Guinevere (/ˈɡwɪnɪvɪər/ ⓘ GWIN-iv-eer; Welsh: Gwenhwyfar pronunciationⓘ; Breton: Gwenivar, Cornish: Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever,[1] was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur.

First mentioned in literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous, and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady.

The earliest datable appearance of Guinevere is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical British chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, in which she is seduced by Mordred during his ill-fated rebellion against Arthur.

In a later medieval Arthurian romance tradition from France, a major story arc is the queen's tragic love affair with her husband's chief knight and trusted friend, Lancelot, indirectly causing the death of Arthur and the downfall of the kingdom.

Many modern authors, usually following or inspired by Malory's telling, typically still show Guinevere in her illicit relationship with Lancelot as defining her character.

Chronicler Gerald of Wales refers to her as Wenneuereia (Wenneveria) and the popular romancer Chrétien de Troyes calls her Guenievre (Guenièvre).

[8] Some assorted other forms of her name in the Middle Ages and Renaissance literature of various countries and languages have included Ganor, Ganora, Gainor, Gainovere, Geneura, Guanora, Gueneour, Guenevera, Gwenore, Gwinore, Ntzenebra, Vanour, Vanore (Wanore).

German romance Diu Crône gives Guinevere two other sisters by their father, King Garlin of Gore: Gawain's love interest Flori and Queen Lenomie of Alexandria.

A half-sister and a brother named Gotegin play the antagonistic roles in the Vulgate Cycle (Lancelot–Grail) and Diu Crône respectively, but neither character is mentioned elsewhere (besides the Vulgate-inspired tradition).

In Perlesvaus, after the death of Guinevere, her relative King Madaglan(s) d'Oriande is a major villain who invades Arthur's lands, trying to force him to abandon Christianity and to marry his sister, Queen Jandree.

[23] In Geoffrey's Historia, Arthur leaves her as a regent[24] in the care of his nephew Modredus (Mordred) when he crosses over to Europe to go to war with the Roman leader Lucius Tiberius.

On the other hand, in Marie de France's probably late-12th-century Anglo-Norman poem Lanval (and Thomas Chestre's later Middle English version, Sir Launfal), Guinevere is a viciously vindictive adulteress and temptress who plots the titular protagonist's death after failing to seduce him.

She ends up punished when she is magically blinded by his secret true love from Avalon, the fairy princess Lady Tryamour (identified by some as the figure of Morgan[31]).

Throughout most of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a late-medieval compilation highly influential for a common perception of Guinevere and many other characters today, she figures as "a conventional lady of [chivalric] romance, imperious, jealous, and demanding, with an occasional trait such as the sense of humor," until she acquires more depth and undergoes major changes to her character at the end of the book, arguably (in the words of Derek Brewer), becoming "the most fascinating, exasperating, and human of all medieval heroines.

In the Italian 15th-century romance La Tavola Ritonda, Guinevere drops dead from grief upon learning of her husband's fate after Lancelot rescues her from the siege by Arthur's slayer Mordred.

[35] Historically, the bones of Guinevere were claimed to have been found buried alongside those of Arthur during the exhumation of their purported graves by the monks of Glastonbury Abbey in 1091.

Welsh cleric and author Caradoc of Llancarfan, who wrote his Life of Gildas sometime between 1130 and 1150,[37] recounts her being taken and raped (violatam et raptam) by Melwas, king of the "Summer Country" (Aestiva Regio, perhaps meaning Somerset), and held prisoner at his stronghold at Glastonbury.

The story states that Arthur (depicted there as a tyrannical ruler) spent a year searching for her and assembling an army to storm Melwas' fort when Gildas negotiates a peaceful resolution and reunites husband and wife.

Chrétien de Troyes tells another version of Guinevere's abduction, this time by Meliagant (Maleagant, derived from Melwas) in the 12th-century Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart.

It has been suggested that Chrétien invented their affair to supply Guinevere with a courtly extramarital lover (as requested by his patroness, Princess Marie); Mordred could not be used as his reputation was beyond saving, and Yder had been forgotten entirely.

In Ulrich's Lanzelet, Valerin, the King of the Tangled Pinewood, claims the right to marry her and attempts to carry her off to his castle in a struggle for power, possibly related to her connections to the fertility and sovereignty of Britain.

However, Valerin later kidnaps Guinevere anyway and places her in a magical sleep inside his castle guarded by dragons; she is rescued by Arthur's party (including Lancelot) with the help of Malduc, wizard of the Misty Lake.

In Durmart le Gallois, Guinevere is delivered from her peril by the eponymous hero, having been abducted by Brun de Morois in a scenario reminiscent of Valerin's.

[48] Medievalist Roger Sherman Loomis suggested that this recurring motif shows that Guinevere "had inherited the role of a Celtic Persephone" (a figure from Greek mythology).

It tells the story of the forbidden romance of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, initially in accordance to the courtly love conventions still popular in the early 13th-century France.

[52] Regarding her characterisation by Malory, she has been described by modern critics as "jealous, unreasonable, possessive, and headstrong," at least through most of the work before the final book, and some of these traits may be related to her political qualities and actions.

An arranged marriage of state soon commences, and Arthur receives the Round Table as Guinevere's dowry, having ignored Merlin's prophetic advice warning him not to marry her.

Following Lancelot's early rescue of Guinevere from Maleagant (in Le Morte d'Arthur this episode only happens much later on) and his admission into the Round Table, and with the Lady of the Lake's and Galehaut's assistance, the two then begin an escalating romantic affair that in the end will inadvertently lead to Arthur's fall.

Lancelot refuses the love of many other ladies, dedicates all his heroic deeds to Guinevere's honor, and sends her the redeemable knights he has defeated in battle and who must appeal to her for forgiveness.

In this version, the lovers spend their first night together just as Arthur sleeps with the beautiful Saxon princess named Camille or Gamille (an evil enchantress whom he later continues to love even after she betrays and imprisons him, though it was suggested that he was enchanted[54]).