The two manuscript versions, although telling the same story, do so with different emphasis and perhaps with different intention.[20]
Social story
The version of Sir Gowther in British Library Royal MS 17.B.43 was "probably intended for a more cultured and refined audience"[21] and although it is the version that explicitly identifies Sir Gowther with a saint at the conclusion, may concern itself also with the aristocratic trauma of a dynasty in distress, first by childlessness, then by an 'heir from hell', a son who inherits something of the egocentric arrogance of his forebears.[22] This is resolved in the tale by Sir Gowther descending to be amongst the lowest of the low, eating beneath the table with the dogs; and when at last his fortunes rise again, in the saddle of the white knight, "we are told: 'Rode he not with brag nor bost'", as though this may be significant to the author's intention.[23] The romance may therefore address "deep-seated anxieties in medieval society about breeding and dynasty."[24] The devilish aspect of pride illustrated in the fifteenth-century manuscript illustration at the top of this article may reflect this.
Saint’s life
The version of Sir Gowther in National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19.3.1 is told in "a more vigorous and decidedly more explicit manner",[25] like a hagiography. It is in this version alone that the burning of the nuns in their own church is referred to and the ultimate forgiveness of Sir Gowther's heinous crimes by God, through penance and contrition, carry him onwards almost to beatification. Not only does the emperor's mute daughter come back to life to inform him that he is now one of God's children, but further miracles are later seen to occur beside his tomb; although it is only in the British Library Royal MS that Sir Gowther is actually identified with Saint Guthlac,[26] who wore animal skins and lived in a barrow, and for whom King Æthelbald of Mercia founded Croyland Abbey in Lincolnshire, England in the eighth century.
The poem in the British Library version ends: Explicit Vita Sancti.[27]
Breton lai
Breton elements in the story of Sir Gowther, including references to Arthurian legend in the form of Merlin, supernatural encounters in an orchard, the significant involvement of animals and episodes of disguise, may derive ultimately from a European pagan tradition preserved in the Breton lai.
