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Ivanhoe: A Romance ( ) by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in December 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. It marked a shift away from Scott's prior practice of setting stories in Scotland and in the more recent past. It became one of Scott's best-known and most influential novels.
Set in England in the Middle Ages, with colourful descriptions of a tournament, outlaws, a witch trial, and divisions between Jews and Christians, Normans and Saxons, the novel was credited by many, including Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin, with inspiring increased interest in chivalric romance and medievalism. As John Henry Newman put it, Scott "had first turned men's minds in the direction of the Middle Ages". It was also credited with influencing contemporary popular perceptions of historical figures such as King Richard the Lionheart, Prince John, and Robin Hood.
For detailed information about the Middle Ages Scott drew on three works by the antiquarian Joseph Strutt: Horda Angel-cynnan or a Compleat View of the Manners, Customs, Arms, Habits etc. of the Inhabitants of England (1775–76), Dress and Habits of the People of England (1796–99), and Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801). Two historians gave him a solid grounding in the period: Robert Henry with The History of Great Britain (1771–93), and Sharon Turner with The History of the Anglo-Saxons from the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest (1799–1805). His clearest debt to an original medieval source involved the Templar Rule, reproduced in The Theatre of Honour and Knight-Hood (1623) translated from the French of André Favine. Scott was happy to introduce details from the later Middle Ages, and Geoffrey Chaucer was particularly helpful, as (in a different way) was the fourteenth-century romance Richard Coeur de Lion. Ibid., 498–500. The figure of Locksley in the story and many elements of the tale are undoubtedly influenced by Scott's association with Joseph Ritson, who had earlier compiled Robin Hood: a collection of all the ancient poems, songs and ballads now extant relative to that celebrated English outlaw (1795).
The standard modern edition, by Graham Tulloch, appeared as Volume 8 of the Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels in 1998: this is based on the first edition with emendations principally from Scott's manuscript in the second half of the work; the new Magnum material is included in Volume 25b.
The book opens with a scene of Norman knights and seeking the hospitality of Cedric. They are guided there by a pilgrim, known at that time as a palmer. That same night, Isaac of York, a Jewish moneylender, seeks refuge at Rotherwood on his way to the tournament at Ashby. Following the night's meal, the palmer observes one of the Normans, the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, issue orders to his Saracen soldiers to capture Isaac.
The palmer then assists in Isaac's escape from Rotherwood, with the additional aid of the swineherd Gurth.
Isaac of York offers to repay his debt to the palmer with a suit of armour and a destrier to participate in the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle, on his inference that the palmer was secretly a knight. The palmer is taken by surprise, but accepts the offer.
On the first day of the tournament, in a bout of individual , a mysterious knight, identifying himself only as "Desdichado" (described in the book as Spanish, taken by the Saxons to mean "Disinherited"), defeats Bois-Guilbert. The masked knight declines to reveal himself despite Prince John's request, but is nevertheless declared the champion of the day and is permitted to choose the Queen of the Tournament. He bestows this honour upon Lady Rowena.
On the second day, at a melee, Desdichado is the leader of one party, opposed by his former adversaries. Desdichado's side is soon hard-pressed and he himself beset by multiple foes until rescued by a knight nicknamed Le Noir Faineant ('the Black Sluggard'), who thereafter departs in secret. When forced to unmask himself to receive his coronet (the sign of championship), Desdichado is identified as Wilfred of Ivanhoe, returned from the Crusades. This causes much consternation to Prince John and his court who now fear the imminent return of King Richard.
Ivanhoe is severely wounded in the competition yet his father does not move quickly to tend to him. Instead, Rebecca, a skilled physician, tends to him while they are lodged near the tournament and then convinces her father to take Ivanhoe with them to their home in York when he is fit for that trip. The conclusion of the tournament includes feats of archery by Locksley, such as splitting a willow reed with his arrow. Prince John's dinner for the local Saxons ends in insults.
