King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of Welsh and English folklore and literary invention, and modern historians generally agree that he is unhistorical. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.
Merlin is a mythical figure prominently featured in the legend of King Arthur and best known as an enchanter or wizard. His usual depiction, based on an amalgamation of historic and legendary figures, was introduced by the 12th-century British author Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is believed that Geoffrey combined earlier tales of Myrddin and Ambrosius, two legendary Briton prophets with no connection to Arthur, to form the composite figure called Merlinus Ambrosius . Geoffrey's rendering of the character became immediately popular, especially in Wales. Later writers in France and elsewhere expanded the account to produce a fuller image, creating one of the most important figures in the imagination and literature of the Middle Ages.
Tristan, also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with 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.
Sir Orfeo is an anonymous Middle English Breton lai dating from the late 13th or early 14th century. It retells the story of Orpheus as a king who rescues his wife from the fairy king. The folk song Orfeo is based on this poem.
Le Morte d'Arthur is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source.
Bevis of Hampton or Sir Bevois, was a legendary English hero and the subject of Anglo-Norman, Dutch, French, English, Venetian, and other medieval metrical chivalric romances that bear his name. The tale also exists in medieval prose, with translations to Romanian, Russian, Dutch, Irish, Welsh, Old Norse and Yiddish.
The Lancelot-Grail, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance in Old French. The cycle of unknown authorship, presenting itself as a chronicle of actual events, retells the legend of King Arthur by focusing on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere as well as the quest for the Holy Grail, expanding on the works of Robert de Boron and Chrétien de Troyes and influencing the Prose Tristan. After its completion around 1230–1235, the Lancelot–Grail was soon followed by its major rewrite known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle. Together, the two cycles constituted a highly influential and most widespread form of Arthurian romance literature during their time and also contributed the most to the later English compilation Le Morte d'Arthur that formed the basis for the legend's modern canon.
Tristan and Iseult is a chivalric romance retold in numerous variations since the 12th century, with a lasting impact on Western culture. The story is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan (Tristram) and the Irish princess Iseult. It tells of Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. On the journey home, the two of them ingest a love potion which brings about the adulterous relationship.
The Post-Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Post-Vulgate Arthuriad, the Post-Vulgate Roman du Graal or the Pseudo-Robert de Boron Cycle, is one of the major Old French prose cycles of Arthurian literature from the early 13th century. It is considered essentially a shortened rewriting of the earlier Vulgate Cycle, with much left out but also much added, including characters and scenes from the Prose Tristan.
Thomas of Britain was a poet of the 12th century. He is known for his Old French poem Tristan, a version of the Tristan and Iseult legend that exists only in eight fragments, amounting to around 3,300 lines of verse, mostly from the latter part of the story. It is calculated that this represents about one sixth of the original.
The Brut or Roman de Brut by the poet Wace is a loose and expanded translation in almost 15,000 lines of Norman-French verse of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin History of the Kings of Britain. It was formerly known as the Brut d'Engleterre or Roman des Rois d'Angleterre, though Wace's own name for it was the Geste des Bretons, or Deeds of the Britons. Its genre is equivocal, being more than a chronicle but not quite a fully-fledged romance. It narrates a largely fictional version of Britain's story from its settlement by Brutus, a refugee from Troy, who gives the poem its name, through a thousand years of pseudohistory, including the story of king Leir, up to the Roman conquest, the introduction of Christianity, and the legends of sub-Roman Britain, ending with the reign of the 7th-century king Cadwallader. Especially prominent is its account of the life of King Arthur, the first in any vernacular language, which instigated and influenced a whole school of French Arthurian romances dealing with the Round Table – here making its first appearance in literature – and with the adventures of its various knights.
The Auchinleck Manuscript, NLS Adv. MS 19.2.1, is an illuminated manuscript copied on parchment in the 14th century in London. The manuscript provides a glimpse of a time of political tension and social change in England. The English were continuing to reclaim their language and national identity, and to distance themselves from the Norman conquerors who had taken over the country after the Battle of Hastings 300 years before. It is currently in the collection of the National Library of Scotland.
