Ivanhoe · Chapter
XLIII explained
The scene returns to Templestowe where Rebecca awaits trial by combat for sorcery.
What happens
The scene returns to Templestowe where Rebecca awaits trial by combat for sorcery. The Grand Master presides over the lists, with a stake prepared for execution. Rebecca refuses Bois-Guilbert's offer of escape. At the last moment, Ivanhoe arrives as her champion, though wounded and exhausted. In the charge, Ivanhoe's horse falls, but Bois-Guilbert also falls, apparently dead, and Rebecca is declared free.
Themes in this chapter
Antisemitism and Prejudice
Rebecca's Jewish identity is central to her persecution; the crowd and knights assume no champion will appear for a Jewess accused of sorcery.
Chivalry and Honor
Ivanhoe's arrival as champion embodies chivalric ideals; Bois-Guilbert's internal conflict between honor and passion.
Justice and Redemption
The trial by combat is a test of divine justice; Rebecca's faith and Ivanhoe's sacrifice lead to her deliverance.
Characters to notice
- Rebecca
Accused of sorcery, she awaits trial by combat; refuses Bois-Guilbert's temptation to flee; accepts Ivanhoe as her champion.
- Wilfred of Ivanhoe
Arrives as Rebecca's champion despite his wounds and exhausted horse; challenges Bois-Guilbert and falls in the charge.
- Brian de Bois-Guilbert
Offers Rebecca escape; reluctantly fights Ivanhoe; falls mysteriously in the lists.
- Lucas de Beaumanoir
Grand Master presiding over the trial; grants the combat and waits for a champion.
- Albert de Malvoisin
Preceptor who questions Rebecca and tries to manage Bois-Guilbert; impatient with the delay.
- Friar Tuck
Expresses sympathy for Rebecca and willingness to fight if she were Christian.
Key passages
“But the earnest desire to look on blood and death, is not peculiar to those dark ages; though in the gladiatorial exercise of single combat and general tourney, they were habituated to the bloody spectacle of brave men falling by each other's hands.”
The craving to witness violence and death was not unique to medieval times, even though people then were used to seeing knights kill each other in tournaments.
The narrator comments on the universal human fascination with bloodshed.
“I am a good knight and noble, come hither to sustain with lance and sword the just and lawful quarrel of this damsel, Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York ; to uphold the doom pronounced against her to be false and truthless, and to defy Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, as a traitor, murderer, and liar.”
I am a worthy knight, here to fight for Rebecca's rightful cause, to declare her sentence unjust, and to challenge Bois-Guilbert as a traitor and murderer.
Ivanhoe formally announces his role as Rebecca's champion.
“Tempter, said Rebecca, begone!—Not in this last extremity canst thou move me one hair's-breadth from my resting place—surrounded as I am by foes, I hold thee as my worst and most deadly enemy—avoid thee, in the name of God!”
Rebecca rejects Bois-Guilbert's offer of escape, calling him a tempter and her worst enemy, and commands him to leave in God's name.
Rebecca refuses Bois-Guilbert's temptation to flee with him.