title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: Red Bull Racing suffered a double retirement, with Vettel falling victim to another alternator failure and Mark Webber spinning violently at the Ascari chicane, with the resultant damage to his tyres sending vibrations through the car that forced him to retire. This allowed Hamilton to leapfrog both drivers and Kimi Räikkönen – who finished the race fifth – to take second place in the World Drivers' Championship, with the result enabling McLaren to close the gap to Red Bull in the World Constructors' Championship.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: As the teams returned to Asia, the focus shifted to the championship race. Lewis Hamilton put himself in the ideal position to take the fight to Fernando Alonso, qualifying on pole whilst Alonso could only manage fifth place. In the physically most demanding race of the year, the teams jostled for position through the first phase of the Grand Prix, trying to position themselves for the final ten laps. Just as the drivers established a rhythm, Hamilton's gearbox failed, forcing him out of the race and handing the lead to Sebastian Vettel. The race was shortened by two laps to fit the two-hour time limit for a Grand Prix following a pair of lengthy safety car interventions; first, Narain Karthikeyan understeered into the barriers under the grandstands on lap 30, forcing the safety car to be deployed. The drivers had little opportunity to get comfortable on the restart, as Michael Schumacher misjudged his braking point at the end of the Esplanade Bridge, careening into the back of Jean-Éric Vergne and triggering the safety car for the second time in an accident that was a near mirror-image of his collision with Sergio Pérez in 2011. He was later given a ten-place grid penalty for the Japanese Grand Prix. Vettel controlled the race from the second restart, beating Jenson Button to the line, for his second win of the season and his first since the Bahrain Grand Prix five months previously. Alonso completed the podium, retaining his championship lead after defending from Paul di Resta late in the race. Elsewhere, a string of retirements – including a late engine problem for Bruno Senna, which left the Brazilian with minor burns to his back – and a series of altercations involving Mark Webber, Nico Hülkenberg, Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Pérez as they fought over the minor points positions allowed Timo Glock to finish twelfth, the result seeing Marussia retake tenth position in the World Constructors' Championship from Caterham.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: Fernando Alonso's luck finally ran out in Japan; having spent most of the season profiting from poor results from his rivals when he needed them the most, Alonso was the victim of a dramatic first corner clash, spinning out when he made contact with Kimi Räikkönen and paving the way for his championship rivals to make considerable inroads into his twenty-nine-point championship lead. Mark Webber was also caught up in the opening lap melee when he was hit by Romain Grosjean; Webber was forced to pit straight away, while Grosjean was given a ten-second stop-go penalty for causing yet another first lap incident. Bruno Senna also ran afoul of the stewards, hitting Nico Rosberg whilst trying to avoid Grosjean and Webber and earning a drive-through penalty for his troubles while Rosberg retired on the spot. Sergio Pérez added his name to the growing list of early retirements when he slid off at the hairpin under brakes and into the gravel trap whilst trying to force his way past a struggling Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian Vettel won the race from pole position, having led every lap of the race and setting the fastest lap time in the process to complete his second Grand Chelem. Felipe Massa finished second, his first podium result since the 2010 Korean Grand Prix, whilst Kamui Kobayashi claimed the first podium of his career – and the first podium for a Japanese driver at the Suzuka Circuit since Aguri Suzuki finished third in 1990 – after withstanding late pressure from Jenson Button.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: With Alonso retiring and Vettel taking a full twenty-five points for victory, the championship fight became as close as it had been all season long.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: Sebastian Vettel's momentum continued one week later in Korea, winning his third consecutive race and taking a six-point championship lead as Fernando Alonso finished third. Vettel overcame pole-sitter Mark Webber at the start, and was aided in building up a lead by first-lap contact between Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg and Kamui Kobayashi that saw Button and Rosberg retire with damage from the collision; Rosberg pulled over on the approach to the third turn, forcing a protracted yellow flag period as marshalls attempted to retrieve his car. With the sporting regulations banning overtaking while yellow flags were shown, the field was effectively thinned out in the opening laps as drivers were unable to pass one another. Tyre management became the focus of the race, as drivers reported heavy graining, particularly on the right-front tyre, which bore most of the load over a lap of the circuit. Vettel ignored six radio calls from his pit wall cautioning him that a tyre failure was imminent, only backing off just enough in the final few laps to secure victory over Webber by six seconds. The team later denied that there had ever been a problem with Vettel's tyres. Further down the order, Scuderia Toro Rosso's Jean-Éric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo fought their way from sixteenth and twenty-first on the grid to finish eighth and ninth, while Romain Grosjean drove a conservative race to finish seventh, having been warned beforehand by the stewards that another first-lap altercation would likely result in his disqualification from the race. Lewis Hamilton's day went from bad to worse when an anti-roll bar on his McLaren failed, while the car handled its tyres so poorly that he was forced to make an unscheduled stop in order to make it to the finish, only to tear up a length of astroturf that wreaked havoc on his downforce and he slid down to tenth place, narrowly fending off an opportunistic charge from Sergio Pérez to take the final World Championship point on offer. Button's retirement and Hamilton's single point meant that McLaren lost second place in the World Constructors' Championship to Ferrari, and Hamilton admitted that his bid to be the 2012 World Drivers' Champion was over.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: Ferrari's strategy for staying in the championship battle saw them introduce upgrades to the F2012 at every remaining race in the season, starting with an extensive revision for the Indian Grand Prix, but whatever advantage they offered was still not enough for Fernando Alonso to catch Sebastian Vettel. Vettel dominated the weekend, setting the fastest time in every practice session before qualifying on pole, and leading every lap of the sixty-lap race, though he was denied his third Grand Chelem when Jenson Button set the fastest lap of the race on the final lap. Fernando Alonso finished second, conceding another seven championship points to Vettel. The Ferrari driver rounded up both McLaren drivers at the start of the race and proceeded to chase down Mark Webber for second, only overtaking the Australian on the long back straight when his car developed a KERS fault fifteen laps from the end that it never recovered from. Webber held off a late challenge from Lewis Hamilton to complete the podium. Further down the order, Kimi Räikkönen finished seventh after spending most of the race trapped behind Felipe Massa, and later claimed that mistakes on Saturday had robbed him of a podium on Sunday, while Pedro de la Rosa retired from the race when he suffered a brake failure that saw him spin into the barriers at Turn 4. The race was marked by a series of explosive punctures after cars made light contact with one another; Michael Schumacher's right-rear tyre deflated on the first lap when he made contact with Jean-Éric Vergne at the first corner; Sergio Pérez suffered a puncture under similar circumstances when he glanced Daniel Ricciardo's front wing, with the loose rubber damaging the floor of Pérez's car enough that he was forced into retirement; and Pastor Maldonado also had a tyre punctured when he and Kamui Kobayashi touched at speed on the approach to Turn 5, forcing the Venezuelan to run wide onto the tarmac run-off, but suffering no lasting damage.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: Sebastian Vettel's dominant run was derailed in Abu Dhabi when his car was found to have insufficient fuel after qualifying and he was subsequently moved to the back of the grid. As Lewis Hamilton led the race away from the start, Vettel started from pit lane and took advantage of a chaotic opening corner that saw Nico Hülkenberg, Paul di Resta, Romain Grosjean and Bruno Senna tangle; Hülkenberg was forced out, while di Resta and Grosjean pitted with damage. Vettel began to round up the HRTs, Marussias and Caterhams, but his early progress came at the expense of his front wing endplate when he made contact with Senna at Turn 8 switchback. He chose not to pit for the time being, as the race was interrupted by the intervention of the safety car. Nico Rosberg, who had been forced to pit with damage to his front wing, was in the process of overtaking Narain Karthikeyan as Karthikeyan's car began to fail and the Indian quickly slowed. Rosberg, caught unawares by Karthikeyan's troubles, was launched over the back of the HRT and into the barrier. During the safety car period, Vettel was forced to pit when he swerved to avoid Daniel Ricciardo and crashed into the polystyrene bollard marking the start of the DRS zone, further damaging his wing. Red Bull Racing took the opportunity to pit him early, with the downside being that Vettel would have to do 42 laps on the soft tyre when supplier Pirelli predicted they could only do 36. Meanwhile, Hamilton suffered another mechanical failure while leading the race, and was once again forced out, handing the lead to Kimi Räikkönen while Fernando Alonso inherited second. Vettel began to work his way through the field again, but was forced to make a second stop when his tyres started losing grip. He was saved by the second appearance of the safety car moments later, brought about when di Resta forced Sergio Pérez wide; as Pérez rejoined the circuit, he cut back across the front of Grosjean and the two made contact, which in turn forced Grosjean into the path of Mark Webber. Grosjean and Webber retired, whilst Pérez was given a stop-go penalty. When racing resumed, Räikkönen began to rebuild his lead over Alonso, who was being harried by Jenson Button; Button himself was being harried by Vettel in fourth. Button and Vettel's duel allowed Alonso to break free, and he started chasing down Räikkönen in the last five laps. Räikkönen held on to secure his – and Lotus F1's – first victory of the season. Alonso was second, while Vettel caught and passed Button to complete the podium, keeping a ten-point championship lead in the process. With both Alonso and Vettel finishing on the podium with him, Räikkönen's win was not enough to keep him in contention for the World Drivers' Championship, leaving the title to be fought out between Alonso and Vettel over the final two races of the season.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: Despite its troubled construction period, the Circuit of the Americas passed its final FIA inspection on 25 September, allowing the race to go ahead. Sebastian Vettel took his sixth pole position of the season, whilst Alonso struggled throughout qualifying to start the race ninth, which became eighth when Romain Grosjean received a grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change. Amid concerns that drivers starting from even-numbered grid slots would suffer from a lack of grip as they were located off the racing line, Ferrari deliberately broke the seal on Felipe Massa's gearbox, thereby giving him a five-place grid penalty and promoting Alonso to seventh and the clean side of the grid. Ferrari's fears were not without merit as the drivers starting from even-number spaces fell behind at the start of the race. Vettel quickly converted pole position into a steady race lead as Lewis Hamilton fought to regain second place from Mark Webber. Moments after Hamilton caught him on lap 17, the Australian suffered yet another alternator problem, and coasted to a halt. Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner later admitted that the team's perpetual alternator problems were a serious concern with just one race left in the championship, a World Championship at stake and very little time to diagnose and correct the problem. With Webber now out of the running, Hamilton then turned his attentions on Vettel and steadily closed the gap to the lead, overtaking the World Championship leader on lap 42 when Vettel got caught behind Narain Karthikeyan in the meandering first sector, which allowed Hamilton to pass Vettel along the long back straight. Hamilton held onto the lead for the final fourteen laps, but with Vettel never more than a second and a half behind him, Hamilton could not afford to relax, and he won the race by just six-tenths of a second. Alonso recovered from seventh to finish third – marking the first time that he, Hamilton and Vettel had stood on the podium together in the one hundred races all three had contested together – and forcing the title fight to extend to the final round in Brazil. Further down the order, Massa overcame his gearbox penalty to finish fourth, while Jenson Button fell from twelfth on the grid to sixteenth at the end of the first lap, using an alternative strategy to claw his way back up to fifth. Michael Schumacher, on the other hand, went backwards; after qualifying fifth, his Mercedes chewed through its tyres, forcing him to make a second stop that sent him plummeting down the order to finish sixteenth, and a clutch problem during his stop deprived Kimi Räikkönen of the chance to compete with Alonso for the final podium place. Both Marussia drivers out-qualified the Caterhams for the first time, only for Timo Glock and Charles Pic be out-raced by Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov, but the Russian team held onto tenth place in the World Constructors' Championship. Despite losing Webber to an alternator failure, Red Bull collected enough points to secure their third consecutive World Constructors' Championship title.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: The final race of the season was run in conditions that were never quite wet enough for drivers to use wet tyres, but never quite dry enough for slick tyres to provide enough grip. While Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton fought over the race lead, Sebastian Vettel was involved in a first-lap clash with Bruno Senna that damaged his exhaust and spun him around, relegating him to last place. Senna retired on the spot, as did Sergio Pérez, who was caught in the crossfire. The race was one of attrition, with Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean also crashing out early. Button seized the lead from Hamilton, but soon found himself under pressure from Nico Hülkenberg and lost the lead to the German driver on lap 18, and second place to Hamilton shortly thereafter. The field stabilised themselves after the first round of stops, with Vettel in the lower points and Fernando Alonso running fourth when he needed a podium to stand any chance of being champion. Hülkenberg spun on lap 48 and lost the lead to Hamilton, but caught the McLaren on lap 54 as they encountered lapped traffic. The two made contact in the first corner, forcing Hamilton out of the race and earning Hülkenberg a drive-through penalty for causing an avoidable accident. In the wake of their collision, Button re-took the lead and held on to the end of the race. Meanwhile, the rain intensified, prompting teams to scramble for tyres. Hülkenberg's penalty and Hamilton's retirement promoted Alonso to the podium, which became second place when team-mate Felipe Massa yielded for him. A slow stop for Vettel relegated him to twelfth and swinging the balance of power in Alonso's favour. In the last ten laps of the race, Vettel began to make his way back up the order until he was seventh, just enough to secure the title, but leaving him vulnerable if the damage he received on the first lap – which by now had left a long crack running along the floor of his car – got worse. Vettel's seventh became sixth when Michael Schumacher moved aside to let Vettel through. Two laps from the end of the race, Paul di Resta crashed heavily as he came onto the main straight, forcing the deployment of the safety car. Button won the race, with Alonso second and Massa third, but Vettel's sixth place was enough to secure his third consecutive World Drivers' Championship. Kimi Räikkönen finished the season third overall, having benefited from Hamilton's retirement to hold onto the place following a bizarre incident in which he left the circuit and attempted to rejoin by taking to the support paddock pit lane, only to find the way blocked and forcing him to double back and find another way onto the circuit. In his final race in Formula One, Schumacher's seventh place saw him finish the season in thirteenth place overall; his worst performance over a season since he contested six rounds during the season. In the World Constructors' Championship, Ferrari secured second place from McLaren with two cars on the podium, while Kamui Kobayashi's ninth place was not enough for Sauber to take fifth from Mercedes, and Marussia lost tenth place to Caterham when Vitaly Petrov secured the team's best result of the season with eleventh place. Nikolai Fomenko, Marussia's director of engineering, later claimed that Charles Pic had deliberately let Petrov through, as Pic had announced his move to Caterham for the season two days before the race.


