I read Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe when I was in high school back in the 1970s. Was it required reading? Nope, I just picked it up in my local bookstore because the cover looked interesting and it was $0.95. With a 5% sales tax, it cost me a dollar even, which was a bargain. I soon got caught up in Scott’s fast-paced tale of a valiant and honorable knight who was treated wrongly. I’ve been rereading literary classics that I first read when I was much younger to see how much more meaning I get from them now, and I decided to dive into Ivanhoe.
The Paperback version I bought fifty years ago.
Scott published it in 1820, and it was a big hit. It is set in the late 1100s, in Britain, after the Normans had established their conquest of it. There remain a few Saxon nobles, but almost all power resides in the Norman landowners. Richard the Lionhearted is king, but he hasn’t been seen for years, since he left for a Crusade, and it’s rumored he is being held prisoner in Europe. His brother, John, sits on the throne, and he is doing everything he can to consolidate his power.
The novel begins with an introduction to Gurth the swineherd and Jamba the fool. While relaxing outdoors, they meet the epicurean Pryor of Aymer and his companion, the Knight Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert who are traveling to an upcoming jousting tournament. The weather is threatening, and they ask Jamba if there is shelter nearby. He tells them Cedric the Saxon’s castle is near, but he gives them incorrect directions. They manage to find it as the storm breaks.
Cedric is a very proud Saxon who despises the Norman conquerors of Britain. He refuses to speak Norman French, and he maintains his estate despite pressure and conflict from his Norman neighbors. He is the guardian of the beautiful Rowena, a Saxon princess, and the father of Wilfred of Ivanhoe, whom he has banished because he fell in love with Rowena.
As everyone gathers for supper during the storm, a pilgrim shows up and is welcomed. Also, a poor, elderly Jewish man, Isaac of York, knocks on the door and begs for shelter. When Isaac enters, Scott makes clear how prejudiced 12th century Britain was towards Jews. No one will allow Isaac to sit at the table, until the pilgrim invites him to join him at his seat by the fire.
During the dinner conversation, de Bois-Guilbert admires Rowena to the point of rudeness. He is very arrogant, and he denigrates Richard the Lion-Hearted, who is a prisoner in Hungary after going on a Crusade. The pilgrim speaks up on behalf of Richard, telling everyone he was in Palestine and witnessed his valor, as well as Ivanhoe’s. It’s clear there is immediate and deep dislike between the pilgrim and de Bois-Guilbert.
Early the next morning, the pilgrim awakens Isaac to warn him to leave immediately, or else de Bois-Guilbert will track him down and kill him. He accompanies Isaac to safety with his relatives in the town of Ashby, which is hosting the tournament. In gratitude, Isaac writes him a note that will enable him to get a horse and armor, because he sees that he is no ordinary pilgrim, but rather a man trained in the art of war.
We soon find out that Isaac is not a poverty-stricken mendicant, but rather a very well-off usurer. He has a beautiful daughter, Rebecca, and when they show up at the tournament, everyone notices how attractive she is, including Prince John, the younger brother of the absent King Richard.
John is duplicitous, impetuous, and temperamental. He has gathered about himself a cabal of fawning supporters to whom he doles out favors that aren’t his to give, since he isn’t the rightful sovereign. As he presides over the tournament, an unknown knight appears who refuses to give his name, except to call himself “The Disinherited Knight”. This knight displays the highest virtues of chivalry, and captures the hearts of the crowd. He chooses to joust against de Bois-Guilbert and triumphs over him, to de Bois-Guilbert’s shame and disgust.
The next day is the general battle, where two teams of fifty knights vie for supremacy. It’s a bloody contest, as Scott explains, tongue firmly in cheek:
Thus ended the memorable field of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, one of the most gallantly contested tournaments of that age; for although only four knights, including one who was smothered by the heat of his armour, had died upon the field, yet upwards of thirty were desperately wounded, four or five of whom never recovered. Several more were disabled for life; and those who escaped best carried the marks of the conflict to the grave with them. Hence it is always mentioned in the old records, as the Gentle and Joyous Passage of Arms of Ashby.
Walter Scott. Ivanhoe: A Romance (Kindle Locations 2799-2804). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition.
The Disinherited Knight’s team prevails, with some aid from a mysterious black knight. Prince John is furious that his team of knights have lost, but he is forced to award the laurels to the Disinherited Knight. When Rowena, who had been chosen by John as the Queen of the Tournament, comes down to place the victor’s laurels on the knight’s head, he takes off his helmet, and it’s Wilfred of Ivanhoe! He collapses due to a serious wound in his side he sustained.
