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This article reopens the question of the relationship between the medieval Welsh version of the Grail narrative, the Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, and the French Conte du Graal of Chrétien de Troyes. It explores the seeming inconsistencies in the Welsh tale’s presentation of the Grail procession, and suggests that the hero’s actions, and in particular his reticence in asking questions about the procession, should be read in the context of medieval Welsh customs and legal tradition. The article concludes with an exploration of the implications of the proposed interpretation for the reading of Historia Peredur as a postcolonial narrative.

When a reader encounters the Latin romances Historia Meriadoci and De ortu Waluuanii in BL MS Cotton Faustina B VI, the romances are only the first two in a set of three texts copied by the same scribe on the same occasion. The third text, following directly on De ortu Waluuanii, is an abstract of books 1–6 of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s De gestis Britonum. While valuable in its own right as a witness to the DGB’s use and manuscript circulation, the abstract is presented and investigated here for what it may tell us about the Latin romances’ own transmission and reception, which have long been shrouded in mystery. As I argue, the abstract’s juxtaposition with the romances is no accident, and figures importantly in the romances’ presentation. Much as the opening stanzas of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight set the stage for King Arthur, in fact, the Latin synopsis begins with the fall of Troy and Brutus’ foundation of Britain before (much more expansively than the Gawain-poet) recounting the war and wrack of early British history, concluding with Merlin’s revelation to Vortigern of the warring dragons. In this and other ways this Galfridian abstract causes the Latin romances to quicken with correspondences to Geoffrey’s work; this effect may even suggest for the romances a date of composition not distant from that of the DGB itself. By exploring the interpretive possibilities of this widened manuscript context, the present paper seeks to initiate a re-examination of these mysterious Latin romances in relation to their Galfridian companion-text. This article concludes with an edition of the abstract itself, which until now has not been edited or translated.

This article explores the devices employed by the medieval Welsh narrator of Owain, or Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn (‘The Story of the Lady of the Well’), to convey emotions and the mental states of his characters to his audiences. Although he generally remains inaudible, he uses, at some crucial points, words and phrases denoting emotions in a narrow sense, such as love, sadness and shame, in order to direct and steer the audiences’ perception and their understanding of the narrative. A comparison with thematically related texts, Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain, and its Old Norse, Old Swedish and Middle English translations, helps to assess the narrative role of literary emotions in the Welsh text.

On the verso of the last leaf of a twelfth-century manuscript containing the poetry of Hilarius, a student of Abelard, appears a faux charter purporting to have been issued by Arthur, king of the Britons, in the hundredth year of his immortality. In the act, Arthur thanks the descendants of his British subjects for their fidelity and grants them an exclusive franchise to fish in secret rivulets. The privilege contains two prohibitions: one prohibiting Britons from wearing shoes and the other prohibiting them from owning cats. This article provides a diplomatic edition, English translation and analysis of King Arthur’s Charter. It identifies the strange stipulations of the charter as tropes of anti-Breton satire, attested also in the Privilège aux Bretons (c. 1240), an Old French song that mocks the customs and occupations of impoverished Breton immigrants to thirteenth-century France.

David Jones’s last important painting, Tristan ac Essylt, shows its central figures surrounded by other people, beset by dangers, and being carried inexorably towards their meeting with King Mark, to all of which they are sublimely unconscious. Jones renders the world in which the lovers are set, and particularly the ships in which they travel, with a mixture of historical authenticity (whose full extent has often eluded commentators) and non-naturalistic freedom that suggest simultaneously a powerful physicality and the possible presence of hidden forces working to other ends

This article surveys some of the main contributions of female scholars to the study of Arthurian literature in the Celtic languages from the nineteenth century to the present day. Scholarship by women has been integral to the study of Celtic Arthurian literature since the translations of native Welsh texts by Lady Charlotte Guest. Since then, women’s contributions have been foundational to the field, influencing theories of transmission, analysis and the standard editions of much Arthurian material in Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and Breton. They remain vital to the life of Arthurian scholarship, and the final section addresses contributions by younger scholars whose lasting influence remains to be seen.

The little known Latin Arthurian narrative Historia Meriadoci presents many challenges. Was it written in the twelfth century, in which case it is an early example of Arthurian romance, or is it later, in which case it reflects already developed motifs? It uses numerous romance themes – separated family, dispossessed heir, young knight arriving at Arthur’s court – but the protagonist leaves the Arthurian milieu quite early on, and pursues a military career more characteristic of epic on the continent. Arthur is presented in a rather disparaging light, as an unjust ruler (there is considerable emphasis on legal issues). This may reflect Welsh traditions in which he is not always an idealized king. But the story is written in Latin: who was the author, and what was the target audience? Does the fact that it was written in Latin, presumably for a largely clerical audience, explain the lack of interest in love, and in detailed accounts of courtly life, which one might expect to find in a vernacular romance? The author seems to draw on historical accounts of European wars as well as more legendary material. The mixture of romance and epic in this text may be compared with the Latin verse narrative Ruodlieb, produced in Germany in the late eleventh century. The Ruodlieb is much more elaborate in style and in plot, but also draws on a wide range of sources to produce a hybrid narrative which might be aimed at a similar audience, well-educated but ready to enjoy a range of heroic adventures, aware of Arthur but not averse to criticism of him.