Galehaut

Galehaut (or Gallehault) is a fictional knight in the Arthurian Legend.

Galehaut, Sire des Lointaines Isles (Lord of the Distant Isles) appears for the first time in Arthurian literature in the early-thirteenth-century prose Lancelot Proper, the central work in the series of anonymous French prose romances collectively called the Lancelot-Grail or Arthurian Vulgate Cycle. An ambitious, towering figure of a man, he emerges from obscurity to challenge King Arthur for possession of his entire realm. Though unknown to Arthur and his court, Galehaut has already acquired considerable power, loyal followers, and a reputation for nobility of character. In the ensuing military engagements it is clear that Galehaut’s forces are more than capable of defeating Arthur’s. One thing alone prevents the challenger from succeeding: he is so awed by the battlefield performance of the King’s most ardent defender, that for his sake he renounces certain victory and surrenders to Arthur. Lancelot gratefully accepted Galehaut’s companionship. What follows is a tale of friendship (interpreted by some as an expression of homosexuality, for example by Julie Brochen and Christian Schiaretti) and self-denial, in which Galehaut figures as a major—indeed, as the pivotal — character: he becomes the doomed person in the story. For Lancelot, just as he has surrendered to King Arthur, he will give way before Guinevere, yielding the young Lancelot to her in an especially memorable scene. Lancelot forever has this profound attachment to Galehaut.

Of all the personages in the story, Galehaut is the only one whose inner life the text explores at length and in depth, the only character whose trajectory is that of a classic tragic hero. If a large part of the Prose Lancelot has long been known as the “Book of Galehaut,” it is because its bounds are defined more clearly by his action and evolution than by anything else.

Galehaut gives depth and complexity to the work's grappling with the meaning and expression of love, with its obligations and its consequences. Long after his death, brought about by longing, Galehaut is recalled by everyone as an exemplar of greatness. Lancelot, at the end of his own life, will be buried next to Galehaut in the magnificent tomb that the younger man had built to consecrate and eternalize their companionship.

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