title: 2012 Formula One World Championship

text: Three days after the Brazilian Grand Prix, reports began to surface suggesting that Sebastian Vettel's championship was under threat and that Ferrari would be filing a formal protest against the race results. The challenge centred on a pass Vettel made on Jean-Éric Vergne early in the race. At the time, the first sector of the circuit was under yellow flag conditions following the spin and retirement of Pastor Maldonado at Curva do Sol, the Interlagos circuit's third corner, which feeds onto the back straight. Vettel overtook Vergne along the straight, which led to claims that the pass was illegal because of the yellow flags. Intense media speculation suggested that the challenge threatened Vettel's championship because as the race finished behind the safety car, any post-race penalty had the potential to demote him in the race standings, and Vettel would not have enough points to secure the title. Ferrari wrote to the FIA, requesting clarification on the matter. The FIA reviewed the incident and declared that Vettel's pass was legal as a green flag was being shown by a marshal adjacent to the pit exit, meaning the track was green from that point onward; the confusion had been caused by a digital board showing a yellow flag on the exit of Curva do Sol some one hundred metres before the marshalling post. Both Ferrari and Red Bull Racing announced that they were satisfied with the ruling, thereby preserving Vettel's championship.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan le Fay (, meaning 'Morgan the Fairy'), alternatively known as Morgan[n]a, Morgain[a/e], Morg[a]ne, Morgant[e], Morge[i]n, and Morgue[in] among other names and spellings (, ), is a powerful and ambiguous enchantress from the legend of King Arthur, in which most often she and he are siblings. Early appearances of Morgan in Arthurian literature do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a goddess, a fay, a witch, or a sorceress, generally benevolent and connected to Arthur as his magical saviour and protector. Her prominence increased as legends developed over time, as did her moral ambivalence, and in some texts there is an evolutionary transformation of her to an antagonist, particularly as portrayed in cyclical prose such as the "Lancelot-Grail" and the Post-Vulgate Cycle. A significant aspect in many of Morgan's medieval and later iterations is the unpredictable duality of her nature, with potential for both good and evil.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Her character may have originated from Welsh mythology as well as from other ancient myths and historical figures. The earliest documented account, by Geoffrey of Monmouth in "Vita Merlini" (written ) refers to Morgan in conjunction with the Isle of Apples (Avalon), to which Arthur was carried after having been fatally wounded at the Battle of Camlann, as the leader of the nine magical sisters unrelated to Arthur. Therein, and in the early chivalric romances by Chrétien de Troyes and others, Morgan's chief role is that of a great healer. Several of numerous and often unnamed fairy-mistress and maiden-temptress characters found through the Arthurian romance genre may also be considered as appearances of Morgan in her different aspects.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Romance authors of the late 12th century establish her as Arthur's supernatural elder sister. In the early 13th-century, Robert de Boron-derived Arthurian prose cycles – and the later works based on them in turn, including among them Thomas Malory's influential "Le Morte d'Arthur" – Morgan is usually described as the youngest daughter of Arthur's mother, Igraine, and of her first husband, Gorlois. Arthur, son of Igraine and Uther, is thus Morgan's half-brother; the Queen of Orkney is one of Morgan's sisters and Mordred's mother. Morgan unhappily marries Urien, with whom she has a son, Yvain. She becomes an apprentice of Merlin, and a capricious and vindictive adversary of some knights of the Round Table, all the while harbouring a special hatred for Arthur's wife Guinevere. In this tradition, she is also sexually active and even predatory, taking numerous lovers that may include Merlin and Accolon, with an unrequited love for Lancelot. In some variants, including in the popular retelling by Malory, Morgan is the greatest enemy of Arthur, scheming to usurp his throne and indirectly becoming an instrument of his death; however, she eventually reconciles with Arthur, retaining her original role of taking him on his final journey to Avalon.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Many other medieval and Renaissance works feature continuations of her evolutionary tale from the aftermath of Camlann as she becomes the immortal queen of Avalon in both Arthurian and non-Arthurian stories, sometimes alongside Arthur. After a period of being largely absent from contemporary culture, Morgan's character again rose to prominence in the 20th and 21st centuries, appearing in a wide variety of roles and portrayals. Notably, her modern character is frequently being conflated with her sister's as mother of Arthur's son and nemesis Mordred, the status that Morgan herself has never had in medieval legend.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: The earliest spelling of the name (found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Vita Merlini", written c. 1150) is "Morgen", which is likely derived from Old Welsh or Old Breton "Morgen", meaning 'sea-born' (from Common Brittonic "*Mori-genā", the masculine form of which, "*Mori-genos", survived in Middle Welsh as "Moryen" or "Morien"; a cognate form in Old Irish is "Muirgen", the name of a Celtic Christian shapeshifting female saint who was associated with the sea). The name is not to be confused with the unrelated Modern Welsh masculine name Morgan (spelled "Morcant" in the Old Welsh period). As her epithet "le Fay" (invented in the 15th century by Thomas Malory from the earlier French "la fée" 'the fairy'; Malory would also use the form "le Fey" alternatively with "le Fay") and some traits indicate, the figure of Morgan appears to have been a remnant of supernatural females from Celtic mythology, and her main name could be connected to the myths of Morgens (also known as Mari-Morgans or just Morgans), the Welsh and Breton fairy water spirits related to the legend of Princess Dahut (Ahes). While many later works make Morgan specifically human, she retains her magical powers, and sometimes, also her otherworldly if not divine attributes. In fact, she is often referred to as either a Fairy Queen or outright a goddess ("dea", "déesse", "gotinne") by authors.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Geoffrey's description of Morgen and her sisters in the "Vita Merlini" closely resembles the story of the nine Gaulish priestesses of the isle of Sena (now Île de Sein) called "Gallisenae" (or "Gallizenae"), as described by the geographer Pomponius Mela during the first century, strongly suggesting that Pomponius' "Description of the World" ("De situ orbis") was one of Geoffrey's prime sources. Further inspiration for her character likely came from Welsh folklore and medieval Irish literature and hagiography. Speculatively, beginning with Lucy Allen Paton in 1904, Morgan has been connected with the Irish shapeshifting and multifaced goddess of strife known as the Morrígan ('Great Queen'). Proponents of this have included Roger Sherman Loomis, who doubted the Muirgen connection. Possible influence by elements of the classical Greek mythology sorceresses or goddesses such as Circe and especially Medea (who, similar to Morgan, are often alternately benevolent and malicious), and other magical women from the Irish mythology such as the mother of hero Fráech, as well as historical figure of Empress Matilda, have been also suggested. A chiefly Greek construction is a relatively new origin theory by Carolyne Larrington. One of the proposed candidates for the historical Arthur, Artuir mac Áedán, was recorded as having a sister named Maithgen (daughter of king Áedán mac Gabráin, a 6th-century king of Dál Riata), whose name also appears as that of a prophetic druid in the Irish legend of Saint Brigid of Kildare.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan has also been often linked with the supernatural mother Modron, derived from the continental mother goddess figure of Dea Matrona and featured in medieval Welsh literature. Modron appears in Welsh Triad 70 ("Three Blessed Womb-Burdens of the Island of Britain") – in which her children by Urien are named Owain mab Urien (son) and Morfydd (daughter) – and a later folktale have recorded more fully in the manuscript Peniarth 147. A fictionalised version of the historical king Urien is usually Morgan le Fay's husband in the variations of Arthurian legend informed by continental romances, wherein their son is named Yvain. Furthermore, the historical Urien had a treacherous ally named Morcant Bulc who plotted to assassinate him, much as Morgan attempts to kill Urien. Additionally, Modron is called "daughter of Afallach", a Welsh ancestor figure also known as Avallach or Avalloc, whose name can also be interpreted as a noun meaning 'a place of apples'; in the tale of Owain and Morfydd's conception in Peniarth 147, Modron is called the "daughter of the King of Annwn", a Celtic Otherworld. This evokes Avalon, the marvelous "Isle of Apples" with which Morgan has been associated since her earliest appearances, and the Irish legend of the otherworldly woman Niamh including the motif of apple in connection to Avalon-like Otherworld isle of Tír na nÓg ("Land of Youth").


