Astolat /ˈæstɵlæt/ is a legendary city of Great Britain named in Arthurian legends. It is the home of Elaine, "the fair maiden of Astolat", and of her father Sir Bernard and her brothers Lavaine and Tirre. The city is called Shallott in many cultural references, derived from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shallott". It is also named Ascolat in the Winchester Manuscript and Escalot in the French Arthurian romances.
Chapter nine of Sir Thomas Malory's book Le Morte d'Arthur identifies Guildford in Surrey with the legendary Astolat:
- And so upon the morn early Sir Launcelot heard mass and brake his fast, and so took his leave of the queen and departed. And then he rode so much until he came to Astolat, that is Guildford; and there it happed him in the eventide he came to an old baron’s place.
Some historians and speculators argue there could be a connection between the name Astolat and the Atrebates tribe who existed in Britain and Gaul before, and to a lesser degree after, the Roman occupation of Britain. In this case, Astolat could refer to a realm, not necessarily a city, or to Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, about 37 km from Guildford), the civitas of the Atrebates tribe, which is known to have resisted the Anglo-Saxon advance in southeastern Britain long after the rest of the area had yielded. In other sources, Astolat is said to be located midway between London and Colchester, which would place it near Chelmsford in Essex.
Astolat has been used metaphorically in modern literature, even within the context of academically inclined socio-historical analysis, such as that of W. J. Cash's much lauded 1941 work, The Mind of the South (Book One, “Of an Ideal and Conflict”, Sec. 9, p. 89 of 1969 ed., Knopf, N.Y.):
She was the South's Palladium, this Southern woman--the shield-bearing Athena gleaming whitely in the clouds, the standard for its rallying, the mystic symbol of its nationality in face of the foe. She was the lily-pure maid of Astolat and the hunting goddess of the Boeotian hill.