The Adventure of Breunor le Noire

Breunor le Noire’s black-shield adventure turns the early humiliations of a newly made knight into a public test of his worth. Though the damsel Maledisant treats his falls from horseback as proof of incompetence, he fights with formidable strength on foot, defeats the defenders of Castle Orgulous, and escapes a hundred attackers with help from a lady inside the castle. His story insists that a novice’s awkwardness in one form of combat does not settle the measure of his courage or prowess.

The Shield and the First Adventure

A damsel arrives at King Arthur’s court carrying a black shield marked only by a white hand holding a sword. She explains that its owner had undertaken a deed of arms, then fought a powerful opponent until both were badly wounded and neither could prevail. Unable to complete the undertaking himself, the knight entrusted the shield to her and asked her to find a worthy champion to continue his quest. The shield thus comes to court bearing both a charge and an unfinished obligation.

No knight initially volunteers. Sir Kay takes up the shield, but the damsel tells him it belongs to a better knight and he puts it down. Breunor le Noire, newly made a knight, accepts the adventure because it is the first challenge he has undertaken and he wants to know where his journey will lead. The damsel warns that the undertaking will cost him dearly; he answers that if he is wounded, he will not ask her for a remedy. King Arthur would rather he did not take on so hard an adventure, but Breunor insists that it is his to pursue, whatever the outcome.

Early Falls and Public Mockery

As Breunor follows the damsel, she rebukes him. Sir Kay has arranged for Sir Dagonet, King Arthur’s fool, to pursue and joust with him. Breunor knocks Dagonet over his horse’s rump, but the damsel turns even this encounter into an insult: she says that being sent a fool to fight is a disgrace at his first joust. Her criticism establishes the adventure’s recurring divide between what Breunor can do and what his companion is willing to recognize.

The next encounters seem to confirm her judgment only if horsemanship is taken as the whole measure of a knight. Sir Bleoberis unhorses Breunor; when Breunor rises and tries to continue the fight on foot, Bleoberis declines. Sir Palamides later unhorses him in the same way. Maledisant calls him unable to sit a horse or withstand a blow, while Breunor refuses to treat a fall from either renowned knight as proof that he lacks worth. He points out that neither opponent fought him on foot. Their victories therefore expose a limit in his riding, not the full extent of his fighting ability.

The Castle Orgulous

Breunor, Maledisant, and Sir Mordred reach Castle Orgulous, where custom requires a passing knight either to joust, be taken prisoner, or lose his horse and equipment. One of the castle’s knights unhorses Mordred. Breunor then jousts with the other and brings him down as well. When the two knights regain their feet, each takes the other’s horse. Breunor turns on the man who had defeated Mordred, wounds him severely, and puts him from his horse; he then pursues the other knight into the castle and kills him.

The clash leads to a far greater trial: a hundred knights surround Breunor and attack. When his horse is in danger, he dismounts, sends it out through the gate, and sets his back against the wall of a lady’s chamber. He chooses to stand and fight rather than withdraw under the continuing scorn of Maledisant. The lady slips out by a postern, finds his horse, and ties it there; returning to her chamber, she watches him and tells him that he can still reach the escape route if he fights through the press. Her intervention offers a way out, but Breunor must make it through the defenders himself.

Breunor takes up his sword and shield and forces his way through the crowd. At the postern, four more knights bar his way. He kills two with his first strokes, while the other two flee, then recovers his horse and rides clear. The account later establishes the scale of the combat precisely: the castle’s knights say that Breunor killed twelve of their best men before escaping. The lady’s practical aid saves him from being trapped on foot; his own fighting wins him the passage and makes the escape possible.

Reputation and the Meaning of Prowess

When Breunor rejoins Maledisant and Mordred, he recounts what happened, but Maledisant calls him a liar and claims that the defenders must have let him go as a fool and coward. Mordred challenges her judgment. A courier sent to check the story returns with the castle knights’ account: Breunor has killed twelve of their best and departed despite them all. They compare the difficulty of stopping him with the challenge of facing Sir Launcelot or Sir Tristram.

The episode’s reversal is not simply that Breunor triumphs after being mocked. Mordred distinguishes skill on horseback from strength in sword combat: experienced knights, he says, can recognize a young rider and unhorse him, and they often avoid fighting young knights on foot, where their strength and armor make them dangerous. He recalls that Sir Launcelot, too, was often worsted on horseback when first made a knight, yet recovered his reputation in fights on foot. The comparison places Breunor’s early falls within a pattern of apprenticeship rather than treating them as a final verdict.

Maledisant’s repeated rebukes make reputation itself part of the adventure. Breunor’s prowess is first visible in actions she dismisses, then confirmed by witnesses who had reason to resist him. His escape from Castle Orgulous gives objective weight to what his account alone could not make her accept. By separating a novice’s uneven riding from his capacity to fight, the episode makes the development of knighthood legible as a process: early failure and genuine prowess can coexist, and public judgment may lag behind the evidence of action.