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The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the legend
Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude ....
s that concern the Celt
Celt

Celts , is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic languages. The term is also used in a wider sense to describe the Modern Celts of those peoples, notably those who participate in a Celtic culture....
ic and legendary history
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
 of Great Britain
Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
, especially those focused on King Arthur
King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary Britons leader who, according to medieval histories and Romance , led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century....
 and the knight
Knight

File:Gothic armor 2.jpgKnight is the term for a social position originating in the Middle Ages. In the Commonwealth of Nations, knighthood is a non-heritable form of gentry....
s of the Round Table
Round Table (Camelot)

The Round Table is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his Knights of the Round Tables congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status....
. The 12th century French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 poet Jean Bodel
Jean Bodel

Jean Bodel, who lived in the late twelfth century, was an Old French poet who wrote a number of chanson de geste as well as many fabliaux. He lived in Arras....
 created the name in the following lines of his epic
Chanson de geste

The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds [or lineages]", are the epic poetry that appear at the dawn of French literature....
 Chanson de Saisnes:

Ne sont que III matières à nul homme atandant,
De France et de Bretaigne, et de Rome la grant.


The name distinguishes and relates the Matter of Britain from the mythological
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
 themes taken from classical antiquity
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, the "matter of Rome
Matter of Rome

According to the Middle Ages poetry Jean Bodel, the Matter of Rome was the literature cycle made up of Greek mythology and Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity, focusing on military heroes like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar....
", and the tales of the paladin
Paladin

The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France....
s of Charlemagne
Charlemagne

Charlemagne was List of Frankish kings from 768 to his death. He expanded the Franks kingdoms into a Carolingian Empire that incorporated much of Western Europe and Central Europe....
 and their wars with the Moors
Moors

In the Spanish language, the term for Moors is Moro; in Portuguese language the word is mouro. There seems to have been some confusion about the relationship of the word moro/mouro to the word moreno , both from Greek language ma?ros, i.e....
 and Saracen
Saracen

Saracen was a term used by Europeans in the Middle Ages for Fatimids at first, then later for all who professed the religion of Islam....
s, which constituted the "matter of France
Matter of France

The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of legendary history that springs from the Old French medieval literature of the chanson de geste....
".






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The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the legend
Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude ....
s that concern the Celt
Celt

Celts , is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic languages. The term is also used in a wider sense to describe the Modern Celts of those peoples, notably those who participate in a Celtic culture....
ic and legendary history
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
 of Great Britain
Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
, especially those focused on King Arthur
King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary Britons leader who, according to medieval histories and Romance , led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century....
 and the knight
Knight

File:Gothic armor 2.jpgKnight is the term for a social position originating in the Middle Ages. In the Commonwealth of Nations, knighthood is a non-heritable form of gentry....
s of the Round Table
Round Table (Camelot)

The Round Table is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his Knights of the Round Tables congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status....
. The 12th century French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 poet Jean Bodel
Jean Bodel

Jean Bodel, who lived in the late twelfth century, was an Old French poet who wrote a number of chanson de geste as well as many fabliaux. He lived in Arras....
 created the name in the following lines of his epic
Chanson de geste

The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds [or lineages]", are the epic poetry that appear at the dawn of French literature....
 Chanson de Saisnes:

Ne sont que III matières à nul homme atandant,
De France et de Bretaigne, et de Rome la grant.


The name distinguishes and relates the Matter of Britain from the mythological
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
 themes taken from classical antiquity
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, the "matter of Rome
Matter of Rome

According to the Middle Ages poetry Jean Bodel, the Matter of Rome was the literature cycle made up of Greek mythology and Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity, focusing on military heroes like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar....
", and the tales of the paladin
Paladin

The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France....
s of Charlemagne
Charlemagne

Charlemagne was List of Frankish kings from 768 to his death. He expanded the Franks kingdoms into a Carolingian Empire that incorporated much of Western Europe and Central Europe....
 and their wars with the Moors
Moors

In the Spanish language, the term for Moors is Moro; in Portuguese language the word is mouro. There seems to have been some confusion about the relationship of the word moro/mouro to the word moreno , both from Greek language ma?ros, i.e....
 and Saracen
Saracen

Saracen was a term used by Europeans in the Middle Ages for Fatimids at first, then later for all who professed the religion of Islam....
s, which constituted the "matter of France
Matter of France

The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of legendary history that springs from the Old French medieval literature of the chanson de geste....
". While Arthur is the chief subject of the Matter of Britain, other lesser-known legendary history of Great Britain
Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
, including the stories of Brutus of Britain
Brutus of Troy

Brutus or Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Troy hero Aeneas, was known in medieval British legend as the eponymous founder and first king of Great Britain....
, Old King Cole
Old King Cole

