Robert de Boron's Literary Works and Historical Places Influencing Him

Despite being famous for his cycle of Arthurian Romances focused on the Holy Grail, almost nothing is known about the Burgundian known as Robert de Boron. His works reveal that more than one place influenced him - and Berry Pomeroy seems to have been one of the place names having a tremendous influence. His worlds were those of the French Cavalier and English Knight. 

• The Illustrated History of Knights and the Golden Age of Chivalry

His works reveal that he was a poet in the employ of one Gautier, who has been identified as Gautier de Montbeliard, the Lord of Montfaucon.

Gauthier was the joint Regent of Cypress, along with his wife Princess Bourgogne de Lusignan. Bourgogne's half-sister became the  Queen of Jerusalem during the Crusades. The Lusignan family produced two Kings of Jerusalem. Guy de Lusignan succeeded Baldwin and was later compelled to resign his title. He received the island of Cypress from King Richard of England the son of King Henry the second who is said to have revealed the buried remains of King Arthur on his death bed. Did King Richard share Arthurain legends with the House of Lusignian that is linked to Melusine and White Lady legends that some associate with the Lady of the Lake?

Amalric II succeeded Guy as King of Cyprus and was also King of Jerusalem. His descendants would continue to claim the kingship of Jerusalem. In 1342 a branch of their line ascended the throne of Lesser Armenia. In 1375 the last Lusignian king of Armenia was overthrown by the Mamluks and the Lusignians of Cypress added the empty title of King of Amrenia to the equally empty tile of King of Jerusalem.

Gauthier de Montfaoucon is of the Asuel family who were the Bishops of Basel, and the Lords of St. Ursanne which honors the bear. Is there a connection to the legend of King Arthur whose name has a double "bear" meaning? The first component would be "art" or "arth" meaning bear, and the second component a repetition in Latin, "ursus".

Jean Lutold d'Asuel was the Lord of Rougemont. His mother was Jeanne de Rougemont. Jean was the provost of Saint Ursane named after an Irish Monk with a bear name. Jean was a member of the Brotherhood of Rougemont and Saint-George that met at Rougemont castle. Asuel is spelled Azuel. It appears Jean left Saint Ursanne the same year he joined the Brothers of Rougemont. Jean is related to the Vienne family who co-founded the Order of Saint-George, and were members of Saint-Ursanne. The d'Asuel family descends frm the Lords of Montfaucon who sired the Lords of Neufchatel. It is highly likely Denis deRougemont descends from this "old nobility" who were the most powerful and influential family in the Jura. They were also the Bishops of Basel and Besancon.

The Castle of Berry Pomeroy

 

Robert presumably was from Boron - a small village about fifteen miles from Montbeliard - where he appears to have been a cleric of some sort. In 1202, his master is known to have taken part in the Fourth Crusade from which he never returned, dying abroad ten years later. So Robert's Arthurian trilogy must have been written in the very late 12th century, probably after the Glastonbury monks' 1191 "discovery" of King Arthur's body, since Robert's "Vales of Avalon" would seem to be in Somerset in and around Berry Pomeroy.

The name Avalon means "Isle of Apples". This was because the apple, which is called "aval" in the Romano-British Celtic language, was once abundant in the vacinity of that island. However, my guess is now that many whose ancestors once lived near the archetypal island now live in the United States either in California or not far from Maryland.
 
Later House of Seymour
   

Pomeroy is French (Pomme-roi) and the surname refers to a kind of apple, the royal apple, king's apple, or king of apples; a name probably given to a gardener for his skill in raising them, or a name of place where such apples were raised.

The Pomeroy surname is most anciently associated with the castle of Berry Pomeroy, a few miles east of Totnes, Devon. An estate -- the "beri" or "defended place", i.e Pomeroy's Fortress -- is first recorded in the Domesday Book as being formerly owned by a Saxon called Alric (Alricius) at which time it was more valuable than the settlement that became Totnes. After the Norman invasion of England in 1066 it was granted to Ralf de la Pomeraye. Ralf probably made the manor at Berry his home with a wooden keep on an area protected by a wooden palisade and a dyke. A survey in 1283 describes the manor house at Berry as situated next to the village church. While a deer park is mentioned in records as early as 1207 the first reference to the castle at Berry does not occur until the mid-C15th. Later, after some complex transactions it passed into the hands of Edward Seymour, the first Duke of Somerset. It was a ruin by the early 1700s.

This interesting and unusual surname derives from two possible origins. It may be of French locational origin from any of the following places in France, La Pommeraye, in Calvados and Seine-Inferieure, or Saint Sauveur La-Pommeraie in La Manche, which received their name from the old French "Pommeroie", meaning "apple orchard", from the Latin word "pomum", apple. Also the name may have been a topographical name for a "dweller by the apple orchard", from the same old French word "pommeraie", as above. The surname dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086.

The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Ralph de Pomerai, which was dated 1086, in the Domesday Book of Devonshire and Somerset, during the reign of King William 1, known as "William the Conqueror", 1066 - 1087. Samson de la Pumeray was recorded in the Curia Rolls of Oxfordshire in the year 1200, while the Assize Court Rolls of Somerset in 1225, mentions one Henry de la Pomereie. One Robert Pomeroy appears in the 1327 Subsidy Rolls of Somerset. The name found widespread in Devon can be traced to Ralph de la Pomerai (see below), a close associate of William the Conqueror, whose family lived for over 500 years in the castle of Berry Pomeroy, near Totnes, Devon.

Sir Edward Seymour, of Berry Pomeroy (c. 1528 - died 2 May 1593), was Sheriff of Devon. He was a son of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and first wife Catherine Fillol, in the senior line. It is probable that he was a widower prior to his second marriage. He received the estate of Berry Pomeroy, including Berry Pomeroy Castle, in Devon, on 18 September 1547. He married Margaret Walsh, daughter of John Welsh, Justice of the Common Pleas in 1563, and wife, and had one son Sir Edward Seymour, 1st Baronet. Later the descendents of Sir Edward inherited the Dukedom. Arthur Pomeroy accompanied the Earl of Essex in 1573 on his Irish Campaign.

Robert de Boron wrote Le Roman de I'Estoire dou Graal (also called Joseph d'Arimathie), the Merlin and proably a version of Sir Percivale's story usually called the Didot-Perceval. They were originally written in octo-syllabic verse; however, only the first named work and 504 lines of the Merlin survive in this form. Luckily an anonymous admirer transcribed a prose version of each around the 1220s. These were the inspiration for the later Vulgate Cycle of Arthurian tales. Robert was the first to identify Sir Perceval's Grail as the Last Supper vessel used by St. Joseph of Arimathea to collect the blood of Christ from the Cross.