Arthurian Literature XVIII (Arthurian Literature)

ARTHURIAN LITERATURE XVIII ARTHURIAN LITERATURE Incorporating Arthurian Yearbook ISSN 0261–9946 Editor: Keith Busby, U...

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ARTHURIAN LITERATURE XVIII

ARTHURIAN LITERATURE Incorporating Arthurian Yearbook ISSN 0261–9946 Editor: Keith Busby, University of Wisconsin, Madison Assistant Editor: Roger Dalrymple, University of Oxford Editorial Board James Carley, York University Julia Crick, University of Exeter Tony Hunt, University of Oxford Marianne Kalinke, Illinois University Norris Lacy, Penn State University Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, National Library of Wales Felicity Riddy, University of York Alison Stones, University of Pittsburgh Toshiyuki Takamiya, University of Keio Raymond H. Thompson, Acadia University Arthurian Literature is an interdisciplinary publication devoted to the scholarly and critical study of all aspects of the Arthurian legend in Europe in the medieval and early modern periods. Articles on writings from later periods are included if they relate very directly to medieval and early modern sources, although the editors welcome bibliographical studies of all periods. Articles may be up to 20,000 words in length; short items, of under 5,000 words, are published as Notes. Updates on earlier articles are also welcomed. Material for consideration can be sent to the addresses below, or directly to Boydell & Brewer: contributors should follow the style sheet printed at the end of volume XII of the series. Professor Keith Busby Department of French and Italian University of Wisconsin-Madison 618 Van Hise Hall Madison WI 53706 USA

Dr Roger Dalrymple Somerville College Oxford OX2 6HD

The contents of previous volumes are listed at the back of this book.

Ar t h u r i a n L i t e r a t ur e XVIII EDITED BY KEITH BUSBY

D. S. BREWER

© Contributors 2001 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2001 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 0 85991 617 0

D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604–4126, USA website: http://www.boydell.co.uk

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83–640196

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

CONTENTS General Editor’s Foreword

vii

I

The Composition of the Tristran of Beroul † Richard N. Illingworth

1

II

The Lure of the Hybrid: Tristan de Nanteuil, Chanson de Geste Arthurien? Jane H. M. Taylor

77

III

L’Extrait du Roman d’Erec et Enide de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye Carleton W. Carroll and Maria Colombo Timelli

89

IV

‘Talkyng of cronycles of kinges and of other polycyez’: Fifteenth-Century Miscellanies, the Brut and the Readership of Le Morte Darthur Raluca Radulescu

125

V

Albine and Isabelle: Regicidal Queens and the Historical Imagination of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicles Julia Marvin

143

VI

Arthurian Literature, Art, and Film, 1995–1999 edited by Norris J. Lacy and Raymond H. Thompson

193

GENERAL EDITOR’S FOREWORD Following upon the special issue devoted to the Roman van Walewein, this volume of Arthurian Literature initiates an alternation of miscellanies with theme issues. Varied in their linguistic and chronological coverage, the articles presented in volume XVIII deal with major areas of Arthurian studies, from early French romance through late medieval English chronicle to contemporary fiction. The text of Beroul’s Tristan is one of the enduring enigmas of Old French literature: fragmentary and corrupted in transmission but magnificent. Building on more strictly philological work, the late Richard Illingworth’s in-depth look at its composition casts new light on the relationship between ‘Beroul’ and his source. Refusing to reopen the debate about single or multiple authorship, Illingworth suggests that it is more fruitful to regard the text as characterized by a process of gradual accretion up to and including the modifications made by the final redactor. The eponymous hero of the little-known Tristan de Nanteuil bears the first name of an Arthurian knight while being primarily a descendant of a celebrated epic lineage. Jane Taylor’s essay on this long and complex text explores one aspect of the intertextuality of late medieval French narrative, proposing that we regard the Arthuricity of Tristan de Nanteuil as an attempt to breathe new life into the chanson de geste. Carleton Carroll and Maria Colombo Timelli present the text of an extrait of Chrétien’s Erec et Enide prepared by the eighteenth-century scholar La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, indicating the medieval manuscripts to which he had access and explaining his working methods. Sainte-Palaye was one of the most important medievalists working in France before the rise of professional medieval studies in the second half of the nineteenth century and texts such as this extrait are crucial to our understanding of the Enlightenment as well as the history of Chrétien scholarship. Looking at fifteenthcentury miscellanies and manuscripts of the Middle English prose Brut, Raluca Radulescu argues that Le Morte Darthur is Malory’s response to an increasing political awareness on the part of his intended readership in the English gentry, reconciling the literature of romance with the need to articulate historical and political notions. The texts of the Anglo-Norman Brut studied by Julia Marvin are among the source-material for the the English version considered by Radulescu. Marvin’s careful comparison between the Short and Long versions of this fourteenth-century text takes the story of Albine and Isabelle as paradigmatic and shows how the Brut ‘becomes an arena for active historical argument’, manipulating both the ancient and vii

GENERAL EDITOR’S FOREWORD

recent past; an edition and translation of the prose prologue to the Long Version is included. This volume of Arthurian Literature concludes with an encyclopedic treatment of Arthurian literature, art, and film produced between 1995 and 1999, subsequent to the publication of The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (1995); some earlier material omitted from that publication is also included here. Norris Lacy and Raymond Thompson have compiled and edited entries by a team of eighteen scholars from North America and Europe which together make an incontrovertible case for the vitality of the Arthurian legend in various forms of modern culture. Keith Busby Madison, Wisconsin

viii

COMPOSITION OF THE TRISTRAN OF BEROUL RICHARD N. ILLINGWORTH

I

The Composition of the Tristran of Beroul † Richard N. Illingworth Introduction The Tristran ascribed to Beroul is one of the great narrative poems of French medieval literature.1 It is also one of the most controversial. The four and a half thousand lines of the extant fragment pose problems that have generated much heat and still, after more than a century of critical examination, remain stubbornly unresolved. The poem is preserved in a single manuscript of the second half of the thirteenth century and is incomplete, lacking both beginning and end, and it is unclear just how much is missing. Little is known of the author except that linguistic evidence suggests that he came from the south-west area of the langue d’oïl, probably Southern Normandy or Anjou. Possible influence of the Abelardian school of philosophy on the poet’s outlook suggests a date as early as 1160, while some critics prefer a much later date, accepting that the expression in the manuscript le mal dagres should be emended to le mal d’Acre and see it as a reference to the illness suffered by the Crusaders during the siege of Acre in 1190 and 1191; a reference to Malpertis (the fox’s lair in the Roman de Renart, composed 1176–7) which appears to offer a terminus ad quem of 1176–80, remains neutral, as the name almost certainly had a long history in popular literature. The very precise knowledge shown by the poet of places in Cornwall (Lancïen and Costentin among others) and his use of English words (lovendrant) and references to English persons and devices of English origin (Godoïne, the arc qui ne faut, a murderous 1

In this study I use the edition of S. Gregory, The Romance of Tristran by Beroul (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA, 1992), which takes account of the extensive critical literature bearing on the text of recent years, especially the full-length commentaries of T. B. W. Reid, The ‘Tristran’ of Beroul: A Textual Commentary (Oxford, 1972), and S. Sandqvist, Notes textuelles sur le Roman de ‘Tristran’ de Béroul (Malmö, 1984), also refer to the edition of A. Ewert, The Romance of Tristran by Beroul, I (Oxford, 1939), last reprinted 1991, and II (Oxford, 1970). Cf. also Peter S. Noble, Beroul’s ‘Tristan’ and the ‘Folie de Berne’ (London, 1982). The French forms of names are used throughout.

1

RICHARD N. ILLINGWORTH

contraption mentioned by Gaimar in his Estoire des Engleis) suggest an acquaintance with England. Attempts to associate the poem with the marriage in 1160 of Conan IV of Brittany and Margaret of Scotland, or weddings in the family of the Earls of Cornwall and Gloucester on the basis of its precise Cornish location and vague references to Southern Scotland remain interesting speculation. The most that can be said with any certainty is that the poet came from Normandy, may well have visited Southern Cornwall and wrote his poem at some time in the last third of the twelfth century.2 But perhaps the fiercest debate, and the one that most closely concerns this study, centres on the unity of the surviving fragment. There are in the poem narrative discrepancies, linguistic and stylistic differences and changes of tone that could arise from dual authorship (earlier theories of multiple authorship having been discarded) and these must be reconciled with its undeniable consistency, both in the general spirit of the poem and the delineation of the major characters, that make it equally, if not more, likely that it is the work of a single hand.3 Two factors in particular have fuelled theories of the poem’s dual authorship: inconsistencies between its episodes and its relationship with the Middle High German Tristrant of Eilhart von Oberge. The Old French fragment is of a markedly episodic nature, with six major segments (the first and last incomplete), each of which may be perceived as an entity within a larger unity, discrete episodes with a beginning, middle and end that can be detached from the broad framework of the legend and enjoyed in their own right.4 The six major episodes, of between 700 and 1200 lines each, are as follows:5

2

See Ewert, Noble and Gregory for easily accessible background and bibliography. For discussion of date, description of manuscript and its date, see Gregory, pp. ix–xxx. 3 For bibliography and summary of the debate, see Ewert II, 1–2, Noble, 10, and nos. 20, 21, and 35 to 39, and Gregory, pp. xxii–xxvii. 4 See my article, ‘Thematic Duplication in Beroul’s Tristran’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 101 (1985), p. 13 and n. 5; for restarts see G. N. Bromiley, ‘A Note on Beroul’s Foresters’, Tristania 1 (1975–6), 61–73. 5 See divisions of Ewert II, 57 and Poirion, Noble, 14. Ewert specifically speaks of perfomance units. There is a detailed summary of content in Ewert II. Ewert’s divisions (II, 57): 2–580; 581–1270; 1271–2132; 2133–3009; 3010–4266; 4267–4485. My divisions coincide with those proposed by Poirion (Noble, 14), apart from 573–80 which I prefer at the end of the Tryst and 1279–1305 which I believe belongs with the Morrois episode. I treat here divisions at 1350, 1637 and 1774 as subdivisions within the broader Morrois scene.

2

COMPOSITION OF THE TRISTRAN OF BEROUL

1. The Tryst beneath the Tree (1–580, 580 lines but lacks the beginning) 2. The Flor de Farine (581–1278, 698 lines) 3. The Lovers in the Forest of Morrois (1279–2132, 854 lines) 4. The Reconciliation (2133–3027, 895 lines) 5. The Ambiguous Oath (3028–4266, 1239 lines) 6. The Death of the Barons (4267–4485, 219 lines, but lacks the end) Concentration on the part rather than the whole has led to discrepancies between certain episodes. Thus, one of the three barons hostile to the lovers is killed by Governal in the Morrois episode (1678–1711) only to reappear in the Reconciliation (2756–7 et seq.), Andret is a friend of Tristran in the Reconciliation (2870–4) but an enemy in the Ambiguous Oath (4035–44) and it is prophesied in the Morrois episode that the forester who betrays the lovers will be killed by Perinis with a club (2759–62), whereas in reality he is killed by Governal at the tournament in the Ambiguous Oath.6 Such inconsistencies could certainly arise from the presence of two not altogether synchronized hands. As for the Middle High German poem of Eilhart,7 the author of the French text clearly drew on the same source as the German poet for the first two thirds of his poem, a happy coincidence that proves the pre-existence of formed Tristran literature and, at the same time, provides an invaluable control of content: what is in both poems must have been in their common source, what is in one only may have been added by its respective author. In general terms the first four episodes of the French fragment (some 3000 lines) have parallels so close to Eilhart’s poem that they must have shared a common source, the last two episodes (the remaining 1500 lines) are unlike anything else in Tristran literature. As the parts of Eilhart’s poem that diverge from the French text conform with other versions of the legend, one assumes that it is the French, not the German poet who abandoned their common source. Thus, it can be concluded that the author – or authors – of the old French fragment at first followed this source closely, but that by the mid-point began to take an increasingly independent line, finally breaking from it altogether. From this the adherents of the dual-authorship theory conclude that the latter part of the poem, from the point where similarities with Eilhart cease, was written not by Beroul but by an anonymous continuator. But the case for dual authorship – Beroul and continuator – has failed to 6

For attempts to explain away inconsistencies, see Gregory, p. xxv, P. S. Noble, ‘Le Roi Marc et les amants dans le Tristran de Béroul’, Romania 102 (1981), 221–6. 7 I use the edition of D. Buschinger, Eilhart von Oberge, Tristrant (Göppingen, 1976); unless otherwise stated quotations are from manuscript H.

3


convince.8 Such an explanation is, in effect, too simplistic and offends against the poem’s undoubted consistency of tone and spirit. There is accretion in the poem, but it is layered, not consecutive. This study sees the present state of the poem (which cannot have been subjected to a final revision) as being the result, not of dual authorship, but of the peculiar process by which a single poet was developing his work, and a clue to this process lies in the author’s two famous references to his source: Li contëor dïent qu’Yvain Firent nïer, qui sont vilain; N’en sevent mie bien l’estoire, Berox l’a mex en sen memoire: Trop ert Tristran preuz et cortois A ocirre gent de tés lois. 1263–70

Ainz, puis le tens que el bois furent, Deus genz itant de tel ne burent, Ne si conme l’estoire dit, La ou Berox le vit escrit, Nule gent tant ne s’entramerent Ne si griment nu conpererent. 1787–92

The statements are quite clear. The author refers to a source (Berox, the nominative form of an oblique Beroul), who had seen an authoritative estoire in a written form (le vit escrit) and remembered it best (l’a mex en sen memoire). As this estoire must also have been the source of Eilhart’s poem (even if several times removed), we have at its simplest, the derivation:9 Estoire (escrit) O

Beroul (en sen memoire) Author of B

That is, our author (whom I shall call the reviser) knew Beroul’s oral version of a poem he had seen in writing, and the poem that Beroul had seen in writing also lay at the head of the Eilhart version. 8

See Ewert, Noble, Gregory. Even Muret, who proposed the dual-authorship thesis in his 1903 edition, dropped it in the post-1922 editions (see Ewert II, i). 9 From this point I refer to the extant OF text as B and Eilhart’s poem as O. Eilhart too refers to written and oral sources (see, for example, wann eß ist min will, daß ich úch on all valschait hie künd die rechten warhait, die ich in sinem bùch vand, wie der her Tristrand . . ., 32–6, and doch sagt daß bùch bloß und ouch die lút fúr war . . ., 4576–7, the second of which occurs at a point corresponding to the reference in B si conme l’estoire dit La ou Berox le vit escrit, 1789–90). On the derivation of the two poems, B and O, from a common source, see D. Buschinger, Le Tristrant d’Eilhart von Oberge (Paris 1975), 290–4, 513 and 1020–1. This is not to say that B and O derived immediately from the same source as there may well have been breaks in both lines of derivation from the estoire, involving intermediate manuscripts, now lost.

4


It may be objected that when naming his source as Berox the author of the poem was referring to himself in the third person, a common literary device among medieval writers who wished to lend authority to their work, but this is not invariably the case.10 Marie de France described herself in the first person in the Epilogue to her Fables (Me numerai par remembrance: Marie ai nun, si sui de France)11 and, most appositely, Gottfried von Strassburg, in his Tristran und Îsolt, not only speaks of himself in the first person, but also refers to a third person source (Thômas von Britanje) who is certainly not himself, and to written authorities (an britûnschen buochen) in much the same vein as the author of B:12 Aber als ich gesprochen hân, daz sî niht rehte haben gelesen, daz ist, als ich iu sage, gewesen: sine sprâchen in der rihte niht, als Thômas von Britanje giht, der âventiure meister was und an britûnschen buochen las aller der lanthêrren leben und ez uns ze künde hât gegeben. 146–54

It is, moreover, helpful to postulate the existence of this intermediate stage, Beroul’s version of the estoire, because the problems of the French text can be largely resolved if we assume a process of development that involves earlier versions and manuscripts, now lost, between the estoire and the extant fragment. The parallels between B and O arise from the use Beroul and Eilhart made of a common source and because parts of Beroul’s poem have been reproduced in B, whilst the differences are due to additions made by the reviser and to the process by which he developed his text from Beroul’s poem. In particular, it is necessary to postulate an intermediate stage to explain the apparent paradox that the stylistically most fluid and articulate passages in the whole poem (parts of the Tryst beneath the Tree, the Cry of the People (827–59), the speeches of Dinas (1088–1138) 10

The detail given in the references in B is unusually specific and both Ewert I, glossary s.v. Berox, and Gregory, p. xxxiii, seriously entertain the possibility that Beroul was the source, not the author, of the extant poem. 11 Fables of Marie de France, ed. A. Ewert and R. C. Johnston (Oxford, 1942), 61. 12 Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan und Îsolt, ed. A. Closs (Oxford, 1947). Neither should the existence of the other Beroul who wrote a Purgatoire de Saint Patrice be forgotten, see M. D. Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford, 1963), 240. It would be something of a coincidence for there to have been two Berouls and, as there is no evidence that the author of B was also the author of the Purgatoire, it is more likely that our author was naming Beroul as his source, and that this Beroul was also the author of the Purgatoire.

5


and Ivain (1165–1216) in particular) occur at the beginning of the poem embedded in what are arguably the most archaic parts (those with the closest and most detailed parallels with O). As no such fluid passages occur in the second two thirds of the fragment, the reviser may well have completed his versions of the Tryst beneath the Tree and the Flor de Farine last, writing the final three episodes in the fragment. The hypothesis on which this study is based can be stated as follows. The fragment we possess is the work of one poet, but he was not Beroul. Beroul was his immediate source for those parts of the poem that have close parallels with O, common material that goes back to the estoire. Our poet, the reviser, at first reproduced Beroul’s poem in his own words (the first three extant episodes),13 but then, in the Reconciliation, broke from his source and pursued his own favourite themes within the framework of the established tradition (especially the lovers’ revenge on their enemies and their attempts to ‘prove’ their legal innocence, Tristran in judicial combat, Iseut by oath). This shift in interest led him to abandon his source towards the end of the Reconciliation and then to compose the Ambiguous Oath (Iseut’s legal defence) and the Death of the Barons (the final revenge of the lovers on their enemies). The reviser then, at a later date, returned to the beginning of his poem and, in a markedly superior style, expanded and elaborated the material he had reproduced from Beroul with substantial passages on themes he had developed after breaking from his source. It is this expanded version that formed the basis of the poem preserved in the extant manuscript of the second half of the thirteenth century. The hinge on which the whole complex process turns is, therefore, the Reconciliation episode and it is here, at the mid-point of the poem, that this examination begins.

The Reviser’s Initial Break from his Source The Reconciliation episode describes how the effect of the love potion ceases and how, after lengthy negotiations in which he is helped by the hermit Ogrin, Tristran returns Iseut to Mark at the parlement at the Gué Aventuros. The episodes in B and O are fundamentally similar, both in the general direction of the narrative and much of the detail, but there is, in the B account, material lacking at the corresponding points of O. The episode 13

Whether the lost beginning of B contained all the chief episodes of the estoire that preceded the Tryst or not, the reviser certainly knew them as he refers to them on several occasions, see Ewert II, 59–60. On the other hand the only references to events that follow the extant text are to incidents that are unattested elsewhere or peculiar to B (the fate of Tristran’s enemies, the fate of Perinis, see pp. 12–14 and n. 19). The existence of such material remains speculation and the episodes I refer to, early or late, first or last, are those of the extant fragment.

6


is much longer in B (895 lines, compared with 268 in O) and proceeds in a more leisurely, expansive manner, with dramatic scenes that contrast with the terse narrative of O.14 A comparison of the two texts shows that whereas O contains little that is not in B (two longish passages of dialogue between Tristran and Mark when Iseut is formally handed back at 4788–4800 and 4924–37), B contains a dozen or more passages that have no equivalent at the corresponding place in O. Among the most important are: 2161–2172 Whilst out hunting Tristran laments his wretched condition 2221–2288 The lovers discuss the possibility of parting 2357–2427 Ogrin drafts a letter from Tristran to Mark proposing reconciliation 2481–2509 Having delivered the letter to Mark, Tristran returns to Ogrin and Iseut, deep in the forest 2510–2555 Mark sees the letter and summons his sleeping barons 2681–2732 The lovers take leave of each other for the first time 2755–2764 The author predicts the fate of the lovers’ enemies 2777–2842 The lovers’ second leave-taking, which contains Iseut’s prediction of the fate of their enemies (2822–36) 2876–2888 Description of Iseut 2927–2952 Tristran rides from the parlement and takes his leave of Dinas 2955–3010 The return of Iseut to Lancïen and celebrations 3011–3027 Tristran takes refuge in the cellar of Orri the forester The problem is, of course, that we cannot be sure whether these differences are due to the author of B expanding his source or to Eilhart abbreviating his. Eilhart may have found any of the first eight passages in his source and decided to omit them, but, as I have shown elsewhere,15 the last four have 14

To take but two examples, Eilhart, relying on the reader’s memory of an earlier statement (2279–3000), simply states that it is four years since the lovers drank the potion (4730–3), whereas B reminds the reader that the power of the potion ceases after three years and then goes on to describe just where the lovers are when this happens and its effect on Tristran (2147–60). Later, Eilhart tells the reader in two lines that Iseut as well as Tristran wishes a reconciliation with Mark (4748–9), whilst B builds up a dramatic scene in twelve, with the queen on her knees before Ogrin (2319–30). Prima facie considerations suggest that B is a work of expansion, rich in stylistic variation, that focuses on the episode (4485 lines for less than six in the earlier parts of the poem), whereas O seems more a work of contraction, somewhat lacking in embellishment, that concentrates on the whole (some 9500 lines for the complete story, from Tristran’s birth to the lovers’ deaths). 15 See my article ZrP 101, 24–6.

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obvious similarities with passages in the Ambiguous Oath, an episode peculiar to B, and can, in all probability, like it, be ascribed to the reviser. The first account of the content of Tristran’s letter and the two leave-takings in the forest seem similar cases. No useful purpose is served by the reader being told – at some length – of the content of Tristran’s letter when it is being drafted and when it is being read out by the chaplain to Mark and the assembled barons. As the content of the second account is virtually identical with the first and as its position in the narrative corresponds precisely with that of the reading in O (4844–61), it is preferable to regard the first account of the letter’s content in the Old French text as repetition of common material, but an interpolation in its present position. This likelihood is confirmed by the reviser’s use of a ‘catch-line’ at the end of the first account of the letter’s content (En parchemin prendrai un brief, 2357) which echoes lines that follow it (Ogrins l’ermite lieve sus, Pene et enque et parchemin prist, 2428–9), a technical device that smoothes transitions into and out of interpolated passages.16 So too does a minor inconsistency in the text: here Ogrin tells Tristran that he, Tristran, will deliver the letter to Lancïen (‘A Lancïen le trametez’, 2359), later, where delivery of the letter is mentioned in both poems, he asks Tristran who is to take it (‘Quil portera?’ dist li hermites. ‘Gel porterai.’ ‘Tristran, nu dites.’, 2435– 6, cf. O 4764–6). Ogrin’s enquiry as to who is to deliver the letter makes sense only if it was made before the later insertion of the passage in which Tristran is told he is to do so. The case of the two leave-takings is more complex. In the extant fragment Tristran takes leave of Iseut no less than three times, twice when the lovers are still safe in the forest (2681–2732 and 2777–2842) and, more logically, in a brief passage at the parlement (Quant Tristran oit n’i a porloigne, Que li rois veut qu’il s’en esloigne, De la roïne congié prent; L’un l’autre esgarde bonement, 2911–14).17 The position of this summary 16

A catch-line is a line or couplet at the beginning of an interpolated passage that repeats another immediately after its end, or a line or couplet at the end of an interpolated passage that repeats another immediately before its beginning. The effect of both is to smooth the transition into or out of the interpolation and thereby to maintain continuity between it and the surrounding text. Here, for example, the sense of 2357 at the head of the interpolated passage is repeated at the beginning of the next part of the received text at 2428–9. In the Tryst the interpolated passage 339–86 ends with the couplet Ne pout son nain trover li rois. Dex! tant ert a Tristran sordois!, 385–6, which repeats the content of the couplet that immediately precedes the interpolation, Li rois vait molt le nain querant; Nu puet trover, sin a duel grant, 337–8. 17 The logical place for the lovers’ farewell is at the parlement, when Tristran hands Iseut back to Mark and realizes that he must leave. It is the position in O (4982–93) and this is confirmed by the Folie de Berne, ed. E. Hoepffner (Paris, 1949), a text very close to B, as it refers to Iseut giving Tristran her ring at the parlement, not beforehand (Encor ai l’anel pres de moi Que me donastes au partir Del parlement . . ., 221–3).

8


farewell coincides with that of the lovers in O, but the much fuller account in the German poem (4978–93) is fundamentally similar to that of the first leave-taking in B, Tristran’s gift of his dog to the queen being in both, her gift of her ring to Tristran being in their common source.18 This suggests that the author of B drew on received material for the substance of the first leave-taking but moved it back to its present position, when the lovers are still safe in the forest of Morrois (2681–2732). The first half of the second leave-taking, in essence, repeats the content of the first (Tristran’s gift of Husdent to her, her gift of her ring to him), again, common material from the received source. But then, just at the point where the closing couplet of the first leave-taking is paraphrased in the second (Tristran en bese la roïne, Et ele lui, par la saisine, 2731–2 = Vers soi l’atrait, des braz l’enbraze, 2804), comes a dramatic restart, (Yseut parla, qui n’ert pas fole, 2805), as Iseut makes two new stipulations that are entirely absent from the earlier passage and necessary only if she requires Tristran’s presence at the Mal Pas in the Ambiguous Oath: she asks him not to leave the country but to remain close at hand (Por Deu vos pri, beaus douz amis, Que ne partez de cest païs Tant qos saciez conment li rois Sera vers moi, iriez o mois, 2811–14) and to stay at the dwelling of Orri the forester where she can contact him (Gel prié, qui sui ta chiere drue, Qant li rois m’avra retenue Que chiés Orri le forestier T’alles la nuit la herbergier, 2815–18, and Manderai toi de ci mon estre Par mon vaslet, et a ton mestre. Ne t’ennuit pas la herbergier, Sovent verrez mon mesagier, 2833–6). These stipulations must mean that the reviser had, at this point, decided to break from his source and pursue his own preferred themes, as Tristran’s continued presence, unlike in other primary versions of the story in which he leaves and goes to Brittany, is necessary only if the Reconciliation episode is followed by the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons, episodes that are his alone. A pivotal break from the received source at or around 2805 is corroborated by the predictions as to the fate of the lovers’ enemies that precede and follow the restart in Iseut’s speech, neither of which appears in O. The 18

The gifts exchanged in the original leave-taking must have been those described in B, as Tristran’s gift of Husdent is preserved in both B and O, and Iseut’s gift of her ring to Tristran in B and the Folie de Berne. Moreover, although the ring is not mentioned in O at this point, it does seem to have been in Eilhart’s source, as later in O it plays precisely the role envisaged in B (see Ewert II, 208–9, 260). It is, therefore, ironic that whilst the ring is mentioned (2706–22, 2792–2802), it is not used to validate Tristran’s message in reply to Iseut through Perinis in the Ambiguous Oath (3333–54), whilst, conversely, it is not mentioned at the leave-taking in O, but is subsequently used for the purpose envisaged in B! On the leave-takings, see Buschinger, Le Tristrant, pp. 506–8, and G. N. Bromiley, ‘The Making of Beroul’s Tristan: the Role of Repetition’, Medium Ævum 54 (1985), 52–3.

9


first is by the author and occurs just after the lovers’ first leave-taking. It is unsatisfactory as it foretells events that do not altogether come to pass in the extant text: 2756

2760

2764

Tuit quatre en orent tés soudees: Li dui en furent mort d’espees, Li tierz d’une seete ocis, A duel morurent el païs; Li forestier quis encusa Mort crüele n’en refusa, Quar Perinis, li franc, li blois, L’ocist puis d’un gibet el bois. Dex les venga de toz ces quatre, Qui vout le fier orguel abatre.

Later, in the Death of the Barons, the three barons do indeed seem to meet the fate predicted for them. Denoalen is beheaded in the wood by Tristran (4382–8), Godoïne is shot through the eye by Tristran’s arrow (4474–83) and, it is reasonable to assume, Guenelon too is despatched by Tristran in the final, lost, pages of the episode. But the forester’s fate is different as he is killed, not by Perinis as predicted, but by Governal at the tournament in the Ambiguous Oath (4045–54). It seems probable, therefore, that this passage was added by the reviser before he had arrived at his final plan for the poem’s conclusion, with the Ambiguous Oath and its tournament scene, and was in fact referring to the fate of the forester in his source, Beroul’s poem, where he was indeed killed alongside the barons in the wood by Perinis with a club.19 If this is so, then at this stage the reviser was still following his source. Then, towards the end of the lovers’ second leave-taking, Iseut makes a prediction as to the fate of the three hostile barons, but this time it is to events that do occur in the final episode of the extant fragment. The prediction comes when Iseut first makes arrangements that show she has an ambiguous oath in mind (consequently, after the reviser abandoned his source) and resembles nothing in O: 19

The forester’s death is also forecast, albeit in general terms, in Morrois (puis morut a si grant honte Con vos orrez avant el conte, 1919–20). It could well be that at the end of Beroul’s poem Perinis killed the forester as prophesied here, but died in the process (note the enigmatic lines concerning Perinis in the Ambiguous Oath: Molt out cil poines por servir, Molt l’en devroit mex avenir, 3369–70, and cf. the allusion Cil s’en vient; son mesage a fait Perinis qui tant mal a trait Por le servise a la roïne, 3553–5, but we hear nothing of this in the extant text). G. N. Bromiley, ‘A Note on Beroul’s Foresters’, Tristania 1 (1975), 61–73, offers an alternative solution: there are two foresters, one who betrays the lovers in the forest and is killed by Governal, another whose death at the hands of Perinis is foretold is the spy in the Death of the Barons.

10


2824

2828

2832

2836

‘Li trois qui erent demalaire Mal troveront en la parfin. Li cors gisent el bois, sovin, Beau chiers amis, et, g’en ai dote, Enfer ovre, qui les tranglote! Gel dot, quar il sont molt felon. El buen celier, soz le boron, Seras entrez, li miens amis. Manderai toi par Perinis Les noveles de la roi cort. Li miens amis, que Dex t’enort. Manderai toi de ci mon estre Par mon vaslet, et a ton mestre. Ne t’ennuit pas la herbergier, Sovent verrez mon mesagier.’

This prediction is unobjectionable. Denoalen and Godoïne are killed in the wood and it is reasonable to assume that Guenelon, too, would meet the same fate, but the earlier prediction of the forester’s fate, likewise in the wood, has been dropped as the reviser had a quite new scenario in mind and intended to dispatch him at the tournament in the Ambiguous Oath episode. The second part of the prediction (2828–36)20 then confirms that it was made after the reviser had decided to break from his source, as it refers very precisely to the events of the extant version, when Tristran does hide in Orri’s cellar and Perinis, her vaslet, does act as Iseut’s messenger (3011–27 and 3315–27). The repetition and reorganization involved in the reviser’s handling of the accounts of Tristran’s letter to Mark and the various leave-takings, taken in conjunction with the very major innovations of the final two entirely original episodes, show his readiness to adapt his source and inevitably raise the possibility that he may have done so elsewhere.21 What other

20

Gregory inverts the two couplets of the manuscript 2833–6; see his Notes to the Text. It can also be pointed out that the reviser is not entirely consistent. Here in her prophesy Iseut refers to Tristran’s stay in Orri’s cellar (2828–9), where he does hide in the Ambiguous Oath episode. In the Death of the Barons, however, the spy does not deny that he may well be hiding chiés Dinas (4301–3), although this is, of course, after the events of the Ambiguous Oath. 21 This readiness to reorganize received material may well account for the hitherto unnoticed, but very obvious symmetry of the Reconciliation, with 316 lines describing the preparations for the reconciliation (2133–2488), 316 lines describing the negotiations (2449–2764), and 263 lines describing the actual events when Iseut is returned to Mark (2765–3027), the start of each part being marked by a statement as to when it occurred (L’endemain de la saint Jehan, 2147; La nuit, aprés solel couchier, 2449; au jor du parlement, 2765).

11


elements that appear only in B can, then, be considered additions of the reviser rather than omissions by Eilhart? Among the most distinctive differences between the Reconciliation episodes in B and O, and those that most clearly reflect the new interests of the reviser, are four passages of a dozen lines or so and two of three lines only in which the question of proof of the lovers’ innocence by judicial combat is raised. In both texts the conditions leading to a satisfactory acordement (or, as in O, gnaden, 4754) are stated on three occasions: in Tristran’s letter to Mark (B 2357–2427, 2556–2620; O 4841–62), in Mark’s reply (B 2658–64; O 4872–91) and in the exchanges between the two at the actual handover (B 2843–2926; O 4914–77). The precise circumstances in which the conditions are stated vary slightly, but reduced to their essentials the terms of O all appear in B: Tristran offers to return the queen to Mark (herr, durch götlicher minne band, niem wider min frowen daß wib din, O 4844–5; Mais, s’il voloit de lui saisine . . ., B 2362, Et se lui venoit a viaire . . . Preïst sa feme la cortoise, 2400–3, Mais, s’or estoit vostre plesir A prendre Yseut o le cler vis . . ., 2604–5), he wishes to remain in Mark’s service (alß vil úch dienen sol, daß ich úch lieb werd empflicht, O 4938–9; Et, se savez que lui n’en poise, O lui serez ses soudoiers, Servirez le molt volentiers, B 2405–7, N’avroit baron en cest païs Plus vos servist que je feroie, 2606–7), Mark agrees to take the queen back (er wölt die frowen wider niemen, ob eß Trÿstranden wölt gezimmen nach disen vier tagen, O 4873–5; Lut les letres, vit la franchise Du roi, qui pardonne a Yseut Son mautalent, et que il veut Repenre la tant bonement, B 2658–61), but refuses to retain Tristran in his service (sunder Trÿstranden möcht nicht haben me huld deß kúngß, O 4876–7, úwern dienst will ich nicht, 4940; Mais ne li osent pas loer Toi retenir a soudeier, B 2669–70), Tristran’s departure is associated with Gavoie (wa er sich mocht began zů dem kúng Ganoÿm, O 4996–7; Au riche roi aut, en Gavoie, B 2631).22 But, whilst Tristran’s offer (to return the queen and remain in Mark’s service) and Mark’s response (to take the queen back but not to retain Tristran) is a perfectly satisfactory motivation of the events that culminate in the reconciliation of Mark and Iseut and the departure of Tristran, there is in B an extra factor, absent from O, that in no way impinges upon the action and which is clearly a particular interest of the reviser: Tristran’s wish to ‘prove’ his and Iseut’s innocence by judicial combat, a theme treated in this episode far more exhaustively than anywhere else in the fragment.23 The 22

Gavoie in B, Ganoÿm in O; he goes there in O, it is suggested he might go there in B. In his letter Tristran offers to go to Frise, 2408, 2610. 23 Apart from the Reconciliation, the theme appears in the Ambiguous Oath 3063–4, 3419–23; the Tryst 131, 155–6; the Flor de Farine 799–803, 810, 814–18. Similar passages in similar syntax occur in Girart de Roussillon in scenes where Girart or his

12


passages in question all seem additions to the common tradition for a variety of reasons: — — — — —

there is no corresponding passage in O there is sometimes a breakdown in rhyme which suggests interpolation the passages interrupt the flow of thought which is restored if they are removed the passages have a peculiar concentration of vocabulary associated with judicial combat and violence most significantly, no response is made to the demand which invariably falls on deaf ears.

These are important passages as they illustrate very clearly the reviser’s particular interests. The first comes early in the episode when Tristran and the queen are discussing how they can break the impasse and end their suffering. Tristran suggests an acordement with Mark and then goes on: 2228

2232

2236

‘Et qu’il preïst nostre escondit, C’onques nul jor, n’en fait n’en dit, N’oi o vos point de drüerie Qui li tornast a vilanie, N’a chevalier en son roiaume, Ne de Lidan tresque en Dureaume, S’il voloit dire que amor Eüse o vos por deshonor, Ne m’en trovast en chanp, armé. Et s’il avoit en volonté, Quant vos avroie deresnie, Qu’il me soufrist de sa mesnie . . .’

It is noticeable that if the passage is removed, the surrounding text still makes perfectly good sense in the terms of an acordement common to Band O (Bele amie, se je peüse, Par consel que je en eüse, Faire au roi Marc acordement, Qu’il pardonnast son mautalent [Et qu’il preïst . . . de sa mesnie,] Gel serviroie a grant honor, Conme mon oncle et mon seignor, 2223–40), and it is significant that Iseut makes no response to this particular suggestion. The second passage comes in Ogrin’s speech when he is drafting the envoy declares his readiness to prove his innocence in battle, cf. B 799–803, 2568–74 and Girart 4670–6, 5475–83, 5650–5, discussed by W. M. Hackett, ‘Syntactical Features Common to Girart de Roussillon and Beroul’s Tristan’, in Medieval Miscellany presented to Eugène Vinaver (Manchester, 1965), pp. 157–66.

13


letter Tristran should send to Mark and in which he points out that no one at court will dare give a pledge against him and risk doing judicial combat:

2368

2372

‘Vos en irïez a sa cort. N’i avroit sorsage ne lort, S’il veut dire qu’en vilanie Eüsiez prise drüerie, Si vos face li rois Marc pendre, Se vos ne vos poez defendre. Tristran, por ce t’os bien loer Que ja n’i troveras ton per Qui gage doinst encontre toi. Icest consel te doin par foi.’

Again, the passage is smoothly inserted, but could be removed without harming the sense of the surrounding text (Mais, s’il voloit de lui saisine Et pardonast son mautalent, Vos ferïez por lui itant: [Vos in irïez . . . te doin par foi]. Ce ne puet il metre en descort: Qant il vos vout livrer a mort Et en feu ardoir . . ., 2362–77). The passage is also suspicious in that it is a spontaneous suggestion of Ogrin’s, Tristran having made no mention of it in his opening words to the hermit (2300–18). Ogrin then refers to the matter again later in his speech: ‘S’il veut vostre escondit, Si qel verront grant et petit, Vos li offrez a sa cort faire.’

2397–9

This causes some difficulty in that it must be assumed that the insertion has been smoothed by adapting the line that rhymes with faire, but it is noticeable that its presence disrupts the flow of thought before and after (Nocie fu a Lencïen. Mal vos estoit lié a fallir, O lié vosistes mex fuïr. [S’il veut prendre . . . a sa cort faire.] Et se lui venoit a viaire, Qant vos serez de lui loiaus, Au loement de ses vasaus Preïst sa feme la cortoise, 2394–403). The fourth passage is Tristran’s offer to do judicial combat in the letter itself, which we learn of when it is read out by the chaplain: 2568 ‘Ge sui tot prest que gage en donge, Qui li voudroit blasme lever, Lié alegier contre mon per, Beau sire, a pié ou a cheval – 2572 Chascuns ait armes et cheval – Qu’onques amor nen out vers moi, Ne je vers lui, par nul desroi. Se je ne l’en puis alegier 2576 Et en ta cort moi deraisnier, 14


2580

Ardre me fai devant ton ost. N’i a baron que je t’en ost. N’i a baron, por moi laisier, Ne me face ardrë, ou jugier.’

The passage has been interpolated smoothly into the received text by ending the first line with donge so as to create a rhyme with mençonge in the preceding line. It is noteworthy, however, that the passage can be removed without disruption to sense and even improves it (Rois, tu la preïs a mollier, Si quel virent ti chevalier. N’eüs gaires o li esté Quant losengier en ton reigné Te firent acroire mençonge. [Ge sui tot prest . . . ou jugier.] Vos savez bien, beaus oncles sire, Vos vosistes l’ardoir en ire . . . , 2563–82). Later comes another brief passage of three lines introducing the barons’ response to Tristran’s letter: Li baron oient la demande, Qe por la fille au roi d’Irlande Offre Tristran vers eus batalle. 2621–3

Here the insertion has been smoothed by the rhyme word Cornoualle in the following line,24 but even though the barons may have heard the offer, no response is made to it and the text continues along quite different lines (N’i a baron de Cornoualle Ne die: ‘Rois, ta feme pren . . . Ne te sai pas consel doner Tristran remaigne deça mer. Au riche roi aut, en Gavoie . . ., 2624–31). The final passage is Tristran’s offer to Mark when he hands the queen back to him:

2856

2860

2864

24

‘Ci voi les homes de ta terre Et, oiant eus, te vuel requerre Que me sueffres a esligier En ta cort moi deraisnier, C’onques o lié n’oi drüerie, Ne ele o moi, jor de ma vie. Acroire t’a l’en fait mençonge, Mais, se Dex joie et bien me donge, Onques ne firent jugement. Conbatre a pié ou autrement Dedenz ta cort, sire, me sueffre. Se sui dannez, si m’art en soffre.

The rhyme batalle: Cornoualle appears again in 853–4, also an addition of the reviser.

15


Et, se je m’en pus faire saus, Qu’il n’i ait chevelu ne chaus . . . ’

Here the evidence of interpolation is even clearer, as there is a breakdown of sense between 2866 and 2867, although the surrounding text is coherent once the passage has been removed (La, salua si com il doit: ‘Rois ge te rent Yseut, la gente. Hon ne fist mais plus riche rente. [Ci voi les homes . . . chevelu ne chaus . . . ] Si me retien ovocques toi, O m’en irai en Loenoi’, 2850–68). And, here again, Tristran’s demand falls on deaf ears – no response is given to the request. In each case, it is noticeable that once the demands for judicial combat are removed, then the surrounding text conforms to the terms of the tradition common to B and O (Tristran offers to return Iseut, 2362, 2624–5, 2850–1; he wants an acordement, 2223–6, 2363–4; he wishes to serve Mark, 2239–40, 2400–1, 2867–8; Mark refuses to retain him, 2629–31). These passages also share stylistic features that emphasize their similarity and mark them out as different from the surrounding text. The theme is reflected in a high concentration of vocabulary associated with Tristran’s desire to establish a legal defence (escondit, 2227, 2397; deresnier/ deraisnier, 2237, 2576, 2856; alegier, 2570, 2575; esligier, 2855; gage doner, 2373, 2568) before witnesses (devant ton ost, 2577; oiant eus, 2854) against the charge (blasme lever, 2569) made by his enemies in the king’s household (mesnie, 2238) of illicit love (drüerie, 2229, 2368, 2857; vilanie, 2230, 2367) in combat (en chanp armé, 2235; a pié ou a cheval, 2571; conbatre a pié, 2862; armes et cheval, 2572; offre batalle, 2623) and with judgement (jugier, 2580; jugement, 2861) involving violent death and mutilation (pendre, 2369; ardre/ardrë, 2577, 2580; art en soffre, 2864). This consistent, oft-repeated body of vocabulary, which recurs when the theme reappears in both preceding and succeeding episodes, becomes established in the reader’s mind independently of the particular circumstances in which Tristran’s demand is made: one immediately recognizes the hand of the reviser when the words appear. And there are other, formal similarities in the passages. Words, phrases and sentence patterns that do not occur in the surrounding, received text are repeated within them, thereby reinforcing the impression that they belong to another stratum of composition. Some of the most striking are as follows: preïst nostre escondit, 2227, prendre vostre escondit, 2397 – c’onques nul jor, n’en fait n’en dit, n’oi o vos point de drüerie, 2228–9, qu’onques amor nen out vers moi ne je vers lui, 2573–4, c’onques o lié n’oi drüerie ne ele o moi, 2857–8 – amor eüse, 2233–4, amor out, 2573 – a vilanie, 2230, en vilanie, 2367 – n’a chevalier en son roiaume, 2231, n’i avroit sorsage ne lort, 2366, n’i a baron, 2578, 2579, n’ait chevelu ne chaus, 2866 – s’il voloit dire, 16


2233, s’il veut dire, 2367 – ne m’en trovast, 2235, n’i troveras, 2372 – me soufrist, 2238, me sueffres/sueffre, 2855, 2863 – a sa cort, 2365, 2399, en ta cort, 2576, 2856, dedenz ta cort, 2863 – vos face pendre, 2369, ardre me fai, 2877, me face ardrë, 2580 – se vos ne vos poez defendre, 2370, se je ne l’en puis alegier, 2575, se je m’en pus faire saus, 2865 – ton per, 2372, mon per, 2570 – li offrez 2399, offre vers eus, 2623.

The passages also differ syntactically from the surrounding text, in that they contain a relatively high degree of continuous linkage by conjunctions or parataxis extending over several lines (over four, 2227–30;25 five, 2231–5, 2366–70; six, 2853–8; even seven, 2568–74), a device which will be seen to be characteristic of the reviser. As this examination proceeds, it will be seen that most of the reviser’s additions, especially in the opening episodes, are in direct address, are of a passionate nature, and have the effect of raising the reader’s emotional involvement to a higher level than in comparable poems. Typical of these are exclamatory passages introduced by formulas such as Ha! Dex . . . or Ahi! that do not occur at the corresponding point in O,26 and one of these appears near the beginning of the Reconciliation when Tristran, alone in the wood, laments the three years of hardship he has suffered:

2164

2168

2172

‘Ha! Dex,’ fait il, ‘tant ai traval! Trois anz a hui, que riens n’i fal, Onques ne me falli pus paine Ne a foirié n’en sorsemaine. Oublïé ai chevalerie, A seure cort et baronie. Ge sui essillié du païs, Tot m’est falli et vair et gris, Ne sui a cort a chevaliers. Dex! Tant m’amast mes oncles chiers, Se tant ne fuse a lui mesfez! Ha! Dex, tant foiblement me vet!’

Features which will be seen to be characteristic of such passages are the exclamations (Ha! Dex, 2161, 2172; Dex!, 2170), intensifiers (tant, 2161, 2170, 2171, 2172; tot, 2168; riens, 2162; onques, 2163) and repetition (tant four times; fal, 2162; falli, 2163, 2168). Here again, as in the case of the four passages in which Tristran demands the right to prove his innocence in

25

The four-line clausal group 2227–30 is itself linked to the preceding four lines 2223–6 by the Et at its head (see p. 13), thereby creating a group of clauses linked continuously over eight lines. 26 But cf. owe! Himelkúng rich, O 4966, which occurs in the reconciliation scene in Eilhart.

17


judicial combat, the exclamatory tone and stylistic devices establish themselves in the reader’s mind independently of the circumstances in which the particular passages are spoken and alert him to a likely addition by the reviser. A further minor innovation absent from O, which occurs frequently later in the fragment and in the opening three episodes, is the intonement of passionate curses on Tristran’s enemies. In the Reconciliation such curses occur in Iseut’s prophecy (Enfer ovre, qui les tranglote!, 2826) and elsewhere (Amee estoit de tote gent, Fors des felons que Dex cravent!, 2753–4; As trois barons forment en poise; Mal aient il, trop sont engrés!, 2890–1). Finally, it is noticeable that there is in the whole Reconciliation episode as in some of the passages already examined, a great increase in the use of continuous linkage, groups of clauses joined overtly by co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions or paratactically. This development represents a significant shift in the author’s technique as he moves from the old style coupé (perhaps inherited from the Beroul poem) to the ‘loose style’ he favours in the bravura passages of the Tryst and the Flor de Farine. The two styles are quite different, the former being concise, serried and abrupt, using short clauses without excess words and avoiding overt syntactic linkage, the latter being fluid, informal and natural, using conjunctions to join clauses like links in a chain and giving the impression of being, not the result of a thought, but thought in process. The relationship between syntax and prosody is also different. In the old style coupé syntax tends to coincide with the mould of the couplet, in the ‘loose style’ the pattern of the couplet, whilst being observed prosodically, is not emphasized, with rhyming words within clauses, not always at their ends.27

The Reviser’s Themes and Stylisms in the Final Two Episodes If the contribution of the reviser has to be carefully sifted from the received material in the Reconciliation, this is no longer the case in the Ambiguous Oath, an episode that resembles nothing in O or, come to that matter, apart 27

On the style coupé and the ‘loose style’, see the important article of M. W. Croll, ‘The Baroque Style in Prose’, in Essays in Stylistic Analysis, ed. by H. S. Babb (New York, 1972), pp. 98–117. If the use of continuous linkage by conjunctions or parataxis is considered, it is revealing that some 24% of the lines in the Reconciliation are linked continuously over spans of four lines or more, and that in the first three episodes continuous linkage over the same spans is noticeably greater in added passages as compared with those with close parallels with O (approximate figures: Tryst: 10.5% overall, 19% in added passages; Flor de Farine: 12.5% overall, 36% in added passages; Morrois: 9% overall, 45% in added passages; figures for the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons are 10% and 15.5% respectively).

18


from a few isolated passages, anything else in Tristran literature, that is entirely his.28 The Ambiguous Oath is, par excellence, an example of the lovers’ ability to deceive Mark, that also incorporates various incidents depicting Tristran’s revenge on his enemies, themes that permeate the reviser’s contribution to the fragment.29 The very concept underlying the whole episode involves deception based on a set of contrived circumstances and the assumed and real identity of the leper who carries Iseut across the Mal Pas. This elaborately contrived scenario enables her to tell the truth while deceiving both her husband and her champion, Arthur, when she swears that no man has been between her thighs (‘Q’entre mes cuises n’entra home’, 4205) save the leper (Tristran in disguise) and her husband Mark. But it also contains other instances of deception and trickery: Iseut makes Mark believe she is ready to prove her innocence legally (3243–7) and then sends secret instructions to Tristran (3288–3314) that will enable her to circumvent the law; at the Mal Pas Tristran tricks Arthur and Mark into giving him clothing (3701–39, 3740–77); Iseut deceives Arthur by making him believe she is hostile to the leper (3956–80). The episode also contains incidents that depict Tristran’s revenge on his enemies: the barons are discomfited at the Mal Pas (3788–3864); the forester and probably Andrez are killed at the tournament (4035–42, 4045–54).30 28

There is absolutely no reason for believing that such an oath was in the estoire as, apart from B, it appears in none of the poems of so-called version commune (O, Folie de Berne, Prose Romance); it does, however, appear in the version courtoise (represented by Thomas, Folie d’Oxford, Gottfried), but in the episode corresponding to the Flor de Farine, the Fer Rouge, see J. Bédier, Le Roman de Tristran par Thomas, poème du XIIe siècle (Paris, 1902), I, 209–11. As the story of Iseut’s ambiguous oath was certainly widely known by the last third of the twelfth century, see A. Fourrier, Le courant réaliste dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Âge, Tome 1, Les débuts (XIIe siècle) (Paris, 1960), 79, it is most likely that the reviser introduced the episode into the extant poem himself, but thoroughly reworked it, so as to give it its distinctive Cornish setting, the elaborate Arthurian interlace and the comic scenes at the ford; see E. M. R. Ditmas, ‘Béroul the Minstrel’, Reading Medieval Studies 8 (1982), 34–74; O. J. Padel, ‘The Cornish Background of the Tristan Stories’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 1 (1981), 61, and ‘Béroul’s Geography and Patronage’, Reading Medieval Studies 9 (1983), 84–9, and my own ‘The Episode of the Ambiguous Oath in Beroul’s Tristran’, ZrP 106 (1990), 22–42. 29 See my article ZrP 101, 13–14 et seq. 30 On the fate of Andrez, see G. N. Bromiley, ‘Andret and the Tournament Episode in Beroul’s Tristran’, Medium Ævum 44 (1977), 181–95, who points out that on his first three appearances he is a friend of Tristran’s, but an enemy on his fourth. This leads Bromiley to suggest that the tournament may be a late accretion. P. S. Noble, Beroul’s Tristan and the Folie de Berne (London, 1982), pp. 49–52, points out, rightly, that the text does not actually say Andrez was killed; he may simply have had the worst of a sporting encounter.

19


In particular, the episode develops and elaborates themes introduced into the Reconciliation by the reviser, above all, that of the escondit. Here, however, the idea of the escondit does not remain, as it were, in a vacuum; it forms an integral part of the narrative and is acted upon and discussed by all the major characters, by Tristran and Iseut as before, but now also by Mark and his entourage. When the barons demand that Iseut should defend herself against the charge of adultery with Tristran (3041–54), Mark replies: ‘N’offri Tristran li a defendre? Ainz n’en osastes armes prendre.’

3063–4

And later, Perinis declares to Arthur’s court: ‘Tristran s’offri a esligier Et la roïne a deraisnier, Devant le roi, de loiauté. Ainz nus de cele foiauté Ne vout armes saisir ne prendre.’

3419–23

Both statements are entirely in the vein of the offer to do judicial combat in the Reconciliation, with a specific offer by Tristran to establish a legal defence in battle (defendre, 3063; s’offri a esligier, 3419; la roïne deraisnier, 3420) and the cowardice of the accusers who refuse to accept (Ainz n’en osastes armes prendre, 3064; Ne vout armes saisir ne prendre, 3423). But, unlike the statements in the Reconciliation, which evoked neither response nor comment, the offer is now discussed openly by the others beyond the narrow circle of Tristran, Iseut and Ogrin. However, this particular theme is not pursued and the reviser shifts his attention to the other aspect of an escondit, that of a legal oath sworn by Iseut. This is clearly the theme the reviser had in mind when he was writing the Reconciliation, as the general preparations made by Iseut to keep Tristran in hiding close at hand show. The inherent similarity between Tristran’s offer (which is most fully expressed in the Reconciliation) and Iseut’s (which we learn of for the first time in the Ambiguous Oath) is nevertheless clear, for the vocabulary and phraseology they share make it obvious that both came from the hand of the same writer. In the Ambiguous Oath the subject of Iseut’s oath appears in four passages of direct speech: in the discussion between Mark and the barons (3041–54), in that between Iseut and Mark (3244–56), in Arthur’s address at the ceremony on the Blanche Lande (4152–78) and in the actual taking of the oath (4187–4246). These four passages repeat much of the vocabulary relating to the question of legal proof that has been seen in Tristran’s offer in the Reconciliation to do judicial battle, both in the preliminary scenes where the whole matter is 20


debated and at the actual ceremony: (escondit faire or prendre/escondire, 3043, 3049, 3233, 4176, 4211, 4223; voloir escondire, 3047, 3053, 3252; deraisne (prendre)/ deraisnier, 4107, 4153, 4156, 4174, 4246; voier la deraisne, 3253, 4235; alegier, 3250; jugement, 3050; ot sa drüerie, 3048; vilanie, 3044; a lor eulz, 3256; amor conmune . . . que l’en tornast a vilanie, 4163–5; blasmer, 4261). And other words are added that extend the range of vocabulary specific to the concept of proof of the lovers’ innocence: (reter, 3057, 3058, reter de folie, 4155; jure/jurer, 3244, 4161, 4168, 4199, 4217, 4219, juré et mis en vo, 4226; terme (metre or banir), 3247, 3278, 3518, respit ne terme, 4151; faire droit, 3435; (faire/oïr) soirement, 3235, 3359, 4209; loi de juïse, 3245; amor de putee . . . de folor, 4193–4; de loiauté, 3421; amor ne prist par puterie, 4166). Similarly, groups of lines in the Ambiguous Oath are clearly based on others in the Reconciliation: Reconciliation ‘Et qu’il preïst nostre escondit, C’onques nul jor, n’en fait n’en dit, N’oi o vos point de drüerie Qui li tornast a vilanie, N’a chevalier en son roiaume . . . ’ 2227–31

Ambiguous Oath ‘Se la roïne a esté fole, – El n’en fist onques escondit – S’a vilanie vos est dit, Et li baron de ton païs . . . ... ... ... ... Qu’il vuelent bien s’en escondie Qu’ou Tristran n’ot sa drüerie.’ 3042–8

‘S’il veut dire qu’en vilanie Eüsiez prise drüerie.’ 2367–8

‘Qu’el onques n’ot amor conmune A ton nevo, ne deus ne une, Que l’en tornast a vilanie, N’amor ne prist par puterie.’ 4163–6 ‘Cil me voudroient escondire, Qui avront veü ma deraisne.’ 3252–3 ‘Si qel verront petit et grant.’ 4160 ‘Ne li covient plus escondit Q’avez oï, grant et petit.’ 4223–4

‘Et en ta cort moi deraisnier, C’onques o lié n’oi drüerie, Ne ele o moi, jor de ma vie.’ 2856–8 ‘S’il veut prendre vostre escondit, Se qel verront grant et petit . . . ’ 2397–8

In the following, incomplete part of the fragment, the Death of the Barons, the troi felon learn from an informer that Tristran visits the queen in her room during Mark’s absences. They attempt to spy on the lovers and two (and one assumes eventually the third) are killed by Tristran. The episode contains only a single reference to Iseut’s legal oath (Por le deraisne sa mollier, 4279), but if the Ambiguous Oath is par excellence an example of the lovers’ ability to deceive Mark, then this episode, the last in 21


the fragment and incomplete, is the culmination of the reviser’s other favourite theme, which also appears in the Ambiguous Oath, that of Tristran’s revenge on his enemies.31 In fact, once the matter of legal proof of the lovers’ innocence has been dealt with, both the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons can be seen to reproduce other features of the Reconciliation that do not appear in O. Both are steeped in the language of violence, death and mutilation such as has been seen in Tristran’s offers to do judicial combat in the Reconciliation, with talk of hanging (Par lui seront encor pendu, 3199, Et as forches pendront, as festes, 3332, Ge li feroie asez ennui Et lui pendrë an un haut pui, 3469–70, S’a mes deus mains ne le fais pendre, 3492, Que ges ferai encore pendre, 4154, Se je vos ment, si me pendez, 4276), burning (De moi faciez en un feu cendre, 4288, Atant otroi que l’en m’en arde, 4332), slaying with sword or lance (Tant qu’a m’espee aie venjane, 3337, Se de ma grant lance fresnine Ne pasent outre li coutel, 3478–9, Le fer trenchant li mist el cors, O l’acier bote le cuir fors, 4051–2) and beheading (Il en perdront encor les testes, 3331, le chief du bu li sevra, 4388), with corpses lying bleeding on the moor (Tristran laise le cors gesant En mié la lande, envers, sanglent, 4403–4) and brains spilling from skulls split by arrows (Par mié l’uel la li fait brandir, Trencha le test et la cervele, 4476–7). Both of these final episodes have other features of the reviser’s work. The Death of the Barons contains an outburst by Tristran in the exclamatory style, much like that at the beginning of the Reconciliation:32 31

Whilst recognizing that it is dangerous to speculate as to the content of lost text, it is possible, even likely, that the reviser adapted the end of Beroul’s poem to develop the revenge theme, see G. Whitteridge, ‘The Tristan of Béroul’, in Vinaver Miscellany, p. 353. The opening four lines of the Death of the Barons are reminiscent of the four lines at the beginning of the episode in O that follows Eilhart’s version of the Reconciliation (cf. Li rois a Cornoualle en pes, Tuit le criement et luin et pres. En ses deduiz Yseut en meine, De lié amer forment se paine, B 4267–70, and do rait der kúng Marck hin zù und nam die kúngin wider und hett sie sÿder in rechter liebin menig jar, O 4978–81). It has also been suggested that Beroul’s poem ended like the Prose Romance and, in particular, the Tavola Ritonda, in which Mark kills Tristran with a poisoned lance that he hurls through the window of Iseut’s chamber (see Ewert II, 260–1, and A. Adams and T. D. Hemming, ‘La Fin du Tristan de Béroul’, Moyen Âge 79 (1973), 449–68). Consequently, as the reviser obviously knew how Beroul’s poem ended and even reproduced four lines from it at the beginning of the last surviving episode, it is possible that he adapted it so that it is not Mark who kills Tristran through the window of Iseut’s chamber, but Tristran who kills Godoïne. 32 The final two episodes also contain several brief exclamations. The Ambiguous Oath: ‘Par Deu! seignors Cornot . . .!’, 3056, ‘Dex!’ fait li rois, ‘tant ai dequis . . .!’, 3404, ‘Dex!’ fait chascun, ‘que li demandent?’, 3451, ‘Dex!’ fait chascuns, ‘si fiere jure!’, 4219; The Death of the Barons: ‘Ha! Dex,’ fait il, ‘regarde moi, Que cil qui vient ne m’aperçoive Tant que devant moi le reçoive!’, 4360–2, ‘Ha! las,’ fait il, ‘qu’est devenuz Goudouïne . . .?’, 4395–6.

22


4464

4468

‘Ha! Dex, vrai roi, tant riche trait Ai d’arc et de seete fait; Consentez moi que cest ne falle! Un des trois feus de Cornoualle Voi, a grant tort, par la defors. Dex, qui le tuen saintisme cors Por le pueple meïs a mort, Lai moi venjance avoir du tort Que cil felon muevent vers moi!’

Characteristic of such passages are the exclamations (Ha! Dex, 4463, Dex, 4468), rhetorical imperatives (consentez moi, 4465, lai moi, 4470), an intensifier (tant, 4463) and repetition (tort, 4467, 4470). Curses on Tristran’s enemies like those in the Reconciliation are common in the Ambiguous Oath (Oiez des trois, que Dex maudie, 3028; Cent dehez ait par mié la cane Qui me rova de lui partir!, 3068–9; Li rois Marc dist: ‘Dex vos destruie, Qui si alez querant ma honte!’, 3082; La loi qu’il tient de Deu en jure, 3104; Mal ait quant qu’a soz son baudré, 3114; De Deu, le pere esperital, Aient il male maudiçon!, 3214–15; Tristran . . . jure quant que puet ataindre, 3328–9; Ja n’avrai mais bain d’eve chaude Tant qu’a m’espee aie venjance De ceus qui li ont fait pesance, 3336–8; Li troi felon, qui mal feu arde, 3788; Mal ait jamais m’en mesquerra!, 4231; cf Mal ait cil fans qui se est mos!, 3817). The wickedness of the lovers’ accusers (who are, after all, quite right!) which is referred to in the Reconciliation (felon, 2754, 2827; felonie, 2899), becomes a veritable litany in the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons (felon, 3137, 3186, 3198, 3362, 3461, 3493, 3497, 3788, 3797, 3856, 4237, 4256, 4259, 4271, 4346, 4471; fel, 3139, 3190, 3339, 4368, 4401, 4420, 4466). And although the incidence of continuous linkage over four lines or more is lower than in the Reconciliation (about 10% in the Ambiguous Oath and 15.5% in the Death of the Barons, compared with 24% in the Reconciliation, see n. 27), there are two substantial sequences in direct speech in the oath-taking scene, the first in Arthur’s speech over eight lines: 4160

4164

‘La roïne vendra avant Si qel verront petit et grant, Et jura o sa main destre, Sor les cors sainz, au roi celestre Qu’el onques n’ot amor conmune A ton nevo, ne deus ne une, Que l’en tornast a vilanie, N’amor ne prist par puterie

the second over the last eight lines of Iseut’s oath: 23


‘Si m’aït Dex et saint Ylaire, Ces reliques, cest saintuaire, Totes celes qui ci ne sont 4204 Et tuit icil de par le mont, Q’entre mes cuises n’entra home, Fors le ladre qui fist soi some, Qui me porta outre les guez, 4208 Et li rois Marc mes esposez.’

Another feature of the reviser’s style in the last two episodes, and one that can usefully be employed to identify his hand in the opening three, is his use of contrapuntal rhythms, sustained passages written across the prosodic pattern, in which a syntactic entity or a group of two or more linked clauses starts at the beginning of the second line of a couplet and finishes at the end of the first line of the next couplet. Linkage beyond the contrapuntal couplet is relatively rare, although four-line groups do occur. Such sequences are far more frequent in the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons than elsewhere in the fragment.33 Examples of the technique can be seen in Arthur’s admonitory words to Mark immediately before the queen swears her oath: 4144 ‘Tu es legier a metre en voie. Ne doiz croire parole fause; Trop te fesoit amere sause Qui parlement te fist joster. 4148 Molt le devroit du cors coster Et ennuier, quil voloit faire. La franche Yseut, la debonere, Ne veut espit ne terme avoir.’

33

Approximate percentages of sequences over six lines or more are as follows: Tryst 5.5%; Flor de Farine 1%; Morrois 5%; Reconciliation 0%; Ambiguous Oath 13%; Death of the Barons 12%. There is no significant difference in the extent of contrapuntal usage in the two strata of the first four episodes, except perhaps in the Tryst, where the figures are 5.5% overall, 9% in added passages. These contrapuntal sequences create a striking contrast with regular usage, see, for example, 3995–4028 on pp. 71–72 below. On the technique of contrasting regular and contrapuntal usage according to theme, see the interesting article of J. Frappier, ‘La brisure du couplet dans Erec et Enide’, Romania 86 (1965), 1–21. In this study I use the following notation: F = a single line containing the whole of a finite verb clause or clausal group; = a couplet occupied by the whole of a finite verb clause or clausal group; = a contrapuntal couplet occupied by the whole of a finite verb clause or clausal group; 3 etc. = three lines etc. occupied by a finite verb clause or clausal group ending on the first line of a couplet or vice versa; 4 etc. = a clausal group occupying four lines etc. with no internal observance of the couplet pattern; no notation is used below the level of the line.

24


and in the closing lines of the episode: 4260 Dist le roi Marc: ‘Se gel faisoie D’or en avant, si me blasmez.’ Li uns de l’autre s’est sevrez, Chascun s’en vient a son roiaume: 4264 Li rois Artus vient a Durelme, Rois Marc remest en Cornoualle. Tristran sejorne, poi travalle.

A striking sequence, which describes how Tristran espies Godoïne outside Iseut’s room and shoots him through the eye with an arrow, ends the fragment:

4468

4472

4476

4480

4484

‘Un des trois feus de Cornoualle Voi, a grant tort, par la defors. Dex, qui le tuen saintisme cors Por le peuple meïs a mort, Lai moi venjance avoir du tort Que cil felon muevent vers moi!’ Lors se tourna vers la paroi, Son arc ot entesé, si trait. La seete si tost s’en vait Riens ne peüst de lui gandir; Par mié l’uel la li fait brandir. Trencha le test et la cervele. Esmerillons ne arondele De la moitié si tost ne vole; Se ce fust une pome mole, N’issist la seete plus tost. Cil chiet, si se hurte a un post, Onques ne piez ne braz ne mut. Seulement dire ne li lut: ‘Bleciez sui! confession . . .’

4

Here, as elsewhere, the unity of the contrapuntal couplet is created by a variety of devices: it is occupied by a single clause (Un des trois feus de Cornualle Voi, a grant tort, par la defors, 4466–7, Esmerillons ne arondele De la moitié si tost ne vole, 4478–9), all the verbs have the same subject (Lors se torna vers la paroi, Son arc ot entesé, si trait, 4472–3), or clauses are continuously linked (Se ce fust une pome mole, N’issist la seete plus tost, 4480–1).34 34

Four other minor characteristics of the reviser should be mentioned: his frequent use of saints’ names, references to coins and monetary values, his use of puns and the repetition

25


Having examined the last three episodes in the fragment and identified the themes and stylisms that are characteristic of the reviser, I now come to the crux of my theory, namely, that many passages in the first three episodes with no equivalents in O are expansions added to the text by the reviser, rather than part of a received tradition omitted by Eilhart. These passages can be identified both by their absence from O and by the fact that they have the same stylistic characteristics and share the same themes as others in the last three episodes; moreover, their status as interpolations can often be verified by minor inconsistencies between them and the surrounding text. Moreover, the stylistic innovations seen in the last three episodes are developed even further in some of the additions to the first three episodes, where they stand out so markedly from the received material that it is legitimate to ask why, if they were not added after the rest of the poem had been completed, do no similar passages occur in the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons?35 But before proceeding, a caveat. It should be remembered that the reviser wrote the whole of the fragment. He reproduced the old received narrative in his own words but under the influence of its style, he composed his additions with an entirely free hand according to his own tastes. Features of his style can, therefore, be found in both strata and the differences may not always be clear-cut.

The later accretions The Tryst beneath the Tree, likewise incomplete, describes how, at the instigation of the dwarf Frocin, Mark hides in a tree and eavesdrops on the lovers. Forewarned in some way, they exploit the situation so as to convince Mark that their friendship is purely platonic. The episode has of words in adjacent lines. For example, the following occur in the reviser’s additions to the Reconciliation, the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons: Saints’ names: Saint Sanson, 2973, 2994; saint Estiene, 3070; saint Tresmor de Caharés, 3076; saint André, 3132; saint Richier, 3466; saint Ylaire, 4201; Saint Lubin, 4350. Coins and money: maalle, 2924, 3980; maalle esterline, 3654; ferlin, 3654, 3980; du suen, 3745; du lor, 3767; du vostre, 3806; cinc soz d’esterlins, 3972; marc d’argent, 4308. Puns: ost, 2577–8; doi, 2793–4; sueffre: soffre, 2863–4; Pas: pas, 3347–8, 3785–6; voie, 3611–12; foiz: fois, 3489–90; menton, 3429–30; suen, 3745–6; main, 4293–4; avoir, 4306–7. Repetition in adjacent lines: n’i a baron, 2578–9; loiauté, 3421–2; cheval, 2571–2. 35 Arthur’s speech at the oath-taking ceremony (4139–69) does have some of the features characteristic of the late additions to the early episodes (contrapuntal rhythms, 4144–51; continuous linkage, 4152–6, 4158–66) but lacks others (no articulation by reprises [see p. 58 below], few intensifiers, little emotion). It can, perhaps, be seen as the reviser’s first attempt at bravura passages such as occur in the Flor de Farine. An earlier opportunity would have been provided by the speeches of the knights before Arthur’s court, as they swear revenge on Iseut’s accusers (3457–94), but they are relatively pedestrian and lack the passion of the fine passages elsewhere.

