Sir Pertolepe

Sir Pertolepe, known as the Green Knight, is a brother of Sir Percard, Sir Perimones, and Sir Persant of Inde. Beaumains defeats him in combat and spares his life at the damsel’s request; later, Pertolepe comes to Arthur’s Pentecost feast with fifty knights and submits to the king. His change from opponent to vassal gives public consequence to Beaumains’s victories and brings a group of former adversaries into Arthur’s service.

Identity and Family

Pertolepe is the green-armoured knight whom Beaumains encounters while riding with the damsel. His brothers are introduced through their distinct colours and names: Percard is the black knight, Perimones the red knight, and Persant of Inde the blue knight. The four brothers are known at Arthur’s court as noble knights, though they had long waged war against the Knights of the Round Table.

The Encounter with Beaumains

When Pertolepe sees the damsel, he asks whether the knight accompanying her is his brother, the black knight. She tells him that Beaumains has killed Percard, dismissing Beaumains as a kitchen knave and describing Percard as a noble knight. Pertolepe answers with a challenge, declaring that Beaumains must die for his brother’s death. Beaumains replies that he killed Percard honourably, not shamefully.

Pertolepe sounds a green horn hanging on a thorn, and two damsels come to arm him. The knights first charge one another with spears, then fight with swords. When Pertolepe’s horse falls, he dismounts and continues the combat on foot. The accompanying damsel mocks him for taking so long against a supposed kitchen servant. After Pertolepe cleaves Beaumains’s shield, Beaumains strikes him on the helmet, brings him to his knees, and throws him down.

Beaumains initially threatens to kill his defeated opponent unless the damsel asks for his life. Pertolepe offers to forgive Percard’s death and become Beaumains’s man, promising the service of the thirty knights who hold of him. The damsel refuses to plead for a life that would place her in Beaumains’s debt, but later commands him not to kill Pertolepe. Beaumains says that her charge gives him pleasure and releases Pertolepe at her request, making mercy depend on her intervention rather than on Pertolepe’s offer of service.

Submission at Arthur’s Court

At the next feast of Pentecost, Pertolepe arrives with fifty knights and yields them all to Arthur. His red-armoured brother Perimones comes with sixty knights, and Persant of Inde, the blue knight, brings a hundred. The three brothers explain that they were overcome by the knight who travelled with a damsel and was called Beaumains. Arthur wonders who Beaumains is and what lineage he comes from, recalling that the young man had spent a year at court in poor and shameful circumstances and that Sir Kay had given him the name Beaumains in mockery.

Pertolepe also tells Arthur that Beaumains killed Percard in an encounter with a spear. He recounts further victories: at the passage of the Water of Mortaise, Beaumains killed Gherard le Breusse in the water and Sir Arnold le Breusse on land. Arthur and the other knights express sorrow at Percard’s death, while the brothers’ account establishes the scale of Beaumains’s success against knights once counted among Arthur’s opponents.

Narrative Role

Pertolepe’s appearance links an individual defeat to a wider political change. In the combat scene, his loss leads not to his death but to submission, through the damsel’s appeal and Beaumains’s willingness to obey it. At court, that submission expands to a public transfer of allegiance: Pertolepe brings fifty knights, alongside the larger followings of his brothers. His movement from challenger to Arthur’s servant demonstrates how Beaumains’s episodic victories strengthen the king’s fellowship as well as his own reputation.