Sir Ur

Sir Urre is a Hungarian knight whose prolonged, enchanted illness becomes a public test of the greatest knights at King Arthur’s court. After seven years of searching without finding a cure, he is healed by Sir Launcelot; the episode turns bodily restoration into a demonstration of humility, fellowship, and divine grace, and begins Urre’s life as a knight of the Round Table.

Identity and Background

The narrative introduces Urre as an adventurous knight from Hungary, known for seeking deeds of honour wherever he heard of them. At a tournament in Spain he encountered Sir Alphegus, an earl’s son, and the two fought to the utmost. Urre killed Alphegus, but before dying Alphegus had inflicted seven wounds on him: three on the head and four on his body and left hand.

Alphegus’s mother, described as a great sorceress, used enchantment in response to her son’s death. She caused Urre’s wounds to remain unhealed, alternately festering and bleeding, and declared that he could recover only when the world’s best knight examined them. Urre’s suffering thus arose not from the wounds alone but from a spell that made their cure dependent on an exceptional act of chivalric and religious virtue.

The Search for a Cure

Urre’s mother placed him in a horse-litter drawn by two palfreys and travelled with him and his sister, Felelolie, through Christian lands. The search lasted seven years. They found no knight able to ease his condition, and eventually reached King Arthur’s court in Carlisle near the feast of Pentecost. Urre’s mother publicly explained why they had come and recounted the enchantment and the condition for his healing.

The court’s response made the cure a collective trial rather than a private encounter. Kings and knights attempted to examine Urre’s wounds, but none succeeded. When Sir Launcelot hesitated, he did so from humility: he feared presuming that he could accomplish what so many others had failed to do. King Arthur insisted that he take part not to claim superiority but as a fellow of the Round Table, and the assembled company joined in asking him to try.

Launcelot’s Cure

Urre himself urged Launcelot to heal him, saying that his wounds had troubled him less since Launcelot arrived. Launcelot accepted only under Arthur’s command. Before examining the wounds, he knelt and prayed that the healing might come through the power and grace of the Trinity, not through his own merit.

Launcelot examined the wounds in turn: first the three on Urre’s head, then the wounds on his body, and finally the one on his hand. Each healed, and all appeared whole. The episode distinguishes the visible act of the knight from its claimed source: Launcelot performs the examination, but his prayer explicitly attributes the power to God. Urre’s cure is consequently presented as a religious marvel as well as the fulfilment of the sorceress’s condition.

Life at Arthur’s Court

After the healing, Arthur arranged a devout procession into Carlisle with priests and clerks singing in praise of God. He then clothed Urre richly and asked how he felt. Urre said he had never felt so vigorous and was ready to take part in jousting if equipped for it.

The following day Arthur arranged a joust between two companies of one hundred knights. Urre and Sir Lavaine performed best, each unhorsing thirty opponents. With the assent of the kings and lords, both were admitted to the Round Table. Urre’s return to arms therefore follows directly from his cure: the knight who had travelled for years as an invalid is restored to the chivalric community through both healing and public achievement.

Urre’s sister Felelolie married Lavaine, and Arthur gave each of them a barony of land. Urre, meanwhile, remained with Launcelot, and he and Lavaine attended him thereafter. The narrative counts them among the court’s good and eager knights, continually seeking adventures and living at court for a long time. Urre’s story thus concludes not with the end of his travels alone, but with recovery, fellowship, family alliance, and renewed participation in knightly life.