‘Men may leif without ane king / Ane king but men may beir no crowne’ (‘Princely Liberality’, Maitland Folio MS).

This rather blunt reminder to a ruler that the security of his crown is contingent upon the satisfaction of his subjects (a relationship which is here not necessarily figured as symbiotic) is one of two anonymous poems in the Maitland Folio manuscript addressed to kings at New Year. The stern tone reflects elements of sixteenth-century Scots political discourse in which the rights of subjects to resist and depose inadequate rulers were asserted, and the Scots tendency to direct often profoundly didactic literature to monarchs is well-attested. However, this particular poem's temporal setting at New Year introduces another dimension to the familiar advisory tone. It is one of a group of Scots writings addressed to monarchs and presented as New Year poems (also known as ‘strena’ or ‘étrenne’). These are part of a European tradition in which, as Heal puts it, New Year formed an ‘opportunity for the gift of good advice, to friends and family, to readers and, taking advantage of the license of the festival, from counsellors to monarchs’. Not all Scots New Year poems are written for monarchs, but those which are display a marked concern with ‘correct’ regal behaviour, and the sometimes tense relationship between ruler, nation, and subject. This chapter examines a group of poems dating from c. 1500 to 1583, a period covering the reigns (and the minorities) of James IV, James V, Mary, Queen of Scots, and James VI. The anxiety generated by these repeated periods of minority rule is well attested in Scots literature, and Scots New Year poems are no outliers. James IV was the oldest to be crowned, at just 15; James V was 18 months old, while his daughter Mary was only seven days. James VI was 12 months old when he became king. Their reigns were characterised by periods of regency interspersed with (initially) youthful rule, and the literature of the time reflects an associated unease at this frequent turn of circumstance, and a perception that greedy regents, young rulers, and over-powerful counsellors can make the nation vulnerable.

Malory's Gawain

The killing of Lamorak de Galys ‘by treson’ (2:716) is a defining moment in Sir Thomas Malory's portrayal of the perpetrators of the slaying, Sir Gawain of Orkney and his brothers Aggravayne, Gaheris, and Mordred. The murder (as it is repeatedly defined by Malory's other knights, see 2:688, 691, 698–99) takes place ‘off-screen’, and its description is twice relayed to the audience in varying detail. First, Palomides informs Lamorak's brother, Percival de Galys, that the Orkney brothers ‘slewe hym [Lamorak] felounsly’ (2:688), and subsequently he describes to Tristram, Dinadan, and Gareth, the fifth Orkney brother, the full particulars of the brutal, and (it would appear) cowardly, murder of Lamorak. Palomides' relation does not reflect well upon the nephews of King Arthur. Lamorak, we are told, was ‘sette uppon…in a pryvy place’ (2:699) by the combined might of four of the five Orkney brethren. First, they kill his horse, then, on foot, they fight him – four against one – ‘bothe byfore hym and behynde hym’ (2:699) for over three hours, until eventually he is stabbed in the back by Mordred, the youngest of the brothers, and his body is hacked to pieces. Towards the end of the Morte, after Lancelot has killed Gareth, Gawain challenges him. During their exchange, it is abundantly obvious that even Gawain knows that the killing of Lamorak is viewed as a shameful event by his peers.

Volume 28 of Arthurian Literature is dedicated to one of the last Arthurian writers of the Middle Ages, Sir Thomas Malory, whose Arthuriad stands at a crucial crossroads in the evolution of the legend. Although he seems to have written much, if not all, of the Morte Darthur while in prison, he drew on a wide range of French and English sources, sometimes copying word for word, sometimes omitting significant passages, sometimes adding details, dialogue, or whole episodes and tales apparently of his own devising. Many of the essays collected here are concerned with the ways in which he adapted these sources (and motifs such as ‘the bloody sheets’) to suit his own concerns and approaches. This is of interest not just in relation to his use of sources and to his own literary and historical context, but also because his version of the legend has had such a powerful influence on post-medieval Anglophone responses to the Arthurian world in poems, novels, films and the visual arts.

The papers collected here address perennially fascinating topics: blood (inherited and spilled), sexual and familial relationships, loyalty and treason, comedy and tragedy, literature and history. These essays confirm Caxton's claim in his preface to the first printed edition of the Morte Darthur: ‘For herein may be seen noble chivalrye, curtosye, humanyté, frendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, and synne’. This is also true of other versions of the legend, of course, but Malory's account is one of the most lastingly influential. Most of the contributors to this volume are at the beginning of their scholarly careers.

Sex, blood and gender have diverse associations in the Malorian tradition, yet their inter-relatedness and intersections are comparatively understudied. This present collection of essays is intended to go some way toward remedying the need for a sustained examination of blood ties, kinship, gender and sexuality, and the prominence of these themes in Malory's work.

The majority of the essays originated as papers presented at the conference Blood, Sex, Malory: An International Conference on the Morte Darthur, its sources and reception, held at the University of Leicester in April 2009. All of the essays have been extensively revised, and have also benefited from the comments of the anonymous peer reviewers and Elizabeth Archibald. We are pleased also to have been able to add Sally Mapstone's study to the collection. The conference's plenary papers were given by Elizabeth Archibald and Catherine La Farge, the latter of which appears in this volume. The conference encompassed a variety of topics, including a special session in which A. S. G. Edwards, Takako Kato and Orietta da Rold gave papers to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Oakeshott's recovery of the Winchester Manuscript. Nicola Royan chaired a ‘New Directions’ panel in which she considered the future of teaching Arthurian Literature. That panel also foregrounded new work being undertaken by graduate students in diverse areas of Malory studies, including transgressive magic and female users, and the mother-son relationship in the Morte Darthur.

Thomas Malory's King Arthur has some complicated blood relationships. Early in the text, he makes ‘grete doole’ when ‘he understood that syre Ector was not his fader’ (15), and in the chilling moment when Arthur and Mordred, father-uncle and son-nephew, meet one another on the battle-field, the extent to which Arthur can rely upon and trust blood ties is questionable – indeed, his blood kinship with the volatile Orkneys ultimately contributes to his downfall. His foundation of the Round Table fellowship is an attempt to establish a loyalty system in which chivalric brotherhood can overcome the potentially unstable clan relationships that precede its inception. But Arthur's artificial brotherhood is inherently vulnerable, not least because so many of his Round Table knights are engaged in blood-feuds with one another. Of course, such feuds are not original to Malory; Gawayne's vendetta against Launcelot, for example, is well attested in the two main sources for that section of the Morte, the French Mort Artu and the Middle English Stanzaic Le Morte Arthur. However, there are ‘numerous passages in Malory which occur in neither’. It is my contention that Malory is preoccupied with blood and that he augments and expands his sources in order to emphasize the potentially dangerous outcomes of vulnerability to the demands of blood kinship.

There are a number of incidents in the Morte that illustrate this tendency; since it is not possible to cover them all in detail in this essay, the focus is on a group of episodes that involve Arthur's troublesome Orkney relatives.