Maledisant

Maledisant is the damsel who travels with La Cote Male Taile, a young knight whose courage she repeatedly tests with public rebukes. Her sharp manner initially appears to diminish him, but its cause is disclosed later: she fears for his life and has tried to make him abandon adventures she considers too dangerous. Launcelot’s recognition of this concern changes how she is named, and her eventual marriage to La Cote Male Taile gives her story a progression from apparent hostility to acknowledged affection and companionship.

Identity and Introduction

Maledisant enters the story in the company of La Cote Male Taile, who has chosen to pursue a demanding adventure. She speaks against him in harsh terms, and her conduct becomes part of the trial through which his reputation is formed: he must face opponents on the road while also enduring the judgment of the person riding beside him.

Her name is not the final measure of her character. When Launcelot later meets the pair, Maledisant apologizes for her conduct and explains that she has rebuked the young knight not out of hatred but from concern. She thought him too young and tender to undertake such dangers, and wanted to drive him away because she feared for his life. The disclosure reframes her earlier severity as protective anxiety, without erasing the pain her words caused.

The Road with La Cote Male Taile

The contrast between Maledisant’s criticism and La Cote Male Taile’s persistence is clearest in the incidents on the road. Sir Kay sends Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, after the young knight to challenge him. La Cote Male Taile knocks Dagonet from his horse, but Maledisant turns the encounter into a rebuke: to her, being matched against a fool makes the young knight’s first joust a cause for shame. Her repeated chiding makes public recognition, not simply victory, part of his ordeal.

Other encounters give La Cote Male Taile more formidable measures of his ability. Sir Bleoberis knocks him down, and later Sir Palamides does the same. Maledisant mocks him after each fall, arguing that such knights scorn him as too insignificant to fight on foot. La Cote Male Taile answers that neither fall makes him a worse knight. His replies show that he can distinguish a setback from a final judgment of his worth, even when the judgment comes from his companion.

At Castle Orgulous, where a passing knight must joust, be taken prisoner, or lose horse and equipment, the pair encounter two knights. Sir Mordred is unhorsed by one; La Cote Male Taile meets the other and is also brought down, but then returns to the contest. He wounds the opponent who had struck Mordred and pursues the other knight into the castle, where he kills him. The episode supplies concrete proof of the prowess Maledisant’s taunts appear to deny, while keeping her protection of him in tension with the adventure she had hoped to prevent.

Recognition and Renaming

When Maledisant and La Cote Male Taile catch up with Launcelot, she asks his pardon and identifies him as one of the greatest knights. She recalls that she had earlier encountered Sir Tristram at Camelot, where he rescued a black shield bearing a white hand and a naked sword, which Sir Breuse Saunce Pite had taken from her. Her account connects her journey with the wider movement of renowned knights and explains why she is searching for Launcelot and Tristram.

Launcelot agrees to ride with the pair on the condition that Maledisant stop rebuking La Cote Male Taile. He defends the young knight as a good knight with the promise of becoming noble, and says that he has followed him to give aid in danger. Maledisant then explains the motive behind her apparent cruelty. In response, Launcelot replaces her name with Bienpensant, a name that recognizes the good intention she has now made explicit. The change is not a transformation of her past behavior so much as a public reinterpretation of it: her words had wounded and shamed La Cote Male Taile, but Launcelot’s intervention allows her concern to be understood alongside their effect.

The journey continues into Surluse, where a fortified bridge bars passage to the bearer of the black shield unless the company enters one at a time. La Cote Male Taile insists on going first despite Launcelot’s reluctance to expose him to danger. He defeats the two brothers, Sir Plaine de Force and Sir Plaine de Amours, and spares them when they yield. Maledisant’s earlier fear is thus set against the knight’s demonstrated ability to undertake danger and prevail; Launcelot’s judgment of him is borne out through action.

Marriage and Place at Court

After further adventures, Launcelot gives La Cote Male Taile the Castle of Pendragon and its lands, removing Sir Brian de les Isles, who would not hold with Arthur. He appoints Sir Nerovens to govern the castle and country under La Cote Male Taile. The young knight’s rise is therefore expressed not only through feats of arms but through land and authority bestowed by Launcelot.

At the next Pentecost, Arthur makes La Cote Male Taile—also known by his rightful name, Sir Breunor le Noire—and Sir Plenorius Knights of the Round Table, granting them substantial lands. Breunor and Maledisant marry, and she is thereafter called Beauvivante. The narrative says that he is still most often called La Cote Male Taile, while he proves a notable and powerful knight and performs many honored deeds. Maledisant’s name changes accordingly register the conclusion of her arc: the figure first introduced through scolding becomes a recognized partner in a marriage joined to the knight’s advancement at court.

Narrative Role

Maledisant’s story turns on the difference between intention and outward conduct. Her fear for La Cote Male Taile explains her repeated rebukes, but the narrative also shows those rebukes as a real burden: she later asks forgiveness, and Launcelot makes the end of her scolding a condition of his companionship. Her concern is thus neither treated as simple malice nor allowed to excuse every consequence of her behavior.

The sequence of names makes that reassessment legible. Maledisant signals the injury of her speech; Bienpensant follows the explanation of her good intention; Beauvivante belongs to her married life with a knight whose worth has become publicly established. Through these changes, the romance presents her not as a combatant but as a companion whose judgment and attachment shape the emotional terms of a knight’s early adventures.