title: Morgan le Fay

text: According to Gerald of Wales in "De instructione principis", a noblewoman and close relative of King Arthur named Morganis carried the dead Arthur to her island of Avalon (identified by him as Glastonbury), where he was buried. Writing in the early 13th century in "Speculum ecclesiae", Gerald also claimed that "as a result, the fanciful Britons and their bards invented the legend that some kind of a fantastic goddess ("dea quaedam phantastica") had removed Arthur's body to the Isle of Avalon, so that she might cure his wounds there," for the purpose of enabling the possibility of King Arthur's messianic return. In his encyclopaedic work, "Otia Imperialia", written around the same time and with similar derision for this belief, Gervase of Tilbury calls that mythical enchantress Morganda Fatata (Morganda the Fairy). Morgan retains this role as Arthur's otherworldly healer in much of later tradition.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan first appears by name in "Vita Merlini", written by Norman-Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth. Purportedly an account of the life of Merlin, it elaborates some episodes from Geoffrey's more famous earlier work, "Historia Regum Britanniae" (1136). In "Historia", Geoffrey relates how King Arthur, gravely wounded by Mordred at the Battle of Camlann, is taken off to the blessed Isle of Apple Trees (Latin "Insula Pomorum"), Avalon, to be healed; Avalon ("Ynys Afallach" in the Welsh versions of "Historia") is also mentioned as the place where Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged. (Geoffrey's Arthur does have a sister, whose name is Anna, but the possibility of her being a predecessor to Morgan is unknown.) In "Vita Merlini", Geoffrey describes this island in more detail and names "Morgen" as the chief of the nine magical queen sisters who dwell there, ruling in their own right. Morgen agrees to take Arthur, delivered to her by Taliesin to have him revived. She and her sisters are capable of shapeshifting and flying, and (at least seemingly) use their powers only for good. Morgen is also said to be a learned mathematician and to have taught it and astronomy to her fellow nymph ("nymphae") sisters, whose names are listed as Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe, Thiten and Thiton.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In the making of this arguably Virgin Mary-type character and her sisters, Geoffrey might have been influenced by the first-century Roman cartographer Pomponius Mela, who has described an oracle at the Île de Sein off the coast of Brittany and its nine virgin priestesses believed by the continental Celtic Gauls to have the power to cure disease and perform various other awesome magic, such as controlling the sea through incantations, foretelling the future, and changing themselves into any animal. According to a theory postulated by R. S. Loomis, Geoffrey was not the original inventor of Morgan's character, which had already existed in Breton folklore in the hypothetical unrecorded oral stories that featured her as Arthur's fairy saviour, or even also his fairy godmother (her earliest shared supernatural ability being able to traverse on or under water). Such stories being told by wandering storytellers (as credited by Gerald of Wales) would then influence various authors writing independently from each other, especially since "Vita Merlini" was a relatively little-known text. Geoffrey's description of Morgan is notably very similar to that in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's epic poem "Roman de Troie" (c. 1155–1160), a story of the ancient Trojan War in which Morgan herself makes an unexplained appearance in this second known text featuring her. As Orvan the Fairy ("Orva la fée", likely a corruption of a spelling such as "*Morgua" in the original-text), there she first lustfully loves the Trojan hero Hector and gifts him a wonderful horse, but then pursues him with hate after he rejects her. The abrupt way in which she is used suggests Benoît did expect his aristocratic audience to have been already familiar with her character. Of note, another such ancient-times appearance can be found in the much later "Perceforest" (1330s), within the fourth book which is set in Britain during Julius Caesar's invasions, where the fairy Morgane lives in the isle of Zeeland and has learned her magic from Zephir. Here, she has a daughter named Morganette and an adoptive son named Passelion, who in turn have a son named Morgan, described as an ancestor of the Lady of the Lake.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In "Jaufre", an early Occitan language Arthurian romance dated c. 1180, Morgan seems to appear, without being named other than introducing herself as the "Fairy of Gibel", Gibel is the Arabic name of Mount Etna in Sicily ("fada de Gibel", the mount Gibel being a version of the Avalon motif as in later works), as the ruler of an underground kingdom who takes the protagonist knight Jaufre (Griflet) through a fountain to gift him her magic ring of protection. In the romance poem "Lanzelet", written by the end of the 12th century by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, the infant Lancelot is spirited away by a water fairy ("merfeine" in Old High German) and raised in her paradise island country of Meidelant ('Land of Maidens'). Ulrich's unnamed fairy queen character might be also related to Geoffrey's Morgen, as well as to the early Breton oral tradition of Morgan's figure, especially as her son there is named Mabuz, similar to the name of Modron's son Mabon ap Modron. In Layamon's Middle English poem "The Chronicle of Britain" (c. 1215), Arthur was taken to Avalon by two women to be healed there by its most beautiful elfen () queen named Argante or Argane; it is possible her name had been originally "Margan(te)" before it was changed in manuscript transmission.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: The 12th-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes already mentions her in his first romance, "Erec and Enide", completed around 1170. In it, a love of Morgan (Morgue) is Guigomar (Guingomar, Guinguemar), the Lord of the Isle of Avalon and a nephew of King Arthur, a character derivative of Guigemar from the Breton lai "Guigemar". Guingamor's own lai by Marie de France links him to the beautiful magical entity known only as the "fairy mistress", who was later identified by Thomas Chestre's "Sir Launfal" as "Dame Tryamour", the daughter of the King of the Celtic Otherworld who shares many characteristics with Chrétien's Morgan. It was noted that even Chrétien' earliest mention of Morgan already shows an enmity between her and Queen Guinevere, and although Morgan is represented only in a benign role by Chrétien, she resides in a mysterious place known as the Vale Perilous (which some later authors would say she has created as a place of punishment for unfaithful knights). She is later mentioned in the same poem when Arthur provides the wounded hero Erec with a healing balm made by his sister Morgan. This episode affirms her early role as a healer, in addition to being one of the first instances of Morgan presented as Arthur's sister; healing is Morgan's chief ability, but Chrétien also hints at her potential to harm.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Chrétien again refers to Morgan as a great healer in his later romance "Yvain, the Knight of the Lion", in an episode in which the Lady of Norison restores the maddened hero Yvain to his senses with a magical potion provided by Morgan the Wise ("Morgue la sage"). Morgan the Wise is female in Chrétien's original, as well as in the Norse version "Ivens saga", but male in the English "Ywain and Gawain". While the fairy Modron is mother of Owain mab Urien in the Welsh myth, and Morgan would be assigned this role in the later literature, this first continental association between Yvain (the romances' version of Owain) and Morgan does not imply they are son and mother. The earliest mention of Morgan as Yvain's mother is found in "Tyolet", an early 13th-century Breton lai.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: The Middle Welsh Arthurian tale "Geraint son of Erbin", either based on Chrétien's "Erec and Enide" or derived from a common source, mentions King Arthur's chief physician named Morgan Tud. It is believed that this character, though considered a male in "Gereint", may be derived from Morgan le Fay, though this has been a matter of debate among Arthurian scholars since the 19th century (the epithet Tud may be a Welsh or Breton cognate or borrowing of Old Irish "tuath", 'north, left', 'sinister, wicked', also 'fairy (fay), elf'). There, Morgan is called to treat Edern ap Nudd, Knight of the Sparrowhawk, following the latter's defeat at the hands of his adversary Geraint, and is later called on by Arthur to treat Geraint himself. In the German version of "Erec", the 12th-century knight and poet Hartmann von Aue has Erec healed by Guinevere with a special plaster that was given to Arthur by the king's sister, the goddess ("gotinne") Feimurgân ("Fâmurgân", Fairy Murgan):