26


been heavily interpolated by the reviser, whose hand accounts for more than half the lines in the segment. The passages interpolated, which are both frequent and sustained, correspond to nothing in O, are nearly all in direct speech and usually develop and expand elements in the older, received narrative.36 A fine passage, in which Iseut protests her innocence and complains of Mark’s ingratitude to Tristran, occurs near the start of the fragment. It corresponds to nothing in O and elaborates Iseut’s opening words in the common tradition when she meets Tristran at the fountain knowing that Mark is watching from the tree (Com ele aprisme son ami, Oiez com el l’a devanci: ‘Sire Tristran, por Deu le roi, Si grant pechié avez de moi, Qui me mandez a itel ore’, B 3–7, = und recht also gebardt, alß ob sú eß nicht wÿste, und sprach mit grossen listen: ‘Trÿstrand, waß sol ich her zů dir?’, O 3534–7). Despite a four-line lacuna, it is worth quoting in full:37 20

24

28

32

36

40

‘Li rois pense que par folie, Sire Tristran, vos aie amé, Mais Dex plevis ma loiauté, Qui sor mon cors mete flaele, S’onques fors cil qui m’ot pucele Out m’amistié encor nul jor! Se li felon de cest enor, Por qui jadis vos conbatistes O le Morhout, quant l’oceïstes, Li font acroire, ce me senble, Que nos amors jostent ensenble, Sire, vos n’en avez talent. Ne je, par Deu omnipotent, N’ai corage de drüerie Qui tort a nule vilanie; Mex voudroie que je fuse arse, Aval le vent la poudre esparse, Jor que je vive que amor Aie o home qu’o mon seignor. Et Dex! si ne m’en croit il pas! Je puis dire: de haut si bas!’

36

6

9

F F

Line numbers of details occurring only in B: 20–31; 35–68; 81–92; 121–6; 131–56; 187–96; 234–84; 295–330; 339–86; 395–492; 511–27; 531–2; 551–68; line numbers of details occurring only in O: 3549; 3556–7; 3626–35; 3642–82c; 3702–41. See Buschinger, Le Tristrant, pp. 232–83. 37 There is, however, one echo in O, cf. Ne je, par Deu omnipotent, N’ai corage de drüerie Qui tort a nule vilanie, B 32–4, and nun bin ich ze schall von im worden on not, O 3554–5.

27


The next three lines, which contain a reference to Solomon and a sententious saying (Sire, molt dist voir Salemon: Qui de forches traient larron, Ja pus nes amera nul jor, 41–3), seem more characteristic of the older material38 and should perhaps be excluded, after which the interpolation (unfortunately mutilated) continues: 44

48

52

56

‘Se li felon de cest enor ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .... Amor deüsent il celer. Molt vos estut mal endurer De la plaie que vos preïstes En la batalle que feïstes O mon oncle. Je vos gari; Se vos m’en erïez ami, N’ert pas mervelle, par ma foi! Et il ont fait entendre au roi Que vos m’amez d’amor vilaine. Si voient il Deu et son reigne Ja nul verroient en la face!’

?

4

As my notation shows, this passage has two characteristics of the reviser’s style: a contrapuntal rhythm (and it is an odd coincidence that the fragment should open with such a sequence just as it closes on one) and continuous linkage extending over several lines. The contrapuntal rhythm is set up by syntactic groups starting on the second line of a couplet and finishing on the first, with clauses linked by hypotaxis (Se vos m’en erïez ami, N’ert pas mervelle, par moi foi!, 54–5, Et il ont fait entendre au roi Que vos m’amez d’amor vilaine, 56–7) or parataxis (Si voient il Deu et son reigne Ja nul verroient en la face!, 58–9) in the case of single contrapuntal couplets, and continuous linkage extends over four (35–8, 50–3), six (20–5) or even, in the complex passage 26–34, over nine lines, with a succession of subordinating and co-ordinating conjunctions and interposed clauses and phrases. Both parts of the passage are based on themes favoured by the reviser: Iseut’s denial of illicit love (22, 33–8, 57), a curse (58–9) on the lovers’ enemies (26, 44), references to scourging (23) and burning (35–6). Iseut’s opening avowal of innocence closely echoes her formal statement in the Ambiguous Oath (Mais Dex plevis ma loiauté, Qui sor mon cors mete 38

There is also a reference to Solomon in the Husdent episode: Salemon dit que droituriers Que ses amis, c’ert ses levriers, 1461–2, a segment of text fundamentally similar to the account in O and hence very probably in the estoire.

28


flaele, S’onques fors cil qui m’ot pucele Out m’amistié encor nul jor!, 22–5, = Or escoutez que je ci jure . . . Q’entre mes cuises n’entra home, Fors le ladre qui fist soi some, Qui me porta outre les guez, Et li rois Marc mes esposez, 4199–4208),39 and two new themes are added: Mark’s ingratitude to the slayer of Morhout (27–8, 52–3), and the question of belief (acroire, 29; croire, 39) in the lovers’ adultery (30). The same themes appear in Tristran’s response (101–56), which opens with common material (Dame, or vos vuel merci crïer, B 106, Molt m’a pené son mariage, 126, = nain, frow, durch dinen brÿß, du solt mich deß genießen lon, daß ich durch dich gelitten hon manig groß arbait, O 3558–61) but then elaborates in a manner quite unlike the German text. It is introduced by the exclamatory formula much used by the reviser (Ahi! Iseut . . . , 101) and then follow familiar themes in familiar vocabulary: denials of illicit love (Ainz me lairoie par le col Pendre a un arbre q’en ma vie O vos preïse drüerie, 128–30, = Mex voudroie que je fuse arse . . . , 35–8, spoken by Iseut in her opening speech), the theme introduced by her in the same speech, that of Mark’s ingratitude to the slayer of the Morhout (Molt les vi ja taisant et muz, Qant li Morhot fu ça venuz, 135–6, and Por s’onor croistre m’enarmai, Conbati m’en, si l’enchaçai. Ne deüst pas mis oncles chiers De moi croire ses losengiers, 141–4, = Se li felon de cest enor . . . , 26–31) and, echoing passages already examined in the Reconciliation and the Ambiguous Oath, Tristran’s wish to defend himself in judicial combat (Il ne me lait sol escondire, 131, = Que me sueffres a esligier Et en ta cort moi deraisnier, 2855–6), the lack of response from the barons (n’a de sa cort Qui a batalle o moi s’atort, 155–6, = ja n’i troveras ton per Qui gage doinst encontre toi, 2372–3, Ainz n’en osastes armes prendre, 3064, Ainz nus de cele foiauté Ne vout armes saisir ne prendre, 3422–3), Tristran’s readiness to undergo trial by ordeal (Qu’il face faire un ré ardant, Et je m’en entrerai el ré. Se ja un poil en ai bruslé De la haire qu’avrai vestu, Si me laist tot ardoir u feu, 150–4, = Se sui dannez, si m’art en soffre, 2864, Ou s’il volent loi de juïse, Ja n’en voudront si roide guise – Metent le terme – que ne face, 3245–7). Here, in the Tryst, Tristran’s references to an escondit based on judicial combat and the lack of response from the barons are of particular interest as they must have been added after the theme had been introduced in the Reconciliation: a formal escondit involving judicial combat makes sense only after the lovers have been caught in flagrante delicto, that is, after the events of the Flor de Farine. At this stage of the received narrative flatterers may have sown doubts in Mark’s mind, but he and the queen are still living as man and wife and there is no real evidence against Tristran. Now, the losengier (119), whose words 39

See F. Bar, ‘Le premier serment ambigu d’Iseut dans le poème de Beroul’, BBSIA 29 (1977), 181–4.

29


Mark believes, are identified as base, cowardly Cornishmen (fel covert Corneualais, 121; ses felons, 132) who have deceived the king (Deceü l’ont, gote ne voit, 134) and caused Tristran grief and pain (traval et . . . duel vif, 108; duel, 109). The speech also contains an invocation to our Lord reminiscent of the reviser’s use of saints’ names (Por Deu, le fiz sainte Marie, 148).40 Tristran’s soliloquy after the departure of Iseut (238–57), spoken for the benefit of the hidden Mark, continues in the same vein and corresponds to nothing in O until the common tradition is rejoined and Tristran finally leaves (Tristran s’en ert pieça alez, B 285, = do begund von dan Trÿstrand zů herberg gan, O 3613–13a). Typical of the reviser’s additions are denials of drüerie (Beaus oncles, poi me deconnut Qui de ta feme me mescrut; Onques n’oi talent de tel rage, 251–3), an invocation to a saint (beau sire saint Evrol, 238) and exclamations (Ha! Dex . . ., 238, 243). Interestingly, an inconsistency in the text confirms that this speech is an interpolation in the older material. Earlier Tristran assured Iseut that, such is his prowess, he would be welcome in any court in the world (Bien sai que je ai si grant proise Par tote terre ou sol adoise, Bien sai que u monde n’a cort, S’i vois, li sires ne m’anort, 207–10), an element that must have been in the received tradition as it occurs in O (eß wirt gůt raut: ich kumm dar, do man mich alß ainen herren můß haben in grossen eren und můß mich lieb hon mit pflicht, 3580–3), but here, in the interpolated passage, Tristran states the exact opposite (Ha Dex! d’ome desatorné! Petit fait om de lui cherté! Qant je serai en autre terre, S’oi chevalier parler de gerre, Ge n’en oserai mot soner; Hom nu n’a nul leu de parler; Or m’estovra sofrir fortune, 243–9), lines corresponding to nothing in O. Shortly after Tristran’s soliloquy comes a substantial segment of text (265–319) in which Mark vows to wreak vengeance on the dwarf for making him believe lies about the lovers. Both texts describe how Mark gets down from the tree and angrily seeks the dwarf, intent on revenge (Bien set li rois fort le menace, Ne laira pas qu’il nu desface. Molt est li nains nerci et pales, Molt tost s’en vet fuiant vers Gales, B 333–6, = Der kúng zoch do sin schwert und wolt daß gezwerg ze tod do erschlahen. do viel der clain man von dem bom und floch, O 3615–19) but, in addition, the reviser expands the received narrative with passages that correspond to nothing in O and that have all the hallmarks of his hand, with an initial exclamation, and references to deception, execution and mutilation:41

40

There may be an echo of this speech in O, cf. Dex! por quoi est li rois si fol? Ainz me lairoie par le col Pendre a un arbre q’en ma vie O vos preïse drüerie, B 127–30, and wann er n schuld gezúrnet haut uff mich, O 3566–7. 41 It falls into three parts which are nicely differentiated, the first (265–84) being spoken

30


268

272

276

280

‘Las!’ fait li rois, ‘or ai veü Que le nains m’a trop deçeü. En cest arbre me fist monter, Il ne me pout plus ahonter. De mon nevo me fist entendre Mençonge, por qoil ferai pendre. Por ce me fist metre en aïr, De ma mollier faire haïr. Ge l’en crui et si fis que fous. Le gerredon l’en sera sous: Se je le puis as poinz tenir, Par feu ferai son cors fenir. Par moi avra plus dure fin Que ne fist faire Costentin A Segoçon, qu’il escolla Qant o sa feme le trova.’

He goes on to tell how Mark now believes the lovers and disbelieves the lies told by their enemies:

288

292

Li rois de l’arbre est devalez. En son cuer dit or croit sa feme Et mescroit les barons du reigne, Que li faisoient chose acroire Que il set bien que n’est pas voire Et qu’il a prové a mençonge. Or ne laira q’au nain ne donge O s’espee si sa merite Par lui n’iert mais traïson dite.

He is convinced that the lovers’ behaviour proves they are not guilty of illicit love, and chides himself for his lack of faith:

300

304

‘Or puis je bien enfin savoir Se feüst voir, ceste asenblee Ne feüst pas issi finee. S’il s’amasent de fol amor, Ci avoient asez leisor, Bien les veïse entrebaisier. Ges ai oï si gramoier Or sai je bien n’en ont corage. Porqoi croi je si fort outrage?

aloud, the second (287–97) expressed as thought (en sun cuer dit . . ., 287), the third (298–319) reverting to direct speech.

31


308

312

Ce poise moi, se m’en repent. Molt est fous qui croit tote gent. Bien deüse ainz avoir prové De ces deus genz la verité Que je eüse fol espoir. Buen virent aprimier cest soir! Au parlement ai tant apris Jamais jor n’en serai pensis.’

Mark’s comment Molt est fous qui croit tote gent, 308, echoes his words in the Ambiguous Oath, Quar fous est qui envieus criot, 4172, and, as in the case of Tristran’s earler soliloquy (238–57), an inconsistency between added and received material confirms interpolation. Here, Mark’s threat of summary vengeance on the dwarf makes flight imperative (Molt tost s’en vet fuiant vers Gales, 336), but when the next episode begins and his presence is required in material common to B and O, he is tamely accepted back at court without explanation.42 The closing section of Mark’s speech (Or puis je bien enfin savoir . . ., 298–314) illustrates another feature of the reviser’s additions, speculation, either in person or through the mouths of his characters, as to what might have happened if events had taken a different course. This tendency, which is quite foreign to the succinct, factual narrative of Eilhart, has formal consequences, resulting in passages introduced by se followed by an unusually high concentration of subjunctives (here, feüst, 299, 300; amasent, 301; veïse, 303; deüse, 309; eüse, 311) that suggest intervention by the reviser regardless of the particular subject matter. And so the interpolations continue. In a further substantial passage (339–80) Iseut describes the events of the lovers’ rendezvous to Brengain in direct speech, whilst a short conclusion (381–6) reports in narrative how Tristran tells Governal what occurred. Neither corresponds to anything in O and both can be seen as additions rather than simple expansions of common material. Although the passages lack themes developed in earlier interpolations, they do introduce a new idea entirely in accord with the reviser’s odd morality, which is based not on absolute values of right and wrong, but rather on the concept of legality: drüerie is wrong only if discovered, innocence and guilt depend on proof. Consequently, being 42

Mark’s anger with the dwarf also appears in O (3614–25) and the parallel Sathanaß, O 3624, with Lucifer, B 322, points to a common source in the estoire. But there are differences in the two accounts: in B Mark is in the tree alone, in O both he and the dwarf are in it; in O Mark descends from the tree first, thereby sparing the dwarf, even though he later (3615–17) wants to kill him; in B Frocin flees to Wales, in O he simply runs away (entloffen waß, 3623) and is close at hand for the Flor de Farine. It looks as if the reviser has produced the inconsistency by overkill.

32


right the lovers are protected by God.43 Iseut tells Brengain how Dex me fist parler premeraine, 352, who then develops the theme, praising God for watching over the lovers (Iseut, ma dame, grant merci Nos a Dex fait, 371–2, and Granz miracles vos a fait Dex, Il est verais peres et tex Qu’il n’a core de faire mal A ceus qui sont buen et loial, 377–80). And Governal, too, thanks God (Qant conter l’ot, Deu en mercie, 383). The presence of a catch-line at the end of the passage confirms the likelihood that it has been interpolated, for whilst the passage in the received material describing the dwarf’s flight ends with Mark bent on revenge (Li rois vait molt le nain querant; Nu puet trover, sin a duel grant, 337–8), now, after the lengthy digression he has introduced, the reviser re-establishes continuity by repeating this idea when he picks up the thread and returns to the common narrative (Ne pout son nain trover li rois. Dex! tant ert a Tristran sordois!, 385–6). Later, back at the palace, Iseut admits to Mark that she did indeed meet Tristran and seemingly puts herself at his mercy (O ton nevo soz cel pin fui. Or m’en oci, rois, se tu veus. Certes gel vi. Ce est grant deus, 404–6). In a lengthy and greatly elaborated exchange with Mark (395–468), fundamentally different from the corresponding passage in O,44 she reiterates this admission (Tristran tes niés vint soz cel pin, 415), developing a familiar theme in familiar vocabulary: flatterers have made Mark believe that she and Tristran are guilty of illicit love, but they are innocent (Qar tu penses j’aim Tristran Par puterie et par avien, 407–8, Je t’ai voir dit; si ne m’en croiz, Einz croiz parole fole et vaine, 412–13, Mais li felon, li losengier, Quil vuelent de cort esloignier, Te font acroire la mençonge, 427–9). She cunningly repeats statements she knows Mark overheard at the Tryst, thereby creating a series of links back to the earlier, much expanded conversation between herself and Tristran (5–232): Tristran sent for her (Si me manda qu’alasse a lui, 417, = Si grant pechié avez de moi, Qui me mandez a itel ore, 6–7, = Ne me mandez nule foiz mais, 17, = Ne me mandez por nule chose, 61); she loves Tristran as a kinsman (Sire, jos tien por mon seignor, Et il est vostre niés, ç’oi dire; Por vos l’ai je tant amé, sire, 424–6, = Tristran, certes, li rois ne set Que por lui par vos aie ameit; Por ce qu’eres du parenté Vos avoie je en cherté, 69–72); Tristran begged her to intercede on his behalf (Molt se conplaint com angoisos, Sire, que l’acordasse a vos, 433–4, = Par foi, sire, grant tort avez, Qui de tel chose a moi parlez: Que de vos le mete a raison Et de s’ire face pardon, 163–6); 43

The theme also appears in the first prophecy in the Reconciliation, but as punishing the lovers’ enemies rather than helping them directly, Dex les venga de toz ces quatre, Qui vout le fier orguel abatre, 2763–4; it appears again in the Flor de Farine, Molt grant miracle Deu i out, Quis garanti, si con li plot, 755–6, also added by the reviser. 44 The corresponding passages are B 407–68 and O 3642–81.

33


she refused to help (Qar je a lui mais ne vendroie. Ne ja a vos n’en parleroie, 437–8, = Par foi, Tristran, n’en ferai mie, Ne vos nu me devez requerre, 172–3); and now Tristran will leave (Tristran s’en vet, 430, Tristran s’en vet por le descort, 442, Povre s’en vet, 455, = Si m’en fuirai, n’i os ester, 206). Pathetically gullible, Mark believes every word and hastens to accommodate the lovers, a theme the reviser returns to again and again (Li rois sout bien qu’el ot voir dit, 459, Ja nes mescrerra mais nul jor Por dit de nul losengeor, 463–4). Other details typical of the reviser in this interpolation are an awareness of monetary values (Nes sol quatre besanz entiers Ne li vol metre en s’aumosniere, 452–3, = De moi n’en portera qui valle Un sol ferlinc n’une malle, 3979–80 – both spoken by Iseut and in similar circumstances – Li avoirs Tristran ert mes suens, Et li suens avoirs ert Tristran, 466–7), the curse on Tristran’s enemies (Dex lor en doinge Male vergoigne recevoir!, 430–1) and another characteristic appears, the use of reprises, a device used in long periodic structures written in the ‘loose style’, consisting of phrases that become formulaic by virtue of repetition and which, by indicating a pause followed by a restart, serve to articulate the passage and maintain internal continuity (here ‘Sire . . .’ in the initial position):45 400 411 424 434 438 447

‘Sire, le voir vos en desno. ... ... ... ... Sire, merci a celle foiz! ... ... ... ... Sire, jos tien por mon seignor. ... ... ... ... Sire, que l’acordasse a vos. ... ... ... ... Sire, de rien ne nient irez; ... ... ... ... Sire, or t’ai dit le voir sanz falle . . .’

The passage in which Mark responds to Iseut’s admission that she did meet Tristran (476–92) is also quite different from the corresponding passage in O (3642–82c). Themes the reviser introduced at the beginning of the episode in the exchanges between Tristran and Iseut, such as Mark’s ingratitude to the slayer of the Morhout and Tristran’s wish to be released from his pledges are reiterated, thereby quite naturally creating parallels with the earlier interpolated passages (La batalle que li fis faire, 480, Le mal q’en mer li estut traire De la serpent, dont le garistes, 484–5, = Molt 45

A device already used in Tristran’s response to Iseut (101–56), with initial Dame at 106, 113 and 149, and Mark’s soliloquy when his words show he has been fooled by the lovers (286–319), with initial Or at 287, 292, 298, 305 and 318.

34


vos estut mal endurer De la plaie que vos preïstes En la batalle que feïstes O mon oncle. Je vos gari, 50–3;46 Et quant il vos requist quittance De ses gages, 487–8, = Que vos gages face aquiter, 228), and his speech, like Iseut’s, is articulated by reprises in the initial position (Qant . . ., 479; Et quant . . ., 483, 487). Iseut, in reply (493–504), once more repeats her denial of illicit love, again in familiar vocabulary and with a concentration of subjunctives introduced by se: 496

500

504

‘Se il m’amast de fole amor, Asez en veïsiez senblant. Ainz, par moi foi, ne tant ne quant Ne veïstes qu’il m’aprismast Ne ne preïst, ne ne baisast. Bien senble ce chose certaine, Ne m’amot pas d’amor vilaine. Sire, s’or ne nos veïsiez, Certes, ne nos en creüsiez.’

The final passage in the Tryst (573–80), that briefly describes how the lovers resume their liaison having successfully duped Mark, does correspond roughly in content to a brief passage in O (in froden mocht er verclagnen waß im ze laid ie geschach. mit der kúngin hett er gemach als dick, alß er wolt, 3768–71), but may, perhaps, have replaced a few lines in the received material like those of the German text:

576

580

Ha! Dex, qui puet amor tenir Un an ou deus sanz descovrir? Car amors ne se puet celer: Sovent cline l’un vers son per, Sovent vienent a parlement, Et a celé et voiant gent; Par tot ne puent aise atendre, Maint parlement lor estuet prendre.

The exclamatory style is typical of the reviser, with the familiar Ha! Dex . . . , in the initial position, repetition (amor, 573, 575; puet, 573, 575, puent 579; parlement, 577, 580; sovent, 576, 577), intensifiers (tot, 579; maint, 580), and a rhetorical question in the opening couplet.47 46

The reviser is inconsistent. Iseut refers to the wound Tristran received in his fight with the Morhout, Mark to that inflicted by the dragon. But cf. Ewert II, 12, who suggests a comma after traire at the end of 484 and a list: La batalle . . . Le mal . . . De la serpent . . . Et les grans biens. . . . 47 Note too, voiant gent, 578, similar to phrases used in Tristran’s offer to do judicial battle in the Reconciliation (oiant eus, 2854) and the Ambiguous Oath (a lor eulz, 3256).

35


In the next major segment of the fragment, the Flor de Farine, the dwarf Frocin traps Tristran by scattering flour in the royal bed-chamber, thereby making the lovers’ adultery self-evident when Tristran goes to the queen’s bed to tell her Mark is to send him on a mission to Arthur. The lovers are bound and, despite a passionate appeal by their friend, the seneschal Dinas, are about to be burned, when Tristran escapes by making his famous Saut Tristran from the chapel on the cliff-top. He then rescues Iseut after Mark changes his mind and hands her over to a band of lepers at the request of their leader, Ivain. The lovers flee and finally reach safety in the forest of Morrois. The episode probably contains the highest proportion of material reproduced from the estoire, as the parallels with O are both sustained and detailed,48 but it also contains eleven passages with characteristics of the reviser’s style that do not appear in O and three bravura speeches which, although similar in content to passages in the German text, appear to have been entirely rewritten by the reviser in an elevated and sophisticated style quite unlike that of the received material. The eleven shorter passages vary greatly in content and are scattered throughout the episode. The first is an outburst by the author at the dwarf’s treacherous trap: 644

648

Ha! Or oiez qel traïson Et confaite seducïon A dit au roi cil nain Frocin! Dehé aient tuit cil devin! Qui porpensa tel felonie Con fist cist nain, qui Dex maudie?

With characteristic exclamation (the opening three lines), repetition (cil nain, 645, cil devin, 646, cist nain, 648) and curses on all soothsayers (Dehé aient tuit cil devin, 646), especially the dwarf (cist nain, qui Dex maudie, 648).49 Shortly after comes another outburst, as the reviser regrets the queen’s lack of foresight. Seeing the flour sprinkled on the floor, Tristran leaps across to the queen’s bed, but recent wounds burst open, soaking the sheets with his blood: 48

Line numbers of details occurring only in B: 589–603; 627–48; 667–70; 696–700; 750–64; 771–804; 809–20; 827–62; 881–98; 909–14; 941–2; 953–4; 979–88; 1013–44; 1045–64; 1072–1140; 1145–54; 1250–8; 1265–70; line numbers of details occurring only in O: 3772–91; 3796–807a; 3814–20; 3841; 3846–60; 3893; 3900–1; 3904–8; 3914–19; 3934–7; 3946a; 3966–79; 3984–90; 3997–4053; 4073–96; 4104–13; 4144–8; 4155–69; 4179–87; 4208–21; 4226–42b; 4259; 4272–5; 4278d–g; 4280–91; 4296– 4301; 4314–15; 4317–20; 4331–54; 4357–67. See Buschinger, Le Tristrant, pp. 283– 366. 49 But note, too, Dehez ai il conme boçuz!, 640, perhaps also added to the received material.

36


752

756

Ha! Dex, qel duel que la roïne N’avot les dras du lit ostez! Ne fust la nuit nus d’eus provez; Se ele s’en fust apensee, Molt eüst bien s’anor tensee. Molt grant miracle Deu i out, Quis garanti, si con li plot.

Typical of the reviser here is the exclamatory style in the opening couplet (Ha! Dex . . . , 751), legalistic argument (Ne fust la nuit nus d’eus provez, 752), bias in favour of the lovers who enjoy divine protection (Molt grant miracle Deu i out, Quis garanti, si con li plot, 755–6), repetition (Molt, 758, 759; Dex, 750, 757) and a brief cluster of subjunctives (fust, 752; fust apensee, 753; eüst tensee, 754).50 Next comes a brief grotesque passage describing how Tristran, back in his own bed, snores, pretending to be asleep when Mark enters the bed-chamber (Tristran faisoit Senblant conme se il dormoit, Quer il ronfloit forment du nes. Seus en la chanbre fu remés, Fors tant que a ses piez gesoit Pirinis, qui ne s’esmovoit, 759–64), but the passage seems an addition as it contradicts the surrounding text. Here Tristran is said to be alone (Seus en la chanbre fu remés, 762), previously and later it is stated that the three barons are there (Iluec furent li troi felon, 741; Li troi qui an la chanbre sont, 805).51 The reference to Perinis is also suspect as he is otherwise not mentioned in the text until the reviser’s prophecy as to the fate of the lovers’ enemies in the Reconciliation (2761). Later in the episode come two similar eight-line passages in emotional vein, both spoken by Tristran, both with the stylisms of the reviser:52 ‘Ha! las, dolent, et moi que chaut? Qant n’ai Yseut, rien ne me vaut, Dolent, le saut que orainz fis! Que dut ice que ne m’ocis? Ce me peüst estre molt tart! Eschapé sui! Yseut, l’en t’art! Certes, por noient eschapai: En l’art por moi, por li morrai.’ 981–8

‘Dex!’ dist Tristran, ‘quel aventure! Ahi! Yseut, bele figure, Con deüstes por moi morir Et je redui por vos perir! Tel gent vos tienent entre mains, De ce soient il toz certains, Se il n’os laisent en present, Tel i ara ferai dolent.’ 1237–44

50

Cf. 753–4, which is reminiscent of a couplet in the Death of the Barons, Tristran s’esteut, si s’apensa. Oiez! en son pener tensa, 4441–2. 51 Although rejected by Gregory, the manuscript reading of 771 (Li troi baron sont en la chanbre) confirms the presence of the barons in the royal bed-chamber. 52 The second passage, 1237–44, corresponds to O 4308–13 (note the common lexis main – hand), but seems to have replaced the received text. That at 981–8 corresponds to nothing in O, but may replace the source of O 4144–8, in which Kurneval laments the loss of Tristran.

37


The general similarities between the two are evident, the first expressing Tristran’s grief when he sees Iseut being led to the pyre, the second his grief when she is taken away by the lepers. Both open with emotional formulas (Ha! las . . ., 981; Dex! . . . Ahi! Yseut, 1237–8), both are exclamatory in nature (Ce me peüst estre molt tart! Eschapé sui, Yseut, l’en t’art!, 985–6; Dex! . . . quel aventure!, 1237, and je redui por vos perir!, 1240), with intensifiers (rien, 982; molt, 985; noient, 987; toz, 1242) and internal repetition (eschapé sui, 986, eschapai, 987; art, 986, 988; tel, 1241, 1244); both contain similar reciprocal phrases (En l’art por moi, por li morrai, 988; Con deüstes por moi morir Et je redui por vos perir!, 1239–40). In addition the first uses rhetorical questions (981 and 984) and is shown to be an interpolation by the inconsistency between the joy Tristran experiences a few lines earlier at being reunited with Governal (Qant il le vit, grant joie en fait, 978) and the grief he immediately expresses in the added passage (981).53 And there are several other short added passages. A particularly revealing intervention by the reviser comes as Governal restrains Tristran and prevents him attempting a premature rescue when Iseut is about to be led to the pyre: Plore Tristran, molt fait grant duel; Ja, por toz ceus de Tintajol, S’en le deüst tot depecier, Qu’il n’en tenist piece a sa per, Ne laisast il qu’il n’i alast, 1044 Se son mestre ne li veiast.

1040

Elsewhere in the Flor de Farine and the Reconciliation Mark’s palace is invariably at Lancïen, but here the reviser has mistakenly placed it at Tintagel, as in the Ambiguous Oath (A Tintajol, devant sa tor, Est descendu, 3150–1). The hand of the reviser is confirmed by closely grouped subjunctives that formally reflect speculation introduced by se (deüst, 1041; tenist, 1042; laisast, alast, 1043; veiast, 1044), intensifiers (molt grant, 1039; ja, toz, 1040; tot, 1041) and emphatic negatives (n’en tenist . . . ne . . . n’i . . . ne . . ., 1042–4).54 53

Note, too, the parallels between the opening couplet of the first passage, 981–2, and other lines added by the reviser in the Tryst (Si ai tel duel que moi n’en chaut Se tu me fais prendre un mal saut, 409–10) and later in the Flor de Farine (Beaus oncles, de moi ne me chaut; Bien sai, venuz sui a mon saut, 787–8). 54 The passage is largely repetitive, simply summarizing the content of an earlier passage (‘Mex vuel estre tot depeciez – Se je a tens i vien, au rez, Ainz que getee i soit m’amie – Ceus qui la tienent n’en ocie.’ Governal dist: ‘Ne te haster!’, 1019–23); note the western or AN rhyme duel: Tintajol, also used in 879–80.

38


Shortly afterwards, before the text reverts to the received narrative and describes Mark’s anger at Tristran’s escape (Seignor, au roi vient la novele Q’eschapez est par la chapele Ses niés, qui il devoit ardoir. De mautalent en devint noir, De duel ne set con se tienge, B 1065–9, = dar nach in kurtzen stunden kamen dem kúng mär, daß Trÿstrant entloffen wär: daß můst im missvallen, O 4222–5), comes an addition in which Iseut thanks God for her lover’s deliverance and curses the felons: 1056

1060

1064

‘Par Deu!’ fait el, ‘se je m’escor, Qant li felon losengeor, Qui garder durent mon ami, L’ont deperdu, la Deu merci, Ne me devroit l’on proisier. Bien sai que li nains losengier Et li felons, li plain d’envie, Par qui consel j’ere perie, En avront encor lor deserte. Torner lor puise a male perte!’

The speech has several characteristics of the reviser: a reference to divine protection (1056–8), a prophecy (1060–3), a curse (1064) and continuous linkage (1056–9, 1060–3).55 Then, after Mark has sent for Iseut, intent on having her burned at the stake, common material (Par ire rove qu’Yseut vienge, B 1070, = do wolt der kung sinen můt kühlen an der frowen, O 4246–7), and immediately before the lovers’ friend, Dinas, makes a passionate plea for custody of the queen (common to the two texts but at different points, see n. 61), comes another brief interpolation which is, in fact, one of no less than four interventions by the common people, lamenting the fate of their hero, Tristran:56 ‘Ha! roïne franche, honoree, Qel duel ont mis en la contree 55

‘Par Deu!’ fet el . . ., 1055, may be a catch-line for ‘Dex!’ fait elë . . ., 1048, in the preceding text a sign of probable interpolation. Note, too, the large initial immediately after the passage at 1065 which might signal the return to received material. The manuscript reading of the phrase se mes ior in 1055, corrected to se je m’escor by Gregory after a suggestion by B. Blakey, could indicate interpolation as it produces a breakdown in sense with the rhyme-line Qant li felon losengeor, 1056; see the discussion of Gregory in his Notes to the Text. 56 The brief interpolated passage here opens with a line identical to one in the bravura passage 831–59 (Ha! roïne franche, honoree, 837) with which it has other similarities (Qel duel ont mis en la contree Par qui ceste novele est sorse!, 1078–9, = Qel damage qu’en traïson Vos ont fait prendre cil gloton!, 835–6; Avoir en puisent mal mehain!, 1082, = Ja ne voie Deu en la face qui trovera le nain en place, Qi nu ferra d’un glaive el cors!, 841–3). See p. 43 below and n. 61.

39


Par qui ceste novele est sorse! Certes, en asez poi de borse En porront metre le gaain. Avoir en puisent mal mehain!’

1077–82

The passage is exclamatory in tone, with a final curse that echoes the closing line of the previous added passage (cf. Torner lor puise a male perte!, 1064) and a reference to monetary value (Certes, en asez poi de borse En porront metre le gaain, 1080–1). Finally, at 1265–70 comes the first of the passages discussed at the beginning of this study in which the reviser refers to his source as Beroul.57 Earlier in the episode come two closely juxtaposed, longer passages, of twenty-two and eighteen lines respectively (783–804 and 809–26), in which the theme of judicial combat again appears. The first is preceded by four lines from the received text describing how the barons have Tristran seized (Li troi baron font en la chanbre Tristran par ire an son lit prendre. Cuelli l’orent cil en haïne, Por sa prooise et la roïne, B 771–4, = sie tetten, daß er in gebot. sie viengen Trÿstranden und bunden in mit banden die hend zů rucke (daß sin ungelúcke) recht alß ain dieb, O 3950–5), after which the interpolation proceeds and Tristran resigns himself to his fate but pleads for the queen after Mark has seen the evidence of the blood in the bed. The most noteworthy part of this passage comes at its end where the last six lines repeat, almost exactly, the first reference to judicial combat in the Reconciliation, but here, as in the Reconciliation, the offer falls on deaf ears and evokes no response:58 Il li crie: ‘Sire, merci! 784 Por Deu, qui pasïon soufri, Sire, de nos pitié vos prenge!’ Li fel dïent: ‘Sire, or te venge.’ ‘Beaus oncles, de moi ne me chaut;

57

Quoted in part on p. 4 above. That this reference is an addition is confirmed by the fact that its final couplet, Trop ert Tristran preuz et cortois A ocirre gent de tés lois, 1269–70, contains a second comment on Tristran’s treatment of the lepers, a comment on a comment, the first being that in the preceding text, Tristran ne vost rien atochier ne entester ne laidengier, 1257–8. 58 Just as the reviser’s interest in Iseut proving her innocence formally by legal oath before witnesses of the most prestigious court in the world led him to compose the Ambiguous Oath and to prepare for it in the Reconciliation by the additions to Iseut’s speech in the second leave-taking (Tristran should stay in the land, he should stay at Orri’s), so too it is possible that his interest in Tristran proving his innocence led him to insert the passages demanding judicial combat into the Reconciliation and subsequently in preparation for the tournament in the Ambiguous Oath, where Tristran, informally, is victorious against the most valiant knights in the world.

40


788 Bien sai, venuz sui a mon saut. Ne fust por vos a corocier, Cist plez fust ja venduz molt chier. Ja, por lor eulz, ne le pensasent 792 Que ja de lor mains m’atochasent. Mais envers vos nen ai je rien; Or, tort a mal ou tort a bien, De moi ferez vostre plesir, 796 Et je sui prest de vos sofrir. ‘C’onques nul jor, n’en fait n’en dit, Sire, por Deu, de la roïne N’oi o vos point de drüerie Aiez pitié!’ – Tristran l’encline – Qui li tornast a vilanie, ‘Qar il n’a home en ta meson, N’a chevalier en son roiaume, 800 Se disoit ceste traïson Ne de Lidan tresque en Dureaume, Que pris eüse drüerie S’il voloit dire que amor O la roïne par folie, Eüse o vos por deshonor, Ne m’en trovast en chanp, armé; Ne m’en trovast en chanp, armé.’ 804 Sire, merci de li, por Dé!’ 2228–35

Once this theme has been recognized as one of the reviser’s prime interests, other features of his style become apparent. There is continuous linkage over five lines (799–803), internal repetition (Sire, merci por Deu, 783–4, Sire, merci de li por Dé, 804; pitié, 785, 798; sire, 783, 785, 786, 797, 804), a cluster of subjunctives (fust, 789, 790; pensasent, 791; atochasent, 792; eüse, 801; trovast, 803) and a parallel with other added passages (787–8).59 The second interpolated passage is then separated from the first by virtually the same four lines that preceded the first and describes how Tristran and the queen are seized and bound (Li troi baron font en la chanbre Tristran par ire an son lit prendre. Cuelli l’orent cil en haïne, Por sa prooise et la roïne, 771–4, = Li troi qui en la chanbre sont Tristran ont pris et lïé l’ont, Et lïee ront la roïne. Molt est torné a grant haïne, 805–8, both with a rhyme on haïne:roïne, 773–4 and 807–8, and gradation of prendre, 772, to ont pris et lïé, 805–6). Here the reviser interrupts the narrative to explain why Tristran meekly allows himself to be bound and, as in the previous interpolation, submits to the king’s will: Ja se Tristran ice seüst Que escondite null’eüst, Mex se laisast vif depecier 812 Que lui ne lié soufrist lïer.

59

See n. 53.

41


Mais en Deu tant fort se fiot Que bien savoit et bien quidoit, S’a escondit peüst venir, 816 Nus nen osast armes saisir Encontre lui, lever ne prendre; Bien se quidoit par chanp defendre. Por ce ne vout il vers le roi 820 Mesfaire soi por nul desroi. Qar, s’il seüst ce que en fut Et ce qui avenir lor dut, Il les eüst tüez toz trois, 824 Ja ne les en gardast li rois. Ha! Dex, por qoi ne les ocist? A mellor plait asez venist!

Again, characteristics of the reviser’s style are evident, with continuous linkage (809–12, 813–17, 821–3), the exclamatory style (Ha! Dex . . ., 825), a rhetorical question (porqoi ne les ocist? 825), intensifiers (ja, 809, 824; null’, 810; tant fort, 813; nus, 816; nul, 820; toz, 823), a concentration of subjunctives dependent on se that reflect the speculative nature of the passage (seüst, 809, 821; leüst, 810; laisast, 811; soufrist, 812; peüst, 815; osast, 816; eüst, 823; gardast, 824; ocist, 825; venist, 826) and parallels with other added passages (Nus nen osast armes saisir Encontre lui, lever ne prendre, 816–17, = Ou nen i out uns d’eus tot sous Qui osast prendre ses adous, 137–8, = Qar je sai bien n’a de sa cort Qui a batalle o moi s’atort, 155–6, both from the Tryst, and, in the Ambiguous Oath, = N’offri Tristran li a defendre? Ainz n’en osastes armes prendre, 3063–4); and once again the passage is addressed to the deaf, evoking neither a response from the king nor a shift in the narrative.60 It could well be argued that some of the long speeches in the Tryst which are not in O, with their contrapuntal rhythms, their complex continuous linkage and articulation by reprises, already represent a considerable stylistic advance over similar passages of a dozen lines or so in the Ambiguous Oath and the Death of the Barons. This shift to a more mature, developed style in the elaborations added to the Tryst is confirmed by three major embellishments of the received text in the Flor de Farine: the Cry of the People (827–59), the appeal of Dinas (1083–1140) and the Intervention of Ivain (1165–1216), veritable bravura passages written in the ‘loose style’, quite unlike the received text in either content or execution, which 60

In fact the narrative flow is improved if the two passages 783–804 and 809–26 are removed. In 778–82 Mark says that Tristran’s guilt is proven, so in 805–8 the barons seize him, and then in 860–5 the people hasten to the palace. Both speeches interrupt the action.

42


are marked by a passionate delivery, with embedded intensifiers, exclamations and rhetorical questions. The first, headed by a large initial in the manuscript at 827, is a fine piece of writing, highly exclamatory in tone, that was probably inspired by the passage in the estoire reproduced in the intervention of Tinas in O.61 Here, however, it is the common people who lament the fate of the lovers and recall how Tristran saved them and their children from the Morhout: 828

832

836

840

844

848

852

61

Li criz live par la cité Q’endui sont ensenble trové Tristran et la roïne Iseut, Et que le rois destruire eus veut. Pleurent li grant et li petit, Sovent l’un deus a l’autre dit: ‘A las! tant avon a plorer! Ahi! Tristran, tant par es ber! Qel damage qu’en traïson Vos ont fait prendre cil gloton! Ha! roïne franche, honoree, En qel terre sera mais nee Fille de roi qui ton cors valle? Ha! nains, ç’a fait ta devinalle! Ja ne voie Deu en la face Qui trovera le nain en place, Qi nu ferra d’un glaive el cors! Ahi! Tristran, si grant dolors Sera de vos, beaus chiers amis, Qant si seroiz a destroit mis! Ha! las, quel duel de vostre mort! Qant le Morhout prist ja ci port, Qui ça venoit por nos enfanz, Nos barons fist si tost taisanz Que onques n’ot un si hardi Qui s’en osast armer vers lui. Vos enpreïstes la batalle Por nos trestoz de Cornoualle Et oceïstes le Morhout.

4 F F F F

3 F 3 3 F 5

3

I accept the argument of G. Bromiley, Medium Ævum (1985), 54–6 and n. 17, that the speech of the seneschal Tinas in O (3994a–4048) is in the same place as the seneschal’s speech in the estoire, and that in B it has been moved to its present, later position and replaced by the Cry of the People. There are, in fact, no less than four interventions on the lovers’ behalf in B, here at 827–59, then later at 884–7, 1072–6 and 1077–82, the last already examined. None corresponds to anything other than Tinas’s appeal, although it is significant that the people are present in both O, where they bear silent witness, 3980–90 and B 877–80.

43


856

Il vos navra d’un javelot, Sire, dont tu deüs morir. Ja ne devrion consentir Que vostre cors fust ci destruit.’

The themes of the passage are entirely those of the reviser: bias in favour of the lovers (834, 837–9, 844–7, 858–9), antagonism towards Tristran’s enemies (835–6, 840–3, 850–2), ingratitude to the slayer of the Morhout (845–55, which closely echoes the passages on the same theme in the Tryst).62 The presence of catch-lines at the beginning and end of the passage also indicates an insertion into the received material, its opening line (Li criz live par la cité, 827) echoing the first line after the interpolation (Live la noisë et li bruit, 860), and its closing couplet (Ja ne devrion consentir Que vostre cors fust ci destruit, 858–9) repeating three lines that follow shortly after in the received text (Rois, trop ferïez lai pechié, S’il n’estoient primes jugié; Puis les destrui; sire, merci!, 885–7, an admission of the possibility of guilt that perhaps originates in the same source as waß úch Trÿstrand haut geton, daß will ich im helffen büssen, O 4002–3). And there are several other features of the reviser’s style. Sense overrides prosody, and transitions between syntactic groups occur both at the end of couplets (830–1, 836–7, 852–3) and on the same rhymes (839–40, 843–4, 847–8); syntactic units occupy single lines, regular couplets and contrapuntal couplets and there is continuous linkage over four (827–30) and five lines (848–52); the passage is articulated by a series of exclamatory reprises in the initial position (as italicized in the text); there are exclamations (835–6, 847), a rhetorical question (837–9), intensifiers (tant / tant par, 833, 834; mais, 838; ja, 841, 858; si grant, 844; onques, 851; trestoz, 854) and parallels with other added passages (Ha! roïne franche, honoree, 837, repeated verbatim later at 1077, and cf. Mesnie franche et honoree, 3509; Ja ne voie Deu en la face, 841, = Si voient il Deu et son reigne Ja nul verroient en la face! 58–9, from the Tryst; Pleurent li grant et li petit, 831, = Si qel verront grant et petit, 2398, and Si qel verront petit et grant, 4160, from the Reconciliation and Ambiguous Oath respectively). Immediately after the end of the bravura passage the received narrative is resumed (Li rois fu molt fel et engrés. N’i ot baron tant fort ne fier Qui ost le roi mot araisnier Quil pardonast cel mesfait, B 862–5, and Li banz crïerent par l’enor: Que tuit en allent a la cort, 874–5, = do hieß er gar draut wauffen schrÿen in dem land. waß man der lút da haim fand, die hieß man zu dem 62

Compare 848–55 with Molt vos estut mal endurer De la plaie que vos preïstes En la batalle que vos feïstes O mon oncle, 50–3, and Molt les vi ja taisant et muz, Qant li Morhout fu ça venuz, Ou n’en i out uns d’eus tot sous Qui osast prendre ses adous, 135–8.

44


gericht komen, O 3980–3, and er waß von zoren verwunt: do waß niemant so wol kunt, der icht bittentz törst . . . , 3994a–5). The two other major additions are somewhat different in that they correspond to equally substantial speeches in O. Both, however, differ in content from the German text63 and, written as they are in the ‘loose style’, probably replace passages in the received tradition. The first, the Appeal of Dinas, is headed by a large initial in the manuscript at 1083 and is immediately followed by another after its end at 1141. It opens with a catch-line (Amenee fu la roïne Jusquë au ré ardant d’espine, 1083–4) which repeats the line that immediately follows the interpolation (Iseut fu au feu amenee, 1141), thereby smoothing the transition into the added material and restoring continuity after its end: 1084

1088

1092

1096

1100

1104

1108

63

Amenee fu la roïne Jusquë au ré ardant d’espine. Dinas, li sire de Dinan, Qui a mervelle amoit Tristran, Se lait choier au pié le roi. ‘Sire,’ fait il, ‘entent a moi. Je t’ai servi molt longuement, Sanz vilanie, loiaument. Ja n’avras home en tot cest reigne, Povre orfelin ne vielle feme, Qui por vostre seneschaucie, Que j’ai eü tote ma vie, Me donast une beauveisine. Sire, merci de la roïne! Vos la volez sanz jugement Ardoir en feu. Ce n’est pas gent, Qar cest mesfait ne connoist pas. Duel ert, se tu le suen cors ars. Sire, Tristran est eschapez. Les plains, les bois, les pas, les guez Set forment bien, et molt est fiers. Vos estes son oncle, il tes niés; A vos ne mesferoit il mie. Mais vos barons, en sa ballie S’il les trovout, nes vilonast, Encor en ert ta terre en gast, Sire, certes ne quier noier.

3 F

5 F F F 3

4

The appeal of Dinas, B 1083–1140, = O 3997–4048 (but at different points in the narrative, see n. 61 above) and the intervention of Ivain, B 1165–1216 = O 4260–92.

45


1112

1116

1120

1124

1128

1132

1136

1140

Qui avroit sol un escuier Por moi destruit ne a feu mis, Se iere roi de set païs, Ses me metroit il en balence Ainz que n’en fust prise venjance. Pensez que de si franche feme, Qu’il amena de lointain reigne, Que lui ne poist s’ele est destruite? Ainz en avra ancor grant luite. Rois, rent la moi, par la merite Que servi t’ai tote ma vite.’ Li troi par qui cest ovre sort Sont devenu taisant et sort, Qar bien sevent Tristran s’en vet; Molt grant dote ont qu’il nes aget. Li rois prist par la main Dinas, Par ire a juré saint Thomas Ne laira n’en face justise Et qu’an ce fu ne soit la mise. Dinas l’entent, molt a grant duel. Ce poise li; ja par son vuel N’en iert destruite la roïne. En piez se live o chiere encline: ‘Rois, je m’en vois jusqu’a Dinan. Par cel seignor qui fist Adan, Ja ne la verroie j’ardoir Por tot l’or ne por tot l’avoir C’onques ourent li plus riche home Qui furent des l’estruit de Rome.’ Puis monte el destrier, si s’en torne, Chiere encline, marriz et morne.

3 F

3 F 4 F F F 5

The passage has features of the ‘loose style’ that mark it as different from the somewhat more archaic verse of the received material: the verse is fluid, with syntactic groups of four (1106–9, 1125–8) and five lines (1091–5, 1110–14, 1134–8), and with several transitions on the same rhymes (1087–8, 1095–6, 1103–4, 1105–6, 1109–10, etc.). Repetition of initial Sire and Rois (italicized in the text) serves to articulate the passage and signals the steps in Dinas’s argument (Sire, I have served you loyally – Sire, it is unjust to burn the queen – Sire, Tristran will cause great trouble in the land – King, put her in my safe-keeping – King, I shall not stay and watch her burn). Its themes are very much those of other added passages: Dinas’s insistence on the impropriety of Mark’s proposed action (1097–9) which is entirely consistent with the lovers’ desire to prove their innocence legally, the seneschal’s bias in favour of the lovers (1096, 1129–31) and his antagonism towards Tristran’s enemies (1106–9), who are struck dumb 46


with terror (1121–2). His whole appeal is structured much like the Cry of the People,64 with an initial emotional appeal for the life of the queen (1085–1100), followed by a more reasoned political argument in which he points out the problems a vengeful Tristran on the loose will cause (1101–18). And there are other characteristics of the reviser’s style: intensifiers (ja, 1091, 1130; tot/tote, 1091, 1094, 1120, 1136; forment bien, 1103; mie, 1105; sol, 1110; molt / molt grant, 1124, 1128; onques, 1137), invocations to saints (1126, 1134), references to monetary value (1095, 1136–8), parallels with other passages (Sire, merci de la roïne!, 1096, = Sire, por Deu, de la roïne Aiez pitié!, 797–8, and Sire, merci de li, por Dé!, 804, both earlier in the episode; Li troi par qui cest ovre sort Sont devenu taisant et sort, 1121–2, = Por ses felons . . . Molt les vi ja taisant et muz . . . , 132–5, from the Tryst; Ses me metroit il en balence, 1113, echoes allusions to the vicissitudes of fortune elsewhere in the reviser’s additions, 40, 249, 1697) and a pun on sort (1121–2). The presence of the Intervention of Ivain in B and that of the leper duke in O shows that some similar intervention by a leper desirous of taking the queen as a concubine must have been in the estoire, but the incident in B has clearly been adapted by the reviser. The transition from the received text into the revised passage is imperfect, with a third person plural verb introducing what the lepers must have said in the source of B (Crïent au roi a voiz serie, 1164) followed by a speech delivered by the leper Ivain alone (se je ainz rein soi, 1167):

1168

1172

1176

1180 64

‘Sire, tu veus faire justise, Ta feme ardoir en ceste gise. Granz est, mes se je ainz rien soi, Ceste justise durra poi: Molt l’avra tost cil grant feu arse Et la poudre cist venz esparse. Cest feu charra, en cest brese Cest justise ert tost remese. Tel justise ne li ferez Mais, se vos croire me volez. Et qui voudroit mex mort avoir, Qu’ele vivroit, et sanz valoir, Et que nus n’en orroit parler Qui plus ne t’en tenist por ber? Rois, voudroies le faire issi?’ Li rois l’entent, si respondi:

4 F F

The Cry of the People opens with a series of exclamations in which the people express their feelings towards the characters in the drama (834–9), then continues with a reasoned argument that the slayer of the Morhout should not be put to death (844–7).

47


1184

1188

1192

1196

1200

1204

1208

1212

1216

‘Se tu m’enseignes cest, sanz falle Qu’ele vivë et que ne valle, Gré t’en savrai, ce saches bien; Et se tu veus, si pren du mien. Onques ne fu dit tel maniere, Tant dolerose ne tant fire, Qui orendroit tote la pire Seüst, por Deu le roi, eslire, Que il n’eüst m’amor tot tens.’ Ivains respont: ‘Si con je pens, Je te dirai, asez briment. Veez, j’ai ci conpaignons cent. Yseut nos done, s’ert conmune; Paior fin dame n’ot mais une. Sire, en nos a si grant ardor Soz ciel n’a dame qui un jor Peüst soufrir nostre convers; Li drap nos sont au cors aërs. O toi soloit estre a honor, O vair, o gris, et o baudor. Les buens vins i avoit apris Et granz solaz de marbre bis. Se la donez a nos meseaus, Qant el verra nos bas bordeaus Et eslira l’escouellier Et l’estrovra a nos couchier – Sire, en leu de tes beaus mengiers Avra de pieces, de quartiers Que l’en nos envoi a ces hus – Por cel seignor qui maint lasus, Qant or verra la nostre cort, Adonc verra li desconfort, Donc voudroit miex morir que vivre, Donc savra bien Yseut la givre Que malement avra ovré; Mex voudroit estre arse en un ré.’

3 F 5

F F F 3 F

3

10

F

The themes of Ivain’s speech are very much those of the reviser: an obsession with justise (1165, 1168, 1172, 1173), the language of death and mutilation (ardoir, 1166; l’avra arse, 1169; estre arse en un ré, 1216; mort avoir, 1175; morir, 1213; paior fin, 1194) and the brutal coarseness of the lepers’ condition (1195–8, 1207–9) reminiscent of the descriptions of Tristran disguised as a leper in the Ambiguous Oath.65 Like the two other 65

See B 3568–74, 3657–8, 3728–9, 3747–8, 3763–4 and 3848–52. Compare Sire, en nos a

48


major interpolations, the passage has features of the ‘loose style’, with initial reprises (italicized in the text) and continuous linkage over four lines (1175–8), five (1185–9) and the thirteen lines at the passages’ climax which contain a 10-line group of linked clauses (1203–6 and 1210–15) into which a three-line comment (1207–9) has been intercalated. Transitions between syntactic groups are, however, normally at the end of couplets, although some do occur on the same rhymes (1189–90, 1191–2, 1197–8). Repetition reminiscent of the reviser’s exclamatory passages can be seen in the demonstratives and substantives of the nine lines 1165–73 (justise . . . ceste gise . . . ceste justise . . . cil grant feu . . . cist venz . . . cest feu . . . ceste brese . . . ceste justise . . . justise . . .) and a fine climactic effect is produced by initial repetition with gradation in the closing lines of Ivain’s speech, 1211–15 (Qant or verra . . . Adonc verra . . . Donc voudroit miex . . . Donc savra bien . . . Que . . .). As in other added passages there are embedded intensifiers (granz/ si grant, 1167, 1195; molt, 1169; onques, 1185; tant, 1186; tot/tote, 1187, 1189; nus, 1177; mais, 1194), a reference to monetary value (pren du mien, 1184) and parallels with other lines added by the reviser (Molt l’avra tost cil grant feu arse Et la poudre cist venz esparse, 1169–70, = Mex voudroie que je fuse arse, Aval le vent la poudre esparse, 35–6, from the Tryst; Sire, en nos a si grant ardor, 1195, = Si grant arson a en son cors, 3657, and Avra de pieces, de quartiers, 1208, = Et les pieces et les quartiers, 3968, these last two parallels both in the Ambiguous Oath). The remaining major episode in the fragment, the Lovers in the Forest of Morrois, consists of five discrete adventures that take place while the lovers are hiding in the forest, interspersed with tableaux of woodland scenes depicting the conditions of their forest life.66 Three of the five adventures (the First Visit to Ogrin, Husdent, the Separating Sword) also occur in O, two (Mark has Horse’s Ears, the Beheading of the Baron) do si grant ardor, 1195, and Si grant arson a en son cors A poine l’en puet geter fors, 3657–8; Li drap nos sont au cors aërs, 1198, and Rois Artus, voiz con je me grate?, 3728. 66 The Morrois episode is organized as follows: The forest life (Tristran as archer); the forest life (1279–1305) Mark has horse’s ears (1306–50) The forest life (1351–61 and 1364–6) First visit to Ogrin (1362–3 and 1367–1422) The forest life (1423–36) Husdent (1437–1636) The forest life (1637–55) Beheading of the baron (1656–1750) The forest life; the forest life (Arc qui ne faut) (1751–73) Separating sword (1774–2129) The forest life (2130–2) The woodland scenes describe repeated, everyday occurrences, and the adventures extraordinary single happenings.

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not, and it is frankly difficult to ascertain to what extent the episode has been modified by the reviser. There are very considerable differences between the B and the O versions of the lovers’ life in the forest, especially in the order of the various components, and, although it is obvious that both do indeed derive from a common source, the question as to which is more representative of the estoire remains problematic.67 The woodland scenes clearly derive from common material, but Eilhart’s account seems almost too brief, too tidy,68 and yet it is equally uncertain whether the crude interlace of descriptive woodland scenes and narrative episodes based on incidents in B was present in the estoire, or was the work of Beroul or the reviser. Similarly, did the estoire credit Tristran with the invention of the unerring bow as in B (1751–73) or the art of fishing with hook and line as in O (4538–45)? Did the account of Iseut’s dream in the Separating Sword (B 2063–76) appear in the estoire or was it imported by the reviser from some other source such as Charlemagne’s dreams in the Chanson de Roland or Arthur’s in Wace’s Brut?69 These are questions that fall outside the scope of this study, but there are several passages in the Morrois episode that bear the hallmark of the reviser’s hand and can be ascribed to him rather than to Beroul. The second adventure common to B and O describes how Mark has Tristran’s hound, Husdent, released and how it seeks out the lovers in the forest, where Tristran trains it to hunt silently. Immediately after the common material describing the dog’s grief (Et si avoit a non Husdanz. Lïez estoit en un landon, B 1444–5, and Guignout et si feroit du pié, Des uiz lermout, 1451–2, = do begund ser vechten ain brack, der hieß Frant, O 4368–9, der stunt da gar herte gebundin und sach vil ernstliche, MS D, 4372–3) comes a brief exclamatory passage very much in the manner of the reviser: Ahi! Husdent, ja tex brachetz N’ert mais trové, qui tant set prez Ne tel duel face por seignor; Beste ne fu de tel amor. 1457–60

67

Line numbers of details occurring only in B: 1294–6; 1299–1302; 1367–80; 1409–11; 1417–22; 1431–9; 1437–9; 1452–66; 1473–82; 1485–97; 1499–1520; 1522–6; 1528–30; 1549–1636; 1641–3; 1651–77; 1702–1803; 1807–36; 1853–5; 1863–1904; 1909–15; 1921–94; 2001–38; 2043–8; 2055–76; 2081–6; 2105–26; line numbers of details occurring only in O: 4375–99; 4412–73; 4476–90; 4526–30; 4534–45; 4553–5; 4567–68a; 4581–2; 4588–91; 4640–43; 4650–55; 4702–8; 4720–3. See Buschinger, Le Tristrant, pp. 367–445. 68 For instance, all the woodland scenes are placed in a single passage, 4502–80, and the two visits to Ogrin end to end, 4702–29 and 4730–54 et seq. 69 See Ewert II, 189.

50


Typical are the opening exclamatory formula Ahi! Husdent . . ., intensifiers (ja, 1457; mais, tant, 1458) and repetition (tex/tel, 1457, 1459–60). Later, at the very beginning of the Separating Sword (an adventure that occupies not far off half of the Morrois episode) comes the passage in which the poet refers to his source for the second time: 1784 Fu ainz mais gent tant eüst paine? Mais l’un por l’autre ne le sent, Bien orent lor aaisement. Ainz, puis le tens que el bois furent, 1788 Deus genz itant de tel ne burent, Ne, si conme l’estoire dit, La ou Berox le vit escrit, Nule gent tant ne s’entramerent 1792 Ne si griment nu conpererent.

This is of particular interest as there is also a reference to a written source at the corresponding point in O (doch sagt daß bůch bloß und ouch die lút fúr war, 4576–7). However, the passage in B has a striking parallel in the Beheading of the Baron, generally admitted as being an interpolation, (Fu ainz mais gent tant eüst paine? Mais l’un por l’autre ne le sent, 1784–5, = Chascun d’eus soffre paine elgal, Qar l’un por l’autre ne sent mal, 1649–50) and contains features of the reviser’s style, with intensifiers (ainz mais / ainz, 1784, 1787; tant/itant, 1784, 1788, 1791; nule, 1791) and continuous linkage over six lines (1787–92). The clumsy identical rhyme over the transition into the passage (Ainz qu’il n’en ist, fu en tel paine; Fu ainz mais gent tant eüst paine?, 1783–4) may well indicate interference with the original text and suggests that the passage has either replaced something in the reviser’s source or has, perhaps, been rewritten. Later in the Separating Sword comes a curse on the forester who discovers the lovers asleep in their bower and betrays them to Mark (Male gote les eulz li criet, Qui tant voloit Tristran destruire! Mex li venist son cors conduire, Qar puis morut a si grant honte Con vos orrez avant el conte, 1916–20), a remark very much in the reviser’s style and, as has been seen, entirely consistent with the events of the Ambiguous Oath where he is cut down by Governal at the tournament (4045–54). The Separating Sword also contains a more substantial passage much in the vein of additions made to the Tryst. The common material describes how Mark advances alone to the bower where the lovers lie sleeping, sees Tristran’s sword between them, exchanges it with his own (Et qant il vit la nue espee, Qui entre eus deus les desevrot . . . , B 1998–9, L’espee qui entre eus deus est Souef oste, la soue i met, 2049–50, = daß schwert er selb do ligen sach zwúschen in, O 4626–7, er nam Trÿstrandß wauffen . . . do zoch der werd man daß sin uss der schaiden, on alleß laide stieß er Trÿstrandß 51


wider in und legt daß schwert sin do ÿenß waß gelegen, 4630–5) and then, in a speech lacking in O, expresses his doubts as to their guilt:70 2004

2008

2012

2016

2020

2024

Dex! je ne sai que doie faire, Ou de l’ocire ou du retraire. Ci sont el bois, bien a lonc tens. Bien puis croire, se je ai sens, Se il s’amasent folement, Ja n’i eüsent vestement, Entrë eus deus n’eüst espee, Autrement fust cest asenblee. Corage avoie d’eus ocire; Nes tocherai, retrairai m’ire. De fole amor corage n’ont. N’en ferrai nul, endormi sont. Se par moi eirent atouchié, Trop par feroie grant pechié, Et se g’esvel cest endormi Et il m’ocit ou j’oci lui, Ce sera laide reparlance. Je lor ferai tel demonstrance Qu’an ce que il s’esvelleront Certainement savoir porront Qu’il furent endormi trové Et q’en a eü d’eus pité, Que je nes vuel noient ocire, Ne moi ne gent de mon enpire.

Here are the familiar themes of the reviser: successful – albeit fortuitous on this occasion – deception of Mark (2003–13), doubts as to the drüerie that exists between the lovers (2007–8, 2013) and a pervading threat of violent death (ocire, 2004, 2011, 2018, 2025), none of which appears in O, where the king acts without introspection. The style, too, is that of the reviser, 70

Mark’s intense speculation here is very similar to that in his speech in the Tryst (298–319, discussed on pp. 31–32), where he reasons that the lovers’ behaviour shows their innocence. The corresponding part of Eilhart’s account of the Separating Sword is not particularly helpful, being terse in the extreme, but internal indications in the French text suggest that this particular passage was added by the reviser. Its themes are his, its opening line (2003) echoes a line in the preceding text (‘Dex!’ dist li rois, ‘ce que puet estre? . . ., 2001), perhaps smoothing insertion, and continuity between what I assume to be the received text and the interpolation is improved if the twenty-four lines are excised (‘Dex!’ dist le rois, ‘ce que puet estre? Or ai veü tant de lor estre, [‘Dex!’ je ne sai que doie faire . . . Ne moi ne gent de mon enpire.] Ge voi el doi a la reïne L’anel o pierre esmeraudine . . ., 2001–28; note the repetition ai veü . . . voi each side of the interpolated passage).

52


with an initial exclamation (Dex!, 2003), intensifiers (bien, 2005, 2006; ja, 2008; ne . . . nul, 2014; trop par, 2016; ne . . . noient, 2025), a substantial passage of continuous linkage (2020–6), references to fole amor (2007, 2013) and subjunctives after se (amasent, 2007; eüsent, 2008; eüst, 2009; fust, 2010). Finally there remain two adventures entirely absent from O. Perhaps the most interesting is that in which the hostile baron is beheaded by Governal (1637–1750), only to reappear subsequently in the fragment, an oddity that has fuelled the vexed question of multiple authorship.71 In an earlier article I have suggested that this episode was duplicated in the Death of the Barons,72 but as the evidence is reversible, I now believe it more likely that the reviser added to the Morrois episode after he had composed the Death of the Barons, in his final version of the poem, thereby duplicating many features of what remains of the final episode of the fragment and several from the Separating Sword. The theme of the episode (venjance, 1703), which appears in no other version of the legend and which is squarely based on the violent death that awaits Tristran’s enemies, is entirely that of the reviser.73 Governal, out alone in the forest whilst the lovers sleep, sees one of the hostile barons out hunting ahead of his men, lies in ambush and beheads him. He then returns to the bower and, as a jest, hangs the head by its hair where it gives Tristran a shock when he awakes. The whole episode is permeated by an atmosphere of violence (se Tristran les peüst prendre, il les feïst as arbres pendre, 1665–6; mex veut estre mis au vent, 1702; par lui et par sa faisance Durent il estre tuit destruit, 1704–5; A s’espee tot le desmenbre, Li chief en prent, 1710–11; De lor seignor virent le bu, Sanz la teste, 1714–15; L’un des trois a le chief perdu, 1720; cil eüst perdu la vie Par qui il dut mort recevoir, 1732–3; La teste au mort a sa main tient. A la 71

Gregory, p. xxv, follows a suggestion of R. Ménage, ‘L’atelier Béroul ou Béroul artiste’, Romania 95 (1974), 149–50, and argues that it is not absolutely necessary to regard the baron slain by Governal as one of the three named in the Ambiguous Oath as Guenelon, Godoïne and Denoalen. The text does, however, refer very specifically to him as Un de ces trois que Dex maudie, Par qui il furent descovert, 1656–7, and L’un des trois . . . Qui meslot Tristran o le roi, 1720–1. 72 See my article ZrP 101, 20–1. Ewert II, 174–5, also discusses the possibility that the Beheading of the Baron is an interpolation. 73 G. N. Bromiley, ‘A pattern of narrative development in the early Tristran poems’, MLR 70 (1975), 743–51, proposes that the Beheading of the Baron originated in the Husdent episode in the roman primitif. The obvious similarity between Governal ert en un eschui, B 1678, Governal s’acoste a un arbre, Enbuschiez est, celui atent Qui trop vient tost et fuira lent, 1694–6, Vit le venir, hardi l’atent; Dit mex veut estre mis au vent Que il de lui n’ait la venjance, 1700–3, and Kurnewal der gůt, mit zornigem můt, hielt bÿ aim bom, so ain gůt knecht, und nam war gerecht, w hin der brack wolt loffen. er daucht mit dem fürer kouffen und mit dem bracken dar zů, wie daß käm nun, daß mit eren nit möcht sin, O 4457–65, certainly make this seem more likely.

53


forche de la ramee L’a cil par les cheveus nouee, 1736–9; A ceste espee l’ai ocis, 1743), fear and anxiety (En un leu n’ose remanoir, 1639; Grant poor a Yseut la gente, 1651; il n’i osout un sol entrer. Bien lor faisoit a redouter, 1663–4; Poor en ont tuit et esfroi, 1722; chascuns dotoit Que Tristran li preuz l’encontrast: Crient fu u plain et plus u gast, 1726–8; Saut esfreez, 1740; Cil est ocis qu’il plus dotot, 1746; Poor ont tuit par la contree. La forest est si esfree Que nus n’i ose ester dedenz, 1747–9) and contains a curse on Tristran’s enemies (Un de ces trois que Dex maudie, 1656), a characteristic of the reviser. Minor contradictions with the received text also suggest a different hand. Here, in the Beheading of the Baron, the little band of fugitives appears to have more than one horse, as there is an unequivocal reference to Governal o son destrier (1668), a clear indication that Tristran had one too. But elsewhere, in the received text, there are references to the horse, presumably one that is shared by all three of them (Fiert le destrier, 1245; Governal sor le destrier, 1354; s’en venoit o le destrier, 2102).74 Perhaps the reviser realized the impracticality of one horse between three and attempted to make his text more plausible by allocating one to Governal. Similarly, four lines in the episode (Poor ont tuit par la contree. La forest est si esfree Que nus n’i ose ester dedenz; Or ont le bois a lor talent, 1747–50) contradict the need stressed elsewhere in the received text that the lovers are not safe, even deep in the wood, and so have to keep on the move (La ou la nuit ont herberjage, Si s’en trestornent a matin, 1360–1; Sol une nuit sont en un leu, 1430; En un leu n’ose remanoir; Dont lieve au main ne gist au soir, 1639–40), living in constant fear of discovery (La noise oient, Tristran l’entent. ‘Par foi,’ fait il, ‘je oi Husdent.’ Trop se criement, sont esfroï, 1533–5; Crime ont du roi, se s’en esmaient, Dïent qu’il vient o le brachet, 1538–9). Stylistically the episode contains features of the reviser’s hand. There is a striking contrapuntal sequence in the style of additions to theTryst (20–34) and the remarkable sequence at the end of the Death of the Barons (4466–85):

1700

74

Nus retorner ne puet fortune: Ne se gaitoit de la rancune Que il avoit a Tristran fait. Cil qui desoz l’arbre s’estait Vit le venir, hardi l’atent;

F

There seems to be but one horse in the Flor de Farine, cf. Mais or oiez de Governal: Espee çainte, sor cheval De la cité s’en est issuz, 965–7, and fiert le destrier, 1245. There are two horses in O, see 4316–16a and 4567–8b.

54


1704

1708

1712

Dit me veut estre mis au vent Que il de lui n’ait la venjance, Qar par lui et par sa faisance Durent il estre tuit destruit. Li chien li cerf sivent, qui fuit; Li vasaus après les chiens vait. Governal saut de sen agait. Du mal que cil ot fait li menbre, A s’espee tot le desmenbre, Li chief en prent, atot s’en vet. Li veneor, qui sont parfait, Sivoient le cerf esmeü. De lor seignor virent le bu, Sanz la teste, soz l’arbre jus.

