 Given the location of Arthur's court at Carlisle, and of much of the poem's action at Tarn Wadling and in Inglewood Forest— both in Cumberland— the author was most likely an educated native of the area, perhaps a cleric.The Augustinian Canons, whose members were often involved in the production of literature, were based at Carlisle and had fishing rights at Tarn Wadling; it has been speculated that the author could have belonged to this order.Academic Rosamund Allen has argued that a likely patron for the poem was Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland, with the text composed as a dramatic entertainment for a marriage, or other important celebration, during the mid-1420s.