Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings. Today’s blog post is about the famed Arthurian rivalry between Lancelot and Gawain. Although both are important Knights of the Round Table, they are often shown to be at odds with each other. That is why I want to go over some of the origins of why they are believed to have developed this rivalry!
Gawain begins his journey as a Knight of the Round Table, a much beloved Knight who is always willing to help Arthur and protect Guinevere. He gets even more importance due to his being Arthur’s nephew and a possible successor to the throne of Camelot for that reason. The reasons he is a possible successor to the throne are twofold, firstly Arthur has no son of his own, and secondly, as the son of Arthur’s sister, he has even more right to the throne than a son of the King due to the old Celtic custom of matrilineal succession, where a King is chosen through the mother line! This matrilineal succession means that the son of the King’s sister is always the most likely successor to the throne.
As for Lancelot, he is not introduced to the Arthuriad until a bit later, but he is forever shown as Arthur’s favorite Knight and most beloved friend. Now, that leads me to what I think is the first reason for their rivalry. Gawain may be very hard on Lancelot due to his belief that Lancelot may have unseated him as Arthur’s favorite! Even with Gawain’s sway as a possible next King, being in the current King’s favor is always desired at Court, we see this time and time again in real royal history, and it certainly comes up in the Arthurian legends often. Everyone would want to be Arthur’s favorite, and Gawain was, but he was then overshadowed by Lancelot!
Lancelot is also often viewed in an idealized light by Arthur, but he is ultimately the one to betray him due to Lancelot’s adulterous love for Guinevere. Clearly, this is another reason for Gawain to dislike Lancelot, and Lancelot to mistrust Gawain due to fear that Gawain could know of the affair! Gawain may also be a bit bitter about the fact that Guinevere prefers Lancelot above all other Knights when he himself had protected her many times in early tales. It is crystal clear to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Arthuriad that the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere would have impacted the entirety of the Court of Camelot, most especially the other Knights of the Round Table. Gawain being Arthur’s family would likely have felt an even deeper sense of betrayal than other Knights.
The final reason for Lancelot and Gawain’s rivalry is my favorite. As this brings in the Goddess nature of both Morgan le Fay and Guinevere. After Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Morgan le Fay becomes a patroness of Gawain as an important Knight and possible future King of Camelot. Gawain had been tested by Morgan the Goddess, as she is literally referred to by Sir Bertilak in the tale, and won her support moving forward. So, when Lancelot is shown as having unwavering loyalty to Guinevere, he is choosing to be aligned with a rival Goddess, and to also be a possible rival to the title of next King of Camelot! I think that is the true root of the rivalry between these two great Knights of the Round Table.
I hope you have enjoyed this short look at the rivalry between Lancelot and Gawain. Which of the two is your favorite Knight? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is Lancelot. I found the image on https://melissa-a-benson.pixels.com/featured/sir-lancelot-melissa-a-benson.html.
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Further Reading
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
- Sir Gawain: Knight of the Goddess by John Matthews
4 responses to “The Rivalry Between Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain in the Arthurian Legends”
This is great! I’ve always found the rivalry between the two of them intriguing, mostly because of what you mentioned; the relatable idea of Gawain’s jealousy of Lancelot for many reasons. (Also the fact that Gawain is Scottish and Lancelot is French, and Scotland and France’s cultures/history can be at odds much of the time 😂) But omg the idea of the two of them aligning themselves with Arthuriana’s two main goddess figures…this makes SO much sense!! It even makes sense involving Christianity; aside from Guinevere’s association with the Goddess/Blodeuwedd archetype, Guinevere can also later be known to represent the Christian side of Camelot, which Lancelot sides with deeply, while Morgan represents the pagan side, and as a man of Orkney, Gawain would side with those beliefs. But I especially love the idea of their alignment with two different patron goddesses! I wish this was commonly mentioned in more modern Arthurian books!! 💜✨
Thanks! I loved the idea and I’ve wanted to write about it for a while, so I’m definitely glad I got around to it. The book by John Matthews that I mentioned in my further reading section goes into it on the Gawain side of things! I definitely agree that you can think of Lancelot as more ‘Christianized’ than Gawain as the legends evolve over the centuries and become more Christianized. However, I definitely wanted to focus on the older variants with the two Goddesses! 💚🧚👸👑
Love it, I’ll be thinking about this all day 😂❤️ And I’ll definitely check out John Matthews’ book!
So glad that I gave you some food for thought! I hope you enjoy the book.📖