“Swere upon a book:” Winchester and the Arthurian legend

Posted on February 23, 2026 by M. Roland

Hit befelle whan Kyng Arthur had wedded Quene Gwenyvere and fulfyled the rounde Table, and so aftir his marvelous knyghtis and he had venquyshed the most party of his enemyes . . . And held a ryal feeste and Table Rounde with his alyes of kynges, prynces, and noble knyghtes, all of the Rounde Table . . . (113)

This is the opening of the Roman War tale. Arthur and Guenevere have recently married and members of the Round Table are gathered to celebrate both the young king’s wedding and his consolidation of power across England. The location of the royal feast is not specified here, but in the previous tale, Arthur is in Camelot:

And so within twelve days they [the knights] come to Camelot, and the Kynge was passing glad of their commyng, and so was all the court. Than the Kynge made hem to swere upon a booke to telle hym all their adventures . . .  (111).

Where, exactly, is the mythic Camelot? Malory lands in favor of the real-world city of Winchester, and mentions several times that Camelot was at “that tyme called Wynchester.” 

I arrive in Winchester on a cool July morning in a season that has not yet decided to be summer. After an inspiring week of lectures on the History of Cartography with Dr. Catherine Delano-Smith, and amazing sessions in the British Library map room with Maps Curator Peter Barber, I am breaking out of London. I swear upon Malory’s great book to tell you all my adventures.

View of Winchester Cathedral and Winchester College, from St. Giles Hill.

Winchester is an important literary home of Malory’s great tale on several counts:

  • Malory’s identification of Winchester as the ancient seat of King Arthur.
  • The discovery of the only known manuscript of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur at Winchester College, a private boys’ school established in 1382. The manuscript, discovered in 1934, is dated to 1470-83.
  • The magnificent 13th century Round Table on display in the Great Hall.
  • The 11th century cathedral with its late-medieval Gothic nave.
  • The pointing hands (known as manicula) carved into an exterior stone wall of Winchester Cathedral in 1633. To my eye, the cathedral manicula replicate the manicula that appear in the margins of the Winchester manuscript of Le Morte Darthur, where they point out important passages or names.
Manuscript page from the Winchester manuscript version of Le Morte Darthur (fol 9v).
Source: Malory Project, British Library.
Exterior wall, Winchester Cathedral

I can see why Malory favored Winchester as the site of Camelot— it is a perfect mingling of ancient Roman and medieval English cultures: it evokes both the fictional Arthur’s historical moment, around the mid-5th to mid-6th centuries in the waning days of Roman rule, and Malory’s use of the anachronistic medieval present. In Malory’s time, in the mid-1400s, traces of the former Roman presence still remained—evidence of a Roman fortification on St. Giles Hill and beautiful roman floor mosaics, still visible today. 

The town name “Winchester” seems to be a mingling of English and Roman place names: the older form of the town name, Wintanceaster, is a combination of the Latin word “venta” (perhaps meaning “market”) and “ceaster,” the Old English word for “fortified town.”

The magnificent Winchester Cathedral is the centerpiece of the city, but for a reader of Malory, the manicula, Winchester College, the massive Round Table, and traces of the Roman occupation together evoke the setting that inspired Malory to establish Winchester as the starting place for his tale of Arthur’s Roman War.

Further Reading:

Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur (c. 1465). Note: page numbers are from the edition by Stephen Shepherd.

Thomas Crofts, Malory’s Contemporary Audience (2002). Crofts provides an elegiac interpretation of the shields and manicula in the manuscript.

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“Here in this world, he changed his life:” literary geography and an itinerary

Posted on February 16, 2026 by M. Roland

Literary geography—an imaginative, creative, or literary responses to landscape and place. Writing about travel and geography, whether real or imagined, has a long and popular history. Archbishop Sigeric, for example, wrote down his return itinerary from Rome to Canterbury in the 10th century, and his two-page document is the basis of today’s Via Francigena, the walking route between England and Rome (although the route has been traversed since Roman times).

