As the quote that opens this chapter illustrates, Guinevere’s name can be seen in common rhyme as well as in high literature. Another example is an eleventh or twelfth century Welsh poem called “Ymddiddan Melwasa Gwenhwyfar” (“The Dialogue of Melwas and Gwenhwyfar”). In this story, an imprisoned Guinevere mocks Melwas, calling him short and making fun of his youth (and one can surmise, naiveté) while her rescuer, Cai, waits for his turn to fight him. Here Guinevere is no victim; she is calm, intelligent, and even provokes violence between Cai and Melwas,36 a very different interpretation than we will see in later years, suggesting she may well have started out as a heroine in her own right.
However, it is literature that gives us the closest thing we have to “proof” of Guinevere’s existence before the year 1100. The earliest mention we have is in two stories within The Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh tales first written down between 1100-1225. Guinevere’s name is mentioned three times in “Culhwch and Olwen,” believed to be the earliest known reference to her.37 In this story, as Estelle Vallas explains, Arthur treats her as a possession, naming her last in the list of exceptions to the boon he offers to the hero Kulwch. “He begins with the biggest item he owns and enumerates smaller objects until he finishes off with his dagger, and finally, his wife. Guinevere’s purpose is to add beauty to his surroundings, which reinforces his magnificence and pride.”38
While this may sound like a massive dose of male chauvinism (and it is), it is also at least partially accurate and likely reflects attitudes of the time. As Jean Markale points out, in the Celtic world, “the laws protecting [women] were made by men living in an androcratically structured society,”39 so they reflect male concerns and prejudices. Celtic women may have had many rights and served alongside their men as warriors, but they were still bought and paid for with a bride price or coibche, which is much like a dowry, only a portion of it was set aside for the woman.40
These women were better off than their counterparts in other ancient cultures, but the Celtic world was not a matriarchal utopia, nor did its women have equal rights. Celtic studies scholar Sharon Paice MacLeod writes, “Officially women did not generally have an enormous amount of independent legal capacity.”41 They could not act as a witness, could not enter into contracts without their husband or father’s consent, and had limited rights of property ownership and inheritance.42 “Strangely, a queen had no official or special legal rights independent of her husband,” 43 MacLeod notes. Peter Ellis agrees. “No serious commentator can argue that Celtic women lived in a socially liberated paradise. On the other hand, the society they lived in was a truly remarkable one and women enjoyed considerable freedoms compared to their Greek and Roman sisters, not to mention the women of the restrictive, militaristic Anglo-Saxon culture.”44
In addition to “Culhwch and Olwen,” Guinevere also appears in The Mabinogion stories of “Rhonabwy’s Dream,” “Peredur, Owein and Lunet,” and “Gereint and Enid.” Here we see the germ forming of the Arthurian legend that later audiences will come to know well. Arthur is said to have three sons, Gwydre, Llacheu, and Amhar, but none of them are connected to Guinevere, so either that fact wasn’t mentioned or Arthur had another wife. While Arthur was away, another powerful warlord named Medraut pillaged Arthur’s lands and took his throne. He took Gwehywfar from the throne and raped her. Later, he returned and kidnapped her. In these stories, she has a champion who has two affairs and then happily marries a faithful wife. At no time is there a hint of any affair involving Guinevere. In fact, she is known to have a peaceful relationship with her husband.45
“Culhwch and Olwen” is likely the source of the two love triangles we will see in later Arthurian legend, between Guinevere/Lancelot/Arthur and Isolde/Tristan/Mark. In this story, a woman named Creiddylad is desired by both Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwythyr ap Greidawl. They appeal to King Arthur for help in ending their feud. He rules that they will “fight over her every May day til doomsday,”46 designating her the Flower Bride of spring, who is fought over by summer and winter—a popular theme in Celtic legend.47 When this myth is applied to the Arthurian legend, “the implication here is that Arthur, the older husband of a younger wife, is a winter rival for the hand of the lovely Flower Bride of Spring, while Melwas, whose realm is the Summer Country, represents the summer rival.”48 Later, this idea is passed on in the story of Tristan and Isolde, when Arthur rules that Tristan can have Isolde while the leaves are on the trees. At first, this may seem like Mark will get custody of her for the winter season, much like Hades does with Persephone, but Isolde sees the greater wisdom. Because the holly, ivy, and yew (and the pine) never lose their leaves, Arthur is really saying she can stay with Tristan always.