4 F F F F F F

The episode contains many more refrain-like lines than other narrative passages (Oï les chiens par aventure; Le cerf chacent grant aleüre, 1679–80, and Li chien chacent, li cerf ravine, 1684; Li chien li cerf sivent, qui fuit; Li vasaus après les chiens vait, 1706–7, and Li veneor, qui l’ont parfait, Sivoient le cerf esmeü, 1712–13; Vit cel venir, 1687, and Vit le venir, 1701), reciprocal phrases are used (Qui trop vient tost et fuira lent, 1696, and Vit le venir, hardi l’atent, 1701), there is repetition (endormi erent, 1677, Endormiz est, 1731; un des trois, 1681, 1720; Poor en ont tuit et esfroi, 1722, Poor ont tuit, 1747; liez ert, 1734, liez est, 1745) and a reference to the vicissitudes of fortune recalls similar allusions already seen in passages added by the reviser (Nus retorner ne puet fortune, 1697, = Or m’estovra sofrir fortune, 249 from the Tryst). These features mark the Beheading of the Baron as different from other narrative episodes of the received text and suggest that, unlike most of the expansions in the first three episodes which are in direct speech, this particular anecdote is an example of the reviser’s later, narrative style. The curious earlier episode which neatly links the nemesis of the dwarf with the Midas legend (1303–50) is based on ‘an etymological jest evidently invented by someone who knew that in Celtic marc (Welsh and Breton march) means “horse” ’.75 Given the Celtic origins of the legend, a similar accout may have been in the estoire, but there is nothing remotely like it in O or, for that matter, any other version of the Tristran story; possible traces of the reviser’s hand can be seen in the use of continuous linkage (. . . li baron Un jor le mistrent a raison Que ce devoit que tant parloient Il et li rois, et conselloient, 1311–14; Molt en fu bel a mainte gent, Que haoient le nain Frocine Por Tristran et por la roïne, 1348–50). The 75

Ewert II, 160. On the episode in general, see G. Milin, Le Roi Marc aux oreilles de cheval, Publications romanes et françaises (Geneva, 1991).

55


little episode also shares details with other added passages, such as the rhyme priveement: cele(e)ment (1341–2, also in the additions to the Reconciliation 3015–16) and several parallel lines (Oiez du nain com au roi sert, 1306, = Oiez conment par un jor sert, 1658 in the Beheading of the Baron; Ce qui dirai, c’ert del segroi, Dont je sui vers le roi par foi, 1325–6, = Dist Perinis: ‘Dame, par foi Bien li dirai si le secroi’, 3313–14, and En sa main tint d’auborc un arc, 1338, = . . . si vit Tristran entrer, Qui tint un arc d’aubor anter, 4421–2, both in the Ambiguous Oath), but the evidence is hardly compelling. And so the circle is closed, the process of elaboration completed, despite the fact that many of the anomalies this elaboration has created remain. Having broken from his source at the mid-point of his poem and composed whole new episodes rooted in the themes of legalism, trickery and revenge, the reviser then returned to the beginning and, within the context of the old Beroul poem, made a series of ad hoc additions that exploited those same themes, thereby creating parallels with the later added episodes. But the expansions added to the early episodes are of a different nature, often a different quality, from the episodes added at the end. Rather than being entirely original episodes, they normally expand the material of the received source (usually in direct address) and can sometimes be shown to be interpolations from the internal evidence such as the deliberate use of catch-lines or various non sequiturs in syntax or content.

One Author or Two? The problem of the authorship of the Beroul fragment was hotly debated in the 1960s and 1970s and later, when a whole series of articles and responses was published by eminent academics, resulting in an at times furious debate that concluded in an impasse, with the problem unresolved and the partisans of each camp firmly entrenched in their respective positions.76 To re-examine the evidence offered by these critics and to review their well-rehearsed arguments would be fruitless. Instead, I now intend to examine aspects of the poem which have, to some extent, been neglected: its phraseology and certain features of its syntax. From the outset it can be stated that, despite differences between the two strata, this particular evidence clearly indicates that it is the work of a single author. Although it lies outside the scope of this study, the skilful delineation of the main characters in the fragment and its consistent tone are already

76

See n. 3.

56


persuasive arguments for single authorship.77 Such differences of style in the poem’s two layers as have been detected thus far may well arise, not from the involvement of a second hand, but rather from the versatility of a single author. Hence, even if parts of the added material are characterized by continuous linkage, exclamatory passages or contrapuntal sequences, one cannot expect such devices to be excluded elsewhere, nor for that matter to find archaisms only in the received text. The truth of the matter is that there is no easy equation ‘received text old style, added passages new’, as both layers of the poem contain wide varieties of technique and style. To illustrate this point, although the ‘loose style’ is a characteristic of some added passages and the style coupé of parts of the received text, both styles can be found in both layers. In the received text of the Husdent episode lines 1527–39 describe how the dog tracks down Tristran in the forest. It is written in a succession of abrupt, juxtaposed clauses almost devoid of conjunctions, whilst a little further on, in 1576–86, a passage with marked continuous linkage and transitions across the couplet, Iseut tells Tristran how a Welsh forester trained his hound to hunt silently: 1528

1532

1536

1576

1580

1584

77

Laisent le chien, tornent arire. Husdent aqeut une chariere, De la rote molt s’esbaudist; Du cri au chien li bois tentist. Tristran estoit el bois aval O la reïne et Governal. La noise oient, Tristran l’entent. ‘Par foi,’ fait il, ‘je oi Husdent.’ Trop se criement, sont esfroï. Tristran saut sus, son arc tendi. En un espoise aval s’en traient; Crime ont du roi, si s’en esmaient, Dïent qu’il vient o le brachet. ... ... ... ... ‘J’oï ja dire qu’un seüs Avoit un forestier galois, Puis que Artus en fu fait rois, Que il avoit si afaitié: Qant il avoit son cerf sagnié De la seete berserece, Puis ne fuïst par cele trace Que li chiens ne suïst le saut; Por crïer n’estonast le gaut

The characters are, in essence, consistent in the two strata, see Noble, pp. 17–42, and nos. 19 and 24 in his bibliography.

57


Ne ja n’atainsist tant sa beste Ja criast ne feïst moleste.’

The same contrast can be seen in the added Ambiguous Oath episode.78 The description of the scene on the Blanche Lande, 4119–28, is very much in the style coupé, whilst later, at 4152–66, Arthur’s speech at the oath-taking ceremony is in the ‘loose style’: 4120

4124

4128

4160

4164

4168

Li soleuz fu chauz sor la prime, Choiete fu et nielle et frime. Devant les tentes as deus rois Sont asenblé Corneualois; N’out chevalier en tot le reigne Qui n’ait o soi a cort sa feme. Un drap de soie a paile bis Devant le tref au roi fu mis, Ovrez fu en bestes, menuz; Sor l’erbe vert fu estenduz. ... ... ... ... ‘Or orez, roi: qui ara tort: La roïne vendra avant, Si qel verront petit et grant, Et si jurra o sa main destre, Sor les cors sainz, au roi celestre Qu’el onques n’ot amor conmune A ton nevo, ne deus ne une, Que l’en tornast a vilanie, N’amor ne prist par puterie. Dan Marc, trop a ice duré. Qant ele avra eisi juré, Di tes barons qu’il aient pes.’

In these passages it is not derivation that determines style, but rather the poet’s choice of the style coupé for narrative and description, the ‘loose style’ for speech and reasoned argument. Similarly, both strata contain brief passages of dialogue in close juxtaposition to long, formal speeches that were unlikely to have been in the estoire. In the received material the conversation in which Mark tells Tristran he is to take a letter to Arthur, 682–92, occupies a mere eleven lines, whilst Iseut’s instructions to Tristran at the first leave-taking, 2695–2724, occupy thirty. In the added material the conversation in which Iseut expresses her readiness to undertake an escondit, 3217–27, occupies 78

From this point references to line numbers in added passages and episodes are italicized. A list of lines ascribed to the reviser is given in the Appendix.

58


eleven lines only, whilst Perinis’s speech to Arthur’s court, 3411–47, occupies thirty-seven. Again, it is not the provenance of the material that determines the nature of direct address, but the poet’s preference. But to return to the particular areas I wish to explore, whilst there is relatively little phraseology restricted to either of the two strata of the fragment,79 there is much common to both.

Phrases common to received and added material ACOLER et baisier si m’AÏT dex ALER querant un AN ou deus jusqu’a un AN tendre l’ARC ARIRE (se) torner ARDOIR en ré ARDOIR u/en feu faire ARDOIR cors ARDOIR ASSEZ est + adj. ATANT es vos AVOIR du suen etc.

461, 547, 3172 628, 4201, 4310 (si m’AÏT iglise) 337, 3060, 3083, 3129, 3213, 3392, 4274 574, 2673 2902, 3135 1536, 1757, 4439, 4443 1527, 1634, 2280, 2289, 3065, 3995 192, 882–3 (dedenz un ré), 892, 1216 154, 2377 192, 882–3, 2120 946–7, 1100 1389, 3227 2101, 3393, 3702, 3824 211, 3745

BEAUS amis par le BOIS aler

2270, 2699, 2825 1285, 1521, 3317

en la CHANBRE entrer moi ne / ne me CHAUT CHEVREL et dain le CHIEF bloi tel CHOSE CLOS a/de

339, 551, 1921 409, 787, 1049 1629, 3022 212, 3532 84, 164, 1024, 3058, 4455 650 (mur), 992 (fossé), 3144 (pal)

79

There are some, however. For example, only the received text uses the following phrases: bien savoir l’estre de, 2438, 2452, 2655; bone amor, 1365, 2327, 2416; ce m’est avis/vis, 236, 1818, 1832, 2094, 2136, 2700, 2917; es le vos lié, 570, 2487; fel et engrés, 862, 2124; issir fors, 723, 1514, 1521, 1905, 2051; sauter jus/sus, 956, 1536, 2079; querre mentir, 64, 216, 1386; savoir (de) verité, 232, 394, 615, whereas the following appear only in the additions: avoir cure de/que, 379, 3074, 3103, 3196, 3243, 3612, 4452; fol(e) amor, 301, 496, 2013; ne tant ne quant, 498, 3446, 3661, 4063; dehé/dehez avoir, 640, 646, 3068. And there are others that appear twice only in one or the other stratum.

59


du COL oster si COM il doit si CON je quit CONGIÉ prendre a mon etc corage en son CUER

2880, 3816 2663, 2850, 2943 123, 1892 2913, 3608 254, 1467 287, 697, 3507, 3696

tot DESMENBRER par/si grant DESROI (savoir) sanz DOUTANCE DRAP de soie

66, 1710 559, 1308, 1399 449, 1420, 1904, 4019 (sanz dote) 2183, 2736, 3711, 3903, 4125

parole ENTENDRE or (m’) ENTENDEZ/ ENTENT or (m’) ESCOUTEZ ENTRER enz çaindre l’ESPEE traire l’ESPEE en une ESPOISE ESTRE en fort

2666, 2806, 3041 555, 3041, 3217, 4275, 4313

FAIRE ennui FAIRE que fous FAIRE senblant bone FOI par FOI FORMENT en poiser GAGE doner GENT cors GEU parti GRANT duel/deus/dolors a GRANT honte (a) GRANT tort GRANT erre/aleüre GRANT joie GRANT pechié (mal) GRÉ savoir

728, 1332, 2300, 2351, 2552, 2792, 3034 941, 1512, 2483, 3151, 3384 966, 1780, 1944, 1963, 3153, 4006, 4292 1347, 1805, 1984 1537, 4377 2459, 3073 2422, 3145–6, 3469–70, 3648 273, 714 2, 8, 543, 546, 759–60, 3582, 3937–8 102, 414, 1382, 2906 55, 498, 567, 614, 1380, 1381, 1534, 2374, 2793, 2906, 3962 2890, 3871 2372–3, 2568–70 1983, 2887, 4225 625, 3077 109, 263, 338, 406, 409, 844, 1039, 1129, 1425, 1459, 1994, 2964 902, 1919 67, 163, 360, 512, 2587, 4467 1680, 1856, 1871, 1989, 4049 907, 978, 1587, 2925, 2965, 2999, 3507, 3827, 3981 6, 456, 1952, 2016 1183, 2803, 3113, 4277

60


a HAUT voiz crïer HAUT esgarder/garder blanc HERMINE

1235, 1741 1615, 4459 2075, 3905

par IRE JAMAIS jor ne . . .

772, 888, 1070, 1126 295, 314, 1007

LAIRA (pas) (que) . . . LAS(SE) dolent(e) en/sus piez (se) LEVER (se) LEVER sus

292–3, 334, 776, 1127, 1950 981, 2201 727, 1132, 3457, 4232 2428, 3401, 4044

de MARBRE bis MARC d’argent MAINTE gent par MATIN vostre MERCI MERCI crïer METRE paine METRE a rais par MIÉ les rez MORT recevoir

235, 1202 1970, 2986, 4308 994, 1348, 1453, 4030 651, 691, 1777, 4294 2412, 2439, 2727, 3411, 3753, 4247 106, 159, 1411, 2070, 2287, 3437 525, 1588, 1597, 1604, 4368 165, 535, 604, 1312, 3040, 3839, 3867, 4233 1490, 4183 396, 1004, 1733, 1852

OËZ, seignors OÏR conment . . . n’OSER ester OIANT + pronoun OR bien savoir OUTRE la mer (passer)

909, 1835, 4351 702, 909–10, 1351–2, 1369, 1658 206, 1749, 2470 2548, 2854 100, 298, 305, 494, 562 443, 2612, 3133

PAILE bis venir a PARLEMENT de PITIÉ plorer

1146, 4152 577, 662 261–2, 3660

QENS ne rois (a) QANT QUE . . . QUI QUE + contrast

1441, 2988 1246, 2483, 3329, 3407 1228, 3673, 3729, 4271–2

nule RIEN tel RIEN au ROI celestre la ROI cort

1450, 2534, 4039 342, 1014 2286 (celestïen), 2484, 4162 2498, 2831, 3427 61


TANT errer que . . .

2290, 2454, 2481, 3613

d’UI en + time d’or/UI en avant

2675, 3447, 4181 564, 4181

prendre VENJANCE VER/VAIR et gris jor de ma VIE VOIANT + substantive dire VOIR faire ma etc. VOLONTÉ

1114, 1903, 1955, 4435 1200, 2168, 2735, 2743, 2922 2324, 2858 578, 947, 2119, 3236, 3406, 3863, 4108 41, 78, 397, 401, 412, 417, 459, 1859 683, 2318, 2791, 3543

Most of the proper names that appear in both strata of the fragment are commonplace in all versions of the legend, but two are of interest. Both layers use Artur (649, 653, 4251) alongside Artus (684, 1578, 3597, 3702 etc.), both layers refer to the forest of Morrois (1275, 1648, 1662, 1900, 2090, 2127), a name found elsewhere only in the Prose Tristran.80 In addition to phraseology common to both strata, both also contain lines couched in similar language. To provide convincing evidence of common authorship such parallels should, in general, be well separated and in different episodes. Preferably, they should not be motifs or allusions to events that are deliberately repeated, such as the following references to the reconciliation of Mark and Iseut (Si que Yseut fust acordee O le roi Marc, qui’st esposee, 2191–2; La roïne s’est acordee O son seignor, n’i a celee, 3415–16), or allusions to the flatterers at court who make Mark believe ‘lies’ about the lovers (Quant losengier en ton reigné Te firent acroire mençonge, 2566–7; . . . li losengier, Quil vuelent de cort esloignier, Te font acroire la mençonge, 427–9; Acroire t’a l’en fait mençonge, 2859), to the wickedness of their love (Se Tristran l’aime folement, 661; Se il s’amasent folement, 2007), or to their years of suffering on account of the potion (Trois anz a bien, si que n’i fal, Onques ne nos falli traval, 2303–4; ‘Ha! Dex,’ fait il, ‘tant ai traval! Trois anz a hui, que riens n’i fal’, 2161–2). Neither are parallels created by the use of catch-lines, such as those in the Cry of the People or the Appeal of Dinas, significant in this respect. Nevertheless, even if such evidence might be construed as the deliberate device of a second author wishing to maintain continuity, the numerous lines in the received material that are echoed, apparently without conscious intent, by others in the additions strongly suggest a single hand.

80

See L.-F. Flutre, Table des Noms Propres . . . dans les Romans du Moyen Âge, C.E.S.C.M. 274 (Poitiers, 1962). The name appears in B, the Prose Tristan and Isaye le Triste, a prose work of the fourteenth century whose hero is the son of Tristan and Iseut.

62


Lines in the Received Text with Parallels in the Additions There are four instances of identical lines: Departent soi, chascun s’en vait/vet. 672 and 4343 Oëz, seignors, quel aventure! 1835 and 4351 Vient a son mestre, qui l’atent. 2477 and 3986 Par cele foi que je vos doi. 2793 and 3962

and many others in the received material have parallels in the additions:81 — — — —

— — —

—

—

81

Bien sai n’i osez mais remaindre. 201 Oiez du nain boçu Frocin. 320 Oiez conment cele nuit sert. 702 Ne laira pas qu’il nu desface. 334 Ne lairont justise n’en facent. 776 Tristran ravoit tot raconté. 381 Se la mort doi recevoir ci. 396 Ge n’oïse, grant ne petite. 478 Si qel verront grant et petit. 2398 Brengain – que Dex anor te donst! 506 Amis, di moi, se Dex t’anort. 2497 D’estre o Yseut a son plaisir. 534

En un leu n’ose remanoir. 1639 Oiez du nain com au roi sert. 1306 Oiez conment par un jor sert! 1658 Ne laira pas ne lor mesface. 1950 Ne laira n’en face justise. 1127 Tristran lor a tot reconté. 2499 Par qui il dut mort recevoir. 1733 Q’avez oï, grant et petit. 4224 Si qel verront petit et grant. 4160 Li miens amis, que Dex t’enort. 2832 Cil, qui Dex doinst anor conquerre. 4450 D’estre a ma chanbre a son plesir. 317

There are also parallels between lines in the received text (cf. 61–2, 229–30 and 2598; 263–4 and 879–80; 631–2 and 2529–30; 967 and 1953; 1301–2, 1402 and 1800; 1354–5, 1832–3 and 2101–2; 1439, 1883, 2341, 2352 and 2695; 1891 and 2145) and between others in the additions (cf. 111 and 3081; 275 and 3468; 409–10 and 787–8; 579–80 and 4282–3; 763–4, 2824, 4043–4 and 4403–4; 1139 and 3366; 1191 and 3342; 1325–6 and 3313–14; 2927–8 and 3535–6; 3012–13, 3668–9 and 4084; 3094 and 3490; 3145–6 and 3469–70). Rather than revealing a second hand, these simply provide further evidence of the overall unity of the text.

63


— —

—

Qui te fait croire tel mervelle. D’or en avant meux te conselle. 563–4 A une part ont le roi trait. 605 A une part li rois le trait. 2875 Li roi Marc ont a raison mis. 604

‘Rois Marc,’ fait il, ‘qui te conselle Tel outrage si fait mervelle. 4141–2 Li roi se traient une part. 4137 . . . le roi mistrent a raison. 3040 Li roi Marc a mis a raison. 4233

—

‘Seignor, vos estes mi fael.

—

O lui c’un jor ne sejornez.

—

Cuelli l’orent cil en haïne, Por sa prooise, et la roïne.

Mais nos, qui somes ti feel. 627

3117 Onques un jor ne sejorna.

688

—

— — — — —

— — — — — —

773–4 Cil qui plus puet plus tost acort. 876 Ne puet plus corre que il cort. 964 Mex vuel estre tot depeciez. 1019 A haute voiz Governal crie. 1235 Atant i sont venu li troi. 1339 De lié laisier parler ne ruis. 1407 Trop se criement, sont esfroï. Tristran saut sus . . . 1535–6 Esfreez est, saut sus ses piez. 2079 Ne demora c’un petitet. 1540 A Yseut a la crine bloie. 1546 Dame, nos fait li rois Marc quere. 1556 De maint grant cerf lor fist mengier. 1766 De venoison ont grant plenté. 1773 La roïne contre lui live. 1793

64

3557 Et vos enacuelli en hé, Por le deraisne sa mollier. 4278–9 Qui plus tost cort, cil s’en fuit plus. 1716 Mex se laisasst vif depecier. 811 A haute voiz crie son mestre. 1741 La sont venu li troi baron. 3039 Qui me rova de lui partir! 3069 Saut esfreez, sor piez s’areste. 1740

Ne demora que un petit. 4370 Yseut, qui a la crine bloie. 3695 Bien set que li rois le fait querre. 1641 De maint grant cerf ot la menee. 4088 Fins dras en a a grant plenté. 3738 Yseut s’est contre lui levee. 3154 Iseut, la bele o les crins sors, Contre lui lieve . . . 4426–7


—

Asez aroit de son avoir. 1860

—

Tant te dorrai or et argent.

—

Qu’il ne soient ja si hardi.

1912 1924 — — — — —

— — —

Son cors trestort, si s’en conduie. 2054 Les filles as frans vavasors. 2212 Les gaites cornent a merville. 2456 Molt par li senbla lons cis termes. 2494 Ja ne serai en cele terre Que ja me tienge pais ne gerre Que mesage ne vos envoi. 2689–91 La out tendu maint pavellon Et mainte tente de baron. 2767–8 Quar grant poor avoit de soi Por ce qu’il out mesfait au roi. 2773–4 Se je vos mant aucune chose, Hastivement ou a grant pose, Dame, faites mes volentez. 2789–91

Se gel vos mostre, grant avoir En doi avoir . . . 4306–7 Il li dorront or et argent. 3310 Que onques n’ot un si hardi. 851 Ja n’i avra mais si hardiz. 4175 Mex li venist son cors conduire. 1918 Et filz a riches vavasors. 3386 Les gaites font corner le jor. 4116 Molt li senbla breve la voie. 4076 Ja ne serons en cele terre Qui maintenist ne pais ne gerre ... ... ... ... Que n’i allons a esperon. 4241–5 Et des tres tendre lor seignors Pavellons de maintes colors. 3665–6 Por ce ne vout il vers le roi Mesfaire soi por nul desroi. 819–20 Se je te mant par Governal Aucune chose besoignal, Avance la, si con tu doiz. 2941–3 Tristran s’estut, si pensa pose, Bien soit q’el voit aucune chose. 4457–8

In part of an important article on the B fragment, A. Holden pointed out that the poet often starts clauses with a verb in the initial position, a tendency quite unlike usual practice in the second half of the twelfth century, the purpose of which is to ‘protéger le début de la phrase’ by emphasizing it.82 This unusual characteristic puts one in mind of the intensifiers that occur in the exclamatory passages added by the reviser and it is 82

A. Holden, ‘Note sur la langue de Beroul’, Romania 89 (1968), 394–5. He also points out other unusual features common throughout the fragment: the poet’s use of stressed pronouns after the verb even when not protecting the beginning of the clause, a tendency to group stressed object pronouns with an infinitive rather than with the main verb governing the infinitive and his use of stressed pronouns to maintain clarity. See too Gregory, p. xxvii.

65


a further indication of single authorship that lines opening with a clause headed by an intensifier occur quite indiscriminately in both received and added material. Some forty-five lines start with Bien in the intial position, the effect of which is to give the clause an emphatic opening, nineteen occur in the received text, twenty-six in the additions. A few instances give a flavour of its use: Bien me porroit tenir por fole. 177 Bien aïde a Tristran son mestre. 1263

Bien se quidoit par chanp defendre. 818 Bien le dirai si le secroi. 3314

Some variations acquire the status of an initial formula: Bien voir . . . (Bien les veïse entrebaisier, 303; Buen virent aprimier cest soir!, 312; Bien verra mais se or i vois, 715; Bien voi que le volez oïr, 1317; Bien me verra li rois Artus, 3346), Bien oïr . . . (Bien les oiet parler au roi, 530; Bien ont oï le nain parler, 1335) and above all Bien savoir . . ., which occurs twenty times (Bien sai, qu’il me dorroit la mort, 68; Bien sai, venuz sui a mon saut, 788; Bien sout l’estre de Cornoalle, 2655; Bien sout noveles de sa drue Li aporte li vaslet frans, 3322–3, etc.).83 Fourteen lines open with Grant in the initial position, seven in the received text (Grant nature li faisoit fere, 1567; Grans jornees par poor font, 2128, etc.), seven in the added passages (Granz miracles vos a fait Dex, 377; Grant chiere fait de soi doloir, 3938, etc.) and Grant poor is formulaic in both strata (Grant poor ai que aucun home . . ., 188; Grant poor a Yseut la gente, 1651; Grant poor oi, quant la les vi, 1894; Grant poor a, trenble et tresaut, 4460), as is Grant erre/aleüre . . . (Grant erre aprés le roi acort, 1989; Grant aleüre a lui s’adrece, 4049). Initial Ja heads thirty-nine lines, eleven in received passages (Ja t’ai je tant tenue chiere, 96; Ja estoit bien prime de jor, 873, etc.), twenty-eight in added passages (Ja, por lor eulz, ne le pensasent, 791; Ja n’i avra mais si hardiz, 4175, etc.). It appears in both layers in conjunction with nul jor (Ja pus nes amera nul jor, 43; Ja nu pensast nul jor par lui, 87; Ja nes mescrerra mais nul jor, 463) and, in the additions, in the formula Ja ne tenir (Ja n’i tendra ne fei ne veu, 3094; Ja ne me tienge Dex en sens . . ., 3476; Ja ne m’en tienge lois ne fois, 3490; the phrase also appears in the received material, but within the line, Ja ne serai en cele terre Que ja me tienge pais ne gerre . . ., 2689–90). Molt heads fifty-seven lines, twenty-six in the received text (Molt est torné a grant haïne, 808; Molt est dolenz qui pert s’amie, 2682, etc.), thirty-one in the additions (Molt vos estut mal 83

Bien savoir is also frequent within the clause, see for example 298, 1687, 1861, 2556, 2581, 2713, 3818, etc.

66


endurer, 50; Molt a grant presse en cel marchés, 3670, etc.). It is used in consecutive lines in both strata (Molt est li nains nerci et pales, Molt tost s’en vet fuiant vers Gales, 335–6; Molt fu li nain de grant voidie, Molt par fist rede felonie, 673–4; Molt eüst bien s’anor tensee. Molt grant miracle Deu i out, 754–5; Molt out cil poines por servir, Molt l’en devroit mex avenir, 3369–70) and on one occasion bridges the transition between received and added text (Molt sont li chien de grant servise! Seignors, molt fu el bois Tristrans, Molt i out paines et ahans, 1636 + 1637–8). Initial Tant occurs nineteen times, thirteen in received passages (Tant ploroit, mais rien ne li monte, 901; Tant te dorrai or et argent, 1912, etc.), six in additions (Tant sont alé et cil venu, 2843; Tant li dirai (que il me croie!), 3487, etc.), with Tant errer formulaic in both strata (Tant ont erré qu’a l’ermitage . . ., 2290; Tant ont erré par le boschage . . ., 2481; Tant a erré voie et sentier . . ., 3013; Tant a erré qu’enbuschiez s’est, 3613). Finally, Trop is used initially twelve times, often in conjunction with par, seven in received passages (Trop demor ci, n’en quier mentir, 64; Trop par seroit aperte chose, 229, etc.), six in additions (Trop m’a ja fait mal et rancune, 250; Trop par feroie grant pechié, 2016, etc.). The use of such intensifiers in the initial position which stress and, in Holden’s words, ‘protect the beginning of the clause’ is, therefore, a characteristic of the author of the B fragment. The appearance of such devices in both received and added material confirms the presence of a single hand throughout the text. Holden’s other observation, on the poet’s unusual tendency to start a line with a verb at the head of a clause, also confirms single authorship. I estimate that some 3.5% of the lines in the fragment start with a verb at the beginning of a line which is also at the beginning of a clause, and that this phenomenon occurs throughout the text. It frequently appears in consecutive lines, in both received material (Lasent le plain, et la gaudine S’en vet Tristran et Governal, 1272–3; Regarde, el brant l’osche ne voit. Vit le pont d’or qui sus estoit, Connut que c’est l’espee au roi, 2081–3) and additions (Aperçut soi qu’il ert marriz; Venuz s’en est aeschariz, 3161–2; Prent s’entente, si tendi l’arc. Enquiert noveles du roi Marc, 4443–4). This tendency creates syntactic patterns common to both strata. Sometimes the poet inverts subject and verb (Live la noïse et li bruit, 860; S’en vet Tristran et Governal, 1273; Plore Tristran, molt fait grant duel, 1039; Vet s’en li rois sanz plus ester, 3142, etc.), frequently exploiting this device to create a chiastic pattern verb + noun/pronoun – noun/pronoun + verb (Acole la, Deu en mercie, 532; Vait s’en Yseut, Yvains l’en meine, 1229; Vit les dormanz, bien les connut, 1843, etc. and Acole la, cent foiz la besse, 461; Escoute Tristran, mot ne sone, 3645; Vient a son mestre, qui l’atent, 3986, etc.). Elsewhere the noun or pronoun is simply omitted, leaving the verb in the initial position (Lasent le plain et la gaudine, 1272; Vit le terme 67


d’acordement, 2662, etc. and Parla et dist conme afaitiez, 3458; Prent s’entente, si tendi l’arc. Enquiert noveles du roi Marc, 4443–4, etc.). Subject and verb may be inverted in a speech introductory formula (Dist Tristran: ‘Maistre, donc est bien’, 1011; Dist Perinis: ‘Ja en iron,’ 3382; Dit Evains, li filz Urïen . . ., 3483, etc.), or the accented form of the object or reflexive pronoun placed after its verb (Demente soi a lui tot sol, 237; Porpensa soi que ce devoit, 709; Menberra moi de vos sovent, 2701, etc. and, in the added material, Departent soi, chascun s’en vet, 4343; Aperçut soi qu’il ert marriz, 3161; Menbre li de l’espié lancié, 3546, etc.). Of particular interest are examples of structures in which the natural order is disturbed so as to put the verb or the part of it that carries the essential information in the initial position. This can involve putting a past participle before its auxiliary (Pardoné t’a son mautalent, 539; Cuelli l’orent cil en haïne, 773; Encontré a de son seignor, 1498, etc. and Deceü l’ont, gote ne voit, 134; Partie me sui du tripot, 369; Decendu sont a lor herberges, 4079, etc.), an infinitive before its modal (Savoir le puet qui c’onques veut, 608; Ardoir le veut premierement, 897; Aler deüse en autre terre, 2177, etc. and Torner lor puise a male perte!, 1064; Metre la puet, s’il veut, en pes, 3293; Fuïr s’en veut, mais il i faut, 4384, etc.), before faire, oïr or estovoir (Parler m’orez d’un buen brachet, 1440; Faire l’estuet por la soufrete, 2683, etc. and Acroire t’a l’en fait mençonge, 2859; Morir le fist. Q’en pout il mes? 4386, etc.), or an -ant form before aler (Fuiant s’en vait por la poor, 970; Criant s’en vet vers la chapele, 1506, etc. and Querant alez a terre pié, 3129; Bohordant vont devant le gé, 3712). In twenty-six instances adjectives away from their natural position head a clause at the beginning of a line, eight times in the received text (Vermel en furent li drap blanc, 768; Seus ert, si est alé por gent, 2097, etc.), eighteen in the additions (Povre s’en vet; Dex le conduie! 455; Escarlate cel drap de laine, 4100, etc.), with a particular liking for initial Grant in both strata (Grant poor ai qu’aucun home . . ., 188; Grant fu la noise et li tabois, 878, and Granz est, mes se je ainz rien soi . . ., 1167; Grant poor a Yseut la gente, 1651), and a preference for certain adjectives (Povre . . ., 455, 3717; Liez . . ., 548, 1745, 3321; Riche . . ., 1659, 2887; Mervelles/Mervellose . . ., 1772, 2961). Similarly, there are instances of adverbs in the initial position at the beginning of a line, thirteen in the received text (Legirement vos defendez, 556; Estroitement l’ot acolé, 1820; Fermement erent endormi, 1893, etc.), seven in the additions (Estroitement ot enbrachie, 1674; Certainement savoir porront, 2022; Seürement revienge a lui, 2937, etc.), with a marked preference for certain longer (and hence more emphatic) forms of three or four syllables (Longuement . . ., 1305, 1359, 1771, etc. and Estroitement . . ., 1820, 1674; Legirement . . ., 556; Fermement . . ., 1893; Certainement . . ., 2022; Seürement . . ., 2937; Prochainement . . ., 3197) and the formula 68


Arire torner / s’en torner (Arire torne a son seignor, 1643; Arrire tornent el boschage, 2289; Arire s’en torne le pas, 3995).84 There is, therefore, a marked tendency to stress the beginning of the line by heading it with a clause opened by an intensifier or a word not in its normal position, be it verb, adjective or adverb. The fact that this device is used frequently, throughout the text, and in both received and added material is further evidence of single authorship. In conclusion I should like to draw attention to a fundamental aspect of the author’s technique that has not, to my knowledge, been fully considered hitherto: the way in which he organizes his clausal groups over the prosodic pattern. This is a complex subject, but broadly speaking it involves two factors: does the poet observe, break or ignore the couplet pattern? Do clauses in his ‘sentences’ stand in a relationship of asyndeton (simply juxtaposed), or in relationships of coordination (linked overtly by coordinating conjunctions),85 parataxis (subordinating conjunctions suppressed) or hypotaxis (linked overtly by subordinating conjunctions)? It will be seen that there is, in equal spans of text, little or no difference in these relationships in received or added material and that consequently the evidence is, once again, that the whole fragment was written by a single author, an author moreover who has considerable mastery of his medium. The following extracts show how he varies his technique over short spans of text and how these variations correlate with neither provenance (received or added material) nor register (narrative or direct address). The first (135–56) comes from the Tryst and is an example of the later additions, the second (604–26, = O 3808a–10) and third (2765–2802, = O 4910–13) from the Flor de Farine and the Reconciliation respectively, are both based on received material, the fourth (3597–3624) and fifth (3995–4028) are taken from the Ambiguous Oath and the sixth (4381–4402) from the Death of the Barons, these last three all being added episodes. The extracts are annotated so as to show how, in places, finite verb clauses or clausal groups occupy whole lines or whole couplets (syntax and prosody coincide), but elsewhere straddle them (do not coincide). In each case the first passage is a sample of regular usage, the second of irregular, in each case the passages occur within a few lines of each other. 84

Others occur at the beginning of a line but within a clause, for example, Priveement, 1898, 3052, 3312; Hastivement, 2790; Celeement, 3578. 85 Et, quar, mais, can be coordinating conjunctions or adverbs; each instance must be treated on its merits, see G. Antoine, La coordination en français, 2 vols. (Paris, 1959 and 1962), and W.-D. Stempel, Untersuchung zur Satzverknüpfung in Altfranzösischen, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, Beiheft I (1964), ch. 4. Si of immediacy (142) or emphasis (154, 622) meaning ‘and’ is not treated as a conjunction.

69


136

140

152

156

604

608

612 620

624

135–56 ‘Molt les vi ja taisant et muz Qant li Morhot fu ça venuz, Ou86 nen i out uns d’eus tot sous Qui osast prendre ses adous. Molt vi mon oncle iluec pensis, Mex vosist estre mort que vis. Por s’onor croistre m’enarmai, Conbati m’en, si l’enchaçai. ... ... ... ... Dame, ore li dites errant Qu’il face faire un ré ardant, Et je m’en entrerai el ré. Se ja un poil en ai bruslé De la haire qu’avrai vestu, Si me laist tot ardoir u feu; Qar je sai bien n’a de sa cort Qui a batalle o moi s’atort.’ 604–26 Li roi Marc ont a raison mis, A une part ont le roi trait: ‘Sire,’ font il, ‘malement vet; Tes niés s’entraiment et Yseut, Savoir le puet qui c’onques veut, Et nos nu volon mais sofrir.’ Li rois l’entent, fist un sospir, Son chief abesse vers la terre, Ne set qu’il die, sovent erre. ... ... ... ... ‘Se ton nevo n’ostes de cort Si que jamais ne vos retort, Ne nos tenron a vos jamez, Si ne vos tendron nule pez. De nos voisins feron partir De cort, que nel poon soufrir. Or t’aron tost cest geu parti; Tote ta volenté nos di.’

F F

3 3

F F F F F F F F F

F F F

2765–2802 Seignors, au jor du parlement Fu li rois Marc o molt grant gent.

86

I read ou as an error for or, ‘then’. Or is used with a past tense later in L’anel o pierre esmeraudine Q’or li donnai . . ., 2029.

70


La out tendu maint pavellon Et mainte tente de baron; Loin ont porpris la praerie. Tristran chevauchë o s’amie, Tristran chevauche et voit le merc. 2772 Souz son bliaut ot son hauberc. ... ... ... ... ‘Par cele foi que je vos doi, Se ce anel de vostre doi Ne m’emvoiez, si que jel voie, 2796 Rien qu’il deïst ge ne croiroie. Mais des que reverrai l’anel, Ne tor ne mur ne fort chastel Ne me tendra ne face errant 2800 Le mandement de mon amant, Solonc m’enor et loiauté, Et je sace soit vostre gré.’87 2768

3597–3624 ‘La ert Artus atot sa gent, Et li rois Marc tot ensement. Cil chevalier d’estrange terre 3600 Bohorderont por los aquerre, Et, por l’amor Yseut m’amie, I ferai tost une esbaudie. Sus la lance soit le penon 3604 Dont la bele me fist le don. Mestre, or alez, pri vos forment Que le faciez molt sauvement.’ ... ... ... ... Sor la mote, au chief de la mare, 3616 S’asist Tristran sanz autre afaire. Devant soi fiche son bordon; Atachié fu a un cordon, A quei l’avet pendu au col. 3620 Entor lui sont li taier mol; Sor la mote forment se tret. Ne senbla pas home contret, Qar il ert gros et corporuz; 3624 Il n’ert pas nains, contrez, boçuz.

3996 87

3995–4028 Arire s’en torne le pas Molt par out bel cheval et cras.

F F F F

4

6

F F F F F F

On the meaning of this line, ‘as long as I know it to be your wish’, see Gregory, p. 133.

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Tristran rot le Bel Joëor, Ne puet on pas trover mellor. Costes, ilier, destriet et targe 4000 Out covert d’une noire sarge; Son vis out covert d’un noir voil, Tot ot covert et chief et poil. A sa lance ot l’enseigne mise 4004 Que la bele li ot tramise. ... ... ... ... 4020 Icil vindrent fors de la rote, Les escus pres, lances levees, Les enseignes as fers fermees; Tant bel portent lor garnement 4024 Conme s’il fusent né dedenz. Des deus parolent assez plus Li rois Marc et li rois Artus Qu’ill ne font de lor deus conpaignes, 4028 Qui sont laïs es larges plaignes.

F F F F

3

4

4381–4402 Tristran le preuz fu desfustez. F Denoalen est tost alez: F Ainz n’en sout mot, quant Tristran saut. F 4384 Fuïr s’en veut, mais il i faut; F Tristran li fu devant trop pres, F Morir le fist. Q’en pout il mes? F Sa mort queroit! cil s’en garda, 4388 Que le chief du bu li sevra. ... ... ... ... ‘Ha! las,’ fait il, ‘qu’est devenuz 4396 Goudouïnë – or s’est toluz – 3 Que vi venir orainz si tost? Est il passez? Ala tantost? F S’il m’atendist, savoir peüst 4400 Ja mellor gerredon n’eüst 4 Que Donalan, le fel, en porte, Qui j’ai laisié la teste morte!’

These passages illustrate two fundamental aspects of the author’s technique: how he organizes his finite verb clauses over the mould of line and couplet, and how he writes in both the archaic style coupé, reducing syntactic linkage to a minimum, and the newer ‘loose style’, using conjunctions to link clauses over spans of several lines. It is obvious that his ability to do both is a feature of his style throughout the whole fragment, whether his verse is based on received material or entirely his own. In the first part of each extract the clauses are often limited to a single line which 72


is simply juxtaposed after its neighbour (604–12, 4381–6, etc.) or, if the clause or group of clauses goes beyond the line, it either occupies the whole of a couplet or is linked to another clause with a subordinating conjunction at the beginning of the second line of the couplet (3597–3606, etc.). Such verse is uniform, simple and regular in that it observes the pattern of line and couplet, with an abrupt, staccato quality. In the second part of each extract, a few lines further on in each case, the technique is quite different. There are still clauses or clausal groups that occupy whole lines or whole couplets (623–6, etc.), but more often longer groups of continuously linked clauses extend over three, four or even six lines (149–54, 2793–2801, etc.) and here the relationship between syntax and prosody is obscured. The contrapuntal couplet appears (3618–23), enjambment breaks the correspondence of line and syntax (623–4, 4395–6, etc.) and independent phrases or clauses are inserted within longer clausal groups (4396). Clause linkage is still principally by asyndeton or hypotaxis, with subordinating conjunctions usually at the beginning of lines, but in addition coordination (151, 609, 3623, etc.) and parataxis (155, 2799, etc.) are used. Verse written in this manner is varied, complex and irregular, acquiring a smooth fluidity in that thought is unhampered by prosody. The presence of the two styles in close proximity throughout the text further strengthens the case for single authorship and shows that it was part of this author’s technique to hold the reader’s attention by deliberately varying the tempo and rhythms of his verse.88

Conclusion It has not been my main intention in this study to reopen the question of the single or dual authorship of the B fragment, but rather to explain the process of composition that led to its present state, inconsistencies and all, which involves the problem of authorship only incidentally. My main conclusions are twofold: there are layers of accretion in the extant text, but these do not indicate the involvement of more than one hand, rather the combination of received and added material by a single author. To focus on certain differences within the fragment does not detract from the poem’s undoubted unity, as such variations occur throughout the text and are not confined to received or added material. Neither should one forget the more compelling unity of subject matter and characterization, or the consistency of tone and style, especially in the way the finite verb 88

Marie de France uses the same technique to create two discrete threads in her Chevrefoil; see my article, ‘Structural Interlace in the lai of Chevrefoil’, Medium Ævum 54 (1985), 248–58.

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clauses relate to the couplet pattern and the poet’s easy use of different forms of syntactic linkage; other relevant details such as the presence of certain phrases throughout (compared with the relative lack of phrases restricted to either layer) and passages with parallels elsewhere in the text confirm this stylistic unity. I remain convinced that the poem is, indeed, the work of one author, but have tried to show that its diverse nature arises from the peculiar process by which he wrote it. In those parts that share an obvious common source with O he was reproducing the lost poem of Beroul in his own words, and was naturally enough influenced and constrained by the content and language of his source. However, he clearly digressed from this source at some point, in order to introduce themes and motifs that are entirely his. This point must have been mid-way through the Reconciliation as it is here that he introduced elements that prepare for the following two episodes that are entirely his, after which parallels with O virtually disappear. But his work reaches its climax in the magnificent bravura passages in the early parts of the poem where there are still close parallels with O. As it is most unlikely that he would have written such passages before the added, final episodes and then, in them, reverted to a relatively pedestrian style of writing, these bravura passages and other expansions in the early parts must have been added later. They are, it should be remembered, stylistically distinct but yet only expansions of the common version, not entirely original episodes. The fact that the existing fragment was arrived at by what was essentially a process of revision, and that this revision was carried out from the middle of the fragment to its end and then from its beginning to its middle has caused much of the controversy that still surrounds the text.

Appendix Lines Treated as Additions of the Reviser 20–40 44–59 101–56 238–57 265–84 286–319 339–86 407–68 479–68 479–505

573–80 643–8 750–6 761–4 783–804 809–26 827–59 981–8 1039–44 1055–64

1077–82 1083–1140 1165–1216 1237–44 1265–70 1303–50 1457–60 1637–1750 1784–92 1808–9 74


1916–20 1949–52 1965–8 1993–4 2003–26

2161–72 2227–38 2365–74 2397–9 2568–80

2621–3 2755–642 805–4485 except 2843–52, 2867–75, 2890–2926

Note The editors would like to express their gratitude to Stewart Gregory, who prepared the final version for publication after Richard Illingworth’s death.

75

THE LURE OF THE HYBRID JANE H. M. TAYLOR

II

THE LURE OF THE HYBRID: TRISTAN DE NANTEUIL, CHANSON DE GESTE ARTHURIEN? Jane H. M. Taylor Il fait bon voer, commant le Poëte, apres auoer quelquefoes fet mancion d’une chose memorable . . . la lesse la pour un tans: tenant le Lecteur suspans, desireus e hatif d’an aller voer l’euenemant. En quoe je trouue noz Rommans bien inuantiz. E dire bien ici en passant, qu’an quelques uns d’iceux bien choesiz, le Poëte Héroïque pourra trouuer à fere son profit: comme sont les auantures des Chevaliers, les amours, les voyages, les anchantemans, les combaz, e samblables choses: dequelles l’Arioste a fet amprunt de nous, pour transporter en son Liure.1

I begin this paper with a confession of failure. I had been intending to start with one of those disingenuous preambles which go: ‘For the benefit of anyone to whom Tristan de Nanteuil is not immediately familiar, here is a handy synopsis . . .’. To wrestle with its intractable meanders, however, is rather like going ten rounds with an octopus: Tristan de Nanteuil is not designed for synopses. Its first few pages, for instance, follow the classic pattern of late medieval epic by fragmenting the centres of interest: mother, father and child Tristan, caught by a classic tempest at sea,2 are whisked off to different portions of the globe where each will generate yet another series of adventures by engendering yet more protagonists, so that by the time we reach line 3000 or so of a poem of about 24,000, there are no fewer 1

Jacques Peletier du Mans, L’Art poétique, ed. A. Boulanger (Paris, 1930), p. 201 (I have done some mild violence to Jacques’s idiosyncratic spelling). 2 For this particularly fruitful theme, see F. Wolfzettel, ‘Zur Stellung und Bedeutung der Enfances in der altfranzösischen Epik’, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literature 83 (1973), 317–48, and ibid. 84 (1974), 1–31, and for an arch example, see François Suard, ‘Le développement de la Geste de Montauban en France jusqu’à la fin du moyen âge’, in Romance Epic: Essays on a Medieval Literary Genre, ed. H.-E. Keller (Kalamazoo, 1987), pp. 141–61.

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than six separate narrative threads in operation. The poet of Tristan de Nanteuil is, in other words, an arch-exponent of the sort of strenuous interlace which I would consider to be the hallmark of the late-medieval chanson de geste, and which lends it its almost unbearable complexity3 – and my best efforts to subdue it have failed. It would, however, be as wrong to abase myself in apologies for failure as it would be to condemn this tumultuous poem, as earlier commentators so universally did,4 as merely decadent: my contention is here, as it has been in nearly all my work on late-medieval writings, that the text should be allowed to speak and to define its own process of reading. And to listen to this text is to recognize the ways in which its multitudinous narrative strands make it a peculiarly flexible, peculiarly receptive host: a dynamic meeting-ground for competing narratives from all sorts of variegated sources. What I propose here is to explore just one consequence of this receptivity, via an intertextual fait divers, the fact that Tristan, its eponymous hero, becomes, very temporarily, a knight of Arthur’s court. I shall argue that the dynamics of this minor, and not particularly original, episode are, interestingly enough, a small and idiosyncratic contribution to the creation of a radically ageneric poetics for the late chanson de geste. Without making exaggerated claims for the literary virtues of Tristan de Nanteuil (which is not, alas, an undiscovered masterpiece), I would like to suggest that it is a faltering first step on the road to masterpieces like Ariosto’s or Boiardo’s and Tasso’s – a first, confused, muddled attempt at the sort of generic rethinking which was, via a detour to Italy, to produce the romance epic.5 Failing a summary of the poem as a whole, let me at least summarize the

3

François Suard makes the same point: see his ‘L’épopée française tardive (XIVe–XVe siècles)’, in Etudes de philologie romane et d’histoire littéraire offertes à Jules Horrent, ed. Jean-Marie d’Heur and Nicoletta Cherubini (Liège, 1980), pp. 449–60, which emphasizes the ‘incroyable complexité de la trame narrative, dans la mesure où elle multiplie épisodes et personnages’ (p. 451). 4 The point is made, with some acerbity, by Keith V. Sinclair in the introduction to his excellent edition of Tristan de Nanteuil (Assen, 1971), pp. 3–4; references to the epic henceforward in the text and notes are prefixed TN. Paulin Paris in the Histoire littéraire de la France (XXVI, 229) is characteristic: ‘Cette énorme chanson de geste . . . porte tous les caractères de la date relativement récente de sa composition. C’est une oeuvre monstrueuse, informe, abondante en redites, en contradictions, en fantaisies désordonnées et confuses.’ 5 As Jauss points out in Towards an Aesthetic of Reception (Stratford, Ontario, 1988), p. 142: ‘Despite the gradual assimilation of the heroic epic to the knightly romance in the French tradition, heroes like Roland or Yvain, ladies like Alda or Enide, and lords like Charlemagne or Artus were not brought from out of the one genre into the other; a reception through another tradition, the Italian one, was first called for, so that through a fusion of the two French genres into a new one, the so-called romance epic, the originally distinct groups of characters could be transposed into a single structure of action.’

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THE LURE OF THE HYBRID

particular episode that I want to concentrate on here. Tristan, who has been born in a tempest and raised, successively, by a mermaid, a fisher-couple, and a monstrous hind, has grown up terrified of chivalric combat: he prefers a nicely peaceable life to battles, and even to maidens won in a fair fight (TN 6567–9). Riding through the forest one day, he meets the fée Gloriande, who is being attacked by a fearsome dragon: she begs Tristan for help, but at first, of course, he is far too cowardly to assist. Finally, however, at Gloriande’s entreaties, he plucks up courage and kills the beast (TN 8368–76) – at which point it transforms itself into a gallant knight, Malabron, enlisted by Gloriande to inspire Tristan to put his cowardly self behind him and stir himself to heroic action. Gloriande reveals that she is the sister of Malabron and of Morgue la fée; she tells Tristan exactly what his lineage is, and how she has been sent to give him the gift of courage; she makes him a series of rich gifts in gratitude, organizes his baptism, and leads him to a magnificent castle where Arthur and Auberon hold state (TN 8526–38). At the castle is a magic ivory horn: no one can draw a note out of it, except ‘le plus preux quë on puïst trouver’ (TN 8540). We are not surprised, of course, to find that Tristan accomplishes the feat – and acquires the horn, which has the virtue of making him invulnerable. Tristan imagines that he has been in the castle no more than a couple of hours – but when he leaves, he realizes that it has been eight days (TN 8674–96); as he looks back, he finds that the castle has vanished (TN 8753–8). Keith Sinclair has teased out the Arthurian, and folktale, and other, motifs discernible here with such completeness6 that it would be perfectly pointless to duplicate him. Gloriande herself, for instance, is easily adducible as an ‘educating fay’, charged with inducting the young Tristan into the ways of true courage and true chivalry – and as such, she has numerous analogues in Arthurian and other literatures, and also, of course, in folklore:7 distantly, perhaps, the Dame du Lac in the Lancelot en prose, more directly in an episode in the Estoire de Merlin.8 Or take Morgue la fée – entirely beneficent in this romance, but retaining that characteristic ability to conceal from lovers the passing of time which is familiar, for 6

In his volume of commentary: Tristan de Nanteuil: Thematic Infrastructure and Literary Criticism, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 195 (Tübingen, 1983), pp. 74–86. 7 For studies of another chanson de geste, Baudouin de Sebourc, strongly charged with folklore motifs, see L. S. Crist, ‘Baudouin de Sebourc: structures, thèmes, fins’, in Les Epopées de la croisade: premier colloque international (Trèves, 6–11 août 1984), ed. K.-H. Bender and H. Kleber (Wiesbaden, 1987), 139–50, and F. C. Sautman, ‘A Troubled History: Folklore and Competing Texts in Baudouin de Sebourc, a Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste’, in Telling Tales: Medieval Narratives and the Folk Tradition, ed. F. C. Sautman et al. (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 231–48. 8 On both of which, see Sinclair’s study, pp. 76–8.

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instance, from the Val sans retour episode in the Lancelot en prose,9 or from the Bataille Loquifer.10 The mysterious castle and the lovely orchard where our Tristan finds Morgue and Arthur is, of course, remarkably reminiscent of the Avalon of the Arthurian and other narrative cycles11 – not to mention, perhaps, the analogue that Sinclair produces, the Joie de la cort in Chrétien’s Erec et Enide – and the magic horn that only Tristan can sound, and which confers invulnerability on him, is, it seems, a conflation of the one that Auberon gives to Huon de Bordeaux,12 and the horn that Erec alone is able to sound in the Joie de la Cort episode in Chrétien’s Erec et Enide.13 I do not propose to linger on these analogues, not least because Sinclair and Ernst Brugger14 have done so so exhaustively; on the other hand, what Sinclair and Brugge seem not to have noticed is the fact that the author of Tristan de Nanteuil is not especially original as concerns the lynchpin of this episode, Morgue la fée15 – on the contrary: Sinclair has failed to note that Huon de Bordeaux pays a prolonged visit to Morgue and Arthur, in the realm of faerie, in the Chanson d’Esclarmonde,16 and above all he does not mention the fact that Tristan’s visit to Morgue’s earthly paradise is replicated in two versions of Ogier le Danois,17 the decasyllabic version which dates, according to Togeby, from around 1310, and a version in alexandrines, dating from around 1335, which is closely dependent on the preceding. In both, Ogier is taken by Morgue la fée to Arthur’s splendid and shining palace, on an island in faerye called Avalon. Here he stays, in Morgue’s coils, for what turns out to be some two hundred years – to find that, when he returns from faerye to the world of history, Charlemagne is dead. There can be, I think, no doubt that Ogier and Tristan are interdependent – and if Sinclair is right, that Tristan de Nanteuil dates from the 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17

Lancelot en prose I, ed. A. Micha (Geneva, 1978), pp. 275–9. On which see S. Sturm-Maddox and D. Maddox, ‘Renoart in Avalon: Generic Shift in the Bataille Loquifer’, in Shifts and Transpositions in Medieval Narrative: A Festschrift for Dr Elspeth Kennedy, ed. K. Pratt (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 11–22. On the full range of which see L. Harf-Lancner, Les Fées au moyen âge, ch. 11, pp. 263–79. Ed. P. Ruelle (Brussels and Paris, 1960), lines 3728 ff. Ed. C. W. Carroll (New York and London, 1987), lines 6096–6118. E. Brugger’s ‘ “Der Schöne Feigling” in der arthurischen Literatur’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 63 (1943), 123–73. Who is, in fact, a regular intruder into the world of epic; see J. Wathelet-Willem, ‘La Fée Morgain dans la chanson de geste’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 13 (1970), 209–19. In Esclarmonde, Clarisse et Florent, Ide et Olive, ed. M. Schweige, Ausgaben und Abhandlungen 83 (Marburg, 1891), laisses 106–19. Oddly, since K. Togeby’s study of Ogier le Danois dans les littératures européennes (Copenhagen, 1969) must have been available to him. On Morgue in the decasyllabic version of the chanson de geste, see pp. 140–5; on the version in Alexandrines, see pp. 153–4. Neither of these chansons de geste has yet been published.

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mid-fourteenth century, then almost certainly it is Tristan de Nanteuil which has borrowed from Ogier: our poet, in other words, has found a nicely romantic story and recast it to suit his own purposes. Now, I don’t want, of course, to slip into point-scoring – or into simple positivistic source-study. But the irresistible Arthurian temptation, and the selfconsciousness with which the author of Tristan de Nanteuil stages it, are, I consider, steps on the way to the ageneric poetics of the late Middle Ages that I am attempting here to explore. But to talk of an ageneric poetics does, of course, beg questions – and although I do not want to get into the rather sterile argument about whether fourteenth- and fifteenth-century chansons de geste are or are not ‘really’ chansons de geste,18 not least because everything suggests that contemporaries were relatively indifferent to the problem,19 I cannot, I think, avoid nailing a few generic colours to the mast, although I do so conscious – to mix my metaphors – that once one transcends merely formal distinctions between roman and chanson de geste, one is entering a bit of a minefield.20 I shall take as my watchword Zumthor’s neat ‘Action collective chantée par l’épopée; aventure individuelle contée par le roman; dans l’épopée, une société, à la fois réelle et fictive; dans le “roman”, la destinée d’un

18

Although more recent commentators have been less apt to insist on the taxonomic questions which bedevilled early critics: see, among the most useful recent contributions, J.-M. Paquette, ‘Epopée et roman: continuité ou discontinuité?’ Etudes littéraires 4 (1971), 9–38; F. Suard, ‘Chanson de geste et roman devant le matériau folklorique’, in Mittelalterbilder aus neuer Perspektive. Diskussionsanstösse zu amour courtois, Subjektivität, in der Dichtung und Strategien der Erzählens. Würzburg Kolloquium, 1984 , ed. E. Ruhe and R. Behrens (Munich, 1985), pp. 364–77; C. Roussel, ‘Chanson de geste et roman: remarques sur deux adaptations littéraires du conte de “La fille aux mains coupées” ’, in Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans l’Europe et l’Orient latine: Actes du IXe Congrès international de la Société Rencesvals pour l’étude des épopées romanes, Padoue-Venise, 29 août–4 septembre 1982 (Modena, 1984), II, 565– 82. There is also a useful chapter on the subject in E. R. Woods, Aye d’Avignon: A Study of Genre and Society, Histoire des idées et critique littéraire 172 (Geneva, 1978). On the need to wary of ‘genre’, see also K. and M. S. Brownlee’s introduction to their volume Romance: Generic Transformation from Chrétien de Troyes to Cervantes (Hanover, 1985), 1–22. 19 The distinction seems first to have been first clearly formulated in the quarrel over Orlando Furioso which dominated Italian critical thought in the sixteenth century: see B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), II, 988–9 (on which see M. Stanesco, ‘Premières théories du roman: les folles amours des paladins errants’, Poétique 70 (avril 1987), 167–80). 20 I am particularly impressed, for instance, by C. M. Jones’s judicious study of the problem in her The Noble Merchant: Problems of Genre and Lineage in Hervis de Mes, North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993).

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homme’.21 This is, of course, too neat and therefore too simple, but most people would nevertheless agree, I think, that the chanson de geste is concerned with the values and ideologies of a particular society, whereas the preoccupation of the roman is largely an individual whose concerns – love, selfhood – are universal;22 that as Jauss puts it, in his interesting comparison of very similar narrative matière in a chanson de geste, Fierabras, and a roman, Le Bel Inconnu: l’action épique du héros reste subordonnée, dans la chanson de geste, à la destinée plus vaste de la communauté chrétienne et nationale, et s’intègre ainsi dans un ordre d’événements supra-personnels et objectifs, qui permet de relier alors l’action particulière avec les réalités des Croisades. Les événements romanesques du Bel Inconnu par contre, dans leur enchaînement fortuit, se laissent ranger dans une suite cohérente uniquement par rapport au personnage central, et alors, l’histoire du chevalier errant gagne une signification exemplaire justement par son isolement et sa ‘réintégration’ finale.23

The chanson de geste, in other words, is driven by a concern for the collectivity and its well-being; by contrast, the roman is crystallized around a hero whose acts may, fortuitously, benefit the collectivity, but whose prime concern is – must be – his own destiny: to borrow a phrase from Sarah Kay, the chanson de geste is a political fiction.24 And precisely because it is political, I suggest, the chanson de geste also presupposes teleologies: epic narrative moves towards a predetermined end, a providential goal, an endpoint, where romance wanderings follow an aimless and episodic pattern of adventure for its own sake:25 we expect that from the action of the chanson de geste will come something to be defined as politically good.

21 22

Essai de poétique médiévale (Paris, 1972), p. 346. Cf. D. Poirion, ‘Chanson de geste ou épopée? Remarques sur la définition d’un genre’, Travaux de linguistique et de littérature 10/2 (1972), 7–20, and cf. Tony Hunt’s useful definition: ‘The romance deals with the solitary quest rather than the collective or public expedition favoured by the epic. The epic is concerned with a world of known values, of duty recognized in a public arena. . . . In contrast, the romance is an investigation, an enquiry after criteria of action by an individual separated from the collectivity (court)’: Chrétien de Troyes: Yvain, Critical Guides to French Texts 55 (London, 1986), p. 22. 23 H.-R. Jauss, ‘Chanson de geste et roman courtois au XIIe siècle (analyse comparative du Fierabras et du Bel Inconnu’, in Chanson de geste und höfischer Roman, Studia Romanica 4 (Heidelberg, 1963), pp. 61–77 (p. 72). 24 The Chansons de Geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford, 1995). 25 The point – that aventure comes to replace geste – is also made by Erich Köhler, in his ‘Quelques observations d’ordre sociologique sur les rapports entre la chanson de geste et le roman courtois’, in Chanson de geste und höfischer Roman, pp. 21–36.

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With this in mind, let me draw attention to one signal – vital – difference between the version of our story as it appears in Tristan de Nanteuil, by contrast with all the other versions of the ‘epic hero meets Morgue la fée’ story which are more or less analogous to it: the question of the hero’s name. As I said in my summary of the Arthurian episode, one of Gloriande’s strategies in restoring the young man to his chivalric inheritance is to explain to him what his parentage is; she also tells him just how it is that he acquired the name Tristan: En la mer feustes nez, s’avés Tristan a non; Nez fustes en tristresse, pour ce vous appellon Tristan en la maniere que cy dit vous avon. 8431–2

Now, no late-medieval reader, surely, could be ignorant of the brazen intertextual resonances of this: in the fourteenth century, the prose Tristan was by far the most popular of all prose romances, and we cannot but be reminded of that rhetorically acrobatic passage in which Queen Elyabel names the son whose birth was to kill her: Triste vig ci, et en tristor acochai, et la premiere feste que je ai eüe puis que je acochai est tornee en tristor et en dolor. Et quant por tristece iés en terre venuz, tu avras de ta premiere aventure non; car de moi triste et de tristece sera apelez Tristans.26

Of all the Arthurian echoes which thread their way through the text, this, surely, is the most unmistakable – and not least because, rather audaciously, the poet of Tristan de Nanteuil has just also borrowed the name Gloriande, which, in the Tristan en prose, at the moment where Tristan is born, has just been attached27 to a dramatic episode involving a Gloriande who flings herself from a window rather than succumb to the advances of the lubricious son of Clodovex of Gaul. This section of Tristan de Nanteuil, in other words, has become a dynamic meeting-ground for competing narratives, where Arthurian romance meshes with epic. That said, of course, this momentary privileging of particular sources and analogues is scarcely a narrative coup de foudre: Gloriande’s explanation as to Tristan de Nanteuil’s name and parentage, while constituting a moment of Aristotelian anagnorisis for Tristan himself, surely does no more than confirm generic impressions which the reader has already formed. Whatever we may previously have been told – we are handicapped by the fact that the first few folios of the single manuscript of Tristan de 26 27

Tristan en prose, ed. R. L. Curtis (München, 1963), I § 229, lines 9–13. Tristan en prose I §§ 197–209.

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Nanteuil are missing28 – the mere name Tristan must long before have disrupted chanson de geste decorum, blurred generic boundaries. We have – surely – been playing intertextual hunt-the-thimble since we first discovered that our hero was called Tristan:29 our Tristan may not be orphaned, but he has mislaid both mother and father – and is his long upbringing in the forest not faintly reminiscent of the canonical Tristan’s sojourns in the Forest of Morois? What about those rudderless boats which so conveniently end up at the appointed spot? Is not the cowardly Tristan insistently to be attached to the Dinadan of the prose Tristan?30 The intertextual opportunism which borrows the name Tristan permeates the chanson de geste and transgresses generic boundaries from the very outset, and when our poet plays so ostentatiously with Tristan’s name, it is not that he is trumpeting his entrance into the competing world of romance; rather, it is that he is rewarding the reader’s interpretative ingenuity by finally making explicit what the reader has in any case suspected all along, that our Tristan is intertextually bound to the more famous Tristan de Leonnois. Tristan’s name alone, then, contaminates from the very outset what is still, formally, a chanson de geste, and creates a hero incompatible with the poem in which he finds himself: Tristan’s intertextual identity problematizes epic matter in a way characteristic of this, as of other, late medieval chanson de geste. I would like to borrow an expression here from Cesare Segre. In the course of an analysis of Ariosto’s processes of variation and expansion to his multifarious sources, Segre introduces the term vischiosità,31 viscosity; what he means by this is the way in which to incorporate any allusion into a text, to appropriate a source, is to do more than simply appropriate the single individual idea, or episode, or motif: it is to draw from the source text into the host text a whole context of narrative 28

Tristan de Nanteuil is preserved in only one manuscript: BNF, f.fr. 1478, on which see Sinclair’s introduction, pp. 5–8. There are, of course, some tedious questions of plausibility raised here: how, for instance – given that he loses both parents virtually at birth – does Tristan ever discover that that is his name? But plodding rationality of this sort is out of place in any discussion of works like Tristan de Nanteuil. 29 This is not unlike what Bakhtin calles ‘novelization’: a process whereby traditional genres become ‘permeated with laughter, irony, humor, elements of self-parody and finally . . . the novel inserts into these other genres an indeterminacy, a certain semantic openendedness, a living contact with unfinished, still evolving contemporary reality’; see The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. M. Holquist, transl. C. Emerson and M. Holquist (Austin, TX, 1981), p. 7. 30 The point is discussed, of course, by Sinclair: see pp. 55–6 of his study. True to his positivist method, Sinclair rejects the link – but surely differences of detail, which I will readily concede, cannot prevent us at the very least from perceiving the point? 31 ‘Intertestuale-interdiscorsivo: Appunti per une fenomenologia delle fonti’, in La parola ritrovata: Fonti e analisi letteraria, ed. F. Brioschi, C. Di Girolamo and I. Paccagnella (Palermo, 1982), pp. 15–28 (p. 22).

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organization and organizational patterns. It is my contention that the issue of naming crystallized in this flagrant intertextual borrowing, and even, perhaps, in the motif of deferred identity, is a prime example of precisely this sort of viscosity. Whatever may have been the content of the first few pages of Tristan de Nanteuil, whether or not the studious analogy with the Tristan of the Tristan en prose was vouchsafed in them or had to wait for the episode with which I have been concerned, it is nevertheless the case, I think, that to make name, and naming, central is to centralize the individual, to invite the reader to concentrate on Tristan de Nanteuil in his separate identity as opposed to his political identity, to read him looking for similarity and difference against the Tristan of the Tristan en prose: to make the individual the essence of narrative interest. The issue of Tristan’s name, however, also seems to me to epitomize the organizational pattern of Tristan de Nanteuil as a whole – an organizational pattern which is based on lack and fulfilment, loss and recovery, ignorance and recognition. The movement of Tristan’s whole story, after all, hinges on recognition: the scene with Gloriande that I have analysed is the classic one, familiar from every European literature,32 whereby a hero, left anonymous by the circumstances of his birth, meets, by an accident, with someone who can explain who he is. It also hinges, persistently and unavoidably, on loss and recovery: Tristan’s father’s rediscovery of his wife whom he had lost in the initial shipwreck, Tristan’s recovery of his mother, his father, his various wives and ladies, who are mislaid along the way, and whom he rediscovers, randomly, at every twist and turn of the complicated plot, as accidents of geography and space and time reunite them. To read Sinclair’s (very long) summary of the poem is to find the lexemes reconnaître and retrouver and réunion everywhere: these individual encounters by far outreach the rather perfunctory substratum of Saracen versus Christian which rumbles, dutifully and unconvincingly, in the background. But to talk of anagnorisis – recognition and rediscovery – is, of course, to speak very largely of chance and accident. Let me return for a moment to Gloriande and Tristan’s identity, in that paradigmatic scene which has been the centre of this paper. It is clear that if Tristan finally learns his identity, finally is discovered by Gloriande, this is in no way his responsibility. On the contrary: it is she who has chosen to initiate him into true chivalry, where he has simply constructed himself as a plaything of fate whose only role is to wander, aimlessly, through the forest, having been exiled because of his cowardice and treachery from a court to which he has, accidentally, found his way. What Tristan is endowed with, at Gloriande’s hands, is both 32

On which see, most recently and most excitingly, T. Cave’s Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, 1988).

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his individual and his chivalric identity – and I choose the word ‘endows’ carefully here, because it conveys precisely the way in which Tristan himself is figured as powerless, and aimless: not ‘in search of his identity’, rather dependent on the merest accident. This is a work with no teleology, no sense of purpose: the hero is a chevalier errant in the fullest sense of the word, without purpose or end in view. Nor does this pattern change: this chanson de geste continues to be the story of individual wanderings, by an individual separated from any particular court – no question of collective expeditions, or collective duties. What I am describing is not, of course, remotely unique to Tristan de Nanteuil: on the contrary, many of the late-medieval chansons de geste, the sort that have been described by Robert F. Cook and François Suard,33 are constructed on precisely this pattern, and, like Tristan de Nanteuil, can be observed redefining epic parameters, as Catherine Jones shows, in her study of Hervis de Metz.34 What makes Tristan de Nanteuil interesting is the careful engineering of the generic clashes between ‘romance’ and ‘epic’: the way in which romance typology and romance signs are superimposed so very visibly, even ostentatiously, on the epic base. When for instance the poet makes name and naming and identity35 the keys to his chanson de geste, he cannot but reintegrate us into the romance and Arthurian world (Chrétien’s Perceval ‘guessing’ his own name in the Conte du graal,36 or the Bel Inconnu finally rewarded with his own identity37), cannot but return us to the individual rather than the collective. It is as if he were making manifest the generic unease that we cannot but detect in these late epics. As he does also, to draw once again on the Arthurian interlude in Tristan de Nanteuil, over the issue of truth. We are thoroughly disconcerted, no doubt, when the poet of Tristan de Nanteuil at one point proffers a characteristically chanson de geste truth-claim: Or entendés a moy, pour Dieu et pour son non, Et je diray ystoire ou il n’a se voir non. TN 13,104–6

33

34 35

36 37

Suard, ‘L’épopée française tardive’ (see above, note 2), and ‘L’Epopée’, in La Littérature française aux XIVe et XVe siècles, GRLMA VIII/1 (Heidelberg, 1988), pp. 161–77; Cook, ‘Unity and Esthetics of the Late Chanson de geste’, Olifant 11 (1986), 103–14. See above, n. 16. Which are also, of course, the key to a number of romances, most notably Chrétien de Troyes’s Conte du graal: see J. H. M. Taylor, ‘Perceval/Perceforest: Naming as Hermeneutic in the Roman de Perceforest’, Romance Quarterly 44 (1997), 201–14. Ed. K. Busby (Tübingen, 1993), lines 3573–7. Ed. K. Fresco and C. R. Donagher (New York and London, 1992), lines 3231–7.

