Mark of Cornwall (Latin : Marcus, Cornish : Margh, Welsh : March or Marchell, Breton : Marc'h) was a sixth-century King of Kernow (Cornwall), possibly identical with King Conomor. He is best known for his appearance in Arthurian legend as the uncle of Tristan and the husband of Iseult who engages with Tristan in a secret liaison, giving Mark the epithet "Cuckold King". [1]
In Old Welsh records, Mark is recorded as "March son of Meirchion" of Kernow (Cornwall). He is associated with governing portions of Gwynedd and Glamorgan in Wales. [2] The distance of these areas from modern day Cornwall may indicate that Mark was in fact a ruler of the eponymous Cornovii. [3] Mark has been identified with Conomor, a king of Domnonea and Kernev (Domnonée and Cornouaille) in Armorica. [4]
In his Life of St. Pol de Leon , Wrmonoc of Landévennec refers to a "King Marc whose other name is Quonomorus". Also rendered as Cunomorus, the name means "Hound-of-the-sea". [5]
An inscription on a sixth-century gravestone near the Cornish town of Fowey memorializes (in Latin) a "Drustanus son of Cunomorus", and it has been thought that this is the "Tristan son of Mark (alias 'Quonomorus')" of legend. [6] The present location of the stone is at grid reference SX112521 , but it was originally at Castle Dore. It has a mid-6th-century, two-line inscription which has been interpreted as DRVSTANVS HIC IACIT CVNOWORI FILIVS ("Drustan lies here, of Cunomorus the son"). A now-missing third line was described by the 16th-century antiquarian John Leland as CVM DOMINA OUSILLA ("with the lady Ousilla"). Ousilla is a Latinisation of the Cornish female name Eselt. [7] The stone led to Mark's association with Castle Dore.
In most versions of the story of Tristan and Iseult, King Mark of Cornwall is Tristan's uncle. His sister is Tristan's mother, Blancheflor (also known as Elizabeth or Isabelle). In some later versions he is related to Tristan's father, Meliadus.
Mark sends Tristan as his proxy to bring his young bride, Princess Iseult, from Ireland. Tristan and Iseult fall in love and, with the help of a magic potion, have one of the stormiest love affairs in medieval literature. Mark suspects the affair, and his suspicions are eventually confirmed. In some versions he sends for Tristan to be hanged, and banishes Iseult to a leper colony. Tristan escapes the hanging, and rescues Iseult from her confinement. Mark later discovers this, and eventually forgives them; Iseult returns to Mark, and Tristan leaves the country. The story is cyclical, with Mark repeatedly suspecting Tristan and Iseult of adultery and then believing that they are innocent. In Béroul's version, Tristan and Iseult are never in grave danger; the narrator declares that he and God are on their side. Mark, as a husband and king, is not idealized like other Arthurian kings; his ties to the story are personal.
Marie de France's Breton lai Chevrefoil (sometimes known as The Lay of the Honeysuckle) tells part of the Tristan and Iseult tale. The lai begins with an explanation of Mark's fury at the affair of Tristan and Isoude, which leads Mark to banish Tristan from Cornwall. Tristan spends a year pining for Isoude in South Wales until his sorrow drives him to secretly return to Cornwall. Hiding in the woods and sheltering with villagers at night, Tristan hears that Mark plans to hold a Pentecost feast with Isoude. Tristan knows that the queen will ride through the forest to get there. He determines her most-likely path, and places on the trail a stripped hazel stick with a carving of his name on it. Isoude recognizes the sign and, stopping her party to rest, she and her maid Brangwaine leave to find Tristan. During the illicit meeting, Isoude helps Tristan with a plan to win back Mark's favor. Marie ends the poem with a revelation that the lai Tristan composed was called "Goatleaf" in English ("Chèvrefeuille" in French), and the lai he composed was the one the reader just finished. [8]
In the Prose Tristan, Mark is the son of king Felix and his character deteriorates from a sympathetic cuckold to a villain; he rapes his niece and murders her when she produces his son, Meraugis. Mark also murders his brother, Prince Boudwin, and later kills Boudwin's vengeful teenage son Alisander (Alisuander, Alexander) the Orphan. In earlier variants of the story, Tristan dies in Brittany far from Mark; in the Prose Tristan, however, Tristan is mortally wounded by Mark while he plays the harp under a tree for Iseult. This version of Mark was popular in other medieval works, including the Romance of Palamedes and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur . In these texts, Mark usually rules Cornwall from Tintagel Castle, is often an enemy of Arthur's jester knight Dinadan, and (as in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, which ends with the death of Mark [9] ) even destroys Camelot after the death of Arthur. Malory's version says that Alisander's son eventually avenges his father and grandfather, presumably by killing Mark.