Our other ancient source is the Welsh Triads, a group of related stories dating from 1235 though likely first written down in the ninth century,49 that preserve early folklore, mythology, and oral history. They are called triads because everything is listed in groups of three, which was likely a mnemonic device to help the early bards remember copious amounts of information. Three was also a sacred number to the Celts.
Guinevere appears in four of the triads: 53, 54, 56, and 80. Since their numbers don’t indicate the order in which they should be read, we will examine them in order of richness of information, least to most.
Triad 56
“Three Great Queens of Arthur’s Court:
Gwehywfar daughter of Cywyrd Gwent, and
Gwehywfar daughter of Gwyther ap Greidawl, and
Gwehywfar daughter of Gogfran the Giant.”
— Triad 56
The meaning of this triad is the subject of great debate among scholars. Barbara Gordon-Wise notes that the inclusion of three Guineveres could have been a joke whose meaning has been lost over time, or despite popular opinion, it could literally mean Arthur had three wives of the same name.50 British scholar and expert on medieval Welsh literature Rachel Bromwich argues that Celtic tradition gives us precedence for multiple siblings bearing the same name, especially if they are twins or triplets. In her book about the Welsh Triads, Trioedd Ynys Prydein, she writes:
Early Irish sources provide instances in which three brothers (sometimes born together at a single birth) receive the same name, though with a distinguishing epithet; and triad 70 serves as a reminder that similar triple-births were not unknown in early Welsh narrative. Irish literature also provides examples of groups of three brothers in which the group seems to be no more than a multiplication of a single personage: one character alone acts, while the others accompany him through life, and are led by him in everything. It is apparent that this literary convention has a mythological basis, since in both Irish and Gaulish mythology there are various instances in which deities are portrayed as alternately, either in a single or triple form in which the members are incompletely differentiated.51
Despite this argument, few scholars take the meaning that way. Rather, it is believed to be symbolic. John Rhys says Guinevere is synonymous with the three Etains, faeries or goddess-like women of Celtic legend.52 Arthurian and Celtic myth expert Caitlin Matthews says the three represent the triune goddess—usually called Maiden, Mother, and Crone—or perhaps “the personification of Britain as a Lady, the Land of Britain as a Mother, and the Sovereignty of Britain as a Queen.”53 Matthews and her husband John point out in their book on King Arthur that “it is not without significance that the father of the second Gwehywfar in this triad is one of the rival men in the primordial and eternal love triangle from Culwch and Olwen: Gwythyr ap Greidawl. This suggests that Gwehywfar’s role in the Arthurian legend derives from a much earlier mythic understanding: that she shares the self-same allure as her mother, the original Flower Bride.”54
Triad 80
In Triad 80, which appears to be an extension of Triad 56, Guinevere is listed as one of the unfaithful wives of Britain as in Traid 56, but with a new line added at the end: “One was more faithless than those three: Gwenhywfar, Arthur
’s wife, since she shamed a better man than any of the others.”
Damning words, to be sure. Joseph Duggan argues that this triad is proof “that Guinevere was accepted as an adulteress in Welsh tradition.”55 But many scholars believe that this might have been a later addition, written after Geoffrey of Monmouth introduced Guinevere’s affair with Mordred to the canon of Arthurian legend.56
Triad 53
“Three Harmful Blows of the Island of Britain:
The first of them Mathloch of the Irishmen struck upon Branwen daughter of Llyr;
The second Gwennhwyfach struck upon Gwenwhyfar: and for that cause there took place afterwards the action of the Battle of Camlan;
And the third Golydan the poet struck upon Cadwaladr the Blessed.”