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Surely, we think, the poet must realize that we readers are too wary to allow ourselves to be lured into chanson de geste confidence when we feel ourselves plainly to be mired in romance country: the presence of an Arthurian interlude of the sort I have been describing must, we feel, have drawn attention, with comic self-consciousness, to the absurdity of any such reading, and denied this particular epic its claim to be close to historical truth. Yet rather than simply dismissing the poet’s assertion as absurd or self-defeating, ought we not to attempt a more sympathetic reading? We are accustomed, true, to being invited to think of the chanson de geste as a reflection of reality or truth – highly mediated, true, by the conventions of epic, but nevertheless veridical; equally, we are accustomed to think of the romance quest as taking place in a locale which is self-evidently ‘unreal’, a projection of desire. But rather than talking of decadence,38 should we not be crediting our poet and his contemporaries with a generous generic inclusiveness which, by embracing diversity and making the tumultuous late-medieval chanson de geste a dynamic meeting-ground for competing narratives, initiates processes of variation and expansion? Is not this narrative receptivity a sign of exuberance and vitality, not moribund invention? It would be absurd, in the space of a single article, to hope to rethink our critical treatment of Tristan de Nanteuil, let alone our treatment of the late chanson de geste as a genre. I would, however, like to suggest that the ways in which this unwieldy poem weaves into a complex narrative tapestry epic structures and romance motifs problematizes epic matter and is evidence not of sterility but of a fruitfulness which may not be to our taste,39 but which, in the end, will give the medieval epic a new lease of life.

38

Martin de Riquer, for instance, is typical: ‘La manière de l’épopée française tombe dans une franche décadence, sur le sol natal, à partir du XIVe siècle’ (Les Chansons de geste françaises (Paris, 1957), p. 288). For a contrary and more nuanced view, see D. Quint, ‘The Boat of Romance and Renaissance Epic’, in Romance: Generic Transformation from Chrétien de Troyes to Cervantes (see note 11), pp. 178–202. 39 Viz. Paul Meyer, speaking of ‘le très ennuyeux auteur de Tristan de Nanteuil’: ‘Notice sur le roman de Tristan de Nanteuil’, Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur 9 (1868), 1–42, 353–98 (p. 2).

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L’EXTRAIT DU ROMAN D’EREC ET ENIDE CARLETON W. CARROLL ET MARIA COLOMBO TIMELLI

III

L’EXTRAIT DU ROMAN D’EREC ET ENIDE DE LA CURNE DE SAINTE-PALAYE Carleton W. Carroll et Maria Colombo Timelli* En 1981 déjà, Cedric E. Pickford soulignait le silence qui entoure le nom de Chrétien de Troyes entre le XIIIe et le XVIe siècle:1 si ses romans se lisent encore, s’ils font l’objet, outre que de citations et d’allusions,2 d’au moins deux mises en prose au XVe siècle (Cligés en 1454, Erec avant 1468),3 le nom du poète est ignoré, délibérément selon Pickford, jusqu’à Geoffroy Tory et aux érudits du XVIe siècle, tels Pasquier, Fauchet, La Croix du Maine et Du Verdier, qui tous nomment Chrétien, dans la plupart des cas pourtant sans avoir une connaissance directe de ses œuvres.4 Après le silence du XVIIe siècle, le XVIIIe est marqué par un intérêt renouvelé pour l’auteur autant que pour l’œuvre, comme le témoigne, entre autres, l’insertion des quatre romans complets de Chrétien dans la Bibliothèque Universelle des Romans (BUR): Erec, Lancelot, Yvain, Cligés, tous publiés en 1777.5 Georges Doutrepont proposait, en 1939, un parallèle

*

1 2

3

4 5

Carleton W. Carroll est responsable de la lecture du manuscrit B et auteur de toutes les notes et remarques qui s’y rapportent; Maria Colombo Timelli a rédigé l’Introduction et édité le texte de Sainte-Palaye. C. E. Pickford, ‘The Good Name of Chrétien de Troyes’, in An Arthurian Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Lewis Thorpe, ed. K. Varty (Glasgow, 1981), pp. 389–401. On peut renvoyer au récent recueil: L’Œuvre de Chrétien de Troyes dans la littérature française: Réminiscences, résurgences et réécritures, Actes du Colloque de mai 1997, textes rassemblés par Claude Lachet, publication n. 13 du C.E.D.I.C. (Lyon, 1997). Cligés: Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Rep.II, 108; édité par Wendelin Foerster en 1884, Christian von Troyes sämtliche Werke I (Halle, Niemeyer, pp. 281–338 et 352–3). Erec: Bruxelles, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 7235; édité par Foerster en 1890, Christian von Troyes sämtliche Werke III (Halle, Niemeyer, pp. 253–94 et 334–6); édition critique par M. Colombo Timelli (TLF, Genève, 2000). Fauchet fait exception. Cf. Pickford, ‘Good Name’, p. 396. Erec, février, pp. 49–86; Le Chevalier de la charrette, avril, vol. I, 67–94; Le Chevalier au lyon, avril, vol. I, 95–120; Cligès, juillet, vol. I, 184–216.

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entre les ‘mises en prose’ du XVe siècle et ces arrangements du XVIIIe. ‘Des deux côtés, dans les deux âges, écrivait-il, ce fut une modernisation de livres «en romant antique» pour plaire à la société contemporaine ou pour les rendre d’accès possible.’6 Dans les deux cas, c’est très certainement l’intérêt pour l’histoire qui domine, au delà de toute perspective philologique, ou plus simplement littéraire, qui aurait à cœur la récupération du texte ‘original’. Outre celui publié par Paulmy et Tressan dans la BUR, dont le but divulgatif ne fait pas de doute, le XVIIIe siècle nous a légué deux autres ‘extraits’ d’Erec et Enide, tous les deux restés à l’état de manuscrits: l’un dû à Le Grand d’Aussy et édité par Roger Middleton en 1986,7 l’autre à La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (Paris, BnF, Moreau 1724, f. 302–20), qui fera l’objet de cette édition.8 Malgré les rapports personnels qui ont lié entre eux les trois érudits, Sainte-Palaye, Paulmy, Le Grand d’Aussy, tout sépare, comme Middleton l’a définitivement montré, leurs trois extraits.9 Le but, d’abord: l’intention divulgatrice de la BUR s’oppose en tous points à l’usage savant que se proposent Sainte-Palaye (qui destinait la colonne de droite de son manuscrit à des notations linguistiques et historiques restées, il est vrai, peu nombreuses) et Le Grand d’Aussy (préparant ses extraits en vue d’une Histoire de la poésie française jamais achevée);10 deuxièmement, la source, les trois extraits dépendant de trois manuscrits différents: fr. 1376 pour Sainte-Palaye, fr. 1420 pour la BUR, fr. 375 pour Le Grand.11 Le traitement et la quantité des citations, enfin, strictement liés au propos de l’‘éditeur’: aucune citation dans la BUR,12 quatre citations en tout chez

6 7

8

9 10 11 12

G. Doutrepont, Les Mises en prose des épopées et des romans chevaleresques du XIVe au XVIe siècle (Bruxelles, 1939; Genève, 1969), p. 390. R. Middleton, ‘Le Grand d’Aussy’s Erec et Enide’, Nottingham French Studies 25/1 (1986), 14–41. On lira aussi avec intérêt, du même auteur: ‘Le Grand d’Aussy’s Unpublished Extraits’, Nottingham French Studies 26/1 (1987), 19–65, et ‘Chrestien’s Erec in the Eighteenth Century’, in The Changing Face of Arthurian Romance: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in Memory of C. E. Pickford (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 151–64. Disons tout de suite qu’il ne s’agit pas d’un manuscrit autographe, mais bien d’une copie mise au net par un collaborateur de Sainte-Palaye: voir plus loin la description du manuscrit. Middleton, ‘Chrestien’s Erec’, p. 162. Middleton, ‘Chrestien’s Erec’, p. 160. Middleton, ‘Chrestien’s Erec’, pp. 155, 156, 160. Pour Le Grand, cf. aussi Middleton, ‘Le Grand d’Aussy’s Erec et Enide’, pp. 20–1. Si l’on excepte – et il faut bien le faire – la supercherie du ‘Lay d’armes et d’amour’ publié en conclusion de l’extrait, pp. 84–6. Cf. K. Busby, ‘Roman breton et chanson de geste au XVIIIe siècle’, in Echoes of the Epic, Mélanges Gerard J. Brault (Birmingham, Alabama, 1998), pp. 17–48 (pp. 28–30).

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Le Grand,13 de très nombreuses citations (de 1 à 14 vers) qui entrecoupent presque à chaque page le résumé de Sainte-Palaye. L’intérêt de Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (1696–1781) pour la littérature du Moyen Age, en langue d’oïl et en langue d’oc, est bien connu, ainsi que son attention scientifique pour les manuscrits qui nous l’ont transmise.14 Les précieuses notices qu’il en a rédigées sont conservées à la Bibliothèque nationale de France en deux versions: la version originale (MSS Moreau 1654–61) et une copie (Moreau 1662–76); pour ce qui concerne spécialement Erec, Sainte-Palaye ne s’est pas limité à décrire les manuscrits fr. 375 et fr. 1420: il les a intégralement copiés, sans doute après 1765 (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MSS 3317 et 3319).15 Trois notes de sa main sur la copie de fr. 1420 (‘Voy. L’Extrait’) prouvent que l’extrait objet de notre étude précède la transcription elle-même, ou en tout cas les notes en question, mais ne permet pas pour autant de dater celle-ci avec une plus grande précision. D’autre part, comme Keith Busby l’a souligné encore récemment,16 Sainte-Palaye appréciait et étudiait l’ancienne littérature non pas pour ses éventuelles qualités intrinsèques, mais bien en tant que source documentaire.17 C’est ce que le Mémoire concernant la lecture des anciens romans de chevalerie (1751, dans les Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et des Belles-Lettres, XVII, incorporé en 1759 dans le second volume des Mémoires sur l’ancienne chevalerie)18 répète à maintes reprises: les romans médiévaux, une fois qu’on les aura soumis à une vérification attentive sur les faits (à cause, entre autres, de l’enjolivement de la réalité qu’ils offrent), pourront s’avérer d’une grande utilité à tous ces savants – historiens d’abord, mais encore généalogistes, géographes, antiquaires – diversement intéressés au Moyen Age.19 Il n’en reste pas moins vrai que la lecture de ces romans représente un ‘pénible travail’ (p. 67), une tâche que ‘quelques gens de Lettres’ (p. 67) pourront se partager; les ‘extraits’ qu’ils en tireront (le mot se lit p. 67) vont constituer ‘une bibliothèque générale et

13 14

15 16

17 18 19

Middleton, ‘Le Grand d’Aussy’s Erec et Enide’, p. 20. On se rapportera à la monographie de L. Gossman, Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment: The World and Work of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (Baltimore, 1969). Voir aussi les grands mérites reconnus à Sainte-Palaye dans le fascicule anonyme Précis historique de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (s.l., s.d., in-12, 40 pp.). J’emprunte toutes ces informations à Middleton, ‘Chrestien’s Erec’, pp. 154–5. K. Busby, ‘An Eighteenth-Century Plea on Behalf of the Medieval Romances: La Curne de Sainte-Palaye’s Mémoire concernant la lecture des anciens romans de chevalerie’, in Studies on Medievalism III (Oxford, Ohio, 1987), pp. 55–69. Busby, ‘Eighteenth-Century Plea’, p. 55. Voir Gossman, Medievalism, surtout pp. 254–7. Edité par Busby in ‘Eighteenth-Century Plea’, pp. 59–69. Edition Busby, pp. 61–4.

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complète’ (p. 68) dont l’utilité ne fait pas de doute. Mais c’est seulement après avoir souligné une dernière fois la possibilité de donner, grâce à la littérature, ‘quelques lumières sur les progrès des Arts et des Sciences’ (p. 68) de ces siècles reculés, que Sainte-Palaye semble reconnaître aux textes quelques mérites littéraires: ‘ce qu’il y auroit de remarquable du côté de l’esprit et de l’invention; quelques tours délicats et naïfs, quelques traits de morale et quelques pensées ingénieuses’ (p. 68). C’est à la lumière de ce Mémoire que l’on appréciera l’extrait d’Erec et Enide dans sa juste dimension: si les synthèses peuvent informer le lecteur quant aux mœurs de l’ancienne chevalerie, c’est par les citations que le critique littéraire – et il est hors de doute que Sainte-Palaye assume aussi cette fonction – montrera les qualités linguistiques et littéraires, les possibilités expressives et poétiques de l’ancienne langue.20 L’Extrait du Roman d’Erec et Enide représente, dans l’ensemble, une synthèse fidèle de l’original du XIIe siècle, malgré une légère disproportion entre la première et la seconde partie: les 2400 vers environ qui mènent jusqu’à la crise21 occupent quinze pages, alors que vingt et une pages sont consacrées aux 4300 vers qui restent;22 Chrétien, cependant, n’y est jamais nommé, sauf sous la désignation de ‘l’auteur’ (ff. 302r, 307v, 319r). Les citations, assez nombreuses, sont beaucoup plus fréquentes dans la même première partie: elles sont écrites en retrait par rapport au texte en prose, avec alinéa à chaque vers, ce qui permet de les percevoir immédiatement; lorsque un ou plusieurs vers sont supprimés, ils sont remplacés par une ligne de petits points (ff. 304v, 305r, 306v, 308v). Les parties en prose peuvent suivre de très près le texte de Chréten; les dérimages au sens propre (où seul l’ordre des mots est modifié) ne sont pas rares. Que l’on compare: Quant il virent un chevalier Venir armé sor son destrier, L’escu au col, la lance ou poing vv. 139–4123

quand ils virent venir un chevalier, l’ecu au col, la lance au poing f. 302v

20

‘Il est aisé de faire un choix des choses utiles et curieuses qui s’y trouvent [= dans des ouvrages d’une qualité artistique médiocre], comme par hasard, sans renoncer totalement à citer quelques vers particulièrement heureux’ (Mémoire, éd. Busby, p. 67). Cf. Gossman, Medievalism, pp. 256–7. 21 Je situerais le début de la crise aux vv. 2430–8 de l’édition de Jean-Marie Fritz (collection ‘Lettres Gothiques’, Paris, 1992), édition critique d’après le manuscrit BnF fr. 1376 (B), sur lequel se fonde aussi l’‘extrait’ de Sainte-Palaye. 22 Une proportion mathématique donnerait vingt-sept pages pour cette partie: on commentera plus loin les passages et les épisodes supprimés. 23 Toutes les citations ont été vérifiées sur le manuscrit fr. 1376; la numérotation des vers renvoie à l’édition Fritz (note 21).

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Dans la plupart des cas, la ‘traduction’ d’un mot en français moderne se rend nécessaire, mais le(s) vers de Chrétien demeure(nt) facilement reconnaissable(s): Erec vait sivant24 tote voie Le chevalier qui armez fu Et le nain qui l’avoit feru. vv. 342–4 Li vavasors sa fame apele Et sa fille qui mout ert bele Qui en un ovreour estoient. vv. 397–9 Quant ele le chevalier voit ............ Vergoigne en ot, et si rougi. Erec d’autre part s’esbahi Quant en li si grant beauté vit vv. 443, 447–9

Cependant Eréc suivoit le chevalier armé et le nain qui l’avoit frappé. f. 303r le gentilhomme appella sa femme et sa fille qui travailloient. f. 303v Quand elle apperceut le chevalier elle rougit, et le chevalier fut étonné de sa grande beauté. f. 303v

On pourrait multiplier les exemples. Il est alors intéressant de vérifier où et comment Sainte-Palaye réduit le texte original. Ses synthèses portent, très régulièrement, sur: — les dialogues. Il suffira de comparer les quelque quatre-vingts vers (vv. 2492–2573) où Enide est contrainte de révéler à son mari les reproches qui lui sont adressées avec le passage correspondant de l’extrait: ‘Elle laissa echaper en pleurant quelques mots qui temoignoient ses regrets. Elle croyoit Eréc endormi, il l’estoit à moitié; il exigea d’elle un aveu du sujet de ses larmes et l’explication des mots qui lui estoient echapés. Elle lui obeit.’ (f. 309v) — les monologues/complaintes d’Enide: ici aussi, un seul exemple suffira. Enide vient de percevoir Guivret qui menace Erec: De deus parz est si a malaise Que ele ne set le quel faire Ou le parler ou le taire.25 vv. 3722–4

Chrétien consacre une quarantaine de vers à ce combat intérieur, au cours duquel la jeune épouse exprime à elle-même ses craintes, ses doutes, sa décision finale (vv. 3722–60). Voici la réduction opérée par Sainte-Palaye: (Enide) ‘balança longtems, mais enfin elle l’avertit’ (f. 312v). 24

Dans le manuscrit B on peut lire aussi bien suiant que siuant: on adopte ici la lecture de Fritz. 25 Le vers 3724 manque d’une syllabe. Fritz corrige ces deux vers en suivant Foerster: Qu’ele ne set le quel saisir/ Ou le parler ou le taisir.

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— les descriptions; celles-ci peuvent avoir pour objet aussi bien des personnages, que des animaux ou des objets. On pourra rappeler la présentation détaillée de la beauté et des vêtements d’Enide (vv. 402–41, réduits à: ‘La fille estoit belle, mais . . .’; les vv. 414–17 sont repris: ‘La nature fut émerveillée plus de cent fois de l’avoir fait si belle’, f. 303v); la description du cheval d’Enide (vv. 5308–45), supprimée dans l’extrait (f. 316v); ou encore l’énumération des armes d’Erec avant le départ (vv. 2632–59, simplifiés en: ‘Eréc prit ses armes’, f. 309v).26 — les combats, qui jalonnent la quête d’Erec, tous réduits à la simple proclamation du résultat. Il en est ainsi déjà pour la rencontre avec Yder (‘Ils prirent du champ pour se battre, et le combat fut si vif que . . . quoyqu’avec beaucoup de peine il [= Erec] fut vainqueur’, f. 305v, correspondant aux vv. 863–992); même traitement pour les combats contre les trois ‘robeors’ (‘il alla contre les chevaliers; il en tua deux, mit l’autre en fuitte, mais après l’avoir renversé’, f. 310r–v; cf. vv. 2853–2909), ou les cinq autres (‘Il se prepara au combat et tua quatre des chevaliers; un se sauva à pied, mais il prit les cinq chevaux’, f. 310v; cf. vv. 3007–73); ou encore pour les combats contre Guivret ou Galoain, et pour le tournoi de Tenebroc, celui-ci réduit à: ‘Il fut magnifique et il s’y fist de beaux faits d’armes, car la place fut bien attaquée et bien deffenduë, mais Eréc fit des merveilles’ (f. 309r: vv. 2134–2266).27 Il est encore quelques épisodes que Sainte-Palaye supprime sans qu’il nous soit vraiment possible de comprendre pourquoi. Le premier concerne l’arrivée d’Yder à la cour d’Artus, avec la réaction de Gauvain et Keu, puis de la reine elle-même (vv. 1081–1170; cf. f. 306r: ‘En effet il partit sur le champ, et la reine receut ses excuses . . .’). Le deuxième est le passage où la cousine d’Enide offre à celle-ci un habit plus digne pour se présenter à la cour, et un palefroi (vv. 1349–1418): l’épisode manque complètement (f. 306v), quitte à être partiellement récupéré par la voix même d’Erec s’adressant à Guenièvre: ‘une de ses cousines lui vouloit donner de beaux habits, mais . . .’ (f. 307r). Le dernier constitue peut-être le cas le plus surprenant. Il s’agit de la conclusion du roman, ce couronnement d’Erec 26

On peut remarquer au passage que Sainte-Palaye agit sur le texte de Chrétien de manière analogue à son devancier du XVe siècle: le prosateur bourguignon intervient aussi pour couper dialogues et descriptions, même s’il lui arrive d’accentuer le pathétique en amplifiant certains monologues d’Enide. Cf. l’introduction à l’édition critique. Cependant, les coupures portant sur les descriptions d’objets (armes, vêtements surtout) surprennent chez un auteur – Sainte-Palaye – qui propose de lire les anciens romans en tant que ‘documents’, témoignages historiques d’anciennes habitudes et modes de vie. 27 Ici on ne peut que souligner la profonde différence avec la prose du XVe siècle où, à l’inverse, les épisodes de bataille sont amplifiés: par exemple, le tournoi final, après le couronnement d’Erec et Enide, occupe les chapitres XLI et XLII, et n’a aucune correspondance avec le roman original.

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auquel Chrétien consacre les 400 derniers vers: on s’étonne de la réduction opérée dans l’extrait, où nous ne retrouvons que deux citations célébrant la générosité d’Artus, mais pas la moindre allusion à la cérémonie elle-même, aux préparatifs, aux participants (f. 319v–320r). Dans l’extrait trouvent aussi place un certain nombre d’interventions de Sainte-Palaye, des commentaires, des appréciations portant aussi bien sur la forme que sur le contenu de l’ancien roman.28 Le premier groupe a surtout pour cible certaines longueurs: les listes de chevaliers (‘L’énumeration de tous ceux qui se rendirent aux ordres du roy est terrible’, f. 308r; ‘La liste en est longue, et les récits de ce qui les [= les présents faits à Erec et Enide] preceda ne sont pas moins longs’, f. 309v), un combat (‘la description en est des plus longues’, f. 318r). Il arrive cependant aussi que Sainte-Palaye reconnaisse certains mérites à l’auteur médiéval (‘La joye et le tumulte des festes de ce tems est bien peinte’, f. 308v; ‘Leur peur est assez bien decrite’, f. 315v). Mais il est d’autres commentaires, plus intéressants à nos yeux, où Sainte-Palaye souligne quelques aspects ‘historiques’ du roman en vers: la rudesse de certaines habitudes (‘Enfin il luy donna des ordres comme a un palfrenier, et elle les exécuta de même’, f. 304r),29 la richesse des habits (‘La description de l’habit qu’elle lui donna est assez etenduë et merite quelque curiosité pour la mode de ce tems, et prouve que les habillemens des femmes estoient fort composés et fort chers dès ce tems là’, observation mitigée par la remarque qui suit immédiatement: ‘il est vray que c’est celuy d’une reine’, f. 307r), le discours du roi (‘Il [= Artus] rapporte dans ce discours les devoirs des rois dans ce tems’, f. 308r), la simplicité des anciennes mœurs (‘L’auteur décrit le mouvement de la cour et des domestiques comme celui de la maison d’un particulier, tant les moeurs estoient simples’, f. 319r). Sainte-Palaye avait une très bonne connaissance de l’ancienne langue. Cependant, on ne peut manquer de relever quelques méprises dans son interprétation du texte. On remarquera d’abord la lecture de rose estoit beau li cors (au f. 303v, v. 410), rapportée à Enide, où le manuscrit donne desoz estoit beax li cors (desoz par contraste à la robe defors du vers précédent). Encore, la locution mettre en couvent (= garantir, promettre),30 dans les menaces que Galoain adresse à Enide, est prise à la lettre et par conséquent mal comprise:

28

On remarquera d’abord le jugement un peu brusque porté sur le prologue de Chrétien: ‘un prologue . . . qui n’a pas beaucoup d’objet’ (f. 302r). 29 Il est vrai que cet épisode, correspondant aux vv. 450–69, est ignoré aussi par le remanieur du XVe siècle. 30 Cf. G. Di Stefano, Dictionnaire des locutions en moyen français (Montréal, 1991), s.v. couvent = engagement, promesse.

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Certes je vos met en covent: il la menaça de la faire mettre dans un Se vos ma volenté ne faites, couvent Ja i avra espees traites. f. 311v vv. 3350–2

Plus loin, les deux sœurs de Guivret qui s’occupent de soigner Erec deviennent des chirurgiens: J’ai deus serors gentes et gaies On mit en oeuvre les deux chirurgiens Qui mout sevent de garir plaies; qu’il [Guivret] avoit avec lui Celes vos garront bien et tost. f. 316r vv. 5103–5 (Cf. aussi les vv. 5180–1, 5186–7)

Une telle erreur d’interprétation peut s’expliquer par le contexte (cf. le v. 5104 surtout), et peut-être par une lecture erronée ou hâtive du mot même serors, confondu avec serorges (qui signifie justement ‘chirurgiens’). Ailleurs, on attribue erronément à Enide ce qui reviendrait à Erec; par exemple, dans le passage qui suit, la pâleur et la fatigue: Qu’il apert ja bien en son vout Gauvain trouva Enide bien pasle Que lou vis a descoloré et bien abbatue vv. 4176–7 f. 313r–v

L’inverse arrive aussi, comme dans cet exemple, à propos d’une monture: Enide ont baillie une mule31 v. 5168

ils partirent après avoir monté Erec sur une mule f. 316r

La lecture et interprétation des noms propres peut s’avérer problématique,32 et ce aussi bien à l’intérieur des citations de Chrétien: La ou Tristanz le fier Morhot La ou estant le fier morshor En l’isle saint Sanson veinqui En l’isle Saint Sanson vainqui vv. 1246–7 f. 306r

31 32

Le nom d’Enide paraît en toutes lettres dans le manuscrit (f. 131va 25). Pour plus de détails on se rapportera aux notes au texte. Il est certes impossible d’attribuer avec certitude ces ‘fautes’ à l’auteur de l’extrait ou au ‘copiste’, le secrétaire qui a transcrit la rédaction originale. Toujours est-il que le texte ne présente aucune intervention (rature, correction) autographe à ces endroits: Sainte-Palaye aurait-il pu percevoir et éventuellement corriger de telles bévues?

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que dans les passages en prose: le château de Mont Revel (v. 1335) devenant Mont Cassel (f. 306v). Les dénominations de deux localités (Eüroc et Danebroc, v. 2127) sont non seulement mal transcrites en partie, mais encore attribuées à deux chevaliers, ‘tenans’ supposés du tournoi de noces: ‘Ce fut Gauvain, Enore Danebroc, Melis et Meliadoc qui en furent les tenans’ (f. 309r). La longue liste des chevaliers de la cour d’Artus qui se lit aux vv. 1687–1746 offre maints exemples de ce genre de mélectures; dans quelques cas, c’est la présence de la conjonction ne en ouverture de vers qui prête à confusion:33 Ne Braavains (v. 1733) Ne Galerantins (v. 1734) Ne Labigodés (v. 1737)

Nebra avains Nega le matins Nelabigodel (f. 307v)

J’ai déjà fait allusion au fait que Sainte-Palaye destinait la colonne droite du manuscrit à des notes, linguistiques et historiques, pouvant éclaircir la signification d’un terme ou informer au sujet d’un personnage dans le cas des trois noms propres. Les mots concernés ont été soulignés: ils ne sont pas nombreux, et les gloses en question n’ont pas été complétées. Voici la liste des mots que Sainte-Palaye se proposait d’expliquer et/ou de commenter, avec renvoi au vers original s’il s’agit d’une citation, et éventuellement la traduction donnée à droite: f. 303r f. 304r f. 304v f. 305v f. 306v f. 307v f. 308v

f. 313r f. 313v f. 319v f. 320r

33

s’attillent coutres, porpaintes assez gaudine muer [Yvains] l’avoute alainne reclaim iaulz dessoivrent Gringalez Morgue dues esterlins blans esterlin

(v. 360) (v. 479) (v. 537) (v. 918) (v. 1484) (v. 1704) (v. 2077) (v. 2079) (v. 2091) (v. 2096) (cf. v. 3961) (v. 4214) (v. 6519) (v. 6683) (v. 6686)

s’ajustent, se parent, s’atiffent

halete appel ou leurre yeux séparent

deuil

Structure dépendant du vers 1730: Cil ne doit mie estre oblïez.

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Notice sur le manuscrit Le manuscrit Moreau 172434 contient, entre bien d’autres pièces, quatre ‘extraits’ de matière arthurienne; outre un ‘Extrait du Saint Graal’ en prose, qui occupe les f. 209–75, il s’agit de trois romans de Chrétien de Troyes: ‘Le Roman de la Charrête. Extrait’, f. 276–98,35 l’‘Extrait du Roman d’Eréc et Enide’, f. 302–20,36 ‘Le Chevalier au Lyon. Extrait’, f. 322–43.37 Pour la partie qui nous intéresse, les feuillets mesurent 255 mm sur 185 mm; double numérotation en haut à droite sur le recto: celle à la plume compte les pièces du recueil, celle au crayon, au-dessous, compte les feuillets du manuscrit; réclames en bas de chaque feuillet, recto et verso. Comme on l’a dit, ce n’est pas un original, mais une copie mise au net; le texte occupe la colonne de gauche de chaque page (28 à 32 lignes par page); l’écriture, fine mais très lisible, n’appartient pas à Sainte-Palaye; les rares gloses, de sa propre main celles-ci (en correspondance de mots soulignés dans le texte en prose ou à l’intérieur des citations), figurent dans la colonne de droite. Quelques remarques à propos des citations tirées du MS fr. 1376: Sainte-Palaye (ou son ‘copiste’) a régulièrement résolu (et parfois erronément: cf. les notes au texte) les abréviations du manuscrit, mais n’a pas toujours respecté l’initiale majuscule de chaque vers; il distingue u/v et i/j, et ajoute parfois des accents (aprés, Eréc, montée, etc.) et des marques de ponctuation. Il tend en outre à normaliser l’emploi des consonnes doubles sur la langue moderne (par ex. pucelle, belle, etc.). Dans les passages en prose, on relève des alternances graphiques, que l’on a reproduites dans l’édition: celles-ci concernent surtout l’emploi irrégulier de l’accent circonflexe (alternant avec -s-), de l’accent grave sur la préposition à, de la cédille. La graphie de quelques noms propres (Artu/s Gen(i)evre, Guivre/s et même Guievres) peut aussi présenter des

34

Cf., pour une notice succincte, H. Omont, Inventaire des manuscrits de la collection Moreau (Paris, 1891), p. 146. Le premier feuillet du manuscrit porte une note manuscrite: ‘Volume de 402 Feuillets. Les Feuillets 47, 181, 299–301, 344, 366, 369, 371, 387 et 393 sont blancs. 20 Mars 1889’. 35 Au f. 276r on lit: ‘Comencé par Chrestien de Troyes en 1191 // Voy Langlet Bibliothèque des Romans, t. 2, p. 228 // et achevé par Godeffroi de Leigni li Clers Voy les 9 derniers vers du roman’; les neuf vers en question sont cités au f. 298v. 36 Au f. 302r, en haut de la colonne de droite: ‘Par Chrestiens de Troies. Cangé’. 37 Au début du texte on lit: ‘Composé par Chrestiens de Troyes // Voy Langlet, Bibliothèque des Romans, t. 2, p. 228 // Il le composa après avoir fait celui de la Charrette // Voy l’Extrait ci-joint p. 32’.

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irrégularités; le nom même d’Eréc pourrait souvent se lire Erée:38 dans ce cas, on a normalisé sans l’indiquer.

Traitement du texte La graphie du manuscrit a été fidèlement reproduite; la ponctuation a aussi été respectée dans l’ensemble. Pour ce qui concerne les citations de Chrétien, on a régularisé l’emploi des majuscules en début de vers et introduit la numérotation des vers selon l’édition Fritz (à la fin de chaque citation, entre parenthèses): bien entendu, le manuscrit de Sainte-Palaye ne présente aucune numérotation. Les gloses de Sainte-Palaye sont imprimées sur la droite, entre crochets droits, en respectant leur collocation sur la page du manuscrit. Les fautes flagrantes, assez peu nombreuses, sont corrigées dans le texte et indiquées dans l’apparat en bas des pages; les crochets pointus signalent les lacunes et compléments éventuels. L’apparat contient aussi quelques commentaires sur le texte et toute remarque sur ce qui se lit effectivement dans le manuscrit B. Les changements de feuillet sont indiqués entre crochets droits.

38

Sur cette graphie, et sa diffusion au XVIIIe siècle, cf. Middleton, ‘Chrestien’s Erec’, p. 153, n. 9.

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PARIS, BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE, MANUSCRIT MOREAU 1724, f. 302–20 [302r]1 Extrait du Roman d’Eréc et Enide Apres un prologue de l’Auteur qui n’a pas beaucoup d’objet, il entre en matiere et dit qu’au temps de Pasque le roy Artus tenoit une cour superbe dans son chateau de Caradigant; mais, avant que la cour se séparat, Li rois a ses chevaliers dit2 Qu’il voloit le blanc cerf chasier3 Por la coutume4 ressaucier. (36–8)

Le projet déplut beaucoup a Gauvain. Il dit au roy: ‘Cette chasse5 ne produira rien de bon. Vous scavez que celuy qui est assez heureux pour tuer le cerf doit baiser la plus belle de la cour; nous en avons plus de cent6 qui pretendent a ce titre, Et n’i a nule n’ait ami (53)

qui par consequent ne la trouve la plus belle.’ Li rois respont: ‘Ce sai je bien, Mais por ce n’en lairai je rien; Car ne doit estre contredite Parole puis que rois l’a dite.’ (59–62)

Ils partirent donc pour aller chasser le cerf dans la forest aventureuse, et cette chasse est fort dangereuse. La reine Genevre7 y vint aussy suivie d’une meschine: Pucelle8 estoit, fille de roy9, Et sist sur un blanc palefroy10.

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Dans la colonne de droite, à côté du titre, on lit: ‘Par Chrestiens de Troies . Cangé’; un peu plus bas: ‘Mouch. n. 18’ (Georges-Jean Mouchet, collaborateur de Sainte-Palaye, 1737–1807; voir: L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale, vol. I, Paris, 1861, pp. 571, 574; vol. II, Paris, 1874, p. 282; H. Omont, Inventaire des manuscrits de la collection Moreau, Paris, 1891, Préface, p. XIII). Encore au-dessous: ‘Voy le Ms du Roy 7518/2, f. 1R, col 1 et 2’. v. 36: dist v. 37: chacier v. 38: costume ce projet (barré) cette chasse Cf. v. 50 Encor a il ceanz .v.C. Genevre: dans les autres occurrences de ce nom, au nombre de quatre (ff. 306r, 312v, 313r, 319v) la graphie est toujours Genievre. v. 79: pucele v. 79: roi v. 80: sor un b. palefroi

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Aprés les suit11 a esperon Uns chevalier12: Eréc ot non; De la Table ronde13 estoit. (79–83)

Il estoit beau et n’avoit que 25 ans14. Il estoit bien mis et n’avoit pour armes que son epée. [302v] Il joignit la reine et lui demanda la permission de la suivre et de ne la point quitter15. La Reyne y consentit; quant la chasse fut commencée ils n’entendirent plus ni chiens ni cors. Ils estoient cependant tous les trois arrestés16 au bord de la forest sur le grand chemin écoutans de toutes leurs aureilles, quand ils virent venir un chevalier, l’ecu au col la lance au poing; une pucelle de bonne mine, à cheval comme luy, estoit à sa droite. Ils estoient précédés par un nain monté sur un roucin, et qui avoit a la main un bâton noüeux17. La reine dit à la pucelle d’aller prier le chevalier de lui venir parler; elle lui obéit; et quand elle fut auprés du nain il luy dit de retourner, qu’elle ne passeroit pas; elle n’en voulut rien faire; il luy donna un coup de son baston, et la pucelle toute en pleurs revint conter à la reine ce qui luy estoit arrivé. La reine, très mécontente, dit au chevalier Eréc d’aller prier le chevalier de la venir trouver; il luy obeit, et le nain luy fit le même compliment, et le blessa de la meme façon qu’il avoit blessé la pucelle. Il vouloit frapper le nain, mais le chevalier qui estoit tout armé lui dit qu’il le tueroit s’il le touchoit18. Eréc n’eut pas d’autre parti a prendre que de venir conter à la reine tout ce qui s’estoit passé; mais il estoit d’une colere épouventable et lui dit qu’il ne pouvoit retourner a Caradigan19 [303r] chercher ses armes, et qu’il estoit résolu de suivre le chevalier qui s’éloignoit, jusques à ce qu’il eut trouvé des armes pour se venger de l’affront qu’il en avoit reçeu. La reine le recommenda a Dieu. Il partit, et un moment après le roy tua le blanc cerf a leurs yeux20. Quand ils furent revenus au chateau le roy dit,21 après souper et lorsqu’ils estoient tous dans la joye, Dist qu’il iroit son baicier22 prendre. (289)

Alors tous les chevaliers s’emeurent en disant qu’ils soutiendroient que 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

v. 81: Deux lectures, suit ou siut, sont possibles. v. 82: chevaliers v. 83: tauble reonde Cf. v. 90: Se n’avoit pas .xxv. anz. la permission de la suivre et de ne la point quitter: cette dernière idée est ajoutée par S-P; Erec exprime simplement (vv. 107–10) son désir de lui tenir compagnie. arrestez un bâton noüeux: cf. v. 148 Une corgie enson noee En fait, le chevalier ne dit rien dans cette scène; ce sont les pensées d’Erec, rapportées d’abord en narration (vv. 225–30), puis par Erec parlant à la reine (vv. 237–43). Caradigant au v. 249 a leurs yeux: de fait, la reine et Erec n’assistent pas à la prise du cerf (vv. 125–37). le roy dit: le verbe est superflu, étant donné dist au v. 289. v. 289: baisier

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leur dame estoit la plus belle, et qu’il falloit que le roy attendit que les armes en eussent decidé. Enfin ce que Gauvain avoit prévu arriva; le roy le pria de l’aider a se tirer de cette affaire. Tandis qu’il estoit dans cet embaras avec le roy Ydiers, le roy Cadoualant, Gifles, Maugis23 et beaucoup d’autres barons, la reine leur conta ce qui luy estoit arrivé, ainsy que à sa pucelle et au chevalier Eréc, et les assura qu’il avoit dit qu’il reviendroit le 3e jour: ‘Ainsi si vous m’en croiez, dist elle, Mettez cest baicier24 en respit.’

(338)

Tout le monde, et le roy lui même, convint qu’il falloit attendre son retour. Cependant Eréc suivit le chevalier armé et le nain qui l’avoit frappé jusques à un très beau chateau dans lequel ils entrerent. Il estoit rempli de beaucoup de chevaliers25 et de demoiselles. On voyoit des gens qui avoient soin de toutes sortes d’oiseaux pour le vol, d’autres qui pansoient les chevaulx, Les dames es chambres s’attillent26. (360) [s’ajustent, se parent, s’atiffent]

[303v] D’abord qu’elles27 apperceurent le chevalier avec son nain et sa pucelle,28 elles vinrent au devant de luy29 et le saluerent; mais personne ne dit mot au chevalier Eréc qui se promenoit dans le chateau30, tandis que l’autre s’establit a demeure, et qu’il fut aceuilli et hebergé. Eréc fut charmé d’imaginer qu’il ne pouroit luy échaper; il marcha quelques pas31 et vit un gentilhomme assis sur le perron d’une maison fort pauvre. Malgré sa vieillesse et la blancheur de ses cheveux, il avoit une belle phisionomie; il estoit seul et rêvoit. Le chevalier se flatta qu’il le recevroit chez luy. En effet d’abord qu’il fut entré dans sa cour, il courut à luy, luy fit offre de tout ce qu’il avoit. Eréc mit pied à terre, le gentilhomme appella sa femme et sa fille qui travailloient. La fille estoit belle, mais Povre estoit la robe defors, Mais de rose estoit beau li cors32.

(409–10)

La nature fut émerveillée plus de cent fois de l’avoir fait si belle. Quand elle 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32

Cadoualant, Gifles, Maugis: ces trois noms sont au cas sujet dans le manuscrit B (Cadoualanz, v. 315; Giflez, v. 317; Amaugins, v. 318). v. 338: metez c. baisier beaucoup de chevaliers: le manuscrit de S-P donne chevaux, mais il s’agit d’une mélecture de l’abréviation cheval’s au v. 349 (De chevaliers et de puceles). v. 360: s’atillent D’abord que: dès que (même emploi quelques lignes plus bas) pucelles: s final effacé elles vinrent au devant de luy: le pronom féminin doit avoir comme antécédent les demoiselles du f. 303r ou les dames du v. 360. Eréc qui se promenoit dans le chateau: pourtant, il est encore à cheval (cf. un peu plus loin: Eréc mit pied à terre); S-P aurait-il mal compris les vv. 368–9: Erec va sivant tot le pas / Par le chastel le chevalier? il marcha quelques pas: S-P utilise ailleurs aussi le verbe marcher pour quelqu’un qui est à cheval (cf. ff. 310r, 312v, 313v, 315v, 318r). Cf. v. 410: desoz e. beax li cors: erreur commentée dans l’Introduction, p. 95.

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apperceut le chevalier elle rougit, et le chevalier fut etonné de sa grande beauté. Et le vavassors33 li a dit: ‘Belle34 douce fille, prenez Cest cheval, et si le menez En cel estable avec les miens: Gardez que ne li faille riens Ostez li la sele et le frain.’ (450–5)

[304r] Enfin il luy donna35 des ordres comme a un palfrenier, et elle les exécuta de même. Quant elle eust rempli ce devoir, Cil li dist36: ‘Bele fille chiere, Prenez par la main cest seignor Se li portez molt grant honor.’ (470–2)

Elle obeit encore. La dame estoit avant montée Et la maison37 ot atornée: Coutres, porpaintes38 et tapiz Ot estendu desor les liz Ou il se sont assis tuit39 trei40.

(477–81)

Le gentilhomme n’avoit qu’un serjan ou valet qui preparoit le soupé. Quant ils eurent mangé, le chevalier Eréc s’entretint avec son hôte, dont il avoit beaucoup de choses a apprendre. Il luy dit d’abord: ‘Pourquoy une aussy belle fille que la vostre est elle41 si mal vêtuë?’ Il luy répondit: ‘Povretez fait mal a plusors Et autretel fait ele a moi42. (510–11)

Je suis fâché de la voir en cet estat, mais je ne suis pas en estat de la tenir autrement. J’ay esté toute ma vie à la guerre, j’ay perdu et engagé mon bien: ma fille eût été bien vetuë et rien ne luy auroit manqué si je l’avois voulu; le maistre de ce chateau43 est son oncle et lui auroit donné tous ses biens. Il n’y a point de baron si riche qu’il soit dans le païs qui ne l’eust epousée44, mais j’attens de meilleurs partis. [304v] Il n’y a ni roy ni comte 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

v. 450: li vavasors v. 451: Bele Il luy donna . . . de même: cf. les vv. 456–8 et 459–69 v. 470: dit v. 478: Qui la m. v. 479: porpointes Après tuit quelques lettres barrées. v. 481: troi est elle est v. 511: fait ele moi le maistre de ce chateau . . . lui auroit donné tous ses biens: ceci pourrait dénoter une mauvaise compréhension du v. 523: Et se li feïst toz ses buens. 44 epoousée

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Qui de ma fille eust honte (534) ............ Mout est belle45, mes46 plus assez Vaut ses savoirs que sa beautez. (537–8)

Enfin elle est tout mon plaisir et ma consolacion.’ Eréc lui demanda ensuite pour quelle raison il y avoit tant de monde au château. Le gentilhomme lui repondit que tout le monde et jeune et vieux s’estoit rassemblé pour la feste du lendemain: ‘On doit mettre, continua t il, un epervier sur une perche d’argent, et celuy qui le voudra avoir Avoir li convendra47 amie Bele et sage sanz vilenie. (571–2)

Et si quelque chevalier lui prouve par les armes que sa dame est préferable S’amie fera l’espervier48 Devant touz49 a la perche prendre. (576–7)

Cette feste se fait tous les ans dans ce château.’ Eréc lui demanda ensuite quel estoit le chevalier qu’il avoit suivi et qu’il luy désigna. Le gentilhomme lui répondit: ‘C’est cil qui aura l’espervier Sanz contredit de chevalier. (591–2)

Il l’a depuis deux ans et s’il le garde encore cette année il le conservera jusques à la mort50.’ ‘Il n’en est pas encore le maistre, repliqua Eréc, et si j’avois des armes l’epervier changeroit de maître.’ Le gentilhomme luy en offrit: elles furent acceptées a la réserve de son espée et [305r] de son cheval qu’il voulut conserver. Ensuite il lui demanda un don, si Dieu lui donnoit l’avantage du combat. Le gentilhomme le lui accorda. ‘C’est, reprit il, que l’epervier soit pour vostre fille. Alors, il lui dit, je veux vous apprendre quel hoste vous avez. Je suis fils d’un roy puissant; je suis de la cour du roy Artus, j’ay été trois ans avec luy, et je vous donne ma parole, si je gagne l’epervier, d’emmener vostre fille et de la couronner. S’iert royne de trois citez.’

(665)

A ce recit le gentilhomme lui demanda: ‘Eréc li filz Las51 estes vos?’

(667)

Il en convint et la joye de toute cette famille fut très grande. Ils se coucherent; au jour ils se leverent. Le gentilhomme et lui allerent à l’eglise 45 46 47 48

v. 537: bele mes en interligne au-dessus d’un mot (et?) barré. v. 571: covendra espervier: S-P alterne les graphies espervier (dans les citations) et epervier (dans son texte); une seule fois il écrit esprevier (f. 305v); le ms. B donne la forme abrégée vingt fois sur les vingt et une occurrences du mot, qui apparaît en toutes lettres sous la forme esprevier au v. 2390. 49 v. 577: d. touz; on ne saurait comment interpréter la leçon de S-P: d. toute. 50 il le conservera jusques à la mort: cf. v. 598 A toz jors mais deservi l’a. 51 v. 667: Lac

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Et firent de Saint Esprit52 Messe chanter a un hermite. Lor offrande n’oblient mie. (701–3)

Après la messe le chevalier impatient du combat vint au logis prendre ses armes. La pucelle53 meisme l’arme. (709) . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Son cheval, et l’an55 li amainne. Sus est sailliez de terre plaine56. (719–20) ............ ‘Beau57 sire, s’il vos plaist58, fait il, Faites vostre fille atorner. A l’espervier59 la vuil60 mener Si que61 vos m’avez covenant.’ (728–31)

On luy amena un palefroy bai, mais tres mal harnaché, la pauvreté ne permettant pas à ses [305v] parens62 de l’avoir en meilleur etat. Ils partirent avec le pere et la mere, et tout le monde estoit émerveillé de la beauté de l’une et de la fierté de l’autre. Ils arriverent auprés de l’esprevier. Le chevalier du chateau avoit entendu dire qu’il y en avoit un qui vouloit le lui disputer, mais il ne pouvoit se persuader que personne osast le combatre. Il vint donc avec son nain et sa damoiselle, à laquelle il dit de prendre un epervier que personne ne meritoit autant qu’elle. Elle s’approcha pour cet effet; mais Eréc courut l’en empêcher et lui dit63: ‘Damoisele, fait il, finez64, A autre oisel vos deduiez. (817–18)

Il convient mieux a une autre Plus belle65 assez et plus cortoise.’

(823)

Le chevalier du chateau répondit fort insolemment. Ils prirent du champ pour se battre, et le combat fut si vif qu’ils furent obligés de prendre 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

v. 701: esperite v. 709: pucele L’omission du v. 718 (Puis commande c’on li ameint) détruit le sens de la phrase, puisque Son cheval est le complément du verbe omis. v. 719: l’en v. 720: sailliz de t. plainne v. 728: Beax v. 728: plait espiervier Lecture douteuse (vuil ou vuit). v. 731: Si con à ses parens: l’adjectif possessif se rapporte bien entendu à Enide, mentionnée au v. 729. et lui dit: comme avant la citation du v. 289, le verbe dit est ici superflu, étant donné fait il du v. 817. Mélecture de fuiez: il pourrait s’agir d’une faute du ‘copiste’, collaborateur de S-P. v. 823: bele

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haleine. Pendant ce repos Eréc vit sa belle et se souvint de l’affront qu’il avoit receu, et de la reine Cui il ot dit en la gaudine (918)

qu’il la vangeroit. Ces idées redoublerent ses forces, et quoyqu’avec beaucoup de peine il fut vainqueur. Le chevalier lui demanda quartier, et quand il luy dit qu’il ne lui avoit jamais rien fait, Eréc lui reprocha l’aventure [306r] de son nain et lui ordonna d’aller dans le mesme equipage et sur le champ demander pardon a la reine Genievre, et luy dire que le chevalier Eréc arriveroit le lendemain et lui meneroit la plus belle fille qui fût sur la terre. Ydier, tout blessé qu’il estoit66, lui promit d’exécuter ses ordres. En effet il partit sur le champ, et la reine receut ses excuses et la soumission d’estre son prisonnier. Aprés que la reine se fut applaudie67 auprès du roy qui lui en seut gré du bon conseil qu’elle lui avoit donné de suspendre le combat68 jusques au retour d’Eréc, elle pardonna a Idier à condition qu’il seroit un des chevaliers de la cour du roy. Il accepta la proposition avec joye: on le desarma, on pensa ses blessures et il fut aceuilli de tout le monde. Cependant Eréc estoit plus content du succès de son combat La ou estant le fier Morshor69 En l’isle Saint Sanson vainqui70.

(1246–7)

Tout le monde homme et femme vint lui faire compliment. Le peuple s’empressa autour de lui. Le seigneur du chateau le pria avec les plus grandes instances d’accepter sa maison, mais il ne voulut point quitter celle du gentilhomme où il fut suivi pour lui faire honneur. Il dit à son beau pere que le lendemain il emmeneroit sa fille pour l’epouser, et que cependant il attendroit de ses nouvelles pour le faire venir dans son [306v] pays, où il luy donneroit deux beaux et bons châteaux, celuy de Rotelan Que fu fais71 dois le tens Adan (1332)

et l’autre qui ne vaut pas moins et qu’on appelle Mont Cassel72. ‘Je vous envoyeray, continua t il, de l’or, de l’argent et des etoffes.’ Ils partirent le lendemain; toute la compagnie les voulut accompagner, mais Eréc les pria de le laisser aller seul; il monta à cheval Et delez lui sa douce amie Qui l’espervier n’oblia mie. 66 67

68 69 70 71 72

Ydier, tout blessé qu’il estoit: S-P n’avait pourtant pas encore nommé le chevalier. s’applaudir au sens de ‘se féliciter’ est courant après le XVIIe s. selon le Robert Historique (cf. le Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, première édition, 1694, s.v. applaudir). suspendre le combat: il s’agit en réalité de suspendre la remise du baiser: lapsus de S-P? v. 1246: Tristanz le fier Morhot: erreur signalée dans l’Introduction, p. 96. v. 1247: veinqui v. 1332: Qui fu faiz Mont Cassel: Mont Revel au v. 1335; erreur signalée dans l’Introduction, p. 97.

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A son espervier se deporte, Nule autre richece n’enporte. (1437–40) ............ Au départir plore li pere Plore la pucelle et sa mere73. (1457–8)

Eréc estoit au comble de ses voeux, Molt74 estoit liez de s’aventure Qu’amie ot bele a desmesure, Sage, cortoise et debonaire, De l’esgarder ne pot po faire. Quant plus l’esgarde plus li plait, Ne puet muer que ne la bait. Volentiers prés de li se tait75 En li regarder se refait. (1479–86)

Enfin on peut dire qu’ils s’aimoient tous les deux et que Onques deux si beles images76 N’assembla loix ni77 mariages. (1511–12)

Ils arriverent sur le midi a Caradigan. Dès qu’on les apperceut, car tous les barons estoient [307r] aux fenetres, le roy et la reine accoururent avec Gauvain et plusieurs autres et vinrent tous au devant de lui. Le roy même descendit la pucelle de son palefroy; ils entrerent dans la grande sale ou Eréc dit à la reine: ‘Madame, je vous ai amené78 Ici une pucele et ma mie79. De povres vestemans80 garnie, (1551–2)

mais elle est fille d’honnestes gens; une de ses cousines81 lui vouloit donner de beaux habits, mais j’ay voulu que vous la vissiés dans l’estat où je la prenois.’ ‘Vous avés bien fait, reprit la reine: Droiz est que de mes robes ait, Et je li donrai bone et bele, Tot or endroit82, fresche et novele.’

(1580–2)

La description de l’habit qu’elle lui donna est assez etenduë et merite quelque curiosité pour la mode de ce tems, et prouve que les habillemens des femmes estoient fort composés83 et fort chers dès ce tems là; il est vray que c’est celui d’une reine. Cette parure ne fit qu’embellir la pucelle. Le 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

v. 1458: pucele et la mere v. 1479: Mout v. 1485: se trait, mais le mot est abrégé (tit avec une sorte de a au-dessus). v. 1511: .ij. si b. ymages v. 1512: N’asambla lois ne amenené v. 1551: ma pucele et m’amie v. 1552: vestemenz une de ses cousines: S-P n’avait pas mentionné ceci plus haut (cf. Introduction, p. 94). v. 1582: orendroit (en un mot) composées

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roy et tous les chevaliers de la Table ronde se leverent quand elle parut dans la salle et ne pouvoient se lasser de l’admirer. Voici la liste des bons chevaliers qui composoient alors la cour du roy Artus:84 Gauvain qui doit estre le 1er, Eréc li fils Lac le 2e, Lancelot du Lac le 3e, Gornemanz de Grohoht le 4e, le Beax Coharz le 5e, le 6e In li Laiz lydéz, Malianz du Liz le 7e, Mauduiz le Sage le 8e, Dodinez le Sauvage le 9e, Gandeluz le 10e. [307v] L’auteur nomme les autres sans les compter: Eslis-Briein, Yvain le fils d’Uriem, Yvains de Loeriel, Yvains l’Avoute, Yvains de Caveliot, Gorsoem de Lestiigot, Licors, Tristanz qui onques ne rist, Bleobleheriz, Brum de Picioz, Estore, Grus l’Iriez, Li Fezures d’armes, Karados Brin Bras, Caverrons de Rebedic, le fils du roy Quenedic, Hisoons du Mont Douloureux, Galeriez, li cuens d’Estraus, Maugins, Galez li Chaus, Grains, Gornevueil et Guerrees, Tors li fils le roy Ares, Giffles li filz , Loholz li fils le roy Artu, Sagremors li Desreez, Badoiers li conestable, Nebra avains, Nega le matins li galois, le fils du senechal, Gronoris, Nelabigodel li cortois, li cuens Cadorcamois, Letrons de Prepeladent85, Breons li fils Canodans, le Comte de Honolan Qui tant ot le chief bel et sor. Ce fu cil qui recut le cor Au roi plain de male aventure Qu’onques86 de verité n’ot cure. (1743–6)

La pucelle rougit et fut embarassée en voyant une si belle assemblée. Le roy la voyant dans cet estat la prit doucement par la main et la fit asseoir auprés de lui, et la reine lui dit: ‘Bien doit venir à cort de roy87 Qui par ses armes puet conquerre Si bele fame en autre terre. (1762–4)

Et je crois que vous pouvés prendre le baiser qui vous est dû pour avoir tué 84

Les noms d’un grand nombre de chevaliers ne sont pas fidèles au manuscrit. On se rapportera à l’édition Fritz vv. 1687–1746; v. 1693 li Laiz lydéz: In pourrait être le résultat d’une mélecture de fu (Li sistes fu li Laiz Hardiz); de même pour lydéz, mauvaise lecture de Hardiz, qui paraît sous forme abrégée dans le manuscrit B; v. 1694: Melianz; v. 1701: Esliz i fu avuec Briein; v. 1702: Yvains li filz Uriein; v. 1703: Loenel; v. 1704: l’Avoutre (Avoute dans B); v. 1705: Cavaliot; v. 1706: Gorsoein d’Estrangot; Licors est une erreur pour le chevalier li cor (v. 1707); v. 1710: Bleobleheris; v. 1711: Brun de Piciez; v. 1712: Estore doit être une mauvaise lecture de Estoit (ses freres Grus l’Iriez); v. 1713: Li Fevres d’Armes; v. 1715: Karados Bries Braz; S-P omet un vers, entre Le fils du roy Quenedic et Hisoons: Li vallez d’Escume Carroux (v. 1719); v. 1722: Amaugins; v. 1723: Gorneveins; v. 1724: Torz; v. 1725: Gifflez li filz due et Tauas; v. 1731: Bedoiers li conestables; v. 1733: Braavains; v. 1734: Galerantins li Galois; v. 1736: Gronosis; v. 1737: Labigodes li Cortois; v. 1738: Cadorcaniois; v. 1739: Prepelesent; v. 1741: Canodan. 85 Prepelasent (d en interligne) 86 v. 1746: Qui onques de verté 87 v. 1762: roi

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le cerf blanc [308r] sans qu’aucune88 le puisse disputer a cette belle.’ Alors le roy Artus fit un long discours à ses chevaliers pour savoir si aucun d’eux ne s’opposoit au choix qu’il faisoit. Il rapporte dans ce discours les devoirs des rois dans ce tems. Il cite l’exemple que lui a laissé son pere Pendragon. Tous conviennent qu’elle est la plus belle, et qu’il la peut baiser. Il la baise. Et si li dist: ‘Ma douce amie, Amor vos doing sans vilanie,89 Sanz mauvaistié90 et sanz folage, Vos amerai de bon corage.’ (1833–6)

Ainsi le roy restablit dans sa cour le baiser du blanc cerf91. Eréc, qui vouloit tenir sa parole, envoya des mulets chargez d’etoffes avec de l’or et de l’argent à son beau pere. Il chargea ceux qui les conduisoient de conduire le mari et la femme dans les estats du roy son pere qui leur donna les chateaux qu’il leur avoit promis en rente et en justice, et qui d’ailleurs les receut à merveilles. Cependant, Le atendres92 molt li grevoit, Ne vost plus ni tarder ni atendre93. Au roi en ala congié prendre Et a sa cort94 ne li grevast Ses noces faire li laissast95. (1914–18)

Le roy manda a tous ses chevaliers et à tous ceux qui relevoient de lui de se rendre à sa cour pour célébrer ce mariage, et leur indiqua la Pentecoste. L’enumération de tous ceux qui se rendirent aux ordres du roy est terrible, et fist grand plaisir [308v] à ce prince. Il fit des chevaliers et leur ordonna d’avoir des habits uniformes. Quand on fut au moment de faire le mariage, il fallut savoir le nom de la femme, car Eréc l’ignoroit encore, et l’on apprit que son nom de baptême estoit Enide. L’arcevesques de Cantorbere Qui a la cort venus96 estoit Les beney, si com il doit. (2028–30)

La joye et le tumulte des festes de ce tems est bien peinte: tous les musiciens du royaume y estoient venus; et le roi qui estoit genereux avoit ordonné a ses officiers de donner à boire et à manger tout ce que l’on demanderoit. La reine avoit tout arrangé pour le couché.

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

sans qu’aucune le puisse . . .: nuns (masc.) au v. 1768. v. 1834: M’amor, sanz vilenie v. 1835: mauvestie S-P ne fait aucune mention du ‘premerains vers’ (v. 1840). v. 1914: Li atendres v. 1915: plus tarder ne a. v. 1917: Que a sa cort v. 1918: lessast v. 2029: venuz

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Cerf chassiez97 qui de soif alainne [halete] Ne désirre tant la fontaine98, N’espervier ne vient au reclaim99 [appel ou leurre] Si volontiers quant il a faim,100 Ancois que ils101 s’entretenissent (2077–82)102 ............ Aprés le message des iaulz103 [yeux] Vint la douceur104 qui molt vaut miauz Des baisiers qu’amors atient105. Andui cele douceur essaient Et lors cuers dedans106 en aboivrent Si qu’a peines s’an107 dessoivrent. [séparent] De baisier fu li108 premiers jeus Et l’amors qui iert entre deus109 Fist la pucelle si hardie, De rien ne s’est acohardie; Tost soffri quanque li grevast:110 [309r] Ancois111 que ele se levast Ot perdu le nom de pucelle112, Au matin fu dame novele. (2091–2104)

Le lendemain les mariés reçurent une infinité de presents. Les noces durerent trois semaines,113 après lesquelles la cour fut separée, non sans convenir d’un tournoy dont le jour fut indiqué à un mois de là114. Ce fut Gauvain, Enore Danebroc115, Melis116 et Meliadoc qui en furent les tenans. Il fut magnifique et il s’y fist de beaux faits d’armes, car la place fut bien 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

v. 2077: chaciez (le manuscrit B donne bien Cerf au lieu de Cers) v. 2078: fontainne v. 2079: reclain (la nasale est abrégée), mais fain, au vers suivant, est écrit en toutes lettres. v. 2080: Si volentiers con (abrégé) il a fain v. 2082: Aincois que il Le v. 2081 manque (Que plus volentiers n’i venissent). v. 2091: iauz v. 2092: douceurs v. 2093: qui amors atraient (qui et atraient abrégés dans le manuscrit) v. 2095: lor c. dedanz v. 2096: Si que a poinnes s’en ci v. 2097: li v. 2098: entr’aux deus (entraux abrégé) v. 2101: Tot sosfri que que li grevast (le premier que abrégé) v. 2102: Aincois v. 2103: le non de pucele Cf. Ensinc les noces et la corz/ Durerent plus de xv. jorz (vv. 2115–16) Cf. Un mois apres la Pentecoste (v. 2131) Enore Danebroc: mélecture pour Entre Eüroc et D. (v. 2127). Cf. Introduction, p. 97. Melis: Meliz au v. 2128

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attaquée et bien deffenduë, mais Eréc y fit des merveilles; aussy estoit il accompli: Il sembloit Asalon de face Et de la langue Salemon. De fierté resembloit lyon Et de doner et de despendre117 Fu pareils le roy118 Alixandre. (2262–6)

Eréc pria le roy après le tournoi de lui permettre de mener sa femme dans son pays. Le roi y consentit, puisqu’il ne le pouvoit empêcher, d’autant qu’aprés son neveu Gauvain il n’avoit pas un meilleur chevalier. La reine leur donna la même permission, leur faisant tous les deux promettre de revenir le plustôt qu’ils le pourroient. Ils arriverent sans accident dans le chateau Ou li rois Lac iert119 a sejor. (2312)

On sonna les cloches, on tapissa les ruës, ils allerent à l’eglise faire leurs prieres ou Enide Comme dame bien enseignée120 De sa destre main s’est seingnée121.

(2379–80)

Le roi Lac les receut a merveilles. Tous les sujets leur firent des presens magnifiques. La liste [309v] en est longue, et les recits de ce qui les preceda ne sont pas moins longs. Si la joye de revoir Eréc fut grande dans le païs, celle de connoistre Enide le fut encore davantage, tant elle avoit de beautés, de vertus et d’agrémens. Cependant quoyqu’Eréc ne fit pas moins de presens a ses chevaliers et qu’il leur donnat des armes, des chevaux et tout ce qu’il falloit pour assister a tous les tournois, ils blamerent bientôt l’excès de l’amour qu’il avoit pour sa femme. Ancois estoit midy122 passez Sonant que de son lit levast. (2442–3)

Ils reprochoient a Enide d’avoir perdu la fleur de la chevalerie. Enide en fut très affligée, mais elle ne sçavoit comment temoigner cette peine à son mari. Un jour Bouche a bouche entre bras123 gisoient Come cil qui124 molt s’entr’aimoient125. 117 118 119 120 121 122

(2473–4)

v. 2265: despandre v. 2266: pareilz le roi v. 2312: iere v. 2379: seingnie v. 2380: enseingnie. S-P a interchangé l’ordre de ces deux vers. v. 2442: Aincois e. midi (Fritz corrige midi[s]); S-P essaie peut-être de corriger par Sonant la leçon erronée du manuscrit (où Aincois et Souant sont interchangés), leçon corrigée par Foerster (v. 2446 selon sa numérotation) et par Fritz. 123 v. 2473: braz 124 qui en interligne. 125 v. 2474: s’entramoient

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Elle laissa echaper en pleurant quelques mots qui temoignoient ses regrets. Elle croyoit Eréc endormi, il l’estoit à moitié; il exigea d’elle un aveu du sujet de ses larmes et l’explication des mots qui lui estoient echapés. Elle lui obeit. Eréc lui dit alors:126 ‘Levés vous, prenés vostre plus belle robbe; faites seller vostre meilleur palefroi.’ Elle se leva effrayée, pensant au bonheur dont elle jouissoit quelques momens auparavant. Eréc prit ses armes, envoya chercher sa femme, et lui demanda pourquoy elle le faisoit attendre. Sans oser rien dire elle le suivit. Le roy Lac et tous ses chevaliers [310r] coururent après lui et lui demanderent pour quelle raison il les abandonnoit.127 Ils l’assurent qu’ils vouloient le suivre, mais il jura qu’il ne meneroit que sa femme avec lui. Le pere redoubla inutilement ses instances; il le pria seulement d’avoir soin de sa femme en cas qu’il vint a mourir, et de lui donner la moitié de sa terre, ce qu’il lui promit, et ils s’eloignerent. Quand ils eurent marché quelque tems fort viste, Eréc dist à sa femme: ‘Gardés vous de me parler quelque chose que vous voyez. Allés devant, n’aiez nulle inquiétude, je vous suis, et je vous deffendrai128.’ Enide, bien affligée, croyant que son mari la haissoit puisqu’il luy deffendoit de luy parler, ne savoit encore si elle oseroit le regarder. Elle marchoit toujours occupée de ces tristes reflexions, quand un chevalier sortit d’un bois; il vivoit de ses vols, il avoit avec lui deux compagnons armés; il leur dit: ‘Voilà une dame ou une pucelle bien vêtuë129 et qui monte un beau cheval; je la veux130 pour moy, vous aurés le reste pour vous.’ Enide, voyant les trois voleurs venir à elle, dit: ‘Monseigneur ne les voit pas: irai je l’avertir? Ils sont trois contre lui. La partie n’est pas égale.’ Cette raison l’emporta. Elle vint à lui et lui dit: ‘Sire, voila trois hommes qui viennent sur vous.’ Eréc lui dit: ‘Quoy? Vous ne faites pas plus de cas de mes ordres. Je veux bien vous pardonner cette fois, mais n’y retournés pas une131 seconde.’ Alors il alla contre les chevaliers; il en tua deux, mit l’autre en fuitte, mais après l’avoir [310v] renversé. Il revint trouver Enide et lui ordonna de chasser devant elle les trois chevaux qu’il avoit pris, en lui disant de prendre bien garde à lui parler qu’il ne lui en donnast la permission. A peine ils avoient fait une lieuë qu’ils rencontrerent cinq autres chevaliers qui n’estoient pas plus honnestes gens que ceux dont il venoit de faire justice. Quand ils apperceurent la dame, le chevalier et les trois chevaux, ils se disputerent sur le butin, comme s’il leur avoit deja 126 127 128 129 130 131

Eréc lui dit alors: S-P ne mentionne pas la première réaction d’Erec, qui donne raison à sa femme: Dame, fait il, droit en eüstes (v. 2572). abandonnoient et je vous deffendrai: Erec dit Et chevauchiez tot a seür (v. 2771), ce qui n’est pas tout à fait la même idée. vêtuës veu un

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appartenu. Il y en eut un qui dit qu’il vouloit aller toujours combatre le chevalier. La frayeur engagea encore Enide a avertir son mari qui lui dit: ‘Je vois le cas que vous faites de mes ordres et de moi.’ Il se prepara au combat et tua quatre des chevaliers; un se sauva à pied, mais il prit les cinq chevaux; il les joignit aux trois autres, et lui ordonna de les conduire de la même façon, et de ne lui parler jamais. Quand la nuit fut venuë, il se coucha sous un arbre la teste sur son ecu, et dit a Enide de se coucher, comme il lui conviendroit; elle etendit son manteau et passa la nuit132 en tenant les huit chevaux par la bride. Elle se reprocha la sotise qu’elle avoit faite et elle admira la proüesse de son mari. Au point du jour il s’eveilla; ils monterent à cheval, luy derriere, elle devant. Sur le midy ils firent la rencontre d’un ecuyer et de quelques valets qui portoient des gasteaux, des fromages et du [311r] vin à ceux qui faisoient les foins du comte Galoain. L’ecuyer jugea qu’ils avoient passé une mauvaise nuit et qu’ils pourroient bien avoir besoin de manger, et vint leur offrir ce qu’il avoit, d’autant qu’ils estoient loing de tous secours. Ils accepterent ses offres. Il les servit avec politesse. Il descendit Enide de cheval, desarma le chevalier; ses valets tinrent les 8 chevaux; enfin ils prirent quelque repos et mangerent avec plaisir. Eréc dit à l’escuier de prendre celui des chevaux qui lui plairoit le plus pour reconnoitre sa politesse; il en prit un et se chargea d’aller lui faire preparer une des meilleures maisons aupres du chasteau. Il fit sa commission et vint l’avertir que tout estoit prest pour le recevoir. Quand l’escuyer les eut establis dans la maison qu’il leur avoit choisi, il revint dans le chateau. Le comte lui demanda où il avoit pris ce cheval; il lui dit qu’il estoit à luy, et que le plus beau chevalier du monde le lui avoit donné. ‘Il n’est pas plus beau que moi’, reprit le comte. ‘Vous estes beau, repliqua l’escuyer, mais il l’est mille fois davantage, et il est pour le moins aussi brave, car il a vaincu lui seul huit chevaliers dans la forest; il a une dame avec lui Plus bele c’onques nule fame La moitié de sa beauté n’ot.’ Quant li cuens ceste novele ot, (3242–4)

il voulut juger de la verité de ce recit. Il se fit conduire chez Eréc; il le receut poliment, mais refusa les offres qu’il lui fit de le prendre à ses [311v] gages. Il lui demanda la permission de parler à sa dame qui estoit assise si loin de lui qu’il ne pouvoit entendre leur conversation. Il la lui accorda, mais elle le traita fort mal quand il lui offrit son amour et tous ses biens. Il devint furieux de ses refus; il la menaça de la faire mettre dans un couvent133; il fit plus, il lui dit qu’il feroit tuer son mari devant ses yeux. Elle le conjura de ne pas commettre une semblable trahison. 132

C’est sur Erec qu’elle étend son manteau: Et la dame son mantel prent/ Sor lui de chief en chief l’estent, vv. 3093–4. 133 Cf. Introduction, pp. 95–6.