Palamedes is a 13th-century Old French Arthurian prose chivalric romance. Named for King Arthur's knight Palamedes, it is set in the time before the rise of Arthur, and relates the exploits of the parents of various Arthurian heroes. The work was very popular, but now exists largely in fragmentary form.
Merlin is a partly lost French epic poem written by Robert de Boron in Old French and dating from either end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. The author reworked Geoffrey of Monmouth's material on the legendary Merlin, emphasising Merlin's power to prophesy and linking him to the Holy Grail. The poem tells of his origin and early life as a redeemed Antichrist, his role in the birth of Arthur, and how Arthur became King of Britain. Merlin's story relates to Robert's two other reputed Grail poems, Joseph and Perceval. It introduced motifs that became popular in medieval and later Arthuriana, ensuring him a lasting place in the legend of King Arthur.
Beves of Hamtoun, also known as Beves of Hampton, Bevis of Hampton or Sir Beues of Hamtoun, is an anonymous Middle English romance of 4620 lines, dating from around the year 1300, which relates the adventures of the English hero Beves in his own country and in the Near East. It is often classified as a Matter of England romance. It is a paraphrase or loose translation of the Anglo-Norman romance Boeuve de Haumton, and belongs to a large family of romances in many languages, including Welsh, Russian and even Yiddish versions, all dealing with the same hero.
King Alisaunder or Kyng Alisaunder is a Middle English romance or romantic epic in 4017 octosyllabic couplets. It tells the story of Alexander the Great's career from his youth, through his successful campaigns against the Persian king Darius and other adversaries, his discovery of the wonders of the East, and his untimely death. George Saintsbury described King Alisaunder as "one of the most spirited of the romances", and W. R. J. Barron wrote of its "shrewd mixture of entertainment and edification made appetizing by literary and stylistic devices of unexpected subtlety."
The Folie Tristan d’Oxford, also known as the Oxford Folie Tristan, The Madness of Tristan, or Tristan’s Madness, is a poem in 998 octosyllabic lines written in Anglo-Norman, the form of the Norman language spoken in England. It retells an episode from the Tristan legend in which Tristan disguises himself as a madman to win his way back to Ysolt. The poem can be dated to the period 1175–1200, but the name of the author is unknown. It is not to be confused with the Folie Tristan de Berne, a different medieval poem on the same subject, each work taking its name from the city in which the manuscript is now kept.
Of Arthour and of Merlin, or Arthur and Merlin, is an anonymous Middle English verse romance giving an account of the reigns of Vortigern and Uther Pendragon and the early years of King Arthur's reign, in which the magician Merlin plays a large part. It can claim to be the earliest English Arthurian romance. It exists in two recensions: the first, of nearly 10,000 lines, dates from the second half of the 13th century, and the much-abridged second recension, of about 2000 lines, from the 15th century. The first recension breaks off somewhat inconclusively, and many scholars believe this romance was never completed. Arthur and Merlin's main source is the Estoire de Merlin, a French prose romance.
La Mule sans frein or La Demoiselle à la mule is a short romance dating from the late 12th century or early 13th century. It comprises 1,136 lines in octosyllabic couplets, written in Old French. Its author names himself as Païen de Maisières, but critics disagree as to whether this was his real name or a pseudonym. La Mule is an Arthurian romance relating the adventures, first of Sir Kay, then of Sir Gawain, in attempting to restore to its rightful owner a stolen bridle. It is notable for its early use of the "beheading game" theme, which later reappeared in the Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It is sometimes seen as a skit or burlesque on earlier romances, especially those of Chrétien de Troyes, but it has also been suggested that it might have been written by Chrétien himself.
The Avowing of Arthur, or in full The Avowing of King Arthur, Sir Gawain, Sir Kay, and Baldwin of Britain, is an anonymous Middle English romance in 16-line tail-rhyme stanzas telling of the adventures of its four heroes in and around Carlisle and Inglewood Forest. The poem was probably composed towards the end of the 14th century or the beginning of the 15th century by a poet in the north of England. It exhibits many similarities of form and plot with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and other romances of the Middle English Gawain cycle. Though formerly dismissed as an ill-organized collection of unconnected episodes, it has more recently been called a "complex and thought-provoking romance" with an effective diptych structure, which displays a wide knowledge of Arthurian and other tales and gives a fresh turn to them.
