Rex rebellis to courtly knight: King Arthur in the medieval Brittonic traditions

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This project will offer the first comparative analysis of the figure of King Arthur in Breton, Cornish, and Welsh traditions, c.800-c.1500, addressing the influences on, and implications of, his transformation from rex rebellis to courtly knight. Although recent critical works like Arthur in the Celtic Languages (2019) offer separate overviews of Arthur's changing image in each geographical area, none has provided a synthetic, diachronic study of his presentation across medieval Brittany, Cornwall, and Wales. These cultures initially, to an extent, shared a common stock of folk narratives, subsequently receiving and reacting to the same range of Arthurian material, such as Arthurian romances and the Historia Regum Britanniae. This work will present the first scrutiny of how and why Arthur's character was manipulated by medieval writers from throughout the Brittonic world across the period. It thus offers both an original contribution to Arthurian studies, and a reconsideration of questions of vital interest to medievalists more broadly, especially the relationship between Celtic literatures in the vernacular and in Latin, and between these and the better-studied romance literatures of England and France. To highlight the similarities between, and nuances of, each area's Arthurian traditions, sources are organized into three chronological groups: c.800-c.1138, 1139-c.1300, and c.1300-c.1500. This thesis will have four chapters. Chapter One will examine the pre-Galfridian Brittonic Arthurian sources in the first chronological group. Chapters Two to Four will treat the post-Galfridian sources until c.1500, building on scholarship concerning the transmission of Arthurian elements from the Britons, to England and France, and back, but presenting an original, nuanced analysis: where Brittonic tales seem to have influenced Old French and Anglo-Norman Arthurian literature (or vice versa), the Breton, Cornish, and Welsh traditions will be differentiated. This project will thus enhance our understanding of engagement between Old French or Anglo-Norman texts and 'Celtic' traditions. By clarifying and elucidating the nuances of each Brittonic area's portrayals of Arthur (and Arthurian narrative), this research will contribute more broadly to Old French and Middle English literary scholarship, where the hazily-defined word 'Celtic' is often used indiscriminately to refer to the uncertain origins of any magical or mysterious elements - a problem that this thesis will help to address. Through both juxtaposing and differentiating the nuanced Arthurian traditions of Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany throughout the Middle Ages, this work will help to reframe scholarly assumptions about, and inform widespread perceptions of, these areas' individual cultural heritages and identities.