Guinevere The Sovereignty Goddess of Arthurian Literature

Goetinck hasstudied the Welsh Arthurian tradition and concluded that “Gwenhwyfarmay have been a Welsh version of the personification of Sovereignty, aswas Queen Medb in Irish literature.

0308560 Supervisors: Erik Kooper and Frank Brandsma

Second Reader: Kevin Murray

August 2007

Illustration title page:

Guinevere’s Maying

John Collier, AD 1900

Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford

“I am the Sovranty…as thou hast seen me loathsome, bestial, horrible at first and beautiful at last, so is the sovranty;

for it is seldom gained without battles and conflicts, but at last to anyone it is beautiful and goodly”.1

INDEX

1 “Echtra mac nEchach Muigmedóin: The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedón”,

ed and trans Whitley Stokes, Révue Celtique 24 (1903) 190-207.

Acknowledgements 6

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

The Transformed Hag or the Loathly Lady motif 39

‘Sovereynetee’ and ‘flaitheas na h-Eireann’ compared 39

Chapter 5

Transmission through Welsh Arthurian Tradition?

44

The Mabinogion 44

The sovereignty myth: pan-Celtic or Irish? 45

Scholars against and scholars in favour 49

Chapter 7

The Irish stories from Chapter 2

Appendix 2: Echtra Mac nEchach Muigmedón 60

Appendix 4: Baile Chuinn Chétchathaig 64

The Welsh stories from Chapter 5

Appendix 5: Owain, neu Iarlles y Ffynnon 66

Acknowledgements

Nearing the end of my academic education, it is time to look back at thelast four years However, my love for everything medieval started a good

few years before that, namely when I was given a copy of Marion Zimmer

Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon on my fifteenth birthday This Arthurian

retelling became my favourite book and during the years to come I read it

at least five or six times My fondness of the story was one of manyreasons which made me decide to a do an English degree Whereas I wasinitially interested in the historical Arthur, my studies gradually turned memore towards the literary character

After completing my first two years at Utrecht University, I went toCork, Ireland as a Harting scholar My stay there sparked a new interest:the Celtic origins of Arthurian literature As I became more and moreacquainted with Irish literature, I saw many parallels with the Arthuriantradition So, when it came to writing my Bachelor thesis, I was quick todecide on a topic: a discussion of Irish Arthurian literature My thesis wassupervised by Dr Erik Kooper, who had witnessed my academicprogression ever since I had first enrolled in university

My desire to continue to learn about the Middle Ages encouraged me

to take up a Master’s Degree in Medieval Studies Another year flew andwhen it was time to write my MA thesis I immediately considered goingback to University College Cork Partly because I knew their library’sextensive Celtic collection would be useful and the fact that my boyfriend

is Irish also helped in my decision I had some notion as to what I wanted

to discuss in my thesis, but my ideas were still quite undefined at thatstage It was during Dr Frank Brandsma’s classes on ‘Arthurian Literature

in an International Context’ that my plans became more defined It wastherefore an obvious choice to have Frank and my former BA supervisorErik guide me through writing my final university assignment The scope of

my thesis also required the supervision of a Celticist and I soon found one

in Dr Kevin Murray, from the Department of Early and Medieval Irish ofUCC

From all three supervisors I received excellent guidance, even duringtheir summer holidays Their help and encouragement has made thewriting of my thesis an extremely rewarding experience I would like tothank Erik Kooper for lessons learnt and for being one of the people who

gave me the opportunity to take part in the Harting Scheme, which Ithoroughly enjoyed I thank Frank Brandsma for his advice and guiding methrough writing the research paper which became the core of my thesis I

am also grateful for Kevin Murray’s willingness to proofread the Celticsections of my thesis and for pointing me in the right direction with regard

to the literary relations between Ireland and Wales during the Middle Ages

Last but not least I wish to thank my parents, whose constant moral(as well as financial) support made it possible for me to pursue my goals,both personal and academic

Guinevere, the famous first lady of Arthurian literature, has many differentfaces The representation of Guinevere in literature might even be calledambiguous Her portrayal varies from a queen playing an active part in theArthurian court, to a very submissive and even passive character, merelyArthur’s consort with no influence in matters of state Furthermore,another fluctuation can be witnessed in the nature of her character WhileGuinevere is a strong but likeable woman in Chrétien de Troyes’s

romances, other texts, such as Marie de France’s Le Lai de Lanval (“The Lay of Lanval”), which dates from approximately AD 1160, portray a

haughty and unsympathetic queen.2 Although it largely seems to depend

on who wrote about her, as well as when and where, it does raisequestions about how her reputation became so indefinite

Besides, Guinevere’s character is not the only thing that isquestionable about her Throughout Arthurian tradition, regardless of hercharacter, Guinevere’s relationship with men is often quite obscure Most

of the time her ties with men seem to be of a feudal nature, but some

texts, such as Lanval, suggest that Arthur’s queen was romantically

involved with men even before her affair with Lancelot becameestablished in the Arthurian tradition Stories which were written beforeChrétien de Troyes and therefore before Guinevere became linked toLancelot already seem to illustrate a special bond between the queen andsome favourite knight.3 Apart from being venerated as the knights’ liegelady, she is often pursued by men and there are many stories in which she

is in danger of being abducted

The mythic nature of those abduction stories combined with theetymology of her name, has led scholars to suggest that Guinevere’scharacter has its origins in myth and that this would explain theambivalence of her personality One of the scholars who investigated theetymology of the name Guinevere was A.C.L Brown However, Brown hasnot been the only one to investigate the similarity in names, both RudolfThurneysen and Roger Sherman Loomis considered it many years prior to

2 Le lai de Lanval will from now on be referred to as Lanval

3 I am referring to Lanval and the Historia Regum Britanniae, which will be discussed in

chapter three

Brown.4 It has been established that Gwenhwyfar, the Welsh version of thename Guinevere, means “white enchantress, phantom, or fairy”.5 Sincethe name has strong mythic associations, scholars have been eager to find

a mythological character that might have served as a prototype for theliterary persona of Guinevere Brown investigated Irish mythology forcomparisons and concluded that Guinevere has an Irish counterpart calledFinnabair, whose name has the same meaning.6 Finnabair is the daughter

of Medb of Connacht, a figure from the Ulster Cycle and both mother anddaughter are mythological characters who are linked to the concept ofsovereignty This means that these women were associated with a certainprovince or country and usually they are the consort of the local king Inthis way, Medb is the sovereignty queen of Connacht, a region in thenorth-east of Ireland; whereas her daughter Finnabair is thought tofiguratively represent the country of England So, in literature both womenare linked to a certain territory and any man who desired to rule there had

to woo its queen first Therefore, these queens confer land on theirpartners by marriage According to Brown, Guinevere is the Arthurianversion of such a sovereignty queen Not only does her husband ruleEngland but the following chapters will reveal more ways in whichGuinevere is reminiscent of such a figure

Some other scholars who have argued that Guinevere functions as asovereignty figure in Arthurian literature are Glenys Goetinck, JeanMarkale, Amy Varin, Richard Cavendish and John Darrah Goetinck hasstudied the Welsh Arthurian tradition and concluded that “Gwenhwyfarmay have been a Welsh version of the personification of Sovereignty, aswas Queen Medb in Irish literature This would explain her appearance inabduction stories, her apparent lack of constancy, her occasionally sharptongue, and Arthur’s apparent tranquil acceptance of the situation”.7

4 Roger Sherman Loomis, Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien de Troyes (New York: Columbia

UP, 1948) 196, and Rudolf Thurneysen, Die irische Helden- und Königsage bis zum

siebzehnten Jahrhundert (Halle: Niemeyer, 1921) 95

5 Arthur Charles Lewis Brown, The Origin of the Grail Legend (New York: Russell and

Russell, 1966) 338

6 Brown 338

7 Glenys Goetinck, “Sovereignty Themes in Peredur, Owein, and Gereint,” Peredur: A

Study of Welsh Tradition in the Grail Legends (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1975)

129-55, at 134

Goetinck has not linked Guinevere to Finnabair, because she believes thatGuinevere’s origins are in Welsh tradition, rather than in Irish mythology.

