Mordred
Mordred or Modred is a major figure in the legend of King Arthur. The earliest known mention of a possibly historical Medraut is in the Welsh chronicle Annales Cambriae, wherein he and Arthur are ambiguously associated with the Battle of Camlann in a brief entry for the year 537. Medraut's figure seemed to have been regarded positively in the early Welsh tradition and may have been related to that of Arthur's son. As Modredus, Mordred was depicted as Arthur's traitorous nephew and a legitimate son of King Lot in the pseudo-historical work Historia Regum Britanniae, which then served as the basis for the subsequent evolution of the legend from the 12th century. Later variants most often characterised Mordred as Arthur's own and villainous bastard son, born of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, the queen of Lothian or Orkney named either Anna, Orcades, or Morgause. The accounts presented in the Historia and most other versions include Mordred's death at Camlann, typically in a final duel, during which he manages to mortally wound his own slayer, Arthur. Mordred is usually a brother or half-brother to Gawain; however, his other family relations, as well as his relationships with Arthur's wife Guinevere, vary greatly.
In a popular telling, originating from the French chivalric romances of the 13th century and made prominent today through its inclusion in Le Morte d'Arthur, Mordred is a power-hungry son of Arthur from the incest with Morgause, prophesied by Merlin and destined to bring Britain to ruin. He survives Arthur's attempt to get rid of him soon after his birth and, years later, joins his half-brothers Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth in Arthur's fellowship of the Round Table as a young and immoral knight. Eventually, Mordred learns of his true parentage and becomes the main actor in Arthur's downfall. He helps Agravain to expose the illicit love affair between Guinevere and Lancelot and then takes advantage of the resulting civil war to make himself the high king of Britain, ultimately leading to both his own and Arthur's deaths in their battle. Today, he remains an iconic character in many modern adaptations of Arthurian legend, in which he usually appears as a villain and the archenemy of Arthur.
Name
The name Mordred, found as the Latinised Modredus in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, comes from Old Welsh Medraut. It may be ultimately derived from Latin Moderātus, meaning "within bounds, observing moderation, moderate" with some influence from Latin mors, "death".Early Welsh sources
The earliest surviving mention of Mordred is found in an entry for the year 537 in the chronicle Annales Cambriae, which references his name in an association with the Battle of Camlann.This brief entry gives no information as to whether Mordred killed Arthur or was killed by Arthur, if they were fighting against one another at all, if they were fighting on the same side, or even if they died in the battle or were just defeated. As noted by Leslie Alcock, the reader assumes conflict between the two in the light of later tradition. The Annales themselves were completed between 960 and 970, meaning that they cannot be considered a contemporary source, having been compiled 400 years after the events they describe.
Meilyr Brydydd, writing at the same time as Geoffrey of Monmouth, mentions Mordred in his lament for the death of Gruffudd ap Cynan. He describes Gruffudd as having eissor Medrawd, as to have valour in battle. Similarly, Gwalchmai ap Meilyr praised Madog ap Maredudd, king of Powys as having Arthur gerdernyd, menwyd Medrawd. This would support the idea that early perceptions of Mordred were largely positive.
However, Mordred's later characterisation as the king's villainous son has a precedent in the figure of Amr, a son of Arthur's known from only two references. The more important of these, found in an appendix to the 9th-century chronicle Historia Brittonum, describes his marvelous grave beside the Herefordshire spring where he had been slain by his own father in some unchronicled tragedy. What connection exists between the stories of Amr and Mordred, if there is one, has never been satisfactorily explained.
An early 12th-century Italian high relief known as the Modena Archivolt seems to show a scene of abduction of Guinevere inspired by an original Welsh Arthurian tradition, perhaps as retold by Breton and other continental bards in their otherwise unrecorded oral stories. While often interpreted as that of Melwas, a mysterious figure identified as Mardoc may instead represent Mordred.
Depictions in legend
Geoffrey and Welsh tradition
In Geoffrey's influential Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136, Modredus is portrayed as the nephew of and traitor to King Arthur. Geoffrey might have based his Modredus on the early 6th-century "high king" of Gwynedd, Maelgwn, whom the 6th-century writer Gildas had described as a usurper, or on Mandubracius, a 1st-century BC king of the Trinovantes. The unhistorical account presented by Geoffrey narrates Arthur leaving Modredus in charge of his throne as he crosses the English Channel to wage war on Lucius Tiberius of Rome. During Arthur's absence, Modredus crowns himself as King of the Britons and lives in an adulterous union with Arthur's wife, Guenhuvara. Geoffrey does not make it clear how complicit Guenhuvara is with his actions, simply stating that the Queen had "broken her vows" and "about this matter... prefers to say nothing." Arthur returns to Britain and they fight at the Battle of Camlann, where Modredus is ultimately slain. Arthur, having been gravely wounded in battle, is sent off to be healed by Morgen in Avalon.A number of other Welsh sources also refer to Medraut, usually in relation to Camlann. One Welsh Triad, based on Geoffrey's Historia, provides an account of his betrayal of Arthur; in another, he is described as the author of one of the "Three Unrestrained Ravagings of the Isle of Britain" – he came to Arthur's court at Kelliwic in Cornwall, devoured all of the food and drink, and even dragged Gwenhwyfar from her throne and beat her. In another Triad, however, he is described as one of "men of such gentle, kindly, and fair words that anyone would be sorry to refuse them anything." The Mabinogion also describes him in terms of courtliness, calmness, and purity.