There is rampant speculation among scholars as to the meaning of this dolorous blow. John and Caitlin Matthews theorize that it could possibly stem from Arthur “putting aside one wife in order to marry her sister.”57 Some versions of Triad 53 have Gwenwhyfar striking the first blow. Gordon-Wise believes this may symbolize that the women of the Celts were powerful warriors whose actions determined the fate of a nation.58 But given the information currently available from historians and archeologists, this is likely wishful, romantic thinking,59 though women in the Celtic world had greater power and rights than many of their counterparts throughout the world.60 Others feel that Triad 53 may show an early tradition that the Battle of Camlann came about due a dispute among women.61 Even if this dispute didn’t carry on into modern Arthurian tradition, this triad did influence the Vulgate Cycle of Arthurian legend, where the two Guineveres, one true and one false, were given much more life.
Triad 54
“Three Violent Ravagings of the Island of Britain.
One of them (was) when Medrawd came to Arthur’s Court and Celliwig in Cornwall; he left neither food nor drink in the court that he did not consume. And he also dragged Gwenhwyfar from her royal chair and then he struck a violent blow upon her.
The second Violent Ravaging (was) when Arthur came to Medrawds’s court. He left neither food nor drink in the court nor in the cantref;
(And the third Violent Ravaging was when Aedden the Treacherous came to the court of Rhdderch Hael at Alclud (= Dumbarton); he left neither food nor drink nor beast alive.)”
Triads 53 and 54 are related in that they both tell of some kind of quarrel between Gwenwhyfar and her sister Gwennhwyfach, an argument that brought about the battle of Camlan. In Triad 53, one of the sisters strikes the other. In Triad 54, it is Mordred who strikes Guinevere. Either way, it is a serious offense. According to Bromwich, “a blow struck upon the queen was one of three forms of sarhaed, or insult, which demanded the payment of a heavy fine.”62 A fine may not sound overly punitive, but this was the primary vehicle by which the Celts meted out justice, even in the case of serious crimes such as rape or murder. To attach a heavy fine to striking a queen’s person shows how seriously this society took the crime.
John and Caitlin Matthews believe that Triad 54 may be a small remembrance of a lost story in which Medrawd’s blow upon Gwenhwyfar was symbolic of the attempted toppling of Arthur through the imagining of his virility and the taking of his wife—events that chroniclers Wace and Layamon take up and develop in the twelfth century. This would put Medrawd, as Arthur’s nephew and foster son, in the place of a much older myth: nothing less than the struggle of the summer and winter rivals for possession of the Flower Bride.63
Whatever the meaning of is the Welsh Triads, before they were even written down, Guinevere was on the minds of the Celtic people, where she would stay for the next 1,500 years. Many see the evidence as showing that she began with a besmirched reputation, which would only get worse. To some, she was born a brat and would grow into one of the most notoriously unfaithful wives in British literature. To others, she was simply a queen who was wrongfully struck, an act which led to war.
On the other hand, Arthurian scholars Peter Korrel and Lori Walters believe that Guinevere began with a good reputation. Walters writes that “Guinevere’s reputation in Welsh literature was fairly positive, although it contained some contradictions that may be the result of later additions.”64 If that is the case, she had nowhere to go but down, and she quickly did, as we will see.
* * *
35 Matthews, Dark Age Warrior, 37.
36 Matthews, John and Caitlin, The Complete King Arthur, 176.
37 Ibid., 174.
38 Vallas, Estelle, “Feminist Icon or Ruthless Warrior? Guinevere in Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles,” in Theorising the Popular, ed. Michael Brennen (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), 138.
39 Markale, Jean, Women of the Celts (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 1986, 1972), 247.
40 Ellis, Peter, Celtic Women: Women in Celtic Society and Literature (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 122.
41 Macleod, Sharon Paice, Celtic Myth and Religion: A Study of Traditional Belief (Jefferson:North Carolina, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2012),188.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 189.
44 Ellis, Peter, Celtic Women,. 141.
45 Walters, "Introduction," xv.
46 Matthews, John and Caitlin, The Complete King Arthur, 176-177.
47 Ibid., 177.
48 Ibid.
49 Fries, Maureen, “The Poem in the Tradition of Arthurian Literature” in The Alliterative Morte Arthure: A Reassessment of the Poem, ed. Karl Heinz Goller (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer), 31.