So, Goetinck also argues that Guinevere is the personification ofsovereignty but has different reasons for claiming this

In 1973, Jean Markale also identified Guinevere as a sovereignty

figure in his book La femme celte (“The Celtic Woman”).8 However,Markale’s work has been criticised time and again for being unreliable as

he used his sources too creatively In spite of this, Amy Varin, in her 1979article on Mordred, acknowledges that Markale has been her source forclaiming that Guinevere is a sovereignty figure.However, her footnote on

La femme celte also states that “as a whole this is a very poor book, but

occasionally Markale says something of value”.9 Writing just a year beforeVarin was Richard Cavendish Cavendish suggested that the story of theRound Table, and how it is part of Guinevere’s dowry, gives reason tobelieve that Guinevere is a personification of sovereignty He claimed that

“Guinevere is the Round Table’s presiding goddess, as it were Arthuracquires it by marrying her, in something of the same way perhaps as inCeltic tradition he ‘married’ the land of Britain in her person”.10 So,Guinevere was not only associated with a figure from Irish mythology, shewas now being called a goddess Roger Sherman Loomis had argued thisbefore and more recently John Darrah has also tried to prove this point.11

Unfortunately the majority of the available publications are outdated and

as shown some are even considered unreliable.12

However, more recent scholarship on Guinevere has focused on adifferent aspect of the queen Even though the previously mentionedscholars have been eager to look to mythology as a source for Guinevere,others are more inclined to analyse her primarily as a literary character

8 Jean Markale, La femme celte (Paris: Payot, 1973) 191, 205 Markale argues the same point more elaborately in his King Arthur: King of Kings, trans Christine Hauch (London:

Gordon and Cremonesi, 1977) 122-9

9 Amy Varin, “Mordred, King Arthur’s Son,” Folklore 90 (1979): 167-77

10 Richard Cavendish, King Arthur and the Grail (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978)

54.

11 John Darrah, Paganism in Arthurian Romance (Woodbridge: the Boydell Press, 1994) 68.

12 Jean Markale’s work has repeatedly been considered defective An example can be

found in Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h, “Une critique détaillée de l'Ouvrage l'épopée

celtique en Bretagne de Jean Markale,” Textes Mythologiques Irlandais 11 (1978) 39.

without complex theories about her origins One of these people isGeorgianna Ziegler.13 Ziegler’s dissertation from 1974 focuses on thecharacterization of Guinevere and does not attempt to explore the origins

of the queen’s varying representation, unlike many Celticists She arguesthat “Loomis, like Brown, is more interested in Guinevere as a folkloredescendant of Celtic and perhaps Near-Eastern goddesses, than as acomplex literary character in her own right”.14 Ziegler is familiar with thecomparative work linking Guinevere with Sovereignty; however, she is notconvinced. 15 She dismisses the suggestion by saying that “the absence ofelaboration of this theme in the [French and English] romances makes italmost impossible to prove the possibility”.16 Ziegler continues that if thesovereignty concept was used, it would have been more obvious becausemedieval writers would only use allegories for “an instructive purpose”.17

So, she believes that the theme is not well enough developed and tooimplicit throughout the romances to have been used intentionally Ziegler

is right in claiming that the theme is not very explicit but that does notnecessarily exclude the possibility either The idea of a queen representingsovereignty might not need to be well developed if the contemporaryaudience was familiar with it It might have been part of the so-called

‘matière de Bretagne’ However, this is not easy to prove since it is part ofpopular belief and oral culture

So, evidently the theory that Guinevere personified sovereignty hasnot been welcomed by everyone In fact, it has met with some criticismand has been dismissed or ignored by several modern Arthurian scholars.18

13 Georgianna Ziegler, “The Characterization of Guinevere in English and French Medieval Romance,” diss., U of Pennsylvania, 1974 (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1982) Another scholar to publish on G’s character analysis is Peter Noble,

“The Character of Guinevere in the Arthurian Romances of Chrétien de Troyes,” Lancelot

and Guinevere: a casebook, ed Lori J Walters (New York: Garland, 1996) 203-18

14 Ziegler 3.

15 Note that sovereignty will be written with a capital only when it is the personification which is being referred to as in this case However, when the sovereignty theme, motifs, tales, narratives or sovereignty as a political term are meant, the word will have no capital In quotes I have adhered to the author’s original spelling of the word, therefore quotes might deviate from my standard

16 Ziegler 64

17 Ziegler 67

18 Trioedd Ynys Prydein, ed Rachel Bromwich (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006)

378 See also Ziegler 67

In fairness, publications on the subject are rather outdated and speculative

at times Therefore, it is time for a modern and more thoroughinvestigation into the alleged analogy between Guinevere and asovereignty goddess To the best of my knowledge there has not been anyresearch dealing exclusively with the likelihood of Guinevere being thepersonification of sovereignty The majority of scholars only refer to itfleetingly and quote other authors who have been known to mention thepossibility However, the existing research does provide an excellent basisfor a comparison between Guinevere and her alleged Irish counterparts

The main objectives for each chapter of my thesis are as follows.First of all, the link between sovereignty and the female should beexplored in more detail, i.e from the point of view of Irish mythology Thiswill be explained in Chapter 2, where the Irish sovereignty myth, which lies

at the heart of this discussion, is introduced Chapter 3 is about how theliterary character of Guinevere resembles a sovereignty figure, andexamples from English, French and Welsh tradition are mentioned InChapter 4 I explore how the myth developed in French and EnglishArthurian literature as a theme with accompanying motifs I then try toexplain how it acquired a new meaning in Arthurian literature which was

an adaptation of the old Irish meaning of sovereignty In Chapter 5 themyth and its connection to Guinevere are discussed with relation to WelshArthurian tradition And, finally, Chapter 6 debates whether or not it ispossible that people outside Ireland were familiar with the myth.Meanwhile I will try to find an answer to my research question: did theancient sovereignty myth survive in Arthurian literature?

Chapter 2: The Irish Sovereignty Myth

In order to understand how the sovereignty motif has been used inliterature, it is necessary to explain the sovereignty myth and consider it inits full cultural context One can find the concept of female sovereigntylinked to many of Ireland’s goddesses In fact, the divine female seems tohave been central to pagan Celtic religion Evidence of this can be found inseveral sources, such as iconography Goddesses are prominent features

on Irish, as well as Gaulish and British artefacts from the early medievalperiod.19 The same goes for the Irish written sources of that period In Irishmythology, the concept of sovereignty is inextricably linked to the concept

of sacral kingship and land ownership, and has its own patron goddess.The accompanying myth has proven extremely popular and continued to

be used in literature long after the Middle Ages

Even though there is very little evidence suggesting that womenactually functioned as sovereigns in early Ireland, “sovereignty itself wasconceived of as female”.20 The idea of sovereignty was in fact personified

by a territorial goddess If a man wanted to be king over a certain region,

he had to first obtain its sovereignty In myth, this frequently involvedsexual union with a woman, often a queen, who embodied the territory.This union of man and goddess has become known as the sacred

marriage, or hieros gamos in Greek mythology where the ritual is often

linked to Hera and Zeus and is thought to have been actually performed inancient Sumeria.21 The analogy is in fact one of the reasons why scholarshave suggested that it may have an Indo-European origin.22 The ritualsymbolized the union of the natural world and human society; with the

19 Miranda Green, Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers (London: British

Museum Press, 1995) 70.

