Lancelot Becomes a Monk

Sir Launcelot’s entry into religious life turns his separation from Queen Guenever into a sustained course of repentance: he asks a bishop to hear his confession, takes the habit, and devotes himself to prayer and fasting. His withdrawal also reshapes the lives of fellow knights, as Sir Bors and others follow his example and share a long period of penance.

Causes and Parting

Launcelot’s decision follows a final meeting with Guenever. He promises that he will devote the rest of his life to penance and prayer if a hermit will receive him, and asks the queen for a last kiss. She refuses, telling him instead to abstain from their former conduct. Their farewell is marked by grief; after the ladies carry Guenever to her chamber, Launcelot rides through the forest, weeping, for the rest of the day and night.

Confession and Religious Life

At a hermitage and chapel between two cliffs, Launcelot hears mass celebrated by the Bishop of Canterbury. Sir Bedivere is there as well. After Bedivere recounts what has happened, Launcelot, overcome with sorrow, asks the bishop to hear his confession and absolve him. He then asks to become the bishop’s brother. The bishop accepts him and clothes him in the religious habit; Launcelot serves God thereafter with prayer and fasting.

A Community of Penance

Sir Bors later finds Launcelot at the same chapel while searching for him. Seeing Launcelot in religious clothing, Bors asks the bishop to receive him into the same habit, and he too takes up prayer and fasting. Within half a year, seven more knights arrive and remain there, choosing the same way of life rather than departing. Launcelot’s example thus changes a personal act of repentance into a shared discipline.

Duration and Meaning

The knights persist in severe penance for six years. Launcelot then takes priestly orders and sings mass for a year; the other knights read, assist with the mass, ring the bells, and perform the community’s bodily services. They relinquish concern for worldly wealth and accept hardship, following the example of the once-celebrated knight, who grows lean through abstinence. The episode recasts Launcelot’s renown: his final model for his companions is not prowess in arms, but sustained prayer, fasting, and religious service.