jeffjerwin

Note that Clovis' conquest of Ganis/Aquitaine was historically a challenge to Theodoric's alliance with his fellow Goths. In the Tavola Ritonda Ganis allies with Rome against Arthur during the Downfall... much later but suggests the same dynamic. Though that would be the Byzantines by the 550s. Edit: French chivalric romances and as I recall the Mirror of History by Ostremeuse depicted the dynasty of Rheims/Austrasia as 'better' than the other French states, since they lionized 'Good King Dagobert' and linked him to Charlemagne's ancestry.

Though there is the whole confusion as to who Claudas represents - Clovis or one of his sons? The sons definitely warred among each other and hence Frankish rulers could be on both sides (and probably would have been). Clovis would not have supported Theodoric's ambitions and might have cultivated Arthur as a potential client king...

It re-occurs in 536 I think anyway.

Also, Lothian has broken up into subkingdoms with Lot's death.

That's possible, though there's no sign of a fairy origin in Welsh legend - instead, as in GoM's Historia Merlini, he goes mad after seeing the slaughter at Arfderydd, near Carlisle... It is possible, however, that there has been contamination/cross-influence from Mongan, also a mad prophet/wizard who was reputed to be a son of the fairy Manannan mac Lir.

Yes, or 'broad lands'. It's cognate to the Irish Letha. It seems to have been the Insular Celts' name for everything south of the Channel, but Brittany/Armorica is the most relevant bit to most of these peoples...

Emhyr is one of the Welsh names for Budec, and comes from a word for 'emperor' = emhyr Llydaw = emperor of the Bretons. Budec appears separately as Bwydeg.

Budec has a son Hoel 'the elder' in Breton pseudo-history, who _also_ has a son Hoel the Young. In the chronology of the Breton chronicles, Budec is a hale man in the 460s, the elder Hoel fights for Arthur in the 510s and the younger rules in the 540s. But because that chronology places Camlann in the 530s, we are looking at something that wouldn't work in KAP. However it is the _younger Hoel_ who is the father of Isolt of the White Hands and whom Tristram serves, so we're still good. Originally Tristram was a post-Arthurian hero, and Mark came after Constantine. People wanted a crossover and so Tristram joined the Round Table and we ended up with both Cador (corrupted into Yder) and Mark as kings of Cornwall at the same time. But to keep the general flow of Breton saints and battles orderly I simply made the younger Hoel the one who also allied with Arthur. Hoel is frequently called King of Brittany as well as duke or count. He was probably a king in Breton and some lesser title in Latin and Frankish - If he existed, of course.

This tree will be extended into the Arthurian period in future books (that I worked on). It only illustrates some of the members of the family. Hoel is indeed a grandson of Budec, but was a youth when his grandfather died (his father is also named Hoel, but died fighting for Ambrosius), and Idres 'took him under his protection'... Meliau has a brother and a brother-in-law, Hoel's uncles, who also claim slices of Brittany. Hoel has sons named Ruvalen and Keyhidins, as well as Isolt of the White Hands. He is on his second marriage by the 530s, to the duchess who slanders Graelant.

Without the affair I would recommend making Mordred more shades of grey, because the great moral dilemma: save Guinevere or stand with the king would go away. Mordred, of course, is another alternate lover of Guinevere's, like Yder, Gosengos, and Gazonein (all being derived from Celtic demigods or gods: Yder is Edern ap Nudd, Gosengos is probably Aongus Og, and Gazonein/Gosenain/Goswain is I think Ossian, son of Finn).

Lancelot as we know him was invented by Chretien de Troyes in the 1180s; he seems to have invented (or misinterpreted - see below) the crucial aspect of his love for the queen. A version of him appears in Lanzelet (1190s). The Vulgate was written (essentially as fanfic of this romance) in c.1210-30. It certainly elaborated on the character. The Ur-Lancelot seems to have the following characteristics: He was the orphaned son of Ban/Pant of Benoic/Genewis/Ganis and had one Claudas as an enemy. He was raised by a water fairy, who gave him a magic ring and rudimentary knightly training... He conquered a magic castle and became its ruler by marrying the lord's daughter or widow, and later revenged himself on Claudas. This is all pretty normal stuff from a romance perspective. Chretien invented his love of Guinevere, which led to him displacing Mordred (in the Morte) as the cause of the Downfall (though Mordred still plays part of his original role). My suspicion is that he derives from a variant spelling of Gloyw Wlad-lydan, eponym of Gloucester and/or Caer Ligu, and Claudas is somehow connected to the Emperor Claudius, also connected to the city (which was said to be also called Claudiocestre), and that Gloucester, alias the Dolorous Tower, was the original of Joyous/Dolorous Garde; Claudius' legendary daughter Genvissa may have been conflated with Guinevere. But a variant version of the story calls him Ligualid or Lliwelydd [G-liw-welydd-an], and reveals that he was the eponym of Carlisle (Luguvalium) and hence shows that he was a folkloric version of the god Lugh or Llew. Lugh's father, like 'Lanzelet' slays a magical tyrant to marry his beautiful daughter, and Lanzelet's father, 'Pant' is seemingly a P-Celtic version of Cian, Lugh's father. Like the Welsh Llew, he was apparently invincible, though Lancelot lacks (in the extant stories) a geas that would slay him. So at some point a pan-Celtic legend about Lugos/Lugh/Llew was grafted into Gloucester's folklore about its founding, and Lancelot - who bears three bends like the De Clare Earls of Gloucester's three chevronnels (which look like three bends in profile) came to be an Arthurian hero - like Guy of Warwick did for the Carolingian romances in England. Llwch in Culhwch and Preiddeu Annnwfn is indeed an aspect of the same divinity. His out-of-placeness in Arthurian material arises because he really belongs to the pseudo-history of the 1st century (or even earlier, though the Mabinogi's Llew and Claudius both belong to that time), not the 6th.

