Sandwich
English port in Le Morte d'Arthur, serving as the embarkation point for Arthur's continental campaigns.
Sandwich is attested in Le Morte d'Arthur as a port of departure and a geographic marker within the Arthurian world. The town serves as the embarkation point for Arthur's continental campaigns: ambassadors "took their shipping at Sandwich, and passed forth by Flanders, Almaine, the mountains, and all Italy, until they came unto Lucius" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book V, Chapter II). Arthur himself gathers his fleet there, with parliament concluding "to arrest all the navy of the land, and to be ready within fifteen days at Sandwich" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book V, Chapter III), after which the king "departed and entered into the sea at Sandwich with all his army, with a great multitude of ships, galleys, cogs, and dromounds" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book V, Chapter III).
Sandwich functions consistently as a logistical hub rather than a site of narrative action. Its three appearances in Book V establish it as the channel through which Arthurian military power projects onto the continent. The later reference in Book XX shifts context entirely: Launcelot offers to perform penance "from Sandwich unto Carlisle" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XX, Chapter XVI), using the two towns as endpoints defining the breadth of England itself. This transforms Sandwich from a military staging ground into a geographic metaphor for the whole kingdom.
Appears in: Places, Entities in Le Morte d'Arthur, British Tradition