The Black Knight, having taken refuge for the night in the hut of Friar Tuck, the Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, volunteers his assistance on learning about the captives from Robin of Locksley. They then besiege the Castle of Torquilstone with Robin's own men, including the friar and assorted Saxon Yeoman. Inside Torquilstone, de Bracy expresses his love for the Lady Rowena but is refused. Brian de Bois-Guilbert tries to rape Rebecca and is thwarted. He then tries to seduce her and is rebuffed. Front-de-Bœuf tries to wring a hefty ransom from Isaac of York, but Isaac refuses to pay unless his daughter is freed.
When the besiegers deliver a note to yield up the captives, their Norman captors demand a priest to administer the Final Sacrament to Cedric; whereupon Cedric's jester Wamba slips in disguised as a priest, and takes the place of Cedric, who escapes and brings important information to the besiegers on the strength of the garrison and its layout. On his way out, Cedric meets the Saxon crone Ulrica, who vows revenge on Front-de-Bœuf and advises Cedric to tell the besiegers. The besiegers storm the castle. The castle is set aflame during the assault by Ulrica, the daughter of the original lord of the castle, Lord Torquilstone, as revenge for her father's death. Front-de-Bœuf is killed in the fire while de Bracy surrenders to the Black Knight, who identifies himself as King Richard and releases de Bracy. Bois-Guilbert escapes with Rebecca while Isaac is captured by the Clerk of Copmanhurst. The Lady Rowena is saved by Cedric, while the still-wounded Ivanhoe is rescued from the burning castle by King Richard. In the fighting, Athelstane is wounded and presumed dead while attempting to rescue Rebecca, whom he mistakes for Rowena.
Soon after this reconciliation, Ivanhoe receives word from Isaac beseeching him to fight on Rebecca's behalf. Ivanhoe, riding day and night, arrives in time for the trial by combat; however, both horse and man are exhausted, with little chance of victory. Bois-Guilbert refuses to fight but Ivanhoe accuses him of breaking his word and the Templar reacts fiercely. His face becomes flushed and he is ready for combat. The two knights make one charge at each other with lances, Bois-Guilbert appearing to have the advantage. Ivanhoe and his horse go down, but Bois-Guilbert also falls though barely touched. Ivanhoe quickly gets up to finish the fight with his sword, but Bois-Guilbert does not rise and dies a victim of his own contending passions.
Ivanhoe and Rowena marry and live a long and happy life together. Fearing further persecution, Rebecca and her father plan to quit England for Granada. Before leaving, Rebecca comes to Rowena shortly after the wedding to bid her a solemn farewell. Ivanhoe's military service ends with the death of King Richard five years later.
Ch. 2: Wamba and Gurth wilfully misdirect a group of horsemen headed by Prior Aymer and Brian de Bois-Guilbert seeking shelter at Cedric's Rotherwood. Aymer and Bois-Guilbert discuss the beauty of Cedric's ward Rowena and are redirected, this time correctly, by a palmer Ivanhoe.
Ch. 3: Cedric anxiously awaits the return of Gurth and the pigs. Aymer and Bois-Guilbert arrive.
Ch. 4: Bois-Guilbert admires Rowena as she enters for the evening feast.
Ch. 5: During the feast: Isaac enters and is befriended by the palmer; Cedric laments the decay of the Saxon language; the palmer refutes Bois-Guilbert's assertion of Templar supremacy with an account of a tournament in Palestine, where Ivanhoe defeated him; the palmer and Rowena give a pledge for a return match; and Isaac is thunderstruck by Bois-Guilbert's denial of his assertion of poverty.
Ch. 6: Next day the palmer tells Rowena that Ivanhoe will soon be home. He offers to protect Isaac from Bois-Guilbert, whom he has overheard giving instructions for his capture. On the road to Sheffield Isaac mentions a source of horse and armour of which he guesses the palmer has need.
Ch. 7: As the audience for a tournament at Ashby de la Zouch assembles, Prince John amuses himself by making fun of Athelstane and Isaac.