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In writing that, Hartmann might have not been influenced by Chrétien, but rather by an earlier oral tradition from the stories of Breton bards. Hartmann also separated Arthur's sister (that is Feimurgân) from the fairy mistress of the lord of Avalon (Chrétien's Guigomar), who in his version is named Marguel. In the anonymous First Continuation of Chrétien's "Perceval, the Story of the Grail", the fairy lover of its variant of Guigomar (here as Guingamuer) is named Brangepart, and the two have a son Brangemuer who became the king of an otherworldly isle "where no mortal lived". In the 13th-century romance "Parzival", another German knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach inverted Hartmann's Fâmurgân's name to create that of Arthur's fairy ancestor named Terdelaschoye de Feimurgân, the wife of Mazadân, where the part "Terdelaschoye" comes from "Terre de la Joie", or Land of Joy; the text also mentions the mountain of Fâmorgân. Jean Markale further identified a Morganian figure in Wolfram's ambiguous character of Cundrie the Sorceress (later better known as Kundry) through her plot function as mistress of illusions in an enchanted fairy garden.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Speculatively, Loomis and John Matthews further identified other perceived avatars of Morgan as the "Besieged Lady" archetype in various early works associated with the Castle of Maidens motif, often appearing as (usually unnamed) wife of King Lot and mother of Gawain. These characters include the Queen of Meidenlant in "Diu Crône", the lady of Castellum Puellarum in "De Ortu Waluuanii", and the nameless heroine of the Breton lai "Doon", among others, including some in later works (such as with Lady Lufamore of Maydenlande in "Sir Perceval of Galles"). Loomis also linked her to the eponymous seductress evil queen from "The Queen of Scotland", a 19th-century ballad "containing Arthurian material dating back to the year 1200."


title: Morgan le Fay

text: A recently discovered moralistic manuscript written in Anglo-Norman French is the only known instance of medieval Arthurian literature presented as being composed by Morgan herself. This late 12th-century text is purportedly addressed to her court official and tells of the story of a knight called Piers the Fierce; it is likely that the author's motive was to draw a satirical moral from the downfall of the English knight Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall. Morgayne is titled in it as "empress of the wilderness, queen of the damsels, lady of the isles, and governor of the waves of the great sea." Morgan ("Morganis") is also mentioned in the "Draco Normannicus", a 12th-century (c. 1167–1169) Latin chronicle by Étienne de Rouen, which contains a fictitious letter addressed by King Arthur to Henry II of England, written for political propaganda purpose of having 'Arthur' criticise King Henry for invading the Duchy of Brittany. Notably, it is one of the first known texts that made her a sister to Arthur, as she is in the works of Chrétien and many others after him. As described by Étienne,


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan's role was greatly expanded by the unknown authors of the early-13th-century Old French romances of the Vulgate Cycle (also known as the Lancelot-Grail cycle) and especially its subsequent rewrite, the Prose "Tristan"-influenced Post-Vulgate Cycle. These works are believed to be at least influenced by the Cistercian religious order, which might explain the texts' demonisation of pagan motifs and increasingly anti-sex attitude. Integrating her fully into the Arthurian world, they also portray Morgan's ways and deeds as being much more sinister and aggressive than they are in Geoffrey or Chrétien, showing her undergoing a series of transformations in the process of becoming a chaotic counter-heroine. Beginning as an erratic ally of Arthur and a notorious temptress opposed to his wife and some of his knights (especially Lancelot) in the original stories of the Vulgate Cycle, Morgan's figure eventually often turns into an ambitious and depraved nemesis of King Arthur himself in the Post-Vulgate. Her common image is now a malicious and cruel sorceress, the source of many intrigues at the royal court of Arthur and elsewhere. In some of the later works, she is also subversively working to take over Arthur's throne through her mostly harmful magic and scheming, including manipulating men. Most of the time, Morgan's magic arts correspond with these of Merlin's and the Lady of the Lake's, featuring shapeshifting, illusion, and sleeping spells (Richard Kieckhefer connected it with Norse magic). Although she is usually depicted in medieval romances as beautiful and seductive, the medieval archetype of the loathly lady is used frequently, as Morgan can be in a contradictory fashion described as both beautiful and ugly even within the same narration.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: This version of Morgan (usually named "Morgane" or "Morgain") first appears in the few surviving verses of the Old French poem "Merlin", which later served as the original source for the Vulgate Cycle and consequently also the Post-Vulgate Cycle. It was written c. 1200 by the French knight-poet Robert de Boron, who described her as an illegitimate daughter of Lady Igraine with an initially unnamed Duke of Tintagel, after whose death she is adopted by King Neutres of Garlot. "Merlin" is the first known work linking Morgan to Igraine and mentioning her learning sorcery after having been sent away for an education. The reader is informed that Morgan was given her moniker 'la fée' (the fairy) due to her great knowledge. A 14th-century massive prequel to the Arthurian legend, "Perceforest", also implies that Arthur's sister was later named after its "fée" character Morgane from several centuries earlier.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In a popular tradition from later evolution of this narrative, Morgan is the youngest of the daughters of Igraine and Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall. In the poem's prose version and its continuations, she has at least two elder sisters (various manuscripts list up to five daughters and some do not mention Morgan being a bastard child): Elaine of Garlot and the Queen of Orkney sometimes known as Morgause, the latter of whom is the mother of Arthur's knights Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth by King Lot, and the traitor Mordred by Arthur (in some romances the wife of King Lot is called Morcades, a name that R. S. Loomis argued was another name of Morgan). At a young age, Morgan is sent to a convent after Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, aided by the half-demon Merlin, kills Gorlois and rapes and marries her mother, who later gives him a son, Arthur (which makes him Morgan's younger half-brother). There, Morgan masters the seven arts and begins her study of magic, going on to specialise in "astronomie" (astronomy and astrology) and healing; the Prose "Merlin" describes her as "wonderfully adept" and "working hard all the time." The Vulgate "Suite du Merlin" narration describes Morgan's unmatched beauty and her various skills and qualities of character:


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Uther (or Arthur himself in the Post-Vulgate) betroths her to his ally, King Urien of Gor(r)e, the land described as an Otherworldly northern British kingdom, possibly the historical Rheged (early versions have alternatively named Morgan's husband as Nentres of Garlot, who later was recast as the husband of her sister Elaine). Now a queen but unhappy with her husband, Morgan serves as a lady-in-waiting for the high queen, Arthur's newly married young wife Guinevere. At first, Morgan and the also young Guinevere are close friends, even wearing shared near-identical rings. However, everything changes when Morgan is caught in an affair with her lover Guiomar (derived from Chrétien's Guigomar) by Guinevere, who intervenes to break their relationship to prevent the loss of honour (and possibly because of Guinevere's perception of Morgan, with her kinship and close relationship with Arthur, as a rival in political power). This incident, introduced in the Prose "Merlin" and expanded in the Vulgate "Lancelot" and the Post-Vulgate "Suite du Merlin" (the Huth "Merlin"), begins a lifelong feud between Guinevere and Morgan, who leaves the court of Camelot with all her wealth to seek out Merlin and greater powers. The pregnant Morgan later gives birth to Guiomar's son, who is not named in the story but is said to grow up to become a great knight. Morgan then either undertakes or continues her studies of dark magic under Merlin, enamored for her, the details of which vary widely depending on the telling. In the Prose "Merlin", for instance, it is Morgan who finds Merlin, whom she "loves passionately". In the "Livre d'Artus", where Morgan's first lover is named Bertolais, it is rather Merlin who goes to live with Morgan and her two ladies for a long time following the betrayal of him by Niniane (the Lady of the Lake) with her other lover, just as Morgan wished for him to do. In the Post-Vulgate "Suite", Morgan had been tutored by Merlin even before her relationship with Guiomar, and later she returns to learn more. They meet at Lot's funeral, during the time when Morgan is pregnant with Yvain; after Merlin teaches her so much she becomes "the wisest woman in the world", Morgan scorns and drives Merlin away by threatening to torture and kill him if he would not leave her alone, which causes him great sorrow out of his "foolish love" ("fol amor") for her. In the Vulgate "Lancelot", Morgan learns all her magic only from Merlin (and not in the nunnery). She then takes an unnamed knight as her new companion, until she discovers his affair with another woman, which leads to the creation of her magical domain known as the Val sans Retour (the Vale of No Return), serving as an enchanted prison for false lovers. In any case, having finished her studies under Merlin, Morgan begins scheming her vengeance as she tries to undermine virtue and achieve Guinevere's downfall whenever she can.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In the Post-Vulgate, where Morgan's explicitly evil nature is stated and accented, she also works to destroy Arthur's rule and end his life, but the reasons for her initial hatred of him are never fully explained other than just an extreme antipathy towards the perfect goodness which he symbolises. The most famous and important of these machinations is introduced in the Post-Vulgate "Suite", where she arranges for her devoted lover Accolon to obtain the enchanted sword Excalibur as well as its protective scabbard, which has been previously confided to Morgan by Arthur himself as he had trusted her even more than his wife, replacing the real ones with fakes. In a conspiracy with the villainous lord Damas, Morgan plans for Accolon to use Arthur's own magic items against him in single combat, so she and her beloved Accolon would become the rulers. As part of her convoluted plan, both Arthur and Accolon are spirited away from their hunt with Urien by a magical boat of twelve damsels. Confident of her coming victory, Morgan also attempts to murder her sleeping husband Urien with his own sword, but in this act she is stopped by their son Yvain (Uwayne), who pardons her when she protests she has been under the devil's power and promises to abandon her wicked ways. After Arthur nevertheless mortally defeats Accolon in a duel arranged by Morgan, her former mentor Merlin, still having feelings for her, saves her from Arthur's wrath by enabling her to escape. To avenge Accolon's death, which caused her great sorrow, Morgan again steals the scabbard from the sleeping king. Pursued by Arthur for her betrayal, Morgan throws the scabbard into a lake, before temporarily turning herself and her entourage to stone, the sight of which makes Arthur think they have been already punished by God. That action of Morgan ultimately causes the death of Arthur, who would otherwise be protected by the scabbard's magic in his final battle. On her way out, Morgan saves Arthur's knight named Manassen (Manessen, Manasses) from certain death and enables him to kill his captor when she learns Accolon was Manessen's cousin. Now banished from Camelot, Morgan retires to her lands in Gore and then to her castle near the stronghold of Tauroc (possibly in North Wales). However, her treacherous attempts to bring about Arthur's demise in the "Suite" are repeatedly frustrated by the king's new sorceress advisor Ninianne (the Lady of the Lake). Such is the case when Morgan sends Arthur a supposed offering of peace in the form of a rich mantle cloak; Morgan's messenger maiden is made put on the cursed gift and it burns her to cinders. It is possible that this motif was inspired by classical stories like that how Medea killed her rival for Jason's affection or how Deianira sent a poisoned tunic to Hercules. In one of her castles, Tugan in Garlot, Morgan has hidden a magic book given to her by Merlin, which actually prophesied the deaths of Arthur and Gawain and who would kill them, but no one can read this passage without dying instantly.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan also uses her skills in dealing with various of Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, especially the greatest of them all, Lancelot, whom she alternately tries to seduce and to expose as Guinevere's adulterous lover. Her magic aside, Lancelot is always disempowered in his dealings with Morgan as he could never hurt a woman or fight a kin of his king, which allows the writers to make her a perfect foil for Lancelot as "the woman he most feared in the world." Morgan is emphasised as promiscuous, even more than her sister Morgause, as she is "so lustful and wanton that a looser [noble]woman could not have been found." Her many paramours include Huneson the Bald (Hemison in Malory's version), who is mortally wounded when he attacks Tristan out of his jealously for Morgan's attention; he soon dies after returning to her, and the anguished Morgan buries him in a grand tomb. In one variation, she then takes possession of the lance that was used to kill Huneson, enchants it, and sends it to King Mark of Cornwall, her possible lover, who years later uses it to slay Tristan. In the Prose "Tristan", wherein Morgan presents herself as Arthur's full sister, she delivers by Lamorak to Arthur's court a magical drinking horn from which no unfaithful lady can drink without spilling, hoping to disgrace Guinevere by revealing her infidelity, but it is Iseult whose adultery is disclosed instead. Lancelot is Morgan's prime object of sexual desire but he consistently refuses her obsessive advances due to his great love of Guinevere, even as Morgan repeatedly courts, drugs, enchants or imprisons the knight. Their one-sided relationship (as well as interactions between her and Arthur) may evoke that of the goddess Morrígan and the Celtic hero Cú Chulainn. One of such occasions has Lancelot captured in Cart Castle (Charyot) by Morgan and two other lascivious enchantresses, Queen Sebile (Sedile) and the unnamed Queen of Sorestan, each of whom wants to make him her lover, but he refuses to choose and escapes with the help of one of their maidservants, Rocedon. The three enchantresses "knew so much about magic, they enjoyed one another's company and always rode together and ate and drank together." Sebile and Morgan are particularly close companions, working their magic together, but they tend to fall into petty squabbles due to their rivalries and bad tempers, including a conflict between them when they both seduce Lancelot's brother Hector de Maris in the late 13th-century "Prophéties de Merlin". Their friendship is further tested when a quarrel over a handsome widower named Berengier (captured by Sebile after Morgan kidnapped his child) ends in a violent attack by Sebile that leaves Morgan half-dead; Morgan swears revenge, but their relationship is later restored. After Merlin's entombment by the Lady of the Lake, Morgan and her three enchantresses also try to find and rescue him but they fail in that task. Morgan's other allies in the "Prophéties" include the opponents of chivalry such as Mark and Claudas, and she enlists the help of the latter in her failed attempt to eliminate the Lady of the Lake. In one of her schemes, she even sends Lucifer himself (in the guise of a dragon) against Segurant the Brown (Segurant le Brun).


