The Murder of the Christians
(NLC, 73-99; CA, II, 639-703)
Krista J. Sterner

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After it has been decided that Constance will marry the sultan of the Saracen people, Trevet turns his attention to a character not mentioned previously in the tale: the mother of the sultan.  The scene runs to nearly 350 words, which I give in summary here:

By the will of God, the mother of the sultan is still alive.  Seeing that the Christians are destroying her religion, the sultaness decides to plot evil and treason against them.  First, she secretly hires 700 Saracen people who are willing to live or die in a quarrel against the Christians.  As Constance and her fellow Christians are nearing the Saracen lands, the sultaness goes to her son.  She publicly thanks and praises God that the sultan will soon be a Christian, and she confesses to her son that she has always secretly wished to convert to Christianity.  She begs her son to allow her to throw the first feast for Constance and her Christian people before the upcoming nuptials and he consents.  On the day of Constance’s arrival the sultaness holds the feast.  All of the men dine in the hall of the sultan and the women dine in the hall of the sultaness.  The 700 hired Saracens serve at both feasts.  When the feast is at its most joyful moment, the 700 Saracens, along with some other Saracens they had recruited, launch an attack against the Christians.  They follow the sultaness’s orders and kill all of the Christians except the maiden Constance.  They also kill the emir and the sultan.  When the attack first begins, three Christian men escape from the feast and flee to Rome to report to the emperor what has happened.  The men assume that Constance has been killed in the attack, and they report this assumption to the emperor as well.  Everyone in Rome is devastated by this news and grief is displayed throughout the land.

Gower writes this scene quite differently in some 400 words:

No one is aware that envy is going to cause a disturbance in the upcoming marriage of Constance and the sultan.  The sultan’s mother is alive at this time, and she believes that if her son marries Constance she will lose her family (her only son), her religion, and her joy in life.  Upset, she thinks of how she might be able to trick her son.  When the two are together, she tells him that she is happy that he will soon be a Christian and that she has often desired for him to take a new faith that would make his life better.  She also tells him that Constance will be a loveable wife and, as she is the daughter of the emperor, to wed her will be a great honor for the sultan.  The sultaness, seemingly in hopes of gaining the same grace as Constance, asks the sultan if she may throw the first feast to welcome Constance.  The sultan consents.  The sultaness is happy because, along with these false words she has just spoken to her son, she is conspiring to cause death.  When Constance and the Roman clerks and citizens are at the feast, the sultaness and those who are part of her conspiracy launch their attack against all those who know of and are a part of the wedding.  The sultaness brings her rage upon all of the Romans.  Her own son is not spared, but killed also.  God spares Constance, who stands amidst the killing frozen from fear.  There is blood everywhere, including on the dishes and the silverware.  Constance weeps and makes a moaning sound as she witnesses this scene of death.

Much of this scene is similar in Trevet and Gower.  Gower, however, makes some minor yet significant changes.  He makes envy, the second of the Seven Deadly Sins, the motivating factor in the murders, makes God more powerful, makes Constance more human, and makes the sultaness more evil.

The most significant change Gower makes is his use of envy as the motivating factor for the sultaness’s actions.  Whereas in Trevet, the sultaness saw her religion being lost and therefore “s’en pensa de mal et de treson” [“plotted evil and treason”] (NLC, 75), Gower has her act because of “Envie” (CA, II, 640).  Gower’s sultaness sees that if the sultan marries Constance she will lose her “joies hiere, / For myn astat schal so be lassed” (CA, II, 648-49).  She will lose her son, her religion, and her estate—everything that makes her happy in life.  Gower further emphasizes the motivation of envy when the sultaness asks to plan the first feast for Constance.  She mentions Constance’s status: “And ek so worschipful a wif, / The doughter of an Emperour” (CA, II, 662-63).  In Trevet, the sultaness made no mention of Constance’s status.  Whereas in Trevet, the sultaness begged to plan the first feast, in Gower, the sultaness also tells her son, “I you beseche / That I such grace mihte areche” (CA, II, 665-66).  Here, the sultaness admits that she wants to host the first feast because she desires to be as graceful as Constance, again confirming that she is envious of Constance.  And lastly, whereas in Trevet, the sultaness hired 700 Saracens to help carry out the massacre, in Gower, “With fals covine which sche hadde / Hire clos Envie tho sche spradde” (CA, II, 683-84).  The sultaness uses “envie” to gather together a “covine” or conspiracy to help bring death to Constance’s people.

Why would Gower want to make envy the motivating factor in the murders?  The major reason is that Gower seeks to tell a tale about envy, while Trevet sought to tell a religiously motivated tale.  As mentioned in the introduction to this work, Gower’s Genius wishes to warn Amans about the dangers of envy and specifically about the form of envy called detraction.  Genius defines detraction as a type of envy in which a person acts by slandering or backbiting.  Detraction is illustrated through the actions of the sultaness in many instances.  While she expresses her happiness over the upcoming nuptials to her son, she “Covine of deth behinde his bak” (CA, II, 676).  As she speaks of Constance as “so worschipful a wif” (CA, II, 662), she prepares to “slowh hem in a sodein rage” (CA, II, 688).  Through the sultaness’s acts of detraction, Gower is able to demonstrate the detrimental effects that envy can have on a person; thus, he makes envy, and more specifically detraction, the motivating factor behind the murder of the Christians.