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‘Car je ferai vostre plesir. Por vostre me porroez134 tenir. Je sui vostre et estre le vuil. Ne vos ai rien dit par orguil, Mais por savoir et espier135 Si136 je pourroie en vos trover Que vos m’amessiez de bon cuer. (3361–7)

Depuis, ajouta t-elle, on pourroit m’accuser d’avoir part à cette trahison. Mais demain envoyez137 ceanz Vos chevaliers et vos138 serjanz, Si me faites à force prendre. Mes sire me voudra deffendre139 Qui mout est fiers et corageus. Ou soit a certes ou a geus, Faites le prendre ou afoler Ou de sa teste140 decoler. Trop ai menée ceste vie, Je n’ai mie la compagnie,141 Monseignor je ne quier mantir142. Je vos voudroie ja sentir En un lit certes nu a nu.’ (3383–95)

[312r] Le comte charmé la loua beaucoup de ses bons avis et du parti qu’elle prenoit; il lui donna toutes les assurances et lui fit toutes les protestations de service, dont elle receut sa foy. Mais tout ce qu’elle en faisoit n’avoit pour objet que de delivrer son seigneur du danger éminent143 où dans la verité il se trouvoit, car le comte estoit capable de tout. Il se leva et prit congé de tous les deux. On fit deux lits. Eréc se coucha; Enide ne put dormir tant elle estoit inquiete pour son mari. A minuit144 elle n’y put tenir, elle se leva et vint éveiller son mari, et lui dit: ‘Sire, levés vous et partons. Le comte va venir vous tuer. Il vous auroit trahi dès hier au soir si je ne lui avois fait esperer d’estre sa femme et sa mie.’ Eréc lui dit de faire 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144

v. 3362: porroiz v. 3365: esprover (abrégé, esp[ro]uer) v. 3366: Se v. 3383: envoiez v. 3384: Voz . . . voz v. 3386: desfendre v. 3390: Ou de la teste v. 3392: Je n’ain mie la compaignie (nai[n], [com]paignie) mantie; v. 3393: n’en q. mentir (abrégé m[en]tir) danger éminent: c’est plutôt imminent qui conviendrait dans le contexte. A minuit correspond à ce qu’on lit dans le manuscrit (v. 3457: Tant que la mie nuiz aprocha, hypermetrique +1), bien que cette idée s’accorde mal avec le v. 3435 (De la nuit fu grant masse alee), à moins d’attribuer au mot nuit le sens plus limité des heures qui précèdent minuit.

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accomoder les chevaux et de faire venir son hoste, auquel il donna les 7 chevaux pour la despense qu’il avoit faite chez luy. Ils monterent à cheval et s’en allerent. A peine estoient145 ils sortis que le comte arriva avec ses chevaliers et ses valets. Il devint d’autant plus furieux qu’il reconnut que la dame l’avoit trompé. Il demanda le chemin qu’ils avoient pris et les suivit en jurant de ne faire aucun quartier à Eréc. Enide les entendit de loin et s’estant retournée elle fut allarmée de leur nombre. Elle ne put s’empescher de dire a Eréc: ‘Entrons vite dans la forest, vous pourrez leur échapper, ou146 vous estes perdu.’ Eréc la reprit encore plus fort d’avoir osé luy parler. Il se mit en défence, il tua le senechal du comte, il renversa et blessa le comte luy même [312v] qui, frappé de la mauvaise action qu’il avoit faite, empêcha ses gens d’aller attaquer Eréc. Il se fit porter chez lui, et sa blessure ne s’en trouva pas mortelle. Eréc et Enide continuerent leur chemin jusques à un pont qu’ils passerent. Il estoit deffendu par une tour elevée et environnée de murailles. Quelque temps apres Enide vit un chevalier armé dont le cheval estoit fier et terrible. Enide, qui s’apperçut qu’Eréc alloit estre attaqué et surpris car il pensoit à autre chose, balança longtems, mais enfin elle l’avertit, et il n’eut pas beaucoup de temps pour la gronder. Le combat fut terrible. Il dura six heures; enfin Eréc fit convenir son ennemi qu’il estoit vaincu. Il lui dit qu’il se nommoit Guivre le Petit. En effet il n’estoit pas grand. Il se comterent leurs dignités, car il estoit roi aussi. Ils s’embrasserent, se promirent une éternelle amitié et se séparerent. La douleur d’Enide pendant ce long combat est difficile a concevoir. Guivre retourna d’ou il estoit venu. Eréc continua son chemin, et malgré le besoin qu’il avoit de faire penser ses blessures, il marcha jusques à une forest remplie de toutes sortes de gibier, où le roy Artus et la reine Genievre estoient venus passer trois ou 4 jours avec leurs meilleurs barons; par consequent ils avoient leurs tentes et leurs pavillons. Messire Gauvain, fatigué d’avoir monté a cheval, avoit attaché à un charme hors de sa tente son ecu [313r] à ses armes, sa lance et son cheval Gringalez. Kex le senechal passa et pour badiner prit ces armes et monta sur le cheval et s’en allerent147 grand galop. Le hazard lui fit rencontrer Eréc qui reconnut aisement le senechal, les armes et le cheval, mais il n’estoit pas aussi aisé de le reconnoistre; car ses armes n’avoient point de remarque, et elles estoient infiniment delabrées par les coups d’epée et de lance. De plus Enide, qui ne voulut pas estre connuë, avoit mis sa guimpe sur son visage. Kex saisit la bride du cheval d’Eréc, et lui dit: ‘Chevalier, vous estes blessé, vous avez besoin de repos et de secours. Venés, je vous mennerai aux tentes de la reine Genievre, vous serez bien receu.’ Eréc dit 145 146 147

estoit (-en- est ajouté en interligne). et Le verbe au pluriel pourrait renvoyer à Kex et le cheval.

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qu’il avoit affaire ailleurs, qu’il ne vouloit pas y aller. La dispute s’echauffa, ils se battirent. Eréc renversa Kex et voulut prendre le cheval, mais il le lui rendit lorsqu’il lui dit qu’il appartenoit à Gauvain. Kex partit et rendit compte au roy de ce qui venoit de lui arriver. Le roy, curieux de voir un si bon chevalier, pria Gauvain qui estoit adroit148 d’aller l’engager à le venir trouver. Gauvain partit et le joignit, mais, voyant qu’il ne pouvoit rien obtenir, il envoya dire au roy de faire porter ses tentes à un endroit de la forest qu’il lui indiqua et par lequel il avoit dessein de faire passer le chevalier. Cet expedient réussit; et quant Eréc vit les tentes devant lui, il avoüa qui il estoit a Gauvain, et s’embrasserent. Gauvain [313v] trouva Enide bien pasle et bien abbatue.149 Il envoya dire au roy et à la reine les noms de ceux qu’il leur menoit. Li rois de joie saut en piez (4193)

et dit que rien ne luy pouvoit faire plus de plaisir. Il sortit de sa tente les embrasser, la reine en fit autant: on desarma le chevalier, on pensa ses blessures, dont la grandeur les affligea. Le roy envoya chercher un remede que sa soeur Morgue lui avoit donné et qui guérissoit toutes les playes en huit jours. On en fit usage, et le roy dit qu’il vouloit demeurer 15 jours dans la forest pour luy donner le temps de se remettre. Il le conduisit avec Enide150 dans le lieu qu’il leur avoit destiné; mais Eréc l’assura que, tout pénétré qu’il estoit de ses bontez, rien ne pouvoit le faire demeurer et le détourner du chemin qu’il avoit entrepris. Le roy voulut que Eréc couchât seul malgré le grand nombre de chevaliers qu’il avoit avec lui, dans la crainte qu’on151 ne l’incommodât et qu’on ne touchast ses blessures. Enide coucha avec la reine. Au point du jour Eréc se leva, prit ses armes, demanda son cheval152 et voulut absolument partir, malgré les instances du roy et de tous les chevaliers. Après avoir marché quelque tems avec Enide sans proferer une parole, ils entrerent dans une forest, et sur le soir153 il entendit les cris d’une femme qui demandoit du secours. Il [314r] appella Enide et lui dit: ‘Je vais secourir la femme dont vous entendés les cris; mettés pied à terre et m’attendés ici.’ Elle lui obeit. Quand il eut joint la pucelle, il la trouva qui déchiroit ses habits, qui arrachoit ses cheveux, et qui le pria de secourir son ami, que deux geans felons et cruels venoient d’enlever pour le faire perir. ‘Ils ne sont pas encore loin’, dit elle. Elle luy montra le chemin qu’ils avoient pris. Il l’assura, en la quittant et en lui disant de l’attendre en 148 149 150 151 152 153

à droit Cette observation se rapporte à Erec (vv. 4176–9), et c’est à Enide que Gauvain adresse cette remarque (erreur signalée dans l’Introduction, p. 96). Erine Après qu’on deux lettres barrées. demanda son cheval en interligne. Cette indication de l’heure ne semble pas s’accorder avec ce qu’on lit dans le roman (Jusque vers prime, v. 4303).

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cet endroit, qu’il alloit faire tout ce qui dependroit de lui pour lui rendre son ami.154 Il fit une si grande diligence qu’il joignit les geans avant qu’ils fussent hors du bois. Il vit le chevalier nu sur un roussin, les bras liés comme un voleur. Les geans n’avoient point d’armes, ils portoient seulement des massues et des batons avec lesquels ils frapoient le chevalier, dont le sang couloit de tous les cotez. Touché d’un tel spectacle, il les pria inutilement de lui remettre ce chevalier. Les geans luy répondirent avec assez de mépris. Il donna un coup de lance dans l’oeil de l’un et le renversa; l’autre luy porta un coup de massue terrible, et quoyqu’il en fut155 étourdi, il ne le tua pas moins. Le chevalier pleurant de joye remercia Dieu et son liberateur, et l’assura qu’il seroit toute sa vie à ses ordres et qu’il le suivroit toujours. Eréc lui dit qu’il estoit venu le secourir à la priere de sa mie qu’il avoit trouvée au desespoir, et il ajouta qu’il ne le suivroit point, parce qu’il vouloit estre [314v] seul. Il lui demanda son nom et il lui dit qu’il se nommoit Cadoc de Tabriol. Il voulut connoitre à son tour156 celuy a qui il avoit tant d’obligation. Eréc ne voulut pas l’en instruire. Il lui dit seulement d’aller faire ses compliments et conter ce qui s’estoit passé au roy Artus qui chassoit dans la forest a quelques lieues de là. Cadoc le lui promit. Ils vinrent ensemble rejoindre la pucelle. Elle temoigna sa reconnoissance a Eréc, qui les quitta, tandis qu’ils allerent faire leur commission au roy et a la reine. Eréc revint en grande diligence retrouver Enide: son retour lui fit grand plaisir, mais elle ne se douta point de l’estat où il estoit, ni de la douleur qu’il souffroit. Elle fut si forte que, quelques momens après, la perte de son sang le fit tomber évanoui de son cheval. Enide ne douta point de sa mort. Sans secours, elle sentit toute l’horreur de son estat, elle se reprocha d’avoir causé le malheur de son mari, et quel mari! Ne pouvant résister à de si grandes douleurs, elle prit l’epée de son mari pour se tuer, ce qu’elle auroit fait sans un comte qui avoit entendu ses cris, et qui l’en empêcha avec ceux qui le suivoient. Il lui demanda S’ele estoit sa fame ou sa mie. ‘L’une et l’autre157, fet ele, sire.’

(4682–3)

Il la consola un peu brusquement et luy [315r] proposa de l’epouser. Enide lui repondit convenablement à sa situation et à ses sentimens. Le comte dit à ses gens: ‘Faisons une biere et 158 emportons le chevalier dans mon chateau de Limorz qui n’est pas éloigné, et puis j’épouserai la dame dont la beauté ne peut être plus grande.’ Ils couperent des branches, firent un brancard qu’ils mirent sur deux chevaux. Enide suivoit ce triste convoi 154 155 156 157 158

amant corrigé en ami. quoy qu’il n’ (gommé) en fut qu’ (effacé). tour en interligne. v. 4683: L’un et l’autre La première partie de la ligne est blanche.

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s’evanouissant à chaque moment. Ils arriverent à Limors; on mit le cors du chevalier sous un dais.159 Toutes les dames, chevaliers et bourgeois accoururent, et le comte leur dit qu’il vouloit épouser cette dame. ‘Vos poez bien apercevoir A ce qu’elle est et bele et sage Qu’ele est de molt gentil lignage. Sa beauté mostre sa franchise.160 (4748–51)

Je lui donnerai la moitié de ma terre pour doüaire S’ele veut161 ma volenté faire.’

(4760)

Le chapelain arriva; on conduisit Enide malgré toutes les difficultez qu’elle fit: elle eut beau faire, on la maria. On prepara le soupé, mais Enide ne pouvoit se consoler; son nouveau mari n’en put rien obtenir; elle jura qu’elle ne boiroit ni ne mangeroit qu’avec son ancien mari. Le comte impatienté la battit. Elle lui répondit que tous ses mauvais traitemens estoient inutiles et qu’il ne la feroit point changer. Il la battit encore, elle cria. Ses [315v] cris rappellerent Eréc à la vie; il fut très étonné de se trouver dans une telle situation, environné de gens inconnus. La colere et l’amour lui donnerent des forces; il prit son epée et courut du costé de sa femme et fendit la teste du comte. Tous ceux qui estoient à table épouvantés crurent que c’étoit le diable et prirent la fuite. Leur peur est assez bien decrite. Enide prit la lance, personne n’osa seulement les regarder. Eréc selle son cheval,162 monte dessus, prend Enide devant lui et ne trouve aucune163 opposition à son passage. Eréc tient sa femme devant lui, il la baise et la caresse, et l’assure que son coeur est toujours à elle, qu’il n’avoit jamais cessé de l’aimer, mais qu’il avoit voulu l’éprouver, et qu’il estoit suffisamment persuadé de son amour. Le bruit se repandit de la mort d’un chevalier; toutes les circonstances qu’on en rapportoit frapperent Guivre le Petit et, comme il avoit aussy entendu dire que le comte Oringlas164 vouloit épouser malgré elle la belle dame qui estoit avec lui, il assembla mille chevaliers pour deffendre la dame, bruler le chateau et faire enterrer celui à qui il avoit accordé son amitié. Ils marchoient dans ce dessein, et la lune estant fort claire Eréc les aperceut. Il ne douta pas qu’ils ne fussent poursuivis [316r] par les gens du comte. Il fit descendre Enide de 159

160

161 162 163 164

Dans le roman en vers on le met sor un dais (v. 4738), ce qui correspond bien au sens de dais (table) en a.fr. Sans doute, S-P interprète-t-il le mot au sens moderne, de baldaquin. v. 4751: Sa beautez mostre et sa franchise. La citation de S-P, qui laisse tomber la conjonction et, modifie profondément le sens des trois vers de Chrétien: Sa beautez mostre et sa franchise/ Qu’en li seroit bien l’onor mise/ Ou d’un roiaume ou d’un empire (vv. 4751–3). v. 4760: vuet En réalité le cheval est déjà sellé (cf. v. 4893). aucun Oringlas: Oringles au v. 4943.

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son cheval et la pria d’attendre que les chevaliers fussent passez, et ne sachant trop quel estoit leur dessein, il lui dit de se cacher. Cependant, un nuage aiant obscurci la lune, Guivres ne put reconnoitre son ami, mais l’apperceut derriere la haye.165 Eréc ne refusa pas le combat, tout inégal qu’il estoit, par ses blessures; aussi Guivres le renversa t il fort aisément. Enide accourut et prit Guivre par la bride de son cheval et lui dit: ‘Chevalier, n’as tu pas de honte d’attaquer un chevalier percé de coups?’ Guivres loua son amour, la rassura et lui demanda seulement le nom du166 chevalier. Quand elle l’eut nommé, il mit pied a terre, courut le secourir et conta le sujet de son voyage. Eréc receut ses excuses, lui pardonna et lui conta ce qui lui estoit arrivé. Guivres lui proposa d’aller le lendemain dans un chateau voisin, où il pouvoit se reposer. On mit en oeuvre les deux chirurgiens167 qu’il avoit avec lui, mais Enide lava elle même les blessures de son mari. On dressa les tentes, on soupa, et le lendemain au jour ils partirent après avoir monté Eréc sur une mule.168 Ils arriverent dans le chateau, où il fut si bien soigné et si bien traitté qu’il reprit ses forces. Ensemble gisent chaque169 nuit Et si un l’autre170 acole et baise. [316v] N’est rien nule qui tant lor plaise Tant ont eu mal et ennui Il por li et ele por lui. (5240–4)

Eréc voulut partir et prendre congé de son ami, disant qu’il vouloit aller chez lui, mais que toute sa vie il seroit occupé à chercher l’occasion de reconnoitre le service qu’il lui avoit rendu. Il ajouta qu’il vouloit aussi revenir promptement à la cour du roy Artu Ou a Rohais ou a Carduil. (5274)

Guivre lui dit qu’il vouloit l’accompagner et le suivre à cette cour. Ils donnerent leurs ordres et partirent le lendemain. Ils avoient fait plus de trente lieuës quand ils arriverent auprès d’un fort beau chateau. Eréc demanda à Guivre à qui il appartenoit. ‘Il se nomme Bradiganz171. Il n’y en a point de plus beau ni de plus fort, car l’Isle formée par l’eau profonde que vous voyez et qui fait un si grand bruit forme un terrain de plus de six lieuës172, qui produit tout ce qui est necessaire a la vie. Ainsi l’on ne peut

165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172

Il n’est pas clair qu’Erec se trouve, lui aussi, derrière la haie (cf. vv. 4968–91). de les deux chirurgiens (cf. vv. 5103–5): erreur commentée dans l’Introduction, p. 96. monté Erec sur une mule (cf. v. 5168): erreur signalée dans l’Introduction, p. 96. v. 5240: chasque v. 5241: Et li uns (abrégé li .i.) l’autre Brandiganz au v. 5381 (la première nasale est abrégée) .iiij. luies au v. 5388

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l’affamer173 ni l’attaquer par aucun endroit. C’est le roy Evrains174 qui l’a fait achever,175 non pour le rendre plus fort, car le terrain suffit seul pour sa deffense.’ Eréc lui proposa de l’aller voir et d’y loger. ‘Nous n’irons assurement pas, luy répondit Guivres, nous serions trop assurés de perir. [317r] J’en entens parler depuis longtems, poursuivit il, il est venu des chevaliers de tous les coins du monde pour eprouver cette avanture, malgré leur force et leur courage aucun n’en est revenu.’ La curiosité d’Eréc augmenta. Guivre le Petit la satisfit ainsi: ‘La joye176 de la cort a non. (5457)

Jamais aucun chevalier n’en est sorti vivant. Vous pouvez y loger, car le roy Evrain177 reçoit très bien tous les chevaliers; il a même deffendu à tous ses habitans de leur donner retraite pour les obliger à venir chez lui.’ Ils allerent donc au chateau et, quand ils eurent passé le pont, tout le monde, hommes et femmes, s’arrêtoit dans les ruës; voiant Eréc si beau ils pleuroient, quittoient leurs chants178 et disoient: ‘Il va a la joye de la cour, Demain morras sans attendue179.’

(5516)

Eréc entendit tous ces discours et plusieurs autres semblables, mais ils ne furent pas capables de le détourner. Cependant le roy Eurain ayant appris qu’une grande compagnie arrivoit à sa cour, il vint au devant d’eux dans la ruë les remercier. Il courut descendre Enide de son cheval; en un mot ils furent bien receus et bien logéz. A la fin du soupé qui fut excellent, Eréc qui ne perdoit point son objet de veuë dit au roi: ‘La joie de la cort demans180.’

(5596)

Plus le bon roy fit ses efforts pour l’en détourner et l’assurer qu’il y periroit, moins Eréc [317v] voulut s’en départir. Eurain finit par l’assurer qu’il seroit satisfait, qu’il avoit du l’avertir, qu’il lui souhaitoit un bonheur qu’il n’esperoit pas et dont le succès combleroit d’honneur celui qui en viendroit à bout, et dont jamais homme n’avoit joui. Ils allerent se coucher, Enide passa la nuit dans la plus grande agitation. Le jour trouva Eréc plus déterminé encore que la veille. Le roy lui envoya des armes qu’il accepta avec d’autant plus de joye que les siennes estoient usées. Il s’arma, descendit pour prendre son cheval qu’il trouva tout prêt, et généralement tout le monde qui pleuroit sa mort à grands cris. Mais Eréc estoit si tranquille et si assuré qu’il ne sembloit pas que l’on fût occupé de lui. Le 173 174 175

176 177 178 179 180

l’attaquer corrigé en: l’affamer Eerains C’est le roy Evrains qui l’a fait achever: il s’agit d’une mélecture de Li rois Evrains le fist fermer (v. 5396); le dernier mot est abrégé, fmer avec une sorte d’apostrophe au-dessus de la lettre m, S-P a dû lire finer. v. 5457: joie Eerain Après chants une lettre (d) barrée v. 5516: sanz atendue v. 5596: demant

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roy le conduisit hors du château et dans un verger voisin; il n’estoit fermé par aucune espece de cloture, mais par enchantement il n’y pouvoit rien entrer que par l’air, c’est a dire en volant; pendant toute l’année il y avoit des fleurs et des fruits. Il y avoit du danger181 à vouloir en emporter, car jamais on ne revenoit a la porte, et l’on ne pouvoit sortir du verger, si on ne replacoit le fruit. Le verger estoit rempli de toutes les especes d’oiseaux dont le chant estoit le plus agréable. Toutes les herbes et les plantes médicinales s’y [318r] trouvoient en abondance. Le roy Eurain marchoit à ses côtés, quand il apperceut un spectacle frappant: ce fut une grande quantité de perches qui portoient chacune une teste de chevalier, parmi lesquelles il reconnut Thiebauz l’Esclavon, Opiniau, Fernagus.182 Il y avoit une perche vuide qui ne portoit qu’un cor, et le roy lui dit: ‘Elle attend la teste du premier qui viendra: je crains bien que ce ne soit la vostre. Je n’ay rien negligé pour vous avertir: au reste on dresse une nouvelle perche aussitost que la derniere est remplie, on y rattache le cor que je n’ay jamais entendu sonner. Celuy qui le pouroit faire acquerroit un grand honneur.’ Aprés ces mots le roy Eurain le quitta et il embrassa Enide qui estoit si affligée qu’elle ne pouvoit parler; il la rassura par une confiance d’autant plus noble qu’elle estoit sans orgueil. Il suivit seul un sentier et vit un lit d’argent sur lequel une pucelle d’une beauté ravissante estoit assise. Comme il en approchoit un tres grand chevalier183 parut avec des armes vermeilles qui le menaça. Le combat fut des plus terribles, aussy la description en est des plus longues. Eréc le force184 a lui demander quartier et l’oblige à lui conter tout ce qu’il savoit du verger et pour quelle raison il y faisoit sa demeure. Il y consentit, d’autant plus qu’Eréc lui apprit son nom, et [318v] que le chevalier avant d’estre armé avoit demeuré à la cour du roi son pere185. ‘Cette pucelle que vous voyez sur ce lit m’aima dès l’enfance, et j’ai eu pour elle les mêmes sentimens. Elle me demanda un don sans me le désigner, et vous savez qu’on accorde tout à ce qu’on aime. Je l’accordai donc. Le roy Eurains me fit chevalier, et la demoiselle me dit que le don que je lui avois accordé consistoit a demeurer dans le verger jusques à ce qu’un chevalier m’eut vaincu. Elle croyoit que jamais il ne s’en trouveroit de plus fort que moi, et que c’estoit un moyen assuré pour vivre tousjours 181

182

183 184 185

Il y avoit du danger: S-P a dû comprendre mal le v. 5742, Au porter en fesoit dangier, sans doute parce que le texte du manuscrit B est ici erroné. Foerster imprime Au porter fors, et Fritz, qui suit le manuscrit B, corrige son texte ainsi et traduit ‘interdiction était faite de les porter au dehors’. Erec ne reconnaît pas ces têtes (cf. vv. 5766–71); ces noms de héros sont évoqués à titre de comparaison. Les formes citées par S-P constituent un mélange de cas sujet et de cas régime, tandis que tous les noms sont au cas sujet chez Chrétien: Thiebauz li Esclavons, Opiniax, Fernaguz (vv. 5570–1). Un mot sur la ligne et un mot en interligne, tous les deux barrés. Après le force, et l’oblige (mots barrés). à la cour de son pere: de est corrigé en du, et roi est en interligne.

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tranquilles sans estre separés, et vous avez pu voir <en> entrant combien de chevaliers j’ay vaincu. Voilà la verité, mais vous avez acquis un grand honneur, et la joye que vous allés causer a la cour de mon oncle et a mes amis, en me voyant degagé de ce lieu, est infinie. Ils attendoient cette joye depuis longtemps, et c’est ce qui lui a donné le nom que vous avez appris. Quant à moy, je m’appelle Mabonagrains, et je dois vous dire encore qu’il y a un cor placé dans le jardin et que vous n’en pourrez sortir sans l’avoir sonné, et c’est alors que commencera la joye tant attenduë.’ Eréc alla promptement le sonner de toute sa force. Tous ceux qui [319r] l’entendirent éprouverent une joye vive, principalement Enide et Guivre le Petit. Le peuple accourut en chantant. Toute la cour chantoit et on fit un Laiz qui s’appeloit le Laiz de la Joye.186 Il n’y eut de triste que la dame qui estoit seule sur le lit d’argent, et que tout le monde alloit voir par curiosité. Enide en approcha comme les autres, mais avec modestie pour la consoler; elles se reconnurent avec grande satisfaction pour estre cousines, elles se conterent leurs aventures, et leur joye augmenta celle de tous les autres. Ils sortirent tous du verger et l’assemblée des barons fut grande chez le roi Eurain, ainsi que la foule du peuple, car tout le monde vouloit voir Eréc. Il consentit à demeurer trois jours dans cette joye, au milieu des vielles, des harpes etc. Mais le 4e jour il voulut partir. Ils dirent adieu, embrasserent: Departis187 sont, la joie fine. (6402)

Eréc et Guievres firent une si grande diligence que le 8e jour188 ils arriverent à Rohais189, où le roy Artu s’estoit fait saigner. Jamais sa cour n’avoit esté si déserte, car il n’avoit que cinq chevaliers avec lui190 et il en estoit fort fâché. Il fut charmé d’apprendre que Guivres le venoit voir. Il envoye avertir la reine. L’auteur décrit le mouvement de la cour et des domestiques comme celui de la maison d’un particulier, tant les moeurs estoient simples. Le bon roy Artus et la reine [319v] Genievre embrassent191 Eréc et Enide, leur font conter leurs aventures et ce récit donne192 un pretexte pour la recapitulation du roman. Eréc et Guivres promirent au roy de demeurer quatre, cinq ans à sa cour; pendant cet intervale, Eréc estant a Tintaieus193 apprit la mort du roy son pere. Il en fut touché, 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193

un Laiz . . . le Laiz de la Joye: S.-P. emploie le cas sujet (dans le manuscrit la graphie lait se lit aux vers 6179 et 6180, laiz au v. 6181). v. 6402: Departi jours Roais au v. 6406 Le chiffre du manuscrit B est cinq cents (Ensamble o lui tant seulement/ .V..c. barons de sa maison, vv. 6410–11). embrasserent corrigé en embrassent donna corrigé en donne Tintaieul au v. 6510

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Mais duelx de roi n’est mie gens,194 N’a roi n’avient qu’il face dues195. (6518–19)

[deuil]

Il fit chanter des vigiles et des messes, il fit des dons aux eglises, il habilla plus de 149 pauvres: A povres clerz as prouvoires196 Dona, que droiz fu, chapes noires Et chaudes pelices dessoz197. (6529–31)

Ensuite il pria le roy Artus de le couronner dans sa cour. Il lui promit de faire cette ceremonie pour lui et sa femme a la nativité qui estoit prochaine, et lui dit qu’il vouloit aller a Nantes a Bretaigne pour cette ceremonie. ‘La porteroiz real ençaigne198, Corone ou chief et ceptre ou poing. Cest don et ceste honor vous doing199.’

(6546–8)

Eréc remercia le roi de ces faveurs. Rien n’egala la magnificence du roy Artus; il avoit fait avertir tous ses barons, il fit plus de quatre cens chevaliers, Toz filz de comtes200 et de rois, Chevaux201 donna à chacun trois Et robes à chascun deux pairz202.

(6655–7)

Le nombre des beaux habits et des manteaux [320r] qu’il distribua fut infini. En mi la cort sor un tapit Ot trente muis d’esterlins blans, Car lors avoient à cel tens Correu dès les tens Merlin Par toute Bretaigne esterlin.203 (6682–6)

Et tous ceux qui voulurent en emporter le firent. Le pere et la mere d’Enide avoient été des premiers avertis et l’on servit plus de cinq cens tables.204 Explicit.205 6892 vers206 194 195 196

197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206

v. 6518: genz v. 6519: duel v. 6529: A povres clerz et as prevoires (le manuscrit est fautif au début du vers, A devrait être As); le dernier mot est abrégé: Foerster (v. 6537) imprime provoires, Fritz prevoires. v. 6531: desoz v. 6546: ensaigne v. 6548: vos d. v. 6655: contes (abrégé, cotes avec marque de nasale) v. 6656: Chevax dona a chascun pairz est corrigé dans le manuscrit sur paire (cf. v. 6657). A côté de la citation, on lit le renvoi ‘Voy le Ms du Roy nE7518/2, f. 27v col. 3’ (cote actuelle B.n.F. fr. 1420, ms. E). Dans B on lit .V..c. tables i ot sanz plus (v. 6914). A côté de Explicit, dans la colonne de droite: ‘Voy le Ms du Roy 7518/2 f. 28v col. 2’. Le compte de S-P est exact (cf. éd. Fritz, p. 17).

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‘TALKYNG OF CRONYCLES OF KINGES . . .’ RALUCA RADULESCU

IV

‘TALKYNG OF CRONYCLES OF KINGES AND OF OTHER POLYCYEZ’: FIFTEENTH-CENTURY MISCELLANIES, THE BRUT AND THE READERSHIP OF LE MORTE DARTHUR Raluca Radulescu King Edward IV’s Black Book and the Ordinances of 1478 describes the type of activities that the squires of the court engaged in: Thes esquires of housold of old be acustomed, wynter and somer, in after nonys and in euenynges, to drawe to lordez chambrez within courte, there to kepe honest company aftyr theyre cunyng, in talkyng of cronycles of kinges and of other polycyez, or in pypyng, or harpyng, synging, other actez marciablez, to help ocupy the court and acompany straungers, tyll the tym require of departing.1

This passage displays the typical activities of the squires and knights attending the court; activities like listening and talking ‘of cronycles of kinges and of other polycyez’ ensured a constant exchange of ideas related to history and to the national past, as well as to contemporary political events. Another reading matter for squires and knights was chivalry, as William Caxton implies in his preface to Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. Caxton explains that ‘many noble and dyvers gentylmen’ asked him to ‘sette [the story of King Arthur] in enprynte’ to the entente that noble men may see and lerne the noble actes of chyvalrye, the jentyl and vertuous dedes that somme knyghtes used in tho dayes, by whyche they came to honour, and how they that were vycious were

1

The Household of Edward IV: the Black Book and the Ordinances of 1478, ed. A. R. Myers (Manchester, 1959), p. 129 (my italics).

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punysshed and ofte put to shame and rebuke; humbly bysechyng al noble lordes and ladyes wyth al other estates, of what estate or degree hey been of, that shal see and rede in this sayd book and werke, that they take the good and honest actes in their remembraunce, and to folowe the same; wherein they shalle fynde many joyous and playsaunt hystoryes and noble and renomed actes of humanyté, gentylnesse, and chyvalryes. For herein may be seen noble chyvalrye, curtosye, humanyté, frendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, and synne.2

In addressing his audience Caxton refers not only to ‘al noble lordes and ladyes’ as a distinct social group, but also to a larger community, whom he envisages as readers of his edition of the Morte Darthur, people of ‘al other estates, of what estate or degree hey ben of’. Among these social estates were the gentry and the merchants who possessed and were interested in historical and chivalric books. In the present article I will attempt to show how the varied reading material enjoyed by such people, especially the Brut chronicle, may have influenced Malory’s adaptation of the Arthurian story in order to please the tastes of this type of audience. Chronicles and chivalric tracts were part both of the education and the pastime of ‘jentylmen’ at the court; in the households of the gentry the same tracts were also ‘consumed’. At the end of the translation into English of Vegetius’s De re militari, a popular chivalric tract for both fifteenthcentury nobility and gentry, the purpose of the translation is stated to be ‘to grete disporte & daliaunce of lordis and all woorthy werriours that be passid all laboure and trauaile and to grete informacion & lernynge of yonge lordes & knyghtes that ben lusty and loue to hire & see and to vse dedis of armes & chiualrye.’3 This ending is found in Sir John Paston’s miscellany, known as his ‘Grete Boke’, where De re militari appears on fols. 84r–138r; this is the first English translation of the tract, the variant form dating from 1408. These words reveal the ideas associated with chivalry in the fifteenth century, and the set of expectations that accompanied it in practice. Knights were expected to be ‘woorthy werriours’, who passed on their wisdom and experience to the ‘yonge lordes & knyghtes that ben lusty’. Fifteenth-century members of the gentry like Sir John Paston had the privilege of mixing socially in the circles of the court, where they acquired new tastes as well as friends in high positions. Other members of the gentry, who were not always as fortunate as Paston, may have tried to emulate the fashions of the court, either their literary tastes, or their 2

The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. E. Vinaver, rev. P. J. C. Field, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1990), p. xl (my italics). 3 Sir John Paston’s ‘Grete Boke’: A Descriptive Catalogue, With an Introduction, of BL MS Lansdowne 285, ed. G. A. Lester (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 50–1.

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‘TALKYNG OF CRONYCLES OF KINGES . . .’

manners. Sir John Paston commissioned his ‘grete boke’ after the model book of Sir John Astley, a well-reputed knight who had proved himself on several occasions in tournaments organized at the royal court.4 Curt Bühler has suggested that Paston’s ‘grete boke’ was a type of miscellany which may have become, by the middle of the fifteenth century, the equivalent of a medieval ‘best seller’.5 Bühler considers that such anthologies contained a core of texts, among which Vegetius’s De re militari, Christine de Pisan’s Epistle of Othea, and the pseudo-Aristotelian Secreta secretorum; these miscellanies were, in Bühler’s opinion, ‘obviously written for the landed gentry’.6 G. A. Lester argued against this theory, showing that few extant manuscripts contain the structure suggested by Bühler.7 There is clear evidence that the gentry owned miscellanies, but the chivalric material was not always present in these manuscripts. The tracts copied into the books commissioned by the gentry were more varied than Bühler and Lester suggested, and the most common works include the Brut chronicle, works by Hoccleve and Lydgate, as well as genealogical material. The organization of the circles of the court in the late fifteenth century suggests that there was a constant interchange of ideas as well as books among those associated with the court. The Paston brothers often mention their books and their sources for lending in their letters, which suggests a network of relationships.8 It has been suggested that Sir John Astley, Anthony Woodville and Sir John Paston moved in the same court circle.9 Paston displayed a desire to emulate Astley not only in tournaments, but in his literary tastes as well. A comparison of the two manuscripts, Paston’s and Astley’s, has made apparent the similarity of the two, which points to

4

5 6 7 8

9

See R. Barber, ‘Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and Court Culture under Edward IV’, Arthurian Literature 12, ed. J. P. Carley and F. Riddy (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 133–55 (p. 147): ‘Astley’s book is a collection of chivalric and heraldic treatises, and was almost certainly completed in the early 1460s, probably by 1461. Its core is a professional copy of a group of texts concerning knighthood, military affairs and ceremonial.’ C. F. Bühler, ‘Sir John Paston’s Grete Boke, a Fifteenth-Century “Best Seller” ’, Modern Language Notes 56 (1941), 345–51. Bühler, ‘Sir John Paston’s Grete Boke’, p. 351. Lester, ‘Grete Boke’, pp. 47–8. See the discussion of the Paston circles in P. R. Coss, ‘Aspects of Cultural Diffusion in Medieval England: The Early Romances, Local Society and Robin Hood’, Past & Present 108 (1985), 35–79. Also see references to the circulation of books in the Pastons’ circle in Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. N. Davies, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1971 and 1976), especially I, no. 286, no. 316, no. 352 and no. 375, in which John Paston II and John Paston III refer to books they owned or borrowed. K. Cherewatuk, ‘ “Gentyl Audiences” and “Grete Bookes”: Chivalric Manuals and the Morte Darthur’, in Arthurian Literature 15, eds. J. P. Carley and F. Riddy (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 205–16 (p. 211).

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Astley’s manuscript as the original for Paston’s ‘boke’.10 A similar book was written by Sir Gilbert of the Haye, who, in the 1450s or 1460s, at around the same time that Astley’s book was produced, translated from French and copied several chivalric tracts for William Sinclair, Earl of Orkney and Chancellor of Scotland.11 Haye’s book contained similar tracts to Astley’s and Paston’s ‘grete bokes’, which has led Karen Cherewatuk to conclude that such volumes addressed ‘a knightly audience, for the specific purpose of instruction or edification’.12 Such a similarity may indeed be interpreted as a sign of a ‘social practice’: ‘A gentleman seeks to improve himself by imitating a knight of the highest renown – not only mimicking him in chivalric conduct but also in reading material’.13 Imitation of the models of the nobility was not a new trend in the fifteenth century. Ever since the early Middle Ages the cultural patterns of the aristocracy gradually permeated the lower classes in various forms; Georges Duby notes that the popularization of cultural models is an ‘essential, determining force in cultural history’.14 The interesting process of borrowing cultural patterns from the nobility into the culture of the gentry in the fifteenth century in England manifested itself in the gentry’s choice of specific texts for their miscellanies, which shows a new development in their interests. The gentry not only emulated the chivalric tastes and attitudes of the nobility, but also shared the interests of the nobility in matters such as political governance and kingship. The books of the gentry are composite in nature, and may be metaphorically related to the great volumes of Arthurian romance,15 but the similarities between fifteenthcentury gentry books go beyond their chivalric content, and extend into their content of ideas about the political rule of the realm and the national past. Felicity Riddy’s analysis of the social milieu in which Sir Thomas Malory wrote his Morte Darthur has drawn attention to the evidence of the surviving manuscripts containing vernacular romances. Riddy suggests 10 11

12 13 14 15

Lester, ‘Grete Boke’, pp. 31–4. Cherewatuk, ‘ “Gentyl Audiences” and “Grete Bookes” ’, at p. 212: ‘Haye’s great book is the first extended volume in Scots prose.’ See, also, The Prose Works of Sir Gilbert Hay, ed. J. A. Glen, 3 vols., Scottish Text Society, 4th series, 21 (Edinburgh, 1993). Felicity Riddy suggests that Haye, in composing the ‘Buik of Alexander’, had a similar task to Malory’s, that of refashioning a coherent story drawn out of various sources (F. Riddy, Sir Thomas Malory (Leiden, 1987), p. 29). Cherewatuk, ‘ “Gentyl Audiences” and “Grete Bookes” ’, p. 213. Cherewatuk, ‘ “Gentyl Audiences” and “Grete Bookes” ’, p. 211. George Duby, ‘The Diffusion of Cultural Patterns in Feudal Society’, Past & Present 39 (1968), 3–10. See Cherewatuk, ‘ “Gentyl Audiences” and “Grete Bookes” ’, p. 214 and K. Cherewatuk, ‘Sir Thomas Malory’s “Grete Boke” ’, in Malory and the New Historicism, ed. T. D. Hanks, forthcoming.

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that ‘their readership in the late Middle Ages seems not to have been among members of the nobility but, rather, among educated townspeople or members of the gentry’.16 This implies that the development of the romances in the vernacular was supported by a demand from the landowning gentry and other educated people, who were not always connected with the circles of the court. This expansion of the reading public also correlated with the rise of the vernacular, especially through the development of vernacular prose. The predominant medium for fifteenth-century writing in English was history. Among historical writings, the Brut chronicle, of which over two hundred manuscripts survive, became the equivalent of a modern ‘best seller’.17 One of the reasons for its popularity was that its readers saw themselves as both witnesses of the events and contributors to the creation of English national history. Carole Meale has suggested that the interest in history, manifested in the heavy annotations to the extant manuscripts, points to the direct involvement of the reader that the Brut chronicles called for: The Brut, with at least 169 surviving manuscripts, may be judged to have been the most widely circulated secular text of the Middle Ages, apparently exceeding even the homiletic verse treatise The Prick of Conscience in popularity. The level of interest which the text generated is shown by the extensive annotations which appear in many of the manuscripts: the Brut was a work which invited a committed response on the part of its readers.18

This may also be interpreted, Meale suggests, as an ‘urge towards selfdefinition through the reading of history’, which may be ‘characteristic of societies in a state of flux’.19 The necessity felt by readers among the gentry to fashion their social and national identity may be assigned to the 16 17

Riddy, Sir Thomas Malory, p. 13. L. M. Matheson, ‘The Middle English Prose Brut: A Location List of the Manuscripts and Early Printed Editions’, Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography, 1979, 254–66 (p. 210, my italics). According to Matheson, the Brut was only surpassed in popularity by the Wycliffite Bible. See also F. Riddy, ‘Reading for England: Arthurian Literature and the National Consciousness’, Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society 43 (1991), 314–32. See also L. M. Matheson, ‘Historical Prose’, in Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A. S. G. Edwards (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1984), pp. 209–248 and L. M. Matheson, The Prose Brut: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle (Tempe, 1998) where Matheson discusses c. 240 manuscripts of the Brut. 18 C. M. Meale, ‘Patrons, Buyers and Owners: Book Production and Social Status’, Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, eds. J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 201–38 (p. 215). 19 Meale, ‘Patrons, Buyers and Owners’, at p. 216.

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changing times, to the turbulent decades of the Wars of the Roses. Two other factors should also be considered: one is the rise of the vernacular, which contributed to the emergence of the national identity; the other is a factor which undoubtedly contributed to the pre-eminence of the Brut amongst English secular works during the fifteenth century, the spread of what Malcolm Parkes calls the ‘non-pragmatic’ literacy amongst the middle classes.20 An analysis of the attitudes present in the Brut, the way they are expressed, and the gentry ownership of the Brut will reveal the background for the reading of Malory’s Morte Darthur in the gentry household. The Brut, or the Chronicles of England, is a history of the English nation from the first settlements, which incorporates within its narrative mythical stories.21 The Brut was first written in French and then in Latin, and it was translated into English at the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century. Additions to the initial story were written in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries.22 Lister Matheson notes that ‘the extent of the Brut’s contemporary influence is indicated by the social and geographical range of its medieval ownership. The style, the content, and the chivalric tone of the Anglo-Norman work suggest that it was originally aimed at an upper-class, lay audience.’23 The tone of the narrative remained largely the same in subsequent centuries, although its audience became diversified and reached through other segments of society, as is made apparent in an analysis of the ownership of the Middle English Brut manuscripts in the fifteenth century. In the Brut the stories of the discovery and the first settlement of Britain are derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae,24 and are ascribed to the great-grandson of the Trojan hero Eneas, Brutus, who came to Albion and fought the giants living there. This founding story is conflated in the Middle English Brut with an anonymous story, that of 20 21

22 23 24

M. B. Parkes, ‘Literacy of the Laity’, Literature and Western Civilization: The Medieval World, ed. D. Daiches and A. K. Thorlby (London, 1973), pp. 555–777. The Brut or The Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, 2 vols., EETS OS 131 and 136 (London, 1906 and 1908), rpt. Part I (London, 1960) and Part II (Millwood, 1987). References to this edition will be cited parenthetically within the text. See also A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England – c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century II (London, 1982), pp. 75–6 and E. D. Kennedy, ‘Chronicles and Other Historical Writing’, A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, general ed. A. E. Hartung (Hamden, 1989), vol. 8, pp. 2629–37. C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913, rpt. New York, 1962), p. 114. Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 9. The ‘Historia Regum Britanniae’ of Geoffrey of Monmouth I: Berne Burgerbibliotek MS 568 (Cambridge, 1984), and II: The First Variant Version (Cambridge, 1988), ed. N. Wright. See, also, F. H. M. Le Saux, Layamon’s ‘Brut’: The Poem and Its Sources (Cambridge, 1989).

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the name Albion, that was derived from Albina, the eldest daughter of the king of Syria, Dioclician, who banished her and her thirty-two sisters because they had killed their husbands. The sisters left their homeland and sailed until they found an isle and called it Albion. The sons of these sisters were the giants defeated by Brutus and his companions.25 The Brut continues with the history of the English kings, including King Arthur, the only king whose reign is given a lengthy description, up to Henry III in 1272. There were continuations of the chronicle up to the death of Edward I in 1307 and then to 1333. Other continuations took the story up to 1461, and it was this last version that William Caxton produced in print as his edition of the Chronicles of England in 1480.26 The popularity of the Brut is proved by the 240 surviving manuscripts, and by the fact that Caxton’s version went through thirteen editions before 1527.27 Even with the introduction of the printed Brut, however, the chronicle continued to be copied into manuscripts, and in some cases the text was copied from the printed edition, as seems to have been the case with Glasgow manuscripts Hunterian 74 and Hunterian 228.28 At the end of the fourteenth century the need for a translation into the vernacular, followed by the rapid dissemination of the Middle English Brut, accounts for a wider audience than the court, which constituted its first ‘consumers’; the gentry and the London merchants started acquiring and reading this text.29 The London merchants also became the authors of the London annals that developed into the London chronicles;30 these chronicles were very much influenced by the Brut tradition, and became the source for subsequent fifteenth-century political chronicles.31 The Brut, together with other fifteenth-century chronicles and political and literary tracts, was copied either individually, or into miscellanies, often owned by the gentry. These miscellanies present both the interests of 25 26 27 28

29

30 31

See Matheson, The Prose Brut, Introduction, pp. 1–12. The Chronicles of Englond, ed. William Caxton, Westminster, June 10, 1480. STC 9991 (Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 339). Matheson, ‘A Location List of the Manuscripts’, pp. 254–66, and Matheson, ‘Historical Prose’, pp. 232–3. L. M. Matheson, ‘Printer and Scribe: Caxton, the Polychronicon, and the Brut’, Speculum, 60 (1985), 593–614, at p. 596. See also Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 129 and 162. See Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 12–13: ‘In the fifteenth century the Middle English Brut increasingly appealed to a mercantile audience, in addition to the gentry and the religious.’ See Kingsford, English Historical Literature, pp. 115 and 121 about the resemblance between the Brut and the London chronicles. Three such chronicles with a political bias are Three Chronicles of the Reign of Edward IV: John Warkworth’s Chronicle, Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire, History of the Arrival of King Edward IV, ed. K. Dockray (Gloucester, 1988).

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their commissioners and of their compilers. Many members of the gentry owned miscellanies which contained the Brut alongside genealogical material. The evidence of the wills of the gentry also shows that the various miscellanies they possessed contained texts ranging from chivalric romance to mirrors for princes.32 In some of the manuscripts the Brut was copied from Caxton’s editions, and the text was accompanied by other political and non-political texts. This shows both the great influence of the printed work on a wider audience, and the say of particular members of that audience over the choice of the texts in their miscellanies. The evidence of the surviving manuscripts of the Brut points to a widespread popularity of the tract, both geographically and across social classes. Matheson lists at least fifteen manuscripts which belonged to the landowning gentry, mainly from the fifteenth century, including minor provincial landowners like William Braundon of Knowle, in Warwickshire, who owned BL Sloane 2027,33 and John Willeys of Berkshire, who owned Lambeth Palace 264.34 Other gentry who owned Brut manuscripts were the Wautons in Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire, who owned Glasgow Hunterian Museum 74,35 and the Hoptons of Swillington, in Yorkshire, who owned and, Matheson suggests, possibly commissioned Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 185.36 C. L. Kingsford assigns BL Harley

32

33

34

35

36

Meale, ‘Patrons, Buyers, and Owners’, pp. 201–38, and S. H. Cavanaugh, ‘A Study of Books Privately Owned in England: 1300–1450’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1980). Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 274–5. According to Matheson, the ownership is established through the signature on fol. 96, which reads: ‘Wylliam Braundon of Knoll in the counte of Waryke’. For more information see also Meale, ‘Patrons, Buyers, and Owners’, pp. 216 and 233–34 fn. 88. BL manuscript Sloane 2027 also contains the English translation of Vegetius’s De re militari (fols. 1–36v), John Russell’s Boke of Nurture (fols. 37–52v), and Lydgate and Burgh’s Secrees of Old Philosoffres (fols. 53–92v) (from Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 275). Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 12–13. According to Matheson, p. 100, the ownership is established through the signature on fol. 170v, which reads: ‘Iste liber constat Johanni Willeys’. The manuscript also belonged to Thomas Rydyng, who finished copying it in the early sixteenth century, according to his colophon: ‘Thus endeth þis present booke of cronicles of Englond wryten by me Thomas Rydyng þe iiij day of Novembre þe yere of our lord MCCCCCX’ (Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 163). Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 129. The evidence comes from the arms incorporated on the first page of the manuscript. For a detailed discussion of the manuscript, see Matheson, ‘The Prose Brut: A Parallel Edition of Glasgow Hunterian Manuscripts T.3.12 and V.5.13, with Introduction and Notes’ (Ph.D. dissertation, 3 vols., University of Glasgow, 1977), especially 1: 323–29. See, also, Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 12 and 15. According to Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 206–7, the evidence of ownership comes from the arms of the Hopton family which are incorporated in the decoration of the initials of the manuscript. This also suggests that the Hoptons were the commissioners of

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53 to the Stokes family,37 while the signatures in BL Royal 18 B.iii suggest ownership by the Gaynesford family in Surrey.38 BL Add. 70514 has been ascribed to the Hill family of Nettlecombe, Somerset39 and Glasgow Hunterian Museum 230 to the Willoughby and Zouche families of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.40 Matheson ascribes Princeton University Library Garrett 150 to the ownership of Sir John Sulyard, who died in 1488, having been a justice of the King’s Bench.41 Cambridge University Library Ff.1.6. (also known as the Findern manuscript) is associated with other local gentry families in Derbyshire, apart from the original owners, the Findern family.42 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson B.17143 and Douce 32344 contain coats of arms and belonged to various members of the gentry; the same seems to be the case with Bodleian, Laud Misc. 733, in which a treatise on arms accompanies the text of the Brut.45 Richard Thomas of Neath, in Glamorganshire, was one of the early owners of

37

38 39

40 41

42

43

44

45

the manuscript, which contains, apart from the Brut, the Regiment of Princes and other works by Hoccleve. Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 296–8. According to Matheson, the manuscript also contains a genealogy of the kings of Britain from Adam to Henry VI, and the ownership is established through the coat of arms and motto on fol. 13v, which has been ascribed by Kingsford to the Stokes family (Kingsford, English Historical Literature, p. 125, n. 4). Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 114–15. Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 265–6. The manuscript also contains a genealogical narrative for the descendants of King Edward III, finishing with the Yorkist King Edward IV, from fol. 29v to fol. 32, which is interpolated in the middle of the text of the Brut, before the reign of King Richard II. The evidence of ownership comes from an obit for Sir Robert Hill on fol.32, dating his death to 1493. Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp.189–90. Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 199–200. See, also, Meale, ‘Patrons, Buyers, and Owners’, pp. 216 and 233, n. 87, and C. M. Meale, ‘ “. . . alle the bokes that I haue of latyn, englisch, and frensch”: Laywomen and Their Books in Late Medieval England’, in Women and Literature in Britain, 1150–1500, ed. C. M. Meale, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 128–58, especially pp. 142–3. Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 320. See, also, the introduction by R. Beadle and A. E. B. Owen to the facsimile of this manuscript, The Findern Manuscript: Cambridge University Library Manuscript Ff. 1.6 (London, 1977), which also contains notices of the foundations of London and Rome and all religious events in England from the incarnation of Christ to the translation of Thomas Becket in 1220. Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 79–80. According to Matheson the same fifteenthcentury scribe has added an illegible name and coats of arms on fol. 201v, which are related to the owner of Douce 323. Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 80: ‘on fol. 101v the late fifteenth-century scribe has written “Ihannes Tubantisville” and has added a shield with an unidentified coat of arms’. Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 266–7. According to Matheson the manuscript also contains an illustrated treatise on arms on fols. 1–17v and the name ‘Elizabeth Dawbne’ on the first flyleaf, which may ascribe it to the fifteenth century.

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Harvard University Library, Richardson 35,46 while the structure of Yale University Library, Beinecke 323 shows its owners’ interest in history as well as genealogy.47 The Middle English Brut, through its widespread popularity and circulation, especially in the fifteenth century, exerted a great influence on the way the historical past and the national identity were perceived. It was also used for propaganda purposes, as it laid the foundations for the English claims at home, to Scotland, and abroad, to France. The claim to Scotland was based on the mythical story of Brutus’s sons, one of whom was the lord of Scotland. The second claim was justified through the contemporary links of the English kings to the crown of France. The story of King Arthur was another powerful myth at the core of the narrative of royal descent that is typical of the Middle English Brut, and his figure provided the standard image of a model king. The image of King Arthur initially appealed to a courtly audience, because of the strong emphasis on kingship in the narrative. Matheson notes: The central figure of King Arthur, conqueror of much of Europe, was a potent political icon used by and on behalf of monarchs from Henry II to the Tudors to the Stuarts. Both in its own right and as a source for later writers, the account of Henry V in the English Brut was central in creating the cult surrounding that king and his exemplary victories in France.48

However, the Brut gradually became the cultural property of the gentry in the fifteenth century, who were increasingly concerned with kingship and the political governance of the realm. That the first audience of the Brut was indeed courtly, is shown by the language it was first written in, Anglo-Norman, and by its emphasis on chivalric exploits.49 The courtly aspect was preserved in the Middle English Brut, where the accounts of the political events during the fourteenth century contain references to the coats of arms of the barons present at the parliament of Westminster in 1321, which was called ‘þe parlment wiþ þe whit bende’ where they were wearing ‘cote-armur of grene cloþe’ (213.27–8). There are other references to chivalry, when the author deplores the battle of ‘Burbridge’ (Boroughbridge), when the prisoners were ‘robbed, and bonde as þeues’, 46

Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 178–9. The manuscript also contains twenty-two pages of shields and the earliest fifteenth-century name that occurs in it is ‘Rycharte Thomas of Nethe’. See, also, Kennedy, Manual, p. 2820, who dates the manuscript to 1430–1500. 47 Matheson, The Prose Brut, pp. 110–11. The manuscript also shows a strong Yorkist allegiance, as it contains, apart from the Brut, a set of genealogical roundels that depict Edward IV’s claim to the throne of England and France, while ‘Henricus Derby’ and his heirs are portrayed as usurpers of the throne. 48 Matheson, The Prose Brut, p. 29. 49 Gransden, pp. 74–5, and Kennedy, Manual, p. 2629.

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that brought shame unto them all: ‘Allas þe shame & despite, þat þe gentil ordre of Knyghthode þere hade at þat bataile!’ (220.9–11). The destruction of the chivalric spirit was also caused by internecine strife, as ‘in þat bataile was þe fader aeins þe sone, and þe vncle aeins his nevew’ (220.13–14). The cause of the disaster is justified, in a patriotic tone, through an attack on the mixing of English blood with the blood of other nations, which brought ‘so miche vnkyndenesse’ that had never been seen before ‘in Engeland amonges folc of on nacioun’: for o kynrede had no more pite of þat oþer, þan an hundred wolfes haueþ on o shepe; and hit was no wonder, for þe grete lordes of Engeland were nout alle of o nacioun, but were mellede wiþ oþere nacions, þat is forto seyn, somme Britons, somme Saxones, somme Danois, somme Peghtes, somme Frenchemen, somme Normans, somme Spaignardes, somme Romayns, some Henaudes, some Flemyngus, and of oþere diuerse naciouns, þe whiche nacions acorded nout to þe kynde bloode of Engeland. And if þe grete Lordes of Engeland hade bene onelich wedded to Englisshe peple, þan shulde pees haue bene, and reste amongus ham, wiþouten eny envy. (220.16–26; my italics)

The emphasis lies on the purity of the English blood that should have been preserved, as a guarantee of peace and stability. The same seems to be implied even as early as in the episode of King Arthur, when Mordred is blamed for bringing foreigners into the country, in order to help him, and to whom he promises lands in England. This version of the story of King Arthur was not new in the Brut, either in the fourteenth or in the fifteenth century. The story of King Arthur in the Brut is based on Geoffrey’s Historia. Lancelot is not present in the Brut, and Mordred is not King Arthur’s son, because neither element was present in Geoffrey’s work. In the Brut the emphasis lies on King Arthur as a model king and a conqueror of many lands, and the final disaster is presented as a result of internecine strife. The idea of parricide is not present, as it was alien to Geoffrey; it came later, from the French prose romances. Although in the Middle English Brut Arthur does not become the Emperor of Rome, as in John Hardyng’s Chronicle,50 and Malory’s Morte Darthur, he is a role model for subsequent kings and his reign is given more space than any other king’s in English history. The popularity of the Arthurian myth perpetuated certain expectations of the story and created a pattern. The version of the Brut as given here would have been the one most fifteenth-century readers were aware of, and its strong emphasis on King Arthur’s conquests and his 50

The Chronicle of John Hardyng, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1812).

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image as a conqueror were later used in the political propaganda material produced for the Lancastrian and the Yorkist kings. The story of King Arthur presented vast potential for political propaganda in subsequent centuries as well. In the Middle English Brut Arthur’s image as a young king recalls the tradition of Geoffrey’s Historia and Wace’s Roman de Brut.51 At the same time fifteenth-century readers would have been familiar with King Arthur’s image from the tradition of Arthurian romances, both French and English, which followed the main elements of the presentation from Geoffrey and Wace. The special emphasis on King Arthur’s positive qualities possibly reflected the beginning of the propaganda bias of the Brut, which changed considerably in the fifteenth century, bringing to the forefront the qualities of an ideal king. By the end of the fifteenth century most readers would have recognized King Arthur as the model king, and his rule as the symbol of good governance. Yet in the fifteenth century, political discord was the cause of the questioning of the king’s authority, and also encouraged a reassessment of history in terms of good and bad kings. The example of the harmony at King Arthur’s court was one which commanded feelings of sympathy and admiration for one of the national heroes, who not only ruled with wisdom, but also conquered other lands and increased the fame of his people all over the world. The Brut also brought a view of King Arthur who was ultimately defeated because of the traitor Mordred – who caused internecine strife – divided the country and caused civil war. This followed the spirit of the tradition of Geoffrey of Monmouth; however fifteenth-century ‘consumers’ of the Brut were also familiar with the tradition of the French romances, where Lancelot appears, and his relationship with Guenevere becomes a factor in the final destruction of King Arthur’s world. The Brut draws on Geoffrey’s tradition, which focuses on Mordred’s betrayal and Guenevere’s adultery with him: When Kyng Arthure hade taken to Mordrede his reaume to kepe, and was gone aeynes þe Emperoure of Rome, was passede þe see, Mordrede anone toke homages and feautes of al ham þat were in þis lande, and wolde haue hade þe lande to his owen vse, and toke castelles about, and lete ham arraie; and after his falsenesse he dede anoþere grete wrong, ffor, aeynes þe law of Cristiente, he toke his owen Emes wif, as a traitour shulde, and ordeynede him a grete hoste. (88.14–21)

In the Brut Queen Guenevere herself is ashamed of her affair with Mordred: 51

Le Roman de Brut de Wace, ed. I. Arnold, 2 vols. (Paris, 1938–40).

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The Quene Gunnore, þat was Kyng Arthures wif, þat þo soiournede at ork, and herde þat Mordrede was fledde þens þat he was, and mit nout endure aeynes Kyng Arthure, she was sore adrade, and hade grete doute, and wist nout what was best al forto done, for she wiste wel here lorde Kyng Arthure wolde nout of her haue mercy, for þe grete shame þat she to him hade done; and toke her wai priuely wiþ iiij men and wiþ no mo, & come to Kerlioun, and þere she duellede al her lifes tyme, þat neuer was seyn amonges folc, her lif duryng. (89.27–90.4)

The King Arthur of the Brut tradition was not to be blamed for bad governance of the realm and of his knights. While in the Arthurian romances King Arthur has to deal with Lancelot’s affair with Guenevere, the emphasis of the Brut narrative is purely on the public persona of the king and of his knights, unlike in the Arthurian romance tradition, where the knights of the Round Table are shown to start their own private quarrels and blood feuds. Another aspect of King Arthur’s successful kingship is present in the episode when the messengers of the Roman Emperor come to King Arthur’s court, and the letter from the Emperor is read aloud. King Arthur is shown to act wisely as he takes the advice of his barons and counsellors, in the same manner that he does in Malory’s Morte Darthur: When þis letter was rade, & alle men hit herde, þai were annoyede, alle þat were at þe solempnite; and þe Britons wolde haue slayne þe messagers, but Arthure wolde nout soffre hit, and saide þat þe messagers shulde haue none harme, and mow by resoun none deserue; but he commanded hem to bene worþely seruede. and after mete he toke counseil of kyngus, Erles and Barons, what ansuere me myt eue to þe messagers; and þai conseilede at ones. (82.6–13)

The concern with the royal counsellors was increasing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and King Arthur’s wise governance, as depicted in the Brut, may have been intended to show an ideal model for contemporary kings. Evidence for this concern is proved by the comments made on such kings, especially in the continuation of the Brut in the reign of King Henry VI. In the advent of the Wars of the Roses, the royal counsellors reached wise decisions, but these decisions were only temporarily adhered to: Thanne the byshoppys and other lordes tretyd betwyxt theym of the pease and accorde, and after long trete bothe partyes submytted theym to the laude and arbytrement of the kyng and his counselle. The whiche after good deliberacione and avysement yaf this awarde and arbitrement [. . .]. Where uppon was made wrytyng and suerte; and so was the trowble 137

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ceased, and pease and accorde made betwene theym; but hit endured nat long.52

The implication is that internecine strife as well as political discord were the causes of the ‘trouble’, which showed the weak governance of the king and those who were expected to help him, his counsellors: One of the causes of this trouble betwene the duk of York and the duk of Somerset was thys – Duryng the kynges sykenesse the duk of York was made protector of Englond, wherof the duk of Somerset had grete indignacioun and alwey malygned ayenst hym and stered the kyng ageyne hym . . . [. . .] In thys same tyme, the reame of Englonde was oute of alle good gouernaunce, as it had be meny dayes before, for the kyng was simple and lad by couetous counseylle [. . .]. For these mysgouernaunces, and for many other, the hertes of the peple were turned away from thayme that had the londe in gouernaunce, and theyre blyssyng was turnyd in to cursyng.53

At this point in the Middle English Brut the propagandistic bias of the narrative is very clear: the tone was Lancastrian in the presentation of the events in the fourteenth century, but became increasingly Yorkist in the description of the political events of the fifteenth century. The continuation of the Brut to 1461, the year of the ascent to the throne of the Yorkist King Edward IV, displays evident comments on kingship and governance, especially with respect to the years of rule of King Henry VI. In the troubled years of the Wars of the Roses, Henry VI’s inability to rule favoured the rise of some of the royal counsellors, who gained too much power over the king, and acted only for their own benefit, as was said to have been the case of the Duke of Somerset in the time of King Henry VI, which displeased ‘þe gret lordes of þe Reame, & also þe communes’. In the opinion of the rival house of York, this situation demanded political intervention, and Richard Duke of York, the earls of Warwick and Salisbury, took upon themselves the task of redressing the situation: Þe Duke of Somersett went nat to warde, but Abode about þe King, & had gret rewl. And Anone aftir, he was made Capytayn of Caleys, & rewled þe King & his reame as he wold. Wherfor þe gret lordes of þe Reame, & also þe communes wer nat pleased, for which cause þe Duke of Yorke, þerles of Warrewick and Salesbury, with many knyghtes & squyers & moche peple,

52

The English Chronicle 1377–1461, ed. J. S. Davies, Camden Series (London, 1856), pp. 77–8. 53 The English Chronicle, pp. 78–9.

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come for to remeve þe said Duke of Somersett & othir fro þe Kyng. (521.20–7)

The intentions of the Yorkist lords are presented in the Brut as a reflection of popular discontent with the royal policies, and their actions are justified several times through an appeal to a shared understanding of the ‘common weal’ of the realm: ‘In þe xxx yere of King Henry þe vite, þe Duke of York came out of þe Marche of Walys, with þerle of Devonshire & Lorde Cobbam, & gret puysannce, for reformacion of certayn Iniuries & wronges, & also to haue Iustice of certeyn lordes beyng About þe Kyng’ (520.8–12). The counsellors who did not perform their duty to give the king wise advice, suggests the author of the Brut, were duly removed: ‘And al suche persones as had the rewl tofore About þe King, wer sett Aparte, & might nat reul as þei did Afore’ (522.12–14). Peace and harmony were once more established, but for a short time: ‘Þer was A concorde & pees made Among those lordes, & þei wer sett in pees’ (525.32–3). In the time of King Edward IV the same problems occurred and the result was once more civil war. The narrative of the Brut finishes with the glorious enthronement of King Edward IV in 1461; Caxton’s first edition was printed in 1480, but no development of the story was added up to that date. The last passages of the narrative emphasize the moment of victory for Edward, and further mentions of the ensuing civil discord are omitted. Towards the end of the Brut the reader becomes increasingly aware of the altered bias of the story in favour of the Yorkist king. The growing popularity of the Brut among the gentry, especially in the fifteenth century, contributed to the gradual development of their interest in the political issues of governance of the realm and kingship. Especially during his second reign, King Edward IV recognized the need to secure the support of a larger section of society than the lords and the peers, through appointing members of his close council from among the gentry.54 Even the squires of Edward IV’s household were mainly chosen from among the gentry.55

54

C. Ross, Edward IV (London, 1974). At pp. 308–10, Ross comments that ‘many of those most prominent in the council between 1461 and 1470 had been newly promoted from the ranks of the gentry. A more significant change in the composition of the council is the increase in the numbers of men of gentry origin, many of them connected with the royal household, amongst them some of the king’s most reliable servants.’ See, also, J. R. Lander, ‘The Yorkist Council and Administration’, English Historical Review 83 (1958), 27–46 and Lander, ‘Council, Administration and Councillors, 1461–85’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 32 (1959), 137–78. 55 See Myers, The Household of Edward IV, p. 127: ‘by the auyse of his counsayll to be chosen men of theyre possession, worship and wisdom; also to be of sondry sheres, by

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Another feature of the narrative of the Brut that had a great influence on the way history was perceived in the fifteenth century is its feeling of national pride and the image of English kings as conquerors of many lands abroad. These issues were emphasized in the image of King Arthur, who was presented as the model to emulate by fourteenth and fifteenth-century kings. At the same time the author(s) of the Brut gave counter-examples of how a king should follow the noble spirit of the reign of King Arthur, and his own qualities. Criticism is levelled at bad examples of governance, for example when Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella are criticized for taking away the crown from Edward II. Mortimer is compared with the ‘King of Folly’, because he tried to emulate King Arthur, and entertained a company similar to the Round Table: [. . .] ffor he was so ful of pride and of wrecchednesse, þat he helde a rounde table in Walys to alle men þat þider wolde come, and countrefete þe maner & doyng of Kyng Arthure table; but openly he failede, ffor þe noble Knyt Arthure was þe moste worþi lord of renoun þat was in al þe worlde in his tyme, and itte come neuer non soche after him, for alle þe noble knytes þ[r]ou Cristendome of dede of Armes alosede, du[e]llede wiþ Kyng Arthure, and helde him for her lord; and þat was wel sene, for he conquerede a Romayn. (262.6–14)

The importance of the historical myth of King Arthur in the fifteenth century cannot be overemphasized: the evidence of the surviving manuscripts points to the great impact of the Brut and of its narrative of conquest and glorious kingly descent, which shaped the mentalities of the reading public in the fifteenth century, and especially that of the gentry, who became ever more interested in political issues. The readers of Malory’s Morte Darthur were well aware of these issues, and especially of the difference between the tradition established in vernacular history, represented by the Brut, and that of the romances. Malory had to reconcile these two traditions, the issues he found in his sources, the French romances, which focused on Lancelot’s affair with Guenevere, and that of history, which disregarded the affair. He managed to shift the focus of his book towards a narrative of royal descent56 that encompassed political issues like kingship and the governance of the realm, a concern for both the fifteenth-century nobility, and the gentry. This aspect of Malory’s nar-

whome hit may be knowe the disposicion of the cuntries. And of thees to be continually in this court xx squiers attendaunt vppon the kinges person’. 56 See also H. Cooper, ‘Counter-Romance: Civil Strife and Father-Killing in the Prose Romances’, The Long Fifteenth Century: Essays for Douglas Gray, eds. H. Cooper and S. Mapstone (Oxford, 1997), pp. 141–62.

