Patrise is poisoned at Guinevere’s feast and the queen is accused

The poisoned-apple incident at Queen Guenever’s London feast begins as an attempt by Sir Pinel le Savage to kill Sir Gawaine and ends with Sir Patrise dead and the queen formally accused of treason. The misdirected poison makes the queen’s hospitality appear culpable, setting private vengeance, kinship, and the court’s trial-by-combat procedure against one another.

The Feast and the Intended Target

Queen Guenever arranged a private dinner for twenty-four Knights of the Round Table, including Sir Gawaine and his brothers Sir Agravaine, Sir Gaheris, Sir Gareth, and Sir Mordred. She wished to demonstrate publicly that she took pleasure in the company of the fellowship as a whole, not only in Sir Launcelot. The gathering’s carefully social purpose therefore becomes the setting for a crime that threatens the queen’s standing before the very knights she meant to reassure.

Sir Gawaine’s familiar preference for fruit, especially apples and pears, shaped the provisions: those who hosted him commonly made sure to serve it, and the queen did so to please him. Sir Pinel, however, bore hatred toward Gawaine because Gawaine and his brothers had treacherously killed Pinel’s kinsman, Sir Lamorak de Galis. Seeking revenge, Pinel poisoned some apples with Gawaine as his intended victim. The episode thus places a concealed act of retaliation inside a feast organized around courtesy and fellowship.

Patrise’s Death and the Accusation

The poisoning went unnoticed until the meal was nearly over. Sir Patrise, a knight related to Sir Mador de la Porte, happened to eat one of the poisoned apples; he died suddenly. The guests rose in anger and alarm, but they did not know who had introduced the poison. Because Guenever had arranged the dinner, suspicion fell upon her. The queen’s role as host, rather than any established proof against her, supplied the immediate basis for that suspicion.

Sir Gawaine pointed out that the dinner had been intended for him, since his fondness for fruit was well known, and warned the queen that the circumstances could bring her shame. Guenever stood abashed. Sir Mador, grieving the loss of a kinsman, declared that the matter would not end there and that he would seek vengeance. He then openly appealed the queen for Sir Patrise’s death. His accusation transforms the accidental outcome of Pinel’s plot into a charge against the person who provided the occasion and the table.

Trial by Combat and the Court’s Bind

The accusation places King Arthur in a difficult position. The custom treats a shameful death as treason, so Mador’s appeal requires a judicial response. Arthur says that he regrets the trouble but cannot himself take up the fight for his wife: he must act as a rightful judge. He nevertheless states his belief that the deed did not come from Guenever, and hopes that a knight will risk his body rather than allow her to be condemned in a wrongful quarrel.

Mador insists that Arthur is bound by knighthood as well as kingship and asks for a day on which justice may be done. He also points to the other guests, saying that all twenty-four knights invited to the dinner suspect the queen. Asked directly, they will not excuse her: since she made the feast, they argue, the poison must have come from her or her servants. Guenever denies intending any evil and appeals to God as witness. Arthur grants Mador a day for battle fifteen days later. At this point in the episode, the queen has an appointed trial but no defender; the account establishes the accusation and its immediate procedural stakes without yet resolving the case.

Significance in the Courtly World

The incident hinges on the difference between responsibility for a setting and responsibility for a crime. Guenever arranged the meal, and that fact makes her vulnerable to accusation, but the reader is shown the hidden cause: Pinel’s revenge against Gawaine. Patrise’s death is therefore not evidence of the queen’s intent; it is the unintended consequence of a plot aimed at someone else. The audience knows more than the assembled guests, whose suspicion hardens into a public charge before the source of the poison has been established.

The episode also connects two injuries within the Round Table fellowship: the earlier treacherous killing of Lamorak motivates Pinel’s revenge, while Patrise’s death brings Mador into conflict with the queen. Kinship carries the grievance forward, but the trial by combat redirects it into a formal appeal for justice. Arthur’s divided roles—as Guenever’s husband, a knight, and the king responsible for judging—make the court’s legal custom a source of tension rather than an easy remedy. The feast’s intended display of shared fellowship instead exposes how suspicion and revenge can turn the court against one of its own.