rhia's academic lectures

forcing you to read my essays on my interests. today we are discussing Lancelot: Knight of the Cart

This is the very first text that introduces the character Lancelot as we know him today. Written by Chretien de Troyes for his patron Marie de Champagne, this story focuses on Lancelot as he goes to rescue his lover Queen Guinevere who has just been kidnapped. Lancelot had previously appeared in one of Chretien's earlier works but was simply a background character. What follows is a rough summary of the tale:

Queen Guinevere gets kidnapped by this prince named Meleagant who is a completely piece of shit. She gets taken to his castle but thankfully Meleagant still has to listen to his daddy King Bademagu who is like whoa whoa whoa dude not cool. And he puts Guinevere in a guarded room so Meleagant can't touch her. He doesn't try to return her though so like. okay.... Anyways Lancelot and Guinevere are of course having their affair and Lancelot immediately springs into action to save her. He springs a little too hard and rides 2 horses to death and then gets in a cart driven by a dwarf for transportation, but the cart is used to transport criminals who are to be executed so he gets humiliated by townsfolk who think he's a criminal. He doesn't care though because he's sopping wet and in love and will take any amount of abuse to save his queen. he then goes through a few more ridiculous trials like fighting dudes with axes and crossing a bridge that's actually a sword which slices him up. He eventually makes it to save Guinevere and she kind of blows him off because he hesitated for 1 millisecond getting into the cart. It is never explained how she knows this and we as the readers are to assume that true love gives you a psychic mind link that lets you know when your boo thing is being unfaithful by not getting in the execution cart. Guinevere over it when Lancelot comes to her window at night and he's so horny he's able to rip the iron bars on the window out and climb in where they then go at it like animals. Unfortunately he cut his hand real bad and neither of them noticed while they were fucking raw and nasty so Lancelot puts the bars back and goes to his own room and in the morning everyone finds Guinevere asleep in a bloody bed. She almost convinces them it was a nosebleed or something but then Kay (who had also been trapped at this castle because he was with Guinevere when she got kidnapped) walks in with a convenient injury so Meleagant accuses Kay and Guinevere of having an affair. Lancelot shows back up and challenges Meleagant to a fight to protect Guinevere's honor and they agree to do it in a year, but Guinevere can go home in the meantime. Anyways Lancelot's ass is susceptible to the machinations of dwarves and dwarf tricks him and traps him in a tower. He's literally stuck there for the whole year until he strikes a bargain to be let go just for the tournament and then he'll go back there. When he shows up at the tournament Guinevere is like hmmmm. If you love me you'll lose. So he throws the tournament until Guinevere changes her mind and goes okay now beat their asses and he hulks out and wipes out the competition with the power of Being In Love. Another duel is set for the next year, and then he goes back to his shitty little tower jail. There was a minor detail earlier that I didn't mention where Lancelot saved a woman from a kidnapping and it turns out that's Meleagant's sister! So she gives him an axe while he's in his shitty little tower jail and he chops through straight brick somehow. Anyways Lancelot makes it to the last duel just in time and finally beheads Meleagant and then he and Guinevere do one of those awkward coworker side hugs because they're in public and can't raw each other right then and there the end.

Anyways this story is fascinating bc Chretien de Troyes fucking HAAAAAAAAATED affairs and courtly love. His patron on the other hand was the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine who more or less invented courtly love. Courtly love if you're not familiar is the concept that true love is impossible to find within marriage and must be found outside of it and was mainly popular with noble women who were in arranged marriages. Guinevere herself is in an arranged marriage to King Arthur, so it's likely that Marie de Champagne saw something of herself in Guinevere and requested a lover be given to her, hence the invention of Lancelot. Interestingly, Chretien de Troyes gave up writing this piece after Lancelot gets trapped in the tower, after which it's hastily wrapped up by a guy named Godefroi de Leigni. There's many theories on why this is ranging from Godefroi is a dude Chretien made up to Chretien rage quit, but I think the latter is the most interesting. Since Chretien openly hated courtly love, I believe he got mad, wrote an ending where Lancelot was trapped forever, and Godefroi had to tack on a happy ending to please their patron.

Anyways it's a really good little story if you ever feel like reading it, highly recommend.

they hate it when WOMEN win so they put them in a guarded room smh

i swear to god the men in these stories are always fucking trifling why cant they go away and let guinevere have some nasty affair sex for once

literally word let women do what they want

Thanks for sharing, Chunke! I liked your essay about Lancelot: Knight of the Cart!

