Guinevere

Guinevere (/ˈɡwɪnəvɪər/ ^ⓘ GWIN-ə-veer; Welsh: Gwenhwyfar pronunciation^ⓘ; Breton: Gwenivar, Cornish: Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous, and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. The variably told motif of abduction of Guinevere, or of her being rescued from some other peril, features recurrently and prominently in many versions of the legend.

The earliest datable appearance of Guinevere is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical British chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, in which she is seduced by Mordred during his ill-fated rebellion against Arthur. In a later medieval Arthurian romance tradition from France, a major story arc is the queen's tragic love affair with her husband's best knight and trusted friend, Lancelot, indirectly causing the death of Arthur and the downfall of the kingdom. This concept had originally appeared in nascent form in Chrétien de Troyes's poem Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart prior to its vast expansion in the prose cycle Lancelot-Grail, consequently forming much of the narrative core of Thomas Malory's seminal English compilation Le Morte d'Arthur. Other themes found in Malory and other texts include Guinevere's usual barrenness, the scheme of Guinevere's evil twin to replace her, and the particular hostility displayed towards Guinevere by her sister-in-law Morgan.

Guinevere has continued to be a popular character featured in numerous adaptations of the legend since the 19th-century Arthurian revival. Many modern authors, usually following or inspired by Malory's telling, typically still show Guinevere in her illicit relationship with Lancelot as defining her character.

The original Welsh form of the name is Gwenhwyfar (also Guenhuibhar, Gwenhwyvar), which seems to be cognate with the Irish name Findabar (the name of the daughter of Queen Medb and Ailill mac Máta in the Ulster Cycle); Gwenhwyfar can be translated as "The White Fay/Ghost", from Proto-Celtic *Windo- "white" + *sēbro "phantom" (cognate with Old Irish síabar "a spectre, phantom, supernatural being [usually in pejorative sense]"). Some have suggested that the name may derive from Gwenhwy-fawr, or "Gwenhwy the Great", as a contrast to Gwenhwy-fach, or "Gwenhwy the Little/Lesser". Gwenhwyfach (also spelled Gwenhwyach) appears in Welsh literature as a sister of Gwenhwyfar, but Welsh scholars Melville Richards and Rachel Bromwich both dismiss this etymology (with Richards suggesting that Gwenhwyfach was a back-formation derived from an incorrect interpretation of Gwenwhy-far as Gwenhwy-fawr). A cognate name in Modern English is Jennifer, from Cornish.

The name is given as Guennuuar (Guennuvar) in an early Latin text Vita Gildae. Geoffrey of Monmouth rendered it in a Latinized form as Guenhuuara (Guenhuvara – but some manuscripts and thus modern editions also spell it with an M as in Guenhumara or Ganhumara, possibly stemming from scribal error confusing "uu/uv" for "um") in his Historia Regum Britanniae, further turned into Wenhauer (Wenhaiuer) by Layamon (Gwenayfer in one manuscript) and into both Genoivre and Gahunmare in Wace's Roman de Brut. Chronicler Gerald of Wales refers to her as Wenneuereia (Wenneveria) and the popular romancer Chrétien de Troyes calls her Guenievre (Guenièvre). The latter form was retained by the authors of Chrétien-influenced French prose cycles, who would use also its variants such as Genievre (Genièvre) or Gueneure. Her many other various names appearing through the different periods and regions of medieval Europe include both Gaynour and Waynour (Waynor[e]) in the English poems Alliterative Morte Arthure and The Awntyrs off Arthure, Genure (Gaynor) in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, Guenloie in the Romanz du reis Yder, Guenore in Sir Gawayn and þe Grene Knyȝt, Gwenvere (Guennevere, Guenera, Gwenner) in the Polychronicon, and Gwendoloena (Gwendolen) in De Ortu Waluuanii. Her name is almost invariably Ginover (Ginovere) in Middle German romances (e.g. by Hartmann von Aue, Heinrich von dem Turlin, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven) but was written Jenover by Der Pleier, and the audience of Italian romances got to know her as Ginevra (Zenevra, Zenibra). In the 15th-century Britain, she was called Gwynnever in the Middle Cornish play Bewnans Ke, while the Middle English author Thomas Malory originally wrote her name as Gwenever or Gwenivere (Guenever, Guenivere) in his seminal compilation Le Morte d'Arthur. Some assorted other forms of her name in the Middle Ages and Renaissance literature of various countries and languages have included Ganor, Ganora, Gainor, Gainovere, Geneura, Guanora, Gueneour, Guenevera, Gwenore, Gwinore, Ntzenebra, Vanour, Vanore (Wanore).

In one of the Welsh Triads (Trioedd Ynys Prydein, no. 56), the 13th-century series of texts based on the earlier oral tales of the bards of Wales, there are three Gwenhwyfars married to King Arthur. The first is the daughter of Cywryd of Gwent, the second of Gwythyr ap Greidawl (a supernatural figure), and the third of (G)ogrfan Gawr ("the Giant"). In a variant of another Welsh Triad (Trioedd Ynys Prydein, no. 54), only the daughter of Gogfran Gawr is mentioned. There was once a popular folk rhyme known in Wales concerning Gwenhwyfar: "Gwenhwyfar ferch Ogrfan Gawr / Drwg yn fechan, gwaeth yn fawr (Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Ogrfan Gawr / Bad when little, worse when great)." An echo of the giantess-Guinevere tradition appears in local folklore regarding the Queen's Crag boulder at Simonburn in England.

The earliest datable mention of Guinevere (as Guenhuvara, with numerous spelling variations in the surviving manuscripts) is in Geoffrey's Historia, written c. 1136. It relates that Guinevere, described as one of the great beauties of Britain, was educated under Cador, Duke of Cornwall. The other chronicles typically have Cador as her guardian and sometimes relative. According to Wace, who calls Cador an earl, Guinevere was descended from a noble Roman family on her mother's side; Layamon too describes her as of Roman descent, as well as being related to Cador. Much later English chroniclers, Thomas Gray in Scalacronica and John Stow in The Chronicles of England, both identify Cador as her cousin and an unnamed King of Biscay (the historical Basque country) as her father.

Welsh tradition remembers the queen's sister Gwenhwyfach and records the enmity between them. Two Triads (Trioedd Ynys Prydein, no. 53, 84) mention Gwenhwyfar's contention with her sister, which was believed to be the cause of the disastrous Battle of Camlann. In the Welsh prose Culhwch and Olwen (possibly the first known text featuring Guinevere if indeed correctly dated c. 1100), Gwenhwyfach is also mentioned alongside Gwenhwyfar, the latter appearing as Guinevere's evil twin in some later prose romances. German romance Diu Crône gives Guinevere two other sisters by their father, King Garlin of Gore: Gawain's love interest Flori and Queen Lenomie of Alexandria.