This is an article about the nursery rhyme. A legendary king of Celtic Roman Britain, about all that can be said about Old King Cole with any certainty is that:...
, King Lear
Leir of Britain

Leir is a legendary prehistoric king of the Brythons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. His story is told in much-modified and romanticized form in William Shakespeare's King Lear....
, and Gogmagog
Gog and Magog

The tradition of Gog and Magog begins in the Bible with the reference to Magog , son of Japheth, in the Book of Genesis and continues in cryptic prophecies in the Book of Ezekiel which are echoed in the Book of Revelation and in the Qur'an....
, is also included in the Matter of Britain: see Legendary Kings of the Britons
List of legendary kings of Britain

The following list of legendary kings of Britain derives predominantly from Geoffrey of Monmouth's circa 1136 work Historia Regum Britanniae ....
.

Themes and subjects


Legendary history of Britain

It could be said that the legendary history of Britain was created in part to form a body of patriotic myth for the island. Several agendas thus can be seen in this body of literature.

The Historia Britonum
Historia Britonum

The Historia Brittonum, or The History of the Britons, is a historical work that was first written sometime shortly after AD 833, and exists in several recensions of varying difference....
, the earliest known source of the story of Brutus of Britain, may have been devised to create a distinguished genealogy
Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigree of its members....
 for a number of Welsh
Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
 princes in the 9th century. Traditionally attributed to Nennius
Nennius

Nennius, or Nemnivus, is either of two shadowy personages traditionally associated with the history of Wales. The better known of the two is Nennius, the student of Elvodugus....
, its actual compiler is unknown; it exists in several recensions. This tale went on to achieve greater currency because its inventor linked Brutus to the diaspora of hero
Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, the offspring of a mortal and a deity,their Greek hero cult being one of the most distinctive features of Religion in ancient Greece....
es that followed the Trojan War
Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
, and thus provided raw material which later mythographers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a clergyman and one of the major figures in the English historians in the Middle Ages and the popularity of tales of King Arthur....
, Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton was an England poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era....
, and John Milton
John Milton

John Milton II was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his Epic poetry Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica....
 could draw upon, linking the settlement of Britain
Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
 to the heroic age
Heroic Age

The Heroic Age was the period of Greek mythological history that lay between the purely divine events of the Theogony and Titanomachy and the advent of historical time after the Trojan War....
 of Greek literature
Greek literature

Greek literature refers to those writings autochthonic to the areas of Greeks influence, typically though not necessarily in one of the Greek dialects, throughout the whole period in which the Greek language people have existed....
, for their several and diverse literary purposes. As such, this material could be used for patriotic mythmaking just as Virgil
Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
 linked the mythical founding of Rome
Founding of Rome

The founding of Rome is reported by many legends, which in recent times are beginning to be supplemented by more scientific reconstructions.Virgil's Aeneid is an important source for information about those early times or, at least, the myth-historical events current in the Augustan period....
 to the Trojan War in The Æneid
Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
. Geoffrey of Monmouth also introduced the fanciful claim that the Trinovantes
Trinovantes

The Trinovantes or Trinobantes were one of the Celtic tribes that lived in pre-Roman Britain. Their territory was on the north side of the Thames estuary in current Essex, England and Suffolk, and included lands now located in Greater London....
, reported by Tacitus
Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman Senate and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories —examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors....
 as dwelling in the area of London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, had a name he interpreted as Troi-novant, "New Troy
Troy

Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer....
".

More speculative claims link Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology

Celts mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure....
 with several of the rulers and incidents compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniæ
Historia Regum Britanniae

The Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistory account of Great Britain history, written c.1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the List of legendary kings of Britain in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Troy of Homer's Iliad founding the Brython nation and conti...
. It has been suggested, for instance, that Leir of Britain, who later became Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
's King Lear
King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works....
, was originally the Welsh sea-god Llyr
Llyr

Llyr is a figure in Welsh mythology, the father of Bran the Blessed, Branwen and Manawydan by Penarddun. The Welsh Triads mention he was imprisoned by Euroswydd; the Four Branches of the Mabinogi#Branwen, Daughter of Llyr of the Mabinogion names Euroswydd as the father of Penarddun's younger two sons, Nisien and Efnisien....
 (see also the Irish
Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
 sea-god Lir
Lir

In Irish mythology, Lir or Ler was the god of the sea, father of Manannan mac Lir, and a son of Elatha. In early genealogies, he is named All?d, and corresponds to Llyr in Welsh mythology....
). Various Celtic deities
Deity

A deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divinity, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by human beings....
 have been identified with characters from Arthurian literature as well: Morgan le Fay
Morgan le Fay

Morgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgane, Morgain, Morgana and other variants, is a powerful Magician and antagonist of King Arthur and Guinevere in the Arthurian legend....
 was often thought to have originally been the Welsh goddess Modron
Modron

In Welsh mythology, Modron was a daughter of Avalloc, derived from the Gaulish goddess Dea Matrona. She may have been the prototype of Morgan le Fay from Arthurian legend....
 (cf. the Irish goddess
Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheism system that includes several deities in a pantheon .Common associations of goddesses are the Earth goddess, the Mother Goddess, Love goddess, and the hearth goddess, reflecting historical gender roles....
 Mórrígan
Morrígan

The Morr?gan or M?rr?gan is a figure from Irish mythology who appears to have once been a goddess, although she is not explicitly referred to as such in the texts....
). Many of these identifications come from the speculative comparative religion
Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious study that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the Religions of the world....
 of the late 19th century, and have been questioned in more recent years.

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
 seems to have been deeply interested in the legendary history of Britain, and to have been familiar with some of its more obscure byways. Shakespeare's plays contain several tales relating to these legendary kings, such as King Lear and Cymbeline
Cymbeline

Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a Shakespeare's Late Romances....
. It has been suggested that Shakespeare's Welsh
Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
 schoolmaster
Teacher

In education, a teacher is a person who teaches. A teacher who teaches an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor.The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out by way of Occupation or Profession at a school or other place of formal education....
 Thomas Jenkins
Thomas Jenkins

Thomas Jenkins was the headmaster of the King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon in Stratford-upon-Avon in England starting in 1575. As such, his claim to fame is that William Shakespeare is considered likely to have been one of his students....
 introduced him to this material, and perhaps directed him to read Geoffrey of Monmouth. These tales also figure in Raphael Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed

Raphael Holinshed was an England chronicler, whose work, commonly known as Holinshed's Chronicles, was one of the major sources used by William Shakespeare for a number of Shakespeare's plays....
's The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which also appears in Shakespeare's sources for Macbeth
Macbeth

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest Shakespearean tragedy and is believed to have been written some time between 1603 and 1606, with 1607 being the very latest possible date....
. A Welsh schoolmaster appears as the character Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597....
.

Other early authors also drew from the early Arthurian and pseudo-historical sources of the Matter of Britain. The Scots
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
, for instance, formulated a mythical history in the Picts
List of Kings of the Picts

The list of kings of the Picts is based on the Pictish Chronicle king lists. These are late documents and do not record the dates when the kings reigned....
 and the Dál Riata
List of Kings of Dál Riata

This is a List of the Kings of D?l Riata, a kingdom of uncertain origins which was located in Scotland and Ireland. Most kings of D?l Riata, along with later rulers of Alba and of Scotland, traced their descent from Fergus M?r mac Eirc, and even in the 16th century, James VI of Scotland called himself the "happie monarch sprung of Ferguse rac...
 royal lines. While they do eventually become factual lines, unlike those of Geoffrey, their origins are vague and often incorporate both aspects of mythical British history and mythical Irish
Irish mythology

The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology....
 history. The story of Gabhran especially incorporates elements of both those histories.

The Arthurian cycle

The Arthurian literary cycle
Literature cycle

Literary cycles are groups of stories grouped around common figures, often based on mythical figures or loosely on historic ones....
 is the best known part of the Matter of Britain. It has succeeded largely because it tells two interlocking stories that have intrigued many later authors. One concerns Camelot
Camelot

Camelot is the most famous castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century France romances and eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the fabulous Arthurian world....
, usually envisioned as a doomed utopia
Utopia

Utopia is a name for an ideal community or society, taken from the Utopia written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, possessing a seemingly perfect social system-politics-legal system....
 of chivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of Arthur and Sir Lancelot. The other concerns the quests of the various knights to achieve the Holy Grail
Holy Grail

According to Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers....
; some succeed (Galahad
Galahad

Sir Galahad is a Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend....
, Percival
Percival

Percival or Perceval is one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. In Welsh literature his name is Peredur . He is most famous for his involvement in the quest for the Holy Grail....
), and others fail (Lancelot
Lancelot

In the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot is one of the Knights of the Round Tables of the Round Table . He is typically considered to be one of the greatest and most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories....
).

The medieval tale of Arthur and his knights is full of Christian
Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
 themes; those themes involve the destruction of human plans for virtue by the moral failures of their characters, and the quest for an important Christian relic
Relic

A relic is an object or a personal item of Religion significance, carefully preserved with an air of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, shamanism, and many other religions....
. Finally, the relationships between the characters invited treatment in the tradition of courtly love
Courtly love

Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalry expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility....
, such as Lancelot and Guinevere
Guinevere

Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. She was most famous for her love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot, which first appears in Chr?tien de Troyes' Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart....
, or Tristan and Iseult
Tristan and Iseult

The legend of Tristan and Iseult is an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with as many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the Cornwall knight Tristan and the Ireland princess Iseult ....
. In more recent years, the trend has been to attempt to link the tales of King Arthur and his knights with Celtic mythology, usually in highly romanticized, early twentieth century reconstructed versions.