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Besides Lancelot, Morgan's fancied good knights include Tristan, but her interest in him turns into burning hatred of him and his true love Isolde after he kills her lover as introduced in the Prose "Tristan" (Morgan does not become their enemy in the Italian versions). Another is the rescued-but-abducted young Alexander the Orphan (Alisaunder le Orphelin), a cousin of Tristan and Mark's enemy from a later addition in the Prose "Tristan" as well as the "Prophéties de Merlin", whom she promises to heal but he vows to castrate himself rather than to pleasure her. Nevertheless, Alexander promises to defend her castle of Fair Guard ("Belle Garde"), where he has been held, for a year and a day, and then dutifully continues to guard it even after the castle gets burned down; this eventually leads to his death. In the Val sans Retour, Lancelot frees the 250 unfaithful knights entrapped by Morgan, including Morgan's own son Yvain and her former lover Guiomar whom she has turned to stone for his infidelity. (Of note, Guiomar, appearing there as Gaimar, is also Guinevere's early lover instead of her cousin in the German version "Lancelot und Ginevra".) Morgan then captures Lancelot himself under her spell using a magic ring and keeps him prisoner in the hope Guinevere would then go mad or die of sorrow. She also otherwise torments Guinevere, causing her great distress and making her miserable until the Lady of the Lake gives her a ring that protects her from Morgan's power. On one occasion, she lets the captive Lancelot go to rescue Gawain when he promises to come back (but also keeping him the company of "the most beautiful of her maidens" to do "whatever she could to entice him"), and he keeps his word and does return; she eventually releases him altogether after over a year, when his health falters and he is near death. It is said that Morgan concentrates on witchcraft to such degree that she goes to live in seclusion in the exile of far-away forests. She learns more spells than any other woman, gains an ability to transform herself into any animal, and people begin to call her Morgan the Goddess ("Morgain-la-déesse", "Morgue la dieuesse"). In the Post-Vulgate version of "Queste del Saint Graal", Lancelot has a vision of Hell where Morgan still will be able to control demons even in afterlife as they torture Guinevere. Later, after she hosts her nephews Gawain, Mordred and Gaheriet to heal them, Mordred spots the images of Lancelot's passionate love for Guinevere that Lancelot painted on her castle's walls while he was imprisoned there; Morgan shows them to Gawain and his brothers, encouraging them to take action in the name of loyalty to their king, but they do not do this. With same intent, when Tristan was to be Morgan's champion at a jousting tournament, she also gives him an enchanted shield depicting Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot to deliver to Camelot (in the Prose "Tristan").


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In the Vulgate "La Mort le Roi Artu" ("The Death of King Arthur", also known as just the "Mort Artu"), Morgan ceases troubling Arthur and vanishes for a long time, and Arthur assumes her to be dead. But one day, he wanders into Morgan's remote castle while on a hunting trip, and they meet and instantly reconcile with each other. Morgan welcomes him warmly and the king, overjoyed with their reunion, allows her to return to Camelot, but she refuses and declares her plan to move to the Isle of Avalon, "where the women live who know all the world's magic," to live there with other sorceresses. However, disaster strikes when the sight of Lancelot's frescoes and Morgan's confession finally convinces Arthur about the truth to the rumours of the two's secret love affair (about which he has been already warned by his nephew Agravain). This leads to a great conflict between Arthur and Lancelot, which brings down the fellowship of the Round Table. At the end of the "Mort Artu", Morgan is the only one who is recognised among the black-hooded ladies who take the dying Arthur to his final rest and possible revival in Avalon. Depending on the manuscript, she is either the leading lady (usually, being recognised by Griflet as the one holding Arthur's hand as he enters the boat), a subordinate to another who is unnamed, or neither of them are superior. The latter part of the Post-Vulgate versions of "Queste" and "Mort" both revert to Morgan's friendly and helpful attitude toward Arthur from the Vulgate Cycle, even as she makes no mention of Avalon or her intentions when taking him away. Arthur steps into her boat after Camlann but assures he is not going to return. His supposed grave is later said to be found mysteriously empty but for his helmet. (The Spanish poem "La Faula" has Morgan explain that by saying the tomb's purpose was to prevent a search for Arthur.)


