GUENEVERE, the wife of King Arthur. Geoffrey of Mon mouth, who calls her Guanhumara, makes her a Roman lady, but the general tradition is that she was of Cornish birth and daughter to King Leodegrance. Wace, who, while translating Geoffrey, evi dently knew and used popular tradition, combines these two, as serting that she was of Roman parentage on the mother's side but cousin to Cador of Cornwall, by whom she was brought up. The tradition relating to Guenevere is decidedly confused : the Welsh Triads know no fewer than three Gwenhwyfars. Giraldus Cam brensis, relating the discovery of the royal tombs at Glastonbury, states that the body found was that of Arthur's second wife. The prose Merlin gives Guenevere a bastard half-sister of the same name, who strongly resembles her, and the prose Lancelot relates how this lady, trading on the likeness, persuades Arthur that she is the true Guenevere, and the queen the bastard supplanter. This episode of the false Guenevere is very perplexing. The relations with early Irish tradition, where the name appears as Findabhair (Guenevere) add another element to the confusion.
To the majority of English readers Guenevere is best known in connection with her liaison with Lancelot, a story which forms no part of the early Arthurian tradition. The Lancelot-Guenevere romance took form and shape in the latter part of the 12th cen tury, amid the artificial atmosphere encouraged by such patron esses of literature as Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie, Comtesse de Champagne (for whom Chretien de Troyes wrote his Chevalier de la Charrette, where Lancelot first appears as Guene vere's lover), and reflects the low social morality of a time when love between husband and wife was declared impossible. The tra dition of Guenevere's infidelity is, however, of much earlier date, and probably formed part of the genuine Arthurian tradition. The stories vary ; sometimes she is the unwilling victim of an abduc tion, sometimes she figures in a guilty flight with her lover. The Vita Gildae relates how she was carried off by Melwas, king of Aestiva Regis (Somerset), to Glastonbury, whither Arthur, at the head of an army, pursued the ravisher. A fragment of a Welsh poem seems to confirm this tradition, which certainly lies at the root of the story of her abduction by Meleagant, told by Malory. In the Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven the abductor is Falerin, a magician. The story in these forms represents an other-world abduction. A curious fragment of Welsh dialogue, printed by Sir John Rhys, appears to represent Kay as the abductor. In the chronicles, and the romances based upon them, the abductor is Mordred, and the queen is no unwilling victim. On the final defeat of her lover she retires to a convent, where she takes the veil and is no more heard of ; Wace says, emphatically : ne fu oie ne veue, ne fu trovee, ne seue, por la vergogne del mes f ait et del pecie qu'ele avoit fait (II, 13,627-30).
Layamon, who certainly utilized insular tradition, says that she was reported to have drowned herself, and that her memory and that of Mordred were hateful in every land, so that none would offer prayer for their souls. The truth seems to be that we are dealing here with a mixture of mythic elements and pseudo-historic tradition. The story of Guenevere's abduction belongs to the for mer, that of her betrayal of her husband, with a near relative, and consequent flight, to the latter.
See Sir J. Rhys, Studies on the Arthurian Legend (1891) ; J. L. Weston, The Legend of Sir Lancelot 09°0; R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (1928) . (J. L. W.)