King Arthur and King Edward

The tournament at Hem-Monacu in France in 1278 had a strong Arthurian theme: the participants dressed as up as the Knights of the Round Table, and scenes from the legend were played out between jousts. From the outset, the herald proclaimed that the tournament was held in honour of Queen Guinevere, represented by a supposedly allegorical figure called the ‘dame de Courtoisie’. The dame was played by the sister of Aubert de Longueval, one of the organisers.

The dame was also the central figure of the tornoi, and held court on a scaffold raised above the arena. Before the jousts began, she gave an explanatory prologue to the crowd. During interludes between combats, she would explain her plans for the rest of the day’s proceedings. Some of her exposition, recorded by the poet Sarassin, reveals much about contemporary attitudes towards Edward I and English knights.

At the start of the tornoi, the dame urges that King Arthur and his knights should be invited to compete: “...en le Haute Bretainge, De coi li Graaus nous ensegne, Que le rois Artus en fu sires.”

A version of the Trojan conquest of Britain was then recited, followed by Merlin’s construction of Stonehenge. Finally the Knights of the Round Table are invoked:

“La [en Angleterrej trueve on les bons jousteours, Les durs, les roides et les fors. Lancelos... Et Gavains... Et cil de la Table Reonde, Qui furent li millor du monde, La sont chevalier de valour, La sont mout de bon jousteour, La sont li chevalier hardi. Cix qui en est sires et rois ... preus et largues et courtois, ... le... roi Edouwart.”

(There [in England] you'll find good fighters, hard men, tough and strong. Lancelot and Gawain and the men of the Round Table, who were the best in the world. There are knights of reputation, there are many good jousters, there are brave knights. ... and him who is their lord and king, the valiant, generous and benevolent

Edward I

king Edward.')

In this verse, King Edward has been fused with the legendary King Arthur and in fact displaced him: it is now Edward, not Arthur, who leads Lancelot and Gawain and the men of the Round Table. This would have been music to Edward’s ears, not least because it came from a French trouvére rather than his own English minstrels. It would have been sheer wormwood for the Capetian king, Philip III, who had to endure a number of unflattering comparisons between himself and cousin Edward, usually from the troubadours of Aragon and southern France.

 (Thanks to Rich Price for the translation.)