Ch. 8: After a series of Saxon defeats in the tournament the 'Disinherited Knight' Ivanhoe triumphs over Bois-Guilbert and the other Norman challengers.
Ch. 9: The Disinherited Knight nominates Rowena as Queen of the Tournament.
Ch. 10: The Disinherited Knight refuses to ransom Bois-Guilbert's armour, declaring that their business is not concluded. He instructs his attendant, Gurth in disguise, to convey money to Isaac to repay him for arranging the provision of his horse and armour. Gurth does so, but Rebecca secretly refunds the money.
Ch. 11: Gurth is assailed by a band of outlaws, but they spare him on hearing his story and after he has defeated one of their number, a miller, at quarter-staves.
Ch. 12: The Disinherited Knight's party triumph at the tournament, with the aid of a knight in black Richard; he is revealed as Ivanhoe and faints as a result of the wounds he has incurred.
Ch. 13: John encourages De Bracy to court Rowena and receives a warning from France that Richard has escaped. Locksley Robin triumphs in an archery contest.
Ch. 14: At the tournament banquet Cedric continues to disown his son (who has been associating with the Normans) but drinks to the health of Richard, rather than John, as the noblest of that race.
Ch. 2 (16): The Black Knight is entertained by a hermit Friar at Copmanhurst.
Ch. 3 (17): The Black Knight and the hermit exchange songs.
Ch. 4 (18): (Retrospect: Before going to the banquet Cedric learned that Ivanhoe had been removed by unknown carers; Gurth was recognised and captured by Cedric's cupbearer Oswald.) Cedric finds Athelstane unresponsive to his attempts to interest him in Rowena, who is herself only attracted by Ivanhoe.
Ch. 5 (19): Rowena persuades Cedric to escort Isaac and Rebecca, who have been abandoned (along with a sick man Ivanhoe in their care) by their hired protectors. Wamba helps Gurth to escape again. De Bracy mounts his attack, during which Wamba escapes. He meets up with Gurth and they encounter Locksley who, after investigation, advises against a counter-attack, the captives not being in immediate danger.
Ch. 6 (20): Locksley sends two of his men to watch De Bracy. At Copmanhurst he meets the Black Knight who agrees to join in the rescue.
Ch. 7 (21): De Bracy tells Bois-Guilbert he has decided to abandon his 'rescue' plan, mistrusting his companion though the Templar says it is Rebecca he is interested in. On arrival at Torquilstone castle Cedric laments its decline.
Ch. 8 (22): Under threat of torture Isaac agrees to pay Front-de-Bœuf a thousand pounds, but only if Rebecca is released.
Ch. 9 (23): De Bracy uses Ivanhoe's danger from Front-de-Bœuf to put pressure on Rowena, but he is moved by her resulting distress. The narrator refers the reader to historical instances of baronial oppression in medieval England.
Ch. 10 (24): A hag Urfried Ulrica warns Rebecca of her forthcoming fate. Rebecca impresses Bois-Guilbert by her spirited resistance to his advances.
Ch. 11 (25): Front-de-Bœuf rejects a written challenge from Gurth and Wamba. Wamba offers to spy out the castle posing as a confessor.
Ch. 12 (26): Entering the castle, Wamba exchanges clothes with Cedric who encounters Rebecca and Urfried.
Ch. 13 (27): Urfried recognises Cedric as a Saxon and, revealing herself as Ulrica, tells her story which involves Front-de-Bœuf murdering his father, who had killed her father and seven brothers when taking the castle, and had become her detested lover. She says she will give a signal when the time is ripe for storming the castle. Front-de-Bœuf sends the presumed friar with a message to summon reinforcements. Athelstane defies him, claiming that Rowena is his fiancée. The monk Ambrose arrives seeking help for Aymer who has been captured by Locksley's men.
Ch. 14 (28): (Retrospective chapter detailing Rebecca's care for Ivanhoe from the tournament to the assault on Torquilstone.)