Additionally, it is possible to read the Arthurian literature in general, and that concerned with the Grail tradition in particular, as an allegory of human development and spiritual growth (a theme explored by Joseph Campbell amongst others).

Characters and subjects


Legendary kings and founders

  • Brutus of Britain
  • Corineus
    Corineus

    Corineus, in Great Britain in the Middle Ages English mythology, was a prodigious warrior, a fighter of giants, and the eponymous founder of Cornwall....
  • Old King Cole
    Old King Cole

    This is an article about the nursery rhyme. A legendary king of Celtic Roman Britain, about all that can be said about Old King Cole with any certainty is that:...
  • Cymbeline
    Cymbeline

    Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a Shakespeare's Late Romances....
  • Leir of Britain
    Leir of Britain

    Leir is a legendary prehistoric king of the Brythons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. His story is told in much-modified and romanticized form in William Shakespeare's King Lear....
     (Shakespeare's King Lear
    King Lear

    King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606, and is considered one of his greatest works....
    )
  • Cassibelanus
  • Caradocus
    Caradocus

    In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae, a fictional account of the List of legendary kings of Britain, Caradocus was titular king of the Britons in the absence of Emperor Magnus Maximus, who had left to campaign in Gaul....
  • Aurelius Ambrosius
  • Uther Pendragon
    Uther Pendragon

    Uther Pendragon is a legendary king of sub-Roman Britain and the father of King Arthur.A few minor references to Uther appear in Old Welsh language Medieval Welsh literature, but his biography was first written down by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae , and Geoffrey's account of the character was used in most lat...
  • Cadwallader
    Cadwaladr

    Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon , also known as Cadwaladr Fendigaid was a king of Kingdom of Gwynedd. According to the Historia Brittonum he King of the Britons....


Arthur and his entourage

  • King Arthur
    King Arthur

    King Arthur is a legendary Britons leader who, according to medieval histories and Romance , led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century....
  • the Round Table
    Round Table (Camelot)

    The Round Table is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his Knights of the Round Tables congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status....
  • Guinevere
    Guinevere

    Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. She was most famous for her love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot, which first appears in Chr?tien de Troyes' Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart....
    , wife of Arthur
  • Excalibur
    Excalibur

    Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain....
    , Arthur's magic sword
  • Uther Pendragon
    Uther Pendragon

    Uther Pendragon is a legendary king of sub-Roman Britain and the father of King Arthur.A few minor references to Uther appear in Old Welsh language Medieval Welsh literature, but his biography was first written down by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae , and Geoffrey's account of the character was used in most lat...
    , father of Arthur
  • Camelot
    Camelot

    Camelot is the most famous castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century France romances and eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the fabulous Arthurian world....
    , Arthur's capital
  • Mordred
    Mordred

    Mordred or Modred is a character in the Matter of Britain, known as a notorious traitor who fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, where he was killed and Arthur fatally wounded....
    , Arthur's heir and enemy
  • Avalon
    Avalon

    Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend, famous for its beautiful apples. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account Historia Regum Britanniae as the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur is forged and where the king is taken to recover from his wounds after his last battle at Ba...
    , Arthur's resting place


Knights of the Round Table

  • Lancelot
    Lancelot

    In the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot is one of the Knights of the Round Tables of the Round Table . He is typically considered to be one of the greatest and most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories....
  • Galehaut
    Galehaut

    Galehaut, Sire des Lointaines Isles appears for the first time in Arthurian literature in the early-thirteenth-century prose Lancelot, the central work in the series of anonymous French language prose romances collectively called the Lancelot-Grail or Arthurian Vulgate Cycle....
  • Galahad
    Galahad

    Sir Galahad is a Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend....
  • Tristan
    Tristan

    Sir Tristan is one of the main characters of the Tristan and Iseult story, a Cornwall hero and one of the Knights of the Round Table featuring in the Matter of Britain....
  • Gawain
    Gawain

    Gawain is King Arthur's nephew and a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table who appears very early in the Arthurian legend's development....
  • Percival
    Percival

    Percival or Perceval is one of King Arthur's legendary Knights of the Round Table. In Welsh literature his name is Peredur . He is most famous for his involvement in the quest for the Holy Grail....
  • Bors
    Bors

    Bors circa 540s-580s, is the name of two knights in the Arthurian legend, one the father and one the son. Bors the Elder is the King of Gaunnes or Gaul during the early period of King Arthur's reign, and is the brother of King Ban of Benoic....
  • Geraint
    Geraint

