Baudwin
Knight of Britain who serves Arthur as warrior, governor, and later hermit-surgeon, attested in 1 source.
Baudwin appears in Le Morte d'Arthur as a knight of Britain who serves Arthur from the earliest days of his reign through to his final campaigns. He is first named among the knights placed about the young Arthur alongside Kay, Ulfius, and Brastias (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter VI). When Arthur emerged from his tower wearing double mail to face his first war, Baudwin was again among the men "of most worship that were with him," alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury, Kay, and Brastias (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter IX). In that battle, Baudwin, Kay, and Brastias "slew on the right hand and on the left hand that it was marvel" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter IX).
Baudwin's role later shifts from warrior to governor. When Arthur departed for the continent, he ordained Baudwin "of Britain, for to counsel to the best" alongside Constantine, who was to become king after Arthur's death (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book V, Chapter III). The text records that Arthur left "the queen and realm in the governance of Sir Baudwin and Constantine" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book V, Chapter III).
In the later books, Baudwin reappears in an entirely different guise -- as a hermit and surgeon. He is described as having "taken him to wilful poverty, and forsaken many lands," and is called "a full noble surgeon and a good leech" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XVIII, Chapter XII). It is in this capacity that "the holy hermit, Sir Baudwin of Brittany" tends to the wounded Launcelot, arriving to find the knight in poor condition and responding with characteristic directness: "he said but little, but wit ye well he was wroth" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XVIII, Chapter XVII).
All seven citations come from Le Morte d'Arthur but span a remarkable arc. The early Baudwin is a warrior at Arthur's side, one of a tight company of trusted knights whose prowess in the king's first battle earns notice. The middle Baudwin is a statesman, entrusted with the realm itself. The late Baudwin is a hermit-healer who has renounced his lands for poverty. Whether Malory intends these as the same figure or conflates separate Baudwins is left unresolved; the text simply calls both "Sir Baudwin of Britain" and "Sir Baudwin of Brittany" without remarking on the transition from governor to ascetic. The shift from martial valour through political authority to religious withdrawal mirrors a pattern found in several Arthurian knights, but Baudwin's version is unusually compressed -- the text never shows the transition itself, only its endpoints.
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Le Morte d'Arthur, British Tradition