20 Green 70

21 Isabelle Clark, “The Gamos of Hera: Myth and Ritual,” The Sacred and the Feminine in

Ancient Greece, eds Sue Blundell and Margaret Williamson (London: Routledge, 1998)

13-26, at 13

22 The sovereignty myth and the accompanying sacred marriage seem to have counterparts in several other branches of Indo-European mythology For instance, Indian and Iranian mythology are discussed in: Alexander Krappe, “On the Sovereignty of Erin,”

The American Journal of Philology 63 (1942): 444-54 In response to this article, Greek

mythology was added and discussed by Campbell Bonner, “Sovereignty and the

Ambitious Hero,” The American Journal of Philology 64 (1943): 208-10

sovereignty goddess symbolizing the land or nature, and the king and hisrule representing the male human agent “The union both legitimised hisrule and gave him sovereignty, and caused the land to prosper”.23 Theorigin of the sacred marriage is probably a survival from ancientagricultural societies, where nature was thought to need humanintervention in order for it to thrive.24 When the land was not prospering or

if the king’s health was compromised in any way, sovereignty was takenaway from him for the sake of the well being of the land.25 Whether or notthis union of king and goddess (or rather her incarnation) was an actualpart of early Irish inauguration rites is uncertain However, if it ever wasperformed, its function must have been of a ritual nature only In reality, aking’s rule did not need to be validated by a woman

Another key element of the sovereignty myth is the drinkingsymbolism The sovereignty goddess can show her approval of the reign of

a mortal king by offering him the ale of sovereignty The ale itself is usuallyserved in a golden cup or goblet and the contents are sometimesdescribed as being red like wine A remarkable detail here is that the Old

Irish word for drink or liquor is laith, while sovereignty is designated by

flaith Thus, in Old Irish the two words are closely related; not only are they

similar in sound, they also had related meanings Actually, there is aconnection in other cultures as well between sovereignty and ale-dispensing.26 Nevertheless, the motif is very highly developed in Irishliterature and is quite unique in this respect

A very important feature of the myth of the sovereignty goddess isthat it is “not static but mutable; and the nature of the goddess embracednot only guardianship of the land, but also promiscuous sexuality, fertility,physical force and death, none of which is mutually exclusive”.27 Of thesecharacteristics, promiscuity is the most obvious one The sovereignty

23 Green 73

24 Green 74

25 The African analogues of this are discussed by James George Frazer, The Golden Bough:

A Study in Comparative Religion vol 3 (1890; London: Macmillan, 1976) 9-58

26 Michael Enright, Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European

Warband from La Tene to the Viking Age (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1996) Germanic

culture, for instance, also seems to have been familiar with the ritualistic involvement of the female in warbands

27 Green 70

goddess mates with whoever will benefit her country most at thatparticular time, with the result that she is linked to a variety of men Inother words, “sovereignty by virtue of her function has many husbands”.28

Because she is linked to a certain territory, she is often the consort of aline of kings The fact that she is constantly linked to different men hasshaped her reputation this way, when in fact her apparent promiscuity ismore of a responsibility to “choose the best consort for the well-being ofthe land”.29 So, this aspect loses its negative connotation when seen in thelight of myth

Another aspect of the sovereignty goddess is fertility This is caused

by the fact that the union of king and goddess is thought to have aimmediate effect upon the well-being of the land The result of their sexualunion is fruitfulness of the earth Finally, the goddess is associated withwar and death, which is a direct consequence of the power the goddessrepresents.30 “Sexual infidelity can result in or cause chaos and disorder At

a more subtle and obscure level, there is a sense in which warfare andbloodshed may be perceived as promoting fertility”.31 So there is a sense

of renewal Men are willing to fight in order to obtain the sovereignty whichthe goddess symbolizes; therefore sovereignty causes strife between men.The sovereignty goddess has actually been portrayed in a variety of ways

in Irish written tradition As noted above, the nature of the goddess is very mutable, which is also reflected in her appearance At times she is

presented as a beautiful young woman but quite often she is first

described as an ugly crone who gets transformed later on in the story Sometimes sovereignty is not personified by a human at all but presented

as a triad, a goddess composed of three personae Thus, the appearance

of Sovereignty varies from one text to another In most narratives

Sovereignty has a dual nature and sometimes even triple Sovereignty incarnate is either a beautiful young woman or an ugly old crone A few Old and Middle Irish texts will be discussed to clarify the use of the

sovereignty myth In the ninth-century Baile in Scáil (“The Phantom’s

Frenzy”)32 the Sovereignty of Ireland is a young girl, while the main

character of other narratives, such as the eleventh-century Echtra Mac

nEchach Muigmedóin (“The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid

Mugmedón”)33 encounters Sovereignty in her other form, as an old hag

The hero only acquires sovereignty after a sexual embrace with the old woman It seems as if the transformation element serves the purpose of teaching the aspiring king a valuable lesson: “loathsome, bestial, horrible

at first and beautiful at last, so is the sovranty; for it is seldom gained without battles and conflicts, but at last to anyone it is beautiful and

goodly”.34

Even though the sovereignty goddess is often linked to historicalkings,35 it should be noted that she belongs entirely in myth The goddess

is quite prominent in literary texts, some of which are pseudo-historical An

example of this can be found in the eleventh-century Lebor Gabála Érenn

(“The Book of the Taking of Ireland”).36 Here we find a triple goddess bythe names of Ériu, Banba, and Fótla representing the country of Ireland.The story actually recounts how Ériu gave Ireland its name, which hasbecome Éire in Modern Irish

Another example is the seventh-century Baile Chuinn Cétchathaig

(“The Frenzy of Conn Cétchathach”),37 which is the earliest known

sovereignty text Same as Baile in Scáil it contains a prophecy of a series

of kings, some of which are historical However, the nature of the text is

32 Baile in Scáil The Phantom’s Frenzy, ed Kevin Murray (Dublin: Irish Texts Society 58,

2004) For a summary of the story see appendix 1 The story will now be referred to as

BS

33 “Echtra mac nEchach Muigmedóin: The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedón”,

ed and trans Whitley Stokes, Révue Celtique 24 (1903) 190-207 For a summary of the

story see appendix 2

34 Stokes 201.

35 This is the case in Baile in Scáil and also in the story of Mór Muman who will be

mentioned shortly “MM gives a true reflection of the succession to the southern kingship

in the period which it depicts” Proinsias Mac Cana, “Aspects of the Theme of King and

Goddess in Irish Literature,” Études Celtiques 7 (1955-6) 76-114, at 81-84

36 Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, vol v, ed and trans R.A

Stewart Macalister (Dublin: Irish Texts Society 44, 1956) For a summary of the story see appendix 3

37 “Baile Chuind Chétchathaig nach der Handschrift von Druim Snechta,” Zu irischen

Handschriften und Litteraturdenkmälern, ed Rudolf Thurneysen (Berlin: Weidmann, 1912)

48-52 For a summary of the story see appendix 4.

far more cryptic than BS Sovereignty’s role is only implied but the use of

the name Fótla preceded by feminine pronouns and the story’s drinkingimagery has led scholars to believe that the unexpressed object is theSovereignty of Ireland.38

Apart from the Sovereignty of Ireland, the goddess is also frequentlypersonified by a queen, who represents a certain part of the country and istherefore a local version of sovereignty Irish literature has several of thesequeens but only the most famous will be mentioned in the followingdiscussion First of all, there is Mór Muman who has become known as theSovereignty of Munster.39 She was said to be the most beautiful woman inall of Ireland and the consort of several Munster kings Another well-knownqueen is Medb of Connacht, who is infamous for her many lovers and herdominant behaviour She is also often associated with sovereignty sinceany man who wanted to lay claim on her lands first had to mate with her.40

It has been pointed out by Ó Máille that the name Medb means ‘she whointoxicates’, which is taken as a link to the ale of sovereignty.41 Hernamesake, Medb Lethderg of Leinster, has the same reputation “Greatindeed was the strength and power of that Medb over the men of Ireland,for she it was who would not allow a king in Tara without his having herself

as a wife”.42 So, even though the queen did not rule the kingdomindependently, she did pick her consort and could change partners as shepleased In the sovereignty myth, the queen was the constant factor

With the coming of Christianity, the use of the myth changed In theearly sovereignty texts “the goddess of sovereignty occupied a primalposition, but in later tradition the King had primacy”.43 Obviously, the idea

of involvement of a pagan goddess in inauguration rites was in conflictwith Christian doctrine “In the early centuries of Christian conversion,clerical writers sought to promote a Christian ideology of sovereignty in