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rative points to his alertness to the importance of the political and historical concerns of his period, the late fifteenth-century England, and to his original adaptation of the Arthurian story for an increasingly politically aware reading public.

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ALBINE AND ISABELLE JULIA MARVIN

V

ALBINE AND ISABELLE: REGICIDAL QUEENS AND THE HISTORICAL IMAGINATION OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN PROSE BRUT CHRONICLES with an Edition and Translation of the Prose Prologue to the Long Version of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Julia Marvin About four thousand years after the Creation, the king who has conquered all the world marries his thirty daughters to his subject kings, but the princesses conspire to kill their lords and take mastery for themselves. Foiled in their plot and punished with exile, they are set adrift together, arriving eventually at a deserted island, which the eldest sister, Albine, names after herself. The sisters’ trials do not end after they settle the isle of Albion: seduced by demons, they give birth to giants and are eventually raped by their own hideous offspring. That is, instead of kings, they have incubi as mates; instead of strapping princes, they have monsters as sons; instead of palaces and prosperity, they have an empty land and not so much as a bow and arrow for hunting. Albine and her sisters think they are too good for kings; for their insubordination, they become the playthings of the non- and sub-human. This is the beginning of British history as told in the short version of the poem Des Grantz Geanz that is introduced as a prologue to the Short Version of the Anglo-Norman prose Brut chronicle.1 The prose Brut constituted the first complete history of Britain available to vernacular audiences, who made it the most popular secular, vernacular work of the

1

The longer, independent version of the poem survives in a single manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra D 9). Both versions have been edited by G. E. Brereton in Des Grantz Geanz: An Anglo-Norman Poem, Medium Aevum Monographs 2 (Oxford, 1937). L. Johnson discusses the independent poem in depth in ‘Return to Albion’, Arthurian Literature 13 (1995), 19–40.

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Late Middle Ages in England.2 In the first Anglo-Norman prose Brut (which dates from around the turn of the fourteenth century), as in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Brut wins his island realm by killing off the race of giants already inhabiting it. Although Geoffrey mentions that the island had been called Albion before the coming of Brut, he does not explain the name, or the origin of the giants.3 The story of Albine as added to the beginning of the prose Brut serves to explain how those giants came to be in England in the first place, and how the island got its first name. Such origin stories drawing connections to the peoples of antiquity had been gaining in popularity since the twelfth century.4 With its introduction into the Brut chronicle, the legend of Albine entered the mainstream of British history and remained there for some three hundred years, handed down with credulity and contempt, in verse and prose, in all the major languages of Britain. This essay is concerned with the development of the story in the context of the prose Brut chronicle, and with what that development can tell about the approaches to the construction of history taken by the revisers of the Brut. It also makes available for the first time in print the prose prologue to the Long Version of the Anglo-Norman Brut, which in its later Middle English translation became the dominant version of the story. For those who copied the legend in manuscripts of the Short Version of the Brut, the origin story seems to have been its defining element. The giants rather than Albine herself feature in surviving opening rubrics, and in the opening lines: Ci poet home saver coment Quant et de quele gent Les grauntz geantz vindrent Ke Engleterre primes tindrent, Ke lors fust nomé Albion, Et qe primes mist le noun.5 2

For a history of the development and reception of the prose Brut, and a list of the approximately 250 manuscripts surviving in Anglo-Norman, Middle English and later Latin versions, see L. M. Matheson, The Prose ‘Brut’: The Development of a Middle English Chronicle (Tempe, Arizona, 1998), pp. xvii–xxxvi and 1–49. 3 Historia Regum Britanniae, I: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS 568, ed. N. Wright (Cambridge, 1984), p. 13, § 21; The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. L. Thorpe (New York, 1966), p. 72. 4 S. Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium and the Community of the Realm’, History 68 (1983), 375–90 (p. 378). Reynolds analyzes a number of origin stories, including the Trojan ones, and finds that the fourteenth century marks the decline of such myths of common origin, which are displaced by myths that account for separate orders of society (p. 390). 5 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 3, lines 1–6. I cite page as well as line number in order to avoid

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(Here may one know how, when, and from what people came the great giants who first held England, which was then named Albion, and who first conferred the name.)

But even as abridged for inclusion in the Brut, the poem offers much more for the reader’s consideration than legendary precedent: it is a cautionary tale about the use and abuse of lineage and power. Although the poem begins with the image of a king who had power over all kings (‘sur touz rois aveit poer’), the political struggle it most closely concerns is that of men and women within their own households.6 The plot moves quickly. It takes only twenty-five lines to move from the nameless king’s conquest of the world to the marriage of his daughters, and then to their ungovernable rebelliousness: Chescune out roi et fust reigne, Mes par lour orgoil demeine Tost aprés assemblerent, Et ensemble counseillerent Ke a nuli, en nule guise, Nul ne feust de les souzmise; Mes chescun son baroun Teigne en subjection. Feilles furent au roi de pris Ke a nulli feust souzmis; Ne ne voleient eles estre, Ne ne voleient aver mestre, Ne estre souz nulli destresce; Mes touz jours estre mestrece De son seignur et de qaunt q’il out. A chescune cest counseil plout.7

confusion as to which version of the poem I am quoting in Brereton’s facing-page edition, which bases this version of the text on Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson D 329. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Five of the manuscripts Brereton consulted for her edition have rubrics, and nine do not. Of the five, two introduce the entire history (e.g. ‘Icy Comencent les Cronikes de Tout Engleterre’ (London, British Library, Harley 200)), and three mention giants (e.g. ‘Coment les Geauntz Uindront Primes en Engleterre’ (London, British Library, Add. 18462b)) (Des Grantz Geanz, p. 33). 6 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 3, line 18. 7 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 5, lines 35–6, 43–4, 47–8, 51–2, 55–62. I have not omitted lines here: Brereton uses the same line numbers for both versions of the poem. In the longer version, the sisters refuse subjection by virtually all the men in their lives: ‘Ne de seignur, ne de veisin, / Ne de frere, ne de cosin, / Ne nomément de sun barun’ (Des Grantz Geanz, p. 4, lines 49–51). The omission of these lines in the abridgment focuses the sisters’ and the reader’s attention on the marriage bond. Since the surviving versions

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(Each one had a king and was a queen, but because of their own pride they soon afterwards assembled and together took counsel that by no one, in no way, should any of them be made subject, but each one should hold her lord in subjection. They were daughters of a worthy king who was subject to no one; neither did they wish to be, nor did they wish to have a master, nor to be under any constraint, but always to be mistress of her lord and whatever he had. To each of them this counsel was pleasing.)

Each princess promptly agrees to kill her husband at the classic moment of feminine betrayal: ‘Privément entre ses braz, / Com melz quidereit aver solaz’ (privately within his arms, when he would most expect to have solace).8 They want and consider themselves entitled to be like their father, who is subject to no one. But he is lord of the world because he is worthy, noble and proud (‘pruz, noeble et feer’), whereas they are shown to be deceitful, treacherous and vain.9 One sister now emerges from the band of malcontents: the nameless youngest, who in the fashion of Hypermnestra betrays the plot to her husband. Together the two go to the king, who calls a great assembly and accuses his daughters of treason. They prepare to perjure themselves (in another demonstration that their nobility is of blood alone), but without success: their father interrogates them and extracts the truth, and their husbands want them put to death. All the sisters are ruined, except, of course, for the youngest, previously the least among the princesses and now held in great honor (‘tent a graunt honour’).10 In the independent, longer version of the poem, wise judges appear on the scene to spare the sisters’ lives because of their own lineage, their parents’ virtue and their husbands’ power: Pur l’onur de lur parage, C’est a saver de lur pere, Ausi de lur bone mere, Qe si noble gent estoient Qe partut l’empire avoient,

of the poem may both derive from another common source, or have an intermediate version between them, not too much should be made of the differences between the two. Brereton thinks it possible but not provable that the single surviving manuscript of the longer poem was the one the abridger used (Des Grantz Geanz, p. xiii, n. 1; see also Johnson, ‘Return’, p. 23). 8 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 7, lines 71–2. 9 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 3, line 17. 10 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 11, line 156.

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E pur l’onur de lur barons, Qi tindrent riche regions.11 (For the honor of their lineage, namely that of their father, and also that of their good mother, who were such noble folk, who held sway everywhere, and for the honor of their lords, who held rich lands.)

But in the verse prologue to the Brut, the sisters’ own menfolk – father and husbands – eventually pass judgment that Pur ceo qe a si haute gent Furent totes mariez, Ne deivent estre dampnez, Ne aver nule vile mort.12 (Because they were all married to such high folk, they should not be condemned nor have any base death.)

Instead, they face exile. The sisters are now entirely at the mercy of the husbands to whom they thought themselves superior and the father to whom they thought themselves equal – and to make the point clear, it is their husbands’ royal blood alone that saves them from a convict’s death.13 The terms of the sisters’ clemency are only the first of a series of humiliations: the women are put in a ship without rudder or provisions, and the narrator sees fit to comment that no one present feels pity for their grief.14 The poem dedicates some sixty lines to their tribulations on the sea, first hunger and then winds and waves so terrifying that they forget all about their hunger and would be quite happy to die. They are already suffering a fate worse than death, and more is to come. When the sisters arrive at the deserted island, the eldest, Albine, lays claim to the land and names it ‘Albion’ after herself, in her only appearance in the poem.15 At first, the women live on herbs and fruit, but they soon tire of their vegetarian diet. Since, as the poem explains, they lack bows and 11 12 13

Des Grantz Geanz, p. 10, lines 168–74. Des Grantz Geanz, p. 11, lines 173–6. Johnson discusses these same scenes with an emphasis on the ways the sisters’ ‘challenges to their social system are generated, in some respects, by their own place of privilege within it’ (‘Return’, pp. 32–3). 14 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 13, lines 192–4. 15 Albine deploys precise legal terminology: she asserts her right to the land ‘Car ieo fu la primereine / K’en la terre prist seisine’ (for I was the first to take seisin of the land) (Des Grantz Geanz, p. 19, lines 332–3). She is also briefly mentioned near the beginning (Des Grantz Geanz, p. 3, lines 25–30). On the act of claiming the land, see Johnson, ‘Return’, pp. 31 and 33–4.

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arrows, falcons and dogs – tokens of the noble life they have forfeited – they are reduced to hunting with servile snares and traps, hidden in order to, as the text puts it, deceive the beasts.16 ‘Queintes et enginouses’, they are still specialists in covert action.17 Their hunger for meat awakens other carnal appetites. Devils notice this ripe situation, take advantage of it in the form of incubi, and as a result the women bear the giants who will be the agents of their worst punishment of all: Et qaunt furent de greignure age, Les enfauntz, par graunt outrage, En lur meres engendrerent Fiz et feilles qe grauntz erent.18 (And when they were of greater age, the children, in a great trespass, begot on their mothers sons and daughters who were huge.)

After the final humiliation of incestuous rape, Albine and her sisters disappear from the poem, which concludes with a description of the giants’ society and the monuments they have left behind, and a glance forward to Brut’s arrival. Although the information in the poem – the explanation of the name of Albion and the origin of the giants – may have prompted its inclusion in the Brut, the emphasis of the text itself is on the virtue of the youngest sister, the iniquity of the murderous sisters, the righteous wrath of the men in their lives and especially their well-deserved sufferings. The poem offers a warning to the insubordinate and a fable of just deserts for everyone else. The conformity of the youngest sister is rewarded and the transgressions of the others punished and quarantined, exiled beyond the boundaries of the known world. The women’s homosocial assembly sparks treason, the men’s, justice tempered with mercy. The women’s attempt at self-government has literally monstrous consequences.19 The headship of husband over even the most nobly born wife is reasserted. Despite its ending, the story is a scandalous one, for it admits and vividly 16

‘Les bestes deceurent’ (Des Grantz Geanz, p. 21, line 383). But see Johnson, ‘Return’, pp. 34–5, for a reading of this section of the poem as ‘an Amazonian idyll’. 17 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 21, line 373. 18 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 25, lines 433–6. Johnson points out that the sisters are described as tall in an apparent effort to rationalize their giant offspring (‘Return’, p. 29, n. 20; see Des Grantz Geanz, p. 24, lines 459–66). 19 D. Régnier-Bohler reads the independent poem as a ‘texte généalogique d’une lignée avortée’, a negative exemplum designed to prevent its own reenactment (‘Figures féminines et imaginaire généalogique: Étude comparée de quelques récits brefs’, in Le Récit bref au moyen âge, ed. D. Buschinger (Paris, 1980), 73–95, (p. 89)).

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imagines the possibility of rebellion (specifically female or not) against the social order, as well as the excesses of those who presume too much upon their noble birth. And the eldest of these would-be regicides does become the founder of a realm, which she claims not on the basis of the birth that had previously constituted her identity, but on the basis of her own actions, for she is the first to set foot on the new land.20 The sisters do finally get their chance at sovereignty, however great their hardships and humiliations. The poet may have seen Albine’s claim as a travesty, a mere ironic prelude to the emphatic reestablishment of male dominion by the sisters’ gigantic sons, but any discussion of transgression, even one that quashes it, still admits its potential realization.

The Short Version The Anglo-Norman Brut in which this poem appears is the second surviving version of the chronicle, known as the Short Version. Despite the name, the Short Version represents an expansion of the prose Brut at both ends, with the addition of the poem at the beginning, and, at the end, accounts of the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, and of the first few years of Edward III.21 In both cases, the additions appear to be adapted from preexisting material. It is possible that the Short Version is not immediately descended from the first Brut chronicle, which runs from the fall of Troy to the death of Henry III in 1272: a handful of manuscripts containing a continuation but no prologue suggest that the prologue may have been added after the continuation, and some scholars hypothesize a state of the text with a continuation only to 1307.22 When the compiler added the story of Albine to the chronicle, he did not put it into prose to conform to the rest of the history: his changes to the poem appear to consist largely of abridgment, much of which can be seen 20

Johnson, ‘Return’, p. 32; see pp. 32–4 and 36 for a discussion of the ways in which these ‘wild’ women carefully observe the rituals of male society. 21 The standard nomenclature (which I will use in deference to common practice) can be misleading. The Short Version is longer than the first prose Brut, which runs from Aeneas to 1272 and which has never received a standard label: it is called ‘Short’ only in apposition to the Long Version described below. Since F. W. D. Brie first classified Brut manuscripts by continuation, and early interest in the Brut tended to center on the continuations as primary sources, continuations became by default the defining attributes of the different versions of the chronicle (Brie, Geschichte und Quellen der mittelenglischen Prosachronik, ‘The Brute of England’ oder ‘The Chronicles of England’ (Marburg, 1905)). 22 For the manuscripts with no prologue, see Matheson, Prose ‘Brut’, pp. 32–3, and Brie, Geschichte, pp. 17–19. For the possible version to 1307, see below.

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as an attempt to eliminate material that would, as the poem’s editor puts it, have ‘anticipated, and in part contradicted, that which forms the first portion of the chronicle’.23 It is harder to ascertain the origins of the continuation to the text, the so-called Short Continuation. Since the fullest version of this continuation appears in conjunction with a chronicle other than the prose Brut, the Anonimalle Chronicle from St Mary’s, York, it is at least clear that the text had an existence independent of the prose Brut. The continuator of the Brut may well have encountered the account in his reading and adapted it for his own purposes.24 Even among manuscripts of the Short Version of the prose Brut, the texts of the continuation show marked differences from one another, while their main texts are extremely close. The continuation seems to have been written in the 1330s, not long after the last events it describes, and it is not difficult to imagine that the scribes who first began to copy it would have their own opinions both about what happened, and perhaps about the wisdom of condemning Edward II as vehemently as the Anonimalle text at least does.25 It is instructive to compare the opening characterization of Edward of Caernarfon in several manuscripts. The version in the Anonimalle Chronicle reads as follows: Apres cestui bone roi Edward regna Edward son ficz. Edward de Carnervan fust appelle, beaus homme et fort de corps et de membre, mes il forslisna de les tetches et de la manere son pere, qar il ne fist force de chivalerie ne pruesce, mes tantsoullement de sa volente demene. Cestui roi Edward fu si chaungeable de corage et de quoer, qe ceo qil granta une jour pur commun 23 24

Brereton, Des Grantz Geanz, p. xiii. W. Childs and J. Taylor, who have edited the Anonimalle Chronicle (University of Leeds Brotherton 29) from 1307 to 1334, believe that the work did not originate at St Mary’s and that some material in the Anonimalle manuscript – particularly that relating to Yorkshire and Franciscan affairs – is peculiar to it. In the edition, they attempt to identify interpolations into the basic text (The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1307–1334, Yorkshire Archaeological Society 147 (Leeds, 1991), p. 76). Their edition is the only part of the text of the Short Continuation yet published; no version of the text from 1272 to 1307 has appeared in print. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lyell 17 (Brereton’s manuscript O), a fourteenth-century text of the Anglo-Norman Brut known to be owned by St Mary’s in the fifteenth century, intriguingly enough contains both one of the fullest versions of the Short Continuation and a version of the verse prologue that Brereton believes may represent the earliest state of abridgment for use in the Brut (Childs and Taylor, Anonimalle, pp. 21–2; Brereton, Des Grantz Geanz, pp. xvii and xxiii). There is, however, no evidence of the manuscript’s presence at or origins in St Mary’s in the fourteenth century (see A. de la Mare, Catalogue of the Collection of Medieval Manuscripts Bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, by James P. R. Lyell (Oxford, 1971), pp. 39–42, for a full description of the manuscript and its provenance). 25 See Anonimalle, p. 20, for Childs and Taylor’s dating.

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profist de la terre il le voleit dedir une autre jour. Et auxi fust il homme de grante vengeance, qar quant il comenca de regner tost apres grande descord et grande estrif sourdirent entre li et une sire Walter de Langetoun, qi fust evesqe de Cestre et tresorere le roi son pere. (After this good king, Edward, his son Edward reigned. He was called Edward of Caernarvon, a handsome man and strong in body and limb, but he fell short of the qualities and the style of his father, for he was concerned not with deeds of chivalry or prowess but only with his own desires. This king Edward was so fickle in purpose and feelings that what he granted one day for the common profit of the land he would want to retract on another. Also he was a man bent on vengeance, for soon after he began to reign great discord arose between himself and a certain sir Walter Langton, who was bishop of Chester and had been treasurer of the king, his father.)26

Here is the equivalent passage from three manuscripts of the Brut chronicle:27 e Mus. 108 Apres cesti bon Roy Edward regna soun fiz Edward de Karnarban, vn de pluis beaux chiualers du monde, fort homme et puissant de corps et de membre et bien haut leue, mes il forligna en graunt partie les maners de soun pere, car la ou soun pere estoit plein de pitee et de mercy, il estoit de graunte vengeance et crualte, parount y ly aueient plusours destances et descordez entre lui et ses bonnes gentz de la terre.

Douce 128 pres cestuy Roy Edward regna Edward soun filtz de Karnaruan, beaux homme et

Rawlinson D 329 Apres cesti bon Roi Edward regna son fiz Edward de Caernaruan, beux homme et

fort

fort

du corps et de membre,

de corps,

mais il forsloigna partie de la manere soun piere,

parount i ly auoient plusours descordes et debatz parentre luy et ses bones gentz de la terre, et auxi fust homme de graunt

26

Anonimalle, pp. 80 and 81. (All translations from the Anonimalle Chronicle are by Childs and Taylor.) 27 All are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: e Mus. 108 (fifteenth century), fol. 105r; Douce 128 (fifteenth century), fol. 156r; and Rawlinson D 329 (fourteenth century), fol. 111r. In quotations from manuscript throughout, abbreviations have been silently expanded and modern punctuation and word-division introduced.

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e Mus. 108

Douce 128 vengeance. Primes emprisona

Car quant il comenca a regner, vne grant descord ssurdist entre Sire Wautier de Langetoun Euesque de Cestre, iadis Tresorer soun pere, et lui emprisona.

sieur Watier de langetoun, qe fust Tresorer soun piere, saunz cause.

Rawlinson D 329

mes si tost quil comenca a regner, vn graunt descord surdist entre lui et leuesqe de Cestre Wauter de langetoun, iadis tresorer son pere.

All four passages clearly share common ancestry, but it would not be easy to determine which versions might be derived from which. Each of the descriptions from the Brut is shorter than that of the Anonimalle Chronicle, but e Mus. 108 contains details found in none of the others: it mines some of the clichés of romance to call Edward not just a handsome man but ‘vn de pluis beaux chiualers du monde’, and a properly raised knight at that. This king is less the fickle governor of the Anonimalle text than an anti-Havelok, brought up nobly but still doomed to fall, in grim contrast both to his father and to the traditional romance hero raised in obscurity but destined to rise by blood and merit. The passage in Douce 128 is both succinct and generally condemnatory, but that of Rawlinson D 329 is another matter: it is a miracle of concision and circumspection. While mentioning Edward’s goodly person, it does not tell of his vengefulness or his departure from his father’s virtuous example as all the others do. There could be any number of nonintentional explanations for the difference, from eyeskip to the possibility that this text might represent not an abridgment but an early version upon which later writers elaborated. But the fact remains that it draws a considerably more flattering portrait of the king than the other manuscripts do. The Short Continuation is a far less stable text than the main portion of the Anglo-Norman prose Brut. This instability, together with the fact that the manuscripts of the Short Continuation have yet to be fully classified, makes it impossible to arrive at a single definitive description or analysis of the continuation as such. As manuscripts multiplied, the continuation seems to have constituted less a set account of the reign of Edward II than a template on which different writers could inscribe their own interpretation of those years, and of the turmoil whose consequences were still to be reckoned with in the England of Edward III. The authority of experience seems to have outweighed the authority of the text for its copyists. For all its variation, however, the Short Continuation may be characterized as firmly Lancastrian. 152

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The Long Version The next surviving version of the prose Brut is known as the Long Version, because it makes a few additions to the main text, and because its continuation is somewhat longer than that of the Short Version. It has been widely thought until recently that, because the texts of the Long and Short Continuations remain close until 1307, after which they are independent works, the two surviving continuations must represent separate extensions of a lost version of the chronicle ending in 1307. No manuscript of such a version survives, and the hypothesis seems to rest on the assumption that if the reviser had had access to the Short Continution in toto, he would certainly have used it.28 Scholars have begun to allow for the possibility that the reviser knew or knew of the full Short Version, but only in the most guarded of terms.29 The internal evidence of the Long Version as a whole – the smooth introduction and incorporation throughout of chapter numbers, rubrics, regnal years and prophecies of Merlin – strongly indicates that that reviser made all of his changes to the Brut, prologue through continuation, at one time. That is, the Long Version is highly unlikely to have been developed in two stages, first to 1307 and then, with the subsequent addition of a continuation, to 1333.30 The fact that the Long and Short Continuations conclude 28

Brie first promulgated this idea, with Cambridge University Library, Ee. 1. 20 and Oxford, Corpus Christi College 78 as evidence (Geschichte, pp. 25–8). The former manuscript does end in 1307 but represents an abridgment of the Long Version (see T. M. Smallwood, ‘The Prophecy of the Six Kings’, Speculum 60 (1985), 571–92 (p. 579)); in the latter, a complex composite manuscript, a unique continutation begins after the death of Edward I. It does not, however, simply pick up where the usual text ends, as Brie implies: the page on which the new continuation begins is a palimpsest in which previously existing text has been effaced and overwritten in a distinctly new hand, different in both appearance and in ink color (fol. 164v). Clearly, the original text of this manuscript did extend beyond 1307 (though how far cannot be known) but was replaced by a continuator, who perhaps excised a Lancastrian continuation from the manuscript and provided his own royalist one in its place. 29 Smallwood says ‘it is probable (one cannot say more) that the revision was made from a complete’ Short Version (‘Prophecy’, p. 578); Childs and Taylor even more cautiously suggest that ‘it is unlikely that . . . an author, writing a formal continuation of the prose Brut, would have been unaware of the earlier text’ (Anonimalle, p. 23); Matheson is less than confident about the notion of a version to 1307: ‘There are some indications that in the early fourteenth century the basic text to 1272 received a continuation . . . [to] 1307, though this stage must have been quickly subsumed into later recensions’ (Prose ‘Brut’, p. 31). 30 Pace J. Taylor, ‘The French Prose Brut: Popular History in Fourteenth-Century England’, in England in the Fourteenth Century, ed. W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1986), pp. 247–54 (p. 251); his English Historical Literature in the Fourteenth

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within the same not innately conclusive year (1333–4) is suggestive, as is the fact that in the body of the main text, the maker of the Long Version occasionally introduces new material, replaces old material, or revises the accounts offered by his sources.31 It is certainly possible that the writer of the Long Version was working from a source that ran only to 1307. It is not even necessary to posit intermediate stages of the text, for which manuscript evidence is scanty at best, in order to imagine this to be the case: it is only necessary to envision a writer in possession of a defective manuscript of the same Short Version to 1333 that survives more or less complete in over twenty copies.32 But it does not seem necessary to dismiss out of hand the least subtle and most parsimonious hypothesis, that the maker of the Long Version of the text was in fact working from the Short Version, complete with prologue and continuation, and that the differences between the two versions were the result of deliberate effort on the writer’s part, not the result of the unavailability of the Short Continuation, or of the use of some now lost source other than the Short Version. Such a theoretical source only relocates the problem of where these different versions of events originated. Many changes in texts over time do seem to happen outside conscious human intention, as the result of scribal errors, defective copy-texts and imperfect translations. But just as scribes and binders may make mistakes, writers may and do deliberately alter texts they receive. The judicious revision of source material, along with compilation of material from many sources, was, after all, a preeminent form of literary activity in the Middle Ages. The kind of writing labeled history was by no means immune to intention, opinion, taste and imagination. Human agency should not always and only be an explanation of last resort. Although conclusive evidence is not forthcoming, and the point is not ultimately necessary to the case advanced here, it seems entirely possible that the writer of the Long Continuation knew the Short Continuation and replaced it because he wanted to, just as he seems to have known and reworked the verse prologue. The maker of the Long Version did not merely supplement the Brut Century (Oxford, 1987), p. 117; and Childs and Taylor, Anonimalle, pp. 16–17. There is no evidence of separate long and short versions of the prose Brut to 1307 to which separate continuations were later attached. 31 The probable source for his prophecies of Merlin, The Prophecy of the Six Kings, survives and offers indications of his working method (see Smallwood, ‘Prophecy’, pp. 577–9). The manuscripts of the Short Continuation end (often defectively) at a variety of dates, but the preponderance of the evidence points to 1333 (see Matheson, Prose ‘Brut’, pp. 32–4; Childs and Taylor, Anonimalle, p. 21). 32 A list of manuscripts of the Short Version, to which should be added e Mus. 108, may be found in Childs and Taylor, Anonimalle, pp. 74–5.

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chronicle but altered its character, and he did so not only by changing its words but also by giving it a new ordinatio. Scribes and readers of earlier versions of the prose Brut sometimes provided or added apparatus to their manuscripts to make it easier at least to find the stories of particular kings: on a modest level, proper names might be touched with red, and names or pointing hands might be supplied in the margins.33 Manuscripts of the oldest version of the chronicle include some apparatus, but in each case it is different: London, British Library, Add. 35092 adds rubrics at the beginning of each reign; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 14640 and nouvelles acquisitions français 4267 each provide different rubrics. The scribe of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 120, who appears to have copied and rubricated his manuscript single-handedly, provides running heads with the proper names that appear on each page. Bodleian Wood empt. 8, an exquisitely prepared but now damaged manuscript of the oldest version of the text, contains brief rubrics as well as carefully written Latin marginal annotations, added later in the manuscript’s life but clearly not a reader’s casual notes.34 These manuscripts seem to represent efforts to make individual books easier to use.35 In his revision of the Brut, the maker of the Long Anglo-Norman Version does much more. The best-known English vernacular manuscript to have been given a ‘clerical’ apparatus is the Ellesmere Chaucer, which imposes on the Canterbury Tales the ordinatio of a compilatio, an organized collection of related materials from different sources: the manuscript provides running heads and notes of topics and sources, it points out sententia with the word auctor, and as Parkes points out, it even makes the organizing principle of the collection clear with its portraits of the Canterbury pilgrims.36 The Ellesmere Chaucer is modeled on a theological or philosophical compila33

M. B. Parkes comments on apparatus introduced to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century vernacular texts and specifically mentions the underlining or boxing of proper names in manuscripts of the Middle English Brut (‘The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book’, in his Scribes, Scripts and Readers (London, 1991), 35–70 (pp. 64–6)): this technique does not seem to be common in the Anglo-Norman Bruts, at least in the manuscripts I have seen. 34 The text hand of the manuscript is a meticulous and heavily punctuated anglicana formata with no secretary letters; the hand of the annotations, each of which is laid out to form a tapering shield-shaped block of text, uses secretary letter-forms with some anglicana as and gs. 35 By contrast, manuscripts of the Short Version do not as a rule provide rubrics but rely on large initials (or spaces left for them) to separate sections of text. 36 San Marino, Huntington Library, EL 26. C. 9; ‘Influence’, p. 65; see also I. Doyle and M. B. Parkes, ‘The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the Early Fifteenth Century’, in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries, ed. M. B. Parkes and A. G. Watson (London, 1978), 163–212 (pp. 190–4), for a detailed discussion of the ordinatio of early manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales.

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tion: the apparatus testifies to the intellectual and moral value of the stories. The ordinatio is as much a bid for or claim to status as the manuscript’s elaborate and expensive decoration. The reviser of the Anglo-Norman Brut follows a different but equally respectable model as he recasts his book: the example of clerical Latin history as epitomized in the fourteenth century by the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, already circulating in its shortest form by the late 1320s, and built upon longstanding historiographic tradition as well as the thirteenth-century efflorescence of historical writing at St Albans. First, the reviser of the Brut adds chapter numbers and headings to the text, divided in most manuscripts of the Short Version with large initials: he generally follows the reign-by-reign arrangement of the older Bruts and ends up with some one-sentence chapters as a result, but he also divides longer reigns (notably that of Arthur) into shorter episodic chapters.37 Adding some 220 numbers and headings would be no quick or trivial job (nor an easy one – numbering mistakes are rampant in the manuscripts). And internal evidence suggests that the reviser composed his rubrics before or as he worked on the text, and not afterwards.38 They were not decorative but fundamental to the nature of the prose Brut as he constructed it. In a fourteenth-century book, chapter numbers are a mark of intellectual aspiration, as important for reference purposes as page numbers are in printed books today, for they are useful only in a text to which someone may wish to refer, or in a book with its own table of capitula, which at least 37

Matthew Paris organizes his chronicle by year after the birth of Christ, and by whatever means he can (usually reigns) beforehand: he accordingly does not offer chapter numbers in addition to years, but he does provide rubrics. Higden divides his work into books and chapters with rubrics. Examples may be found in the facsimile pages printed at the beginning of each volume of the Rolls Series editions: Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series 57, 7 vols. (London, 1872–1883); Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. C. Babington and J. R. Lumby, Rolls Series 41, 9 vols. (London, 1865–86). The work of both writers survives in autograph. 38 For instance, the rubrics to the prose prologue incorporate wording from the verse prologue, and the text of the Long Continuation contains a cross-reference by chapter number to the story of the death of Edward II, in an indication that the author was numbering his chapters as he went (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1804, fols. 49ra and 101ra; see also The Brut; or, the Chronicles of England, ed. F. W. D. Brie, EETS OS 131 and 136, 2 vols. (London, 1906–8), I, 1 and 268). The Long Version of the Anglo-Norman Brut has yet to appear in print: M. Maxwell has made an edition and translation of one manuscript of the Long Version, which I have gratefully consulted in preparing this essay (‘The Anglo-Norman Prose “Brut”: An Edition of British Library MS Cotton Cleopatra D.III’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1995)). I am now preparing an edition of the oldest version of the chronicle, with London, British Library, Add. 35092 as base text: I will here cite Ashmole 1804 as a representative manuscript, and for the convenience of readers I will also provide references to the Middle English translation of the Long Version published by Brie.

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three later manuscripts of this version do possess.39 Chapter numbers are ambitious: they constitute a claim that the book is worthy of scholarly citation. Manuscripts of this version of the Brut also literally grow in status: while those of the earlier versions tend to be quarto size or smaller, a number of manuscripts of this version are hefty, lavish double-column folio volumes.40 One respect in which the reviser cannot imitate the likes of Higden or Matthew Paris is the notation, much less rubrication, of the work’s sources, since the prose Brut acknowledges none.41 He does, however, add a certain appearance of rigor by supplying regnal years for every king in the text, even the thirty-three ancient kings who rule in unbroken peace and therefore appear only in the form of a list of names.42 This spurious but impressive specificity recalls in its detail not only clerical historiography but also the brief royal genealogies found in many manuscripts. More substantively, the reviser adds prophecies of Merlin to the Brut, not those of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but beast allegories revised from the Prophecy of the Six Kings to Follow John, inserted in full during the reign of Arthur, and then explicated at the end of the reign of each appropriate king in the continuation.43 By introducing such prophecies, the reviser participates in the Galfridian tradition of prophetic allegory (much in vogue in the fourteenth century) and so brings the Brut chronicle closer to its Latin ancestor – if farther still from Higden’s critical, analytical historiography. These prophecies are the first indication that the reviser alters the text of the Brut (and adapts his other sources) in order to promote a specific understanding of the British past, and not only to raise the book’s apparent intellectual status, for he uses prophecy to connect the authority of the past with a particular interpretation of the present. The prophecies give no less a

39

40

41

42

43

London, British Library, Royal 19. C. 9 (a manuscript of continental origins) and Additional 18462a, and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 12155 (also continental) (Matheson, Prose ‘Brut’, p. 119). For example, Royal 19. C. 9 (with pages of 315 x 215 mm), Ashmole 1804 (300 x 210 mm), and London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra D 3 (256 x 191 mm). My impression of the relatively smaller size of earlier versions is based on the manuscripts I have seen and is supplemented by an unpublished list kindly supplied to me by M. Maxwell. In the autograph manuscript of the Polychronicon (San Marino, Huntington Library, 132), establishing the norm for later copyists, Higden rubricates his authorities, as well as his own mark; see John Taylor, The Universal Chronicle of Ranulf Higden (Oxford, 1966), pp. 92–6, for the identification of Higden as writer of this manuscript. He also introduces the famous name of Cadwallader, omitted in the first prose Brut, by the simple expedient of consistently substituting it for that of Cadwan (cf. BL Add. 35092, fols. 23v–24r and 79r, and Ashmole 1804, fols. 53va–vb and 66r; see The Brut, I, 30–1 and 100). See Smallwood, ‘Prophecy’, pp. 571–92, for the history of this work.

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figure than Merlin the opportunity to praise Edward III, the boar out of Windsor, and to link the reigning king directly to Arthur himself.44 The reviser’s exploitation of prophecy bespeaks an exegetically minded approach to history. His interest in interpreting history – in extracting meaning from it – is what, I believe, lies behind his most drastic changes to the substance of the text he received, namely, the revision of the prologue and the introduction of his continuation to 1333.

The Prose Prologue The reviser who produced the last Anglo-Norman Brut handles his material with forethought and care, and he assimilates the story of Albine and her sisters with the same meticulousness he applies to the rest of the Brut. He rubricates it and puts it into prose, subordinating it to the book’s original beginning by setting it apart as a preface: chapter one begins with Aeneas. But in the rubric to the preface (adapted from the opening lines of the poem), the reviser shifts the focus a bit, omitting mention of the giants and emphasizing the name and name-giver of Albion: ‘Ci poet homme oir coment Engleterre fust primes nommee Albyoun, et per qi receust cel noun’ (here one may hear how England was first named Albion, and from whom it received this name).45 The new rubric hints that the reviser will not merely transmit the story he has inherited: as it turns out, his method of handling its subversive potential is not to try even harder to restrain it, but to unleash it. The prose prologue gains power through its more fully realized social universe, one that offers motivations for political and personal action, and one that shows the reviser to have read his prose Brut with care. In the verse versions of the story, the nameless king of the world is Greek, so that, as Johnson points out, Brut’s conquest of his descendants, ‘a monstrous and feminized order of the Greeks’, reverses the loss of Troy.46 Now the king gets a name of his own and a new place of origin, and the opening lines of the prologue verbally align him with the Aeneas of the main text’s beginning: En la noble terre de Sirrie ert vn noble roi poestifs de tresgrant renoun qe out a noun Diodicias.

44

See my ‘Arthur Authorized: The Prophecies of the Prose Brut Chronicle’, in a forthcoming volume, ed. K. Moranski, E. Risden and S. Yandell (Gainesville). 45 Ashmole 1804, fol. 49ra. 46 ‘Return’, p. 26.

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(In the noble land of Syria, there was a noble, powerful king of very great renown, who was named Diodicias.)47 <E>n la noble Citee de grant Troye y out vn fort chiualer et pusaunt de graunt poer qe out a noun Eneas. (In the noble city of great Troy, there was a strong and mighty knight of great power, who was named Eneas.)48

The name of the queen, Labana, may also owe something to Aeneas’s wife Lavinia (‘Lauyane’ in the Anglo-Norman). She is Diodicias’s cousin; this additional detail further socializes the story and gives a sense of the dynastic connections that make the world work.49 The king receives more extensive treatment here, with more attention to the personal virtues that enable him both to conquer others and to retain their fealty. Description of his kingship is limited to three favorable adjectives in the first version: the prose version explains that Diodicias ‘si noblement et si bien se contint par sa haute chiualerie qil conquist totes les terres entour luy, issint qe totes les rois pur poy del mounde furent a luy entendantz’ (conducted himself so well and nobly through his high chivalry that he conquered all the lands around him, so that nearly all the kings of the world were subject to him).50 He knows how to treat his subordinates well, summoning them all, high and low – kings, commanders, princes, dukes and knights – to a tremendous feast (original to this version of the story), which they find marvelous even before the kings are awarded the hands of the princesses in marriage.51 After this picture of flourishing authority – a generous lord, with loyal and grateful subjects – its domestic opposite is displayed in another new scene: Auint issi qe dame Albyne deuint si cruele et si estoute qele desdeigneit son seignur et luy tint en despit et rien ne voleit faire ses voluntez, mes sui sa demesne voluntee en diuerses malices. Et ses altres soers se porterent si malement vers lour seignurs et si estoutement qe a merueille, pur ceo qils ne furent point de si grant nobleie come lour piere estoit.52 (It then happened that Lady Albine became so vicious and obstinate that she

47 48 49

Ashmole 1804, fol. 49ra; see The Brut I, 1. Ashmole 1804, fol. 49va; see The Brut I, 5. The source and further reasons for these Latinate names, the shift of place, and the increase in the number of daughters from thirty to thirty-three remain mysterious to me. 50 Ashmole 1804, fol. 49ra; see The Brut I, 1. 51 Ashmole 1804, fol. 49ra; see The Brut I, 1–2. This feast may be compared to Arthur’s coronation feast in the prose Brut. 52 Ashmole 1804, fol. 49ra; see The Brut I, 2.

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despised her lord and held him in contempt and wished not at all to do his will, but followed her own will in all kinds of mischief. And the other sisters behaved so badly and stubbornly towards their lords that it was amazing, because they were by no means of as great nobility as their father was.)

In the verse version, the sisters only say that their father is subject to no one and they will not be either; that is, they want to be like him.53 In this version, the sisters make a slightly different, more explicit, claim to rights derived from their father; they argue that with their royal blood, they outrank their husbands and are under no obligation to obey them. They refuse to acknowledge as fundamental the authority of manhood and matrimony. Unlike the sisters of the poem, who at first desire simply to reverse the polarity of power and gain mastery over their husbands, these sisters want something even more radical: independence. And Albine emerges early as protagonist of the story and leader of her sisters. The husbands first react to their wives’ disobedience with the generosity of which their father-in-law is an exemplar, but in vain: Mes les rois lour seignurs souent chastierent lour femmes, par beals promesses et par douns, et les amonesterent en amiste qelles se amendassent de lour folies. Mes ceo fust pur nyent, qar elles firent lour demesne voluntee en tote choses a lour poer. Par quey les trent et treis rois vne foiz et altre batirent lour femmes, car il bierent qe parmy celes aspertez eles se amenderoient. Mes lour custumme fust tele qe pur beals amonestementz eles firent le pis, et pur batre derichef le pis.54 (But the kings, their lords, often corrected their wives, with kindly promises and gifts, and they warned them in friendship that they should reform themselves from their follies. But it was in vain, for they did their own will in everything they could. Consequently the thirty-three kings beat their wives at one time or another, for they expected that in the face of this violence they would mend their ways. But their disposition was such that with courteous warnings they only behaved themselves worse, and with beating worse still.)

When beatings fail to have the desired effect, the frustrated kings send letters of complaint to Diodicias, who calls another feast in apposition to the wedding feast, in order to chastize his daughters. After two days of celebration, Diodicias summons the princesses to his chamber, rebukes them, and tells them that if they do not mend their ways,

53

See above. As Johnson says, ‘In so far as these women continue to recognize themselves as their father’s daughters, their position is incompatible with that of being their husbands’ wives’ (‘Return’, p. 33). 54 Ashmole 1804, fol. 49ra; see The Brut I, 2.

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they will lose his love for ever.55 He presents the matter purely in light of their attachment to him, and not to their husbands, appealing to them as daughters, not wives: he derives their identity from his blood in their veins, just as they do. When the sisters hear this threat, the text reports, they are ashamed and agree to make amends. However, they proceed to walk out of his room straight into the chamber of their leader Albine, who incites them to murder. Their assembly recalls other conciliar scenes in the prose Brut, which are deployed as set pieces demonstrating the qualities of successful leadership and advice, as, for example, when Brut decides the fate of the captured Greek king or Arthur considers his response to the messengers of the emperor Lucius. In those cases the leader takes care first to ask the advice of his barons. Out of the first hotheaded, murderous arguments arises a consensus both honorable and sensible: Brut asks ransom for the king instead of killing him, while Arthur overwhelms the messengers with his courtesy, as well as a thoughtful reply to the emperor.56 But here, without seeking the advice of her sisters, Albine urges a rash and treacherous plan on them, and they immediately fall into line. Such shame as they may express at their father’s scolding is shown to spring not from remorse but from injured pride. For Albine, the literally mortal insult is that the husbands have complained to their father behind their backs, that they are trying – successfully – to come between father and daughters: ‘Mes beals soers, bien sauoms qe le roi nostre piere nous ad si vergundee pur nous faire obeir a noz barons, mes ceo ne feroie durant la vie, depus qe ie suy estraite de plus haut saunk roial qe mon baroun ne est. . . . noz barons se vont pleint de nous a nostre piere, par quei il nous ad issint vilement ramponee, dont mon counsail est qe nous colpeoms les gargatz de nos barouns ceste nuyt, et issint serroms nous en pees de eux. Et meux purroioms fere y ceste crualtee desouthe poestee nostre piere qe aillours.’57 (‘My fair sisters, we know well that the king our father has so shamed us to make us obey our lords, but I will not do that as long as I live, for I am descended from higher royal blood than my lord is. . . . our lords go to complain of us to our father, and so he has basely derided us this way. My advice about this is that we cut our lords’ throats tonight, and thus we will be in peace from them. And we would be better able to do this cruel deed here under our father’s power than elsewhere.’)

55 56 57

Ashmole 1804, fol. 49rb; see The Brut I, 3. Ashmole 1804, fols. 50ra and 62vb–63ra; see The Brut I, 7 and 81–3. Ashmole 1804, fol. 49rb; see The Brut I, 3.

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This last suggestion, that they will be better off committing murder in their father’s house, reveals Albine as a would-be Rowena, manifestly incapable of believing that gender solidarity and political alliance will win out over family solidarity, that the king is really on the husbands’ side. Nevertheless, she is leading her sisters in a triple rebellion beyond breaking the bonds of marriage: one of gender as women seeking to be ‘in peace’ from men, one of family as daughters disobeying their father’s command, and a political one as subjects killing their lords. And kill they do, within a few lines, the narrator wasting no time or sympathy on the kings who have had their throats cut in their sleep, and not at a moment of sexual intimacy, as the verse version suggests. The sisters discover that royal nepotism is not what they might have hoped; Diodicias is so enraged against his daughters that he wants to have them burnt to death at once. But here new agents of moderation and good governance step in: the barons of the realm, who suggest that rather than execute his own daughters, he should simply exile them forever.58 Since in this version the sisters move from murder plotted to murder committed, it is tempting to think of the prose story as more extreme in all ways. It is certainly more lively and artful, with more dialogue and satisfyingly balanced scenes such as the two feasts and the sisters’ consecutive audiences with their father and their eldest sister. Both Diodicias and Albine are vivid characters, whereas in the verse text, the most prominent character is the unnamed youngest daughter, who spends about thirty lines confessing the murder plot to her husband and protesting her undying loyalty to him. The temper of the prose version is nevertheless more reasoned. The nature of the sisters’ pride is more clearly delineated and politicized. They are not merely spoiled princesses who want mastery but genuine rebels. The author here takes care to show the working methods of Diodicias and – of prime importance – the essential role of his barons and lords. The ideal king here does not only reward his liegemen when affairs are going well but listens when they are not. Even when the thirty-three subject-kings are lying dead in their bedrooms, the realm functions smoothly. Each episode of the narrative here advances, within a domestic microcosm, an ideal of governance: Diodicias’s conciliatory feast, threats against his daughters and subsequent punishment of them follow the same pattern as the subjectkings’ attempts to master their wives through gifts, warnings and finally beatings. The hasty agreement of the sisters leads to life lost; the moderating counsel of the baronage to Diodicias (like that to Brut and Arthur) leads to life saved. This kingdom is one in which moderation and judicious

58

Ashmole 1804, fol. 49rb; see The Brut I, 3.

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cooperation are saving graces, and one that metes out just but not savage punishment to rebels who do not respond to correction. Point for point, the reviser’s changes to the terms of the sisters’ exile moderate the suffering that the verse prologue eagerly describes. Their ship is provided with a full six months’ worth of food, and the sisters even have the chance to commend their kin to the god Apollo after they embark, in a moment of reconciliation that contrasts with the poem’s depiction of the satisfaction of the witnesses at the women’s punishment.59 Unlike their miserable, tempest-tossed, seasick analogues, these sisters encounter no perils on the ocean but simply sail until they reach the deserted island that will be their home. Similarly, they have no trouble hunting game once they arrive. Eating red meat has similar results as in the poem, the sisters bring forth giants, and there the story ends. The prose prologue does not look beyond the first gigantic generation but, with the giants’ presence established, moves briskly to the story of Brut: it thereby deflects the incestuous coup de grace. The sisters may bear monstrous offspring, but when they vanish from sight they also have an island of their own and plenty to eat. More significantly, they have the independence they sought and yet no longer pose a threat to the civilized realm of Diodicias. The thoroughgoing debasement of the princesses detailed in the verse version is clearly not integral – or even especially emphasized – in this account. If the poem underscores the horrendous consequences of insurrection as a way of warning would-be insurrectionists in household or state, the prose version makes the story the vehicle for a comforting account of family rebellion and regicide survived by the realm, of crisis weathered. Rebellion will happen, apparently even in the best of families and realms, and the true test of a governor’s mettle is how he contains it when he cannot avert it. But if, as I have argued, this second version of Albine’s story illustrates restraint and forbearance, the extreme immoderation of the sisters actually killing their lords demands an accounting. The treacherous plot itself would seem sufficient to justify exile, as it is in the verse prologue. To understand why the women’s crime should grow heavier and their punishment lighter, one must look to the end of the prose Brut, to the accounts in the two continuations of the career of Edward II. Telling the difficult story of the reign and deposition of Edward of Caernarfon would be made no easier by the fact that his son was the reigning king and his queen, Isabelle of France, who brought him down, was still alive when these two continuations were composed.60 After a full-scale coup in which one group or family displaces another entirely, 59 60

Ashmole 1804, fol. 49rb; The Brut I, 3–4; Des Grantz Geanz, p. 13, lines 193–6. Isabelle died in 1358.

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historians may well indulge in the kind of demonization of the defeated dynasty most familiar today in the case of Richard III. But in the England of the 1330s, a prudent chronicler would show that the deposition of Edward II was richly deserved and entirely legal, while he would simultaneously assert the legitimacy of his kingship in order to uphold that of his heir. It would not do to represent Edward II in any way that would reflect poorly upon his son. The two continuations take different approaches to the problem.61 Both dwell on the iniquities of the king’s advisors, a classic means of redirecting complaints against the king, and in Edward’s case, a famously well-justified charge. But they depict the king himself somewhat differently.

Edward II in the Short Continuation The Short Continuation takes an openly disapproving interest in Edward’s character. From the start it views him in the person of a private man rather than a governor, handsome but selfish, fickle and vengeful. The good lineage manifested in the king’s person is not enough to overcome the failings that make him unfit to rule. Only after listing these failings and describing the return of the exiled Piers Gaveston does the continuation make the more or less traditional complaint against the king’s evil counselors, and even then it does so in a way that puts responsibility on the king. The Anonimalle text expatiates upon the point: Cesti roi dehonura les bones gentz de sa terre et honura les enemis, come flatours, mauconseilers et meffesours, qi li conseillerent encountre sa coroune et encontre commun <profit> de la terre et les tint assetz chier. (This king dishonoured the good people of his land and honoured its enemies, such as flatterers, false counsellors and wrongdoers, who gave him advice contrary to his royal estate and the common profit of the land, and he held them very dear.)62 61

Since the texts of the Short Continuation vary so greatly among themselves, only general comparison can be usefully made between the two continuations. I will quote the Long Continuation as represented in Ashmole 1804, and the Short Continuation as printed in the recent edition of the Anonimalle Chronicle, read against Rawlinson D 329, which (as the comparative quotations above indicate) seems to represent the version of the Short Continuation most sympathetic to Edward, and one removed from the Anonimalle version. (Brereton also uses it as the base text for her edition of the verse prologue.) Material common to these decidedly different manuscripts of the Short Continuation stands a fair chance of being common to most. 62 Anonimalle, pp. 82 and 83, with ‘profit’ supplied by the editors from Lyell 17, fol. 112r. This sentence is not in Rawlinson D 329.

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Perhaps more telling is the passing description of the parliament of 1308: ‘Le barnage de la terre voleient amendre et redrescer plusours defautes, mespressiouns et grevaunces, qe furent faitz par le roi et ses malveis counseillours’ (the baronage of the land wished to put right and make good several of the failures, misdeeds, and wrongs which had been committed by the king and his evil counsellors).63 Rather than limiting itself to describing action, the Short Continuation also enters uncharacteristically into Edward’s private thoughts: Quant le roi avoit oi et entendu coment sire Piers de Gavestoun estoit mis a la mort par les grantz de la terre, il estoit durement coroucee et iree, et pensa privement touz jours en son quoer de sei venger de ceuz qi feurent assentaunz a sa mort quant il verroit temps. (When the king heard and understood how sir Piers Gaveston had been put to death by the lords of the country he was greatly angered and annoyed and he secretly contemplated in his heart all the time how to revenge himself when he should see the opportunity on those who had assented to his death.)64

To mention a king’s anger at unwelcome news is not unusual in the Brut, but the picture of Edward brooding constantly thereafter on vengeance is striking. In 1321, matters come to a head with Edward’s cousin Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the leader of the baronial opposition, on whose land Gaveston had been executed, and with whom Edward had been publicly reconciled in 1313 and 1318. The continuator shows the king’s passion (‘la grossure del coer’) overcoming the force of the charters he himself has granted, as he strikes against his barons, thinking constantly of revenge (‘toutz jours pensa de sei venger de eux’).65 The fate of Thomas and his allies alone supplies evidence for Edward’s vengefulness, but to depict anyone, much less the king, with such sustained attention to emotion and private motivation is uncommon in the main text of the Brut and within the Short Continuation itself. It goes far beyond the narration of events and serves as a means of emphasizing the king’s personal responsibility for the disasters of his reign. In contrast to the willful king, the text shows the lords of the realm always doing their sincere best, with the interests of all at heart. The Ordainers work for reforms ‘qe serroient al honure de dieu et de seint eglise et al honure du roi et profist de lui et de son roialme’ (as should be to the honour of God and the Holy Church and to the honour of the king and to the 63 64 65

Anonimalle, pp. 82 and 83; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 111v. Anonimalle, pp. 86 and 87; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 112r–v. Anonimalle, pp. 100–3; cf. Rawlinson D 329 (which lacks the second clause quoted), fol. 113v–114v.

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profit of himself and his kingdom).66 The lords come armed to the Parliament of 1321, ‘noun pas en despit du roi, meis pur ouster sez malveis conseillers’ (not in contempt of the king, but to get rid of his evil counsellors).67 Queen Isabelle too is loyal to her husband. While she and Sir Edward cannot return to England from France because of the king’s wrath, ‘la roigne si demena grantment de doel et de dolour come dame qe eust son seignur perdu’ (the queen’s demeanour was one of mourning and grief, like a lady who has lost her lord).68 From this point on, Isabelle, who has not appeared in the text since her marriage to Edward, becomes an important figure. As soon as she and the prince arrive in England, the whole countryside goes over to her side with a good will.69 And the continuator strikes a blandly reasonable tone when he describes the dilemma of the people of London after the queen has sought their backing with an open letter: Multz des gentz ne savoient qei faire, oue de maintenire la partie le roi et de sire Hugh le Dispenser, qi furent adonqe molt mal compassantz, oue de tenire ove la roigne ou son ficz, qi furent venuz en bone arraie pur la commun profist de la terre a defaire les enemis. (Many people did not know what to do, whether to support the side of the king and of sir Hugh Despenser, who were then planning much wickedness, or to hold with the queen and her son who had come in good order for the common profit of the land to destroy its enemies.)70

When the king flees London, the queen pursues him in order to take him from the hands of his enemies. When the chase becomes close enough, he is not said to have been be captured, but to have left his enemies and joined his liege people (‘se tint a sez leges gentz’).71 The reign of Edward II comes to a brisk end: the queen and the prince hold a parliament at which

66 67 68

Anonimalle, pp. 82 and 83; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 111v. Anonimalle, pp. 100 and 101; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 113v. Anonimalle, pp. 120 and 121; this sentence is not present in Rawlinson D 329, which offers a shorter account of Isabelle and Edward’s stay in and return from France (fol. 115ar (error in foliation)). See the Vita Edwardi Secundi for a similar account of Isabelle declaring herself widowed by the Despensers (ed. and trans. N. Denholm-Young (London, 1957), pp. 141–5). 69 Anonimalle, pp. 122 and 124; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 115ar. 70 Anonimalle, pp. 124 and 125; Rawlinson D 329 (fol. 115av) is a bit less heavyhanded, omitting Hugh Despenser and the plotting of wickedness. 71 Anonimalle, pp. 130 and 131; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 116v.

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le poeple graunta et cria qil ne deveroit plus reigner, meis qe son fice duk de Guyenne seroit roi; pur quei evesqes, abbes, priours, countes, barouns, chivalers, et burgeis furent maundez au roi . . . pur rendre a li sus homage et pur saver sil voleit assentire al corounement de son ficz, et il assentist qar il ne poeit autrement estre. (The people agreed and cried out that he should no longer reign, but that his son the duke of Guyenne should be king; therefore certain bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights and burgesses were sent to the king . . . to give back to him their homage and to find out whether he would assent to the coronation of his son. He agreed for he could not do otherwise.)72

The story moves promptly on to the happy reign of Edward III. Only in passing, after the text remarks on Thomas Dunhead’s plot to free Edward of Caernarfon – or to have him taken by force, as the text puts it – is it revealed that that following his move to Berkeley ‘avint isint tost apres qe la roi eu maladist illueqes et murust’ (it so happened that soon afterwards the king became ill there and died).73 And only when blame is to be assigned for the marriage of the king’s sister to David of Scotland is Isabelle mentioned unfavorably in the Anonimalle text, or in connection with Roger Mortimer: ‘En cel temps la roigne la mere al novel roi et sire Roger de Mortumer acrocherent a eux roial poer et le tresor du roialme, et tindrent le roi de south lour subiection’ (at this time the queen, mother of the new king, and sir Roger Mortimer usurped royal power and the treasure of the realm and they held the king under their subjection).74 In 1330, Edward III comes into his own, with the realization ‘qil avoit fou counseil, et qil et son roialme furent en point destre perdues traiterousement, et son poeple destruit’ ([that] he had had foolish counsel and that he and his realm were on the point of being lost by treachery and his people destroyed).75 When Roger Mortimer and his cronies are taken, there is no mention of Isabelle or her efforts to save his life. The only tacit acknowledgment of her involvement is that amidst the description of the

72

Anonimalle, pp. 132 and 133; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 117r. The Rawlinson continuation does not acknowledge the revocation of homage: it includes neither the phrase ‘rendre a li sus homage’ nor the text of William Trussell’s declaration, which immediately follows in the Anonimalle text. 73 Anonimalle, pp. 134 and 135 (the reading should probably be ‘enmaladist’); cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 117v, which even more casually says that the king fell ill ‘par cas’. 74 Anonimalle, pp. 140 and 141. Rawlinson D 329 is more discreet: it does not include this sentence, nor does it discuss the loss of lordship over Scotland brought on by the marriage. The Short Continuation scarcely mentions Mortimer’s role in Edward’s deposition; see Anonimalle, 123. 75 Anonimalle, pp. 142 and 143; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 118v.

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executions of the usurpers comes a report that ‘par commun conseil du roialme’ Edward takes control of Isabelle’s lands and generously pensions her off, in her final appearance in the text.76 In sum, the Short Continuation presents Edward II as a vengeful, unstable man swayed by evil counselors and deaf to his loyal baronage; Isabelle as a victim and then a heroine, whose misdeeds are treated circumspectly; and Edward III as a savior for the realm, who in pointed contrast to his father recognizes and corrects the abuses of his advisors and listens to the good advice of his barons. Never does the text hint that any aspect of the transfer of power from father to son is anything less than just or legal.

Edward II in the Long Continuation Although the dramatic Long Continuation shares the broadly Lancastrian sympathies of the Short Continuation, it is far more sympathetic to Edward II, displaying none of the personal animus of the Short Continuation. The Long Version presents Edward of Caernarfon in his role of king without dwelling on his personal character, it is less guarded in its portrayal of Queen Isabelle’s behavior, and it offers an account of the deposed king’s death as pathetic as that of the execution of Thomas of Lancaster. This is not to say that the Long Continuation praises Edward or minimizes his obstinacy in ignoring the advice of his faithful barons. However, evil counselors rather than the king himself are the villains of the piece from the start. The kind of personal criticism to be found of Edward in the Short Continuation is here reserved for the likes of Piers Gaveston, who not only helps himself to King Arthur’s treasure but openly vilifies the lords of the realm, calling them, among other things, dogs and whoresons.77 The text describes Edward’s subsequent intimates, the Despensers, as keeping the king entirely under their influence and preventing anyone from seeing him without paying a bribe.78 Edward is not absolved of all blame: the text frequently mentions that he indulges his favorites against the will of the lords of the realm. But even responsiblity for the execution of Thomas Lancaster, which most modern historians as well as the author of the Short Continuation see as at least in part personal revenge for the death of Piers Gaveston, is placed on the Despensers:

76 77 78

Anonimalle, p. 144; cf. Rawlinson D 329, fol. 119r. Ashmole 1804, fol. 87rb; see The Brut I, 207. Ashmole 1804, fols. 88va; see The Brut I, 212.

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Treiturusement fust le Roi consaillee quant parmi le faux consail de Despensers soeffri le dit sire Thomas, le filz de son vncle, estre decollee a grant tort, et ceo fust grant pitee qi tresnoble roi fust deceu par faux consail de les Despensers, les queux il maintint par lour losengerie en contre son honour e sa profit.79 (The king was treacherously advised when, through the false counsel of the Despensers, he allowed the said Sir Thomas, the son of his uncle, to be beheaded very wrongfully, and it was a great pity that a very noble king was deceived by the false counsel of the Despensers, whom he supported because of their flattery, against his honor and advantage.)

Finally, the writer resorts to madness as an explanation for Edward’s behavior: ‘Il deuint fiers come leon, e ceo qi les Despensers voleient auer fait fust fait, et si bien les ama qils poeient faire al roi quantqils voleient’ (he became as wild as a lion, and whatever the Despensers wanted done was done, and he loved them so well that they could do with the king whatever they pleased).80 Unsurprisingly, the writer’s sympathies are with Isabelle and Sir Edward as they return to England to right matters, trusting in God’s grace.81 Like the Short Continuation, the longer text makes no mention of Roger Mortimer’s involvement in the invasion. But from this point on, Edward II becomes an oddly sympathetic, even tragic, figure, while his counselors are even more thoroughly demonized. Bishop Stapledon deserves his execution at the hands of the commons of London because he is covetous and pitiless and a bad counselor to the king, and the text literally thanks God for the gruesome deaths of the Despensers, which it recounts with relish.82 Whereas the Short Continuation does not even raise the issue of the deposition’s legality, the Long Continuation betrays some unease by its very efforts to demonstrate the legitimacy of the proceedings. It portrays in detail the workings of the parliament of 1327, offers one of the most elaborate versions known of William Trussell’s revocation of homage, and takes as immediate justification for the deposition Edward’s ostensible refusal 79 80

Ashmole 1804, fol. 91ra; see The Brut I, 223. Ashmole 1804, fol. 91ra; see The Brut I, 224. Cotton Cleopatra D 3 uses the stronger word arrage, meaning ‘mad’, or even ‘rabid’ (fol. 158va). 81 Ashmole 1804, fol. 93va; see The Brut I, 236. 82 Ashmole 1804, fols. 94ra–94va; see The Brut I, 238–41. The younger Despenser is ‘traignee penduz decollee desboelee et ses boeles ars quartoriee et quarters maaunde a quatre villes de Engleterre et sa teste maunde a la pounte de Loundres’ (drawn, hanged, beheaded, disemboweled and his bowels burned, quartered, and the quarters sent to four English cities, and his head sent to London Bridge), while the father is chopped into pieces and fed to the dogs (fol. 94va).

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(while in so-called ‘safe-keeping’ in Kenilworth Castle) to attend the parliament at which he was deposed. Unlike the Edward II of the Short Continuation, who vanishes from the text as soon as his son comes to the throne, the deposed king here continues to play a vivid role in the story. He is a pathetic figure in prison: Sire Edward, pere le Roi Edward, fist doel sanz nombre par raisoun qil ne pout parler od sa femme ne od son filz . . . mes qil fust mesnes par malueis consail, vnquore ert il filz al noble Roi Edward e estrait de plus roial sank del mounde.83 (Sir Edward, father of King Edward, lamented endlessly because he could not speak with his wife nor with his son . . . for all that he was led by wicked counsel, still he was the son of the noble King Edward and descended from the most royal blood in the world.)

And at last he is horribly murdered in his bed, as specifically ordered by Mortimer, who ‘maunda la manere de la mort’ (sent the manner of death) to his jailers, crushed under a table and sodomized with ‘vn broche de quiure bruillaund’ (a burning copper spit).84 By the end, Edward is more sinned against than sinning, and Isabelle and Roger Mortimer, as becomes increasingly clear, are villains, taking advantage of the new king’s youth for their own ends: Le roi et sa terre furent guyez par sa mere et par Sire Roger de Mortymer, et lour volentee ert faite de haut e de bas, et ils acrocherent a eux chasteux, honours, villes, terres et rentes hors de la corone en blemessement de la estat le Roi a desmesure.85 (The king and his land were ruled by his mother and by Sir Roger Mortimer, and their will was done high and low, and for themselves they took castles, rights, cities, lands, and rents away from the crown, exceedingly to the detriment of the estate of the king.)

They are following in the footsteps of Piers Gaveston and the Despensers. Mortimer and the queen are in cahoots on all matters, such as the marriage of the king’s sister to David of Scotland without the lords’ approval, or the betrayal of the new king’s uncle Edmund of Woodstock, whom they trick into fomenting rebellion in the belief the Edward of Caernarfon is still 83 84

Ashmole 1804, fol. 96rb; see The Brut I, 248–9. Ashmole 1804, fol. 97va; see The Brut I, 253. This, along with the account in the chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker, constitutes one of the earliest occurrences of this notorious story, made famous by Christopher Marlowe (Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke, ed. E. M. Thompson (Oxford, 1889), pp. 33–4). 85 Ashmole 1804, fol. 97vb; see The Brut I, 254–5.

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alive. The continuation spends several folios on Isabelle’s rapacity, her lies to her son, and her disputes with the baronage, which are so bitter that she rides armed ‘come vne chiualer por doute de mort’.86 (Another respect in which the queen is notably unfeminine is her angry swearing by ‘dieu et ces nouns’, which in the main text of the prose Brut is the favorite oath of King John.87) The text goes so far as to say that Mortimer is ‘tant priuee’ with Isabelle, to mention that she hides the keys of Nottingham Castle to protect him, and to show her pleading for his life when he is taken.88 In the Long Continuation, then, Edward II is not shown as a tyrannical or even particularly wicked man, though an extremely foolish one: once deposed, he becomes a figure of sympathy as a victim of the usurping Mortimer. And although Isabelle first plays the role of rescuer, she soon becomes a power-hungry despot in her own right. As the continuation says, the people of England began ‘a hair la Roigne Isabelle qe taunt lamoyent a son reuenir de Ffraunce quant ele pursui les Despensers’ (to hate Queen Isabelle whom they had so loved upon her return from France, when she pursued the Despensers).89 But characterization is not the chief difference between the two stories, for in the first, the deposed Edward II dies of natural causes and Queen Isabelle is hardly mentioned, and in the second, he is murdered and his queen is a participant in the conspiracy. In a list of grievances against Isabelle and Roger Mortimer comes this: La ou Sire Edward, iadis roi de Engleterre, esteit ordeinee par assent de tote comunaltee en plein parlament destre en la garde le counte de Lancastre son cosyn, pur salvacion de son corps, fust pris hors del chastel de Kenilworth ou il ert, par colour de la Rogne Isabelle et del Mortimer, sanz assent del parlement, et mesnee la ou vnqes puis linage ne parent qil aueit nel poieit aprocher, et puis traiterusement moerdrit, dount vile eschaundre surdi parmy la cristientee.90 (Whereas Sir Edward, formerly king of England, had been directed by assent of the whole communalty in full parliament to be under the protection of the count of Lancaster his cousin, for his bodily safety, he was removed from the castle of Kenilworth where he was, by pretext of Queen Isabelle and Mortimer, without the assent of parliament, and taken where never again could his family or relations come to him, and then he was treacherously

86 87 88 89 90

Ashmole 1804, fol. 99rb; see The Brut I, 260. Ashmole 1804, fol. 99rb; see The Brut I, 260. Ashmole 1804, fols. 101ra, 101vb; see The Brut I, 268–71. Ashmole 1804, fol. 98va; see The Brut I, 257. Ashmole 1804, fols. 98vb–99ra; see The Brut I, 259. ‘Traiterusement’ is a correction for the manuscript’s ‘traiteruserusement’.

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murdered, concerning which shameful scandal spread throughout Christendom.)

The writer hedges his bets: the subject of the active verb moerdrit is safely unclear, and, when carefully read, the passage explicitly holds Isabelle and Mortimer responsible only for illegally moving Edward to the place where he is murdered.91 But the implications are unmistakable. It is known that Mortimer and Isabelle went to some lengths to demonstrate that Edward II had died a natural death, displaying his corpse and holding an elaborate funeral for him several months after his death.92 In 1330, Edward III saw Mortimer convicted of causing his father’s murder (among many other crimes); Thomas Gurney and William Ogle were convicted of the actual deed but managed to escape the country.93 The writer of the Short Continuation of the prose Brut believed or chose to follow the first official line, whereas the Long Continuation gives a vivid account of the murder, in the version that has become widely accepted as true. The two continuators undoubtedly lived through the events they recount, at whatever remove: they may well have viewed matters differently and had good reason to report them differently. (The public acknowledgment of the crime did not mean that its circumstances were well known, and rumors that Edward of Caernarfon was still alive circulated for years after his death.94) In the Short and Long Continuations, two different representations of the life of Edward II are struggling for authority, asserting their truthfulness both with their words and with their position as appendages to the prose Brut chronicle itself. That two writers should have and promote different understandings of a fairly recent event is hardly startling. But the prose prologue’s changes to its legendary material require more explanation, and the events of 1326 and 1327 may provide it. When regicide is admitted in the continuation, so too 91

A later passage repeats the charge that Edward was murdered by Roger’s counsel (Ashmole 1804, fol. 101ra; see The Brut I, 268). 92 T. F. Tout provides a detailed account (‘The Captivity and Death of Edward of Carnarvon’, in his Collected Papers (Manchester, 1932), III, 145–90 (pp. 166–70)). The reported means of Edward’s murder, probably envisioned by whoever conceived of it (whether murderer or fabricator of the story) as retribution for the king’s relations with Piers Gaveston, would also leave no external marks of violence, as the Long Continuation notes (Ashmole 1804, fol. 97va; see The Brut I, 253). Nevertheless, as N. Fryde remarks, ‘the legend that Edward was laid out naked and appeared unscratched is hardly supported by the evidence that his heart had been removed’ and placed in a silver vase (The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II, 1321–1326 (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 202–3. 93 Tout, ‘Captivity and Death’, pp. 173–4. 94 See Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, pp. 203–6, for one such report, dating from before 1345, quoted in full. In it, Manuel de Fieschi, a papal clerk, reports that Edward escaped from England and became a hermit in Italy.