    Geraint is a character from Wales folklore and Arthurian legend, a king of Dumnonia and a valiant warrior. He may have lived during or shortly prior to the reign of the Historical basis for King Arthur, but some scholars doubt he ever existed....
  • Gareth
    Gareth

    Sir Gareth - Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian Legend. He was the youngest son of Lot of Orkney and of Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Agravaine, Gaheris, and half brother of Mordred....
  • Kay
    Sir Kay

    In Arthurian legend, Sir Kay is Sir Ector's son and King Arthur's foster brother and later seneschal, as well as one of the first Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table ....
  • Lamorak
    Lamorak

    Lamorak is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He was the son of King Pellinore and the brother of Sir Tor, Aglovale, Percival, the Holy Grail maiden Dindrane and sometimes others....
  • Gaheris
    Gaheris

    Gaheris is a figure of Arthurian legend, a knight of the Round Table , and a son of Morgause and Lot of Orkney and Lothian. His brothers are Gawain, Agravaine, Gareth and Mordred, a half-brother....
  • Bedivere
    Bedivere

    In Arthurian legend, Sir Bedivere is the Knight of the Round Table who returns Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake. He serves as King Arthur's marshal and is frequently associated with Sir Kay....
  • Agravaine
  • Caradoc
    Caradoc

    Caradoc Vreichvras was a semi-legendary ancestor to the Kingdom of Gwent living during the 5th or 6th century. He is remembered in Arthurian legend as a Knight of the Round Table as Carados Briefbras ....
  • Sagramore
    Sagramore

    Sir Sagramore is a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. His characterization varies from story to story, though he is surprisingly prolific; he appears in a number of early stories, such as Chr?tien de Troyes' works, and he turns up in all the cyclical versions....
  • Calogrenant
    Calogrenant

    Sir Calogrenant, sometimes known in English as Colgrevance, or, in ancient Welsh, Cynan ap Clydno, is a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table in Arthurian legend....
  • Ywain
  • Erec
    Erec

    Sir Erec, the son of King Lac, is a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He features in numerous Arthurian tales , but he is most famous as the protagonist in Chr?tien de Troyes' first romance, Erec and Enide....
  • Pelleas
  • Palamedes
    Palamedes (Arthurian legend)

    Palamedes, is a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is a Saracen paganism who converts to Christianity later in his life, and his unrequited love for Iseult brings him into frequent conflict with Tristan....
  • Dinadan
    Dinadan

    Sir Dinadan is a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He is the son of Sir Brunor Senior, the 'Good Knight without Fear,' and brother of Sirs Sir Breunor and Daniel von Blumenthal....


Other important figures

  • Merlin
    Merlin

    Merlin is best known as the Magician featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures....
  • Morgan le Fay
    Morgan le Fay

    Morgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgane, Morgain, Morgana and other variants, is a powerful Magician and antagonist of King Arthur and Guinevere in the Arthurian legend....
  • Sir Ector
    Sir Ector

    Sir Ector is the father of Sir Kay and the foster father of King Arthur in the Arthurian legend. Sometimes a king instead of merely a lord, he has an estate in the country as well as properties in London....
  • The Lady of the Lake


Noteworthy authors


Medieval (VI to XVI centuries)


Author Century Œuvres
Béroul
Béroul

B?roul was a Normans poet of the 12th century. He wrote Tristan, a Norman language version of the legend of Tristan and Iseult of which a certain number of fragments have been preserved; it is the earliest representation of the so-called "vulgar" version of the legend ....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Tristan
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes

Chr?tien de Troyes was a France poet and trouv?re who flourished in the late 12th century in poetry. Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been from Troyes, or at least intimately connected with it, and between 1160 and 1172 he served at the court of his patroness Count of Champagne Marie de Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquit...
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Erec and Enide
Erec and Enide

Erec and Enide is Chr?tien de Troyes' first Romance , completed around 1170. Consisting of 7000 lines written in Old French, the poem is the earliest known Arthurian romance in any language besides the Welsh language Culhwch and Olwen, which likely predates its surviving manuscripts....
, Cligès
Cligès

Clig?s is a poem by the medieval France poet Chr?tien de Troyes, dating from around 1176. It tells the story of the knight Clig?s and his love for his uncle's wife, Fenice....
, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart

Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart is an Old French poem by Chr?tien de Troyes. Chr?tien probably composed the work at the same time as or slightly before writing Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, which refers to the action in Lancelot a number of times....
, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion

Yvain, the Knight of the Lion is a romance by Chr?tien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem....
, Perceval, the Story of the Grail
Perceval, the Story of the Grail

Perceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth romance of Chr?tien de Troyes. Probably written between 1181 and 1191, it is dedicated to Chr?tien's patron Philip, Count of Flanders....
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, Bureaucracy, Noble court and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales....
14th
14th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from 1301 to 1400....
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century . The tales, some of which are originals and others not, are contained inside a frame tale and told by a collection of pilgrims on a pilgrimage from London Borough of Southwark to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathed...
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a clergyman and one of the major figures in the English historians in the Middle Ages and the popularity of tales of King Arthur....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Historia Regum Britanniae
Historia Regum Britanniae

The Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistory account of Great Britain history, written c.1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the List of legendary kings of Britain in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Troy of Homer's Iliad founding the Brython nation and conti...
Hartmann von Aue
Hartmann von Aue

Hartmann von Aue was a leading poet of the Middle High German period.He belonged to the lower nobility of Swabia, where he was born. After receiving a monastic education, he became retainer of a nobleman whose domain, Aue, has been identified with Obernau on the Neckar....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Erec .. Ywain
Ywain

Sir Ywain is a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table and the son of King Urien in Arthurian legend. The historical Owain mab Urien, on whom the literary character is based, was the king of Rheged in Great Britain during the late 6th century....
Layamon
Layamon

Layamon , or Lawman, was a poet of the early 13th century, whose Brut is a history of England in verse written in a form of Middle English, although this is at times bastardized to include more modern Anglo-Norman forms, and at times, deliberately "archaistic" Saxon forms which were quaint even by Anglo-Saxon standards....
13th
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Brut
Brut (Layamon)

Brut is a Middle English poem compiled and recast by the English priest Layamon. It is named for Great Britain's mythical founder, Brutus of Troy....
Thomas Malory
Thomas Malory

Sir Thomas Malory was an English people writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholarship assumes that he was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire....
15th
15th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was the century which lasted from 1401 to 1500....
Le Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur

Le Morte d'Arthur is Sir Thomas Malory's compilation of some French language and English language Arthurian Romance . The book contains some of Malory's own original material and retells the older stories in light of Malory's own views and interpretations....
Marie de France
Marie de France

Marie de France was a poet evidently born in France and living in England during the late 12th century. Virtually nothing is known of her early life, though she wrote a form of Old French that was copied by Anglo-Norman scribes....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
The Lais of Marie de France
The Lais of Marie de France

The Lais of Marie de France are a series of twelve short narrative poems in Anglo-Norman language, generally focused on glorifying the concepts of courtly love through the adventures of their main characters....
: Lai de Yonec, Lai de Frêne, Lai de Lanval (...)
Nennius
Nennius

Nennius, or Nemnivus, is either of two shadowy personages traditionally associated with the history of Wales. The better known of the two is Nennius, the student of Elvodugus....
0 9th
9th century

The 9th century is the period from 801 to 900 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Historia Brittonum
Robert de Boron
Robert de Boron

Robert de Boron was a French language poet of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, originally from the village of Boron, France, in the present arrondissement of Montb?liard....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Estoire dou Graal
Taliesin
Taliesin

Taliesin , , was a Brythonic languages poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin....
0 6th
6th century

The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era. This century marks the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the Dark Ages....
Book of Taliesin
Book of Taliesin

The Book of Taliesin is one of the most famous Wales manuscripts. It dates from the first half of the fourteenth century though many of the poems are thought to be much older....
Thomas of Britain
Thomas of Britain

Thomas of Britain was an Anglo-Norman 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....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Tristan and Iseult
Tristan and Iseult

The legend of Tristan and Iseult is an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with as many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the Cornwall knight Tristan and the Ireland princess Iseult ....
Robert Wace12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Roman de Brut
Roman de Brut

Roman de Brut or Brut is a verse literary history of Britain in the Middle Ages by the poet Wace. Written in the Norman language, it consists of 14,866 lines....
, Roman de Rou
Roman de Rou

Roman de Rou is a verse chronicle by Wace in Norman language covering the history of the Duchy of Normandy from the time of Rollo of Normandy to the battle of Tinchebray in 1106....
Wolfram von Eschenbach
Wolfram von Eschenbach

Wolfram von Eschenbach was a Germany knight and poet, regarded as one of the greatest epic poetry poets of his time. As a Minnesang, he also wrote lyric poetry....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Parzival
Parzival

Parzival is a major medieval Germany epic poem attributed to the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, written in the Middle High German language. The poem is commonly dated circa the first quarter of the 13th century....
Raoul de Houdenc
Raoul de Houdenc

Raoul de Houdenc , 12th-century France trouv?re, takes his name from his native place, generally identified with Houdain , though there are twelve places bearing the name in one or other of its numerous variants....
12th
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Méraugis de Portlesguez
Païen de Maisières13th
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
La Demoiselle à la Mule (also called La Mule sans Frein)
Rustichello da Pisa
Rustichello da Pisa

