that lords could not impose their will by force for more than had been agreed upon.11 Likewise, there was a general feeling that the lord should respect the judgment of the peers of his court--all

   Gaimar's chronicle is remarkable for the way he anticipates and helps to shape the peculiarly English sense of legality that reconciles respect for hereditary right and precedent with a contractual model of the feudal bond based on mutual obligations and benefit. Gaimar's outlaw stories reveal, as early as 1137, a concept of law as a reciprocally binding constraint on the behavior of lords as well as vassals. All of Gaimar's stories of outlaws dramatize a radical violation of the obligations of lordship on the part of a king: a treasonous disinheritance, a gross violation of the rights of a vassal, as when the king rapes the wife of his most loyal vassal, or the swearing of a false feudal oath by a king. All employ an array of rhetorical techniques meant to heighten sympathy with the victims and blacken the villainy of the king. The outlaws are daring, courageous, noble, loyal and bold, while the kings are treacherous, cowardly, deceitful and lustful. Gaimar employs extensive editorializing to denounce the wrongdoing of the royal villains and an array of legalistic terminology which imposes on lords the same obligations and constraints originally considered binding only on tenants.

    In the first of these outlaw episodes, Gaimar radically alters the famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle account of Cynewulf and Cyneheard, transforming it from a drama of the conflicting loyalties of kinship and lordship into the story of an interrupted inheritance. The changes Gaimar makes are as radical as they are purposeful. In Gaimar's version, Kenewlf wrongs his nephew Sïebrit, the rightful heir, by seizing the kingdom and then exiling him. After the death of King Guthred of Wessex, his cousin Siebrand succeeded him but ruled for only a year, followed by his son, Sïebrit. After that, according to Gaimar, Kenewlf usurped the throne from his nephew Sïebrit, a crime that Gaimar frames in terms of the twelfth-century preoccupation with land tenure. He describes Kenewlf's offense as a disinheritance ("Kenewlf desheritad Siebrït"), a deed which Gaimar defines as an act of treason: "Par traisun que orent menee" ("By the treason which they demonstrated" l. 1814).13 Gaimar repeatedly condemns Kenewlf's actions in the strongest possible terms, as an offense against religion, reason, and law.

Cel Sïebrit k'il ot cacied
Ert sun cusin mais par pechied
E par cunseil de ses baruns,
Qui furent fols e mult feluns
[Estait li reis vers li marriz]. (1829-33)

    Gaimar also replaces Sïebrit's death in the Andredswald with Cumbra's, thus leaving Sïebrit conveniently alive. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Sïebrit's bad reputation was compounded by the fact that after having been exiled from his kingdom, he committed the heinous crime of killing the ealdorman Cumbra, who had been faithful to him the longest, thus bringing about his own death at the hands of a swineherd in revenge for the murder of Cumbra. In Gaimar's account, after the exile of Sïebrit, Cumbra (who is not named until later) conducts a long guerrilla war against Kenewlf from the Andredswald where he is killed by a swineherd who is presumably one of Kenewlf's men. The wrongful disinheritance of Sïebrit and the murder of Cumbra produce another act of violence, which, though foolish and futile, is not only understandable but inevitable. Sïebrit's brother, Kenehard, locates Kenewlf with a woman, and, out of a misguided desire to avenge his brother, attacks and kills him. Kenewlf's men immediately kill Kenehard, whereupon Sïebrit hears the commotion and arrives just in time to dispatch the remaining men. Sïebrit delivers an heroic speech justifying the legitimacy of his revenge. He has avenged himself according to his right: "'[S]eignurs,' fait il, 'ne m'asaillez / Kar je m'en sui par dreit vengiez'" (ll.1867-8) ("'Lords,' said he, do not attack me because I have avenged myself by right'"). Sïebrit explains that he is the one who should have held the land by the judgment of the barons and ruled the kingdom since he was the lawful heir.

[Vus] savez bien, si cum jo crei,
Que sui fiz Sï[e]brant le rei,
Si deüsse par jugement
Tenir le regne, aveir la gent. (ll. 1869-72)
(You know well, as I believe, that I am the son of Sigebrand the king. I should have held the kingdom by judgment and ruled the people.)

    Nevertheless he offers them a pact of peace formulated in terms of the necessary accord between barons and king. If the barons will restore him to his former rights, he in turn will grant them all their hereditary holdings together with an increase. The terms proposed by Sïebrit express the mutual

Si me faites rendre m'onur
Par tel covent cum jo l'avrai
Chascun de vus s'onur rendrai
E creissement vus durai grand. (ll. 1878-80)

(If you will return my honor to me, by such an agreement as soon as I would have it, I would return each of your honors to you and a great increase I would give you as well.)

    The alternative to a legal solution is a violent confrontation in which all the contestants are destroyed. Gaimar is at pains to point out that every participant in the conflict--the uncle who tried to disinherit his nephew, the barons who colluded with him, the baron who fought against Kenewlf for a long time and was killed by the swineherd, Kenehard who tried to avenge his brother's wrong, and Sïebrit himself--were all utterly destroyed, and the kingdom for which they fought eluded all of them.