38 John Carey, “The Narrative Setting of Baile Chuinn Cétchathaig,” Études Celtiques 32

which the overseer and legitimator of royal power was not the goddess butthe male god of Christianity”.44 So, royal inauguration performed by clericswas encouraged and if the sacred marriage rite was performed in the past,this was no longer the case once Ireland became Christianized The resultwas that slowly the prominence of the sovereignty goddess in Irishliterature diminished until the point where she is merely an object to beappropriated.45 In the earliest myths, the roles are reversed; the kingdepends on the goddess to approve of his reign but this has changed in

narratives such as the composite ninth- and eleventh-century Baile in

Scáil Here Lug is the actual bestower of sovereignty since he gives the girl

who represents the Sovereignty of Ireland instructions as to whom sheshould serve the ale

To conclude, the nature of the sovereignty goddess and theaccompanying myth are extremely mutable However, the goddess’s mainattributes are promiscuity, fertility and war and she usually bestowssovereignty on a man either by offering him the drink of sovereignty orsexual favours In literature she is continuously linked to fictional as well

as historical kings Nevertheless, the king and goddess theme is highlymythological; there is no historical basis for the sacred marriage If thesexual union of a king and an incarnation of the goddess was part of theritual surrounding royal inauguration in early Ireland then it must havebeen abolished with the coming of Christendom There seems to be noreason to believe that such a thing was required in real life, perhaps it had

a ceremonial function but probably no more than that The later meaning

of sovereignty had “poetic rather than political resonance”.46 However,despite the decline in relevance, the myth has proven extremely resilient

44 Máire Herbert, “Goddess and King: The Sacred Marriage in Early Ireland,” Women and

Sovereignty, ed L.A Fradenburg (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U.P, 1992) 264-75, at 268

45 Herbert 271

46 Herbert 264

Chapter 3: Guinevere and Sovereignty

As pointed out in the introduction Guinevere’s character is not veryconstant Her portrayal by Arthurian writers varies from a quietsubservient wife to a dominant lover However, this inconsistency is onlyone of many reasons to believe that Guinevere is the sovereignty figure ofArthurian literature Other motivations in favour of this are Guinevere’sobscure relations with men, her apparent supernatural origins, thesovereignty objects she is associated with and there even are a fewtextual references Nevertheless, there are also ways in which Arthur’squeen is not at all like the personification of sovereignty Therefore, it istime to explore exactly what are the arguments in favour and againstidentifying Guinevere as a sovereignty figure First of all, Guinevere’sdealings with men are worth looking at Not only will her high profile loveaffair with Lancelot be discussed but also attempts from other men tocourt the Arthurian leading lady

The affair(s)

The affair between Guinevere and Lancelot is without a doubt the mostfamous example of infidelity in Arthurian literature The liaison hasbecome known as the catalyst of Arthur’s downfall and that of hiskingdom Chrétien de Troyes was the first writer to mention the illicit love

between the two characters in his late twelfth-century work Le Chevalier

de la charrette (“The Knight of the Cart”).47 However, Lancelot appears to

47 Le Chevalier de la charrette will from now on be abbreviated to Charrette

have been neither the first nor the only man with whom Guinevere was

romantically connected In the lay Lanval, Arthur’s queen makes advances

to the titular hero but he rejects her.48 Another man who remains

unaffected by Guinevere’s flirtations is Yder in the Roman de Yder (“The

Story of Yder”), which was written half a century later.49 In the story Yderends up marrying a queen called Guenloie Roger Sherman Loomis hastaken this similarity in name as a possibility that in an earlier, perhapsoral, tradition Guenloie and Guinevere were actually the same person.50

This would mean that there may have been a tradition in which Guinevereand Yder were lovers and supposedly this is also hinted at in the twelfth-

century Berne Folie Tristan (“The Madness of Tristan”), but there are no

other written sources confirming this.51 The reason why this never survived

on parchment is possibly the following: “By the time Yder was written,

Lancelot was rising in popularity as Guinevere’s lover, so that the poethimself, or more likely his sources had already diminished her relationshipwith Yder”.52 So, the author of the Roman de Yder was possibly trying to

reconcile two separate traditions, one of which might have belonged tooral culture

Apart from Yder, there are also speculations about romanticinvolvement of Guinevere with Gawain and even Kay before her affair withLancelot.53 However, these suggestions seem quite unlikely as Gawain isArthur’s nephew and there is no real reason to believe that her affectiongoes beyond that appropriate for a kinsman Her attitude towards Kay inmost stories does not seem to suggest any amorous feelings between thetwo; if anything Guinevere is rather unfriendly to Kay.54 So, even thoughspeculations about Gawain and Kay are rather far-fetched, her behaviourwith regard to Lanval and Yder suggests that Guinevere’s infidelity goes

48 “Lanval,” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, eds Mike Howard Abrams and

Stephen Greenblatt (New York: Norton, 2000) 127-40

49 Der Altfranzösische Yderroman, ed Heinrich Gelzer (Dresden, Max Niemeyer, 1913)

50 Loomis 1926, 8

51 Ziegler 172

52 Ziegler 180

53 Ziegler 149.

54 For example in Le Chevalier au Lion (“The Knight of the Lion”) Chrétien de Troyes,

“Yvain,” Arthurian Romances, trans Douglas David Roy Owen (London: Dent, 1987)

281-373, at 282

back even further than her affair with Lancelot Unfortunately, it provesdifficult to find written sources from before Chrétien stating this, but it ispossible that promiscuity was a well-established character trait ofGuinevere in oral story-telling It certainly seems as if it was known and

accepted since line 257-96 of Lanval describes how Guinevere tells Arthur

about how Lanval has rejected her offer to be his lover Yet somehow thealleged affairs, except for Guinevere’s adultery with Lancelot, ended upsurviving in literature as a one-sided infatuation of the Queen

When looking at Guinevere’s infidelity with the Irish sovereigntymyth in mind, her actions acquire a different meaning What waspreviously labelled promiscuity can also be explained as the actions of asovereignty queen, whose position requires her to sleep with the court’schampion and therefore to frequently change sexual partners So,Guinevere’s adultery with Lancelot suddenly obtains a different meaning

“Her choice of consort should be understood in symbolic terms - […] itshould be seen as a manifestation of the theme of sovereignty - butwithout the dignity of myth, it becomes a mere case of adultery”.55

The abductions

Another part of Arthurian literature where Guinevere’s fidelity isquestionable is those stories concerned with the treason of Mordred In his

twelfth-century Historia Regum Britanniae (“History of the Kings of

Britain”), Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts how Arthur entrusts the rule ofhis kingdom to his queen Guinevere and his nephew Mordred while he is atwar on the continent

Then as summer approached, […] it was announced to him that hisnephew Mordred, to whose guardianship he had entrusted Britain,was wearing its crown in tyranny and treachery, and that QueenGuinevere, having broken the oath of her prior nuptials, had beenjoined to him in unconscionable lust.56

55 Manuel Aguirre, “Life, Crown and Queen: Gertrude and the Theme of Sovereignty,” The

Review of English Studies 47 (1996): 163-74, at 171 Note that this quote is not about

Guinevere in particular but about any queen who fulfils a sovereignty role

56 Geoffrey of Monmouth, “Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth,” The Romance of Arthur: an

anthology of medieval texts in translation, ed James J Wilhelm (New York: Garland, 1994)

59-93, at 91

So, it is suggested that Guinevere is with Mordred out of her own free will,especially since she flees to a convent once Arthur and Mordred face eachother in battle However, in the final section of the early thirteenth-centuryVulgate Cycle Mordred gets the remainder of Arthur’s officials to swearallegiance to him but his takeover remains incomplete because Guinevererefuses to surrender to him Robert Wace, however, “shows her as a willing

party to the […] relationship with Modred” in his Roman de Brut (“The

Story of Brutus”) from AD 1154.57 So, Guinevere’s relationship withMordred remains open to discussion

A very similar type of story is the abduction narrative which seems

to be attached to the character of Guinevere There are at least twelveArthurian romances in which Guinevere’s abduction or attemptedabduction is part of the story Guinevere is somebody to be obtained andwhen men cannot have her they try to take her by force One could arguethat these men are not necessarily interested in her romantically, but shealways represents a way to get to Arthur and his kingdom Two of theabduction stories will be discussed here in detail, mainly because they arevery similar and seem to have Celtic origins The earliest account ofGuinevere being abducted can be found in Caradog of Llancarfan’s version

of Vita Gildae (“The Life of Gildas”), which was written around AD 1130.