“Itinerary of Archbishop Sigeric,” British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, 23v-24r

Other famous travel memoirs from the Middle Ages include Marco Polo’s Travels as well as the Travels of John Mandeville. A few contemporary favorites of mine include Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts (1977), Francis Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun (1997), or, my son’s favorite, the Pulitzer Prize winning Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life (2017) by William Finnegan. Check out Tim Egan’s poignant A Pilgrimage to Eternity (2019) about his journey on the Via Francigena.

The interplay of geography and writing is at the heart of this blog: traveling, walking, mapping, experiencing a landscape in conversation with a narrative itinerary. A memoir of the journey that is both mindful of the book and of the present self.

For some reason, a part of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, with its map-like narrative, captures my imagination. Something in Arthur rose up to refute the demand from Rome. Over time, I’ve come to regard that steely refusal. For Arthur, it was a huge risk, but one that came to define him as king. Later in the massive book, Malory makes a comment about Arthur: Here in thys worlde, he chaunged hys lyff. (Here in this world, he changed his life.) Much has been written about this statement, but for the moment take it as face value—don’t we all seek that?

Here, then, is a summary of the places that constitute Arthur’s epic journey to change his life in Malory’s Roman War episode. I’ll be following that route, too.  Note: In the manuscript, proper names and place names are often written in red ink as seen in the Winchester manuscript, below.


The Winchester Manuscript (Additional MS 59678), the British Library,

Itinerary/ Summary: A young King Arthur has recently married Guinevere and they join together at Christmastime for a royal feast at Camelot for the first full celebration of the Round Table. During the festivities, 12 ancient Roman ambassadors arrive, announcing that Lucius, the (fictional) Emperor of Rome, is demanding taxes and fealty from Arthur.

Citing old English chronicles, Arthur repudiates the Roman claim. Not only does he decide not to pay tribute; Arthur will march to Rome to vanquish Lucius and claim the title of emperor.

From Camelot, Arthur goes to York to hold a “parlement,” then heads to Sandwich, a bustling port in the southeast of England. Crossing over the English Channel at night, Arthur arrives with his troops at the coastal town of Barfleur in Normandy, France.  

Upon arriving, Arthur hears about a gruesome giant that is terrorizing the area. Arthur seeks out the giant and kills him, directing that a church should be built at Mont Saint-Michel.

Meanwhile, Lucius has left Rome with a host of allies from the East, including “Saracens,” and enters France. In an early skirmish, Arthur’s men are victorious and take prisoners to nearby Paris. Soon, the two armies violently clash in a vale near Soissions (about a hundred miles northeast of Paris). After many battles, Arthur slays Lucius. But the campaign is not over.

Arthur takes a circuitous journey into Flanders and Germany (Alemayn), then gets back on track and heads to Lake Lucerne (Switzerland). By now it is summer in Malory’s tale: Arthur and his men march over the St. Gotthard Pass, a beautiful mountain pass through the Swiss Alps, into Italy. From here, they descend into Lombardy, subdue Milan, traverse Tuscany, and take Spoleto. They pause to rest for the winter in Viterbo, a landscape of vineyards about 50 miles northwest of Rome. In Malory’s account, a Roman delegation brings news that the empire capitulates. Arthur is then crowned Emperor by the Pope himself.

Come spring, Arthur’s men are eager to return to England so the arduous return, about 1500 miles, is undertaken. The victorious Arthur arrives in Sandwich  and then on to London where Guinevere welcomes him home. Through this cross-continental endeavor, the young king establishes himself as a global power and as the true king of England.

Route from Malory’s Le Morte Darthur
Route of the Via Francigena

I created an interactive map of Arthur’s route on Google Earth that you can explore.

With Malory’s book as our guide, let’s start in Winchester.

Meg Roland, blog author, in Monteriggioni, Italy, a 13th century town along the route of Arthur’s Roman War campaign.

Further Reading:

Timothy Egan, A Pilgrimage to Eternity (2019).

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King Arthur and the Roman what?

Posted on February 9, 2026 by M. Roland

King Arthur’s Roman War campaign?  Most people have never heard of it.