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is it introduced in the revised prologue. In this version of the island’s history, Isabelle, daughter and sister to kings of France and successful rebel, becomes another sister to Albine.95 Although I consider the introduction of these parallel murders deliberate, I do not wish to argue that the prologue of the later version serves as some kind of veiled representation or allegory of the fall of Edward II. Instead, I would say that the ancient story is made to serve as a precedent, an explanation and even an optimistic reading of the recent one. The themes introduced in the prologue are pertinent to the understanding of the later event: the otherwise unnecessary introduction of the regicide forges a strong link between the two. The realm of Diodicias is in peace and good order until his daughters rebel, and I do not think the reviser meant to imply the same for Edward II’s reign, even though Edward, like the thirty-three kings, is portrayed mainly as a victim. Like Albine, Isabelle is a female rebel responsible for the overthrow of a king. Like Albine, Isabelle was even in a position to consider herself of higher blood than her husband, who owed homage to the king of France for the lands of Gascony: it was in her paternal home of France (now ruled by her brother, Charles IV) that she plotted her conquest of England.96 It should come as no surprise that the Long Continuation does not explicitly portray Isabelle as ordering Edward’s murder: King Edward III himself chose not to charge his mother with any crimes in 1330, when he took personal control of the realm, but instead seized her lands and pensioned her off. Nevertheless, the Long Continuation draws Mortimer’s role in the murder, Isabelle’s alliance with Mortimer and their joint abuse of Edward clearly enough for the audience to make the connection, and to see Isabelle, princess by birth and queen by marriage, in apposition to Albine as a woman prepared to kill her lord in pursuit of her own perceived rights. Isabelle’s England is both the realm of Diodicias, deprived of its rightful leaders but restored by a wise and faithful baronage, and the uncivilized 95

It may be worth noting that Isabelle’s father, Philip the Fair, also had experience of filial transgression – in this case by his daughters-in-law, Marguerite of Burgundy and Blanche of Burgundy (wives of Louis of Navarre and Charles of La Marche), who in 1314 were imprisoned for adultery; see E. A. R. Brown, ‘Diplomacy, Adultery, and Domestic Politics at the Court of Philip the Fair: Queen Isabelle’s Mission to France in 1314’, in Documenting the Past: Essays in Medieval History Presented to George Peddy Cuttino, ed. J. S. Hamilton and P. J. Bradley (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), 53–83 (pp. 53–4), for a brief account of the scandal. 96 Isabelle went to France in 1325, as she had in 1314, to resolve a conflict with the king, this time over the homage due, but she did not return when summoned. For Isabelle’s earlier diplomatic career, see Brown, ‘Diplomacy’, pp. 53–77.

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island briefly ruled by a woman thirsty for political power (and perhaps even one with a demon lover): the two realms merge together at Isabelle’s overthrow by her son. Isabelle may hold parliaments, wear armor like a knight, and curse like King John, but she does not escape for long from the control of the male society she tries to both subvert and imitate.97 When her son comes of age he overthrows her not with the transgressive violence of the giants but through the civilized means of a Brut: the law, the support of his followers and a minimum of force. He breaks the pattern of familial violence and civil unrest established by the regicides of the queens and the later rape of Albine and her sisters. The parallel murders set a precedent for regicide surmounted – even when it is recalcitrant rebellion against good kings and not civil war against a disastrous one. The good governance and moderation of Diodicias and his barons sustain the realm in the face of crisis, as perhaps did the measured response of Edward III when he seized power. Edward certainly exercised the option of capital punishment then, but not as widely as he might have, or as his father would have. And in his heyday, when he seemed to be setting out to conquer the world in alliance with a loyal and valued baronage, the ideal of kingship so sorely absent in the reign and person of Edward II seemed manifest in his son. In short, one message of the prologue for an audience reading in the prime of Edward III is that queens have killed their kings before, and the realm blessed with a wise baronage has survived. The prose prologue may even be seen to have a species of double happy ending, since Diodicias is rid of his murderous children without further bloodshed and the sisters can, as it turns out, take on a providential role in British history. Regicide might not seem like much of a path to a happy ending, or at least not a way of making the stories more optimistic, but except for the miserable murdered kings, everyone does come out ahead in the second version of the story, which becomes predominantly one of good and bad governance and its consequences. Diodicias is an even better king, who on the advice of his loyal baronage deals justly but not cruelly with his daughters, neither excusing nor executing them (these being the responses of choice for Edward II). The murderous sisters escape much of the fate that the original gives them, since the second version pulls all the punches that the verse prologue gleefully deals out – but they still lose their old and new realms through their lack of self-control. Even the giants have a somewhat easier time of it, since the latter version does not dwell on their dreadful appearance and behavior. And in the greater scheme, they become far more than a punishment to their mothers.

97

See Johnson, ‘Return’, p. 32, on the sisters’ actions as mimicry of patriarchal ritual.

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It is one thing for a band of criminal females to settle an uninhabited country, one that Albine can claim, however briefly, by her say-so alone. But by conquering their land, just as Aeneas conquers his, Brut and his men stake their claim in deed as well as word: they earn their place.98 By providing an enemy to defeat, the sisters’ evil redounds to the eventual good of Brut and his people. The giants make a perfect target of conquest, which is no doubt one reason Geoffrey of Monmouth provided them in the first place. They are doughty opponents who prove the valor and worth of Brut and his men, but they are also subhuman and therefore do not threaten Brut’s claim to be the first king of the realm. They permit him to be conqueror and founder at once.99 Similarly, the fall and murder of Edward of Caernarfon, and Isabelle’s attempt to keep power for herself and Roger Mortimer, lead to the coronation and eventual personal reign of Edward III. Whether she wants to or not, Isabelle ushers in a rightful and successful king and provides Edward of Windsor with the occasion to prove himself as Brut does. Thus, even though the revision of the prologue disarranges the poem’s immediate moral tidiness as a cautionary tale about ambitious women, it enhances the larger pattern of history, for the distant past now provides a context for more recent troubles. As rewritten, Albine’s tale acknowledges that affairs of state do not always work out as they ‘should’, but it also offers a comforting resolution, for even unpunished crimes play their part in the plot of history. The new version of the death of Edward II may also help explain one of the few substantive revisions to the main text of the Long Version of the prose Brut, that of the death of King John. In the original text and its first revision, John falls ill at Swineshead Abbey while fleeing his enemies: ‘Par cas li le prist vn sudeine maladie.’100 He dies at Newark a few days later. The Long Version tells quite a different story, in which a monk of the abbey, the taster for the king, hears him boasting of the impending ruination of the realm: ready to give up his life to save England from the king, the monk obtains absolution in advance from the abbot, poisons John’s wine, and shares it with him. They both die in agony, and the text reports that five chantry monks will dedicate themselves to praying for the soul of the self-sacrificing monk as long as the abbey endures.101 Relieved of its

98

Régnier-Bohler observes that Brut, like the sisters, is punished with exile for a crime against family – in his case, involuntary parricide (‘Figures féminines’, p. 87). 99 As Johnson points out, Brut does not kill the giants until they attack his men (‘Return’, p. 27, n. 17). He thus also becomes a defender against the aggression of others: his claim to Britain is buttressed in all ways. 100 BL Add. 35092, fol. 137r, quoted; see also Rawlinson D 329, fol. 98v. 101 Ashmole 1804, fol. 79rb–va; see The Brut I, 169–70. The story of John’s poisoning is

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wicked king, the realm goes on to flourish under the nine-year-old Henry III, whom the Brut treats favorably if briefly. The moral problems raised by this happy regicidal ending did not escape readers of the prose Brut. In his 1521 History of Greater Britain, the Scottish historian John Major, who read the Brut in Caxton’s edition, offers a literally damning critique, although he does not question the veracity of the account: A great wickedness it was in this monk, at no bidding but his own, to kill a king; for, grant it that the commonwealth may take some profit by the death of kings, yet on no consideration can it be allowed to a private person, and in signal measure to a monk, to kill them. Something vulpine too was there in the absolution granted by the abbot before the deed. And besides, that celebration of masses seems a piece of madness, as if this sinful monk had therein acted the part of a good man. The probability is that the abbot and the religious approved the action of the monk, and by doing so took away from him the very chance of a true repentance; and if he died impenitent, he is damned.102

Political considerations do indeed seem to have overwhelmed Christian orthodoxy for the writer who introduced this story into the Brut. Its attraction may have been that it supplied still another example of a regicide leading not to catastrophe but to rightful succession – and in this case the murder is one that can be openly portrayed as a blessing to the realm, as Edward’s death cannot be.

The Historical Imagination The efforts of the last reviser of the Anglo-Norman Brut speak to more than a simple occasional link, a way of narrowly understanding why contemporary circumstances may have encouraged him to adapt his sources as he did. The connections he draws offer insight into his historical imagination – his way of constructing history, his sense of writerly authority and responsibility, and his understanding of how history, whether the book or the past itself, is to be read. He is familiar with political allegory: he exploits it in the prophecies of not original to the prose Brut; it appears in the late thirteenth-century chronicle of Thomas Wykes (Chronicon Vulgo Dictum Chronicon Thomae Wykes, in Annales Monastici, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series 36 (London, 1866), IV, 6–319 (p. 59)). 102 A History of Greater Britain, trans. A. Constable, Scottish Historical Society 10 (Edinburgh, 1892), p. 161. I am grateful to Nicola Rogan for calling my attention to this passage.

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Merlin, which he seems to have revised and updated.103 But he does not allegorize the story of Albine and her sisters. Instead, by converting the story into prose and supplying names for the major characters, he brings it into stylistic line with the history it precedes and makes it look more ‘factual’. Although he leaves intact the prologue’s function as an explanation for the giants, he feels free to change details of plot and emphasis. No essential truth apparently lies in them for him. They do not need to be preserved but can be enhanced for a purpose other than reporting the events of the past: namely, that of making the past meaningful and useful to the present. By the sheer nature of legendary histories, there is a point, usually beyond view, at which a writer makes things up, from the whole cloth or by assembling received particulars into a plausible narrative. It is not easy to catch someone in the act, for the act must be carefully disguised in order to succeed. The story of Albine provides a opportunity to see the moment of legendary historical revision. The writer should not simply be considered a propagandist, willing to alter the historical record for his own purposes, wielding the medieval equivalent of a retoucher’s airbrush. I would instead suggest that he did not consider the story of Albine to be part of a privileged ‘historical record’ as such but a legend in exactly the sense of the word used today. The fact that he received it in verse, as an obvious addition to the beginning of the prose history he was editing, may have contributed to this awareness and given him particular freedom to reshape the details of the story. The verse version makes a few polite, perfunctory gestures towards sources, offering tags familiar to readers of romance, such as ‘jeo l’oi d’un sage home’ (I heard it from a wise man) and ‘si come le cronicle count’ (as the chronicle says).104 But the prose version does not discuss its sources or the nature of the truth to be gleaned from them. In fact, although it does add names to the story, it eliminates the only concrete detail offered by the poem, the dates of its events (beginning 3970 years after the creation of the world), which represent exactly the kind of information that a diligent reader could use to check his account against other histories of the known world.105 At the same time, of course, by bringing the prologue into stylistic conformity with the main text of the Brut, the reviser is endowing it with the authority of the chronicle and essentially introducing it into the histor103

See Smallwood, ‘Prophecy’, pp. 575–8. The first surviving version of the prophecies is ‘accurate’ up to 1312, and the second (found in the Long Version of the prose Brut) shows knowledge of events through to at least 1327. 104 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 3, line 10, and p. 27, line 491. 105 Des Grantz Geanz, p. 3, lines 13–15, and p. 27, lines 483 and 492.

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ical record. That is, he is attempting to induce in others a belief in the story of Albine – and perhaps for that matter the prophecies of Merlin – that he, as a knowing manipulator, cannot share.106 He does not entirely succeed in doing so: historians from the fifteenth century on readily accepted the story as an integral part of the ancient tradition of British history, but they struggled with both its veracity and its scandalousness. At least two manuscripts of the Middle English prose Brut reinstate the verse prologue’s version of the story and thereby eliminate the disquieting regicide.107 Jean de Wavrin vastly elaborates the story, which constitutes the entire first book of his history, and attempts to reconcile the versions of the two prologues by reintroducing the loyal youngest sister but retaining the murders as well (thus reinforcing the similarity of the story to that of the Danaides). He makes valiant efforts to rationalize the account, by, for example, giving Diodicias four wives instead of one in order to account for so many daughters simultaneously of an age to be married and plot murder, a point that does not exercise the Brut reviser.108 He also, like the Brut reviser, minimizes attention to the giants’ incest, saying only that the sisters ‘enfanterent geans grans et horribles, malles et feumesles, qui depuis crurent et multiplierent en grant nombre’ (brought forth great and terrible giants, male and female, who afterwards increased and multiplied greatly).109 John Hardyng tells versions of both tales but prefers that of the Long Version, assimilated (without an Hypermnestra) into the story of the Danaides.110 Holinshed follows Hardying’s lead in offering a Danaid version but then uses the fact that no Albine is known as one of Danaus’s fifty daughters to discredit the eponymic story of the island’s naming.111 It 106

107 108 109 110

111

The changes to the prophecies do not necessarily demonstrate disbelief in them: such editing could be regarded as clarification of authentic prophecies fulfilled rather than revisions as such. They are London, British Library, Harley 53, and Lambeth Palace Library, 6 (Matheson, Prose ‘Brut’, pp. 299–300). Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne, ed. W. Hardy, Rolls Series 39 (London, 1864), I, 7–8. Recueil I, 35; translated in A Collection of the Chronicles and Ancient Histories of Great Britain, trans. W. Hardy, Rolls Series 40 (London, 1864), I, 24. The Chronicle of John Hardyng, ed. Henry Ellis (London, 1812), pp. 25–30; although Hardyng declares that the Short Version’s account is not true, he cannot resist the opportunity to remark upon it: ‘Note that wemen desyre of al thynges soueraynte, &, to my conceypt, more in this land then in any other; for they haue it of the nature of the saied susters’ (p. 26). Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1807–8), I, 434–6. The history attributes a version of the story to Nennius and takes the king’s name, which becomes Diocletian in the Middle English Brut, as a scribal misreading of ‘Danaus’ as an abbreviation (I, 434). It also rationalizes the devils and dodges the incest question by making the giants already inhabitants of the island when

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is, however, ready to credit giants and devotes an entire chapter to the subject.112 In the legendary history presented in book 2 of The Faerie Queene, Spenser evinces familiarity (and great discomfort) with older versions of the story. It is incredible, but no more believable one is available in its place: Whence they [the giants] sprong, or how they were begot, Vneath is to assure; vneath to wene That monstrous error, which doth some assot, That Dioclesians fiftie daughters shene Into this land by chaunce haue driuen bene, Where companing with feends and filthy Sprights, Through vaine illusion of their lust vnclene, They brought forth Giants and such dreadfull wights, As farre exceeded men in their immeasurd mights.113

And in the History of Britain, Milton roundly condemns that fond invention . . . , brought in doubtles by som illiterat pretender to somthing mistak’n in the common Poetical Story of Danaus King of Argos, while his vanity, not pleas’d with the obscure beginning which truest Antiquity affords the Nation, labour’d to contrive us a Pedigree, as he thought, more noble.114

The reviser of the prose Brut thus succeeded, for many years, in making the story of Albine part of the standard account of the beginnings of British history, but he did not make it an uncontroversial part, nor did his own motives in including it escape attention, as Milton demonstrates. In part, the story encountered resistance because it was judged by the standards of

the ladies arrive: they ‘met with no other inhabitants, than the rude and sauage giants mentioned before, whome our historiens for their beastlie kind of life doo call diuells’ (I, 435–6). The 1586 and 1587 editions do not differ significantly in this account. 112 Chapter 5 of the Description of Britain (Chronicles, pp. 14–22); probably in no coincidence, the story of Albine comes in chapter 5 of the History of Britain. 113 The Faerie Queene, ed. T. P. Roche, Jr. (New York, 1978), 2.10.8. It is a nice touch to describe the giants’ enormity in the long line of the stanza. Spenser alludes only in passing to the giants’ ‘vnkindly crime’, reminding those who already know the story while leaving others in innocence (2.10.9, line 4). 114 The History of Britain, ed. F. Fogle, vol. 5 of Complete Prose Works of John Milton (New Haven, 1951), p. 7. For the Latin afterlife of the legend, see J. P. Carley and J. Crick, ‘Constructing Albion’s Past: An Annotated Edition of De origine gigantum’, Arthurian Literature 13 (1995), 41–114 (pp. 48–51).

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meaning and credibility of a later time while itself representing the standards of an earlier time, standards then losing their hold on the historical imagination. Santayana’s axiom that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it represents a fundamentally pessimistic view of history as a record of human failure: history is something one would prefer not to repeat. But the reviser of the Long Version of the Anglo-Norman Brut, like the first composer of the chronicle, never doubts for a moment that history will repeat itself. For these historians and their predecessors, repetition is the essence of history at an immediate level, even as the universe marches on towards final judgment. They structure their books as records of the varieties of human behavior, a set of patterns that will inevitably recur.115 Those who remember the past and learn from it may, however, take some control over which pattern they follow: the historian’s job in this view is to provide the kind of past that can be profitably repeated. And the trick is to make the artistry seem to be God’s, not man’s. The technique of reading and writing that I suggest is operating here – in which the events of the legendary past provide context and interpretation for the more recent past, as well as guidance for the present – is of course that associated with the interpretation of the Bible in the Middle Ages. For medieval exegetes the Old Testament was both literally true and highly susceptible to interpretation in light of New Testament revelation: indeed, Old Testament material required interpretation to flower into its full meaning. These historical and exegetical uses of the text were simultaneous and mutually supplementary. The Bible was a source of both style and substance for much authoritative ancient history, since ambitious historians like Matthew Paris and Ranulph Higden began their chronicles with the creation of the world. Medieval historians may explain events by means of biblical analogies, and they often present their stories, especially of disasters, as exempla with immediate significance to the individual reader.116 Like the history of the people of Israel, post-biblical history in this scheme of thinking is by definition part of salvific history, the unfolding of the divine plan for the universe. One of the ways in which historians can order their accounts of the world is to fit them into biblical narrative schemes, the greatest of these being that of the Exodus, a story so powerful

115

In this habit they follow their ultimate source, Geoffrey of Monmouth, as R. Hanning shows in The Vision of History in Early Britain: From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth (New York, 1966), pp. 144–56. 116 The Vita Edwardi Secundi, probably written in the decade before the prose Brut continuations, provides an excellent example of this sort of use of the Bible.

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that even today it is still common cultural coin. It was a popular model for early historians of the Britons, particularly Geoffrey of Monmouth, in whose history the rise and fall of the British people and their eventual flight from the island are made broadly analogous to the history of the Israelites, wandering in the wilderness but hopeful of someday reclaiming their birthright. The prose Brut, however, steers clear of the Exodus story and assiduously avoids Biblical allusion in general – a remarkable absence, considering the compulsive intertextuality of much medieval literature, historical or otherwise.117 It does not attempt to gain value as an intertext that successfully deploys its past authorities; instead, it sets out to be a text, an original, an authority in its own right, little less than a national Bible for the English, an account of the past in which legendary material serves as an Old Testament illuminating the more recent events. The chosen people of this history, the British, are made to surpass even the Israelites, for they go from strength to strength without exile or defeat: the first prose Brut eliminates the story of the ruin of the Britons and minimizes the disruption of the Norman Conquest, so that the people of Britain suffer no Exodus and no Babylonian Captivity. The advantage for the first writer and subsequent revisers of the Brut, of course, is that they are not contending with so authoritative a text as the Bible. Ingenious scriptural commentators can work wonders of interpretation, but Augustine and Jerome cannot alter the details of their original texts to enhance their readings, except, of course, through choices in translation influenced by Christian back-reading. At least with the story of Albine, the reviser of the Brut can and does make just such changes. The last reviser can tinker with the legendary verse prologue precisely because he recognizes it as legendary, and he can present his own account of the reign of Edward II, because where it is concerned, he is as authoritative as his contemporaries. It seems, however, that for him, the main body of the text was fairly intractable, or perhaps it did not need enhancement: most of his changes supplement the existing history, with the notable exception of the story of King John. But the recent past – the past the reviser has lived – is still open to debate. And the distant poetic past, perhaps by virtue of the fact that it is in verse and already associated with the fictional, is open to meaningful revision.118

117

The Long Continuation’s story of the execution of Thomas Lancaster is a notable exception, and its Biblical echoes are probably at second hand, incorporated from a hagiographic source (Ashmole 1804, fols. 90rb–91ra; The Brut I, 221–4). 118 For a discussion of surviving evidence of attitudes on prose versus verse historiogra-

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Just as the continuator of the Brut is willing to lard his text with prophecy made by a native Briton, the right man for a native British scripture, he is also willing to revise accounts of the ancient past in order to provide precedents (or antetypes) of more recent events. He is prepared to rewrite history, especially legendary history, so that it can teach a particular lesson at the particular time it is needed: he is using the past as much to show what should happen as what did happen, to demonstrate how the body politic should function even when its head has been cut off. He makes the past a source for a different kind of truth than mere fact, a guide to a stable, well-ordered society. The last reviser of the Anglo-Norman Brut is deeply aware of history as a literary genre. He takes the accomplishment of the first composer of the chronicle a step further by adding to its powerful prose narrative the impressive apparatus of clerical history and the authority of prophecy. He builds on the Short Version by bringing the verse prologue into conformity with the rest of the prose text, and by giving its story an important function in the context of the whole. He follows the Short Continuation’s lead in adding a contemporary, original account of recent history to the end of the Brut, even as he perhaps effaces the old continuation with his own in another sort of bid for authority. With these different continuations, vernacular history comes into its own in England: it becomes a medium in which the writer may not only manipulate the stories of the ancient past but openly assert particular readings of recent events. It is now an arena for active historical argument, that is, scholarship, however ahistorical and unscholarly the Albine story itself, much less its revision, may seem to the taste of its later readers. In a way, the success of the end of the book helped generate the conditions for the subsequent rejection of its legendary beginnings and the abandonment of the habits of reading that could make the connections between Albine and Isabelle meaningful. The reviser’s efforts to establish a vernacular historiography to match the Latin chronicle – in both the imitative and competitive sense – succeeded beyond whatever his wildest dreams might have been when he began dressing up his book with chapter numbers and rubrics. For when the prose Brut was translated into English, it became the most popular secular book of the age. The originality of the continuation rather than the typology of the prologue and main text was to be the enduring contribution of the prose Brut tradition to English historiography – so

phy, see G. M. Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 55–69.

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much so that Brut continuations became a dominant medium for historical writing of the fifteenth century,119 while the Brut chronicle itself set the standard for the form, and much of the matter, of English historical writing for centuries to come.

119

See Matheson, Prose ‘Brut’, pp. 16–29, for an overview of the reception and use of the Brut; see also C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913), pp. 113 and 136–7.

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APPENDIX THE PROSE PROLOGUE TO THE LONG VERSION OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN PROSE BRUT CHRONICLE from Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 1804 (M), collated with London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra D 3 (C) This edition aspires to minimal intervention, and this translation to fidelity before elegance. Diacritical marks have not been added, and i and j and u and v have not been altered to conform to modern conventions. Abbreviations have been silently expanded, and modern punctuation, capitalization, word-division and paragraphing have been introduced.

Edition [fol. 49ra] Ci poet homme oir coment Engleterre fust primes nommee Albyoun, et per qi receust cel noun.1 En2 la noble terre de Sirrie ert vn noble roi poestifs de tresgrant renoun qe out a noun Diodicias, qe si noblement et si bien se contint par sa haute chiualerie qil conquist totes les terres entour luy, issint qe totes les rois pur poy del mounde furent a luy entendantz. Auint issint qe cesty Diodicias esposa vne gentil damoisele, la fille de son vncle, qe out noun3 Labana, et luy ama tant come resoun4 le voleit. Si engendra de luy trent et treis filles, dont la einesce ert nomee Albyne. Et celles damoiseles quant vindrent a age deuindrent si beals qe a merueille. Parqi le roy Diodicias lour piere fist vn somouns par ses briefs a tuz les rois qe tindrent de luy qils venissent a vn certein iour en son brief contenuz a vne roiale feste, a quel iour touz y vindrent et mesnerent od eux admirals, princes, et ducs et noble chiualerie. La feste fust noblement arraiee, et demesnerent illoeqes si grant ioie qe a merueille. Auint issi qe le roy Diodicias pensa de marier ses trent et treis filles entre ces rois qe la furent a cel solempnitee, et issint espleita la busoigne qe Albyne sa fille einesce et totes ses soers furent mult hautement mariez a 1 2

Ci . . . noun] Coment Engleterre fust nosmee Albion et par quele noun C Red, blue, and gold 6-line floriated initial E M; blue, red, and gold 11-line floriated initial C 3 noun] a noun C 4 resoun] om. C

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Translation Here one may hear how England was first named Albion, and from whom it received this name. In the noble land of Syria, there was a noble, powerful king of very great renown, who was named Diodicias, who conducted himself so well and nobly through his high chivalry that he conquered all the lands around him, so that nearly all the kings of the world were subject to him. It so happened that this Diodicias married a young noblewoman, the daughter of his uncle, who was named Labana, and he loved her as was proper. By her he had thirty-three daughters, of whom the eldest was named Albine. And when these young women came of age, they became marvelously beautiful. King Diodicias their father therefore made a summons by means of his writ to all the kings who were his vassals that they should come to a royal feast on a certain day named in his writ, on which day they all came and brought with them commanders, princes, dukes and noble companies of knights. The feast was nobly prepared, and they enjoyed themselves there wonderfully. It happened that King Diodicias thought to marry his thirty-three daughters among those kings who were there at this occasion, and the matter went forward so that Albine his eldest daughter and all her sisters were very

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trent et treis rois vailauntz et de grant poer durant cele solempnitee. Et apres le feste, chescun amesna sa femme a son pais et la fist roigne. Auint issi qe dame Albyne deuint si cruele et si estoute qele desdeigneit son seignur et luy tint en despit et rien ne voleit faire ses voluntez, mes sui sa demesne voluntee en diuerses malices. Et ses altres soers se porterent si malement vers lour seignurs et si estoutement qe a merueille, pur ceo qils ne furent point de si grant nobleie come lour piere estoit. Mes les rois lour seignurs souent chastierent lour femmes, par beals promesses et par douns, et les amonesterent en amiste qelles se amendassent de lour folies. Mes ceo fust pur nyent, qar elles firent lour demesne voluntee en tote choses a lour poer. Par quey les trent et treis rois vne foiz et altre batirent lour femmes, car il bierent qe parmy celes aspertez eles se amenderoient. Mes lour custumme fust tele qe pur beals amonestementz eles firent le pis, et pur batre derichef le pis. Par qoi cesty roy qe out esposee Albyne escript les affaires de sa femme et les maunda al roi Diodicias son piere. Et quant les altres rois ceo oirent, ils maunderent ensement, par lettres asseales desouthe lour seals, la manere et la porture de lour femmes. Quant le roi Diodicias oi tantz des pleintes de ses filles, il se vergundy de hounte et deuint coruce e5 vers ses filles, et pensa coment il pout faire amendement de celes duresces. Si maunda par ses lettres a les auanditz trent et treis rois qils ve[fol. 49rb]nissent a luy et conmesnassent6 lour femmes od eux a vn certein iour, car il les chastierent7 de lour errour si en nulle bone8 manere poeit, si qe ceux rois vindrent et mesnerent lour femmes ouesqes eux, et le roy Diodicias les receust a grant honour et fist vne solempne feste a touz ceux qe furent desouthe sa seignorie. Et le tierz iour de cele solempnitee, le roi Diodicias maunda pur ses trent et treis filles, qe eles venissent a luy parler9 en sa chambre. Et quant elles furent venues, il les aresona de lour folies et les10 reprist despitusement, et les dist qe si eles ne se11 voleient chastier qe eles perderoient lamur de luy pur tous iours. Quant les dames ceo oirent, eles furent mult espountees pur hounte, et disoient qe eles feroient amendement. Ataunt senpartirent hors de la chambre lour piere, et dame Albyne, la soer einesce, les mesna en sa chambre et fist voider tous ceux qe leins furent, si qe nul ne12 y ert fors solement ly et ses soers. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

e] om. C conmenassent] amenassent C chastierent] chastieroit C bone] om. C parler] pur parler C les] il les C se] om. C ne] om. C

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highly married to thirty-three valiant kings of great power during this celebration. And after the feast, each one took his wife to his own country and made her queen. It then happened that Lady Albine became so vicious and obstinate that she despised her lord and held him in contempt and wished not at all to do his will, but followed her own will in all kinds of mischief. And the other sisters behaved so badly and stubbornly towards their lords that it was amazing, because they were by no means of as great nobility as their father was. But the kings, their lords, often corrected their wives, with kindly promises and gifts, and they warned them in friendship that they should reform themselves from their follies. But it was in vain, for they did their own will in everything they could. Consequently the thirty-three kings beat their wives at one time or another, for they expected that in the face of this violence they would mend their ways. But their disposition was such that with courteous warnings they only behaved themselves worse, and with beating worse still. On account of this, the king who had married Albine wrote down the doings of his wife and sent them to King Diodicias her father. And when the other kings heard of this, they likewise sent, in letters sealed with their seals, the conduct and bearing of their wives. When King Diodicias heard so many complaints of his daughters, he was ashamed by the disgrace and became angry at his daughters and thought about how he might lighten these hardships. And so by his writ he ordered the aforesaid thirty-three kings to come to him and bring their wives along with them on a certain day, for he would correct them from their waywardness, if he could do so in any good way. And so these kings came and brought their wives with them, and King Diodicias received them with great honor and made a solemn feast for all those who were under his lordship. And on the third day of this occasion, King Diodicias sent for his thirty-three daughters to come to him, to speak in his chamber. And when they had come, he questioned them about their follies and scornfully rebuked them, and told them that if they would not reform themselves they would lose his love forever. When the ladies heard this, they were truly consternated for shame, and they said that they would behave better. With that, they left their father’s chamber, and Lady Albine, the eldest sister, led them into her chamber and made everyone there leave, so that no one was there except her and her sisters.

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Lors dist ceste Albyne, ‘Mes beals soers, bien sauoms qe le13 roi nostre piere nous ad si vergundee pur nous faire obeir a noz barons, mes ceo ne feroie durant la vie, depus qe ie suy estraite de plus haut saunk roial qe mon baroun ne est.’ Et ces14 altres soers distrent tut ensement. Lors dist Albyne, ‘Bien say de voir qe noz barons se vont pleint15 de nous a nostre piere, par quei il nous16 ad issint vilement ramponee,17 dont mon counsail est qe nous colpeoms les gargatz de nos barouns ceste nuyt, et issint serroms nous en pees de eux. Et meux purroioms fere y ceste crualtee desouthe poestee nostre piere qe aillours.’ Et totes les altres dames se tindrent a cel counsail, et quant vint a la nuyt, les dames se coucherent od lour barons et en dormantz couperent les gargatz lour barons et les occistrent touz. Quant le roi Diodicias lour piere ceo oi, il deuynt mult corucee vers ses filles et les voleit auer ars. Mes les barouns de Sirrie le consaillerent qe il ne feist pas cele crueltee a ses filles, mes il feist taunt18 qeles voidassent sa terre sanz reuenir. Et issi firent. Lors fist le roi Diodicias ses filles eschiper, et les fist liuerer vitailles pur demy an, et eles entrerent en la mer et siglerent auant et comanderent lour parentz a Apolyn lour dieu. Et tant siglerent qeles ariuerent en vne isle tote gaste. Et dame Albyne sen issist primerement hors de la neef et dist a ses altres soers: ‘Pur ceo’, fait ele, ‘qe ie sui ainesce19 soer de ceste compaignie et ay ceste terre primerement purprise, et purce qe iay a noun Albyne, ie voil qe ceste terre soit nomee Albyon apres moun noun demeisne.’ Et totes ses altres soers ceo ly otrierent de bone voluntee. Ataunt sen issirent ses altres soers hors de la neef et purpristrent la terre de Albyon et alerent sus [fol. 49va] et ius et ne trouerent nul homme ne femme ne enfant fors bestes saluages de diverses natures. Et quant lour vitaille failli, eles se pesterent de herbes et de frutez en saisoun, et vesquirent al meux qeles poeient. Et puis mangerent des chars de diuerses bestes et deuindrent mult crasses et desiroient mult20 charnele compaignie de homme qe les failli. Et pur lour chalour, eles habunderent en nature grantment si qeles amoient meux et desiroient solaz charnel qe nul autre rien.

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

le] om. C ces] ses C pleint] pleindre C nous] om. C ramponee] reprouee nous C il feist taunt] taunt soulement C ainesce] le einesce C mult . . . desiroient] om. (probable eyeskip) C

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Then this Albine said, ‘My fair sisters, we know well that the king our father has so shamed us to make us obey our lords, but I will not do that as long as I live, for I am descended from higher royal blood than my lord is.’ And her sisters all said the same. Then said Albine, ‘I know well, in truth, that our lords go to complain of us to our father, and so he has basely derided us this way. My advice about this is that we cut our lords’ throats tonight, and thus we will be in peace from them. And we would be better able to do this cruel deed here under our father’s power than elsewhere.’ And all the other ladies agreed to this advice, and when night came, the ladies went to bed with their lords and cut their throats in their sleep and killed them all. When King Diodicias their father heard this, he became very angry with his daughters and wanted to have them burned. But the barons of Syria advised him not to do this cruel thing to his daughters, but only that he have them leave the land and never return. And so they did. King Diodicias then made his daughters take ship, and he had them carry provisions for half a year, and they went out upon the sea and sailed off and commended their kinfolk to Apollo their god. And they sailed on until they arrived at an utterly desolate island. And Lady Albine left the ship first, and she spoke to her other sisters: ‘Since’, she said, ‘I am the eldest sister of this company and I have first taken possession of this land, and since I am named “Albine”, I wish this land to be called “Albion” after my own name.’ And all her other sisters gladly granted her this. With that, her other sisters left the ship and occupied the land of Albion and went far and wide and found neither man nor woman nor child, but only savage beasts of various kinds. And when their provisions ran out, they fed on herbs and fruits in season, and they survived as best they could. And then they ate the flesh of various beasts and became very stout and greatly desired the carnal company of men, which they lacked. And because of their heat, they grew so full of lust that they more craved and desired the comforts of the flesh than anything else.

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Quant le diable ceo aperceust, il ala per diuers pais et prist corps del eir leschaunt natures de hommes espaunduz, et vint en Albyon et les acoucha et espaundy celes natures en celes femmes malurestes. Et eles conceurent et puis enfauntirent geauntz, dont vn fust nomee Gogmagog et vn autre Lankherigan. Et issi diuersement furent nomez, et en tiele manere vindrent et nasquirent les horribles geauntz en Albyon. Et il habiterent en caues et en mountaignes a lour voluntee, et en auoyent la terre de Albyon a pleisir parmy et par tut, tantqe Bruit ariua a Toitenesse en le isle de Albyon et la conquist de21 les geauntz auantditz. Ci finist le prologe del isle de Albyon.

21

de] om. C

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When the devil noticed this, he passed through many lands and took form out of air shaped to accommodate male seed, and he came to Albion and lay with them and spilled this seed into these miserable women. And they conceived and then gave birth to giants, of whom one was called Gogmagog and another Lankherigan. And so they were variously named, and in such a way the horrible giants were born and came to be in Albion. And they lived in caves and in the mountains at their will, and so they held the entire land of Albion at their pleasure, until Brut arrived at Totnes in the island of Albion and won it from the aforesaid giants. Here ends the prologue concerning the island of Albion.

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ARTHURIAN LITERATURE, ART, AND FILM NORRIS J. LACY AND RAYMOND H. THOMPSON

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ARTHURIAN LITERATURE, ART, AND FILM, 1995–1999 Edited by Norris J. Lacy and Raymond H. Thompson The following is an encyclopedic treatment, thorough but surely not complete, of Arthurian novels, stories, films, and other forms created between 1995 and the early months of 1999. The 1995 date was chosen because it marked the most recent version of The New Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing); since that time, there has been no systematic accounting of new Arthuriana. In addition to the titles that date from those four years, we also include some earlier material not treated elsewhere in earlier listings. Some of that material dates from the nineteenth century and earlier, but we also present discussions of the Arthurian themes and motifs in the works, for example, of Faulkner and Hemingway. In some instances, our pages deal with new Arthurian works by authors whose previous efforts were documented in The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. Where that occurs, we have chosen not to duplicate material from that volume, but instead to include parenthetical references, identified by NAE and a page number. Those references are to the 1995 Updated Edition of the Encyclopedia. That the flood of Arthuriana continues unabated is apparent. We present here some 150 entries, and a good many of those treat multiple titles. If there is a trend to be discerned in this compilation, it is that Arthur, of late, is rarely the subject of poetry and is absent from drama (except on the screen), whereas Arthurian themes thrive in fiction, film, and television presentations, as indeed they continue to do in popular culture, particularly in North America. Moreover, the most rapid growth in Arthurian fiction in recent years has been in the number of short stories, owing to the current popularity of thematic anthologies. The number of novels, on the other hand, has remained relatively steady for several decades. Nonetheless, the material presented here varies a great deal in medium as well as in subject matter, from experimental novels to comics to Breton painting to German CDs. Nineteen scholars, from the United States, 193

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Canada, France, Britain and Austria, participated in the preparation of this supplement. They are identified by initials placed at the end of the entry, but before the bibliography. Contributors and their affiliations are as follows: ACL AH BTL DN EB ESS HT JTG KH LB LG MAT ML MSp NJL OP-L RHT SRR UM

Alan C. Lupack, University of Rochester Ann Howey, University of Alberta Barbara Tepa Lupack, Rochester, New York Daniel Nastali, Kansas City, Missouri Elisabeth Brewer, Cambridge, England Elizabeth Sklar, Wayne State University Hilary Thompson, Acadia University Joan Tasker Grimbert, Catholic University of America Kevin Harty, La Salle University Laura Blanchard, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania Linda Gowans, Sunderland, England Michael A. Torregrossa, Smithfield, Rhode Island Miren Lacassagne, Université de Paris – VII Margarete Springeth, Universität Salzburg Norris J. Lacy, Pennsylvania State University Olivier Penot-Lacassagne, Académie de Poitiers Raymond H. Thompson, Acadia University Stephen R. Reimer, University of Alberta Ulrich Müller, Universität Salzburg

AB HUGH, DAFYDD, author of Arthur War Lord and Arthur War Lord, Book 2: Far Beyond the Wave, a set of two science fiction novels in which a suspected IRA agent (Selly Corwin) uses a time-travel machine to return to the Arthurian era. Peter Smythe, an SAS officer, uses the same method to transport himself in order to prevent Corwin from altering the course of history. Since such time travel transports only the consciousness, both of them must inhabit existing ‘Arthurian’ bodies: Smythe assumes Lancelot’s body; Corwin, Myrddin’s. Understanding that Artus’s survival would transform history, Smythe himself eventually murders Artus. [NJL] Ab Hugh, Dafydd. Arthur War Lord. New York: Avon, 1994. ———. Far Beyond the Wave (Arthur War Lord, Book 2). New York: Avon, 1994. ACKERMAN, FELICIA, author of ‘Flourish Your Heart in This World’, a story set in the near future. The title, taken from Malory, is a matter of discussion between Laurel, a worker at a hospice, and her terminally ill patient Mrs Noll. Each seeks her own way to ‘flourish’. Malory’s work, including 194

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this passage and references to Lancelot, Guinevere, and Merlin, is a recurring focus of the story. [NJL] Ackerman, Felicia. ‘Flourish Your Heart in This World’. In Martha Nussbaum and Cass Sunstein, eds., Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning. New York: Norton, 1998, pp. 310–31. ADELER, MAX (pseudonym of Charles Heber Clark, 1847–1915), Philadelphia journalist, editor, and entrepreneur, was counted in his day as one of the top Literary Comedians, whose ranks included Ambrose Beirce, Artemus Ward, and Mark Twain. His whimsical Arthurian fantasy The Fortunate Island (1882), published seven years before Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (see NAE, p. 478), recounts the adventures of an American inventor, Professor E. L. Baffin, who, upon suffering shipwreck, washes up on a fragment of Arthurian England adrift in the Atlantic. He determines to modernize medieval culture and technology with disastrous consequences. The many similarities between The Fortunate Island and Twain’s novel led to a public accusation of plagiarism (New York World, 4 November, 1889), an allegation with sufficient force to generate an extensive response from Twain (New York World, 12 January, 1890). [ESS] Clark, Charles Heber [Max Adeler]. The Fortunate Island and Other Stories. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1882. Foster, Edward F. ‘A Connecticut Yankee Anticipated: Max Adeler’s Fortunate Island’. Ball State University Forum, 9 (Autumn 1968), 73–6. Ketterer, David. ‘ “Professor Baffin’s Adventures” by Max Adeler: The Inspiration for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court?’ Mark Twain Journal, 24.1 (Spring 1986), 24–34. Kruse, Horst H. ‘Literary Old Offenders: Mark Twain, John Quill, Max Adeler and their Plagiarism Duels’. Mark Twain Journal, 29.2 (Fall 1991), 10–17. ALDEN, KEN (pseudonym of Alan Kitch), takes readers into the mind of Bors as he guards a monastery against a demon in ‘The Figure in Darkness’ (1996). The lesson he learns is both ironic and chastening. [RHT] Alden, Ken. ‘The Figure in Darkness’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 195–207. ALLWOOD, PETER, author, with Joanna Horton, Jeremy James Taylor, and Frank Whately, of the libretto and sole composer of the score for Pendragon, a musical stage version of the legend of Arthur intended for 195


children and performed by Britain’s National Youth Music Theatre. The musical follows the life of Arthur Pendragon from his birth to his coronation. In 1995, the British production traveled to New York where it was critically well received. [KH] Allwood, Peter, and others. Pendragon: A Musical in Two Acts [Libretto]. London: Weinberger, 1997. ———. Pendragon: A Musical in Two Acts [Score]. London: Weinberger, 1997. AQUINO, JOHN T. (see NAE, p. 580), has written a second Arthurian short story ‘A Figure in Faerie Time’ (1997), which traces the love between Pelleas and Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, through various incarnations, past and future. [RHT] Aquino, John T. ‘A Figure in Faerie Time’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 427–39. ARNASON, ELEANOR, perceptively probes the ironies in the sexual relationship between men and women in ‘The Dog’s Story’ (1996). This tells the story of Merlin and Nimue from the unusual perspective of a knight whom the old magician has transformed into a dog as punishment for attempted rape. [RHT] Arnason, Eleanor. ‘The Dog’s Story’. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (May 1996); rpt. in Isaac Asimov’s Camelot, ed. Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams. New York: Ace, 1998, pp. 201–41. THE ARTHURIAN TRADITION: The Myths and Realities of the Arthurian Legend (1997) is a CD-ROM that offers a brief survey of Arthurian characters, issues, and sources. This multimedia product may entice some younger users, but its content is not likely to satisfy anyone with real knowledge of the topic. Its uncritical presentation of some idiosyncratic theories on Arthur and the Grail may make it problematic in a pedagogical context. [LB] The Arthurian Tradition: The Myths and Realities of the Arthurian Legend. Cromwell Productions / Films for the Humanities, 1997. ASHLEY, MIKE, is not only the editor of a series of five anthologies of Arthurian short fiction (the Chronicles, respectively, of Camelot, Pendragon, Merlin, the Holy Grail, and the Round Table), but also author of ‘The Bridge of Fire’ (1998), a mystery story set in Arthur’s court. After Guinevere’s wedding ring is found in Lancelot’s bedchamber, it takes the

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deductive skills of two otherwise undistinguished young knights to clear his name. [RHT] Ashley, Mike. ‘The Bridge of Fire’. In Camelot Fantastic, ed. Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1998, pp. 124–68. ATTANASIO, A(LFRED) A(NGELO), American author who first dealt with the Matter of Britain in his Kingdom of the Grail (1992; see NAE, p. 580), reworks Arthur’s legend in one of the most imaginative and complex treatments in modern fantasy by blending traditional story elements with Dark Age history, ancient myths, and a host of invented characters. The first book of the series, The Dragon and the Unicorn (1994), tells how Uther and Ygrane are used by the demon Lailoken (Merlin) to produce a Christian savior who will stand against such forces as the evil Morgeu the Fey and the violent northern deity, the Furor. Arthor (1995) follows the young hero – who has inherited the soul of Cuchulain but who is also devoted to the Virgin Mary – through many adventures with warring gods, and ends with the drawing of Excalibur. The Wolf and the Crown (1998), the third but not last book in the series, tells of Arthor’s trials as he tries to reconcile his Christianity with the older religions while gods, angels, vampires, and fairies endlessly torment Britain and each other. The relentless array of supernatural beings that crowd the pages and the comic touches in their depictions may in fact indicate a satirical intent on the part of the author. [DN] Attanasio, A. A. The Dragon and the Unicorn. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1994. New York: Harper Prism, 1996. ———. Arthor. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1995. Published in the USA as The Eagle and the Sword. New York: Harper Prism, 1997. ———. The Wolf and the Crown. New York and London: Harper Prism, 1998. BALDRY, CHERITH, is the author of three stories about Sir Kay: Sir Kay’s Quest (1996), ‘Hunt of the Hart Royal’ (1996), and ‘The Trial of Sir Kay’ (1997). Baldry reconciles two traditions about this character: her Kay seems churlish, but actually is heroic. In each story, Kay faces a challenge, and the successful completion of the task reveals the truth of his character to Gawain, Gareth, and the readers, if not to the court. [AH] Baldry, Cherith. ‘Hunt of the Hart Royal’. In Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven/Robinson, 1996, pp. 94–108. ———. Sir Kay’s Quest. Illus. Daniel Wright. Rochester, NY: Round Table, 1996.

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———. ‘The Trial of Sir Kay’. In Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven/Robinson, 1997, pp. 339–54. BALDWIN, FRED, uses an Arthurian setting for The Camelot Contract (1986), a comic fable satirizing meaningless studies conducted by business consultants. A young squire here outwits a team of Merlin’s analysts sent by King Arthur to review a subject nobleman’s business practices. [DN] Baldwin, Fred. The Camelot Contract: Ripping Off the Government Under Good King Arthur. Carlisle, PA: Pennon Press, 1986. BARRON, T. A. (TOM), is the author of four Arthurian novels for young adults. In The Merlin Effect (1994), a twentieth-century girl encounters Merlin and finds the lost Treasures of Britain. The Lost Years of Merlin (1996), The Seven Songs of Merlin (1997), and The Fires of Merlin (1998) are the first three novels in a projected five-book series, also called The Lost Years of Merlin. The series shows the influence of Welsh myth, medieval texts, and the works of T. H. White and Mary Stewart in their account of Merlin’s youth. As the novels progress, Merlin gradually discovers his family and his powers as he participates in conflicts between the evil forces of Rhita Gawr and the good forces of Dagda. The first novel begins in Britain, but the setting thereafter is the imaginary island of Fincayra. [AH] Barron, T. A. The Merlin Effect. Illus. Anthony Bacon Venti. New York: Philomel, 1994. ———. The Lost Years of Merlin. New York: Philomel, 1996. ———. The Seven Songs of Merlin. New York: Philomel, 1997. ———. The Fires of Merlin. New York: Philomel, 1998. BEATTIE, ANDREW, has composed Ordinary Jack: A Sort of Fairy Tale . . . (1996). This humorous children’s play, set in an anachronistic Dark Age, was first performed at Eltham College, England, in February 1995. Jack’s quest for the Holy Grail helps him to win his bride and, it turns out, a kingdom. [HT] Beattie, Andrew. Ordinary Jack: A Sort of Fairy Tale . . .. London: Minerva, 1996. BENEDICTUS, DAVID, makes Cambridge, England, the setting for Floating Down to Camelot (1985), a campus novel in which Tennyson’s ‘Lady of Shalott’ appears as a recurrent theme. The poem is the subject of both a lecture in the Faculty of English and of an undergraduate’s essay. The motif ends the novel when the undergraduate, who has a death wish, 198


lies – resembling the Lady – in a glass coffin while her blood is ‘frozen slowly’ by Lance, a young American scientist. [EB] Benedictus, David. Floating Down to Camelot. London: Macdonald, 1985. BERLING, PETER, German actor and film producer (for Alexander Kluge, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Werner Schroeter, among others), author of two ‘medieval’ novels. His novel Die Kinder des Gral (‘The Children of the Grail’, 1991) combines the Grail legend with medieval fantasy and historical events between 1244 and 1247 in Europe and the Near East. [UM] Berling, Peter. Die Kinder des Gral. Roman. Bergisch Gladbach: Lübbe, 1991. BETANCOURT, JOHN GREGORY (see NAE, p. 581), adapts a traditional Chinese tale to an Arthurian setting in ‘The Tale of Lady Ashburn’ (1995). Arthur, while still a youth, meets and falls in love with a beautiful and talented woman who, it eventually turns out, has been long dead. [RHT] Betancourt, John Gregory. ‘The Tale of Lady Ashburn’. In The Book of Kings, ed. Richard Gilliam and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: Roc/Penguin, 1995, pp. 99–111. BRADLEY, MARION ZIMMER (see NAE, pp. 50, 582). Known for her feminist rewriting, The Mists of Avalon (1982), Bradley has written two novels depicting the history of Avalon before Arthur’s time: The Forest House (1993) and Lady of Avalon (1997). The Forest House takes place in the first century AD, when many of the tribes of Britain resist Roman occupation. The main characters are caught in this struggle. The Forest House of the title is a Druid holy place where a group of important Druid priestesses live and train. At the end of the novel, Caillean, one of these priestesses, establishes Avalon, and thus survives the destruction of the Forest House. Lady of Avalon begins immediately after these events and spans centuries (AD 96–452) to the time leading up to Mists. Bradley divides the novel into three sections, each of which tells the story of a High Priestess, or Lady, of Avalon and her role in the continuing political conflicts of the British, either with the Romans or the Saxons. The first section, set in the first century, depicts the struggles of three characters with Rome: Caillean, of The Forest House; Sianna, daughter of the Faerie Queen who appears in Mists; and Gawen, son of the protagonists of The Forest House. The second section, set in the third century, involves the Lady Dierna, the 199


priestess-trained princess Teleri, the Germanic Admiral Carausius, and Carausius’s aide Allectus. The relationships among these four principal characters foreshadow the relationships of Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar, Arthur, and Lancelot in Mists. The last section contains the most Arthurian elements, for it is the story of Viviane (a character in Mists) as she grows up to become Lady. Her mother Ana, the young prince Vortimer, and the bard Taliesin are also major characters. As in Mists, Bradley emphasizes women’s experiences, although the focus here is not exclusively female. She continues to explore women’s roles in periods of change: at the Forest House, for example, priestesses are dominated by the male Druids, but at Avalon they become more self-determining while still influenced by the expectations of the outside society. Most of the characters are not as powerfully realized as those in Mists; still, the novels provide an imaginative and feminist background to the Arthurian story. Bradley’s latest novel, Heartlight (1998), although it is concerned with occult forces in contemporary America, does include several Arthurian references, such as the hero’s sword-in-the-stone paperweight. [AH] Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Forest House. London: Joseph, 1993. ———. Lady of Avalon. New York: Viking, 1997. ———. Heartlight. New York: Tor, 1998. BRAGG, MELVYN, English novelist, depicts two aspects of the eclipse of Celtic culture in seventh-century Britain in his historical novel, Credo (1996). While Padric, great-grandson of Urien of Rheged, struggles to consolidate the warriors of ‘Arthur’s kingdom’ against the overlords of Saxon Northumberland, his beloved Bega, an Irish princess, gives her life to the Celtic Church at the time the Roman Church is establishing precedence. Arthur is thought of as a king of legend as well as history by characters in the story, and the myth of his promised return is already in circulation. [DN] Bragg, Melvyn. Credo. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1996. Published in the USA as The Sword and the Miracle. New York: Random House, 1997. BRIDGES, SALLIE, in 1864 composed ‘Legends of the Round Table’, a sequence of fourteen poems on Arthurian themes drawn mainly from Malory. A couple of the poems, however, are strikingly original. ‘The King and the Bard’ demonstrates that monarchs can neither control a bard’s song nor rule men’s spirits. ‘Avilion’, the final poem of the sequence, imagines the narrator’s tears forming a lake over which a barge comes to bring her to Avilion; there she meets a deceased loved one as well as Arthur. She makes 200


Arthur aware that it is time for him to return because of the need for someone to ‘lead the way to truth through seas of blood’, which may be a reference to the American Civil War. [ACL] Bridges, Sallie. ‘Legends of the Round Table’. In Marble Isle and Other Poems. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1864, pp. 157–238. BRITTAIN, BILL, American author of two stories for very young readers in which Merlin returns as a substitute teacher who leads his students into learning adventures. In The Wizards and the Monsters (1994), the children are taken to a medieval castle where they prove that intelligence can overcome magic; and in The Mystery of the Several Sevens (1994), they visit Fairyland where they use mathematics skills to solve the case of the diamonds stolen from the Seven Dwarves. [DN] Brittain, Bill. The Wizards and the Monsters. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. ———. The Mystery of the Several Sevens. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. BROOKE, MAXEY, author of ‘Morte d’Espier’, a short story in which Merlin succeeds in identifying the spy who has betrayed Arthur’s army in its battles with Sir Brian. (See also NAE, pp. 56, 582.) [NJL] Brooke, Maxey. ‘Morte d’Espier’. Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (June 1955); rpt. in Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 248–54. BROWN, ALAN, puts an unusual spin on the Arthurian story in his juvenile fantasy novel Sword and Sorcery (1997), setting his narrative in a future time when the world has been flooded and Albion consists of islands – Bodmor, Exmor, Mendip – in the great sea. When women of the islands are taken by the Saxon-like Dragonfolk of the North, young Art and Gwen lead a quest to free them. After Art draws Excalibur from the stone and Gwen frees Myrddin from a hawthorn tree, the story climaxes with a fight between Art and the Dragonlord, while Myrddin faces Morgana and her son Dred in a battle of magic. It is revealed by Myrddin that it is the destiny of Art to fight for Albion through all the ages. Brown also amplified the Arthurian setting in his retelling of the Childe Rowland tale in the children’s book King of the Dark Tower (1996). [DN] Brown, Alan. King of the Dark Tower. London: Hodder Children’s Books, 1996. ———. Sword and Sorcery. London: Hodder Children’s Books, 1997.

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BRYERS, PAUL, British director and author of In a Pig’s Ear, an intricately plotted novel that is part suspense tale, part Grimm’s fairy tale. A German-born Hollywood director returns to Europe where he decides to retell the Arthurian legend on film. His friend – Merlin to his Arthur – imprisoned on a charge of murder, tells his story to a lovelorn pig (a contemporary narrative counterpart to the Yr Oianau, or ‘The Little Pig Stanzas’, of early Welsh tradition). The novel, replete with neo-Nazis, punk artists, and ex-Stasi agents, attempts to impose Arthurian mythology on the political events of Middle Europe over the past half-century, from the wartime crimes of Hitler to the Prague Summer of 1968 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. [BTL] Bryers, Paul. In a Pig’s Ear. London: Bloomsbury, 1996. BUCHANAN, ROBERT (1785–1873), known primarily as a dramatist, is the author of the anonymously published volume of poems Fragments of the Table Round (1859). The first seven of the eight ‘fragments’ or poems recount in verse heavy with pseudo-medieval diction the story of the final events of Arthur’s reign, from the fatal tryst between Launcelot and Guinevere to the battle of Camlan and Arthur’s passing. The final poem, ‘Merlin’s Tomb’, tells of Viviane’s building by magic an ‘airy tower’ to keep her ‘lord in loving bower’. [ACL] [Buchanan, Robert.] Fragments of the Table Round. Glasgow: Murray, 1859. BUSSON, SOPHIE: see PAINTERS, CONTEMPORARY BRETON. CHADWICK, ELIZABETH, has written First Knight (1995), a novelization of the film directed by Jerry Zucker (see NAE, p. 615). The story, which is attributed to Lorne Cameron, David Hoselton, and William Nicholson, follows the plot of Nicholson’s screenplay, a very free adaptation of the Arthur–Guinevere–Lancelot love triangle with Malagant in the role of the villain. [RHT] Chadwick, Elizabeth. First Knight. New York: Pocket, 1995. Jenkins, Jacqueline. ‘The Aging of the King: Arthur and America in First Knight’. In King Arthur’s Modern Return, ed. Debra N. Mancoff. New York: Garland, 1998, pp. 199–212. CHAMBERS, JOHN, in his play Tales of King Arthur: A Play (1996), freely adapts the legend for presentation to both adult and youth audiences. The story begins with the Sword in the Stone; includes Gawain’s encounter with the Green Knight, the Quest for the Holy Grail (whose guardian here 202


is Queen Pelesse), and the love between Lancelot and Guinevere; and ends with the barge receding into the mists of Avalon. [HT] Chambers, John. Tales of King Arthur: A Play. London: French, 1996. CHAPMAN, VERA (1898–1996), wrote ‘A Sword for Arthur’ (1995), a brief account of the successful effort of Merlin and Nimuë to acquire the sword Caliburn, which is destined for Arthur. The Enchantresses, published posthumously in 1998, is a prequel to her Three Damosels trilogy (see NAE, pp. 80–1). The novel tells of the three sisters Morgan, Morgause, and Vivian, respectively representatives of evil, of the neutral but sensual (and therefore easily corrupted), and of good. Vivian, who marries Merlin and assists him in obtaining Caliburn for Arthur, is killed by Morgan, but not before she has a daughter, Blaisine, who inherits her magical powers and her instinct for good. [ACL/NJL] Chapman, Vera. ‘A Sword for Arthur’. In The Merlin Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 155–64. ———. The Enchantresses. London: Gollancz, 1998. CHARRETTE, ROBERT N., brings to a conclusion, in A Knight Among Knaves (1995), his postmodern trilogy in which a sleeping Artos is revived to join the fight against demonic beings (see NAE, p. 584). Making use of his special ability to attract followers, he establishes the Pend Foundation, both to co-ordinate the struggle and to help ‘heal the world’, and he entrusts Caliburn to a champion who uses it to defeat their supernatural enemy. [RHT] Charrette, Robert N. A Knight Among Knaves. New York: Warner, 1995. CHETWIN, GRACE, sets On All Hallows’ Eve (1984), like Out of the Dark World (1985, see NAE, p. 86), on Long Island, New York, but time-shift takes the protagonists to another world where the elemental forces of good and evil confront each other. The figure of Morgan le Fay is central in the character development of the heroine who must understand her dual nature and overcome evil in her name. [HT] Chetwin, Grace. On All Hallows’ Eve. New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1984. CHOPRA, DEEPAK (see NAE, p. 584), in The Way of the Wizard (1995), uses parables specially created for the purpose to teach a number of spiritual lessons. Set in Arthur’s world, most involve discussions between Merlin and the young Arthur. [RHT] Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard. New York: Harmony, 1995. 203


CLARK, CHARLES HEBER: see ADELER, MAX. CLYNES, MICHAEL (PAUL HARDING), prolific British author of popular fiction under several pseudonyms, involves his Tudor-era detective Roger Shallot in an Arthurian mystery in The Grail Murders (1993). The story is narrated by the servant/adventurer Shallot who is sent to Glastonbury with his master, a nephew of Cardinal Wolsey, to find Excalibur and the Holy Grail before they can be used in a plot against the king by a secret order of Templars. Although the sword has disappeared, a riddle leads to the discovery of the Grail – here the wooden Nanteos cup. [DN] Clynes, Michael. The Grail Murders: Being the Third Journal of Sir Roger Shallot Concerning Certain Wicked Conspiracies and Horrible Murders Perpetrated in the Reign of King Henry VIII. London: Headline, 1993; New York: Pengler, 1994. COCHRAN, MOLLY, and WARREN MURPHY, send Arthur Blessing, the young protagonist of their fantasy novel The Forever King (1992; see NAE, p. 585), on a global quest to acquire the long-lost Excalibur in The Broken Sword (1997). Passages of dark horror, in which the hero is pursued by the evil protégé of the first novel’s villain, are relieved by the escapades of the dozen returned Round Table knights who romp through a Renaissance fair and engage in a bar-room brawl with a motorcycle gang. [DN] Cochran, Molly, and Warren Murphy. The Broken Sword. New York: Tor, 1997. COMICS. Publishers of comics in the 1990s continued to reinterpret Arthurian legend. The more notable contributions from independent publishers include Jim Calafiore’s Camelot Eternal (Caliber Press, 1990–1), which presents a ‘what if . . .?’ version of the legend based on Malory; Bo Hampton and Dan Abnett’s graphic novel Uther the Half Dead King (NBM, 1994), which tells the story of Uther; Matt Hawkins’ Lady Pendragon (Maximum Press, 1996), where Guinevere claims Excalibur after Arthur’s death in battle; and Matt Wagner’s continuation of his popular MAGE series with MAGE: The Hero Defined (Image Comics, 1997–9). The tradition of the ‘comic book adaptation’ also continued during the 1990s. Mike Fraley adapted Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae in Arthur, King of Britain (Tome Press, 1993–4); Marvel Comics published a four-issue series based on the Prince Valiant comic strip (1994–5; see NAE, pp. 97–8) and an origin story for Bohbot Entertain204


ment’s animated series, King Arthur and the Knights of Justice (1993–4; see NAE, p. 607); and DC Comics adapted Warner Bros’. Quest for Camelot (1998). Marvel Comics produced other Arthurian offerings also. Morgan Le Fey raises Atlantis, apparently the larger part of the isle of Avalon, in Fantastic Four: Atlantis Rising (1995), only to be defeated by the power of the Black Knight’s Ebony Blade, which Merlin I forged during the reign of King Arthur; a group of mutants and British superheroes are inspired by the Arthurian legend to form the team Excalibur in Excalibur Special Edition (1988), subtitled ‘The Sword is Drawn’; Captain Britain’s mentor, Merlyn III, returns from the dead in Excalibur: The Possession (1991); and Merlyn and his daughter Roma most recently reappear in Excalibur no. 125 (1998), the series’ finale, where Merlyn prophesies that, although Excalibur has disbanded, the sword will one day be drawn again. In Wonder Woman, vol. 2 (1997–8), writer and artist John Byrne tied up loose ends from The Demon, vol. 3 (early 1990s) in a storyline featuring DC Comics’ Morgaine le Fay, Merlin, and the demon Enrtigan. A series of Vertigo’s Hellblazer (1997) featured Myrddin and characters from Culhwch ac Olwen. The five-part story concludes with the reconciliation of Arthur and Myrddin after centuries of misunderstanding over the nature of the Grail. [MAT] Torregrossa, Michael. ‘Camelot 3000 and Beyond: An Annotated Listing of Arthurian Comic Books Published in the United States c. 1980–1998’. Arthuriana, 9.1 (1999). COMPACT DISCS, GERMAN. Recent years have seen a surprising boom in the production, in Germany and Austria, of CDs that retell and recreate Middle High German epics (Nibelungenlied, Parzival, Tristan); most have been produced by the state-run broadcasting companies. The philologist Peter Wapnewski has presented and interpreted the epics of Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg, using primarily the translations by Wolfgang Mohr; the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (Cologne) and Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Leipzig) have produced series of radio plays of Wolfram’s romance Parzival and the drama Merlin by Tankred Dorst and Ursula Ehler. Roland Kroell sings selected parts of Wolfram’s epic using new melodies of his own. (See also WIEDENMANN, REINHOLD, in NAE, p. 613.) [UM] Dorst, Tankred. Merlin. 4 CDs. Stuttgart: DerHörVerlag, 1995. Kroell, Roland. Parzival. 1 CD. Eslohe: Erdenklang Musikverlag, 1996. Wapnewski, Peter. Der Parzival des Wolfram von Eschenbach. 8 CDs. Munich: DerHörVerlag, 1997.