Well, he comes from the verse romances. The Vulgate is after. Hence, he experienced inflation of his abilities, rather than reduction. He's a powerful but not superhuman knight in the Chevalier au Charette.

The only verse romance Galahad appears in is in the Dutch verse translations of the Quest, which don't alter his basic perfection... (Unless Galahad was originally Gwalchafed, brother of Gwalchmai/Gawaine and was originally the same as Gareth or Gaheris...).

Lancelot is not unbeatable in the verse romances; he's defeated more than once, though never for the long haul. Galahad is defeated at least once in the Post-Vulgate, but that work de-mythologizes the Grail Quest, and I think it went too far. Tristram and Lancelot fight to a draw as RichardA notes. This is in the Prose Tristan and the Post-Vulgate. Edit: Lancelot's plot/mechanical armor is in service of him being "the Best Knight in the World" (Galahad supplants him for a few years) - if that's overturned implicitly Galahad should be the son of a PK... King Arthur is never claimed to be in the top tier of the Round Table; he's too busy to stay in shape.

He's not unbeatable in Chretien and does take some wounds, he just is a juggernaut, and superhumanly strong... But if he was given less than a 40, under the rules, he would lose (and probably die) eventually. So it's a mechanical solution to the plot armor problem.

Well, Gwenhwyfach is dropped from KAP, but she's clearly the inspiration for the False Guinevere in the Vulgate (along with the story about Philippe Augustus' two wives, which is clearly being referenced). There's the intriguing mention of Guinevere as Arthur's 'second wife' on the inscription found in 'Arthur's tomb' in Glastonbury, which probably wouldn't have been put on the fake by the monks if there wasn't a story about it, though the first wife could have been Lyzianor. Vivianne/Nimue's imprisonment of Merlin might have been 'good' by some lights, as he is the son of the Devil and was sexually molesting her. I've never heard any version that has Elaine doing anything bad, though she's probably the original of the 'wife of the King of Scotland' who runs off with Meliadus, Tristan's father, though that's a variant of the Melwas/Meliagraunce story with the "abductor" as a hero - given that Melwas was originally from the southwest (and from Cornwall in one poem) the similarities are striking, right down to Meliadus' green livery, mentioned in Welsh poetry about Melwas. Overall Welsh material - like with Grainne and Diarmuid in Ireland - is far more tolerant and open about women straying or taking young lovers - than conventional romance stories. Morgan's tendency to do so also probably has something to do with her evolution into a villain. I think the key lies in that Celtic (and French verse) storytelling is a profession of wandering/court poets (who often seek female patronage) and the prose romances were adapted by monks. So we may be skeptical about the "False Guinevere's" villainy in that light. She may simply have been Guinevere's rival, more loyal to Arthur but also more vengeful, and Guinevere's love affairs are pretty much a normal aspect of young and beautiful queens... though the Art Oenfer story in Ireland does depict an unfaithful queen whose sexual transgressions lead to a Wasteland, though there there is a whiff of incest, like with Mordred and Guinevere.

Interestingly, in the Welsh material there are few out and out villains (even Medraut is praised) except for Gwenhwyfach, Guinevere's evil sister (and she likely had her positive side too, but we know her only in allusions in the Triads and poetry). Even Osla Big-knife, a Saxon leader, is an ally of Arthur's in the Dream of Rhonabwy, though that poem may deliberately overturn tradition as a satire. In which case Osla is presumably a Saxon enemy at Badon. Vortigern probably had a heroic tradition, given the number of lineages claiming descent from him, like Maelgwn, who is a mix of good and bad. It's only in the French sources that Morgan (who is a good person, more or less, in Welsh sources), Melwas/Meliagance, Mordred, and probably Agravain (Ogyrfran) are described as villains. My own campaign uses Klingsor as a sympathetic villain (though pretty evil), Meliagraunce, the Queen of the Out Isles (Brian's mistress), Brian, and Mordred as villains, but a lot of good people including Arthur make terrible decisions. My Cornish campaign, which is now finished, had Merlin as a villain.

