![Hb-sagrenior](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Hb-sagrenior.jpg)
Sir Sagramore (also known as Sagremor and many other variations) is a
Knight of the Round Table
The Knights of the Round Table ( cy, Marchogion y Ford Gron, kw, Marghekyon an Moos Krenn, br, Marc'hegien an Daol Grenn) are the knights of the fellowship of King Arthur in the literary cycle of the Matter of Britain. First appearing in lit ...
in the
Arthurian legend
The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It was one of the three great Wester ...
. He appears in standalone and cyclical
chivalric romance
As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric k ...
s and other works, including some where he is the titular protagonist. Sagramore's characterisation varies from story to story, but generally he is characterised as a
virtuous
Virtue ( la, virtus) is morality, moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is Value (ethics), valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that sh ...
but hot-tempered knight who fights fiercely and ragefully. He gains a number of nicknames, including "the Hothead" (''li Desreez'') and "the Desirous" (''le Désiré'').
Medieval and Renaissance literature
The earliest appearances of Sagramore, as Sagremor, can be found in the stories by
Chrétien de Troyes, where he is one of
King Arthur
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...
's great warriors and champions. In the later
Prose ''Tristan'', Sagramore is portrayed as a great friend to the
Cornish knight
Tristan
Tristan (Latin/ Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed ...
, and even the one who alerts the rest of the
Round Table
The Round Table ( cy, y Ford Gron; kw, an Moos Krenn; br, an Daol Grenn; la, Mensa Rotunda) is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that e ...
to his death. In
Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of '' Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of '' Le Morte d' ...
's ''
Le Morte d'Arthur'', Sagramore's prowess varies from situation to situation; he usually serves to lose jousts to better knights, but at times he is a valiant fighter.
Sagramore is also the subject of a fragmentary German romance, ''Segremors'', the surviving portions of which describe his journey to an island ruled by a
fay
A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, o ...
and his undesired combat with his friend
Gawain
Gawain (), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest ...
. In Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos' 16th-century Portuguese (''Triumphs of Sagramore'') or ''Memorial das Proezas da Segunda Távola Redonda'' (''Memorial of the Deeds of the Second Round Table''), Sagramore and legendary British king
Constantine III are fused into a single person, Sagramor Constantino, portrayed as the heir to Arthur who forms a new Round Table to fight the
Saxons
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
and keep the glory of Arthurian Britain.
A novelística portuguesa do século XVI
Ettore Finazzi-Agró, Lisbon, ''Instituto de Cultura Portuguesa'', 1978.
Vulgate Cycle
According to the Lancelot-Grail
The ''Lancelot-Grail'', also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance in Old French. The cycle of unknown authors ...
(Vulgate) Cycle, Sagramore was born as the son of the King of Hungary and the daughter of the Eastern Roman
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
Emperor; he was even an heir to the throne of Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
. His father died while he was still young, and his mother accepted the proposal of King Brandegoris of Estangore in Britain. When he is fifteen, Sagramore travels to Britain to join them and to become one of King Arthur's knights. Upon arrival in Britain, Sagramore engages Arthur's enemies with aid from Arthur's nephew Gawain and his brothers: they are all subsequently knighted by Arthur.
The Lancelot-Grail describes him as a good knight, but quick to anger. When fighting, he would go into a frenzy not unlike the Irish hero Cúchulainn's warp spasm
Warp, warped or warping may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books and comics
* WaRP Graphics, an alternative comics publisher
* ''Warp'' (First Comics), comic book series published by First Comics based on the play ''Warp!''
* Warp (comics), a ...
; when he came down, he would feel ill and hungry. As he was wont to do, Kay gave him a nickname, "''Morte Jeune''" (Dead Youth), because he would sometimes go into epilepsy
Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrical ...
-like fits. The Lancelot-Grail recounts a number of his adventures, often centered around rescuing damsels, and mentions that he had a daughter by one of his paramours who was raised at Arthur's court by Guinevere
Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First ment ...
. His half-sister, Brandegoris' beautiful daughter Claire, falls in love with Bors
Bors (; french: link=no, Bohort) is the name of two knights in Arthurian legend, an elder and a younger. The two first appear in the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail romance prose cycle. Bors the Elder is the King of Gaunnes (Gannes/Gaunes/Ganis) du ...
and sleeps with him; their child is Elyan the White
The Knights of the Round Table ( cy, Marchogion y Ford Gron, kw, Marghekyon an Moos Krenn, br, Marc'hegien an Daol Grenn) are the knights of the fellowship of King Arthur in the literary cycle of the Matter of Britain. First appearing in lit ...
. He dies by Mordred
Mordred or Modred (; Welsh: ''Medraut'' or ''Medrawt'') is a figure who is variously portrayed in the legend of King Arthur. The earliest known mention of a possibly historical Medraut is in the Welsh chronicle ''Annales Cambriae'', wherein he ...
's hand as one of Arthur's last remaining warriors in their final battle.
Modern fiction
Sagramore appears with some regularity in modern Arthurian literature and other fiction.
* In Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...
's "Merlin and Vivien", one of the ''Idylls of the King
''Idylls of the King'', published between 1859 and 1885, is a Literature cycle, cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892; Poet Laureate from 1850) which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knig ...
'', he stumbles into bed with a maiden, thinking he is in his own room; to save their reputation the two strangers wed, but their purity and goodness make their marriage a happy one.
* Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
characterised Sagramore (as "Sir Sagramor le Desirous") as an angry, backwards knight in ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled ''A Yankee in King Arthur's Court''. Some early editions are titled ''A Yankee at the Court of King Arth ...
'' (portrayed by William Bendix
William Bendix (January 14, 1906 – December 14, 1964) was an American film, radio, and television actor, who typically played rough, blue-collar characters. He is best remembered for his role in ''Wake Island'', which earned him an Academy ...
in the 1949 film version), who challenges the Yankee to a duel to the death and is defeated by the Yankee's modern weaponry; his armour, later displayed in a museum featuring a gunshot hole inflicted by the Yankee, serves as a setpiece to the start of the story.
* The knight appears in the musical ''Camelot
Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as the ...
'' and was played by Peter Bromilow
Peter Brian Bromilow (21 April 1933 - 16 October 1994) was an English-born actor.
Active on stage, he made his film debut in 1967 in ''Camelot'', playing Sir Sagramore to Vanessa Redgrave's Guenevere.
He moved to Hollywood in the 1970s, and mad ...
in the film version
A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dia ...
.
* In Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell (born 23 February 1944) is an English-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written ''The Saxon ...
's '' The Winter King'', "Sagramor" is a fierce Numidia
Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunis ...
n veteran of the old Roman army who has followed Arthur to Britain after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period fr ...
.
References
Sources
*Norris J. Lacy ''et al.'' ''The New Arthurian Encyclopedia''. New York: Garland, 1991.
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