The narrative relates how Gwenhwyfar gets “violated and carried off”58 byMelwas, lord of Glastonbury

A similar and more elaborate version of the story appears some fifty

years later in Chrétien de Troyes’ Charrette in which Guinevere gets

abducted by a man called Meleagant Even though the stories of Melwasand Meleagant are not entirely similar, it has been suggested that thename and character of Meleagant were derived from Melwas.59 Thecomparison has been taken further still, involving also Mordred and

57 Glenys Goetinck, “Gwenhwyfar, Guinevere and Guenièvre,” Études Celtiques 11 (1966):

351-60, at 354

58 Caradoc of Llancarfan, “Vita Gildae,” Two Lives of Gildas, trans Hugh Williams

(Felinfach, Dyfed: Llanerch, 1990) 84-103, at 99

59 John Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891) 51 See also Roger Sherman Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926) 157 and Tom Peete Cross and William A Nitze, Lancelot and

Guinevere: A Study on the Origins of Courtly Love (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1930) 21-22 (footnote 4)

abductors from others Arthurian stories: “Because Mordred’s name isetymologically similar to Melwas, Meleagant, Meljakanz, and Melianz,critics have tended to lump together all of the abductors as one fairy lord,king of the Otherworld, or lord of the dead”.60 In fact, the majority of theabduction narratives seem to contain supernatural elements One of thereasons why the abductor is associated with a person from the Otherworld

is a returning element in the abduction stories, namely that Guinevere is

taken over a body of water when she is being abducted In Vita Gildae

there is mention of “fortifications of thickets of reed, river, and marsh”61

and in Charrette Lancelot and Gawain risk their lives crossing

subsequently the Sword Bridge and the Underwater Bridge “As allauthorities have recognized, the Celts believed the blissful abodes of thegods to be hidden from the eyes of normal man in a wide variety of places– behind a wall of mist, under ground, beyond a river, on a remote island,beneath a lake, under the sea”.62 As a result of this and the othersimilarities in the two abduction narratives, Gorre and Glastonbury arethought to signify the same place

Yet another similarity between the stories of Melwas and Meleagant

is the time factor: a year passes in both stories before Guinevere can beentirely free and Guinevere is nearly always abducted in spring time.These recurring elements very strongly point to a mythological model forthe abduction story, and as it turns out both Irish and Greek mythology

offer striking parallels The Irish variant is called the aithed and its most

well-known version is the abduction of Bláthnat by Cú Roí.63 The Ulsterhero Cú Chulainn sets out to free her but gets beaten by Cú Roí first, andonly when he attempts a second time a year later is he victorious.64 This isvery similar to Kay’s defeat by Meleagant The first attempt at a rescue isalways unsuccessful and a year needs to pass by before the lady can be

60 Ziegler 183-4

61 Williams 10

62 Loomis 1948, 224 However, it is not an exclusively Celtic or pagan idea to think of the otherworld as being over a body of water The idea is also used in other works of

medieval literature, for instance in the Middle English work Pearl

63 “The Tragic Death of Cu Roi Mac Dairi,” Ancient Irish Tales, ed and trans Tom P Cross

and Clark Harris Slover (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1936) 328-32

64 Loomis 1948, 204.

freed.65 Furthermore, like Guinevere there is no one version of Bláthnat’sabduction; her rescuer is not always the same and neither is her abductor

Another attribute of the Celtic abduction story is the rash-boontheme A rash boon is when one of the characters instantly promises tofulfil another person's request before knowing exactly what is being asked

of him Unsurprisingly, the theme also features in quite a few Arthurian

romances A very famous Irish example can be found in Echtra Cormaic i

Tir Tairngiri (“The Adventure of Cormac in the Land of Promise”).66 King

Cormac grants a supernatural sea-god called Manannan three boons,without knowing that Manannan will end up taking his wife This is stronglyreminiscent of Arthur agreeing to Kay to honour Meleagant’s challenge.Arthur is pressured into granting Kay whatever he asks of him When Kaythen insists on bringing Guinevere with him to Gorre so that he can fightMeleagant for her honour, Arthur can do nothing but let him since healready promised to grant Kay his boon

Moreover, Loomis has traced the abduction narrative back evenfurther than Celtic mythology, namely to the Greek goddess Persephone.She gets abducted by Hades, the king of the Greek Underworld.67

Persephone is released in the end but has to return to the Underworld forpart of the year When Persephone is in the Underworld the earth is barrenand infertile, and only after she returns it flourishes The story is notablyconsidered a seasonal myth to explain the phenomenon of winter.Guinevere’s abduction is also linked to a certain time of year, since she isusually snatched in springtime Like Hades, Melwas “carries off a womanwho represents the life of nature and the fertility of the land In releasingher from captivity and restoring her to the human world, Arthur bringsback from the Otherworld a priceless treasure, the force which regenerates

65 In Charrette the time factor is not as obvious as in The Life of Gildas Only after

Lancelot fights Meleagant a second time, exactly one year after their first fight, is

Guinevere permanently freed from her abductor However, in the meantime Guinevere is allowed to return to Arthur’s court

66 “The Adventure of Cormac in the Land of Promise,” Irische Texte 3, ed Whitley Stokes

and E Windisch (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1891) 183-229 The story survives in a century manuscript but according to the annals, Cormac reigned in the third century AD

fourteenth-67 Hesiod, “Hymn to Demeter,” The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans Hugh G

Evelyn-White (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914) 288-323.

life”.68 Hence, the abduction of Guinevere is clearly mythic in origin and it

is not unlikely that her character has some mythic attributes as well, aswill be discussed shortly

Other Arthurian texts in which Guinevere gets abducted all more orless contain the same elements The stock elements seem to be theOtherworldly nature of her abductor and the place he takes her to, thetime element and the failure of the first rescue attempt Additionally, in

some of the stories such as Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet, which was

written around AD 1200, Guinevere is already familiar with her abductor,and he claims that she was promised to him when she was still too young

to marry.69 Only now that she is Arthur’s queen do they come to reclaimher, which suggests that the abductors are after Arthur’s kingship, and notjust after his wife The obtainment of Guinevere is here equalled with theobtainment of Arthur’s kingdom So, the pursuit of Guinevere is associatedwith land, which makes the abduction narrative related to the sovereigntymotif

Not only was the abduction of Guinevere present in medieval writtenculture, there is also visual evidence suggesting that the story was part ofpopular culture An early twelfth-century archivolt of the Cathedral ofModena in Italy shows a scene of a woman named Winlogee who is locked

in a tower by Mardoc Outside the stronghold are a few other figures, such

as Galvaginus and Artus de Bretania So, the archivolt is undoubtedlyArthurian in nature and depicts the abduction of Guinevere (Winlogee).When attempting to date the archivolt, scholars concluded that it ispossible that it was made even before Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his

Historia Regum Britanniae.70 This would show that the abduction story waswell known at an early stage, before Arthur was popularized in writing,probably through oral tales

As we have seen, the abduction of Guinevere shows that she wassomebody to be obtained The stories imply that she was “stolen with the

68 Cavendish 22

69 Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, Lanzelet, ed Florian Kragl (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006)

70 For discussion of the archivolt’s date see Gordon Hall Gerould, “Arthurian Romance and

the Date of the Relief at Modena,” Speculum 10 (1935): 355-76, and Roger Sherman

Loomis, “Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Modena Archivolt: A Question of Precedence,”