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Middle English writer Thomas Malory follows the portrayals of Morgan from the Old French prose cycles in his late-15th-century seminal work of the selective compilation book "Le Morte d'Arthur" ("The Death of Arthur"), though he reduces her in role and detail of characterisation, in particular either removing or limiting her traditions of healing and prophecy, and making her more consistently and inherently evil just as he makes Merlin more good. He also diminishes Morgan's conflict with Guinevere, as there is no motif of Guiomar and Accolon is her first named lover (appearing as Accolon of Gaul in a much abbreviated version of his story), but does not clarify Morgan's motivations for her antagonistic behaviour against Arthur. Malory scholar Elizabeth Sklar described Morgan's character here as "an essentially sociopathic personality, respecting no boundaries and acknowledging no rules save those dictated by her own ambitions, envy, and lust." Up until the war between Arthur and Lancelot and the rebellion of Mordred, it is Morgan who remains the main and constant source of direct and indirect threat to the realm. According to Corinne Saunders, Malory's "Morgan is also characterized as following the pattern of the otherworldly ruler who wishes both to destroy and to possess bodies" of knights through sex and manipulation. As noted by Mary Lynn Saul: "Curiously, in spite of all her powers, Morgan is rarely successful in any of her plots. Nevertheless, she remains a medieval symbol of the potential danger of uncontrolled female power." Some modern researchers attribute Malory's "personal misogyny" to his portrayal of Morgan as well as women in general.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In Malory's backstory, Morgan has studied astrology as well as "nigremancie" (which might actually mean black magic in general rather than "necromancy") in the nunnery where she was raised, before being married to Urien (Uriens) as a young teenager; in this narrative she did not study with Merlin. Unlike Malory's Nimue, Morgan deals mostly in "black" rather than "white" magic, employed usually through enchantments and potions. Her powers, however, seem to be inspired by fairy magic of Celtic folklore rather than by medieval Christian demonology. Malory mentions Arthur's attempts to conquer at least one of her castles, which originally had been his own gift to her, and which he could not retake (apparently due to magical defences). She also plots an elaborate ambush in "The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyons", after learning of the death of one of her favourites in a tournament, but Tristan ends up killing or routing thirty of her knights when the ambush ends in a disaster. Morgan is widely feared and hated, so much that "many knights wished her burnt." She is now the leader of the four (not three) witch queens who capture Lancelot (the others being the Queen of the Northgales, the Queen of Eastland, and the Queen of the Outer Isles). In an episode that had been first introduced by the anonymous writer of the earlier Prose "Lancelot", Lancelot rescues Elaine of Corbenic from being trapped in an enchanted boiling bath by Morgan and the Queen of the Northgales, both envious of Elaine's great beauty (echoing Circe's treatment of Scylla). However, despite all of their prior hostility towards each other and her numerous designs directed against Arthur personally (and his own promise to get a terrible revenge on her as long as he lives), Malory's Morgan is still redeemed and is one of the four grieving enchantress queens (the others being Nimue, marking the end of conflict between her and Morgan, and two of Morgan's allies, the Queen of the Northgales and the Queen of the Wasteland) who arrive in a black boat to transport the wounded king to Avalon in the end. Unlike in the French and earlier stories on which "Le Morte d'Arthur" is based, and where Morgan and Arthur would either have first made peace or have just never fought to begin with, here her change of attitude towards him is sudden and unexplained. Arthur is last seen in Morgan's lap, with her lament of sorrow referring to him as her "dear brother" ("dere brothir"), as they disappear from the work's narrative together.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In the English poem Alliterative "Morte Arthure", Morgan appears in Arthur's dream as Lady Fortune (that is, the goddess Fortuna) with the Wheel of Fortune to warn Arthur prior to his fatal final battle, foretelling his death. She also appears in some other English texts, such as the early-13th-century Anglo-Norman "Roman de Waldef" where she is only "name-dropped" as a minor character. Middle English romance "Arthour and Merlin", written around 1270, casts a villainous Morgan in the role of the Lady of the Lake and gives her a brother named Morganor as an illegitimate son of King Urien; her wondrous castle Palaus is built mostly of crystal and glass. Conversely, a 14th-century Middle English version of the Vulgate "Mort Artu" known as the Stanzaic "Morte Arthur" makes Morgan an unquestionably good sister of Arthur, concerned only about his honour in regard to the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere. Entering her boat (she is not named in the scene, but addresses him as her brother), Arthur believes he is going to be healed, yet his tomb is later discovered by Bedivere.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: At the end of the 14th-century Middle English romance "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", one of the best-known Arthurian tales, it is revealed that the entire Green Knight plot has been instigated by Gawain's aunt, the goddess Morgan le Fay ("Morgue la Faye", "Morgne þe goddes"), whose prior mentorship by Merlin is mentioned. Here, she is an ambiguous trickster who takes an appearance of an elderly woman (contrasting from the beautiful Lady Bertilak in a role evoking the loathly lady tradition), as a test for Arthur and his knights and to frighten Guinevere to death. Morgan's importance to this particular narrative has been disputed and called a "deus ex machina" and simply an artistic device to further connect Gawain's episode to the Arthurian legend, but some regard her as a central character and the driving force of the plot. Opinions are also divided regarding Morgan's intentions and whether she succeeds or fails, and how the story's shapeshifting and enigmatic Morgan might be, or might be not, also Lady Bertilak herself.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan further turns up frequently throughout the Western European literature of the High and Late Middle Ages, as well as of the Renaissance. She appears in a variety of roles, generally appearing in works related to the cycles of Arthur (the Matter of Britain) or Charlemagne (the Matter of France). Such texts often feature Morgan as a lover and benefactor of various heroes, and yet she can also be their opponent, especially when abducting those who turned down her amorous offers and working to separate true lovers. They may also introduce her additional offspring or alternate siblings, or connect her closer with the figure of the Lady of the Lake. For instance, the Old French anonymous "Li Romans de Claris et Laris" better known as just "Claris and Laris" (c. 1270), has its Morgane la Faye (Morgana in the modern English translation) as a fully supernatural being, a former sister of Arthur as well as a former pupil of the Lady of Lake, Viviane (Viviana). Still ever lascivious and sexual, Morgan now lives in a splendid enchanted castle in the wilderness (identified as Brocéliande in a later manuscript) with twelve other beautiful fairy ladies including the sorceress Madoine (Madoina). There, they lure and ensnare many hundreds of young and attractive knights, who then spend the rest of their lives in the palace. Morgan is named Dioneta in the 14th-century Welsh fragment known as "The Birth of Arthur", where she is a sister of both Gwyar (Morgause) and Gwalchmei (Gawain), as well as of the other sisters Gracia and Graeria, and is sent off by Uther to Avallach (Avalon). In Thomas III of Saluzzo's "Le Chevalier Errant", the fairy Morgan ("la fée Morgane") holds the eponymous Wandering Knight captive inside a magnificent castle in her forest realm Païenie ('Pagania'), until messengers from her brother Arthur arrive with a request to lift her enchantment and let him go, to which she agrees. The fairy queen Lady Morgan ("Dame Morgue", "Morgue li fee") shows up in Adam de la Halle's late-13th-century French story "Jeu de la feuillée", in which she visits a contemporary Arras. Spanish public edicts dating from the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century tell of the belief in Morgane continuing to enchant and imprison people at Tintagel and in "the Valley of False Trickery".


title: Morgan le Fay

text: In the legends of Charlemagne, she is associated with the Danish legendary hero and one of the Paladins, Ogier the Dane: following his initial epics, when he is 100 years old, the fairy queen Morgan restores him to his youthful form but removes his memory, then takes him to her mystical island palace in Avalon (where Arthur and Gawain are also still alive) to be her lover for 200 years. She later protects him during his adventures in the mortal world as he defends France from Muslim invasion, before his eventual return to Avalon. In some accounts, Ogier begets her two sons, including Marlyn (Meurvin); in the 14th-century pseudo-chronivle "Ly Myreur des Histors" written by the French-Belgian author Jean d'Outremeuse, one of their sons is a giant and they live in a palace made of jewels. In the 13th-century "chanson de geste" story of another Paladin, Huon of Bordeaux, Morgan is a protector of the eponymous hero and the mother of the fairy king Oberon by none other than Julius Caesar. In the 14th-century "Ogier le Danois", a prose redaction of the epic poem "Roman d'Ogier", she ("Morgue la Fée") lives in her palace in Avalon together with Arthur and Oberon, who both seem to be her brothers. Variants of Ogier's and Huon's stories typically involve Morgan, Arthur, and Oberon (Auberon) all living in a fairyland where time passes much slower than in human world. Such works include the 14th century's French "Tristan de Nanteuil" and the "Chanson de Lion de Bourges", the 15th-century French "Mabrien", and John Bourchier's 16th-century English "The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux" in which Arthur's sister Morgan is mother of not Oberon but Merlin. In another French "chanson de geste", the early-13th-century "La Bataille Loquifer", the fays Morgan (Morgue) and her sister Marsion (Marrion) bring the Saracen hero Renoart (Renouart, Rainouart) to Avalon, where Arthur is the king; Renoart's falls in love with Morgan and impregnates her with his illegitimate son named Corbon (Corbans), "a live devil who did nothing but evil." When Renoart jilts her and escapes to rescue his other son Maileffer, Morgan sends her demonic monster servant Kapalu (derived from the Welsh legends' Cath Palug) after him; the shipwrecked Renoart ends up luckily rescued by a mermaid.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: The island of Avalon is often described as an otherworldly place ruled by Morgan in other later texts from all over Western Europe, especially these written in Iberia. In the 14th-century French Crusadic fantasy "Le Bâtard de Bouillon", the island kingdom of Arthur and his fairy sister Morgan the Beautiful is hidden by a cloud in the Red Sea, where it is visited by King Bauduins (Baldwin II of Jerusalem). In his 14th-century Catalan poem "La faula", Guillem de Torroella claims to have himself having visited the Enchanted Isle and met Arthur who has been brought back to life by the fay Morgan ("Morgan la feya", "Morguan la fea") and they both are now forever young due to the power of the Holy Grail. In the 15th-century Valencian romance "Tirant lo Blanc", the noble Queen Morgan searches the world for her missing brother; finally finding him entranced in Constantinople, Morgan brings Arthur back to his senses by removing Excalibur from his hands, after which they leave to Avalon. The Castilian "Arderique" begins where the "Mort Artu" ends, that is with the departure and disappearance of Arthur and his sister Morgaina, described there as a fairy and a necromancer, after the battle with Mordred ("Mordered"). Another Spanish work, Francisco de Enciso Zárate's "Florambel de Lucea" (1532), features a later appearance of Arthur together with his sister Morgaina, "better known as Morgana the fairy" ("fada Morgana"), who explains how she saved her brother and gifts Excalibur ("Escaliber") to the eponymous hero Florambel. In "Tristán de Leonis", Morgana offers her love to Tristan. In the "rondalla" ('folk tale' in Catalan) "La fada Morgana", the protagonist Joana ends up marrying the fairy queen Morgana's son named Beuteusell after passing his mother's test with his help.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: The 14th-century Italian romance titled "La Pulzella Gaia" ("The Merry Maiden") features the titular beautiful young daughter of Morgana (Italian version of Morgan's name, here too also a sister of the Lady of the Lake) with Hemison. In her own tale, Morgana's daughter defeats Gawain (Galvano) in her giant serpent form before becoming his lover; she and her fairy army then save Gawain from the jealous Guinevere, who wants Gawain dead after having been spurned by him. She then herself is imprisoned in a magical torment in her mother's glass-and-diamond magical castle Pela-Orso, because of how Morgana wanted to force her to marry Tristan. Eventually, Gawain storms the castle after three years of siege and frees her from a cursed dungeon, also capturing her tyrannical mother for the same punishment. The 15th-century Italian compilation of Arthur and Tristan legends, "La Tavola Ritonda" ("The Round Table"), too makes Morgan a sister to the Lady of the Lake as well as to Arthur (about the fate of whom it says Morgan "brought him away to a little island in the sea; and there he died of his wounds, and the fairy buried him on that island"). It is based on the French prose romances, but here Morgan is a prophetic figure whose main role is to ensure the fulfilment of fate. Her daughter also appears, as Gaia Donzella, in the "Tavola Ritonda", where she is kidnapped by the knight Burletta of the Desert ("Burletta della Diserta") who wants to rape her but she is rescued by Lancelot. The Italian Morgana appears in a number of "cantari" poems of the 14th to 15th century. Some of these are original new episodes, such as the "Cantari di Tristano" group's "Cantare di Astore e Morgana", in which Morgana heals Hector de Maris (Astore) and gives an armour made in Hell as well as a magical ship, and the "Cantari del Falso Scudo" that features her fairy son, the Knight with the Enchanted Shield; the "Ponzela Gaia" is another telling of the familiar story of Morgana's fairy daughter. Evangelista Fossa combined and retold some of them in his "Innamoramento di Galvano" ("Gawain Falling in Love", c. 1494).


