Treason in Arthurian legend the Green Knight before “Gawain can return to his proper place in Arthurian society”. Treason is committed by Gawain against the Lord and therefore he must be physically punished, as one would be during the Middle Ages for crimes of treason. In this case, however, Gawain's punishment is not death but simply a nick on his neck. This permits Gawain to be punished, but not killed, while still demonstrating the importance of honesty. Gawain's instinct is to act duplicitously but he is chastised for these instances. Treason in Arthurian legend The concept of treason can be dated back to the
Treason in Arthurian legend of true nobility and manhood. Therefore, knights who committed treasonous crimes threatened to undermine the sanctity of the order as a whole, and all that it stood for. Thus, punishments for knights and nobles deemed traitors typically involved some kind of process in which their identities as both knights, and men, were stripped away. Executions of treasonous knights included a process of removing the physical representations of their titles, such as “breaking of the traitor’s sword and striking of his spurs, removing his sword belt, and publicly stripping him of the rich clothing that visually communicated his status.” Punishments could