14th century French manuscript, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Source: The Collector.com

Almost everyone is familiar with the major plot outlines of the Arthurian story—a birth engendered by lust and magic, the iconic sword-and-the-stone episode, the Knights of the Round Table questing for the elusive Holy Grail. There is the Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur love triangle, the treachery of Arthur’s illegitimate son Mordred, and the demise of the idealism of Camelot. Finally, there is the beguiling promise of a return: “Here lies Arthur, the once and future king.”

Those lines became the title of T. H. White’s 1958 novel and the basis for the Kennedy-beloved Broadway play, Camelot. The Harry Potter books also draw on themes from the Arthurian legend. There have been film versions too: Excalibur, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Disney’s Sword and the Stone, and plenty more. And then there is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, packed with witty one-liners and coconut sound effects. 

Lev Grossman’s 2024 The Bright Sword, an apocalyptic Arthurian fantasy novel, is said to be in development for a TV series.

In all of that, who has ever heard mention of Arthur’s Roman War campaign?

But for medieval English readers—the story of Arthur’s Roman War was a riveting bestseller!

Geoffrey of Monmouth, statue at Tinturn, Monmouthshire. Source: Wikipedia

It started in the late 12th century with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), written around 1136-38. A Welsh cleric, Geoffrey of Monmouth thrilled his readers (largely Norman who had recently taken control of England in 1066) with an alternate history (fake news).

Roman occupation of England (approximately 43-410 CE) was a distant memory, but fashioning Arthur’s fictional conquest of Rome provided a fantasy legitimacy for the Normans as conquerors themselves—as well as a cautionary tale about overreaching power. It was re-told as part of the alliterative Morte Arthure around 1400, then incorporated into Malory’s tale in the 1460s.

Over time, the story of Arthur’s Roman War faded in interest. William Caxton, first printer of Le Morte Darthur, shortened the account by at least a third. In the mid-20th century, C. S. Lewis remarked that Malory’s Roman War account was “a dreary business.” In a recent retelling in modern English (The Death of King Arthur), Peter Ackyroyd drops the Roman War tale altogether.

But a few factors contribute to recent interest in the tale:

Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. Wikimedia Commons
  • In 1938, a manuscript of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur was discovered in Winchester! Textual scholars (I am one of them) have poured over the differences between the longer manuscript version (c. 1465) and the printed edition (1485).
  • Current interest in cultural geography takes a fresh look at maps as both literal and creative documents, revealing power dynamics and imagination.
  • In 2004, the medieval walking route between England and Rome was established as a European Cultural Route. The Via Francigena, which inspired the Roman War itinerary, is once again an epic journey for pilgrims, ambassadors . . . and literary wanderers. I’m walking part of it this spring. 
  • And lastly, there is the enduring mystique of ancient Rome, the Eternal City. 

So, andiamo—let’s head to Rome! Next—the details of the route.

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Going that way anyway

Posted on February 2, 2026 by M. Roland

As the landscape of northern France flies dizzyingly past the train window, I am struck by the thought that somehow I got myself here, against a lot of odds. 

In the past four years, my part-time faculty position became full time, I attended a course on Maps and Mapping at the London Rare Book School, and was selected for two short-term fellowships. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote my fellowship applications and asked kind mentors to write letters of support.  I had a cancer scare, a hysterectomy, and a divorce. Time to take a breath and let the French countryside fly by in a blur.

Just a few days ago, I presented a paper at Oxford University for a conference called the Language of Maps, an interdisciplinary symposium on maps, literature, and historical geography organized by Dr. Keith Lilley and Nick Millea at the historic Bodleian Library, a bibliophile heaven. From here, my fellowship and month of relative freedom start.

Bodleian Library – the transporting smell of old books!

The seeds of this journey go back to my graduate studies: I wrote my dissertation on the Roman War account in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur (written c. 1465 and printed by William Caxton in 1485). Malory altered the placenames and route from his source and then Caxton made additional changes in his print edition. Which made me wonder, naively: what was going on in terms of maps in the fifteenth century. Turns out: a lot. It was the beginning of world maps based on mathematical coordinates and the work of the first-century cosmographer Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria. Think: north at the top (minus America).

