La Cote Male Taile’s adventure of the black shield is the testing and recognition of Breunor le Noire, a young knight who accepts an adventure that the assembled knights at Arthur’s court will not undertake. The black shield, the torn coat inherited from his murdered father, and Kay’s mocking name all place him under judgment before his prowess is known. His progress is neither an uninterrupted string of victories nor a simple vindication: he is repeatedly thrown from his horse and ridiculed, but persists, fights his way through danger, and eventually receives a lordship, a place at the Round Table, and Maledisant’s hand in marriage.

Identity and the call of the shield

Breunor arrives at Arthur’s court asking to be made a knight. He is strongly built and richly dressed, but his gold-cloth outer garment hangs awry. When Arthur asks about it, Breunor explains that it belonged to his father, a noble knight whom an enemy killed while he slept. Breunor found the coat as it was after the attack and wears it unrepaired in remembrance, declaring that he will keep it until he has avenged his father. He gives his name and says he has come to Arthur, whom he regards as the world’s noblest king, to seek knighthood.

Kay, Arthur’s seneschal, makes the coat a public joke by naming its wearer La Cote Male Taile, the evil-shaped coat. Breunor does not reject the insult. After Arthur knights him, he asks the king and court to call him by that name because Kay gave it to him. The choice binds his new identity to the visible sign of his father’s death, but also shows that the name need not remain Kay’s instrument of mockery: Breunor takes it on deliberately.

The adventure begins when a damsel arrives bearing a great black shield. In its centre, a white hand holds a sword; there is no other device. She explains that the shield’s former owner had undertaken an arduous deed of arms, then fought another powerful knight until both were badly wounded and the battle ended without a victor. Believing he would die, the shield’s owner sent her to Arthur’s court to ask that a worthy knight take up and complete his quest. Arthur asks whether anyone will bear the shield, but the knights remain silent. Kay takes it only to inspect it; the damsel tells him it is not meant for him and that its bearer must be a better knight.

Breunor volunteers, saying that this is the first adventure he has undertaken since being made a knight and that he will accept it if he can learn where the journey leads. The damsel warns that the adventure will leave him as battered as his coat. He replies that, if he is injured, he will not ask her for a remedy. Arthur would rather he did not take so hard an adventure, but Breunor insists that it is his and that he will pursue it whatever happens. Once equipped with horse, armour, and spears, he follows the damsel; when he catches up, she immediately rebukes him.

Early trials and public contempt

Kay sends Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, after Breunor, having him armed and mounted to challenge the new knight. Breunor knocks Dagonet over his horse’s rump. Rather than treating this as a promising first success, the damsel uses the encounter to shame him: she says that Arthur’s court has sent a fool to face him at his first joust. Her scorn becomes a running test alongside the physical challenges of the quest.

Bleoberis soon unhorses Breunor, and Breunor rises ready to continue the fight on foot. Bleoberis declines to fight him that way. The damsel, Maledisant, tells Breunor to turn back and calls him a coward. He asks her for mercy, saying that the defeat itself is enough without further abuse; he does not consider himself dishonoured merely because he fell to Bleoberis. Two days later, Palamides likewise unhorses him. Maledisant again mocks him, saying he cannot withstand a knight’s blow except when facing Dagonet. Breunor answers that a fall from Palamides does not make him a worse knight, and notes that neither Palamides nor Bleoberis would dismount to fight him on foot. The narrative thus distinguishes repeated defeat from a settled verdict on his capacity: Breunor is outmatched in these encounters, but does not confuse losing a joust with having no worth.

Mordred joins the travelling company. At Castle Orgulous, the custom is that a knight must joust with the defenders, become a prisoner, or lose his horse and armour. One defender knocks Mordred from his horse. Breunor then jousts with the other, and both fall; each takes the other’s horse. Breunor turns against the knight who defeated Mordred, wounds him severely, and drives him from his horse. He then pursues the other defender into the castle and kills him. The passage marks a change in the pattern of his journey: after being repeatedly put down by celebrated knights, he acts decisively against the castle’s armed resistance.

The hundred knights and Lancelot’s intervention

The account next places Breunor inside Castle Orgulous, where a hundred knights surround and attack him. When he sees that his horse is in danger, he dismounts, puts the bridle beneath his feet, and sends the horse out through the gate. He then fights with his back against the wall of a lady’s chamber. The narration emphasizes his choice to remain and face the attackers rather than abandon the encounter; he would rather die honourably than endure Maledisant’s rebukes. The lady slips out through a postern, finds his horse, ties it there, and returns to her chamber to watch him. From a window behind him she tells him that he fights remarkably well, while warning that he must eventually die unless he can use his prowess to escape. Her intervention offers a possible way out, but the surviving account here does not give the full resolution of this confrontation.

Lancelot later hears at Arthur’s court that Breunor has slain a lion and accepted the black-shield adventure, which is described as the world’s hardest adventure. He objects that the established knights have allowed so young a knight to undertake something apparently meant for his destruction, and rides after him. Lancelot also explains the shield’s history: Maledisant has carried it for a long time in search of the most proven knights; Breuse Saunce Pite took it from her, and Tristram recovered it from him and returned it to her. The shield’s journey therefore links Breunor’s trial to earlier tests of knightly reputation, rather than making it an isolated challenge.

After seven days Lancelot catches up with Breunor and Maledisant. Mordred leaves their company when he sees Lancelot. As they ride together, Maledisant continues to rebuke Breunor, and Lancelot answers on his behalf until she turns her insults on Lancelot instead. When Lancelot learns that a knight of the Round Table has been taken prisoner at Castle Pendragon, he identifies Breunor as his fellow and declares that he will rescue him or lose his life in the attempt. He rides to the castle, defeats its six attacking knights, and then overcomes its lord, Brian de les Isles. Brian yields; Lancelot requires him to release the prisoners held within the castle. The rescue establishes that Breunor’s adventure has drawn him into a wider network of obligation among Arthur’s knights, and that Lancelot’s aid is an act of fellowship as well as combat.

Recognition, lordship, and ending

After the castle’s prisoners are freed, Lancelot’s settlement of its affairs changes Breunor’s position. He removes Brian de les Isles from his lands because Brian will not submit to Arthur, and gives Castle Pendragon and its lands to Breunor. Lancelot also appoints Nerovens, whom he had earlier knighted, to govern the castle and country under Breunor. The young knight’s reward is therefore not only recognition of prowess but authority over a territory, administered through a subordinate appointment.

At the next Pentecost feast, both Breunor, also called La Cote Male Taile, and Plenorius are made Knights of the Round Table, and Arthur grants them substantial lands. Breunor marries Maledisant, who thereafter is called Beauvivante. He remains more commonly known as La Cote Male Taile, so the nickname that began as Kay’s ridicule survives his elevation. Its meaning has changed through the adventure: it now accompanies the name of a knight acknowledged by Arthur’s court, rather than merely describing a coat that hangs badly.

The conclusion looks beyond the quest itself. Breunor becomes a notably noble and powerful knight and performs many honourable deeds later in life; Plenorius also proves a noble knight. For the most part, both men serve Lancelot throughout their lives, while Plenorius’s brothers remain knights of Arthur. The French book, as Malory reports it, adds that Breunor avenges his father’s death. That final act fulfils the purpose attached to the coat from the moment Breunor entered court: the inherited garment first preserves the memory of an unfinished wrong, while his eventual vengeance brings that personal history to its stated close.