Speculum 13 (1938): 221-31

kingdom, not [just] from it”.71 The story of Mordred is slightly different fromthe other abduction stories though, because apart from the abductionMordred also attempts to usurp the throne He claims the queen on herown territory So, this seems to indicate that most of the men who pursueGuinevere are actually after the kingship of Logres and try to achieve it byclaiming its queen The abductors pursue sovereignty which is embodied

by Guinevere In this way her character is reminiscent of the sovereigntygoddess from Irish mythology Like Sovereignty Guinevere is reported tohave sexual relations with men other than her partner However, inGuinevere’s case these relations have largely been eradicated Markalehas even argued that the abductions are not actually abductions but justGuinevere being unfaithful yet again “The best known of her maritalinfidelities with Lancelot is only a later variation on a much older theme offlagrant adultery with several of Arthur’s courtiers or with strangers,euphemistically termed abductors as if to avoid any strain on herreputation”.72 What Markale is suggesting here is that Guinevere’spromiscuous behaviour has been suppressed and concealed by authors.Thus, what has been identified as Guinevere getting abducted could in fact

be her eloping This suggestion has been confirmed by other authors such

as Cross and Nitze who have compared Guinevere’s abduction to someIrish abduction stories and concluded that the women from these stories

“are seldom or never abducted against their will”.73

Thus, Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot is the only conclusiveevidence of Guinevere’s adulterous nature, but even then Guinevere’simage is not really that of a seductress because writers such as Chrétien

de Troyes made amends for her affair.74 Nevertheless, as it turns outGuinevere’s reputation is far from flawless The affair, or affairs, and theabductions may be a survival of her original role as a sovereignty figure.Not only does she resemble the sovereignty goddess because of heralleged promiscuity, Guinevere also seems to reflect the war aspect of the

71 Ziegler 186

72 Markale 1977, 129

73 Cross and Nitze 56

74 There is hardly any sense of condemnation of the affair to be noticed in Charrette, even

though Chrétien does stress marital love in his other romances

goddess, since Guinevere’s abductions and her affair with Lancelot causestrife between her husband and her pursuer Furthermore, as mentionedearlier, Guinevere seems linked to the territory of Logres Even thoughArthur is king, in a way Guinevere embodies the kingdom’s sovereignty

Guinevere’s supernatural origins

Although the suggestion of Guinevere as a goddess is not a widelyaccepted theory, it is not that unlikely that her origins are in thesupernatural realm Not only does her name suggest this, her layeredpersonality also gives reason to believe that she might have been derivedfrom a Celtic goddess Furthermore, Guinevere would not be the firstArthurian woman who can be traced back to Irish mythology Leaving Irishtradition for the moment, we turn to Welsh Arthurian literature

As we have seen, the etymology of Guinevere’s name has led tosome very interesting discoveries This investigation is based on to theearliest mention of Guinevere in Arthurian literature, which is in Welshtradition Gwenhwyfar is mentioned for the first time as Arthur’s wife in

the Welsh Culhwch ac Olwen (“Culhwch and Olwen”), a story which dates

back to the eleventh century but has survived in a fourteenth-century

manuscript The text is part of the Mabinogion, w collection which contains

more references to Arthur’s Queen and will be discussed in more detail inChapter 5 The Gwenhwyfar from these stories is likely to have been theWelsh original of Guinevere Another Welsh reference to Arthur’s wife can

be found in the thirteenth-century Trioedd Ynys Prydein (“Triads of the

Island of Britain”)75, where three Gwenhwyfars are mentioned Triad 56reads as follows:

Arthur’s Three Great Queens:

Gwennhwyfar daughter of (Cywryd) Gwent,

and Gwenhwyfar daughter of (Gwythyr) son of Greidiawl,

and Gwenhwyfar daughter of (G)ogfran the Giant.76

Even though it is possible that this is an expression of doubt aboutGwenhwyfar’s parentage, it is frequently considered evidence that

75 From now on to be referred to as the Triads

76 Bromwich 2006, 154

Guinevere is derived from a triple goddess Celtic goddesses were oftensimilarly assigned with a triple nature, and as pointed out in Chapter 2, thesovereignty goddess was one of them The same chapter has shown thatthere is more than one Medb, so this multiple personality simply seems to

be a quality of a sovereignty queen

The triplicate mention of Guinevere has also often been used toexplain the duality in her character and the stories about the True and theFalse Guinevere in the early thirteenth-century French Vulgate Cycle.77

While the True Guinevere is sent away somewhere, the False Guinevere isliving at Arthur’s court Bromwich has agreed in her edition of the WelshTriads that Triad 56 could be proof of Guinevere’s multiple personality,which according to her is supported by the characters of the True and FalseGuineveres.78 Again this can be related to the Irish sovereignty goddess

As pointed out in Chapter 2, the goddess is known to change shape UnlikeSovereignty, Guinevere does not transform physically; her duality can bewitnessed in her character rather than in her appearance Thus, while thegoddess can be portrayed either as a hag or a beautiful woman,Guinevere’s change is not on the outside but on the inside, namely in herdual or even triple personality

Another small but remarkable detail in Arthurian romance is thatwhen Guinevere is charged with a crime, her punishment is nearly alwaysburning: “because a queen who was guilty of treachery could die in noother way, given that she was sacred”.79 This would insinuate once againthat Guinevere’s origins are in the supernatural realm Cavendish hasargued that it “suggests that the old tradition of Guinevere as a goddesshad lingered on The logic of burning a sacred queen to death seems tohave been to destroy her body Otherwise it had to be buried and themagic force inherent in it might contaminate the earth In the Middle Agesburning was the usual method of executing heretics and witches,apparently for the same reason”.80

77 The True and False Guineveres feature in the Vulgate Merlin and the Vulgate Lancelot

78 Bromwich 2006, 156

79 The Death of King Arthur, ed and trans James Cable (Harmondsworth: Penguin

Classics, 1978) 120.

80 Cavendish 188

Besides, Guinevere is not the only Arthurian woman to resemble aCeltic deity The character of Morgan le Fay, Arthur’s sister, is also thought

to have been derived from Celtic goddesses such as the Irish Mórrigan andWelsh Modron.81 Like Guinevere, Morgan is portrayed as a woman withoutsexual inhibitions; she is associated with the supernatural and is often atodds with Arthur Over time, Morgan has even become one of the villains

of Arthurian literature The existing resemblances between thesegoddesses and Morgan have changed her character for the worse.Fortunately, this has not happened in Guinevere’s case but it does seem

as if being derived from a mythological figure makes a literary charactermore unstable This is displayed in Guinevere’s personality in terms ofvarying traditions about her lovers, her occasional sharp tongue and themultiplicity of her character It is possible that oral and early writtentradition linked a variety of stories to both Guinevere and Morgan, andthese might have been contradictory As we have seen, writers sometimeshad to reconcile different traditions but were not always successful atdoing so

So in brief, Guinevere’s deeply rooted connection with thesupernatural is most evident in her name, the abduction narratives, andher manifold personality Her abduction “came to be treated as a naturemyth, which in turn caused Guinevere to be ranked as a nature goddessand led to the notion of the three Guineveres An additional possibility,suggested by Irish mythology and custom, is that Arthur’s wife came to beregarded as a personification of the land of Britain, the land which Arthur

‘married’ in his capacity as king”.82

81 Charlotte Spivack, “Morgan le Fay: Goddess or Witch?,” Popular Arthurian Traditions,

ed Sally K Slocum (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992) 18-23

82 Cavendish 22

Guinevere’s cup which is taken from her by the Red Knight in Peredur fab

Efrog (“Peredur, son of Efrawg”).83 Not only does the cup episode feature

in Peredur, it is also part of Chretien’s late twelfth-century Perceval ou le

Conte du Graal (“Perceval or the Story of the Grail”) and the English Sir Percyvelle of Gales, which dates back to the fifteenth century.84 In thesetexts, Guinevere is insulted by an unknown knight, usually resulting in one

of Arthur’s men taking offence and defending her honour The majority ofthese stories involve a cup.85 Usually Guinevere is dining in the company

of her husband and his men when a stranger enters the court, claims tohave a right to Arthur’s lands and challenges the court by taking thequeen’s drinking vessel Sometimes the man intentionally spills the drink

or slaps Guinevere in the face, leaving the queen greatly offended “Thistype of episode may retain traces of more than one type of tale; thatwhere the sovereignty is abducted, either as the queen in person, or thecup where the possessor of sovereignty is challenged by means of aninsult to the embodiment of sovereignty”.86

