BACKGROUND OF GUENEVERE / GUINEVERE

1. Guenevere
   Guinevere
   
   Guenevere's heritage varies according to different legends. According to Malory, Guinevere (in Welsh, Gwenhwyvar which means 'White Phantom') was the daughter of Leodegrance, King of Cameliard (in Welsh tradition, her father is called Gogrvan or Ocvran, while in Diu Crône he is called King Garlin of Galore). Geoffrey of Monmouth says she was a noble Roman descent and the ward of Duke Cador. Wife of King Arthur. Her adultery with Sir Lancelot causes the downfall of the Fellowship of the Round Table. Two major themes follow Guinevere throughout the development of the Arthurian legend: her infidelity, and her abductions. In many texts, these themes are intertwined, with her rescuer becoming her lover. Chrétien de Troyes, in his Lancelot (C. 1180), is the first to mention her affair with Lancelot, which may have been invented by Marie de Champagne, Chrétien’s patroness. The acceptance of Andreas the Chaplain’s De Amour - which glorified adultery - in Marie’s court may explain Chrétien’s ability to portray Guinevere as both a noble queen and an unfaithful wife. On the other hand, Celtic queens were free to take lovers at their pleasure, and the affair may therefore have a Celtic origin, with the element of tragedy inserted by authors of different sensibilities.
   
   Though her most famous affair is with Lancelot, Guinevere’s earliest lover, as we’ve seen, seems to have been Mordred, with whom she is a willing consipirator in the chronicles. In Marie de France’s Lanval (c. 1170) as well, she is said to have a number of lovers, and she propositions Sir Lanval. In several romances, she fails a variety of chastity tests, suggesting affairs with any number of other knights. In the romance of Yder (c. 1225–50), her infatuation with Yder and his subsequent marriage to a woman named Guenloie (a variation of Guinevere) may indicate an earlier tradition in which Guinevere and Yder were lovers. There is allusion to this tradition in the Folie Tristan of Berne (c. 1190). According to the Vulgate Merlin (c. 1230), she apparently had a dalliance with a knight named Gosengos before her marriage to Arthur.
   
   She was condemned to death by Arthur but rescued by Lancelot and ended her days in nunnery.
   
   In Thelwall's play The Fairy of the Lake [1801], it is suggested she is the daughter of Vortigern. In some stories, she had a sister named Gwenhwyvach, and a French legend tells of an identical half-sister called Guenevere the False, who took her place for a while. In yet another tale, she had a brother called Gotegrin. Wace makes her Mordred's sister.
   
   In Geoffrey she is of Roman stock, and while Arthur was fighting the Roman war, Mordred abducted her and made himself king. In the later version of the Arthurian story she was the lover of Lancelot. Their intrigue discovered, Lancelot fled and Guenevere was duly sentenced to burning. Lancelot rescued her and war followed between him and Arthur. While Arthur was away, Mordred rebelled. Arthur returned to do battle with him and received his final wound. Guenevere took the veil. However, there are different tales of her end. She and Arthur had a son called Loholt, though he was also said to be the son of Arthur and Lionors. The Alliterative Morte Arthure says that she and Mordred were the parents of two sons. B. Saklatvala has suggested she was really a Saxon named Winifred, and J. Markale has an opinion that Kay and Gawaine were originally amongst her lovers. Welsh tradition stated that Arthur was married, not to one, but to three Guineveres.
   
   

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   Queen Guenevere's Family and Relations:
   FATHER: Cador, Garlin of Galore, Gogfran, Leodegrance of Carmelide, Rions, Vortigern
   HUSBAND: King Arthur
   CHILDREN: Although she is generally described as childless, a number of authors give her a son named Loholt, whose murder in Perlesvaus leads to her own death. In Wolfram’s Parzival, she and Arthur have a son named Ilinot who also dies a premature death, and in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, she is the mother of Mordred’s two sons. The English ballad “King Arthur and King Cornwall” says that she had a daughter by the king of Cornwall. In the Livre d’Arts, she raises the illegitimate daughter of Sagremor and Senehaut. In Tennyson, she tries to raise an infant girl called Nestling that Arthur and Lancelot found in an eagle’s nest, but the child dies.
   SISTERS: Angharad, Flori, Guenevere the False (Genievre), Gwenhwyach, Lenomie
   BROTHERS: Gotegrin, Mordred (in an interpolation in one manuscript of Wace's Roman de Brut)
   LOVER: Lancelot
   WOULD-BE-LOVER: Meliagrance
   COUSINS: Elyzabel, Garaunt, Guiomar, Guy, Labor
   
   

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   See also
   Agravain
   Arthur
   Arthur’s Grave
   Avalon
   Chastity Tests
   Dolorous Tower
   Guenloie
   Lancelot
   Meleagant
   Melwas
   Mordred
   Queen’s Knights
   Wadling Lake
   
   

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   Read more about Guenevere
   - Background of Guenevere / Guinevere
   - Becoming a Queen
   - The Invading Kings
   - The Flower Bride
   - Lancelot and Guenevere
   - The Poisoned Apple
   - The False Guenevere
   - Abduction Stories
   - Guenevere's Sentence
   - The Abbess Queen
   - The Character
   
   
   
2. Guenevere's Comb
   
   When Guenevere was captured by Meliagrant, on the way into Gore she either lost her comb or left it behind as a marker. I would incline toward the latter interpretation, since the comb lay clearly visible on a stone slab near a spring in the middle of a meadow. The comb was of glided ivory, very fine, and still had some of the queen's hairs in it. "Portia" at first tried unobrusively to keep Lancelot from spotting it.
   
   When he did, and she told him whose it was [I remain uncertain how "Portia" herself knew this], he ecstatically cherished the hairs but let his guide keep the comb. It could be thinking more like a modern than a medieval mind to wonder why it apparently never occured to this devout lover that the object of his undying adoration might appreciate getting such a fine and valuable personal item back from his hand.
   
   
   
3. Guenevere's Mother
   
   In the poem Sir Gawain and Sir Galeron of Galloway (fifteenth century), the ghost of this lady appeared to Arthur, Guenevere and Gawain. She advised them not to be proud.
   
   
   
4. Guenevere's Shield
   
   This shield showed an armed knight and a beautiful lady embracing, but separated by a cleft down the middle, the cleft being wide enough for a person to place one hand through it without touching either side. The French Damsel of the Lake sent the shield to Guenevere, to help her in the greatest pain and cause her the greatest joy. The cleft in the shield was to close when the knight had gained the lady's complete love and dubbed by Arthur and had already pledged his love in person to Guenevere, Lancelot was still adventuring around the country.
   
   During the siege of La Roche, the crack was closed. While Arthur was Camille's prisoner in that castle, the French Damsel of the Lake came to counsel Guenevere to love Lancelot with all her heart. After the fighting, Lancelot finally became a member of Arthur's court.
   
   
   
5. Guenevere's Sleeve
   
   Guenevere gave Lancelot a sleeve of gold to wear on his helmet at tournaments so that his kinsmen would know him. Lancelot apparently wore it from then on. What else could he do, after not only wearing Elaine of Astolat's sleeve at the tournament of Winchester, but being grievously wounded by his cousin Sir Bors, who did not know him, in the same tourney? All of this had caused Guenevere to insist he now take her token.