Sagramore


Sir Sagramore is a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He appears in standalone and cyclical chivalric romances and other works, including some where he is the titular protagonist. Sagramore's characterisation varies from story to story, but generally he is characterised as a virtuous but hot-tempered knight who fights fiercely and ragefully. He gains a number of nicknames, including "the Hothead" and "the Desirous".

Medieval and Renaissance literature

The earliest appearances of Sagramore, as Sagremor, can be found in the stories by Chrétien de Troyes, where he is one of King Arthur's great warriors and champions. In the later Prose Tristan, Sagramore is portrayed as a great friend to the Cornish knight Tristan, and even the one who alerts the rest of the Round Table to his death. In Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Sagramore's prowess varies from situation to situation; he usually serves to lose jousts to better knights, but at times he is a valiant fighter.
Sagramore is also the subject of a fragmentary German romance, Segremors, the surviving portions of which describe his journey to an island ruled by a fay and his undesired combat with his friend Gawain. In Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos' 16th-century Portuguese Triunfos de Sagramor or Memorial das Proezas da Segunda Távola Redonda, Sagramore and legendary British king Constantine III are fused into a single person, Sagramor Constantino, portrayed as the heir to Arthur who forms a new Round Table to fight the Saxons and keep the glory of Arthurian Britain.

Vulgate Cycle

According to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, Sagramore was born as the son of the King of Hungary and the daughter of the Eastern Roman Emperor; he was even an heir to the throne of Constantinople. His father died while he was still young, and his mother accepted the proposal of King Brandegoris of Estangore in Britain. When he is fifteen, Sagramore travels to Britain to join them and to become one of King Arthur's knights. Upon arrival in Britain, Sagramore engages Arthur's enemies with aid from Arthur's nephew Gawain and his brothers: they are all subsequently knighted by Arthur.
The Lancelot-Grail describes him as a good knight, but quick to anger. When fighting, he would go into a frenzy not unlike the Irish hero Cúchulainn's warp spasm; when he came down, he would feel ill and hungry. As he was wont to do, Kay gave him a nickname, "Morte Jeune", because he would sometimes go into epilepsy-like fits. The Lancelot-Grail recounts a number of his adventures, often centered around rescuing damsels, and mentions that he had a daughter by one of his paramours who was raised at Arthur's court by Guinevere. His half-sister, Brandegoris' beautiful daughter Claire, falls in love with Bors and sleeps with him; their child is Elyan the White. He dies by Mordred's hand as one of Arthur's last remaining warriors in their final battle.

Modern fiction

Sagramore appears with some regularity in modern Arthurian literature and other fiction.