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{{Infobox character
| name = Sagremore
| series = [[Matter of Britain]]
| image = Hb-sagrenior.jpg
| caption = Attributed arms of "Sagrenior le Desiré"
| first = ''[[Erec and Enide]]''
| title = Prince, Sir
| occupation = [[Knights of the Round Table|Knight of the Round Table]]
| relatives = [[Elyan the White]], [[Mordred]]
| spouse = [[Sebile]]
| religion = [[Christianity in the Middle Ages|Christian]]
| origin = [[Kingdom of Hungary]]
}}
'''Sagramore''', also known as '''Sagramor''' and many other variations of this name (including ''Sacremor'',  ''Sacremors'', ''Sagramour'', ''Sagramoure'', ''Sagremoir'', ''Sagremor'', ''Sagremore'', ''Sagremoret'', ''Sagrenoir'', ''Saigremor'', ''Saigremors'', ''Saigremort'', ''Segramor'', ''Segramore'', ''Segramors'', ''Segramort'', ''Segremor'', ''Segremore'', ''Seigramor'', ''Seigramore'', ''Sigamor'', ''Sogremor'', ''Sygramors''),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B-UERDABGBAC|title=Stanford University Publications: University series. Language and literature|date=19 January 1952|publisher=Stanford University|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ftZAAAAYAAJ|title=Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication|date=19 January 1916|publisher=Carnegie Institution of Washington|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGZDAAAAYAAJ|title=The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances: Index|first=Heinrich Oskar|last=Sommer|date=19 January 1916|publisher=Carnegie Institution|via=Google Books}}</ref> is a knight of the [[Round Table]] in [[Arthurian legend]]. He appears in many standalone and cyclical chivalric romances and other works, including some where he is the titular protagonist. Sagramore's characterisation varies from story to story, but generally he is characterised as a virtuous but hot-tempered knight who fights fiercely and ragefully.

==Medieval and Renaissance literature==
The earliest appearances of Sagramore, as '''Sagremor le Desreé''' (the Impetous), can be found in the 12th century stories by [[Chrétien de Troyes]], where he is one of [[King Arthur]]'s greatest knights and a companion of [[Sir Erec|Erec]]. In the later [[Prose Tristan|Prose ''Tristan'']], Sagramore is portrayed as a close friend to the protagonist [[Tristan]] and the one who alerts the rest of the [[Round Table]] to his death. In the [[Post-Vulgate Cycle]], the young Sagramore becomes the foster-brother of the child [[Mordred]] whose real identity is unknown at the time; he also appears as a brother of Mordred named '''Segures''' in [[Renaud de Beaujeu]]'s version of the story of [[Le Bel Inconnu]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XZFbczeMtYcC&pg=PA366 | title=The Arthurian Name Dictionary | isbn=978-0-8153-2865-0 | last1=Bruce | first1=Christopher W. | date=1999 | publisher=Taylor & Francis }}</ref> In ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'', the prowess of '''Sagramore le Desirous''' (''Sagramoure le Desyrous'') varies from situation to situation; he usually serves to lose jousts to better knights, but at times he is a valiant fighter.

Sagramore is also the subject of a fragmentary German romance, ''Segremors'', the surviving portions of which describe his journey to an island ruled by a [[fairy|fay]] and his undesired combat with his friend [[Gawain]]. In Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos' 16th-century Portuguese romance {{ill|Triunfos de Sagramor|pt|lt=''Triunfos de Sagramor''}} (''Triumphs of Sagramore'') or ''Memorial das Proezas da Segunda Távola Redonda'' (''Memorial of the Deeds of the Second Round Table''), Sagramore and legendary British king [[Constantine (Briton)|Constantine III]] are fused into a single person, '''Sagramor Constantino''', portrayed as the heir to Arthur who forms a new Round Table to fight the [[Saxons]] and keep the glory of Arthurian Britain.<ref>[http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/3762.pdf Os livros de cavalarias renascentistas nas histórias da literatura portuguesa], Aurelio Vargas Díaz-Toledo.</ref><ref>[http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/conhecer/biblioteca-digital-camoes/estudos-literarios-critica-literaria/30-30/file.html A novelística portuguesa do século XVI] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010050458/http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/conhecer/biblioteca-digital-camoes/estudos-literarios-critica-literaria/30-30/file.html |date=10 October 2014 }}, Ettore Finazzi-Agró, Lisbon, ''Instituto de Cultura Portuguesa'', 1978.</ref> It tells of the eponymous new generation of knights led by King Sagramor, Arthur's immediate successor as the ruler of "England and France".<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Yu0AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT425 | title=The New Arthurian Encyclopedia: New edition | isbn=978-1-136-60632-8 | last1=Lacy | first1=Norris J. | last2=Ashe | first2=Geoffrey | last3=Ihle | first3=Sandra Ness | last4=Kalinke | first4=Marianne E. | last5=Thompson | first5=Raymond H. | date=5 September 2013 | publisher=Routledge }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BcAmDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT86 | title=The Arthur of the Iberians: The Arthurian Legends in the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds | isbn=978-1-78316-243-7 | last1=Hook | first1=David | date=15 June 2015 | publisher=University of Wales Press }}</ref> He marries Arthur's daughter, Seleucia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Varnhagen |first=Francisco Adolfo de |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XnPlGpPqqhQC&pg=PA12 |title=O Memorial das proezas da segunda tavola redonda e a edicao triunfos de Sagramor ... |date=1872 |publisher=Gerold |language=pt-BR}}</ref>