Interesting, though as a Welsh person I should point out that Gwendydd is the 'sane' sister, implicitly good, who tries to rescue Merlin/Myrddin from his madness and is the interlocutor with Myrddin in several poems attributed to him. Of course, the whole incubus story isn't Welsh: it appears first in the Didot Perceval as I recall. Though the Indo-European twin legends traditionally ascribed divine or supernatural origins to only one of the twins, i.e., the Dioscuri and the Hasdingi. But it's certainly creative, and I'm curious to see how things go in your story.

In the summer of 535-6 all Europe was covered in a dense fog... (Which I link to the Wasteland). It's thought to have lasted months, long enough to have destroyed the harvest.

There are several examples of wives and sisters etc of robber knights in Arthurian romance, and they never suffer for the male members of their family's actions in a physical, immediate way, though sometimes they lose their lands or the goods that were stolen. There is a motif found repeatedly of them betraying their cruel family member but it's not expected of them. Edit: this is related to a folktale motif called the "Giant's Daughter" I believe, where the hero kills the evil man and marries their daughter, widow or sister (as in Culhwch). For some time folklorists thought it strange and unlikely but in my experience cruel and evil men are often also cruel and evil to their female relations, not simply to outsiders.

The Old Welsh/Cymric word for 'knight' is marchawc, literally, 'horseman'.

Parzival places the castle in Wales. You can send me a private message if you want the rundown but I may end up publishing it, so I'm reluctant to put it in a public forum. The Conte du Graal and Parzival are full of Welsh names, though people have been looking in the wrong places. It's clear that Wolfram may have gotten his Grail material from parallel, now lost, traditions that were left out of Chretien. His Kyot has been identified (very plausibly) with Michael Scot, Frederick II's British necromancer and astrologer.

Well, I'm Welsh so I may have some bias, but Arthur appears in sources that date to before the Templars, or their influence, such as in the 9th century Nennius and the the 10th century Annales Cambriae. Also no romance places the Grail Castle in France before the 14th century Jungerer Titurel, and that places it apparently in Brittany. (the Queste would be rendered incoherent by putting it outside of the British Isles, because the wasteland is specifically linked to the 'sinfulness of the Britons') Edit: Arthur is attested as widely known and part of legend in Cornwall in 1113 (the account of the monks of Laon), before the Templars gained property there in the 12th century.

I was referring to Lancelot's Lac, not the one in Switzerland (as Atgxg suggested they might be the same). They aren't the same in KAP -we're agreeing here. Now, who knows if they used to be the same or were the same in some tradition - in one reference in the Vulgate the Dame du Lac's home is on the 'borders of Burgundy', which used (as the Arelat) to include Lausanne, which was indeed on its boundary. I think the Welsh cat came first and was associated with possibly non-Arthurian giant cat (cave lion?) legends around the region, though who knows... if Arthur died in Burgundy, i.e., was Riothamus, maybe he did fight a big cat in the area, though I don't know how the geography got displaced. The name is overtly Welsh and means speckled cat, which is why the Welsh story is apparently older. I think Arthur and Riothamus are two distinct figures who got conflated, but this is getting off topic. There are interestingly quite a few lions in Arthurian romance.

Not in KAP canon, where the Lac is clearly in Gascony or Poitou (in Breton legend, of course, it is in Broceliande, and in the Vulgate, apparently near the Loire). I think the Cath Palug is firmly in North Wales in Welsh stories. It appears in the Triads, for example. However there was an Arthurian tradition associated with Savoie and Dauphine near Lausanne, or likely was, as both Parzival/Titurel and the Bel Inconnu contain allusions to the noble families in the area - the Dauphins d'Albon/Vienne and the relations in the latter of Renaut de Bauge, the author. There seems to be a link between Gawaine and the Forez in Diu Krone as well. The Counts of Forez included several Artauds (alias Artu) ) in the 1100s. The Dauphins de Vienne were descended from one Mathilde, who may have been related to St. Margaret and Edmund Ironside, though the legend may have been inspired by the very name 'Albon'. But this may have been just the fashion: the 'del Carreto' family of Liguria also adopted an Arthurian legend, taking Lancelot's coat of arms (del Carreto = 'of the Cart') and naming their sons after Arthurian heroes. The Capalu or Chat palu is associated with faerie and Morgan le Fay and Oberon in the Chansons de Geste.