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan le Fay, or Fata Morgana in Italian, has been in particular associated with Sicily as a location of her enchanted realm in the mythological landscape of medieval Europe (at least since the Norman conquest of southern Italy), and local folklore describes her as living in a magical castle located at or floating over Mount Etna. As such she gave her name to the form of mirage common off the shores of Sicily, the Fata Morgana, since the 14th century. References linking Avalon to Sicily can be found in "Otia Imperialia" (c. 1211) and "La faula", as well as in Breton and Provençal literature, for example in the aforementioned "Jaufre" and "La Bataille Loquifer". The 13th-century Chrétien-inspired romance "Floriant et Florete" places Morgan's secret mountain castle of Mongibel (Montgibel or Montegibel, derived from the Arabic name for Etna), where, in the role of a fairy godmother, Morgan (Morgane) and two other fays spirit away and raises Floriant, a son of a murdered Sicilian king and the hero of the story. Floriant, with the help of her magic ship, eventually reunites with Morgan at her castle when he returns there with his wife Florete. The 15th-century French romance "La Chevalier du Papegau" ("The Knight of the Parrot") gives Morgaine the Fairy of Montgibel ("Morgaine, la fée de Montgibel", as she is also known in "Floriant et Florete") a sister known as the Lady Without Pride ("la Dame sans Orgueil"), whom Arthur saves from the evil Knight of the Wasteland (similar to the story in the "Tavola Ritonda"). Meanwhile, the "Fastnachtspiel" ("Ain Hupsches Vasnacht Spill von Künig Artus"), a German retelling of the enchanted horn episode, moved Morgan's Mediterranean Sea island domain to the east of Sicily, referring to her only as the Queen of Cyprus.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: During the Italian Renaissance, Morgan has been primarily featured in relation to the cycle of epic poems of Orlando (based on Roland of the historical Charlemagne). In Matteo Maria Boiardo's late-15th-century "Orlando Innamorato", fata Morgana (initially as lady Fortune) is beautiful but wicked fairy enchantress, a sister of King Arthur and a pupil of Merlin. Morgana lives in her paradise-like garden in a crystal cavern under a lake, plotting to eventually destroy the entire world. There, she abducts her favourites until she is thwarted by Orlando who defeats, chases and captures Morgana, destroying her underwater prison and letting her keep only one of her forced lovers, a knight named Ziliante. In Ludovico Ariosto's continuation of this tale, "Orlando Furioso" (1532), Morgana (also identified as Morgan Le Fay) is revealed as a twin sister of two other sorceresses, the good Logistilla and the evil Alcina; the latter appears after Orlando again defeats Morgana, rescuing Ziliante who has been turned into a dragon, and forces Morgana to swear by her lord Demogorgon to abandon her plots. It also features the medieval motif where uses a magic horn to convince Arthur of the infidelity of his queen (Geneura), here successfully. Bernardo Tasso's "L'Amadigi" (1560) further introduces Morgana's three daughters: Carvilia, Morganetta, and Nivetta, themselves temptresses of knights.


title: Morgan le Fay

text: Morgan's other 16th-century appearances include these of Morgue la fée in François Rabelais' French satirical fantasy novel "Les grandes chroniques du grand et énorme géant Gargantua et il publie Pantagruel" (1532) and of the good Morgana in Erasmo di Valvasone's Italian didactic poem "La caccia" (1591). In Edmund Spenser's English epic poem "The Faerie Queene" (1590), Argante (Layamon's name for Morgan) is lustful giantess queen of the "secret Ile", evoking the Post-Vulgate story of Morgan's kidnapping of Sir Alexander. It also features three other counterpart characters: Acrasia, Duessa, and Malecasta, all representing different themes from Malory's description of Morgan. Morgan might have also inspired the characters of the healer Loosepaine and the fay Oriande in the Scots poem "Greysteil" (possibly originally written in 15th-century England).


title: Morgan le Fay

text: The character Morgan le Fay has become ubiquitous in Arthurian works of the modern era, spanning fantasy, historical fiction and other genres across various mediums, especially since the mid-20th century.


title: Knight

text: A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Greek "hippeis" and "hoplite" (ἱππεῖς) and Roman "eques" and "centurion" of classical antiquity.


title: Knight

text: In the Early Middle Ages in Europe, knighthood was conferred upon mounted warriors. During the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of lower nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior. Often, a knight was a vassal who served as an elite fighter or a bodyguard for a lord, with payment in the form of land holdings. The lords trusted the knights, who were skilled in battle on horseback. Knighthood in the Middle Ages was closely linked with horsemanship (and especially the joust) from its origins in the 12th century until its final flowering as a fashion among the high nobility in the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. This linkage is reflected in the etymology of "chivalry", "cavalier" and related terms. In that sense, the special prestige accorded to mounted warriors in Christendom finds a parallel in the "furusiyya" in the Islamic world. The Crusades brought various military orders of knights to the forefront of defending Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land.


title: Knight

text: In the Late Middle Ages, new methods of warfare began to render classical knights in armour obsolete, but the titles remained in many countries. Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I is often referred to as the "last knight" in this regard. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, particularly the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to the legendary companions of Charlemagne and his men-at-arms, the paladins, and the Matter of Britain, relating to the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.


title: Knight

text: Today, a number of orders of knighthood continue to exist in Christian Churches, as well as in several historically Christian countries and their former territories, such as the Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Spanish Order of Santiago, the Protestant Order of Saint John, as well as the English Order of the Garter, the Swedish Royal Order of the Seraphim, and the Order of St. Olav. There are also dynastic orders like the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Order of the British Empire and the Order of St. George. In modern times these are orders centered around charity and civic service, and are no longer military orders. Each of these orders has its own criteria for eligibility, but knighthood is generally granted by a head of state, monarch, or prelate to selected persons to recognise some meritorious achievement, as in the British honours system, often for service to the Church or country. The modern female equivalent in the English language is Dame. Knighthoods and damehoods are traditionally regarded as being one of the most prestigious awards people can obtain.


title: Knight

text: The word "knight", from Old English "cniht" ("boy" or "servant"), is a cognate of the German word "Knecht" ("servant, bondsman, vassal"). This meaning, of unknown origin, is common among West Germanic languages (cf Old Frisian "kniucht", Dutch "knecht", Danish "knægt", Swedish "knekt", Norwegian "knekt", Middle High German "kneht", all meaning "boy, youth, lad"). Middle High German had the phrase "guoter kneht", which also meant knight; but this meaning was in decline by about 1200.


title: Knight

text: The meaning of "cniht" changed over time from its original meaning of "boy" to "household retainer". Ælfric's homily of St. Swithun describes a mounted retainer as a "cniht". While "cnihtas" might have fought alongside their lords, their role as household servants features more prominently in the Anglo-Saxon texts. In several Anglo-Saxon wills "cnihtas" are left either money or lands. In his will, King Æthelstan leaves his cniht, Aelfmar, eight hides of land.


title: Knight

text: A narrowing of the generic meaning "servant" to "military follower of a king or other superior" is visible by 1100. The specific military sense of a knight as a mounted warrior in the heavy cavalry emerges only in the Hundred Years' War. The verb "to knight" (to make someone a knight) appears around 1300; and, from the same time, the word "knighthood" shifted from "adolescence" to "rank or dignity of a knight".


title: Knight

text: An Equestrian (Latin, from "eques" "horseman", from "equus" "horse") was a member of the second highest social class in the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. This class is often translated as "knight"; the medieval knight, however, was called "miles" in Latin (which in classical Latin meant "soldier", normally infantry).


title: Knight

text: In the later Roman Empire, the classical Latin word for horse, "equus", was replaced in common parlance by the vulgar Latin "caballus", sometimes thought to derive from Gaulish "caballos". From "caballus" arose terms in the various Romance languages cognate with the (French-derived) English "cavalier": Italian "cavaliere", Spanish "caballero", French "chevalier" (whence "chivalry"), Portuguese "cavaleiro", and Romanian "cavaler". The Germanic languages have terms cognate with the English "rider": German "Ritter", and Dutch and Scandinavian "ridder". These words are derived from Germanic "rīdan", "to ride", in turn derived from the Proto-Indo-European root "*reidh-".


title: Knight

text: In ancient Rome, there was a knightly class "Ordo Equestris" (order of mounted nobles). Some portions of the armies of Germanic peoples who occupied Europe from the 3rd century AD onward had been mounted, and some armies, such as those of the Ostrogoths, were mainly cavalry. However, it was the Franks who generally fielded armies composed of large masses of infantry, with an infantry elite, the comitatus, which often rode to battle on horseback rather than marching on foot. When the armies of the Frankish ruler Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad Arab invasion at the Battle of Tours in 732, the Frankish forces were still largely infantry armies, with elites riding to battle but dismounting to fight.


title: Knight

text: In the Early Medieval period, any well-equipped horseman could be described as a knight, or "miles" in Latin. The first knights appeared during the reign of Charlemagne in the 8th century. As the Carolingian Age progressed, the Franks were generally on the attack, and larger numbers of warriors took to their horses to ride with the Emperor in his wide-ranging campaigns of conquest. At about this time the Franks increasingly remained on horseback to fight on the battlefield as true cavalry rather than mounted infantry, with the discovery of the stirrup, and would continue to do so for centuries afterwards. Although in some nations the knight returned to foot combat in the 14th century, the association of the knight with mounted combat with a spear, and later a lance, remained a strong one. The older Carolingian ceremony of presenting a young man with weapons influenced the emergence of knighthood ceremonies, in which a noble would be ritually given weapons and declared to be a knight, usually amid some festivities. These mobile mounted warriors made Charlemagne's far-flung conquests possible, and to secure their service he rewarded them with grants of land called benefices. These were given to the captains directly by the Emperor to reward their efforts in the conquests, and they in turn were to grant benefices to their warrior contingents, who were a mix of free and unfree men. In the century or so following Charlemagne's death, his newly empowered warrior class grew stronger still, and Charles the Bald declared their fiefs to be hereditary, and also issued the Edict of Pîtres in 864, largely moving away from the infantry-based traditional armies and calling upon all men who could afford it to answer calls to arms on horseback to quickly repel the constant and wide-ranging Viking attacks, which is considered the beginnings of the period of knights that were to become so famous and spread throughout Europe in the following centuries. The period of chaos in the 9th and 10th centuries, between the fall of the Carolingian central authority and the rise of separate Western and Eastern Frankish kingdoms (later to become France and Germany respectively) only entrenched this newly landed warrior class. This was because governing power and defense against Viking, Magyar and Saracen attack became an essentially local affair which revolved around these new hereditary local lords and their "demesnes".