Mark has become associated with a Celtic variant of the story of Midas and his donkey ears from Greek mythology, due to a pun on marc (a Celtic word for "horse"). [10] The story occurs in Tristan by the 12th-century French poet Béroul, where a dwarf reveals that "Mark has horse's ears" to a hawthorn tree in the presence of three lords. [10]
According to a Breton tale published in 1794, Mark was initially the king of Cornouaille, France, and was seated at Ploumarch (Portzmarch). [a] [11] The king kills every barber who knows the secret about his ears except one, who tells the secret to the sand [11] (or wind). [12] Reeds grow from that spot, which are harvested to make reeds for the oboe (or, simply, pipes). [12] When the instruments are played, the music seems to say that the king has horse's ears. [11] [12] John Rhys recorded a Welsh tale similar to the simpler Breton version. [b] [13]
An embellished 1905 version, collected by Yann ar Floc'h, blends the legend of Ys with the premise that Mark was condemned by Gradlon's daughter Ahès (or Dahut). [14] Mark tried to hunt her when she assumed the guise of a doe, and had his ears exchanged for those of his prized horse Morvarc'h. [15] [14]
Tristan, also known as Tristram, Tristyn or Tristain and similar names, is the folk hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, his objective is escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed Tristan's uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion during the journey and fall in love, beginning an adulterous relationship that eventually leads to Tristan's banishment and death. The character's first recorded appearance is in retellings of British mythology from the 12th century by Thomas of Britain and Gottfried von Strassburg, and later in the Prose Tristan. He is featured in Arthurian legends, including the seminal text Le Morte d'Arthur, as a skilled knight and a friend of Lancelot. He is also a Knight of the Round Table.
The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are a chivalric order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.
Gottfried von Strassburg is the author of the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, an adaptation of the 12th-century Tristan and Iseult legend. Gottfried's work is regarded, alongside the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, as one of the great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages. He is probably also the composer of a small number of surviving lyrics. His work became a source of inspiration for Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde (1865).
Iseult, alternatively Isolde and other spellings, is the name of several characters in the legend of Tristan and Iseult. The most prominent is Iseult of Ireland, the wife of Mark of Cornwall and the lover of Tristan. Her mother, the queen of Ireland, is also named Iseult. The third is Iseult of the White Hands, the daughter of Hoel of Brittany and the sister of Kahedin.
Palamedes is a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is a Middle Eastern pagan who converts to Christianity later in his life, and his unrequited love for Iseult brings him into frequent conflict with Tristan. Palamedes' father King Esclabor and brothers Safir and Segwarides also join the Round Table. The romance Palamedes was named after him.
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Of disputed source, usually assumed to be primarily Celtic, the tale is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult in the days of King Arthur. It depicts Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. On the journey, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, instigating a forbidden love affair between them.
King Hoel, also known as Sir Howel, Saint Hywel and Hywel the Great, was a late 5th- and early 6th-century member of the ruling dynasty of Cornouaille. He may have ruled Cornouaille jointly after the restoration of his father, Budic II of Brittany, but he seems to have predeceased his father and left his young son, Tewdwr, as Budic's heir.
Tristan & Isolde is a 2006 epic romantic drama film directed by Kevin Reynolds and written by Dean Georgaris based on the medieval romantic legend of Tristan and Isolde. Produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, the film stars James Franco and Sophia Myles, alongside a supporting cast featuring Rufus Sewell, Mark Strong, and Henry Cavill. This was Franchise Pictures' last film after the 2004 bankruptcy.