Love maps? Good, there will be some geeking out about maps here. Check out the beautiful edition of Ptolemy’s Geography printed in Ulm, German in 1482, below.

World map from the Ulm edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, 1482.
Source: Newberry Library

Three years ago, my research took me to a map seminar at the London Rare Book School, then to the triennial conference of the International Arthurian Society in Renne, France (in Brittany).  I hadn’t planned yet how I would get from London to Rennes, but I vaguely thought I would take a train and bus. 

While in London on a free weekend from the seminar, I decided to take a train to the small city of Winchester. In addition to its famed cathedral, the manuscript of Malory’s story of King Arthur was improbably discovered at a boys’ school there in 1934 (prior to that only the early print edition was known)! 

While crossing London’s busy Waterloo Train station, I passed through a shaft of sunlight slanting across the station platform, filled with tiny motes of sparking dust. Standing there, a thought occurred to me: Winchester is also the starting point of Malory’s Roman War tale. Amid my own personal uncertainty, came sheer happiness—I was Winchester bound.

Next weekend, I thought, I could go to York, which is the rather surprising second location in the tale. From there the story takes Arthur to the town of Sandwich in southeast England, over the channel, and, well, to Brittany—exactly where I am headed. In that moment, the idea coalesced: I’d follow the first part of the Roman War itinerary—from Winchester to York to London to Sandwich to Normandy to Brittany to Paris.

I was pretty much going that way anyway.

Next, a quick back story on the Roman War and itinerary. Then on to Winchester.

Books of Interest:

Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur (there are various editions; a modern language edition, edited by Dorsey Armstrong, or a retelling by Peter Ackyroyd, are the easiest to read).

Keith Lilley, City and Cosmos: The Medieval World in Urban Form

Keith Lilley, Mapping Medieval Geographies

Nick Millea, The Gough Map: The Earliest Road Map of Great Britain

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Quest

Posted on January 26, 2026 by M. Roland

2011: I am on the Eurostar train, streaming from London to Paris in just over two hours. My friend, Padeen, is dozing on a seat nearby. I’ve been awarded a faculty grant to follow the itinerary of the medieval story of King Arthur’s Roman War, an intermingling of my interests in medieval literature and geography. Reading and topography is a nexus that can bring forth emotion, passion—thus the title of this blog: Passionate Geography. A landscape is replete with collective memories—it is a living portal to the past. And an experience of the living earth.

Photo Nathan Gallager. Courtesy of Eurostar.

I teach at Marylhurst University, a small, non-elite liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, a faculty position I’ve held for about 8 years. An Associate Professor of English (medieval lit, book history) and a self described provincial scholar, I live and work about as far away from the geography of medieval England as one can be.

Of course, when I decided to pursue a doctoral degree in medieval literature at age 38 with two young kids, there were, to put it politely, family skeptics. But here I am, just over the brink of 50, with a faculty position and a fellowship to follow the Roman War itinerary, a fictional journey in Sir Thomas Malory’s fifteenth century Arthurian epic, Le Morte Darthur (The Death of Arthur).

In Malory’s account, Arthur battles his way from London to Rome and back, a journey of approximately 3,500 miles.  It took Arthur and his men the better part of a year, but Padeen and I will drive and explore the route in somewhat less than a month. My older son is away for a wilderness skills camp at the Oregon coast and my younger son is at a one-month study abroad in Paris. Though a mom of teens, I’ll take the adventure.

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In Malory’s Le Morte Darthur–a challenge is issued and a journey begins

Posted on January 26, 2026 by M. Roland

It befell when King Arthur had wedded Queen Guinevere and fulfilled the Round Table, and so after his marvellous knights and he had vanquished the most part of his enemies–
. . . then so it befell that the Emperor of Rome, Lucius, sent unto Arthur messengers commanding him for to pay his truage that his ancestors have paid before him.

When King Arthur wist what they meant, he looked up with his grey eyes, and angered at the messengers passing sore.

–from Le Morte Darthur, by Thomas Malory.
Helen Cooper, ed. Oxford University Press, 1988.