50 Gordon-Wise, The Reclamation of a Queen, 43.
51 Bromwich, Rachel, Trioedd Ynys Prydein (Cardiff: U of Wales, 2014),162-163.
52 Rhys, John, Studies in Arthurian Legend, 35.
53 Woodbury, Sarah, “Guinevere (in Welsh Gwenhwyfar),” accessed July 12, 2017, http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/guinevere-in-welsh-gwenhwyfar/ .
54 Matthews, John and Caitlin, The Complete King Arthur, 178.
55 Duggan, Joseph J., The Romances of Chrétien de Troyes (New Haven:Yale UP, 2014), 332, n 13.
56 Fulton, Helen, “Arthur and Merlin in Early Welsh Literature: Fantasy and Magic Naturalism,” in A Companion to Arthurian Literature, ed. Helen Fulton (Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 92.
57 Matthews, John and Caitlin, The Complete King Arthur, 142.
58 Gordon-Wise, The Reclamation of a Queen, 91-92.
59 Much like the idea of pre-Christian Celtic matriarchal society. Although matrilineal societies, in which power is passed through the female line to men, are documented as existing.
60 MacLeod, Celtic Myth and Religion,185.
61 Gordon-Wise, The Reclamation of a Queen, 44; Bromwich, Trioed, 151, n. b.
62 Bromwich, Rachel, Trioedd, 152.
63 Matthews, John and Caitlin, The Complete King Arthur,180.
64 Walters, "Introduction," xiv.
CHAPTER THREE
The Middle Ages Part One:
Gildas and Geoffrey of Monmouth
Women in the Middle Ages
Few characters in literature are as synonymous with their time period as King Arthur is with the Middle Ages. While that is not the time period in which scholars believe he would have lived—if indeed he is ever proven to be a real person, most place him in the late fifth or early sixth century—in many ways, it is appropriate because the Middle Ages was when Arthurian legend flowered and became the story most of us know.
But the attention of the bards was not evenly fixed on all characters. As Bonner writes,
While the image of Arthur in these works of the Middle Ages is detailed and magnificent, the image of his wife created in these same work
s could hardly be considered thoroughly developed, much less entirely positive or negative. The reasons for Guinevere’s lack of development in these works are easy to grasp. First of all, they were composed in the Middle Ages: the role of women in medieval heroic literature is minimal and consists mainly of references to childbearing, childrearing, and domesticity. Second, Geoffrey, Wace and Layamon had the specific intention of chronicling the lives and exploits of kings. Third, all of these works were written by celibate church men, men who probably had little concept of the day-to-day actions or responsibilities of a female, much less her emotions or her thoughts.65
While all of these are true statements, there may be another dynamic at work. The Middle Ages are widely considered one of the worst times in history to be female. Jacquelyn Sweeney Johnson explains, “In this land, where the priests emphasize the superiority of men, women—recognized as descendants of immoral Eve—are relegated to low stature. They are depicted as breeders, corruptors or martyred virgins…women are used to progress the story and then are quickly discarded. In a Christian world dominated by men, the woman’s role is strictly to support the life, or storyline, desired by men.”66
While differences in age, class, religion, and location meant medieval women had a myriad of experiences, some conditions were nearly universal. “Medieval woman were classified according to their sexual status: men might be thought of collectively as knights, merchants, crusaders; women were virgins, wives or widows. They were also, of course, mothers.”67 The most common occupations for peasant women were servants, laborers, brewers of ale, bakers, or spinners.68 And of course, they were expected to keep house, with all of the washing, cooking, and other associated chores. Women could inherit land and earn and lend money, but upon marriage they forfeited any independence and turned over legal and financial matters to their husbands.69 In towns, women often participated in their husband’s businesses and sometimes even kept them running after the husband died.70 Women in the aristocracy regularly oversaw the household, acted as executors to their wills and sometimes even defended the estates while their husbands were away.71
The Once and Future Queen Page 4