As we have seen in Chapter 2, sovereignty is frequently linked withthe drinking of ale The attainment of sovereignty is often symbolised bythe offer and acceptance of a drink So, by taking the cup from the queenand again by hitting her in the face, the knight is challenging Arthur Heresovereignty is represented by Guinevere herself and the cup she holds

“Brown has ingeniously proved that the English Sir Percyvelle represents

Queen Guinevere with a golden cup which must originally haven been atalisman of strength Apparently, when the Red Knight stole the cup,Arthur and his knights fell into languishment, which, one infers, was notended until Gawain returned with the talisman”.87 So, as long as the cup isaway and the offence against the queen remains unavenged, the courtfalls deeper into decline Still, the story is different in that Guinevere does

83 See appendix 6

84 Peredur fab Efrog will from now on be referred to as Peredur, Perceval ou le Conte du

Graal will be abbreviated to Perceval and Sir Peryvelle of Galles is reduced to Sir

not get abducted Instead, the knight takes the cup she is holding.However, the gesture is the same since the cup symbolizes sovereigntywhich is implied by the state of the court as a result of the knight’s action.This is implied by the consequences of the knight’s deed: Arthur’s courtsuffers So, instead of Guinevere being taken it is the cup that is taken inher place I would add that this drinking theme is not coincidental since it

is a clear indicator of the sovereignty theme However, I would like tosuggest that it did not reach its full potential as a motif In my opinion, theidea of the cup as the embodiment of sovereignty was not developed anyfurther in Arthurian literature because the cup was already stronglyassociated with the Holy Grail

The next sovereignty object is the Round Table Something whichvery strongly vouches for Guinevere’s functioning as a sovereignty figure

is the fact that her dowry includes this famous object There are differentaccounts which describe how Arthur obtained the table but the best knownversion is that it comes into his possession at the same time as Guinevere

This is not yet the case when Wace first mentions the table in his Roman

de Brut Both Joseph de Boron and the Vulgate Cycle relate how Merlin

initially crafted it for Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon However, upon thelatter’s death it was ceded to one of his vassals Leodegranz, who is alsoGuinevere’s father It does not reach Arthur until Leodegranz decides toinclude it in Guinevere’s dowry Apart from the table itself, Guinevere’sbridewealth also consists of men who end up manning the table along withArthur’s knights Numbers vary greatly between sources but Leodegranzusually provides half of the knights at the table The Round Table thenbecomes the centre of Arthurian chivalry and the key to Arthur’s success

It may well be said that the Round Table symbolizes Arthur’s sovereignty

Even scholars such as Ziegler, who are sceptical about the idea thatGuinevere fulfils a sovereignty role in Arthurian literature, do acknowledgethat the fact that Guinevere’s dowry includes the Round Table increasesher possibilities of being such a figure.88 The Round Table more or lesssymbolizes the power of Arthur’s kingdom and it comes into Arthur’s

88 Ziegler 64

possession along with Guinevere Cavendish has interpreted this as a cluethat Guinevere is indeed a sovereignty figure.89 As we have seen, the

same can be said about Guinevere’s cup in Peredur, Perceval and Sir

Percyvelle.

Textual references

Not only does Guinevere’s character resemble a sovereignty figure, thereare also medieval texts that indicate that she is such a figure To begin

with, there is the Gawain episode of the first Perceval-continuation which

dates back to the twelfth century.90 Here Guinevere is referred to as “theQueen to whom all Britain and Ireland do belong”.91 This passage isremarkable in two ways It is unusual for medieval queens, even literaryones, to be mentioned as owning land Furthermore, the reference toIreland is remarkable Even though Geoffrey of Monmouth does report howArthur conquers Ireland shortly after marrying Guinevere,92 references toArthur as king of Ireland are rare

Another textual reference can be found in the last section of the

Vulgate Cycle: La Mort le Roi Artu (“The Death of King Arthur”) which dates

back to the first half of the thirteenth century While Arthur is fighting onthe continent, Mordred fabricates a letter saying that Arthur has died incombat The court’s nobles then decide that Mordred is to be the next kingand even though Guinevere is grieving for her husband they try toconvince her to marry Mordred Here it is said to Guinevere that “the man

to whom God gives the honour of his kingdom must certainly marry you”.93

This passage is highly peculiar because it implies that even if Arthur werenot the king, Guinevere would still have to be the queen This reference isstrongly reminiscent of the story of Medb which was recounted in Chapter

2, with her being the queen of Connacht whereas the king was whoevershe chose to be with So, the queen is the constant whereas the king

89 See Chapter 1

90 “The Unknown Knight,” Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, ed and trans Jessie L Weston

(1903; New York: AMS Press, 1970) 3-30.

91 Weston 7

92 Wilhelm 72-6.

93 The Death of King Arthur 162

varies The quote from La Mort le Roi Artu is therefore highly suggestive of

Guinevere functioning as a sovereignty figure

Counter arguments

However, despite the resemblances mentioned there are also ways inwhich Guinevere is not at all like the sovereignty goddess First of all, avery important aspect of the myth is the way in which Sovereignty ensuresfertility The problem is that Guinevere is infertile in nearly each and everystory that was written about her And there is more Apart from the lack ofthis arguably crucial sovereignty aspect, Guinevere does not exude being

a personification of power In the majority of Arthurian literature hercharacter is far too passive and she is merely Arthur’s consort She is verymuch a queen consort not a queen regnant If again compared to Medb, it

is evident that the Irish queen also does not rule Connacht on a dailybasis; she leaves the actual governing to her husband and occasionallyinterferes Nevertheless, Medb has a reputation of being dominant and she

even leads men in battle in the Irish text Taín Bó Cuailgne (“The Raid of Cooley”).94 Guinevere is very different, she is occasionallyoutspoken, but in her own life Guinevere has no sovereignty She has verylittle freedom as Arthur’s wife It should be noted that Guinevere is muchmore in control in her relationship with Lancelot than in her marriage toArthur Lancelot is very submissive in his relationship with Guinevere, heworships her In fact, their affair is a stereotypical display of courtly love It

Cattle-is adulterous and the female Cattle-is worshipped by the male The courtly lovetradition allows Guinevere to be sovereign over her lover Lancelot.95

Obviously, “Guinevere enjoys her sovereignty over men, and even in loveshe will not entirely submit”.96

Thus far, Guinevere’s character has proven to be coherent with twocharacteristics of the sovereignty goddess: promiscuous sexuality andbeing the cause of strife However, Guinevere clearly does not suit the

94 Táin Bó Cuailnge, ed Pádraig Ó Fiannachta (Dublin: DIAS, 1966) The text has survived

in a twelfth-century manuscript but the story is possibly older

95 However, this is a different type of sovereignty from the kind which is the focus of the present chapter The kind of sovereignty which refers to power in a relationship will be dealt with in detail in chapter 4

96 Ziegler 197

third aspect: fertility In the greater part of Arthurian literature it isemphasized that she is unable to bear Arthur children The exceptions are

the Welsh Arthurian tradition, the early thirteenth-century Perlesvaus ou Li

Hauz Livres du Graal (“Perlesvaus or the High History of the Grail”) in

which Guinevere and Arthur have a son called Loholt, and the

fourteenth-century Alliterative Morte Arthure, where Guinevere bears Mordred two

sons.97 In itself not being able to produce an heir would be a majorshortcoming for a medieval queen but it seems even more significantgiven the context of the sovereignty myth Fertility does appear to be vital,especially given the way in which the sovereignty goddess ensures thefruitfulness of the land Thus, Guinevere’s inability to have children leavesthe analogy incomplete Yet it can also be argued that Guinevere’s ownfertility is not of importance here After all, the Irish sovereignty myth doesnot require the goddess to reproduce either, so the fertility aspect of thegoddess could just be of a symbolical nature

Another missing link is the fact that there is no real drinking imagery

in Arthurian literature The only obvious episodes are those noted above in

the Peredur and the other Perceval stories and the narratives in which

Guinevere’s fidelity is tested by a drinking horn.98 However, as mentionedearlier the reason for the lack of prominence of this motif might be thatthe Grail narratives were so popular that the ritual use of a cup wasautomatically associated with the Holy vessel What can be concludedfrom this is that Guinevere does not entirely resemble the sovereigntygoddess from Irish literature Guinevere is not a symbol of fertility likeSovereignty, she does not ooze power, neither in her own life nor in terms

of politics, and there is a lack of drinking symbolism surrounding herperson In short, Guinevere is a weaker counterpart of Sovereignty sinceshe does not entirely fit the profile

Nonetheless, the similarities outweigh the three shortcomingsmentioned above Investigation into the similarities between Guinevere

97 “Guenevere,” The Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed Norris J Lacy (London: Garland,

1986) 262.

