The Table Round, at Winchester

Posted on March 10, 2026 by M. Roland

Early references to the Round Table in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur explain its origin and use:

[Arthur said:] “I love Gwenyvere, the kynges doughtir Lodegrean, of the londe of Camelerde, the whyche holdyth in his house the Table Rounde that ye tolde me he had hit of my fadir Uther . . .” (76).

“I shall gyff hym [Arthur] the Table Rounde [said King Lodegreanus,] which Uther hys fadir gaff me. And whan hit ys fulle complete there ys an hondred knyghtes and fifty . . .” And so Kynge Lodgreaunce delyverd hys doughtir Gwenyvere unto Merlion, and the Table Rounde with the hondred knyghtes . . . (77).

So unto thys were all knyghtes sworne of the Table Rounde, both olde and yonge, and every yere so were they sworne at the hyghe feste of Pentecost (98).

Hyt befelle whan Kyng Arthur had wedded Quene Gwenyvere and fulfilled the Rounde Table, and so aftir his mervelous knyghtis and he had venquyshed the moste party of his enemyes . . . he rested and helde a royall feste and table rounde with his alyes of kynges, prynces, and noble knyghtes all of the Rounde Table (145).

Note: spelling was flexible in the Middle Ages!

An illustration by Évrard d’Espinques for a manuscript of the Prose Lancelot, 1470. Bibliothèque nationale de France, BNF 112.

If Malory’s references to Winchester as Camelot, his locating the start of the Roman War campaign there, and the presence of the 15th century manuscript of Le Morte Darthur at Winchester weren’t ENOUGH to tightly link Winchester to the Arthurian legend, there is also a massive and magnificent “table rounde!”

Thought by some to be THE round table, it has ultimately been shown to be made of oak from the 13th century. Too late to be Arthur’s–but still an impressive, heavy, medieval round table! Earlier versions of the King Arthur legend no doubt inspired the design of the table at Winchester. Measuring 18 feet in diameter and weighing over a ton, the table is now displayed in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle and has been part of the town’s history for centuries.

Probably no greater icon of the Arthurian story exists than the Round Table, a symbol of Arthur’s investment in fellowship and in preserving the peace through an equality of knights. In literature, the Round Table has its earliest appearance in Wace’s 12th century Le Roman de Brut and over time its significance was adapted. John F. Kennedy loved the 1960’s musical Camelot which amplified the Round Table as a symbol of democratic idealism. Monty Python’s Holy Grail version, of course, has a more cynical take.

In Malory’s story, the ‘Table Rounde’ was a gift from Guinevere’s father to Arthur in celebration of the marriage (he “delivers” Guinevere and the table, minimizing the distinction between bride and furniture delivery!). There is a sense in Malory’s Roman War account that the table creates a convivial setting during a period of relative peace and joyfulness.

By Malory’s time (mid-15th century), the massive round table was already in the city of Winchester. Although not nearly as old as the presumed time of King Arthur (approximately 6th century), its mystique inspired an association with the King Arthur legend and may have inspired Malory to identify Winchester as Arthur’s Camelot. During the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), just 50 years after Malory had written his great Arthurian story, the table was painted in the scheme that is seen today: a bold green and white patterning with the names of famous knights of the Arthurian court. 

The massive table is now hung at one end of the Great Hall. The literary evocation of companionable dining is now a vertical-plane art object that visually links the city of Winchester with Tudor kings and the legend of King Arthur. I peer through an archway to find a lovely reconstructed medieval garden, dedicated to Henry III’s wife, Queen Eleanor of Provence.

A 2010 excavation at the cathedral city of Chester suggested to archeologists that Chester, not Winchester, may have been the “Camelot” of the historic English warrior-king and that a Roman amphitheater there may have been the inspiration for the legendary symbolism of a round table. But Malory’s textual reference combined with manuscript and round table accumulate a mythology that Arthur’s sparkling court began in Winchester.

In my own family, my husband, Vietnamese foster sons (Nam and Long) and biological sons (Conor and Nico) have gathered around our common dinner table (a farmhouse rectangle) for years, sharing the highs and lows of the day. Nam and Long now have jobs and children of their own while Conor will be starting his last year of high school come fall. Nico will be a freshman, the one year the brothers will spend together at Central Catholic High School.

In Tennyson’s Victorian poem Idylls of the Kings, the young knights of the Round Table are dispersing, in search of the grail and adventure. Our young men are also heading out on adventures of their own. And like Tennyson’s wistful Arthur, we are wistful at the thought of changes and uncertain how they impact us. These dinner gatherings are dear to us, and each impending vacancy keenly felt.

There are plenty of hours left on this July day, so I depart the Table Round and head for St. Giles hill, where I hear a trace of Winchester’s Roman past remains.

Further Reading:

Jon Whitman, “National Icon: The Winchester Round Table and the Revelation of Authority” in the journal Arthuriana 18:4, Winter 2008.

Peter Field, editor, Thomas Malory: Le Morte Darthur (2013). All Malory quotations are from this edition.

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The Once and Future Manuscript

Posted on March 2, 2026 by M. Roland

Walter F. Oakshott, the former librarian at Winchester College, tells a fascinating and delightful story of the manuscript’s discovery.

The great story of Arthur’s birth, life, and death was compiled by Sir Thomas Malory from an array of French and English poems and tales sometime in the 1460s. Malory, imprisoned at Newgate in London due to sectarian politics or perhaps his lawlessness, wove a tale from the threads of French stories of Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, and Merlin.  He also drew upon English sources such as the Alliterative Morte Arthure, which contains the story of Arthur’s campaign against Rome, and the quasi-historical Chronicles by John Hardyng. Malory wrote his great book just before print technology came to England. In turn, a scribe hand-copied his massive work onto vellum pages.