===Vulgate Cycle===
According to the ''[[Lancelot-Grail]]'' (Vulgate) cycle, the father of '''Sagremor the Unruly''' was the [[King of Hungary]] named Vlask (renamed as Nabur the Unruly in the Post-Vulgate ''Suite du Merlin'') and his mother was a daughter of an [[Eastern Roman Empire|Eastern Roman]] ("Greek") Emperor Hadrian. Sagramore was actually an heir to the throne of [[Constantinople]], but his father died while he was still young, and his mother accepted the proposal of King Brandegoris of Estangore in Britain. When he was fifteen, Sagramore traveled to Britain to join them and help Arthur fight the Saxon invaders. Upon arrival in Britain, Sagramore immediately engages the enemy forces in a battle at [[Camelot]] with aid from Arthur's nephew Gawain and his brothers: they are all subsequently knighted by Arthur. After the Saxons are defeated, and having personally slain some of their kings, he later participates in Arthur's other early wars such as these against [[Claudas]] and [[Galahaut]].

The ''Lancelot-Grail'' describes him as a good knight, but quick to anger. When fighting, he would go into a frenzy not unlike the Irish hero [[Cúchulainn]]'s warp-spasm; when he came down, he would feel ill and hungry. He gains a number of nicknames, including "the Hothead" (''li Desreez'') and "the Desired" (''le Désiré''). [[Sir Kay|Kay]] gave him another nickname, "Dead Youth" (''Morte Jeune''), due to how he would sometimes go into epilepsy-like fits.

The cycle recounts a number of his adventures, often centered around rescuing damsels, and mentions that he had a daughter by one of his paramours who was raised at Arthur's court by [[Guinevere]]. In the ''Livre d'Artus'' version he also becomes a champion of the pagan queen [[Sebile]], whom he marries after she converts to Christianity for his sake. His half-sister, Brandegoris' beautiful daughter Claire, falls in love with [[Sir Bors|Bors]] and sleeps with him; their child is [[Elyan the White]], who too joins the Round Table before returning to take the throne of Constantinople. Eventually, Sagramore dies by Mordred's hand as one of Arthur's last remaining men in [[Battle of Camlann|their final battle]].

==Modern fiction==
Sagramore appears with some regularity in modern Arthurian literature and other fiction. 
* In [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]'s "Merlin and Vivien", one of the ''[[Idylls of the King]]'', he stumbles into bed with a maiden, thinking he is in his own room; to save their reputation the two strangers wed, but their purity and goodness make their marriage a happy one. 
* [[Mark Twain]] characterised Sagramore (as "Sir Sagramor le Desirous") as an angry, backwards knight in ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'' (portrayed by [[William Bendix]] in the [[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949 film)|1949 film version]]), who challenges the Yankee to a duel to the death and is defeated by the Yankee's modern weaponry; his armour, later displayed in a museum featuring a gunshot hole inflicted by the Yankee, serves as a setpiece to the start of the story. 
* The knight appears in the musical ''[[Camelot (musical)|Camelot]]'' and was played by [[Peter Bromilow]] in the [[Camelot (film)|film version]]. 
* In [[Bernard Cornwell]]'s ''[[The Warlord Chronicles]]'', "Sagramor" is a fierce [[Numidia]]n veteran of the old Roman army who serves as Arthur's trusted chief cavalry officer, having traveled to Britain after the collapse of the [[Western Roman Empire]]. His uniqueness in the setting as a black person makes him particularly feared by Arthur's enemies, the invading Saxons.

==Sagremor de Pommiers==
Sagremor de Pommiers was a friend of [[Petrarch]]'s; in his letters, Petrarch calls him ''sacer amor'', or "sacred love". He served for a while as a messenger of the [[Emperor]], sometimes traveling with the poet; after a while, he became a monk and retired in a monastery. Petrarch dedicated his ''Psalmi Poenitentiales'' to him.<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1080/03044181.2022.2153267 | title=The empress and the humanist: Profit and politics in the correspondence of Anne of Świdnica and Petrarch | date=2023 | last1=Charron | first1=Sophie Elise | journal=Journal of Medieval History | volume=49 | pages=72–92 | doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H0a-7VT2-WUC&pg=PA457 | title=Familiaria: Bücher der Vertraulichkeiten | isbn=978-3-11-019159-2 | last1=Petrarca | first1=Francesco | date=2009 | publisher=Walter de Gruyter }}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
*Norris J. Lacy ''et al.'' ''The New Arthurian Encyclopedia''. New York: Garland, 1991.

{{Arthurian Legend}}

[[Category:Fictional characters introduced in the 12th century]]
[[Category:Fictional Hungarian people]]
[[Category:Fictional princes]]
[[Category:Knights of the Round Table]]
[[Category:Legendary Romans]]