Ch. 15 (29): Rebecca describes the assault on Torquilstone to the wounded Ivanhoe, disagreeing with his exalted view of chivalry.
Ch. 16 (30): Front-de-Bœuf being mortally wounded, Bois-Guilbert and De Bracy discuss how best to repel the besiegers. Ulrica sets fire to the castle and exults over Front-de-Bœuf who perishes in the flames.
Ch. 2 (32): Locksley supervises the orderly division of the spoil. Friar Tuck brings Isaac whom he has made captive, and engages in good-natured buffeting with the Black Knight.
Ch. 3 (33): Locksley arranges ransom terms for Isaac and Aymer. Aymer agrees to write on Isaac's behalf to Bois-Guilbert, to urge Rebecca's release, in exchange for Isaac loaning him money to pay his ransom to the banditti.
Ch. 4 (34): De Bracy informs John that Richard is in England. Together with Fitzurse he threatens to desert John, but the prince responds cunningly.
Ch. 5 (35): At York, Isaac stays with a friend, Nathan, as he strives to rescue Rebecca from the Templestowe. At the priory the Grand-Master Beaumanoir tells Conrade Mountfitchet that he intends to take a hard line with Templar irregularities. Arriving, Isaac shows him a letter from Aymer to Bois-Guilbert referring to Rebecca, whom Beaumanoir determines must be a witch.
Ch. 6 (36): Beaumanoir tells Preceptor Albert Malvoisin of his outrage at Rebecca's presence in the preceptory. Albert informs Bois-Guilbert of her trial for sorcery, and warns Bois-Guilbert not to defend her. Mountfichet says he will seek evidence against her, including bribing a few fake witnesses with fabricated stories.
Ch. 7 (37): Rebecca is found guilty of witchcraft and sentenced to death. At Bois-Guilbert's secret prompting she demands that a champion defend her in trial by combat.
Ch. 8 (38): Rebecca's demand is accepted, Bois-Guilbert being appointed champion for the prosecution. Bearing a message to her father, the peasant Higg meets him and Nathan on their way to the preceptory, and Isaac goes in search of Ivanhoe.
Ch. 9 (39): Rebecca rejects Bois-Guilbert's offer to fail to appear for the combat in return for her love. Albert persuades him that it is in his interest to appear.
Ch. 10 (40): The Black Knight leaves Ivanhoe to travel to Coningsburgh castle for Athelstane's funeral, and Ivanhoe follows him the next day. The Black Knight is rescued by Locksley from an attack carried out by Fitzurse on John's orders, and reveals his identity as Richard to his companions, prompting Locksley to identify himself as Robin Hood.
Ch. 11 (41): Richard talks to Ivanhoe and dines with the outlaws before Robin arranges a false alarm to put an end to the delay. The party arrive at Coningsburgh.
Ch. 12 (42): Richard procures Ivanhoe's pardon from his father. Athelstane appears, not dead, giving his allegiance to Richard and surrendering Rowena to Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe and Richard each receive a message and disappear from Coningsburgh.
Ch. 13 (43): Rebecca is tied to the stake, and no champion appears. Bois-Guilbert, racked by guilt, begs her to run away with him. Rebecca refuses. Ivanhoe, exhausted from his ride and not fully recovered from his injury, appears as Rebecca's champion, and as they charge Bois-Guilbert dies the victim of his contending passions.
Ch. 14 (44): Beaumanoir and his Templars leave Richard defiantly. Cedric agrees to the marriage of Ivanhoe and Rowena. Rebecca takes her leave of Rowena, leaving a message of her thanks to Ivanhoe for saving her, before her father and she quit England to make a new life under the tolerant King of Granada.
Ivanhoe, though of a more noble lineage than some of the other characters, represents a middling individual in the medieval class system who is not exceptionally outstanding in his abilities, as is expected of other quasi-historical fictional characters, such as the . Critic György Lukács points to middling main characters like Ivanhoe in Walter Scott's other novels as one of the primary reasons Scott's historical novels depart from previous historical works, and better explore social and cultural history.
