ABSTRACT
The way in which King Arthur is affected by Fortuna changes in the various works of Arthurian literature written in England in the Middle Ages. In the early period neither Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, nor Laʒamon mentions Fortuna as having any particular association with King Arthur. With the thirteenth-century French prose romance Mort Artu, however, Fortuna and her wheel emerge decisively in Arthurian legend and from thereon maintain their place. She appears to King Arthur in a dream; he climbs onto her wheel, is drawn up, and hurled down. The presentation of this dream vision and the significance given to it in individual works affect not only their content and form but also shed light on the position of Fortuna in the history of ideas. Fortuna functions almost as a touchstone that shows basic trends in Arthurian literature. Particularly with the alliterative Morte Arthure, she places the national, heroic, chivalric, and religious trends in a new relation to one another, while she herself appears as the chief agent in a new conception of Arthur that makes the alliterative Morte Arthure, more than previous works, an exemplum with historical and theological significance.