Ha Ha thanks Dott

also RIGHT literally just leave women alone. lancelot can stay though he goes through trials for women #soppingwet

hello class, today's essay is on Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat (aka my favorite arthurian character ever)

The very first written versions of Elaine's story that we have pop up around the 13th century. The story generally goes the same way between all versions (although some shorten it considerably)

A tournament is being held and Lancelot originally doesn't want to fight in it, but is persuaded otherwise and goes to stay at the castle of Astolat which is near the tournament site (completely normal thing to do do in these stories, knights regularly take shelter at homes of people they've never met before). This castle is home to Lord Bernard, his two sons, and his daughter Elaine. Elaine is said to be lovely and kind but is not married due to her not having ever fallen in love with anyone. To everyone's surprise, she immediately is besotted with Lancelot (i mean me too girl. and i'm a lesbian so i get it.). She asks Lancelot to wear her token (one of her sleeves, a golden color i believe) to the tournament, and Lancelot is such a sopping wet flop (positive) of a man he doesn't realize this has romantic implications and is like you seem nice sure okay . But he does say he has to fight in disguise if he wears her favor which should be a little suspicious to Elaine but she's just like yeah cool sure! Lancelot never wears the favors of anyone when he fights because he has pledged his heart to Guinevere and Guinevere will surely be at the tournament and get pissed if she saw Lancelot with another woman's sleeve. While he fights in disguise using one of Elaine's brother's shields he gives Elaine his shield to take care of, and she sews a cute little cover for it

So Lancelot goes off to fight the tournament and in it he gets gravely injured. He's brought back to Astolat where Elaine takes care of him in secret. Lancelot is adamant that no one can know where he is or that he's injured, because that would surely give away that it was him fighting in the tournament with another woman's token like a slut!!!!!!! In some versions Gawain goes out seeking to find where Lancelot has gone bc he's been gone like over a month and does end up finding him and Elaine tells Gawain she's fallen in love with Lancelot and Gawain is like "ah yes that makes sense he's hot as shit. good choice." but Lancelot tells Gawain to keep hush hush and he does. Months later Elaine has nursed Lancelot completely back to health and is head over heels for him but he goes to leave and she's like heyyyyy are you like interested in me at all. I will literally marry you right now. Or be your mistress if you're not into the marriage thing. Or we can just bone once and I'll be good. And Lancelot is like completely confused bc his ass led her on without even thinking and he's like heyyyy sorry. Can't do that. And she's like why not? And he's like I can't say why. And she's like if you give me a reason we'll be cool. And he's like I can't give you a reason. If I pay you 500 bucks will you leave me alone. And she's like wow okay so you led me on for months and now you're blowing me off and you won't even tell me why? And you think money will solve it? I guess I'll just go die about this.

And then she goes and dies about it.

BUT BEFORE she dies, while she's on her deathbed, she's telling everyone to make some really bizarre funeral preparations. First of all she wants a boat and she wants it filled with lillies. Then she wants them to lay her in the boat in some beautiful ethereal garments. Then she wants them to send the boat off down the river, either with no one on board or a mute boatman to steer depending on the story. Why? She doesn't want anyone speaking over her bc she's about to roll up to Camelot with a strongly worded letter and she's not going to mince words!!!

Lancelot has headed back to Camelot far before Elaine starts dying and he's living normally again boning the queen behind Arthur's back and what have you. One day everyone is chilling around the river and up rolls this boat with this hot dead chick in it and everyone is like freaked the fuck out by it. Arthur sees it though and he's like omg a dead woman this is so sad so he approaches the boat and sees the corpse is clutching a letter, so he grabs it and reads it.

Depending on the version of the story the letter is either mean as all hell and accuses Lancelot of killing her and says that his reputation should be besmirched (absolutely hilarious girl you died to spite him he didn't do that) or the letter is generally very nice and extols all of Lancelot's virtues but does mention that she died over the love of him and requests he give her a nice burial. Either way Arthur is PISSED he's like wow Lancelot I can't believe you would kill this innocent woman by not fucking her. Can't believe you. And Guinevere is also pissed bc she thinks her boytoy has been cheating on her with this hot dead woman. So Lancelot slinks off like a dog that has just been yelled at and goes to prepare a really nice burial. And then everyone in Camelot forgets about this in like a week.

