La Cote Male Taile

Also known as: Breunor le Noire / La Cote / Sir Breunor le Noire / Sir La Cote Male Taile · Family: Arthur's court · Role: knight · First appears: Book VII, Chapter XXVII

In Book VII, La Cote Male Taile is identified as Sir Dinadan’s brother, but Sir Gareth defeats them both, along with several other knights: “All these he bare down with one spear.” In Book IX, after being made a knight, he accepts the dangerous shield quest despite King Arthur’s warning and follows Maledisant. He unhorses Sir Dagonet, but Sir Bleoberis and Sir Palomides later defeat him in jousts; at Castle Orgulous he defeats its knights, kills one, and escapes after killing twelve knights.

Maledisant rebukes him while he fights, though she later explains that her words came from love: “I rebuked him never for no hate that I hated him, but for great love that I had to him.” Sir Mordred defends La Cote Male Taile as a good knight who may become noble, and Sir Launcelot later rides with him and Maledisant. After five knights defeat and imprison him at Pendragon, Sir Launcelot frees him; wounded after another encounter, he is taken in by Sir Plenorius, but refuses Plenorius’s livelihood and asks that he and his brothers serve King Arthur instead.

At Pentecost, King Arthur makes La Cote Male Taile—also called Breunor le Noire—a Knight of the Table Round and grants him lands. Sir Launcelot gives him Pendragon and its lands, placing Nerovens in authority beneath him; La Cote Male Taile marries Maledisant, thereafter called Beauvivante, and later avenges his father’s death. In Book XVIII, he appears among the knights associated with Queen Guenever.