Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Holidays And Holy Days: The Significance Of The Pagan/Christian Calendar In The French Vulgate Account Of King Arthur And His Round Table, Mark Lee Patterson

Conversations: A Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology

The Merlin section of the thirteenth-century Old French Vulgate Cycle focuses on Arthur’s birth and the now iconic events that accompany his divine selection and coronation as King of Britain. A close reading of this account reveals that significant story events usually coincide with religious holidays. The transition from the pagan to the Christian calendar and the symbolic impact of the calendar on the early formation of the round table in the French Vulgate Cycle has been mostly overlooked by scholars. In this paper, I address this lacuna by examining the role the calendar plays in the development of characters …