Eissi finad iceste guere.
Or [n'out] nul d'els [gueres] la terre,
L'uncle ne lez nevoz ne l'unt
Ne les baruns qui morz en sunt
Ne Cumbran qui se cumbatid
Qui en Andredeswald fuïd
Que li porchiers el bois ocist.
Mult mal eire home qui traïst. (ll. 1889-908)

(This is how this war ended. Now none of them got the land. Neither the uncle nor the nephews had it, nor the barons who died, nor Cumbra who fought and who fled to the Andredeswald and who was killed by the swineherd in the forest. Very badly behaved the man who started that feud.)

    Like his Haveloc episode, Gaimar's version of Buern Bucecarle, the first known version for this story, found favor with later writers, finally making its way into the Brut or the Chronicles of England.15 The source for Gaimar's story is an obscure entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 867 which records that the people of Northumbria repudiated their king Osberht and chose instead a man of non-noble birth, Aella. Gaimar exploits the opening offered by this bare and cryptic entry to construct a remarkable and complex tale of more than 200 lines that is best understood in terms of its legal implications. In this episode, Gaimar furnishes an explanation for the repudiation of Osbrith consistent with his theme of the disastrous consequences that ensue when a king violates the obligations of the feudal oath. According to Gaimar's account, the arrival of the Danes in the late ninth century is precipitated by the rebellion of Buern Bucecarle, who summons Danish aid in order to exact vengeance after King Osbrith rapes his wife. This story dramatizes the nega-

    By stressing the parallels between married love and feudal relations, both of which entail the exchange of loyal service for protection and defense, Gaimar's story justifies the rebellion of a vassal even to the point of aiding a foreign invasion. Buern, described as "the best vassal in the land," was ironically busy guarding the coast against "uhtlages" (outlaws) when the king went to his house and raped his wife. The king lacks both loyalty and compassion. The rape was premeditated: the king had been informed of Buern's absence. After raping Buern's wife, he returns to London "where he jokes about it many times with his intimates." In addition to being an ideal vassal, Buern's reaction to his wife's violation--his tender solicitude for her well-being, his unhesitating loyalty, and his insistence on justice--is a model of the sort of benevolent authority based on the obligation of defense in exchange for true service that should have governed the relationship between king and vassal, a relationship that Osbrith's actions perverted in every point.16

    What is remarkable about Gaimar's treatment of the rape of Buern's wife is the array of legal arguments brought to bear on the offense. The repeated references (ll. 2599, 2601, 2634, 2663, 2686) to the king's crime in terms of hunte (shame) may suggest the legal stigma of infamia, a condition that the canonists attached to sexual crimes such as adultery, incest, bestiality, homosexuality and rape and which made a man unfit to hold offices of public trust and entailed the loss of legal status, such as the right to appear in court as either complainant or witness.17 Thus Gaimar characterizes the king as someone who has lost his legal status and as a result his right to hold the monarchy.

    Buern's wife also presents her humiliation as an offense against right and offers herself as a sacrifice to satisfy the requirements of justice: "Puis faites de me tel justise / Cum fusse a larecin prise" (ll. 2651-2) ("Then give me such justice as if I had been taken in theft"). By demanding to be punished as if she had been taken in a theft, she describes her rape as one of the crimes that directly threaten the feudal relationship. The Leges Henrici included theft as one of the crimes that would justify the end of the lordship relationship.18 In civil law, rape was widely regarded as a form of theft and an offense against the property rights of the woman's male relatives, and the prescribed penalty was sometimes death.19 This is the position of both Buern and his wife who regard the offense as sufficiently grave to warrant death, a sacrifice Buern's wife is ready to assume herself. She tells him, "Ore est dreit que [perde] la vie" (l. 2656) ("Now it is right for me to lose my life"). In a touching scene, Buern reassures his wife of her innocence and promises to seek justice from the author of this crime: "Si li fel fist sa felunie, / Jo querrai que il perdra la vie" (ll. 2671-2) ("As the felon committed this felony, I will ask that he lose his life").

    By the twelfth century the most serious crimes, such as rape and abduc-

Jo te desfi e tut te rent,
De tei ne voil tenir neient,
Tun humage ci te rendrai,
Ja mais de tei rien ne tendrai. (ll. 2679-82)

    Accusing the king of a felony, a type of crime that fell ordinarily under royal jurisdiction, raises the question of the competence to adjudicate an appeal brought in this instance against the king. Buern presents his case to a council of his lineage and informs them that he intends to summon Danish aid to take revenge on the king. The fact that Buern makes his claim to a family council suggests that the kin of the aggrieved men are those who should give him law. The term forfait, which signified a transgression or violation of rights, emphasizes the legal nature of the decision taken by the council of Buern's relatives to repudiate the king.

E ses parenz li unt pramis
Qu'il le metrunt fors del païs
Si firent il. Pur cel forfait
Le rei guerpire entreshait. (ll. 2693-6)

(And his relatives promised him that they would put him out of the country and so they did. For the transgression that he had committed they abandoned the king immediately.)