Conisbrough is so dedicated to the story of Ivanhoe that many of its streets, schools, and public buildings are named after characters from the book.
Sir Walter Scott took the title of his novel, the name of its hero, from the Buckinghamshire village of Ivinghoe. "The name of Ivanhoe," he says in his 1830 Introduction to the Magnum edition, "was suggested by an old rhyme.
Ivanhoe is an alternate name for Ivinghoe first recorded in 1665.
Older rural people in the Ivinghoe area most probably pronounced the name the same as Ivanhoe, according to Prof. Paul Kerswill of the University of York, a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).
It is most probable Scott had direct knowledge of Ivinghoe and did some research before using it as the title for his novel, as he did for the other places mentioned in the novel.
The presence of Sir Walter Scott was recorded in Berkhamsted that is just eight miles away from Ivinghoe. In the novel he speaks also of "the rich fief of Ivanhoe". The Manor of Ivanhoe is listed in the largest 20% of settlements recorded in Domesday.
"Locksley" becomes Robin Hood's title in the Scott novel, and it has been used ever since to refer to the legendary outlaw. Scott appears to have taken the name from an anonymous manuscript—written in 1600—that employs "Locksley" as an epithet for Robin Hood. Owing to Scott's decision to make use of the manuscript, Robin Hood from Locksley has been transformed for all time into "Robin of Locksley", alias Robin Hood. (There is, incidentally, a village called Loxley in Yorkshire.)
Scott makes the 12th-century's Saxon-Norman conflict a major theme in his novel. The original medieval stories about Robin Hood did not mention any conflict between Saxons and Normans; it was Scott who introduced this theme into the legend.Siobhan Brownlie, Memory and Myths of the Norman Conquest. Woodbridge, Suffolk; Boydell & Brewer Ltd., 2013. (pp. 124-5) The characters in Ivanhoe refer to Prince John and King Richard I as "Normans"; contemporary medieval documents from this period do not refer to either of these two rulers as Normans. Recent re-tellings of the story retain Scott's emphasis on the Norman-Saxon conflict.
Scott also shunned the late-16th-century depiction of Robin as a dispossessed nobleman (the Earl of Huntingdon).
This, however, has not prevented Scott from making an important contribution to the noble-hero strand of the legend, too, because some subsequent motion picture treatments of Robin Hood's adventures give Robin traits that are characteristic of Ivanhoe as well. The most notable Robin Hood films are the lavish Douglas Fairbanks 1922 silent film, the 1938 triple Academy Award-winning Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn as Robin (which contemporary reviewer Frank Nugent links specifically with Ivanhoe), and the 1991 box-office success with Kevin Costner. There is also the Mel Brooks spoof .
In most versions of Robin Hood, both Ivanhoe and Robin, for instance, are returning Crusaders. They have quarrelled with their respective fathers, they are proud to be Saxons, they display a highly evolved sense of justice, they support the rightful king even though he is of Norman-French ancestry, they are adept with weapons, and they each fall in love with a "fair maid" (Rowena and Marian, respectively).
This particular time-frame was popularised by Scott. He borrowed it from the writings of the 16th-century chronicler John Mair or a 17th-century ballad presumably to make the plot of his novel more gripping. Medieval balladeers had generally placed Robin about two centuries later in the reign of Edward I, II or III.
Robin's familiar feat of splitting his competitor's arrow in an archery contest appears for the first time in Ivanhoe.
