Robbins Library Digital Projects Announcement: We are currently working on a large-scale migration of the Robbins Library Digital Projects to a new platform. This migration affects The Camelot Project, The Robin Hood Project, The Crusades Project, The Cinderella Bibliography, and Visualizing Chaucer.

While these resources will remain accessible during the course of migration, they will be static, with reduced functionality. They will not be updated during this time. We anticipate the migration project to be complete by Summer 2025. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us directly at robbins@ur.rochester.edu. We appreciate your understanding and patience.
Back to top

Morgause

Morgause

Character Name Variants: Morgawse, Morcades, Bellicent, BelisentBackground Essay Author: Emily Rebekah Huber
Although Morgause remains, even in many modern Arthurian texts, a relatively minor character compared with women like Guinevere and Morgan le Fay, her small role is a crucial one. According to Thomas Malory, she is one of the three daughters of Igrayne and the Duke of Cornwall, half-sister to Arthur, and later, the wife of King Lot of Orkney and the mother of Gawaine, Gaheris, Agravaine, Gareth, and Mordred. Depending on the text, the same character has the name Anna (Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regnum Brittaniae, Layamon's Brut) or Belisent (Alliterative Morte Arthure, Tennyson's Idylls of the King). Because of her minor role, she is frequently, as in John Boorman's film Excalibur, conflated with her more infamous sister, Morgan le Fay. While she is usually eclipsed by Morgan, Morgause is best-known for committing incest when she sleeps with Arthur and conceives Mordred. In medieval texts, specifically the French Vulgate cycle and the Prose Merlin, Arthur is attracted to a woman identified only as King Lot's wife and deceives her into thinking he is her husband. It is only afterward that Arthur realizes he has committed incest. Mordred is the product of this union.

Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur depicts Morgause as a woman ignorant of her relation to King Arthur at the time of Mordred's conception, receptive of Lamorak's love towards her, and overwhelmed with motherly concern for her young son Gareth. Truly, the only strike against her in this text is the fact that she commits...

Read More