98 For example in Lai du Cor “(The Lay of the Horn”) from the second half of the twelfth

century A man can only drink from this horn without spilling if his wife is faithful to him Arthur fails miserably and gets very angry with Guinevere

and Sovereignty provide an abundance of parallels The sovereigntygoddess is known for her sexual promiscuity, and the same can be said forGuinevere As discussed at the start of the present chapter, Guinevere’sinfidelity does not only involve Lancelot Another attribute of Sovereignty

is that she is associated with war One could argue that Guinevere alsocontinually causes strife Her abductors are always willing to fight for herand she is the main reason for the dispute between Arthur and Mordredand of course Arthur and Lancelot when Arthur finds out about their affair.Guinevere’s personality also displays some qualities that suggest a mythicsource for her character In addition, Guinevere is associated with objectsthat represent Arthur’s kingdom, which again emphasizes her claims tosovereignty Finally, the written down versions of the Arthurian tales alsoindicate the survival of a mythological sovereignty figure in the character

motifs belonging to the sovereignty theme, the use and function of thesemotifs will be examined with regard to the French and the EnglishArthurian tradition

As will be discussed shortly, the type of sovereignty used inArthurian literature does not necessarily refer to kingship or landpossession like in the Irish narratives Thus, one might wonder, whatexactly makes up the Arthurian sovereignty theme? And whatcharacterizes a non-Irish sovereignty narrative? As was established inChapter 2, in Irish literature sovereignty is most commonly symbolized by

a woman However, it can also be represented by an animal, usually awhite stag, or, less frequently, by an object such as the cup in the Percevaltexts So, the principle of sovereignty is by no means uniquely female.However, no matter what is used to symbolize sovereignty, its narrativesare usually concerned with the attainment of sovereignty or an attempt atregaining it after it was taken away

Critics who have studied the sovereignty theme have all concludedthat there are different strands of sovereignty narratives Glenys Goetinck,for instance, has pointed out that “The material in the romances seems toindicate the existence of several different types of sovereignty tale: theabduction type in which [Guinevere] figures, the seizure of sovereignty by

a rival power; the transformation type (in which the hag and the maidenare one and the same person, the poorly clad maiden who regains herwealth and splendid garments after the hero’s victory is probably avariation on the transformation theme, possibly a later refinement); finally,the hunt of the magic animal resulting in a meeting with Sovereignty”.99

The first type, the abduction of Guinevere, was dealt with in Chapter 3,and the present chapter will be dedicated to a discussion of the remainingtwo

Another scholar who has published on the presence of thesovereignty theme in Arthurian literature is Rachel Bromwich.100 LikeGoetinck, Bromwich discusses both the motif of the Transformed Hag and

99 Goetinck 1975, 132

100 Rachel Bromwich, “Celtic Dynastic Themes and the Breton Lays,” Études Celtiques IX

(1960) 439-74

the Stag Hunt.101 In Arthurian narratives containing a stag hunt, the animalusually symbolizes sovereignty and the chase is reminiscent of the pursuit

of Guinevere in the abduction stories Bromwich believes the Stag motifhas been neglected by scholars such as Mac Cana, but that it mostdefinitely is one of the major components of the sovereignty theme.102

Thus, so far we can distinguish between three Arthurian sovereigntymotifs: that of the abduction of Guinevere, the Stag Hunt and theTransformed Hag (or the Transformed Maiden) A few texts have beenselected to illustrate the use and function of these motifs

An example of a story that contains several sovereignty-related

motifs is Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide (“Erec and Enide”) which was

written around AD 1170.103 First of all, it contains the motif of the StagHunt, which can be found right at the start of the story Arthur and hishunting party depart early in the morning but leave behind Erec and the

Queen Next is the Hag motif, which at first sight is not present in Erec.

However, as Bromwich has pointed out, the motif is hinted at in the story.The scene that is being referred to here is when the newly engaged coupleare getting ready to leave Enide’s family The relatives offer to lend Enide

a dress appropriate for her imminent introduction to Arthur’s court.However, Erec refuses and insists that she wears her own plain whitegarment When they arrive at the royal court Erec asks the Queen toprovide Enide with appropriate attire. 104 Finally, Erec’s fiancée is dressedaccording to her new status.105 So, Enide goes through a transformation aswell, although it is a different kind from the one the hag undergoes.Bromwich considers this “a suggestion that the motif of the Transformed

Hag was once present [in Erec] but has been suppressed, either by

Chrétien, or, more probably, already by his source”.106 So, originally both

101 It should be noted that Bromwich does not use the term ‘sovereignty theme’ Instead she has referred to the hag and the stag elements as ‘dynastic themes’ However, I prefer

to call them ‘dynastic motifs’ since in my opinion they are components of the prevailing sovereignty theme

102 Bromwich 1960, 442-3 (footnote 4)

103 Erec et Enide will from now on be abbreviated to Erec

104 Chrétien de Troyes, “Erec and Enide,” Arthurian Romances, trans and ed Douglas

David Roy Owen (London: Dent, 1987) 1-92, at 22.

105 This is also the first time that Enide is mentioned by name.

106 Bromwich 1960, 465

the Stag Hunt and the Transformed Hag seem to have played a part in

Erec However, as will become evident in this chapter, the story of the hag

is far less popular in French Arthurian narratives than in the English ones

Finally, there is another way in which Erec resembles a sovereignty

narrative It has, however, only been discussed by a few scholars Eventhough Erec is not on the actual hunt but keeping Guinevere company asthey follow the hunting party, it does lead to an adventure that makes himmeet a sovereignty figure: his future wife Enide The reason for this is thatshe is linked to the territory of the Veneti in Vannes, which is now a town inBrittany.107 This suggestion was made because of the etymological

similarity in the names Veneti and Enide More specifically, “Enid/Enide

was once conceived to be the tutelary goddess of the eastern Bretonkingdom of Bro Weroc (Bro Wened), over which her spouse, the kingdom’shistorical/legendary founder Erec (Gueroc) is crowned king at Nantes, hiscapital city, at the end of Chretien’s poem”.108 So, here Enide fulfils thesame role as Medb and Guinevere in that she represents a certain territory.All three women provide their hero husband with a kingdom to rule

Another example of French Arthurian material in which the

sovereignty theme can be witnessed is Renaut de Beaujeu’s Le Bel

Inconnu (“The Fair Unknown”) from approximately AD 1200 The part of

the poem which is most revealing is the so-called ‘fier baiser’ episode ‘Fierbaiser’ is French for ‘proud kiss’ and seems to be a survival of the hero’skiss with Sovereignty in the Irish sovereignty narratives.109 So, here wehave another motif which possibly can be traced back to the Irishsovereignty theme In this narrative the person to be kissed is the BlondeEsmerée of Wales who has been transformed into a serpent So, like theIrish hero the story’s main character Guinglain has to overcome hisrepulsion and kiss a hideous creature Guiglain’s kiss lifts the spell andafter being set free, the girl offers herself to him in marriage The two donot get married immediately but only towards the end of the story

107 For discussion see Darrah 68, and Bromwich 1960, 465.

108 Rachel Bromwich, “First Transmission to England and France,” The Arthur of the Welsh

(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991) 273-98, at 284

109 Sigmund Eisner, A Tale of Wonder: A Source Study of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” (New

York: Burt Franklin, 1969) 121.