Treason in Arthurian legend caused by the duplicity in his knights. A linking motif throughout a variety of centuries and countries, authors focus on the treasonous destruction of Arthur's court, and the temptation knights face to engage in treason. Queen Guinevere found herself facing accusations of treason several times over the course of recorded Arthurian legend. In Malory's Le Morte d’Arthur, she is accused first in the “Poisoned Apple” episode, when at a dinner she holds for some of the knights of the Round Table, one of the knights, Sir Patrise, dies from eating a poisoned apple intended for Gawain. The real culprit is
Treason in Arthurian legend of true nobility and manhood. Therefore, knights who committed treasonous crimes threatened to undermine the sanctity of the order as a whole, and all that it stood for. Thus, punishments for knights and nobles deemed traitors typically involved some kind of process in which their identities as both knights, and men, were stripped away. Executions of treasonous knights included a process of removing the physical representations of their titles, such as “breaking of the traitor’s sword and striking of his spurs, removing his sword belt, and publicly stripping him of the rich clothing that visually communicated his status.” Punishments could