The Rise of Sir Gareth and the Hermeneutics of Heraldry

Expanding on Bonnie Wheeler's study of color and alchemical practices in Malory's The Tale of Sir Gareth, this study finds that the procession of colors Sir Gareth battles draws signification from medieval heraldic, in particular, Iohannes de Bado's fourteenth-century Tractatus de Armes. Malory transforms Gareth into one of the 'Grete Knights' through the order of the heraldic color spectrum, correlating each knight's color to the landscape the knight inhabits.