What if a new knight was invited to the round table. A nice surprise for fans of the legend of King Arthur. Popularized by the television series Kaamelott in the 2000s, this medieval saga had not revealed all its secrets. Perceval, Lancelot, Queen Guinevere and even the Lady of the Lake will now have to share their exploits with a newcomer: a certain Ségurant, Knight of the Dragon.
We thought we knew everything about this epic story, somewhere between myth and reality, in the Middle Ages of Great Britain. Error. Immortalized on parchments and manuscripts from the 12th century onwards, the Arthurian novel still hid a fabulous mystery.
Ségurant, knight of the dragon: the return
It has just been pierced by a lecturer who has been teaching for five years at the University of Valenciennes (North). After ten years of meticulous research in libraries around the world, Emanuele Arioli managed to reconstruct the story of a totally forgotten character. And the Arte channel broadcasts, Saturday evening, at 9:05 p.m., a documentary, The Knight of the Dragon, the missing novel of the Round Tablewhich traces this incredible quest of a passionate professor of medieval literature.
A quest that began by chance, in 2010. “At the time, I was a student and, during research on the prophecies of Merlin, another character from the Round Table, I came across a very special manuscript at the Arsenal Museum in Paris,” the Franco-Italian historian tells 20 minutes.
At the heart of the work, he discovers a passage that intrigues him. “The author mentioned the adventures of Ségurant, knight of the dragon, but the manuscript stopped in the middle of a sentence,” he continues. What aroused the curiosity of the young Italian student from Pisa, who, like everyone else, had never heard of this legendary hero. He decides to start looking for her. Its own Holy Grail, in a way.
“A huge puzzle to put together”
“It was like an immense puzzle to put together and I had no precise means to define my research. The copyists of the time made a lot of compilations of texts and I had no precise title,” he admits. However, over the years, he managed to find traces of this knight in 28 manuscripts spread across France, Belgium, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the United States. A titanic work after consulting thousands of works, some of which had been partially destroyed by fire.
But why had this character disappeared from the radar of history? “This Ségurant was part of the adventures of the Round Table which, after its oral transmission phase, was an enormous literary success in France between the 13th and 15th centuries. Then it was forgotten during the Renaissance, with the decline of chivalry. The texts were often scattered and its trace was lost,” notes Emanuele Arioli.
And yet, this dragon knight was a real star. In his reconstructed history (see box), the historian evokes a character “surpassing all the knights of his time in strength and bravery”. Without revealing all the mechanisms of this new story, let us simply reveal that unwittingly bewitched by the fairies Morgane and Sibylle, Ségurant – who could be an emanation of the Viking hero Sigurd or Germanic Siegfried – must set out to chasing a fire-breathing dragon. And that’s not easy, even when you’re built.
This incredible story caught the eye of Arte. “The channel contacted me one day. She was looking for a specialist in medieval history for a documentary. I took the opportunity to tell my story of a missing and found knight. Immediately, there was talk of making a film on the subject,” he recalls. Three years were necessary for the production, impeccably directed by Marie Thiry. We are now waiting for a new episode of the series Kaamelott to definitively anchor this new hero in popular culture. “But where did you come from, Ségurant? », King Arthur might exclaim. Chick?