For 500 years, no manuscript version of the work was known to exist. All that survived the usual use, tattering, and lost pages that mark the material life of a book were two copies of the printed version, made by England’s first printer, William Caxton, in 1485. (A complete copy is held at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City and an incomplete copy at the John Rylands Library in Manchester.)  

Then, in 1934, in Winchester—mythic city from whence Arthur began his Roman War campaign—a manuscript was found at Winchester College. Both images below are from the Malory Project, a joint project of the British Library and Keio University.

Winchester Manuscript (Add MS 59678), British Library, Malory Project.

The Warden of the College had asked Dr. Oakshott to put together an exhibit of some of the manuscripts the college owned. To do so, Dr. Oakshott went to the Warden’s rooms where the rarer manuscripts were held. There, he came upon a manuscript that was missing its first pages. But the distinctive red ink used by the scribe for names and places of the Arthurian story caught his eye: Kynge Arthure. 

First page of the Winchester Manuscript; the first folios are missing.

With a flush of recognition, Oakeshott realized what he held in his hands might be the lost manuscript of Malory’s great tale. The news was a scholarly sensation, and throughout the remainder of the 20th century Malory scholars poured over the manuscript in comparison to the printed book. 

Of particular interest was the fact that the manuscript version of the Roman War tale is almost twice as long as the print version. I could go on and on about this—oh wait, I did—I wrote my whole dissertation on this topic!

Professor Eugene Vinaver edited the highly respected edition Malory: Works, based on the newly-discovered manuscript, and Dr. P. J. C. Field has revised and added his scholarship to a new critical edition. However the manuscript came to Winchester College for safekeeping, there it remained for centuries, in keeping with the Arthurian myth, awaiting its return to readers.

Le Morte Darthur is, to many minds, the great national legend of England. The manuscript discovery, during the period between the two World Wars, connected English writers and readers, to a mythic past. J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Mary Stewart, and T. H. White were all deeply inspired by Malory’s Le Morte Darthur.

I have had the privilege to study both the medieval manuscript and the early printed book of Le Morte Darthur, one of the greatest pleasures of my scholarly life. To turn the pages of a fifteenth-century manuscript is a mystical experience. Medieval manuscripts and books have, to use a term coined by the scholar Walter Benjamin, a kind of aura that is unique and not reproducible. The thick feel of manuscript pages, the musty smell of a very old book, both create an exquisite sensory moment, worth every exam taken or paper written in graduate school. The act of reading brings author and reader into a moment outside the boundaries of time. 

Nota Bene: While general readers might not be able to request to read Malory’s manuscript, rare book libraries have become much more welcoming to the public. The British Library and the John Rylands Library (in Manchester) actively welcome general readers to access their reading rooms.

Further Reading:

Peter Field, editor, Thomas Malory: Le Morte Darthur (2013).

Walter F. Oakshott, “The Finding of the Manuscript,” in Essays on Malory (1963).

Meg Roland, Material Malory: the Caxton and Winchester documents and a parallel-text edition (2002).

C. S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia

Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave (the first of her Merlin trilogy)

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

T. H. White, The Once and Future King

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Of Cathedral and College

Posted on March 2, 2026 by M. Roland

An intriguing aspect of Winchester Cathedral, aside from its beautiful interior, medieval nave, and as the resting place of Jane Austen, is the manicula (pointing hands) carved onto an exterior wall in 1633. To. me, the carving forms a kind of map: roughly translated, it states, “That way thou who comest to pray. This way thou who are pursuing thy walk.” Apparently, a bishop at that time wished to instill a more reverent atmosphere in the churchyard, but the grammar “this way” seems to encourage the more secular choice and leads, coincidentally (??), to where Malory’s great work lay hidden for centuries.

Exterior, Winchester Cathedral.
Winchester Manuscript, British Library; Keio University Humi Project.

The inscription calls to mind an incident when I was about six at the Catholic school I attended in Rio de Janeiro. The nuns in their imposing full habit—it was 1963—were strict, meting out a swift and severe justice. A concrete play area fronted both the school and church chapel. One day, holding hands with a kindergarten friend, we blithely skipped alongside the exterior of the chapel. Spotted by one of the nuns, we were chastised with the same seriousness of the inscription on the Cathedral. No skipping– or joy–near a solemn house of prayer! The rules are absolute.

With that experience seared into my young heart, I veer away from the Cathedral (though, in truth, it is a beautiful, welcoming space) and follow the pointing hands in the direction of a grassy garden area, then turn left onto a quiet street that runs nearby, past Jane Austen’s one-time home. I come to the heavy wooden doors of Winchester College, a boys’ college preparatory school founded in 1382, where the manuscript of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur was discovered in 1934. On the manuscript pages, the manicula point out a knight’s death or important narrative point.

Winchester College gate. Photo credit: Duncan Toms

Standing outside the college’s massive wooden door, I look up to the left to see the Warden’s lodging, the place where Malory’s manuscript rested for 500 years. Pushing the heavy door, I stepped inside and checked in for my tour at the porter’s gate.

Note: Yes, there is the pop tune from the 1960’s that now maybe lodged, unfortunately, in your brain. It has nothing to do with Malory or manuscripts or manicula (the lyrics blame the cathedral for the singer’s lover leaving him–seems the cathedral suggests lifepath choices).

Further Reading:

To see a digital facsimile of the manuscript and of printed book of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, the British Library’s Malory Project, digitized by Keio University’s HUMI Project is a treasure trove.

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“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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