Pridwen

Pridwen was, according to the 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, King Arthur's shield; it was adorned with an image of the Virgin Mary. Geoffrey's description of it draws on earlier Welsh traditions found in Preiddeu Annwfn, Culhwch and Olwen, and the Historia Brittonum. The shield is also named and described by Wace, Layamon, Roger of Wendover and Robert of Gloucester among other medieval writers, and it directly inspired the description of Sir Gawain's shield in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

This article is about the shield of King Arthur. For the ship of King Arthur, see Prydwen.

Geoffrey of Monmouth

King Arthur's shield Pridwen appears in the 1130s in Geoffrey of Monmouth's largely fictitious Historia Regum Britanniae. Before fighting a battle near Bath, in Somerset, Arthur

lorica tanto rege digna indutus, auream galeam simulacro draconis insculptam capiti adaptat, humeris quoque suis clipeum uocabulo Pridwen, in quo imago sanctae Mariae Dei genitricis inpicta ipsum in memoriam ipsius saepissime reuocabat. Accinctus etiam Caliburno gladio optimo et in insula Auallonis fabricato, lancea dextram suam decorat, quae nomine Ron uocabatur.

donned a hauberk worthy of a mighty king, placed on his head a golden helmet engraved with the image of a dragon and shouldered his shield called Pridwen, on which was depicted Mary, the Holy Mother of God, to keep her memory always before his eyes. He also buckled on Caliburnus, an excellent blade forged on the isle of Avallon, and graced his hand with his spear, called Ron.[1]

Pridwen has been interpreted as meaning "white face", "fair face", "blessed form" or "precious and white". The name was taken from Welsh tradition, Arthur's ship in Preiddeu Annwfn and Culhwch and Olwen being called Prydwen; it was perhaps borrowed by Geoffrey because of its appropriateness to a picture of the Virgin Mary.[2][3][4] The list of weapons finds a parallel in Culhwch and Olwen, where Arthur swears by his shield Wynebgwrthucher (perhaps meaning "face of evening"), his spear Rhongomiant, his knife Carnwennan, and his sword Caledfwlch.[5][6] The motif of the Virgin Mary's image was taken by Geoffrey from the 9th-century Historia Brittonum,[7] which describes a battle "in the castle of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of saint Mary the perpetual virgin on his shoulders".[8] In transferring it to Arthur's shield Geoffrey created the first example in all literature of religious symbolism on a shield.[9]

The Brut tradition

In the Roman de Brut, the Norman poet Wace's expanded translation of Geoffrey's Historia, the shield's name is given as Priven.[10] He interprets Geoffrey's words as meaning that the representation of the Virgin was inside the shield, not outside as a heraldic device,[11] and he assures us that bearing the shield Arthur ne sembla pas cuart ne fol, "didn't seem cowardly or crazy".[12]

In Layamon's Brut the shield's name is again Pridwen, and he tells us that inside it the image of the Virgin Mary was igrauen mid rede golde stauen, "engraved with red gold stencilling".[13][14] Elsewhere he adds the detail that Arthur's shield was made of olifantes bane, "elephant ivory".[15][16]

The Gesta Regum Britanniae, a 13th-century Latin versification of Geoffrey's Historia attributed to William of Rennes, differs from earlier versions in representing the picture of the Virgin Mary as being on the outside of the shield after the manner of a heraldic blazon.[11]

In the later 13th century the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, another heir of the Brut tradition, mentioned Arthur's shield (under the name þridwen) along with its Marian image.[17][18]

Other medieval literature

In the 1190s the churchman Gerald of Wales, mentioning Arthur's shield without naming it in his De principis instructione, added the detail that Arthur would kiss the feet of the image of the Virgin Mary before going into battle.[19][20]

Pridwen was named as the shield of King Arthur in the chronicle called Flores Historiarum, both in the original version written by Roger of Wendover and in the adaptation by Matthew Paris.[21][22][23]

13th century elaborations on the tradition of Arthur's shield recorded in the Vatican recension of the Historia Brittonum tell us that this image was brought back from Jerusalem by Arthur.[11]