So begins a rollicking adventure that has everything: dastardly villains, beautiful maidens, virtuous heroes, secret identities, lots of swordplay, humorous side-stories. Ivanhoe is even responsible for the version of Robin Hood and his Merry Band that we all know and love. It’s a really fun read that has a pitched battle to take the bad guy’s castle, unrequited love, and lots of action.
It also contains several scenes that illustrate the vicious and virulent antisemitism of medieval Europe. The moneylender Isaac and his extraordinarily beautiful daughter Rebecca are forced to hide their authentic lives, because they are members of the “accursed race”. Rebecca is a gifted healer who takes it upon herself to help Wilfred recover from the wound he sustained in the tournament. When he regains consciousness while in her care, he is first stunned by her beauty, but quickly recovers himself:
But Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to retain the same class of feelings towards a Jewess. This Rebecca had foreseen, and for this very purpose she had hastened to mention her father’s name and lineage; yet— for the fair and wise daughter of Isaac was not without a touch of female weakness— she could not but sigh internally when the glance of respectful admiration, not altogether unmixed with tenderness, with which Ivanhoe had hitherto regarded his unknown benefactress, was exchanged at once for a manner cold, composed, and collected, and fraught with no deeper feeling than that which expressed a grateful sense of courtesy received from an unexpected quarter, and from one of an inferior race. It was not that Ivanhoe’s former carriage expressed more than that general devotional homage which youth always pays to beauty; yet it was mortifying that one word should operate as a spell to remove poor Rebecca, who could not be supposed altogether ignorant of her title to such homage, into a degraded class, to whom it could not be honourably rendered.
Walter Scott. Ivanhoe: A Romance (Kindle Locations 5584-5592). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition.
Scott does a fine job decrying the unreasoning prejudice and hatred Christians had towards Jews. I wonder how his sympathetic portrayal of Isaac and Rebecca was received when Ivanhoe was published.
As I reflect on the novel, it strikes me how little Ivanhoe is featured in it. Except for the tournament and the climactic scene involving the trial of Rebecca for sorcery, he is pretty much out of the picture. Most of the novel’s drama is concerned with Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert’s obsession with her. He ultimately ends up a tragic figure, willing to throw away his reputation, his position with the Templars, and his pride in the vain hope of winning her heart. A more appropriate title might be Rebecca.
Is Ivanhoe a classic? Yes, of course. Is it great literature? Here’s my hot take: no, it’s not. It’s a very entertaining read, but it doesn’t compare to anything Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, or George Eliot wrote. Sir Walter Scott was one of the most popular writers of his time, with many “bestsellers”. I would liken him to Stephen King – a much-loved author who sells boatloads of books, but will probably be barely remembered a hundred years from now (assuming people will still be reading a hundred years from now). When Scott was writing his Waverly novels, of which Ivanhoe was a part, the novel was a relatively new literary form. It took Jane Austen to point the way to its true potential, even though Pride and Prejudice was contemporaneous with Scott’s work.
You can download an excellently formatted ebook of Ivanhoe here.
Addendum: After I finished reading Ivanhoe, I looked it up in my handy Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. In its entry for Ivanhoe, it mentioned that William Makepeace Thackeray wrote a novella, Rebecca and Rowena, that continued the tale of Ivanhoe. I checked it out, and it is very funny.
Thackeray begins with describing how incredibly boring and irritating marriage to the oh-so-pious but insanely jealous Rowena is. She can’t resist snarkily referring to Rebecca in Ivanhoe’s presence. He finally decides to join his old friend King Richard – who is portrayed as a greedy, money-hungry despot – in France as he besieges a castle to get the riches within. To Ivanhoe’s surprise, Rowena quickly agrees to his plan, and as he is leaving their estate, he sees his old rival Athelstane riding towards it.
Thackeray spoofs the superhuman exploits of Wilfred of Ivanhoe by describing how he is often killed but brought back to life by an elixir Jamba carries with him. Ivanhoe travels to Spain in the hope of finding his true love, Rebecca. He slaughters thousands of Moors as the Iberian peninsula is liberated from them, and he eventually finds Rebecca. Rowena has conveniently died while being imprisoned by King John, and Rebecca has conveniently converted to Christianity. It’s a pretty accurate parody of Scott’s style and I found it quite entertaining.
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