Lancelot

/lan"seuh leuht, -lot', lahn"-/, n.

Arthurian Romance. the greatest of Arthur's knights and the lover of Queen Guinevere.

Also, Launcelot.

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or Launcelot

One of the greatest knights in Arthurian legend, the lover of Guinevere and the father of Galahad.

He first appeared in a 12th-century romance by Chrétien de Troyes, and he is a major character in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur. His full name, Sir Lancelot du Lac, refers to his upbringing by the Lady of the Lake, the enchantress who carried him off in infancy and trained him to be a model of chivalry before sending him to Arthur's court. There he became the favorite of King Arthur and the lover of Queen Guinevere. His adultery with Guinevere caused him to fail in the quest for the grail and set in motion the events that led to the destruction of Camelot. He was displaced as the model knight by Galahad, his son by the grailkeeper's daughter Elaine.

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▪ legendary knight

also spelled  Launcelot , also called  Lancelot of the Lake , French  Lancelot du Lac  

      one of the greatest knights in Arthurian romance (Arthurian legend); he was the lover of Arthur's queen, Guinevere, and was the father of the pure knight Sir Galahad.

      Lancelot's name first appeared as one of Arthur's knights in Chrétien de Troyes's (Chrétien de Troyes) 12th-century romance of Erec, and the same author later made him the hero of Lancelot; ou, le chevalier de la charrette, which retold an existing legend about Guinevere's abduction, making Lancelot her rescuer and lover. It also mentioned Lancelot's upbringing by a fairy in a lake, a story that received fuller treatment in the German poem Lanzelet. These two themes were developed further in the great 13th-century Vulgate cycle, or Prose Lancelot. According to this, after the death of his father, King Ban of Benoic, Lancelot was carried off by the enchantress Vivien, the Lady of the Lake, who in time sent him to Arthur's court. Her careful education of Lancelot, combined with the inspiring force of his love for Guinevere, produced a knight who was the very model of chivalry.

      In later branches of the cycle, in which worldly chivalry was set against chivalry inspired by spiritual love, Lancelot's son, Sir Galahad, whom he fathered by Elaine, daughter of the Grail keeper King Pelleas, displaced him as the perfect knight. Lancelot's adulterous love for the queen, moreover, caused him to fail in the quest for the Holy Grail and set in motion the fatal chain of events that brought about the destruction of the knightly fellowship of the Round Table.

      In medieval English romance, Lancelot played a leading role in the late 14th-century Le Morte Arthur, which told of a fatal passion for Lancelot conceived by Elaine the Fair of Astolat and which described the tragic end of Lancelot's love for Guinevere. He also played a central role in Malory's 15th-century prose work Le Morte Darthur, in which it was essentially the conflict between Lancelot's love for Guinevere and his loyalty to his lord that led to Arthur's “dolorous death and departing out of this world.”

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