females claiming in their own right are postponed to males, yet by representation they may inherit together with them. (5) A wife is dowable of one-half, instead of one-third of the land. (6) A widower may be tenant by courtesy, without having had any issue, of one-half, but only so long as he remains unmarried. An act of 1841, for commuting manorial rights in respect of lands of copyhold and customary tenure, contained a clause specially exempting from the operation of the act “the custom of gavelkind as the same now exists and prevails in the county of Kent.” Gavelkind is one of the most interesting examples of the customary law of England; it was, previous to the Conquest, the general custom of the realm, but was then superseded by the feudal law of primogeniture. Its survival in this instance in one part of the country is regarded as a concession extorted from the Conqueror by the superior bravery of the men of Kent. Irish gavelkind was a species of tribal succession, by which the land, instead of being divided at the death of the holder amongst his sons, was thrown again into the common stock, and redivided among the surviving members of the sept. The equal division amongst children of an inheritance in land is of common occurrence outside the United Kingdom and is discussed under Succession.
See Inheritance; Tenure. Also Robinson, On Gavelkind; Digby, History of the Law of Real Property; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law; Challis, Real Property.
GAVESTON, PIERS (d. 1312), earl of Cornwall, favourite of the English king Edward II., was the son of a Gascon knight, and was brought up at the court of Edward I. as companion to his son, the future king. Strong, talented and ambitious, Gaveston gained great influence over young Edward, and early in 1307 he was banished from England by the king; but he returned after the death of Edward I. a few months later, and at once became the chief adviser of Edward II. Made earl of Cornwall, he received both lands and money from the king, and added to his wealth and position by marrying Edward’s niece, Margaret, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295). He was regent of the kingdom during the king’s short absence in France in 1308, and took a very prominent part at Edward’s coronation in February of this year. These proceedings aroused the anger and jealousy of the barons, and their wrath was diminished neither by Gaveston’s superior skill at the tournament, nor by his haughty and arrogant behaviour to themselves. They demanded his banishment; and the king, forced to assent, sent his favourite to Ireland as lieutenant, where he remained for about a year. Returning to England in July 1309, Edward persuaded some of the barons to sanction this proceeding; but as Gaveston was more insolent than ever the old jealousies soon broke out afresh. In 1311 the king was forced to agree to the election of the “ordainers,” and the ordinances they drew up provided inter alia for the perpetual banishment of his favourite. Gaveston then retired to Flanders, but returned secretly to England at the end of 1311. Soon he was publicly restored by Edward, and the barons had taken up arms. Deserted by the king he surrendered to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke (d. 1324), at Scarborough in May 1312, and was taken to Deddington in Oxfordshire, where he was seized by Guy de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1315). Conveyed to Warwick castle he was beheaded on Blacklow Hill near Warwick on the 19th of June 1312. Gaveston, whose body was buried in 1315 at King’s Langley, left an only daughter.
See W. Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii. (Oxford, 1896); and Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., edited by W. Stubbs. Rolls series (London, 1882–1883).
GAVOTTE (a French word adopted from the Provençal gavoto), properly the dance of the Gavots or natives of Gap, a district in the Upper Alps, in the old province of Dauphiné. It is a dance of a brisk and lively character, somewhat resembling the minuet, but quicker and less stately (see Dance); hence also the use of this name for a corresponding form of musical composition.
GAWAIN (Fr. Walwain (Brut), Gauvain, Gaugain; Lat. Walganus, Walwanus; Dutch, Walwein, Welsh, Gwalchmei), son of King Loth of Orkney, and nephew to Arthur on his mother’s side, the most famous hero of Arthurian romance. The first mention of his name is in a passage of William of Malmesbury, recording the discovery of his tomb in the province of Ros in Wales. He is there described as “Walwen qui fuit haud degener Arturis ex sorore nepos.” Here he is said to have reigned over Galloway; and there is certainly some connexion, the character of which is now not easy to determine, between the two. In the later Historia of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and its French translation by Wace, Gawain plays an important and “pseudo-historic” rôle. On the receipt by Arthur of the insulting message of the Roman emperor, demanding tribute, it is he who is despatched as ambassador to the enemy’s camp, where his arrogant and insulting behaviour brings about the outbreak of hostilities. On receipt of the tidings of Mordred’s treachery, Gawain accompanies Arthur to England, and is slain in the battle which ensues on their landing. Wace, however, evidently knew more of Gawain than he has included in his translation, for he speaks of him as
| Li quens Walwains Qui tant fu preudom de ses mains (11. 9057-58). |
and later on says
Prous fu et de mult grant mesure, |
The English Arthurian poems regard him as the type and model of chivalrous courtesy, “the fine father of nurture,” and as Professor Maynadier has well remarked, “previous to the appearance of Malory’s compilation it was Gawain rather than Arthur, who was the typical English hero.” It is thus rather surprising to find that in the earliest preserved MSS. of Arthurian romance, i.e. in the poems of Chrétien de Troyes, Gawain, though generally placed first in the list of knights, is by no means the hero par excellence. The latter part of the Perceval is indeed devoted to the recital of his adventures at the Chastel Merveilleus, but of none of Chrétien’s poems is he the protagonist. The anonymous author of the Chevalier à l’epée indeed makes this apparent neglect of Gawain a ground of reproach against Chrétien. At the same time the majority of the short episodic poems connected with the cycle have Gawain for their hero. In the earlier form of the prose romances, e.g. in the Merlin proper, Gawain is a dominant personality, his feats rivalling in importance those ascribed to Arthur, but in the later forms such as the Merlin continuations, the Tristan, and the final Lancelot compilation, his character and position have undergone a complete change, he is represented as cruel, cowardly and treacherous, and of indifferent moral character. Most unfortunately our English version of the romances, Malory’s Morte Arthur, being derived from these later forms (though his treatment of Gawain is by no means uniformly consistent), this unfavourable aspect is that under which the hero has become known to the modern reader. Tennyson, who only knew the Arthurian story through the medium of Malory, has, by exaggeration, largely contributed to this misunderstanding. Morris, in The Defence of Guinevere, speaks of “gloomy Gawain”; perhaps the most absurdly misleading epithet which could possibly have been applied to the “gay, gratious, and gude” knight of early English tradition.
The truth appears to be that Gawain, the Celtic and mythic origin of whose character was frankly admitted by the late M. Gaston Paris, belongs to the very earliest stage of Arthurian tradition, long antedating the crystallization of such tradition into literary form. He was certainly known in Italy at a very early date; Professor Rajna has found the names of Arthur and Gawain in charters of the early 12th century, the bearers of those names being then grown to manhood; and Gawain is figured in the architrave of the north doorway of Modena cathedral, a 12th-century building. Recent discoveries have made it practically certain that there existed, prior to the extant romances, a collection of short episodic poems, devoted to the glorification of Arthur’s famous nephew and his immediate kin (his brother Ghaeris, or Gareth, and his son Guinglain), the authorship of which was attributed to a Welshman, Bleheris; fragments of this
