Although Arthur was a legendary Romano British king or warlord, supposed to have repelled the earliest Anglo-
Saxon invasions of Britain who was first mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin Historia regum brittaniae
(History of the Kings of Britain), Arthur’s court was the prime locus of literary chivalry not just in medieval English
literature, but more generally throughout Western Europe. Arthurian romances exist in French, English, Welsh,
German, Icelandic and Czech. This course will primarily consider verse romances in Middle English, but with
comparative analysis of traditions in other languages with the intention of demonstrating that the so called Matter
of Britain, was in fact a common creative property of the entire Latinate Western European region.
Last update: Horáčková Karolína, Bc. (06.01.2025)
Although Arthur was a legendary Romano British king or warlord, supposed to have repelled the earliest Anglo-
Saxon invasions of Britain who was first mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin Historia regum brittaniae
(History of the Kings of Britain), Arthur’s court was the prime locus of literary chivalry not just in medieval English
literature, but more generally throughout Western Europe. Arthurian romances exist in French, English, Welsh,
German, Icelandic and Czech. This course will primarily consider verse romances in Middle English, but with
comparative analysis of traditions in other languages with the intention of demonstrating that the so called Matter
of Britain, was in fact a common creative property of the entire Latinate Western European region.