Rustichello da Pisa was an Italy romance writer best known for cowriting Marco Polo's autobiography while they were in prison together in Genoa....
13th
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Roman de Roi Artus, Gyron le courtois, Meliadus de Leonnoys (Meliadus
Meliodas

Meliodas or Meliadus is a figure in Arthurian legend, famous as the father of Sir Tristan in the Prose Tristan and subsequent accounts that draw material from it, including the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and the Compilation of Rustichello da Pisa....
)
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven

Ulrich von Zatzikhoven was the author of the Middle High German King Arthur romance Lanzelet.Ulrich's name and his place of origin are only known definitively from the work itself....
13th
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Lanzelet
Lanzelet

Lanzelet is a medieval romance written by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven sometime after 1194. It is the first treatment of the Lancelot tradition in German language, and contains the earliest known account of the hero's childhood with the Lady of the Lake in any language....


Anonymous


Œuvres Century
L'Âtre Périlleux (on Gawain
Gawain

Gawain is King Arthur's nephew and a Knights of the Round Table of the Round Table who appears very early in the Arthurian legend's development....
)		13th century
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Blandin de Cornouaille14th century
14th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from 1301 to 1400....
Le Chevalier à l'Épée 
Le Chevalier au Papegau 
La Demoiselle à la Mule12th century
12th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Gliglois (hero who enters the service of Gawain) 
Hunbaut 
Life of Caradoc
Caradoc

Caradoc Vreichvras was a semi-legendary ancestor to the Kingdom of Gwent living during the 5th or 6th century. He is remembered in Arthurian legend as a Knight of the Round Table as Carados Briefbras ....
 
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle13th century
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
The Mabinogion
Mabinogion

The Mabinogion is a collection of eleven prose stories from medieval Welsh manuscripts. They draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and on early medieval historical traditions....
 (medieval Welsh)		 
The Post-Vulgate Cycle
Post-Vulgate Cycle

The Post-Vulgate Cycle is one of the major Old French prose Literature cycle of Arthurian literature. It is essentially a rehandling of the earlier Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, with much left out and much added, including characters and scenes from the Prose Tristan....
13th century
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Les Merveilles de Rigomer (Lancelot, Gawain and 58 knights)13th century
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Perlesvaus ou le Haut Livre du Graal
Perlesvaus

Perlesvaus, also called Li Hauz Livres du Graal , is an Old French Arthurian legend romance dating to the first decade of the 13th century....
13th century
13th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 through 1300 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era/Common Era....
Le Roman de Jaufré 
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' is a late 14th-century Middle English Alliterative verse chivalric romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table ....
 
Prose Tristan
Prose Tristan

The Prose Tristan is an adaptation of the Tristan and Iseult story into a long prose romance , and the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend....


Modern

  • René Barjavel
    René Barjavel

    Ren? Barjavel was a France author, journalist and critic who may have been the first to think of the grandfather paradox in time travel. He was born in Nyons, a town in the Drome department in southeastern France....
  • T. A. Barron
    T. A. Barron

    Thomas Archibald' Barron' is an American writer of fantasy literature, books for children and young adults, and nature books. Born March 26, 1952 in Boston, Massachusetts, he moved to Colorado and spent much of his youth on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains....
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley
    Marion Zimmer Bradley

    Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an United States author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook....
  • Gillian Bradshaw
    Gillian Bradshaw

    Gillian Marucha Bradshaw is an United States writer of Historical novel, historical fantasy, children's literature, science fiction, and contemporary science-based novels, who currently lives in UK....
  • Bernard Cornwell
    Bernard Cornwell

    Bernard Cornwell Order of the British Empire is an England author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe ....
  • Michael Drayton
    Michael Drayton

    Michael Drayton was an England poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era....
  • Hal Foster
    Hal Foster

    Harold Rudolf Foster was a Canada-United States cartoonist most famous as the creator of the comic strip Prince Valiant....
  • Parke Godwin
    Parke Godwin

    Parke Godwin is an American writer known for his lyrical yet precise prose style and sardonic humor. He is also known for his novels of legendary figures placed in realistic historical settings; his retelling of the King Arthur is set in the 5th century during the collapse of the Roman empire, and his reinterpretation of Robin Hood takes p...
  • Raphael Holinshed
    Raphael Holinshed

    Raphael Holinshed was an England chronicler, whose work, commonly known as Holinshed's Chronicles, was one of the major sources used by William Shakespeare for a number of Shakespeare's plays....


