Bolz de Ganes

Sir Bors de Ganis is a knight of the Round Table distinguished by the way he tests chivalric duty against spiritual discipline and competing claims of loyalty. His story moves between the Grail Quest, where confession and self-denial prepare him for a sacred undertaking, and the court, where he accepts the dangerous public role of Queen Guenever’s champion. Again and again, honour means choosing whom to protect when no choice can preserve every bond.

Identity and Place in the Fellowship

Bors belongs to the fellowship of the Round Table and is Sir Launcelot’s cousin. His conduct is measured both by the order’s obligations to those in need and by the religious demands of the Grail Quest. The text does not present his prowess as sufficient in itself: his qualification for the quest depends on cleanness and confession, while his later defence of the queen requires him to risk division within the fellowship.

The court gives his actions a public dimension. When the queen asks for his help, Bors objects that he was present at the dinner connected with the accusation and fears that taking her part will make other knights suspect him. He also reminds her that she drove Launcelot from the country, although Launcelot had upheld and honoured the court. His answer therefore joins personal allegiance to an assessment of what the court owes its king and queen.

Discipline and the Grail Quest

Setting out from Camelot in pursuit of the Grail, Bors meets a religious man riding an ass. He asks for guidance because he hopes to attain the honour associated with completing the quest. The man confirms that its victor would be the greatest knight, but insists that no one can attain it without cleanness, understood as pure confession. At the hermitage Bors removes his armour, confesses in the chapel, and shares bread and water with the hermit.

The hermit then prescribes a further discipline: Bors agrees to eat nothing else until he sits at the table where the Grail appears. He also puts off his clothes and shirt and wears a scarlet coat in place of the shirt as a sign of chastisement, to be kept for the duration of the quest. The narrator reports that the hermit marvels at Bors’s stable religious life and says he has not been corrupted by fleshly lusts apart from the single occasion on which he fathered Elian le Blank. Bors’s preparation is thus made specific and bodily: confession, restricted food, and a garment mark the difference between ordinary knightly life and the sacred trial ahead.

The Choice Between Lionel and the Maiden

The sharpest test of Bors’s competing obligations comes when he finds his brother Lionel being carried away, bound, while the knights responsible beat him. At the same time, a knight is leading a gentlewoman into the forest, and she appeals to Bors for protection, invoking his faith, his order of knighthood, and King Arthur. Bors recognizes that Lionel may be killed if he does not help him, but that the maiden may be shamed and lose her honour if he abandons her.

He raises his eyes in tears and prays that Jesus Christ will protect Lionel; then he rides to the maiden’s aid. The choice does not make the danger to his brother disappear. Its force lies in Bors’s decision that the appeal for rescue places an immediate claim on him, even at the cost of leaving Lionel exposed. The scene gives his religious and knightly commitments a practical form: prayer accompanies action, but does not spare him from choosing between two people who need him.

Return, Grief, and Loyalty

After the Grail Quest, Bors returns by ship from Sarras to the realm of Logris and rides to Camelot. The court rejoices because its members had believed him dead after his long absence. At the king’s command, learned clerks record the adventures of the knights. Bors recounts what befell him and his companions in the quest; Launcelot also tells of what he witnessed, and their account is put into books and stored at Salisbury.

Bors carries back more than a report. He tells Launcelot that Galahad, Launcelot’s son, and Percivale send greetings, and that he buried them with his own hands in Sarras. He also conveys Galahad’s appeal that Launcelot remember the uncertainty of the world, recalling a promise Launcelot made when they were together for more than half a year. Launcelot receives Bors as a beloved cousin and promises never to fail him; Bors agrees that they will remain together while they live. The return turns the quest’s losses into testimony and renewed kinship: Bors is the survivor who can name the dead, describe their fate, and bring their message home.

Champion of Queen Guenever

When Queen Guenever is accused of treason after a knight is poisoned at her dinner, she summons Bors and asks for his aid. He initially explains why the case puts him in a difficult position: he was present at the dinner, and the other knights might suspect him if he fights for her. He also reproaches her for having driven Launcelot away, since Launcelot had been a source of honour to her and to the court.

Guenever kneels and begs for mercy, saying she faces a shameful death and has not offended. King Arthur finds her before Bors and asks him to fight for her, appealing to his love for Launcelot. Bors recognizes that this request may anger many of his fellow Round Table knights, but agrees to serve as her champion for Arthur’s and Launcelot’s sake, unless a better knight comes forward. His acceptance makes loyalty costly rather than effortless: he risks suspicion from the fellowship in order to defend the queen’s honour and answer the king’s appeal.

Bors secretly rides to Launcelot, who is staying with the hermit Sir Brasias, and tells him what has happened. Launcelot asks him to prepare for battle but to wait as long as he can for Launcelot to arrive. At court, however, many knights consider the queen guilty and resent Bors for taking her side. Bors answers that it would shame them all to let the queen be publicly disgraced, given the honour King Arthur has bestowed on them. The episode shows his allegiance extending beyond the immediate bond of cousinhood: he argues that the fellowship itself has a duty to defend its queen, even when suspicion has turned the court against her.