In imitation of King Arthur's Pridwen the 14th-century Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has its hero Gawain paint the Virgin Mary inside his shield, so that quen he blusched þerto, his belde neuer payred, "when he looked thereto, his heart never lessened".[24][25]

References
  1. Geoffrey of Monmouth (2007). Reeve, Michael D. (ed.). The History of the Kings of Britain: An Edition and Translation of De Gestis Britonum [Historia Regum Britanniae]. Arthurian Studies LXIX. Translated by Wright, Neil. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp. 198–199. ISBN 9781843834410. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  2. Parry, John J.; Caldwell, Robert A. (1959). "Geoffrey of Monmouth". In Loomis, Roger Sherman (ed.). Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 84. ISBN 0198115881. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  3. Lacy, Norris J.; Ashe, Geoffrey; Mancoff, Debra N. (1997). The Arthurian Handbook (2nd ed.). New York: Garland. p. 345. ISBN 9780815320814. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  4. Tatlock, J. S. P. (1950). The Legendary History of Britain: Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and Its Early Vernacular Versions. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 202. ISBN 9780877521686. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  5. Curley 1994, p. 79.
  6. Ford, Patrick K. (1983). "On the Significance of Some Arthurian Names in Welsh". Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies. 30: 270. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  7. Curley 1994, p. 80.
  8. Higham, N. J. (2002). King Arthur: Myth-Making and History. London: Routledge. p. 144. ISBN 0415213053. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  9. Brault, Gerard J. (1997) [1972]. Early Blazon: Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries with Special Reference to Arthurian Heraldry. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. p. 24. ISBN 9780851157115. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  10. Arnold, I. D. O.; Pelan, M. M., eds. (1962). La partie arthurienne du Roman de Brut. Bibliothèque française et romane. Série B: Textes et documents, 1. Paris: C. Klincksieck. p. 63. ISBN 2252001305. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  11. Morris 1982, p. 127.
  12. Warren, Michelle R. (2000). History on the Edge: Excalibur and the Borders of Britain, 1100–1300. Medieval Cultures, Volume 22. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 162. ISBN 0816634920. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  13. Brook, G. L.; Leslie, R. F., eds. (n.d.). "Lines 10501 through 10600". Layamon's Brut. University of Michigan Library. Lines 10554–10557. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  14. Lawman 1992, p. 270.
  15. Brook, G. L.; Leslie, R. F., eds. (n.d.). "Lines 11801 through 11900". Layamon's Brut. University of Michigan Library. Lines 11866–11867. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  16. Lawman 1992, pp. 304, 447.
  17. Wright, William Aldis, ed. (2012) [1887]. The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester. Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 254. ISBN 9781108052375. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  18. "Gloucester, Robert of". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23736. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  19. Fletcher, Robert Huntington (1965) [1906]. The Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, Especially Those of Great Britain and France. New York: Haskell House. p. 34. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  20. Gerald of Wales (1978). The Journey Through Wales and The Description of Wales. Translated by Thorpe, Lewis. Harmondsworth: Penguin. p. 281. ISBN 9780141915555. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  21. Davies, J. D. (1877). A History of West Gower, Glamorganshire. Part I. Swansea: H. W. Williams. p. 14. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  22. Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History, Comprising the History of England from the Descent of the Saxons to A.D. 1237, Formerly Ascribed to Matthew Paris. Vol. 1. Translated by Giles, J. A. London: Henry G. Bohn. 1849. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  23. Luard, Henry Richards, ed. (2012) [1890]. Flores Historiarum. Volume 1: The Creation to A.D. 1066. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 260. ISBN 9781139382960. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  24. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Translated by Wayne, Thomas. New York: Algora. 2020. p. 24. ISBN 9781628944105. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  25. Vantuono, William, ed. (1984). The Pearl Poems: An Omnibus Edition. Vol. 2. New York: Garland. pp. 82, 274. ISBN 9780824054519. Retrieved 4 October 2020.

Sources
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