Guinevere ~ Queen of Arthur

There is perhaps no more famous character in British legend than that of King Arthur. For centuries, people have been reading tales of Arthur and his knight’s exploits.

Of all the characters that appear in the legends, Arthur’s wife, Guinevere is perhaps the least well-fleshed out. Guinevere’s character changes from writer to writer, which leaves us with one question, who was Guinevere, really?

The earliest mention of Guinevere is in Geoffrey Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. This text refers to Guinevere as Gwenhuvara, which comes from the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar. The meaning of the name is not clear, but we do know it references a female figure from Welsh mythology famed for her bad reputation.

In Monmouth’s version, Guinevere is simply described as Arthur’s queen and a great beauty descended from the Romans. It is hard to learn much about Guinevere. All we can really discern is that her character may be at least partly based on a figure from Welsh mythology.

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