Now this story is very fascinating to me for many reasons. On the surface, a lot of feminists have had issues with it, but when you're holding it in the lens of medieval society Elaine is actually given more agency than most female characters in literature at the time. She's a fascinating character because there is emphasis on her being allowed to choose who she wishes to marry and her actively choosing to be unmarried up to that point because she hasn't found anyone she loves. This is extremely unusual in the medieval era, especially for noblewomen who generally were married off for political connections. These types of marriages are very prominent in arthurian legend, so it's not just a case of fiction not reflecting reality. Another thing she has quite a bit of agency over is her death. In particular, the emphasis on her not wanting anyone on board the boat who can speak is a very unique aspect. In some versions she also says it's important that no one open  her letter before she arrives either. Surely anyone in this time period would seek to curb these sharp words from a good noblewoman, but Elaine wishes for her message to be given exactly as it is and her wishes are upheld.

On top of that, Elaine is portrayed very differently in earlier versions of the legend where she's more manipulative and calculating with her attempts to get Lancelot to love her. It makes for an interesting duality of character when some of these interpretations land somewhere in the middle.

But perhaps the more compelling version of Elaine comes from the Victorian era with Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott. This poem was written after Tennyson misread the 13th century Italian text about Elaine, La Damigella di Scalot, and interpreted it to be about a cursed damsel. He later said if he had known the story proper he would have never written that poem that way, and did eventually do a proper retelling of Elaine's story in Idylls of the King.

But thankfully for us, his misinterpretation gave us one of the most interesting arthurian tellings of all time.

The poem revolves around the mysterious Lady of Shalott, a woman trapped in a tower by a curse. She sits in front of a mirror and weaves what she sees day and night, never allowed to turn around and look towards Camelot directly lest the curse take her life. The farmers who work the fields around her tower listen to her sing all day and call her a fairy, meanwhile she watches the world pass through the mirror with weary eyes, sick to death of not being able to experience any life out there. One day as she's weaving, Lancelot passes by on his way to Camelot. He stops at a nearby river to let his horse drink, and the Lady's mirror catches a good glace of him. She's so taken by him that she forgets about the curse momentarily and turns to get a better look. Instantly, the mirror cracks to pieces and her weaving undoes itself, and she cries "The curse has come upon me!". She watches Lancelot ride off, unaware of he existence or what has just happen, and she makes her way downstairs as she's dying. There's a little boat on the river and she unchains it and writes her name on the prow, then she climbs into it and the river takes her down to Camelot, singing her own death song as her blood freezes in her veins and her heart stops. The people of Camelot look upon her mournfully, and by the time the boat reaches Camelot, Lancelot has returned. He pays his respects and says that she had a lovely face.

This version of the story is so compelling to me it makes me SICK!!!!!!! The mysterious unexplained curse, the visuals of the mirror cracking and the weaving undoing itself, her singing her own death song, Lancelot seeing her body and saying she was lovely without even knowing she died over him. OH MY GOD!!!!!!! I WILL THROW UP OVER THIS!!!!! IN A GOOD WAY. Listen. I have a lot of beef with Tennyson bc he hated Guinevere but he wrote my favorite poem of all time here so I gotta give it up to him. This is the treatment that Elaine's story deserved.

Anyhow, Elaine has also been immensely popular in art. Victorians in particular were absolutely besotted with with both the original Elaine and the Lady of Shalott, mainly because they were freaks who loved beautiful dead women. Although, with suicide being an extremely taboo subject, the interpretations had to dance the line of not making Elaine seem too dead. Tennyson did a rewrite of his poem later where he had to change some of the language surrounding the Lady's dying moments to make them less visceral.

Anyways here's some art!


Elaine by Toby Edward Rosenthal


Elaine- The Fair Maid of Astolat by George William Joy


I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, said the Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse

And of course Waterhouse's more famous Lady of Shalott is present in my signature image  

Thanks for reading!

What an interesting read.....Elaine and Guinevere would probably be my favs if I was as into Arthurian legend as you are

Dott wrote:

What an interesting read.....Elaine and Guinevere would probably be my favs if I was as into Arthurian legend as you are

Love to hear that!!! Guinevere is definitely my second fav she’s so complex and interesting

having the time of my LIFE reading this thanks rhia for the meal
i shall await the next one eagerly