There has been criticism of Scott's portrayal of the bitter extent of the "enmity of Saxon and Norman, represented as persisting in the days of Richard" as "unsupported by the evidence of contemporary records that forms the basis of the story.""Ivanhoe", page 499. The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 1989 Historian E. A. Freeman criticised Scott's novel, stating its depiction of a Saxon–Norman conflict in late twelfth-century England was unhistorical. Freeman cited medieval writer Walter Map, who claimed that tension between the Saxons and Normans had declined by the reign of Henry I.Edward Augustus Freeman, History of the Norman conquest of England: Volume Five, The effects of the Norman Conquest. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1876. (pp. 825-6). Freeman also cited the late twelfth-century book Dialogus de Scaccario by Richard FitzNeal. This book claimed that the Saxons and Normans had so merged through intermarriage and cultural assimilation that (outside the aristocracy) it was impossible to tell "one from the other." Finally, Freeman ended his critique of Scott by saying that by the end of the twelfth century, the descendants of both Saxons and Normans in England referred to themselves as "English", not "Saxon" or "Norman".
However, Scott may have intended to suggest parallels between the Norman Conquest, which takes place roughly 130 years before the setting of Ivanhoe, and Scott's native Scotland, which had united with England in 1707 roughly the same length of time ago, and witnessed a resurgence in Scottish nationalism evidenced by the emergence of Robert Burns, the famous poet who deliberately chose to work in Scots vernacular though he was an educated man and spoke modern English eloquently. Some experts suggest that Scott deliberately used Ivanhoe to illustrate his own combination of Scottish patriotism and unionism.
The novel generated a new name in English—Cedric. The original Saxon name had been Cerdic but Scott misspelled it—an example of metathesis. "It is not a name but a misspelling" said satirist H. H. Munro.
In England in 1194, it would have been anachronistic for Rebecca, a Jewish woman, to be charged with witchcraft. In medieval witch trials, it was usually the belief in witchcraft that was prosecuted as a heresy, a charge a non-Christian woman would not have been subject to. Death did not become the usual penalty until the 15th century and even then, the form of execution used for witches in England was hanging, not burning. The conductor of the trial, the Grand Master Of The Templars, is referred to as Lucas de Beaumanoir, whereas the historically real Master during that time was Gilbert Horal. There are other various minor errors, e.g. the description of the tournament at Ashby owes more to the 14th century, most of the coins mentioned by Scott are exotic, William Rufus is said to have been John Lackland's grandfather, but he was actually his great-great-uncle, and Wamba (disguised as a monk) says "I am a poor brother of the Order of St Francis", but St. Francis of Assisi only began his preaching ten years after the death of Richard I. Also, in Chapter 43, Bois-Guilbert commences the fight being mounted on his horse named Zamor, which he claimed that he had won from the "Soldan of Trebizond". This is anachronistic, as the Comnenids founded the rump Byzantine Empire of Trebizond only in 1204, just by the end of the Fourth Crusade. Lastly, in the novel's ultimate chapter, Rebecca and her father move to Granada to spend the rest of their lives under Mohammed Boabdil. In fact, the real Muhammad XII of Granada, popularly known to the Western world as Boabdil, was not even born before 1460, and the Emirate of Granada established before 1230.
Despite this fancifulness, Ivanhoe does make some prescient historical points. The novel is occasionally critical of King Richard, "who seems to love adventure more than he loves the well-being of his subjects"—in contrast to the idealised, romantic view of Richard popular at the time, but rather echoes the way King Richard is often judged by historians today.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon, who was a devotee of Scott's, wrote a poetical illustration to a picture of by Thomas Allom in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838.
The Eglinton Tournament of 1839 held by the 13th Earl of Eglinton at Eglinton Castle in Ayrshire was inspired by and modelled on Ivanhoe.
On 5 November 2019, BBC News included Ivanhoe on its list of the 100 most influential novels.
Sequels
A portion of the Silver Lake neighborhood in Los Angeles was established in 1887 as a real estate tract called Ivanhoe. (Realtors John C. Byram and Robert W. Poindexter were behind the tract; it is a myth that it was named decades earlier by Scottish settler Hugo Reid, as he never lived in this section of Los Angeles County.) The upper reservoir and an elementary school are still named Ivanhoe while many of the streets in the area reference Scott's other works and characters such as Locksley, Rowena, Kenilworth, Waverly sic, Avenel, and St. George.
Ivanhoe, North Carolina is named after Ivanhoe.
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