  • David Jones
    David Jones (poet)

    David Jones Companion of Honour was both an artist and one of the most important first generation British literature Modernist poetry poets. His work was formed by his Wales heritage and his Roman Catholic Church....
  • Debra A. Kemp
    Debra A. Kemp

    Debra A. Kemp is an American author.She writes historical fiction. She draws inspiration for her House of Pendragon series from the Arthurian legends....
  • Stephen Lawhead
  • Rosalind Miles
    Rosalind Miles

    Rosalind Miles is an author born and raised in England and now living in both Los Angeles and Kent, England. She has written both works of fiction and non-fiction....
  • Michel Rio
    Michel Rio

    Michel Rio is a France writer and novelist. He won several literary award, and has been translated in many languages....
  • William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
  • Edmund Spenser
    Edmund Spenser

    Edmund Spenser was an important England poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem celebrating, through fantastical allegory, the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I....
  • John Steinbeck
    John Steinbeck

    John Ernst Steinbeck III was an American literature. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novella Of Mice and Men, published in 1937....
  • Mary Stewart
    Mary Stewart

    Mary Florence Elinor Stewart is a popular England novelist, best known for her series about Merlin , which straddles the boundary between the historical novel and the fantasy genre....


  • Rosemary Sutcliff
    Rosemary Sutcliff

    Rosemary Sutcliff CBE was a United Kingdom novelist, best known as a writer of highly acclaimed historical fiction. Although primarily a children's author, the quality and depth of her writing also appeals to adults, she herself once commenting that she wrote "for children of all ages from nine to ninety."...
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
  • Mark Twain
    Mark Twain

    Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an United Statesmerican author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer....
  • Charles White
  • T. H. White
    T. H. White

    Terence Hanbury White was an England author best known for his sequence of King Arthur novels, The Once and Future King, first published together in 1958....
  • Jack Whyte
    Jack Whyte

    Jack Whyte is a Scotland-Canada novelist of historical fiction. Born and raised in Scotland, Whyte has been living in Canada since 1967. He resides in Kelowna, British Columbia....
  • Charles Williams
    Charles Williams (UK writer)

    Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and a member of the Inklings....
  • Elizabeth Wein


See also

  • Mystery
    Mystery

    A mystery or mysteries are something secret, unexplainable, obscure or puzzling.It can refer to:...
  • Holy Grail
    Holy Grail

    According to Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers....
  • The Mists of Avalon
    The Mists of Avalon

    The Mists of Avalon is a 1982 novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which she relates the King Arthur from the perspective of the female characters....
  • Corineus
    Corineus

    Corineus, in Great Britain in the Middle Ages English mythology, was a prodigious warrior, a fighter of giants, and the eponymous founder of Cornwall....
  • Glastonbury
    Glastonbury

    Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town has a population of 8,800....
  • Mons Badonicus
  • Chivalry
    Chivalry

    Chivalry is a term relating to the medieval institution of knighthood. It is usually associated with ideals of knightly virtues, honor and courtly love....
  • The Faerie Queene
    The Faerie Queene

    The Faerie Queene is an English Epic poetry by Edmund Spenser, published first in three books in 1590, and later in six books in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza....
  • Knights of the Round Table
    Knights of the Round Table

    Knights of the Round Table were those men awarded the highest order of Chivalry at the Court of King Arthur in the Literature cycle the Matter of Britain....
  • List of Arthurian characters
    List of Arthurian characters

    The Arthurian legend featured many characters, including the Knights of the Round table and members of King Arthur's family. Their names often differed from version to version and from language to language....
  • Sites and places associated with Arthurian legend
    Sites and places associated with Arthurian legend

    The following is a list and assessment of sites and places associated with King Arthur and the Arthurian legend in general. Given the lack of concrete historical knowledge about one of the most potent figures in British mythology, it is unlikely that any definitive conclusions about the claims for these places will ever be established, nevert...
  • Historical basis for King Arthur
    Historical basis for King Arthur

    The historical basis of King Arthur is a source of considerable debate among historians. The King Arthur of Arthurian legend appears in many legends but it has not been decisively established whether his origin was entirely mythical or whether he was based on one or more historical figures....
  • English historians in the Middle Ages
    English historians in the Middle Ages

    English historians in the Middle Ages helped to lay the groundwork for modern historical historiography, providing vital accounts of the early history of England, Wales and Normandy, its cultures, and revelations about the historians themselves....
  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    Monty Python and the Holy Grail

    Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1975 in film film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python , and directed by Gilliam and Jones....


External links

  • (Latin) at The Latin Library
    The Latin Library

    The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain....
  • (English)
  • by Layamon (Middle English)
  • by Raphael Holinshed (partial)
  • by John Milton
  • contains a large selection of Arthurian etexts from the sixth to the early twentieth century


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