Dinadan is a Cornish Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition. In the Prose Tristan and its adaptations, Dinadan is a close friend of the protagonist Tristan. Known for his cynical humor and pragmatism, and also for his severe anti-chivalric attitudes in the original French texts, he serves as a foil to Tristan in his softened portrayal in the English compilation Le Morte d'Arthur. In both Malory and his French sources, Dinadan appears in several often comedic episodes until his murder by Mordred and Agravain. Despite his relatively minor role, he has become a major subject of especially Malorian scholarship.
The Prose Tristan is an adaptation of the Tristan and Iseult story into a long prose romance, and the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend. It was also the first major Arthurian prose cycle commenced after the widely popular Lancelot-Grail, which influenced especially the later portions of the Prose Tristan.
Eilhart von Oberge was a German poet of the late 12th century. He is known exclusively through his Middle High German romance Tristrant, the oldest surviving complete version of the Tristan and Iseult story in any language. Tristrant is part of the "common" or "primitive" branch of the legend, best known through Béroul's fragmentary Norman language Tristan. It is German literature's first rendition of the story, though Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan, part of the "courtly" branch, is more famous and respected.
Brangaine is the handmaid and confidante of Iseult of Ireland in the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Iseult. She appears in most versions of the story.
"Chevrefoil" is a Breton lai by the medieval poet Marie de France. The eleventh poem in the collection is called The Lais of Marie de France and its subject is an episode from the romance of Tristan and Iseult. The title means "honeysuckle," a symbol of love in the poem. "Chevrefoil" consists of 118 lines and survives in two manuscripts, Harley 978 or MS H, which contains all the Lais, and in Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, or MS S.
Brother Robert was a cleric working in Norway who adapted several French literary works into Old Norse during the reign of King Haakon IV of Norway (1217–1263). The most important of these, Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, based on Thomas of Britain's Tristan, is notable as the only example of Thomas' "courtly branch" of the Tristan and Iseult legend that has survived in its entirety. It was the earliest Scandinavian version of the story, and is thought to be the first Norwegian adaptation of an Old French work. Its success may have inspired the spate of translations during King Haakon's reign.
Lovespell is a 1981 fantasy romantic tragedy film featuring Richard Burton as King Mark of Cornwall. It was directed by Tom Donovan. It is based on the classic saga of Tristan and Isolde.
The Tristram and Isoude stained glass panels are a series of 13 small stained-glass windows made in 1862 by Morris, Marshall, Faulker & Co. for Harden Grange, the house of textile merchant Walter Dunlop, near Bingley in Yorkshire, England. Depicting the legend of Tristan and Iseult, they were designed by six of the leading Pre-Raphaelite artists of the day, to an overall design by William Morris. They were acquired in 1917 by Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, which is now part of Bradford Museums & Galleries. They can be seen on display at Cliffe Castle, Keighley.
Béroul was a Norman or Breton poet of the mid-to-late 12th century. He is usually credited with the authorship of Tristran, a Norman language version of the legend of Tristan and Iseult, of which just under 4500 verses survive in a manuscript of the 13th century. His name is known only from two references in the text of the poem.
Annowre (Anouwre) is an evil enchantress who desires King Arthur in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d' Arthur. Malory based her on a nameless character from the earlier Prose Tristan, who was named as Elergia in the Italian La Tavola Ritonda.
The Old French Tristan Poems: A Bibliographic Guide is a 1980 bibliography by David J. Shirt, a scholar of French literature who specialised in Arthurian and Tristan studies. It presents an overview of the literature on the medieval Tristan and Iseult poems, including the 12th-century poems by Béroul and Thomas of Britain. The book was published by Grant & Cutler as volume 28 of the Research Bibliographies and Checklists series. Critics generally praised its layout and use of cross-references, though some pointed out studies that the bibliography omitted. Reviewers also applauded Shirt's inclusion of a verse-by-verse index of Béroul's text.
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