13th century Round Table, at Winchester

Sometimes, you might be feeling that things have come together in your life, that things are going well. Perhaps you are home, enjoying a meal with friends; perhaps you just got married or got a new job or have finally come into a good, stable place in your life. Then, something rocks the equanimity. In 2021, all I need say is “covid” to bring such a circumstance to mind.

In Thomas Malory’s epic tale of King Arthur, Le Morte Darthur, the young king has finally, exhaustedly, solidified his rule and he just married Guinevere (though Merlin told him not to). They are celebrating in Camelot with a comforting future ahead. Then, out of the blue, ambassadors from Rome come to Arthur’s court, demanding fealty, and a whole unexpected trajectory spins into play. Arthur will leave England with troops, battle his way across Europe, slay a giant, kill the Roman emperor, rest by Lake Lucerne, cross the Alps, besiege a city, and, ultimately, arrive in Rome. It becomes his defining action as king, and his journey defined mine as a reader.  I decided to follow Arthur’s route.

I write about the intersection of medieval literature and geography, of poets and astronomers.  My book Mirror of the World: Literature, Maps, and Geographic Writing in Late Medieval and Early Modern England was published by Routledge in 2021.

This blog chronicles my journey following the legendary route of King Arthur’s Roman War campaign, from Winchester to Rome.

To follow the journey, begin with the posts starting in January 2026 (reorganized from previous posts).

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An update on Passionate Geography, January 2026

Posted on January 26, 2026 by M. Roland
St. Gotthard Pass

Friends, if you once subscribed to this seemingly long-lost blog, you will start to see that I am tinkering and revising and hopefully finishing this project. If you would like to unsubscribe, please feel free to do so!

If you are willing to have another go at this journey with me, you will see that I am rewriting the introduction, with the story now beginning on the train to Paris, en media res. From there, I go back to the beginning of the journey in England, three years earlier. Once I get the first section (London to Paris) organized, I’ll be adding new posts that chronicle the journey from Paris to Rome (and back).

Latera, Italy

Some news: I’ve been selected for a writer’s residency in the medieval village of Latera, about 90 miles northwest of Rome! Thank you to La Casa Etruria Artist Residency. I’ll be in residence there for two weeks in May. Prior to that, I will be walking the final section of the Via Francigena from Viterbo to Rome, about 75 miles. The Via Francigena was a pilgrimage, trade, and diplomatic route that was first established in the 900s and that has been revived as a European cultural route.

Malory’s itinerary, the route I am following, roughly follows the Via Francigena and was no doubt informed by traveler’s stories from the way. I may set up a substack for that day-to-day journey (about a week of walking) that links back to here.

It’s been a continuing and incredibly rich journey; it’s good to have you along as I resume the story.

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a passionate geography

Posted on January 26, 2026 by M. Roland

Between perception and a response emerges a zone of feeling, a resonance, a vibration, a powerful affect that inaugurates the passionate geography evoked in Guiliana Bruno’s ‘Atlas of Emotion’ . . . 

–Iain Chambers, “Maritime Criticism and Theoretical Shipwrecks,”  PMLA, May 2010

We think of geography as a science, a measuring of space: latitude, longitude, miles traversed.  But in life, as in fiction, geography is also passionate, resonant with memory or experience. In the everyday, we barely see our geography, but if you return to an old landscape, then your lost loved one, your sense of home, or bittersweet memories will ache your heart with pleasure or grief.

The genre of medieval romance is about the comings and goings of knights and maidens, of strange journeys and returns, of magical landscapes and horrifying battle.  In deciding to follow the story of Malory’s Roman War tale, I was romancing the Roman War, interpreting and experiencing the landscape of a very old story.  Transforming the story of a war into the story of falling in love with Rome.

But it wasn’t as if I set out with a plan. I found myself in the landscape; no, I created the circumstances of my being in the landscape, and then realized I was already on the route. For me, the journey became many journeys. Along the way, some heartbreak, a scholarly passion, the dream of so many pilgrims, travelers, and writers: Rome.

Guiliana Bruno
Guiliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion
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