Life in romances
The 12th-century poems of the emerging chivalric romance genre such as those by Chrétien de Troyes, dealing with the adventures of various knights during Arthur's reign, would typically not mention Mordred at all. This changed through the 13th century, as the Old French cyclical prose romance literature greatly expanded on the history of Mordred prior to the war against Arthur. In the Prose Merlin part of the Vulgate Cycle, Mordred's elder half-brother Gawain saves the infant Mordred and their mother Morgause from being taken away as prisoners by the Saxon king Taurus. In the revision known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and consequently in Thomas Malory's English compilation Le Morte d'Arthur, Arthur is told a cryptic prophecy by Merlin about a newly-born child that is to be his undoing, and so he tries to avert his fate by ordering to get rid of all May Day newborns. Whether they were intended to be killed or merely sent off to a distant land, the ship on which the children were placed sinks and they drown. This episode, sometimes dubbed the "May Day massacre", leads to a war between Arthur and the furious King Lot, acting on his belief that he is the biological father of Mordred. Lot dies in a battle at the hands of Arthur's vassal king Pellinore, beginning a long and deadly blood feud between the two royal families. Meanwhile, however, and unknown to both Lot and Arthur, the baby miraculously survives. It turns out Mordred was found and rescued by a fisherman and his wife, who then raise him as their own son until he is 14. In this branch of the legend, following his early life as a commoner, the young Mordred is later reunited with his mother, which happens long after Merlin's downfall caused by the Lady of the Lake.The grown-up Mordred becomes involved in the adventures of his brothers, first as a squire and then as a knight, as well as others such as Brunor, eventually joining King Arthur's elite fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table. Especially since the Post-Vulgate, Mordred tends to be depicted as murderously violent and known for his un-chivalrous and lustful habits, including engaging in rape. Notably, it is Mordred who fatally stabs in the back one of the best Knights of the Round Table, Lamorak, in an unfair fight involving most of his brothers. Mordred displays stronger knightly values in the earlier Vulgate Cycle, where he is also shown as womanising and murderous, but to a significantly lesser degree. The Prose Lancelot describes Mordred, at the age of 20, as "a large, tall knight; he had curly, blond hair and would have had a very handsome face if his demeanour had not been so wicked." He becomes a protege and companion of the eponymous great knight Lancelot. The older knight comes to the young Mordred's rescue on multiple occasions, such as helping to save his life at the Castle of the White Thorn, and Mordred in turn treats the much older Lancelot as his personal hero. In this version, his turning point toward villainy happens after they meet an old hermit monk who begins to tell his own prophecy for the two "most unfortunate knights", revealing Mordred's true parentage by Arthur and predicting Mordred's and Lancelot's respective roles in the coming ruin of Arthur's kingdom. However, the angry Mordred kills the monk before he can finish. While Lancelot tells his secret lover Guinevere, she refuses to believe in the story of the prophecy and does not banish Mordred. The young knight, on his part, tries to get himself killed before accepting his destiny. The Prose Lancelot indicates Mordred was about 22 years old at the time, as well as just two years into his knighthood.
Mordred overthrows Arthur's rule when the latter is engaged in, depending on the version, either the war against Lancelot or the second Roman War that followed it immediately afterwards. In the Vulgate Mort Artu, Mordred achieves his coup with the help of a letter supposedly sent by the dying Arthur but actually forged by Mordred. The Mort Artu narration adds that "there was much good in Mordred, and as soon as he made himself elevated to the throne, he made himself well beloved by all," and so they were "ready to die to defend honor" once Arthur did return with his army. Mordred's few opponents during his brief rule included Kay, who was gravely wounded by Mordred's supporters and died after fleeing to Brittany. In the Vulgate Mort Artu, Arthur himself proposes him as a regent, while in the French-influenced English poem Stanzaic Morte Arthur, the council of Britain's knights first elects Mordred for the position in Arthur's absence as the most worthy candidate. The Alliterative Morte Arthure is a unique text in which Mordred is presented as not only a possibly better ruler than Arthur but also as reluctant to be left by Arthur in charge of Britain. In the later romances, as in the chronicles, the returning Arthur's veteran army is ambushed and nearly destroyed by Mordred's supporters and foreign allies during their sea landing at Dover, where Gawain is mortally wounded while fighting as Arthur's loyalist. Afterwards, a series of inconclusive engagements follows, until both sides agree to all meet each other at the one final battle, in which Mordred typically fights exceptionally well while commanding the loyalty of thousands of men willing to lay down their lives for him against Arthur. In some versions, including Elis Gruffydd's and Malory's, the fighting begins accidentally during the last-moment negotiations between Arthur and Mordred.