Another significant alteration is that Gower makes God more powerful.  In Trevet’s version, Constance was spared from death at the feast, but Trevet never indicated why she lived through the massacre.  In Gower’s version, he explicitly states that God spares Constance from the brutal death that meets her fellow Romans: “Bot what the hihe god wol spare / It mai for no peril misfare” (CA, II, 693-94).  As she stands among the blood and gore, this “worthi Maiden” (CA, II, 695) stays alive because of God’s providence.  Why would Gower make specific mention that God spares Constance and in doing so make God more powerful?  One reason is that Gower seeks to tell about the dangers of envy.  In specifically stating that the “hihe god” spares Constance, he is in fact saying that envy can kill even the innocent, and, that only God can stop envy from wreaking its havoc.  Thus, Gower reinforces the danger and evilness of envy as he makes God more powerful in order to meet this end. 

At the same time Gower makes God more powerful, he makes Constance less saintly and more human.  In Trevet, Constance was defined through her exceptional religious gifts and talents.  One example of her talent was seen when she converted a group of merchants to Christianity at the age of thirteen (NLC, 23).  In Gower she is still a pious woman protected by God, but she is also more human.  Constance’s humanity is revealed through her emotions and reactions to the murders.  In Trevet, the murders occurred and Constance was spared, but Trevet did not provide the reader with any reaction from Constance.  In Gower, Constance is spared by God, and then she reacts to the bloody scene: she “Stod thane, as who seith, ded for feere” (CA, II, 696).  This scene of death shakes Constance so deeply that she is frozen with fear.  Gower describes her emotional response: “No wonder thogh sche wepte and cride / Makende many a wofull mone” (CA, II, 702-03).  Gower also paints a much bloodier scene than Trevet did.  Gower says that blood was everywhere: “The Dissh forthwith the Coppe and al / Bebled thei weren overal” (CA, II, 699-700).  By using this bloodiness, Gower is setting up the scene so that Constance can respond.  Her response is genuine: she cries and moans; she feels immense grief and fear as she watches her fellow Romans be slain.  One reason Gower adds Constance’s response to the murders is that he wants her to appear more human.  Gower wants to show the damage that envy has caused and the pain and grief that Constance feels because of this damage.  By making Constance more human he makes the effects of envy even more detrimental.  She is Gower’s example of what happens when envy is at the helm.

Gower’s making Constance more human is accentuated by another of his alterations to the tale: he makes the sultaness more evil.  Gower accomplishes this change primarily through the addition of direct speech by the sultaness that was not present in Trevet’s tale.  How does this speech make the sultaness more evil?  First, it allows for the sultaness to engage in detraction.  While she exclaims, “‘Mi Sone, I am be double weie / With al myn herte glad and blithe’” (CA, II, 656-57), her “fals covine” is preparing for a massacre of the Christians, a massacre in which her own son’s life will be taken.  The sultaness’s speech is particularly powerful when juxtaposed against the murder scene.  In a matter of 15 lines, Gower’s sultaness goes from expressing joy for her son to participating in a bloody murder: “Sche slowh hem in a sodein rage” (CA, II, 688).  Her seemingly genuine invitation to hold the feast quickly becomes a feast “torned into blod” (CA, II, 698).  This juxtaposition was not matched in Trevet.  Gower seeks to use the sultaness’s direct speech and the bloodiness of the murders to emphasize what is presented by the sultaness to her son, compared to what she intends to do at the feast.  What results is a more evil sultaness.  By creating this more evil sultaness, Gower succeeds in showing the destructive power of envy.

Gower makes other changes in the scene of the murders.  For example, whereas in Trevet, the sultaness told the sultan that she had always secretly wished to convert to Christianity, in Gower, she says that she has always secretly wished he would take on a new faith.  This change allows for the sultaness to turn to Constance’s status as a “worschipful” (CA, II, 662) wife and to discuss how the marriage will be a great honor for the sultan.  It also allows Gower to emphasize the sultaness’s envy of Constance.  Another major change involves the beginning of the scene.  Whereas in Trevet, the scene began with the claim that the mother was still alive and “Allas! sil fut la volente Dieux” [“Alas!  It was the will of God”] (NLC, 73-74), in Gower, it begins, “Bot that which nevere was wel herted, / Envie, tho began travaile” (CA, II, 639-40).  This change shows that Gower is immediately defining this tale as one driven by envy.  A final change involves the end of the scene.  Whereas in Trevet, three Christian men escaped and fled to Rome, no one escapes the murder in Gower’s version.  This change is most certainly due to the fact that there is not as large a party of Romans in the Saracen land as was seen in Trevet’s tale.  Another reason for this change may be that Gower wants to reemphasize the extent of the murders.  They are so brutal that no one—except Constance, who is handpicked for protection by God—can escape being murdered at the feast.  Most of these changes are smaller and less significant than those previously discussed.  It is important to note that all of these changes—especially making God more powerful, Constance more human, and the sultaness more evil—are intended to emphasize envy as the motivating factor in the sultaness’s actions.  Death and grief are the result of her envy.

Originally Posted: April 4, 2006