    At this point Gaimar radically changes the tone of the story, launching into a highly romanticized tale that might seem unrelated to the rape of Buern's wife and Buern's subsequent outlawry. This episode relates that the newly-chosen King Elle, out hunting one day, was approached by a mysterious, blind beggar who cryptically informs him that he has lost his kingdom to the Danes (summoned by Buern) who have already killed Osbrith and that both he and his beloved nephew Orin will die at the Battle of York that day. After threatening the man with death if he is lying, Elle orders his nephew to be imprisoned in a tower to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled and rushes off

    The interjection of the supernatural into the episode of the defeat at York suggests a trial by battle, a legal form introduced into England by the Normans and used in the twelfth century to test the appeal of felony, the very appeal that Buern made against Osbrith. The prominent role of prophecy in the Battle at York implies divine participation, a crucial element of a trial by battle. Having announced to Elle the events that will take place that day in York, the beggar points out that foreknowledge cannot prevent what has been preordained. In addition, the statement that a king must lose his head at York seems to imply that the defeat of the English by the Danes is not just a punishment of a particular monarch, but of the monarchy as an institution.

"Si tu m'en creiz, ne iras avant

E nepuroc ne pot el estre,

Uns reis i deit perdre la teste" (ll. 2750-2)

("If you believe me, you will not go, and yet, it cannot be otherwise; a king must lose his head there.")

    The story insists on the supernatural nature of the beggar's knowledge. When Elle asks the beggar how he knows the truth of his prophecies, the beggar replies, "Mun sen le m'ad si demustrez. / As enseignes, se m'en crëez" (ll. 2744-5) ("My understanding has shown it to me by signs, if you believe me"). The king accuses him of sorcery, which the beggar denies, and the point-by-point correspondence of the prophecy with the events that follow indicates that the source of the beggar's knowledge was not sorcery but divine revelation. On the way to York the king encounters wounded people fleeing from the battle who confirm everything the beggar had said.

Asez [encontret] des navrez
E des fuianz qui unt [cuntez]
Tut ço ke li devins ot dit.
[Neis] un sul mot n'aveit mentid. (ll. 2769-70)

(He encountered many of the wounded and the refugees who told him exactly what the seer had said. Not a single word of what he had said was a lie.)

    Finally, Gaimar's account of the Norman Conquest differs dramatically from those of his contemporaries and predecessors. Gaimar omits the usual features of the Norman account: Harold's broken promise, the bad behavior of the English the night before the attack, the supposed desertion within the English ranks. Instead Gaimar confines his account of William's reign almost entirely to the story of the outlaw Hereward. Gaimar's version of this popular story is one of the earliest if not the first, possibly preceded by the Latin romance, the Gestis Herewardis, supposedly written at Ely by a monk named Robert between 1109-31. Gaimar's Hereward episode traces the northern risings against William to the perfidy of the king himself who betrayed the loyalty of his English barons. According to Gaimar, in the year following the Conquest, William journeyed to Nottingham to make peace with his northern subjects. Although William's journey to Nottingham is historical, Gaimar is the only source for what follows. Through the Archbishop of York, William issued a proclamation that all those who would accept him as their lord and swear homage to him would receive all their hereditary holdings to hold in peace and quiet. Gaimar stresses the fact that they were promised peace, safety, quiet and freedom from distress; William pledged that they would be allowed to:

En pais aler e salf venir;
Cil ki de lui voldrat partire,
Alt s'en ariere seinement,
Ja n'i avrat destrurbement. (ll. 5387-90)

(Come and go in peace and safety and return safely and never have any disturbance.)

    In contrast to William who appears as a lying, cowardly bully and traitor, the outlaw Hereward is a character of heroic stature: daring, resourceful, courageous and bold. Hereward is depicted in several episodes performing spectacular feats, including a daring escape from the siege at Ely with five compan-

"Triwes m'aveit done li reis
Mais vus venez ireement,
Le mien pernez, tuez ma gent.
Suspris m'avez a mun mangier,
Fels traitres, vendrai mei chier." (ll. 5630-34)

("The king gave me a truce but you come here in hostility and take my goods, kill my people. You have surprised me at my meal. Traitors and felons, I shall sell myself dearly.")

  :  Gaimar's outlaw episodes emphasize the disastrous consequences that ensue when kings fail to respect the obligations of the feudal relationship. In obvious ways, Gaimar's outlaw episodes foreshadow romances such as Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick and Fouke le Fitz Waryn in which noble heroes oppose the injustices of unworthy kings and unlawful usurpers. Gaimar's chronicle sought to adapt the legitimizing values of the royal histories to affirm the prestige and status of a different social class, and in so doing, he transformed the chronicle genre. Gaimar's history differed from the royal histories not in its underlying theme, that of participation in the national destiny, but in rejecting absolute submission to an institutional authority as the model for achieving that end. Like the English romances which his chronicle foreshadows, Gaimar stresses reciprocity and mutual obligation rather than subservience as the model for the relationship between ruler and ruled. Gaimar challenges the devaluation of the individual that characterizes the court histories and promotes an ideal of mutual obligation and service as the qualities on which the legitimacy of lordship depends.

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