title: Knight

text: Clerics and the Church often opposed the practices of the Knights because of their abuses against women and civilians, and many such as St. Bernard, were convinced that the Knights served the devil and not God and needed reforming.


title: Knight

text: In the course of the 12th century knighthood became a social rank, with a distinction being made between "milites gregarii" (non-noble cavalrymen) and "milites nobiles" (true knights). As the term "knight" became increasingly confined to denoting a social rank, the military role of fully armoured cavalryman gained a separate term, "man-at-arms". Although any medieval knight going to war would automatically serve as a man-at-arms, not all men-at-arms were knights.


title: Knight

text: The first military orders of knighthood were the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre and the Knights Hospitaller, both founded shortly after the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Order of Saint Lazarus (1100), Knights Templars (1118), the Order of Montesa (1128), the Order of Santiago (1170) and the Teutonic Knights (1190). At the time of their foundation, these were intended as monastic orders, whose members would act as simple soldiers protecting pilgrims.


title: Knight

text: It was only over the following century, with the successful conquest of the Holy Land and the rise of the crusader states, that these orders became powerful and prestigious.


title: Knight

text: The great European legends of warriors such as the paladins, the Matter of France and the Matter of Britain popularized the notion of chivalry among the warrior class. The ideal of chivalry as the ethos of the Christian warrior, and the transmutation of the term "knight" from the meaning "servant, soldier", and of "chevalier" "mounted soldier", to refer to a member of this ideal class, is significantly influenced by the Crusades, on one hand inspired by the military orders of monastic warriors, and on the other hand also cross-influenced by Islamic (Saracen) ideals of "furusiyya".


title: Knight

text: The institution of knights was already well-established by the 10th century. While the knight was essentially a title denoting a military office, the term could also be used for positions of higher nobility such as landholders. The higher nobles grant the vassals their portions of land (fiefs) in return for their loyalty, protection, and service. The nobles also provided their knights with necessities, such as lodging, food, armour, weapons, horses, and money. The knight generally held his lands by military tenure which was measured through military service that usually lasted 40 days a year. The military service was the "quid pro quo" for each knight's fief. Vassals and lords could maintain any number of knights, although knights with more military experience were those most sought after. Thus, all petty nobles intending to become prosperous knights needed a great deal of military experience. A knight fighting under another's banner was called a "knight bachelor" while a knight fighting under his own banner was a "knight banneret".


title: Knight

text: A knight had to be born of nobility – typically sons of knights or lords. In some cases, commoners could also be knighted as a reward for extraordinary military service. Children of the nobility were cared for by noble foster-mothers in castles until they reached the age of seven.


title: Knight

text: These seven-year-old boys were given the title of "page" and turned over to the care of the castle's lords. They were placed on an early training regime of hunting with huntsmen and falconers, and academic studies with priests or chaplains. Pages then become assistants to older knights in battle, carrying and cleaning armour, taking care of the horses, and packing the baggage. They would accompany the knights on expeditions, even into foreign lands. Older pages were instructed by knights in swordsmanship, equestrianism, chivalry, warfare, and combat (but using wooden swords and spears).


title: Knight

text: When the boy turned 14, he became a "squire". In a religious ceremony, the new squire swore on a sword consecrated by a bishop or priest, and attended to assigned duties in his lord's household. During this time, the squires continued training in combat and were allowed to own armour (rather than borrowing it).Squires were required to master the “"seven points of agilities"” – riding, swimming and diving, shooting different types of weapons, climbing, participation in tournaments, wrestling, fencing, long jumping, and dancing – the prerequisite skills for knighthood. All of these were even performed while wearing armour.


title: Knight

text: The accolade or knighting ceremony was usually held during one of the great feasts or holidays, like Christmas or Easter, and sometimes at the wedding of a noble or royal. The knighting ceremony usually involved a ritual bath on the eve of the ceremony and a prayer vigil during the night. On the day of the ceremony, the would-be knight would swear an oath and the master of the ceremony would dub the new knight on the shoulders with a sword. Squires, and even soldiers, could also be conferred direct knighthood early if they showed valor and efficiency for their service; such acts may include deploying for an important quest or mission, or protecting a high diplomat or a royal relative in battle.


title: Knight

text: Knights were expected, above all, to fight bravely and to display military professionalism and courtesy. When knights were taken as prisoners of war, they were customarily held for ransom in somewhat comfortable surroundings. This same standard of conduct did not apply to non-knights (archers, peasants, foot-soldiers, etc.) who were often slaughtered after capture, and who were viewed during battle as mere impediments to knights' getting to other knights to fight them.


title: Knight

text: Chivalry developed as an early standard of professional ethics for knights, who were relatively affluent horse owners and were expected to provide military services in exchange for landed property. Early notions of chivalry entailed loyalty to one's liege lord and bravery in battle, similar to the values of the Heroic Age. During the Middle Ages, this grew from simple military professionalism into a social code including the values of gentility, nobility and treating others reasonably. In "The Song of Roland" (c. 1100), Roland is portrayed as the ideal knight, demonstrating unwavering loyalty, military prowess and social fellowship. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival" (c. 1205), chivalry had become a blend of religious duties, love and military service. Ramon Llull's "Book of the Order of Chivalry" (1275) demonstrates that by the end of the 13th century, chivalry entailed a litany of very specific duties, including riding warhorses, jousting, attending tournaments, holding Round Tables and hunting, as well as aspiring to the more æthereal virtues of "faith, hope, charity, justice, strength, moderation and loyalty."


title: Knight

text: Knights of the late medieval era were expected by society to maintain all these skills and many more, as outlined in Baldassare Castiglione's "The Book of the Courtier", though the book's protagonist, Count Ludovico, states the "first and true profession" of the ideal courtier "must be that of arms." "Chivalry", derived from the French word "chevalier" ('cavalier'), simultaneously denoted skilled horsemanship and military service, and these remained the primary occupations of knighthood throughout the Middle Ages.


title: Knight

text: Chivalry and religion were mutually influenced during the period of the Crusades. The early Crusades helped to clarify the moral code of chivalry as it related to religion. As a result, Christian armies began to devote their efforts to sacred purposes. As time passed, clergy instituted religious vows which required knights to use their weapons chiefly for the protection of the weak and defenseless, especially women and orphans, and of churches.


title: Knight

text: In peacetime, knights often demonstrated their martial skills in tournaments, which usually took place on the grounds of a castle. Knights could parade their armour and banner to the whole court as the tournament commenced. Medieval tournaments were made up of martial sports called "hastiludes", and were not only a major spectator sport but also played as a real combat simulation. It usually ended with many knights either injured or even killed. One contest was a free-for-all battle called a "melee", where large groups of knights numbering hundreds assembled and fought one another, and the last knight standing was the winner. The most popular and romanticized contest for knights was the "joust". In this competition, two knights charge each other with blunt wooden lances in an effort to break their lance on the opponent's head or body or unhorse them completely. The loser in these tournaments had to turn his armour and horse over to the victor. The last day was filled with feasting, dancing and minstrel singing.


title: Knight

text: Besides formal tournaments, they were also unformalized judicial duels done by knights and squires to end various disputes. Countries like Germany, Britain and Ireland practiced this tradition. Judicial combat was of two forms in medieval society, the feat of arms and chivalric combat. The feat of arms were done to settle hostilities between two large parties and supervised by a judge. The chivalric combat was fought when one party's honor was disrespected or challenged and the conflict could not be resolved in court. Weapons were standardized and must be of the same caliber. The duel lasted until the other party was too weak to fight back and in early cases, the defeated party were then subsequently executed. Examples of these brutal duels were the judicial combat known as the Combat of the Thirty in 1351, and the trial by combat fought by Jean de Carrouges in 1386. A far more chivalric duel which became popular in the Late Middle Ages was the "pas d'armes" or "passage of arms". In this hastilude, a knight or a group of knights would claim a bridge, lane or city gate, and challenge other passing knights to fight or be disgraced. If a lady passed unescorted, she would leave behind a glove or scarf, to be rescued and returned to her by a future knight who passed that way.


title: Knight

text: One of the greatest distinguishing marks of the knightly class was the flying of coloured banners, to display power and to distinguish knights in battle and in tournaments. Knights are generally "armigerous" (bearing a coat of arms), and indeed they played an essential role in the development of heraldry. As heavier armour, including enlarged shields and enclosed helmets, developed in the Middle Ages, the need for marks of identification arose, and with coloured shields and surcoats, coat armoury was born. Armorial rolls were created to record the knights of various regions or those who participated in various tournaments.


title: Knight

text: Knights used a variety of weapons, including maces, axes and swords. Elements of the knightly armour included helmet, cuirass, gauntlet and shield.


title: Knight

text: The sword was a weapon designed to be used solely in combat; it was useless in hunting and impractical as a tool. Thus, the sword was a status symbol among the knightly class. Swords were effective against lightly armoured enemies, while maces and warhammers were more effective against heavily armoured ones.


title: Knight

text: One of the primary elements of a knight's armour was the shield, which could be used to block strikes and projectiles. Oval shields were used during the Dark Ages and were made of wooden boards that were roughly half an inch thick. Towards the end of the 10th century, oval shields were lengthened to cover the left knee of the mounted warrior, called the kite shield. The heater shield was used during the 13th and the first half of the 14th century. Around 1350, square shields called bouched shields appeared, which had a notch in which to place the couched lance.


title: Knight

text: Until the mid-14th century, knights wore mail armour as their main form of defence. Mail was extremely flexible and provided good protection against sword cuts, but weak against blunt weapons such as the mace and piercing weapons such as the lance. Padded undergarment known as aketon was worn to absorb shock damage and prevent chafing caused by mail. In hotter climates metal rings became too hot, so sleeveless surcoats were worn as a protection against the sun, and also to show their heraldic arms. This sort of coat also evolved to be tabards, waffenrocks and other garments with the arms of the wearer sewn into it.


title: Knight

text: Helmets of the knight of the early periods usually were more open helms such as the nasal helmet, and later forms of the spangenhelm. The lack of more facial protection lead to the evolution of more enclosing helmets to be made in the late 12th to early 13th centuries, this eventually would evolve to make the great helm. Later forms of the bascinet, which was originally a small helm worn under the larger great helm, evolved to be worn solely, and would eventually have pivoted or hinged visors, the most popular was the hounskull, also known as the "pig-face visor".