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———. Der Tristan des Gottfried von Strassburg. 9 CDs. Munich: DerHörVerlag, 1998. Der ‘Parzival’-Roman des Wolfram von Eschenbach. Dokumentation eines Radio-Projekts auf WDR 3, Ostern 1996. 7 CDs. Cologne: Westdeutscher Rundfunk, 1998. CONEY, MICHAEL, author of Fang, the Gnome and its sequel King of the Scepter’d Isle (see NAE, p. 98) returns to Arthurian legend in two short stories: in ‘The Most Ancient Battle’ (1995), the pattern of betrayal in the relationship between Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Mordred, and Morgan le Fay is repeated in generation after generation of two families in Cornwall; in ‘The Hand of Fair Lysette’ (1997), Balin recognizes the error of his savage behavior and adopts the courteous ways of Arthur’s court. [RHT] Coney, Michael. ‘The Most Ancient Battle’. In Phantoms of the Night, ed. Richard Gilliam and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 112–38. ———. ‘The Hand of Fair Lysette’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 218–33. CORNWELL, BERNARD, comes to the Arthurian story after writing highly popular historical novels, most notably the Sharpe series, which is set during the Peninsular War. His trilogy, aptly named The Warlord Chronicles, pays close attention to the details of warfare during Arthur’s campaigns. The Winter King opens with an account of Arthur’s early struggles, culminating in his victory against an alliance of hostile British kingdoms; in Enemy of God, he defeats not only a Saxon army, but also an attempt by Lancelot, here depicted as vain and treacherous, to seize the throne; in Excalibur, he resoundingly beats an alliance of the Saxons at Mount Badon, but later his army is destroyed during Mordred’s rebellion. Mortally wounded at Camlann, he departs with his family on the ship Prydwen, leaving the narrator, Derfel, to cast his sword into the waters. Arthur’s genius is his ability to win victory when all seems lost. Unfortunately, his achievements are wasted through the folly, treachery, and ambition of others who take advantage of his trusting and honorable nature. The trilogy explores a number of issues, including the destructiveness of religious fanaticism and the problems caused by adhering to oaths sworn to unworthy lords. Its main concern, however, is the conduct of men at war, and it succeeds admirably in recreating the heroic spirit and ferocity demonstrated by the warriors in the earliest Arthurian tales. [RHT] Cornwell, Bernard. The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur. The Warlord Chronicles: I. London: Joseph, 1995. 206


———. Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur. The Warlord Chronicles: II. London: Joseph, 1996. COSTIKYAN, GREG. In ‘Our Hour of Need’ (1995), five American children act out the last scene of an Arthurian role-playing game on a beach near Hyannis Port. As they ask for Arthur’s return, they receive an answer – an American ‘Arthur’. [AH] Costikyan, Greg. ‘Our Hour of Need’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 181–95. CRAIK, DINAH MARIA MULOCK (1826–87), in her story ‘Avillion’ (1853), recounts the drug-induced vision of the sickly Wilfred Mayer. He journeys first to the Happy Isles of Greek mythology, then to Avillion; there he meets numerous Arthurian characters, including Galahad, Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot, and Morgue la Faye, who is both a healer and a wise woman. This is a middle point in what is almost an evolutionary process, for Wilfred advances to ‘Eden-land, or the Happy Isle’. Craik also tells versions of the stories of ‘Jack the Giant-Killer’ and ‘Tom Thumb’ (1863), both of which are set in Arthur’s realm. King Arthur: Not a Love Story (1886), by contrast, is a didactic tale of parental responsibilities, with minimal Arthurian connections. [ACL] [Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock.] ‘Avillion; or, The Happy Isles’. In Avillion and Other Tales. 3 vols. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1853, 1: 1–115. [Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock.] ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ and ‘Tom Thumb’. In The Fairy Book: The Best Popular Fairy Stories Selected and Rendered Anew. London: Macmillan, 1863, pp. 68–82 and 83–9. [Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock.] King Arthur: Not a Love Story. London: Macmillan, 1886. CROMPTON, ANNE ELIOT, American author, has taken a revisionist approach to traditional Arthurian themes and characters in her fantasy fiction. Her portrayal of Niviene, one of the Fey who reside in Avalon, is the strength of Merlin’s Harp (1995), and it provides the unique point of view from which the stories of Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Elaine, Mordred, and even Gildas and the Holy Grail are reinterpreted. Gawain and Lady Green (1997) casts the knight into the role of the doomed harvest king who learns his lesson about honor when his life is magnanimously saved by the lady of the title. Crompton invents an origin for the Lady of the Lake in a short story for young adults, ‘Excalibur’ (1995), and she has treated Merlin’s preparations for the coming of Arthur in a poem, ‘Merlin: Once and Future Prophet’ (1996). [DN]

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Crompton, Anne Eliot. Merlin’s Harp. New York: Fine, 1995. ———. ‘Excalibur’ in Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 79–90. ———. ‘Merlin: Once and Future Prophet’. Parabola, 21.1 (February 1996), 70–1. ———. Gawain and Lady Green. New York: Fine, 1997. CULLEN, SEAMUS (pseudonym), in ‘Meraugis and Medwina’ (1997), reveals, with nice touches of humor, just how much Meraugis owes to his strong-minded lady and her magic when he rescues Tristram and Launcelot from a werewolf and a giant. [RHT] Cullen, Seamus. ‘Meraugis and Medwina’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 355–72. CURRY, ANN, author of The Book of Brendan, a novel for juvenile audiences. Two children, Elric and Bridget, join forces with the elderly Father Brendan to combat the evil Myrddin (a descendant of Merlin). They are aided by the power of Brendan’s book, containing all his wisdom and his art, but they prevail only by awakening Arthur and Merlin, who have been sleeping for two centuries in the Isles of Truth. [NJL] Curry. Ann. The Book of Brendan. Macmillan Children’s Books, 1989; New York: Holiday House, 1990. DAUCE, PAUL: see PAINTERS, CONTEMPORARY BRETON. DE LA PINTA, CARMINO: see PAINTERS, CONTEMPORARY BRETON. DEDMAN, STEPHEN, is the Australian author of ‘The Pretender’ (1997), a radical reinterpretation of the Arthurian legend in which Arthur and Galahad practice sodomy and both Kay and Mordred are bisexual. Although in fact fathered by Agravaine, Mordred loves Arthur whom he believes to be his father. At Camlaun, Arthur explains these feelings as homosexual love that Mordred did not have the courage to accept. [MAT] Dedman, Stephen. ‘The Pretender’. Realms of Fantasy (February 1997), 40–5, 69. DELRIO, MARTIN, author of a novelization of the 1997 film Prince Valiant (see FILMS). Like the film on which it is based, the novelization offers a version of the story of Prince Valiant more indebted to the 208


pseudo-medieval, muscle-bound, heroic Conan tradition than to Harold R. Foster’s long-running comic strip (see NAE, pp. 97–8). Here Valiant rescues his lady love and Excalibur from Vikings in league with Morgan Le Fay. [KH] Delrio, Martin. Prince Valiant. New York: Avon, 1998. DICKSON, GORDON R., veteran, award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy, has written a humorous fantasy series about the adventures of the Dragon Knight. When Jim Eckert follows his girlfriend from the twentieth century into the past, he finds himself in an alternate fourteenth-century world in which magic operates and supernatural creatures abound. He himself has the power not only to wield magic, but also to transform himself into a dragon. Arthurian elements intrude into the two most recent novels in the series. In The Dragon and the Gnarly King (1997), Jim passes through the magical land of Lyonesse in which the knights and ladies of Arthurian legend are preserved by popular belief. There he meets the Questing Beast and a descendant of Sir Dinedan. In The Dragon in Lyonesse (1998), he returns to Lyonesse, this time to help save it from an attack by the Dark Powers. With the aid of the Questing Beast, Merlin, and the Queen of Northgales, he arouses King Arthur and the original Knights of the Round Table who defeat the invading army in pitched battle, despite the support the latter receive from Mordred and Morgan le Fay. These adventures prove to be valuable learning experiences for the hero. [RHT] Dickson, Gordon R. The Dragon and the Gnarly King. New York: Tor, 1997. ———. The Dragon in Lyonesse. New York: Tor, 1998. DOYLE, DEBRA: see MACDONALD, JAMES D. DUNN, LINDA, see RESNICK, MIKE. DYER, S. N., in ‘Mission Rescue Merlin’ (1995), describes a contemporary rescue effort undertaken by one hundred and one knights (since Malory wrote that one hundred would not be enough) to free Merlin from his imprisonment in a Cornish cave. ‘Knight Squadron’ (1996) presents King Arthur as a vampire, arisen to protect England during the Blitz. He recruits a new Round Table of undead knights from the ranks of the Royal Air Force. [MAT] Dyer, S. N. ‘Mission Rescue Merlin’. Realms of Fantasy (February 1995), 68–9. 209


———. ‘Knight Squadron’. In Castle Fantastic, ed. John DeChancie and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 247–59. EDGAR, MADALEN: see MORRIS, WILLIAM. EDGEHILL, INDIA, in the course of ‘Maiden Phoenix’ (1997), has Oberon waken King Arthur and explain that the latter would have chosen to remain sleeping had he not thought that Rex quondam Rexque futurus would look good on his tombstone. [MAT] Edgehill, India. ‘Maiden Phoenix’. Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine (Spring 1997), 6–12. ELKIN, STANLEY, American author. A Bad Man (1967) depicts a modern wasteland presided over by a warden named Fisher, who describes himself as a fisher of bad men. The protagonist Feldman – a ‘felled man’ – is a sort of knight errant who experiences ‘a grapple of grail’, restores some life to Fisher’s wasteland, and even rejuvenates his friend Dedman (another ‘dead man’). [BTL] Elkin, Stanley. A Bad Man. New York: Random House, 1967. ESHBACH, LLOYD ARTHUR, American author of science fiction and fantasy, has the Welsh bard Taliesin accompany his modern-day protagonist through a series of novels featuring encounters with figures from ancient mythologies. Irish gods and Druids oppose the hero in The Land Beyond the Gate (1984), and other malevolent characters from Celtic and Nordic myth appear in The Armlet of the Gods (1986). The third novel, The Sorceress of Scath (1988), involves gods of Sumeria, Chaldea, and Babylon. In the final book, The Scroll of Lucifer (1990), the adventurers arrive in Avilion, where King Cuchulainn rules with Myrddin as his bard and Artur as captain of his guard, although they play no major role in the story. [DN] Eshbach, Lloyd Arthur. The Land Beyond the Gate. New York: Ballantine, 1984. ———. The Armlet of the Gods. New York: Ballantine, 1986. ———. The Sorceress of Scath. New York: Ballantine, 1988. ———. The Scroll of Lucifer. New York: Ballantine, 1990. EVANS, QUINN TAYLOR, is engaged in writing a series known as Merlin’s Legacy which presents a struggle between the forces of good and evil. Set in England in the years just after the Norman conquest, these historical romances deal, each in turn, with the adventures of one of the 210


offspring of Merlin: so far three daughters (by Ninian) and a son (by Guinevere, no less!). As well as containing numerous Arthurian allusions, the novels send their protagonists back in time to Camelot, and even bring Arthur and his knights forward to the eleventh century. [RHT] Evans, Quinn Taylor. Merlin’s Legacy: Daughter of Fire. New York: Kensington/ Zebra, 1996. ———. Merlin’s Legacy: Daughter of the Mist. New York: Kensington/ Zebra, 1996. ———. Merlin’s Legacy: Daughter of Light. New York: Kensington/ Zebra, 1997. ———. Merlin’s Legacy: Shadows of Camelot. New York: Kensington/ Zebra, 1997. EXCALIBUR: A TALE FOR AMERICAN BOYS, published anonymously in 1865, recounts the history of Excalibur, ‘a sword that never struck but for justice and honor’, after Bedivere throws it into the sea. It is fished out by a Bavarian peasant who gives it to Frederick the Great. He, after using it to fight ‘the evils of the Hapsburg Dragon’, passes it on to George Washington. Later it is wielded by John Brown in his struggle against slavery. Upon his death, the people pass the sword to Abraham Lincoln, who uses it to cut the head from the ‘Dragon of Slavery’. At his death the sword passes to Andrew Johnson. [ACL] Excalibur: A Tale for American Boys. Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1865. FAULKNER, WILLIAM (1897–1962), American author and Nobel Prize winner whose best-known Arthurian work is Mayday (see NAE, p. 149). But Arthurian themes and motifs occur elsewhere, e.g. Soldier’s Pay (1925) and Mosquitoes (1927), which reveal in their Eliotic imagery and occasional Arthurian allusions the influence of ‘The Waste Land’. A later novel, Pylon (1935), uses the wasteland as its controlling motif: ‘Created out of the Waste Land’ reads the sign on the new Feinman Airport, site of much of the novel’s action, which becomes a kind of tournament field where the fliers must prove themselves worthy of the cup. In the parody of medieval romance that constitutes Part III of The Hamlet (1940), Launcelot Snopes (the only innocent member of an avaricious clan headed by Flem Snopes, an impotent – and unregenerate – Fisher King who creates his own wasteland) is a principal player. Named by his deceased mother for the heroic and legendary knight, Lancelot is renamed ‘Lump’ by other relatives to counter her lofty aspirations. And, in perhaps his finest novel, Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner recounts the failed efforts of Thomas Sutpen, a bombastic madman who ‘creates within his very coffin walls his fabulous immeasurable Camelots’. Like Camelot, Sutpen’s dynasty is 211


destroyed from within by the half-black son from his first marriage whom he has disinherited. A recurring Faulkner character, Gavin Stevens – whose name, like that of Mayday’s Galwyn, is a variant of Gawain – serves as an exemplum of knightly virtue even though he is involved in a romantic triangle reminiscent of the ‘Isoldes and Guineveres [and] the Launcelots and Tristrams’ in The Town (1957). [BTL] Faulkner, William. Soldier’s Pay. 1925; rpt. London: Chatto & Windus, 1930. ———. Mosquitoes. New York: Liveright, 1927. ———. Pylon. New York: Smith and Haas, 1935. ———. Absalom, Absalom! 1936; rpt. New York: Vintage, n.d. ———. The Hamlet. New York: Random House, 1940. ———. The Town. New York: Random House, 1957. FERRIER, FLORENCE, author of Tristan et Iseult, a simplified version in modern French designed to impart a basic knowledge of the legend and a rudimentary socio-historical backdrop. [JTG] Ferrier, Florence, Tristan et Iseult. Collection Lecture Facile. Grandes Œuvres. Paris: Hachette, 1994. FILMS, including those made for network and cable television, continue to reflect popular interest in the Arthurian legend. As always, where there is quantity there is not necessarily quality, but an interesting trend has developed recently in which the legend has become the source for films aimed at juvenile audiences. The best of these is Peter Werner’s The Four Diamonds (The Disney Channel, 1995), based on the short story of the same title by Chris Millard. A boy dying of cancer writes himself and members of his family and medical support team into a short story in which a brave young squire wins four diamonds and is rewarded with membership of the Round Table. Also noteworthy is Peter Chelsom’s The Mighty (Scholastic Productions, 1998), adapted from the 1993 novel Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. Here another terminally ill young man draws strength and fulfilment from the Arthurian legend. Less successful and less noteworthy examples of Arthurian film aimed at younger audiences include two versions of Twain’s Connecticut Yankee (see NAE, pp. 172 and 478). In the first, R. L. Thomas’s A Young Knight in King Arthur’s Court (made for Canadian television by The Movie Network, 1995), a teenager named Hank who plays in a rock band is, thanks to a short in his keyboard amplifier, transported back to Arthur’s Camelot where he has a predictable (and dull) culture clash with the world of the Round Table. Not much better is Disney’s 1995 film A Kid in King Arthur’s Court directed by Michael Gottlieb, in which a baseball-playing 212


teenager is transported back from California to Camelot through a fissure that opens up over home plate during an earthquake. Again, there is the predictable clash of cultures, but at least the film strikes a blow against the usual Arthurian misogyny by having one of Arthur’s daughters disguise herself as the Black Knight to rescue her father and his court. Warner Brothers’ Quest for Camelot (1998), directed by Frederik Du Chau, initially offers a strong role to a young girl as she sets off to save her mother from an evil knight, but once she joins forces with a blind squire from Arthur’s court, she plays a decidedly subservient role in the quest for Arthur’s sword. Studio publicity and the screen credits claim that the film is based on Vera Chapman’s The King’s Damosel (see NAE, pp. 80–1), but little of the original novel survives on the screen. Other recent examples of Arthurian cinema include the 1995 Czech film Artus, Merlin a Prchlíci, directed by Vera Plívová-Simková and based on a novel with the same title that she co-authored with Katerina Priscáková. In both novel and film, a family adopts two dogs named Arthur and Merlin which alternately bring joy and chaos to the lives of their children, but the story owes more to Disney’s 101 Dalmations than to matters Arthurian. Anthony Hickox’s Prince Valiant (1997) presents a Britain overrun by Vikings in a plot that borrows as much from the muscle-bound tradition of Conan the Barbarian as it does from Foster’s continuing comic strip (see NAE, pp. 97–8). NBC Television’s star-studded, Emmy-winning Merlin (1998), directed by Steve Barron, drew record-breaking audiences, but its attempt to retell the Arthuriad solely from Merlin’s point of view proves more confusing than enlightening. Not to be outdone, ABC and its parent company Disney later in 1998 provided viewers with yet another remake of Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, entitled A Knight in Camelot. In this version Hank Morgan’s role is filled by the laptop-computer-toting Vivien (Whoopi Goldberg) who uses her Web savvy to attempt to abolish slavery, begin the industrial revolution, and champion the cause of gender equity – all to no avail. Kenneth J. Burton’s Merlin’s Shop of Magical Wonders (1996) is a boring anthology film whose three parts are loosely linked by the efforts of a kindly grandfather (Ernest Borgnine) to amuse his grandson with some tales of magic. More intriguing are two British made-for-television films. John Michael Phillips’s 1991 version of Gawain and the Green Knight for Thames TV does a commendable job of presenting the details of the medieval poem through a series of flashbacks. The film has the advantage of casting all the main characters in their full flower of youth, unlike Stephen Weeks’s film versions of the poem in 1973 and 1983. Colin Thomas’s Excalibur – The Search for Arthur (1995), a two-part documentary from BBC Wales narrated by the Celticist Gwyn A. Williams, first seeks to explain a number of mysterious details about the legend of Arthur, such as 213


his supposed existence and the location of Camelot, then proceeds to trace the legend’s transmission into modern times. [KH] Artus, Merlin a Prchíci. Dir. Vera Plívová-Simková. Studio Zlin Films, 1995. Excalibur – The Search for Arthur. Dir. Colin Thomas. BBC Wales / BBC2 Television, 1995. The Four Diamonds. Dir. Peter Werner. The Disney Channel, 1995. Gawain and the Green Knight. Dir. John Michael Phillips. Thames TV, 1991. (Available on videotape from Film for the Humanities & Sciences.) Khmara, Ed, and David Stevens. Merlin: The Shooting Script. New York: Newmarket, 1998. A Kid in King Arthur’s Court. Dir. Michael Gottlieb. Walt Disney/ Buena Vista Films, 1995. A Knight in Camelot. Dir. Roger Young. The Wonderful World of Disney/ ABC Television, 1998. Merlin. Dir. Steve Barron. Hallmark Entertainment and NBC, 1998. Merlin’s Shop of Magical Wonders. Dir. Kenneth J. Burton. Monarch Home Video, 1996. The Mighty. Dir. Peter Chelsom. Scholastic / Simon Fields Productions and Miramax Entertainment, 1998. Plívová-Simková, Vera, and Katerina Priscáková. Artus, Merlin a Prchíci. Boskovice: Albert Plastic, 1995. Quest for Camelot. Dir. Frederik Du Chau. Warner Bros., 1998. Williams, Gwyn A. Excalibur – The Search for Camelot. London: BBC Books, 1994. A Young Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Dir. R. L. Thomas. The Movie Network, 1995. FINCH, PAUL, in ‘My Lady of the Ashes’ (1997), describes how an idealistic Yder fights against magic and a giant troll to win aid for a maiden infected with leprosy. [RHT] Finch, Paul. ‘My Lady of the Ashes’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 165–87. FINTUSHEL, ELIOT, in ‘Dieu et mon Droit!’ (1997), expands upon an episode in Malory to explore the mental turmoil of Lancelot’s nephew Blamor before and during his trial by combat against Tristram. [RHT] Fintushel, Eliot. ‘Dieu et mon Droit’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 125–47.

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FLEISCHER, LEONORE, closely follows Richard LaGravenese’s screenplay in her novelization of the 1991 film The Fisher King (see NAE, p. 591: Gilliam, Terry). This modern reworking of the Grail legend, set in the seamiest areas of New York City, casts a mentally deranged teacher and a cynical talk show host in the roles of Percival and the wounded king. They both achieve the Grail through an act of selflessness. [DN] Fleischer, Leonore. The Fisher King. New York: Penguin / Signet Books, 1991. FORBES, ELIZABETH STANHOPE (1859–1912), is both author and illustrator of King Arthur’s Wood. A young boy, Myles Morris, meets a ‘little Brown Spirit of the Woodlands’ and hears from him the deeds of Sir Gareth as a ‘shining example’. The account is based on Malory’s ‘Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney’, and the Spirit turns out to have been the dwarf who accompanied Gareth on his quest. Through the story he teaches Myles to be honest and brave, and thus helps him grow into a good and successful man. [ACL] Forbes, Elizabeth Stanhope. King Arthur’s Wood. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, n.d. [1904]. FORWARD, ROBERT L., freely, if superficially, draws on Arthurian legend to create a medieval atmosphere in his science fiction novel, Camelot 30K (1993). On the alien world Camalor, space travelers find a population of crustacean-like creatures and a culture reminiscent of Earth’s Middle Ages with a mounted and armored warrior caste. Arthurian allusions occur in some names and relationships, including Merlene the wizard, the Lady Vivane, the Queen’s consort Rexart, and the battle leaders Mordet and Laslot. [DN] Forward, Robert L. Camelot 30K. New York: Tor, 1993. FRIESNER, ESTHER M., has added four more Arthurian stories to her three previous ones (see NAE, p. 590). ‘Wake-up Call’ (1988) is a sardonic tale, set in modern Britain rather than a mystical Avalon, of the fitfully slumbering Arthur and the bored and aging queens, playing bridge while they watch over him. In ‘The Three Queens’ (1993), Modred, in order to win immortality for both himself and his senile father, fabricates the story of the last battle of Camlann and of Arthur’s journey to Avalon. In ‘A Beltaine and Suspenders’ (1994), three English antiquarians discover Merlin in a small village in Sussex, where he has lived since the villagers freed him from his tree prison in Anglo-Saxon times. In ‘Sparrow’ (1996), a brutal and ambitious Bedwyr murders the badly wounded Arthur for 215


Excalibur. His attempt to win power in the land is foiled, however, when his abused page, inspired by the Lady of Avalon, reveals the truth. [RHT/MAT] Friesner, Esther M. ‘Wake-up Call’. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (December 1988); rpt. in Isaac Asimov’s Camelot, ed. Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams. New York: Ace, 1998, pp. 193–200. ———. ‘The Three Queens’. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (January 1993); rpt. in Isaac Asimov’s Camelot, ed. Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams. New York: Ace, 1998, pp. 27–51. ———. ‘A Beltaine and Suspenders’. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (October–November 1994), 84–128. ———. ‘Sparrow’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 218–50. FRY, COLIN R., author of ‘The Purpose of Merlin’, the story of a fierce battle between Cai and a huge animal known as Palug’s cat. Cai wins, but Palug perishes along with his defeated animal. Merlin then explains the nature of the cat, which needed a ‘symbiotic relationship’ with a human such as Palug. [NJL] Fry, Colin R. ‘The Purpose of Merlin’. Fantastic (April 1965); rpt. in Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 209–23. GAELIC ARTHURIAN LITERATURE. It is difficult to establish how widely, and by what means, the figure of Arthur was known in Ireland before the spread of medieval Arthurian romance. The Lebor Bretnach, an Irish translation of the Historia Brittonum, dates from the mid-eleventh century at the latest: new manuscripts and extracts were being made in Ireland until at least the sixteenth century. However, there are also brief references in early Irish literature to characters named Artúr or Artúir (and to name-forms which resemble Uther): these sometimes have a narrative connection with Britain that is not derived from any known Arthurian source. In Scotland, Arthur and associated figures appear in genealogies of the chiefs of Clan Campbell: manuscripts date from the fifteenth century and, though it is not known when the claim of descent was first made, Arthur is recorded as a Campbell personal name from the later thirteenth century. Arthur’s and Gawain’s genealogical association with Clan MacLeod may be post-medieval. References to Arthur (from the fourteenth century on) and Gawain (from the sixteenth) occur in Gaelic poetry. The earlier mentions indicate a 216


standard against which the poem’s dedicatee is favourably measured: later, incidents from literature are cited and a seventeenth-century Scottish poem describes the splendors of Arthur’s court. Two post-medieval Arthurian verse texts appear to be original Gaelic compositions: a short poem from Ireland about a swan which will only take food or wine from the hand of a chaste woman, and the Scottish Am Bròn Binn (‘The Sweet, or Melodious Sorrow’), about Gawain’s quest for a girl who has appeared to Arthur in a dream or vision. Arthurian prose works in Gaelic appeared in Ireland from the later Middle Ages, with Lorgaireacht an tSoidhigh Naomhtha, a translation of the Quest of the Holy Grail close to the Vulgate (though the language of its immediate source is uncertain), surviving in fifteenth-century manuscripts. Gaelic Arthurian romances were composed in Ireland until at least the seventeenth century, perhaps later, and some have a prolific manuscript survival rate. Arthur’s custom of seeing a wonder before a feast (perhaps introduced by Lorgaireacht an tSoidhigh Naomhtha) is emphasized, the concept adapted so that the report of a marvel is what matters for Arthur: it need not necessarily form the immediate prelude to a knight’s quest. Other familiar motifs are often given an original and creative treatment. In Eachtra an Mhadra Mhaoil (‘The Story of the Crop-Eared Dog’), with an earliest manuscript dated 1517 and at least fifty others, Gawain helps an Indian prince who has been transformed into a dog by his jealous stepmother. Céilidhe Iosgaide Léithe (The Visit of Grey-Thigh) tells of the disruptive effect of the visit of a transformed deer-woman to Arthur’s court; in Eachtra Mhhacaoimh-an-Iolair (‘The Story of Eagle-Boy’) an eagle deposits a baby boy at Arthur’s feet; and in Eachtra Mhelóra agus Orlando (‘The Story of Melóra and Orlando’) Arthur’s daughter Melóra dresses as a knight to free Orlando who has been magically imprisoned through the plotting of Merlin and Sir Mador. Arthur appears in an episode of Caithréim Conghail Cláiringhnigh (‘The Martial Career of Conghal Cláiringhneach’), in which the Irish hero restores the lost son of the British king to his father. There is also a short note in a sixteenth-century Irish manuscript which tells of ‘The Passing of Arthur into the Fairy Mansions’. Both Eachtra an Mhadra Mhaoil and Eachtra Mhhacaoimh-an-Iolair have been noted from twentieth-century oral tradition in Ireland, and there is a group of nineteenth- and twentieth-century oral tales from the Aran Islands and Co. Clare which have Arthur as son of the king of Ireland. The Irish prose Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir (‘Story of the Great Fool’) is, in its early sections, an adaptation of a story very close to that of Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval. The Fool’s later adventures culminate in a ‘testing’ episode which, in much greater detail, forms the subject-matter of the verse Laoidh an Amadáin Mhóir (‘Lay of the Great Fool’). Both prose and verse passed into oral tradition in Ireland and Scotland, and a form of 217


Perceval story also seems to have influenced the Scottish and Nova Scotian Ridire na Sgeithe Deirge (‘The Knight of the Red Shield’). Another Scottish oral tale, Sir Uallabh O Còrn (the name is one of many Gaelic variants of Gawain’s), may derive from a lost Irish romance. Also in Scotland, a version of the story of the ‘Girl with the golden breast’ was told in the nineteenth century with Gawain as the male protagonist – a version with an unnamed hero has survived in Scottish oral tradition to the present day, as has the ballad Am Bròn Binn. [LG] Bruford, Alan, Gaelic Folktales and Mediaeval Romances: A Study of the Early Modern Irish ‘Romantic Tales’ and their Oral Derivatives. Béaloideas, 34 (1966), and Dublin: The Folklore of Ireland Society, 1969. Gillies, William, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition. Part I: Folktales and Ballads’. Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 2 (1981), 47–72; ‘Part II: Romances and Learned Lore’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 3 (1982), 41–75. Gowans, Linda, ‘Arthurian Survivals in Scottish Gaelic’, The Arthurian Yearbook, 2 (1992), ed. Keith Busby, pp. 27–76. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992. [Illus.] ———. ‘Bibliography of Gaelic Arthurian Literature’. In the online series of Arthuriana / Camelot Project Bibliographies, at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/acpbibs/gowans.htm Hartnett, Connor P. ‘Irish Arthurian Literature’. Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1973, 2 vols. [Contains otherwise unavailable translations, guide to location of manuscripts, and an extensive index.] GAMES. Chaosium has produced two more publications to support its Arthurian role-playing game King Arthur Pendragon (see NAE, pp. 175, 590): Land of Giants (1996) by Chris Hind provides background information on Scandinavia and the Beowulf saga in the time of King Arthur; Lordly Domains provides information on the responsibilities and privileges of nobles. Merlin’s Apprentice (1995) is an animated computer game on CD-ROM, designed by Cliff Johnson for ages twelve and up. In a world of medieval sorcery, players must solve puzzles by mastering secret codes, capturing elusive enchantments, and matching wits with demons in a quest to find Merlin and win his trust. [RHT] Merlin’s Apprentice. CD-ROM designed by Cliff Johnson. Los Angeles: Funhouse/ Philips Media, 1995. GARDNER, J. J., author of the novelization based on the 1998 Warner Bros. animated feature film Quest for Camelot (see FILMS). Both the film 218


and the novelization claim as their source The King’s Damosel by Vera Chapman (see NAE, pp. 80–1), but both make such substantial changes in their account of a quest by a young girl and a blind squire to find King Arthur’s sword that it is hard to see any connection. [KH] Gardner, J. J. Quest for Camelot. New York: Scholastic, 1998. GARRATT, PETER T., has written two Arthurian short stories. ‘The Secret History’ (1996) places the Grail quest of an idealistic Gwalhwavad (Galahad) in a Dark Age setting, reinterpreting traditional elements of the story with unexpected results. ‘A Tribute of Ferns’ (1997) is Bedivere’s account of events leading up to Arthur’s attempt to exact tribute from St Cadoc (see NAE, p. 394). [RHT] Garratt, Peter T. ‘The Secret History’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 264–86. ———. ‘A Tribute of Ferns’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 105–24. GEMMELL, DAVID A., followed his heroic fantasy novel Ghost King (1988; see NAE, p. 179) with Last Sword of Power (1988), continuing the story of Uther Pendragon’s rise and fall in a fanciful elaboration of incidents traditionally ascribed to Arthur, including the betrayal by his queen and champion and his final passage to the Isle of Crystal. Arthurian motifs also are abundant, if only as evocative names and images, in the first two novels of The Hawk Queen series, Ironhand’s Daughter and The Hawk Eternal (both 1995); these tell of the wars between vaguely Celtic mountain clans and Saxon-like invaders. The Druid Taliesen and a villain named Morgase are key figures, while the sword Skallivar and the island of Vallon are significant in the stories. [DN] Gemmell, David A. Last Sword of Power. London: Century Hutchinson, 1988. ———. Ironhand’s Daughter. London: Legend, 1995. ———. The Hawk Eternal. London: Legend, 1995. HABER, KAREN, sets ‘The Spell Between Worlds’ (1996) in the world created by Marion Zimmer Bradley in The Mists of Avalon (see NAE, p. 50). Nimue, journeying from the Isle of Avalon to cleanse herself from the contamination of Merlin’s magic, finds herself caught in a struggle of magical powers with a foreign spell weaver. [RHT] Haber, Karen. ‘The Spell Between Worlds’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 251–74.

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HALL, JOHN LESSLIE (1856–1928), an Anglo-Saxonist who translated Beowulf, also composed a sequence of five poems known collectively as ‘Old English Idyls’ (1899) which retell pre-Arthurian and Arthurian history in an imitation of Old English alliterative meter and from the perspective of the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Though Arthur is praised as being, like Beowulf, ‘eager for glory’, it is the Saxon Cerdic who is said to be the ‘founder of freedom’ and the father of England. [ACL] Hall, John Lesslie. ‘Old English Idyls’. In Old English Idyls and Other Poems. Boston: Ginn, 1899, pp. 1–58. HARRISON, HARRY, well-known science fiction author, turns to fantasy in The Hammer and the Cross trilogy. King and Emperor (1996), book 3 of this alternate history of a ninth-century Viking warrior who rises to become the One King of the North, makes use of a number of Arthurian motifs, most strikingly the Holy Lance and Holy Grail. [RHT] Harrison, Harry. King and Emperor. New York: Tor, 1996. HAWKE, SIMON, has brought to a conclusion his Wizard series (see NAE, pp. 225, 593), set in a future where magic provides the energy source for technology. The Last Wizard (1997) provides an action-packed climax, as the last of the evil Dark Ones are finally crushed by an alliance of humans and the ancient spirits of the Council of White. These spirits, which include Merlin, Gorlois, and Modred, act through their human avatars. [RHT] Hawke, Simon. The Last Wizard. New York: Warner, 1997. HEMINGWAY, ERNEST (1899–1962), American novelist and Nobel Prize winner. Although generally not considered an Arthurian author, Hemingway incorporated aspects of the legend, especially the story of the Fisher King, into several of his best works. The figure of the Fisher King – who, for Hemingway, becomes an amalgam of the traditional king and of the knight-quester, since in the modern wasteland the hero must find his own cure – appears as early as his first collection of short stories, In Our Time (1925). Nick Adams, the protagonist of most of the stories, is wounded in the war, returns to a society into which he no longer fits, and must revitalize himself through nature, specifically by revisiting the places of his youth. But before he fishes ‘The Big Two-Hearted River’ at the end of the volume, he must prepare himself by performing certain rituals akin to those of the knight errant. The quest for self-healing reverberates throughout Hemingway’s later stories and novels as well, particularly in A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea 220


(in which the aged fisherman, like the Fisher King of ancient vegetation myths, emerges renewed and restored from his battles with the elements). Hemingway’s first and most explicitly Arthurian novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926), is based on the same structural principles as Eliot’s ‘Waste Land’. Jake Barnes, rendered impotent by a war injury, is the contemporary Fisher King; the defeminized Lady Brett Ashley is his female counterpart; and even the expatriates whom they befriend are sexual cripples. Escaping the moral decay of Paris, Jake returns to the trout stream at Burguete and the bull ring at Pamplona, rituals that restore his potency and serve as tournaments to test the modern knight’s heroism at the same time that they hark back to the ancient rites discussed by Frazer and Weston. [BTL] Hemingway, Ernest. In Our Time. 1925; rpt. New York: Scribner’s, 1970 ———. The Sun Also Rises. 1926; rpt. New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1970. ———. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner’s, 1929. ———. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Collier, 1940. ———. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner’s, 1952. HEZLEP, WILLIAM, has composed Merlin’s Cave (1996), a one-act play for children in which two children and their nanny are persuaded by the Little People to free Merlin from his enchanted sleep in a Welsh cavern. [RHT] Hezlep, William. Merlin’s Cave. Studio City, CA: Players Press, 1996. HOLDSTOCK, ROBERT, has written several previous fantasies in which contemporary characters find their lives involved with the Arthurian past (see NAE, pp. 238, 594). In Merlin’s Wood (1994), a novel expanded from a story of the same title, a foster brother and sister become entangled in the ancient struggle between Vivien and Merlin, who has been released from his prison in the heart of Brittany’s forest of Broceliande. The short story ‘Infantasm’ (1995) presents another picture of a primitive Merlin and an original twist on the tale of the begetting of Arthur. Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn (1997) is a return to the author’s Mythago cycle. The protagonist enters Ryhope Woods in search of his dead mother, but finds himself pressed into service in the company of Kylhuk (Culhwch), whose search for Olwen is presented as an archetypal Grail quest. [DN] Holdstock, Robert. ‘Merlin’s Wood’. Interzone, 84 (June 1994), 6–22. ———. Merlin’s Wood: or the Vision of Magic. London: Harper Collins, 1994. ———. ‘Infantasm’. In The Merlin Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1995, pp. 110–29.

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———. Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn. New York: Roc, 1997. Published in UK as Gate of Ivory. London: Harper Collins, 1998. HOLLICK, HELEN, is a British author who has composed a trilogy of historical novels under the collective title of Pendragon’s Banner. The Kingmaking (1994) deals with Arthur’s precarious rise to power and his eventual marriage to Gwenhwyfar; Pendragon’s Banner (1995) chronicles his struggle to consolidate power as High King and the unlucky deaths of his three sons; The Shadow of the King (1997) follows his ill-fated continental campaign against the Goths (as Riothamus, see NAE, pp. 383–4), his belated return to Britain where he defeats the Saxons at Badon, and his eventual defeat at Camlann by Cerdic, here his son by an earlier marriage to the daughter of Vortigern and Rowena. The world in which these events unfold is a savage one, full of rape, torture, and murder. The characters are fittingly quick-tempered, not least Arthur and Gwenhwyfar themselves. Though they love each other passionately, their emotions are as likely to erupt into heated argument as tempestuous love-making – and sometimes both together! Gwenhwyfar here is no pampered queen of medieval romance, but a skilled warrior who rides to battle by her husband’s side and personally kills several of his bitterest enemies. The story is as much hers as Arthur’s, and it is to her inspiration and support that he owes much of his success. Hollick’s main source is the chronicles, though she does borrow extensively from the romances. Events and characters, however, are all reinterpreted to fit her own vision of a world filled with emotional intensity. [RHT] Hollick, Helen. The Kingmaking. London: Heinemann, 1994; New York: St. Martin’s, 1995. ———. Pendragon’s Banner. London: Heinemann, 1995; New York: St. Martin’s, 1996. ———. The Shadow of the King. London: Heinemann, 1997; New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. HOLLIDAY, LIZ, in ‘The Knight of Good Heart’ (1997), reveals how envy and ambition, encouraged by Morgan, lead the young Breunis Saunce Pyte to take the first fatal steps on the path to villainy. [RHT] Holliday, Liz. ‘The Knight of Good Heart’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 234–50. HOLT, HAZEL, author of a mystery novel in which a cataloguer named Gwen Richmond is found dead in the Bodleian’s New Library. When younger, Gwen had been romantically involved with a man named Lance, 222


whose brother Arthur and sister Elaine blame Gwen for his death. Elaine, an illustrator of children’s books, is working on a series of ‘Round Table’ portraits: Arthur sat for her portrait of Merlin, and she is currently seeking a Sir Mordred. The Arthurian references are fairly numerous but not essential for the plot. [SRR] Holt, Hazel. The Cruellest Month. London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press / Thomas Dunne, 1991. HONIGSBERG, DAVID M., in ‘Now Cracks a Noble Heart’ (1994), brings Elric, the anti-hero created by British fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, onto the stricken field of Camlann, where he summons the magical barge that bears Arthur to Avallach (Avalon). [RHT] Honigsberg, David M. ‘Now Cracks a Noble Heart’. In Michael Moorcock’s Elric: Tales of the White Wolf, ed. Edward E. Kramer and Richard Gilliam. Stone Mountain, GA: White Wolf, 1994, pp. 66–9. HOPPE, UWE, German playwright and director of the theater ‘Studiobühne Bayreuth’. Since 1982 Hoppe has conceived several plays recreating the stories of Richard Wagner’s operas and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. Sponsored by the prestigious piano factory Steingraeber, the plays have been directed by Hoppe in summer during the Bayreuth Wagner Festival as alternative fringe productions. Paxiphall & Lohengrün (‘Paxiphall and Lohengrin’, 1985) and the 1990 Tristan, der fliehende Irrländer und Isolde (‘Tristan and Isolde’; the rest of the title refers to a comical wandering figure but cannot be accurately translated) are parodic in nature, whereas Hoppe’s Parzival of 1997/1998 is a serious and earnestly dramatic retelling of Wolfram’s romance. [UM] Hoppe, Uwe. Parzival. Frei nach dem Epos des Wolfram von Eschenbach und Richard Wagner. Bayreuth: Studiobühne Bayreuth, 1997. Theater für Bayreuth. 10 Jahre Studiobühne Bayreuth. Bayreuth: Thomas Krauss, 1991. HORTON, JOANNA: see ALLWOOD, PETER. HUNT, PETER, tells of a group of teenagers on the Welsh borders in A Step off the Path (1985). The story flickers between present and past as the teenagers, camping out, seem to encounter some medieval descendants of the original Arthurian society, who ask help so that they can cross into England and thus escape from the hostile Welsh. [EB] Hunt, Peter. A Step off the Path. London: MacRae, 1985.

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JAMES, CARY, American writer, sets his revenge novel, King & Raven (1995), in the Arthurian High Middle Ages. Such traditional events as Lancelot’s affair with Guenever and the Grail quest serve as background for the original adventures of a farmboy whose sister died after being raped by a band of Arthur’s knights. Working his way from the stables to knighthood, the boy called Raven ultimately finds his thirst for vengeance in conflict with nobler motives as he encounters each of the rapists. [DN] James, Cary. King & Raven. New York: Tor Books, 1995. JAY, WILLIAM, sets his fantasy novel The Lost History of Redwyn (1992) in the plague-ridden England of the fourteenth century. The discovery of Excalibur by a young magician leads to an encounter with a Merlin figure and a mission opposing an order of monks who are profiting from the diseased land. Part of the story takes place on the ancient site of Camelot. [DN] Jay, Michael. The Lost History of Redwyn. Bloomfield Hills, MI: Lancaster, 1992. JONES, COURTWAY, concludes his Dragon’s Heirs Trilogy (see NAE, p. 595) with A Prince in Camelot (1995). The narrator is Mordred, though he usually called Dylan, the name given him as a child of unknown origin found shipwrecked in Lyonesse. He wins fame as a hurley player, the only ‘four-goal player in Britain’, but he is not acknowledged as a son by Arthur, largely because of Guenevere’s opposition, and this leads to tension in their relationship. The novel preserves his traditional enmity with Lamerok and Lancelot’s kindred, but casts him in a sympathetic light, particularly for his protection of people of lower rank from the abuse of arrogant aristocrats. His ‘rebellion’ is largely the result of confusion, mistaken identity, and the plotting of Kay. [RHT] Jones, Courtway. A Prince in Camelot. New York: Pocket, 1995. JONES, HEATHER ROSE, in ‘The Treasures of Britain’ (1996), offers a refreshing and humorous reappraisal of the chastity test posed by Caradog Strong-Arm (see NAE, pp. 81–3). Noting that there is no test for male faithfulness, Gwenhwyfar employs some of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain, mouldering in Arthur’s treasure-house, to shame the boastful husbands into rejecting so unfair a test. [RHT] Jones, Heather Rose. ‘The Treasures of Britain’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 208–17.

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KARR, PHYLLIS ANN, has added five more short stories and a poem to her rapidly growing body of writing on Arthurian legend (see NAE, pp. 259, 595). ‘The Lady of Belec’ (1989) is the poignant tale of a lady who loves the gallant Gawain secretly after meeting him when she was a girl. ‘Merlin’s Dark Mirror’ (1995) emphasizes Merlin’s demonic origins and allegiances. Interpreting a dream as a portent of danger from an offspring of Arthur, the magician urges the reluctant king to kill all recently born children. But Merlin vows that at least one child – the son of Morgawse (and perhaps of Arthur) – will survive to threaten the king. ‘Mordred and the Dragon’ (1995) expands upon another episode in Malory. After learning the true identity of his father, Mordred meets a somewhat laconic dragon, but his despairing attempts to avoid the doom that awaits him at Camlann prove futile. In ‘Galahad’s Lady’ (1996), Percivale’s sister recalls scenes from her journeyings with Galahad, Bors, and her brother as she gives her blood to heal the lady suffering from leprosy. The story is closely based upon Malory’s version, but offers its own distinctive denouement. ‘An Idyll of the Grail’ (1996) is a Tennysonian verse idyll. After an act of charity by Guenevere, she and some of the nuns share a vision of the Grail at the cloister to which she has retired to end her days. Based upon an episode in Chrétien’s Perceval and its First Continuation (see NAE, pp. 91, 99), ‘Clarissant’ (1997) discloses, in its account of Gawain’s meeting with his own sister in the Castle of Maidens, a valuable lesson on the deceptiveness of appearances. Karr has also compiled The Arthurian Companion (1997), a revised and expanded version of her guidebook The King Arthur Companion (1983; see NAE, p. 175). [RHT/NJL] Karr, Phyllis Ann. ‘The Lady of Belec’. In The Pendragon Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Robinson, 1989, pp. 344–53. ———. ‘Merlin’s Dark Mirror’. In The Merlin Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 199–208. ———. ‘Mordred and the Dragon’. In The Ultimate Dragon, ed. Byron Preiss, John Betancourt, and Keith R. A. DeCandido. New York: Preiss/Dell, 1995, pp. 207–15. ———. ‘Galahad’s Lady’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 151–77. ———. ‘An Idyll of the Grail’ In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 287–91. ———. The Arthurian Companion. Oakland, CA: Chaosium, 1997. ———. ‘Clarissant’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 251–82.

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KENNEALY-MORRISON, PATRICIA, brings her Arthurian trilogy to a conclusion in The Hedge of Mist (1996). Part of her Keltiad series which transposes the ancient Celtic world into a space-faring future (see NAE, pp. 261, 595–6), this novel deals with the quest for the Grail and the death of Arthur; like the first two novels of the trilogy, it is narrated by Taliesin. It follows the general pattern of the legend, but it freely adapts not only Arthurian motifs such as the Dolorous Blow, the miraculous healing properties of the Grail, and Melwas’s abduction (here of Arthur’s daughter rather than wife), but also motifs drawn from non-Arthurian sources, e.g. like Gwydion in ‘Math Son of Mathonwy’, Taliesin adopts the guise of a shoemaker to deceive a powerful sorceress. The rebellion against Arthur is led by his evil half-sister Marguessan, and the battle of Camlann takes place in space. Afterwards, Arthur’s flagship Prydwen crash-lands on an alien planet that provides elements of both the Avalon and Cave legends (see NAE, pp. 25, 26, 76, 77), as well as the otherworld described in The Spoils of Annwn. It is this poem, composed by Taliesin (one of the seven to survive), that will enable Aeron, a later ruler of the Kelts, to recover the Thirteen Treasures which Arthur carries on board his ship. [RHT] Kennealy-Morrison, Patricia. The Hedge of Mist. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. KENNINGTON, ALAN, is the author of ‘Twice Knightly’ (1936), a humorous tale of a squire who is saved from an unfortunate marriage by a dragon. [RHT] Kennington, Alan. ‘Twice Knightly’. Evening Standard (London), 28 September 1936; rpt. in The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 188–95. KESEY, KEN, American author. In Last Go Round (1994), a tale of cowboy chivalry, Johnathan Spain – the Grail knight in a ‘frontier Camelot’ – must test both his courage and his resolve before triumphing over his companions, the ‘tarnished Galahads’, to win his trophy. Quest themes also appear in other of Kesey’s works: a brief poem, ‘Tarnished Galahad’, opens Demon Box (1986); and in Kesey’s first and best-known novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), a decidedly unconventional Fisher King sacrifices himself for a group of wastelanders, the inmates of a mental ward. Randle Patrick (‘Mack’) McMurphy saves the men from being swallowed up in the institution’s technological horror by making them aware of their own manhood: he brings Chief Bromden back from his self-imposed muteness and works similar wonders on the other wasted men. [BTL]

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Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. 1962; rpt. New York: New American Library, 1962. ———. Demon Box. New York: Viking, 1986. ———, with Ken Babbs. Last Go Round: A Real Western. New York: Viking, 1994. KIERNAN, SEAN, works several Arthurian elements into Roar: The Cauldron (1998), a fantasy novel based on a short-lived television series set in Ireland in AD 400 (see TELEVISION). The protagonist, young Conor, leads his companions to Avallon in search of Myrddin, who has the power to end the blight that has beset their land. Myrddin in turn sends Conor on a quest for a magic cauldron in the keeping of the sleeping king, Bran, that involves dangerous encounters with several figures from Irish mythology. [DN] Kiernan, Sean. Roar: The Cauldron. New York: Harper Prism, 1998. KITCH, ALAN: see ALDEN, KEN. KOSINSKI, JERZY (1933–91), Polish-born American author who uses polo as a metaphor for the quest in his novel Passion Play (1979). The Grail has literally become an industry – Grail Industries, a business conglomerate presided over by the Stanhope family, its unworthy keepers. By engaging in various acts of love and combat typically found in medieval romances, the polo-playing modern knight Fabian quests for a new Grail: a sense of self. In a brief episode in Steps (1968), the ‘Knights of the Round Table’ are reduced to a soldier’s game of false heroics. [BTL] Kosinski, Jerzy. Steps. New York: Random House, 1968. ———. Passion Play. New York: St. Martin’s, 1979. KRENSKY, STEPHEN, sets The Dragon Circle (1977), a short novel for younger readers, in twentieth-century Massachusetts. The Wynd children, all secret magicians, discover five recently awakened dragons that many years ago had fled Britain to escape from Merlin, King Arthur, and his knights. The Professor and his five resourceful children outwit these unscrupulous enemies by means of magic and a replica of Excalibur. [HT] Krensky, Stephen. The Dragon Circle. New York: Atheneum, 1977. KUDLINSKI, KATHLEEN, in her short story ‘The Changing of the Shrew’ (1995), draws on the episode in T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone where Merlin turns Arthur into various animals (see NAE, p. 511). In 227


Kudlinski’s version, Arthur becomes a mouse and a shrew, with humorous results. [AH] Kudlinski, Kathleen. ‘The Changing of the Shrew’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 5–15. LACY, NORRIS J., author of a novella-length work of fiction, A Camelot Triptych (1997), comprised of three brief narratives: ‘Merlin’s Tale’, ‘Winter’s Queen’, and ‘The Mordred Manuscript’ (first published in 1994; see NAE, p. 597). In each of these pieces the speakers – Merlin, Guinevere, and Mordred respectively – interpret the disastrous events that precipitated the fall of Camelot, attempting to make sense of their own lives in the process. Emerging from the interplay of the three tales is an unusual but plausible conclusion: Merlin, with his dreams of grandeur, appetite for control, and penchant for manipulation, is ‘the effective architect of the legend of King Arthur’, the author of Camelot’s glories and, ultimately, of its tragic denouement. [ESS] Lacy, Norris J. A Camelot Triptych. Rochester, NY: Round Table, 1997. Umland, Rebecca. ‘Review of A Camelot Triptych’. Arthuriana, 8.2 (Summer 1998), 157–9. LAWHEAD, STEPHEN R., uses Gwalchaval (Galahad) as the narrator of Grail (1997), the fifth novel in his Pendragon Cycle (see NAE, pp. 273, 597). A campaign to reclaim the Holy Grail when it is stolen by Morgaws, daughter and agent of Morgian, takes Arthur and his warriors into the wasteland of Lyonesse where they confront a variety of demonic forces before being saved by the power of God. The heavy-handed religious theme, as enunciated by a rather surly angel, emphasizes obedience to God as the cardinal virtue. [DN] Lawhead, Stephen R. Grail. New York: Avon, 1997; Oxford: Lion, 1997. LEE, TANITH (see NAE, p. 598), offers an unconventional account of Arthur’s conception in ‘Into Gold’ (1986). Draco’s (Uther’s) captain, suspicious of the Eastern witch who beguiles his leader, intervenes and breaks the spell she is casting to give their child immortality. Though he regrets his mistake, he wonders ‘how much it will matter in the end’. ‘The Kingdoms of the Air’ (1988) borrows elements from Grail legend, including the wasteland, bleeding lance, and Grail. In ‘King’s Mage’ (1995), the aging Merlinus, concocting a fantasy to inspire his people even after his death, uses ‘some mushrooms in wine’ to conjure up a vision that they interpret as the Holy Grail. [RHT/NJL] Lee, Tanith. ‘Into Gold’. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (March 228


1986); rpt. in Isaac Asimov’s Camelot, ed. Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams. New York: Ace, 1998, pp. 89–122. ———. ‘The Kingdoms of the Air’, Weird Tales (Summer 1988); rpt. in The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 228–63. ———. ‘King’s Mage’. In The Merlin Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 255–64. LEES, FREDERICK, in the historical novel The Arthuriad of Catumandus (1996), presents the end of Arthur’s reign from the perspective of his bastard son who was raised in Gaul and now serves as ambassador of the Byzantine Empire. Having won the battle of Badon, Arthur here must control a land still bound to its roots in savage Celtic paganism although he and his queen embody a more cosmopolitan culture. If the major characters are stereotypically drawn – Arthur is too glorious, Medraut too malevolent, Galaved too zealous – such other traditional elements as the wasteland, the scheming of Vivian, and the Grail are treated with a good deal of ingenuity. [DN] Lees, Frederick. The Arthuriad of Catumandus. Hong Kong and London: Crane, 1996. LE GUILLOU, PHILIPPE, Breton essayist and novelist deeply interested in Arthurian places and images. His essay Pour une poétique arthurienne (‘Toward an Arthurian Poetics’, 1997) explores the fascination exercised by the motifs of quest and wandering. His intent is to convey the ‘legendary and sacred’ heritage that is the matière de Bretagne, retelling myths and making the intemporal meaningful. In addition to England, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany, Le Guillou creates an imaginary Arthurian Europe. His novels attempt to conjure up ‘the aging of the world’ and to re-enchant human adventure. This desire is expressed in Immortels (‘Immortals’, 1991): when Merlin met Viviane, ‘the principle that permits the perpetuation of things’ was revealed to him, but her disappearance exposed the incompleteness of his knowledge. Merlin presents himself as a solitary and desperate figure, but the disenchantment that he interprets as a sign of decline is transitory. In Livres des guerriers d’or (‘Books of the Golden Warriors’, 1995), Merlin overcomes that disenchantment and gives form to Luin Gor, the hero of new adventures. [OP-L/ML] Le Guillou, Philippe. Immortels. Merlin et Viviane. Illus. Paul Dauce. La Gacilly: Artus, 1991. ———. Livres des guerriers d’or. Paris: Gallimard, 1995. ———. Pour une poétique arthurienne. La Gacily: Artus, 1997.

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LEVIN, MARTIN, collects together, in Whatever Happened to Lady Chatterly’s Lover? The Further Adventures of Fictional Characters, seventy-four anecdotes that imagine further experiences for fictional characters. Two stories are Arthurian: ‘Merlin the Magician’ explains how the mage escaped from his magical prison; ‘Tristan and Isolde’ makes Tristan a fund-raiser for a save-the-dragons society, but he absconds with both the funds and Isolde. [AH] Levin, Martin. Whatever Happened to Lady Chatterly’s Lover? The Further Adventures of Fictional Characters. Illus. Victor Juhasz. Kansas City and New York: Andrews, McMeel & Parker / Universal Press Syndicate, 1985. LOCKLEY, STEVE, in ‘Honour Before Glory’ (1996), envisions an encounter between Kay and the Wandering Jew, their visit to the Grail Castle, and the peace that each finds. [RHT] Lockley, Steve. ‘Honour Before Glory’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 218–27. LOUEDIN, BRETON.

BERNARD:

see

PAINTERS,

CONTEMPORARY

MACCARONE, GRACE, in The Sword in the Stone (1992), recounts for children the story of how Merlin creates the sword in the stone, then sets in motion the events that lead Arthur to draw the sword. [MAT] Maccarone, Grace. The Sword in the Stone. Illus. Joe Boddy. Hello, Reader! – Level 2. New York: Scholastic, 1992. MACDONALD, JAMES D., and DEBRA DOYLE rewrite the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in their short story ‘Holly and Ivy’ (1995). Gawain invents a ‘marvel’ so that Arthur’s feast can start as custom demands, but it leads him to accept a very dangerous challenge when the marvel actually materializes. [AH] MacDonald, James D., and Debra Doyle. ‘Holly and Ivy’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 125–35. MACINTYRE, F. GWYNPLAINE, in ‘Reliquary’ (1996), reveals the marvels caused by a reliquary in the possession of Bors who is living as an ancient hermit in Cornwall. [RHT]

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MacIntyre, F. Gwynplaine. ‘Reliquary’. In Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 306–23. MAGUIRE, GREGORY, in ‘Builder of Keeps’ (1998), discloses how a fateful encounter between a builder of castles, Merlin, and Morganna gives birth to Camelot and to the legends that are waiting to be created therein. [RHT] Maguire, Gregory. ‘Builder of Keeps’. In Camelot Fantastic, ed. Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1998, pp. 206–43. MANCINELLI, LAURA, Italian philologist and author of several highly sophisticated novels with medieval topics and of translations of Middle High German epics, including Tristano (1985) and Parzival (1993). Her novel I tre cavalieri del Graal (‘The Three Grail Knights’, 1996) depicts the individual Grail quests of three knights guided by Merlino; Galvano, Perceval, and Galaad narrate their adventures to an abbess of a monastery in Piemonte. [MSp] Mancinelli, Laura. I tre cavalieri del Graal. Turin: Einaudi, 1996. Springeth, Margarete. ‘Das ‘Nibelungenlied’ in moderner italienischer Übersetzung’. In Pöchlarner Heldenliedgespräch, ed. Klaus Zatloukal. Vienna, Fassbaender 1997, pp. 217–30. MARKIEWICZ, MICHAEL, has embellished the boyhood of Arthur and Cai with light fantasy adventures in a series of juvenile horror-story collections. In ‘Merlin’s Knight School’ (1993), they conjure up a monster while their teacher is away; and in ‘The Pooka’ (1994), the boys trap a phantom horse. In ‘The Master of the Hunt’ (1995), they encounter Gwyn ap Nudd, the leader of the Wild Hunt; and in ‘The Wizard of Chaos’ (1996), they turn a dragon, materialized by a young sorcerer, against invading Saxons. [DN] Markiewicz, Michael. ‘Merlin’s Knight School’. In Bruce Coville’s Book of Monsters, ed. Bruce Coville. New York: Scholastic/Apple, 1993, pp. 40–54. ———. ‘The Pooka’. In Bruce Coville’s Book of Ghosts, ed. Bruce Coville. New York: Scholastic/Apple, 1994, pp. 48–63. ———. ‘Master of the Hunt’. In Bruce Coville’s Book of Nightmares, ed. Bruce Coville. New York: Scholastic/Apple, 1995, pp. 104–22. ———. ‘The Wizard of Chaos’. In Bruce Coville’s Book of Monsters II, ed. Bruce Coville. New York: Scholastic/Apple, 1996, pp. 99–119.

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MASON, BOBBIE ANN, American author whose award-winning first novel In Country (1985) uses the Grail quest as an analogue for the Vietnam war. Veteran Emmett Smith is a type of the Fisher King, and – in an interesting gender twist – his niece Samantha (Sam) is the Grail knight who eventually restores him, and those around him, to health by asking the questions that effectuate healing. Their shared catharsis is portrayed in gender-specific imagery that suggests the cycle of rebirth and regeneration inherent in the Grail and vegetation myths. [BTL] Mason, Bobbie Ann. In Country. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. MATTHEWS, JOHN (see NAE, pp. 316, 599–600), in Song of Taliessin (1991), draws on the Book of Taliesin (see NAE, pp. 441–3) and the Mabinogion for a collection of stories and poems said to be from the Books of Broceliande, based on the foundation myths of the Celtic peoples. The stories, allegedly recorded by a young Christian scribe, are set in the Celtic otherworld. [EB] Matthews, John. Song of Taliessin. London: Aquarian / HarperCollins, 1991. MAZER, ANNE, has written A Kid in King Arthur’s Court (1995), a novelization based on the screenplay of the Disney film (see FILMS). In this very free adaptation of Twain’s Connecticut Yankee (see NAE, p. 478), Merlin’s spell to summon help for Camelot brings to the past not a mighty hero, but a fourteen-year-old Little League baseball player. Fortunately, King Arthur’s daughters prove more than capable of dealing with the problems that confront their father. [RHT] Mazer, Anne. A Kid in King Arthur’s Court. New York: Disney, 1995. MCAULEY, PAUL J., British biologist and science-fiction author, sets ‘The King of the Hill’ (1985) in a future when Britain has been conquered by the USA to save it from socialism. Inspired by the spirit of Arthur at Cadbury Castle, a youth emerges to lead the resistance against the invaders. [RHT] McAuley, Paul J. ‘The King of the Hill’. Interzone 14 (Winter 1985–6); rpt. in Interzone: the 2nd anthology, ed. John Clute, David Pringle, and Simon Ounsley. London: Simon and Schuster; New York: St. Martin’s, 1987, pp. 132–49. MCCAFFREY, ANNE, science fiction and fantasy author of such best-selling series as The Dragonriders of Pern, turns her attention to Arthurian legend in ‘Black Horses for a King’ (1995). Based upon an 232


episode in Rosemary Sutcliff’s Sword at Sunset (see NAE, p. 436), this story for younger readers describes how Galwyn, a young Romano-Celt, escapes from his bullying uncle’s ship to follow Artos. His skill with both languages and horses proves invaluable on the journey to and from southern France where the British warleader buys horses large enough to mount heavy cavalry. The story was expanded into a novel, Black Horses for the King (1996), by adding the further adventures of Galwyn. He continues to serve Artos by caring for the new horses: first as a stable boy and apprentice to a ‘horse-wise herbalist’; then as a messenger; and finally as a farrier responsible for attaching the newly invented iron horseshoes on cavalry mounts. His duties are complicated by the enmity of an envious rival. [RHT] McCaffrey, Anne. ‘Black Horses for a King’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 92–123. ———. Black Horses for the King. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1996. MCCORMACK, PATRICK, sets Albion: The Last Companion (1997) in post-Arthurian Britain. A novel about attempts to gain possession of a magical chalice, it draws on Welsh traditions but is told with modern sensibility. It mingles fantasy with vivid descriptions of Norse raids and tribal enmities. ‘Earthworks’ (1997) is a short story that describes how Malory’s Villiars the Valiant wins his name by overcoming the enchantments of a sorceress and the temptations of despair. [EB/RHT] McCormack, Patrick. Albion: The Last Companion. London: Corgi, 1997. ———. ‘Earthworks’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 306–38. MCCUSKER, PAUL, American author of juvenile fiction with Christian themes, has drawn on Arthurian legend for two of his many series books. In The King’s Quest (1994), the young protagonist is transported to a medieval world where he helps a knight discover and deliver the Ring of Uther to the king, who is revealed to be Arthur. In Stranger in the Mist (1996), Arthur plays a more prominent role when the church in which he sleeps is moved to America, and two young people must find a way to return him to England. [DN] McCusker, Paul. The King’s Quest. Colorado Springs, CO: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1994. ———. Stranger in the Mist. Colorado Springs, CO: Lion, 1996.

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MCDOWELL, IAN, blends wicked humor with dark fantasy in the two novels that constitute Mordred’s mean-spirited autobiography, Mordred’s Curse (1996) and Merlin’s Gift (1997). Incorporating material from earlier stories (see NAE, pp. 291 and 599), Arthur’s bastard tells of his part in the deaths of his mother Morgause and her husband King Lot, of his encounters with the homosexual magician Merlin, and of his long-term affair with Guinevere. Characters as diverse as Nimüe and St Cadog are portrayed with perverse twists as Mordred’s deeds ultimately bring about the final battle with his father. ‘The Feasting of the Hungry Man’ (1998) combines two motifs from ‘Culhwch and Olwen’ in a short story about how Guinever saves Camelot from Huarwor, a supernatural being with an insatiable appetite, by sending Mordred to steal the Cauldron of Plenty from Ireland. [DN/RHT] McDowell, Ian. Mordred’s Curse. New York: Avon, 1996. ———. Merlin’s Gift. New York: Avon, 1997. ———. ‘The Feasting of the Hungry Man’. In Camelot Fantastic, ed. Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1998, pp. 169–205. MICHEAL, L. A. Book I Spring 480–545 (1986) tells the story of the mission of Gwendaene, the Druid god’s daughter, and her love for a Saxon prince. The novel begins in Arthur’s court and refers to some episodes found in the legend. Some characters have Arthurian names but not the roles traditionally associated with those names. [AH] Micheal, L. A. Book I Spring 480–545. Great Neck, NY: Todd & Honeywell, 1986. MIDDLETON, HADYN, who has dealt with the intrusion of British mythic forces into the modern world in such novels as The People in the Picture (1987) and The Collapsing Castle (1990; see NAE, p. 600), sets the three fantasy novels of his Mordred Cycle in the Arthurian Dark Ages. The King’s Evil (1995) invites the reader to share the troubled young Mordred’s emotions, physical sensations, and even his darkest dreams, as he makes his way through Arthur’s kingdom to encounter his father. Images of sexuality and death pervade The Queen’s Captive (1996), set primarily on Avalon where time loops around and Morgan becomes both Mordred’s mother and lover. The Knight’s Vengeance (1997) depicts the rebirth of Arthur’s kingdom and its ultimate doom; Mordred serves as the agent of Britain’s ancient gods as they reclaim their sovereignty over the land. [DN] Middleton, Hadyn. The King’s Evil. London: Little Brown, 1995. 234


———. The Queen’s Captive. London: Little Brown, 1996. ———. The Knight’s Vengeance. London: Little Brown, 1997. MILLARD, CHRIS, a Pennsylvania teenager who died of cancer in 1972 at the age of fourteen, and whose legacy includes the Arthurian short story ‘The Four Diamonds’ (1973), a charitable foundation that provides aid to families with children who have cancer, and a made-for-television movie. When at age eleven Millard found out he had inoperable cancer, he wrote himself into a short story in which he is a brave squire seeking membership in the fellowship of the Round Table. To prove his worth, he sets out to accomplish four tasks, each of which rewards him with a diamond. Members of his family and medical support team are recast in a variety of Arthurian roles. The short story was turned into a made-for-cable-television film directed by Peter Werner that first aired on The Disney Channel in August 1995 (see FILMS). [KH] Harty, Kevin J. ‘The Return to Camelot on Page and Screen: Chris Millard’s “Four Diamonds” ’. In King Arthur’s Modern Return, ed. Debra N. Mancoff. New York: Garland, 1998. Millard, Chris. Four Diamonds. Hershey, PA: The Four Diamonds Foundation, 1973. MILLER, SASHA, is the author of ‘King’s Man’ (1989), an ironic story in which the Myrdin, seeking to escape from his infatuation with Ar-tyr’s bride, transforms himself by mighty magic – into a Lancelot with no memory of his previous life! [RHT] Miller, Sasha. ‘King’s Man’. In The Pendragon Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Robinson, 1989, pp. 78–88. MORPURGO, MICHAEL, creates an imaginative frame for retelling the Arthurian legend in Arthur, King of High Britain (1994). Arthur Pendragon, who is waiting in a cave in the Scilly Isles for the summons to return, saves a twelve-year-old boy from drowning. Elderly and loquacious, he retells his story to this representative of the nineties generation, his compelling voice providing a vivid new focus to events. [HT] Morpurgo, Michael. Arthur, King of High Britain. Illustrated by Michael Foreman. London: Pavilion, 1994. MORRIS, GERALD, is the American author of The Squire’s Tale, a children’s book that devotes special attention to the character of Gawain in retelling – with some variations – a portion of the tale of Ragnell, as well as a number of familiar episodes from Malory (including the story of Pelleas 235


and Ettard, the five rebellious kings, and the three questing ladies). The squire in Morris’s tale is the teenaged orphan Terence who, by accompanying Gawain on his quest, ultimately fulfils his own quest to learn the truth about his parentage. [BTL] Morris, Gerald. The Squire’s Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. MORRIS, WILLIAM (1834–96), the Pre-Raphaelite artist and writer, included Arthurian material not only in his The Defence of Guinevere (see NAE, pp. 330–1) but also in a narrative poem, The Earthly Paradise (1870). ‘Ogier The Dane’, later adapted into prose by Madalen Edgar, tells of Ogier and the blissful century he spends in Avallon with Morgan le Fay, whose magic confers on him eternal youth and forgetfulness of the past. Eventually, he returns to defend France and thereafter rejoins Morgan. [NJL] Morris, William. ‘Ogier The Dane’, adapted into prose by Madalen Edgar, 1919. In Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 420–33. MULOCK, DINAH MARIA, first published ‘Merlin and Tom Thumb’ in The Fairy Book (1863). This brief story of Tom Thumb, the tiny man who becomes a favorite at Arthur’s court, recounts a number of his adventures, such as his being swallowed by a salmon. [NJL] Mulock, Dinah Maria. ‘Merlin and Tom Thumb’. In Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 223–30. O’DONOHOE, NICK, American author, casts Morgan le Fay in a particularly nasty role in two fantasies, The Magic and the Healing (1994) and Under the Healing Sign (1995). As the bloodthirsty queen of Anavalon, she invades Crossroads, a magical place where the paths to many worlds intersect, and where the protagonist, a young veterinary student, has come to heal mythical creatures. Morgan’s role in Arthur’s fall is alluded to at one point. [DN] O’Donohoe, Nick. The Magic and the Healing. New York: Ace, 1994. ———. Under the Healing Sign. New York: Ace, 1995. PAINTERS, CONTEMPORARY BRETON. Although it would be misleading to speak of a ‘school of Breton painting’, there is at present a trend toward the production of Arthurian images. The matière de Bretagne, whether of Breton or other origin, provides a rich source of inspiration for numerous contemporary painters. Drawing from a common store of tales

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and legends, the best of these artists have renewed them to create an original body of work. Carmino de la Pinta, born in France but of Spanish parents, first knew of the Arthurian legend in Castille, where as a child he read Cervantes, only later discovering Celtic culture. His work thus represents a fusion of southern and northern influences. The first Arthurian subject he treated was Galahad (1982), followed by representations of love themes and treatments of the Secret Garden, the Appletree of Avalon, the Ladies of the Lake, etc. He has contributed extensively to the journal Artus, which has attracted artists, writers, and scholars working on the matter of Britain. He has completed a fresco on the ‘Songe d’Arthur’ (‘Arthur’s Dream’). Paul Dauce has produced works in which the temporal element is effaced and the human form blends and melts into the vegetal and mineral world. Dauce works in black and white, noting that ‘In the Arthurian legend, I find a constant quest with different combats against chaos (black) to bring forth light (white)’. In this approach to luminous whiteness, the painted figures (Merlin, Viviane, Perceval, etc.) seem timeless. For Bernard Louedin, on the other hand, the Arthurian knight is subject to corruption by time. In his work, armor best conveys the slow decomposition of the myth and matter. Armor hides and protects the knight, but it gradually rusts, recalling the contingency and decline of the hero. Through the recurrent presentation of rusted, worn, abandoned armor, Louedin sets the legend in time and confers on it a striking reality. The work of Sophie Busson also develops around Arthurian themes. The character of Perceval and the meeting of Merlin and Viviane are among her major themes. At present her work is turning toward the theme of engulfed cities. The work of all four of these painters has occasionally been exhibited at the Centre de l’Imaginaire Arthurien, directed by Claudine and Hervé Glot. The Center, located in the château of Comper-en-Brocéliande, the legendary castle of the fairy Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, organizes exhibits, conferences, and other events concerning the Arthurian legend. [ML] PARKER, MARTIN (d. 1656?), is the author of ballads, such as ‘A True Tale of Robin Hood’, and romances, including The Famous History of That Most Renowned Christian Worthy Arthur King of the Britaines, and His Famous Knights of the Round Table, published posthumously in 1660. The Famous History briefly recounts Arthur’s birth, Merlin’s tutoring, Arthur’s ascension to the throne, his defeat of the Saxons, his foreign victories, and his founding of the Round Table. Parker includes a list of the one hundred and fifty knights who sat at the Table, some of whom are traditional but many of whom are not. In the final movement of the romance, Arthur leads 237


his knights to Palestine and defeats the ‘whole Pagan host’. Hearing of Mordred’s treachery, Arthur returns to Britain, where both he and Mordred are slain in the final battle. [ACL] P[arker], M[artin]. The Famous History of That Most Renowned Christian Worthy Arthur King of the Britaines, and His Famous Knights of the Round Table. London: Francis Cotes, 1660. Brinkley, Roberta Florence. Arthurian Legend in the Seventeenth Century. 1932; rpt. New York: Octagon, 1970. PATERSON, KATHERINE, author of Park’s Quest (see NAE, p. 353), tells the story of Parzival in a short novel based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. Paterson recounts Parzival’s sheltered youth, his knighting, his marriage to Condwiramurs, and his failure to ask the question that would heal Anfortas. After learning that posing the question is a sign of compassion for the suffering king, Parzival ultimately returns and cures him. [ACL] Paterson, Katherine. Parzival: The Quest of the Grail Knight. New York: Lodestar, 1998. PATTON, FIONA, in ‘The Raven’s Quest’ (1998), recounts how one of Bran’s ravens is transformed into human form by Nimue and charged to ask of all whom he meets, ‘What is the greatest human virtue?’ At Camelot he receives many different answers over the years, but finally, as he lies dying of the field of Camlan, he discovers the true answer: sacrifice. [RHT] Patton, Fiona. ‘The Raven’s Quest’. In Camelot Fantastic, ed. Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1998, pp. 14–50. PAXSON, DIANA L., who dealt with the legend of Tristan and Isolde in The White Raven (see NAE, p. 602), has written two more short stories with Arthurian connections. In ‘Wild Man’ (1995) a young woman persuades Merlin, who is running wild in the Forest of Caledon, to return and resume his responsibilities to the kingdom. ‘Lady of Avalon’ (1996) is set in the world created by Marion Zimmer Bradley in The Mists of Avalon (see NAE, p. 50), albeit some years later. The chief priestess brings to Avalon a Saxon queen pregnant with the daughter who is destined to become the former’s successor. Most recently, she has started a series of Arthurian fantasy novels, the first of which, The Hallowed Isle. Book One: The Book of the Sword, appeared early in 1999. This places in a Dark Age setting the story of Merlin, from his conception up to the point at which Arthur draws the 238


Sword from the Stone. Paxson includes not only traditional elements drawn from Geoffrey of Monmouth and the tale of the Wild Man in the Woods (see NAE, pp. 319–20), but also a Sarmatian connection for Excalibur (see NAE, pp. 396–97) and identification of the Lady of the Lake as the High Priestess of the old faith. [RHT] Paxson, Diana L. ‘Wild Man’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 17–38. ———. ‘Lady of Avalon’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 58–79. ———. The Hallowed Isle. Book One: The Book of the Sword. New York: Avon Eos, 1999. PEREC, GEORGES (1936–82), French author of La Vie mode d’emploi, a parodic novel about Percival Bartlebooth’s quest. Bartlebooth sets out on a twenty-year world tour in order to paint five hundred seascapes, which he then mails to France, where they are transformed into puzzles. On his return, he is to spend another twenty years reconstituting the pictures, which are to be destroyed thereafter. Perec makes a great many references (besides Bartlebooth’s first name and his quest) to the Arthurian legend. For example, Joseph of Arimathea is the subject of a holographic painting that turns into Zarathustra when approached from the opposite direction; and Avalon on Catalina Island, California, is the site where Bartlebooth paints one of his watercolors. In a major episode, the hero’s great-uncle buys a counterfeit vase (Grail) of Joseph of Arimathea; the renters of the house where the sale is to take place use the pseudonym of Arthur King, member of the ‘Galaad Society’. [ML] Perec, Georges. La Vie mode d’emploi. Paris: Hachette, 1978. ———. Life, a User’s Manual, trans. David Bellos. Boston: David R. Godine, 1987. [Translation of La Vie mode d’emploi.] PHELAN, LAUREL, past life regression therapist, believes that she herself was Guinevere in an earlier incarnation, and she describes her experience in Guinevere (1996), subtitled ‘One Woman’s Quest for Her Past Life Identity and the Healing of Her Eternal Soul’. Raised in Northumbria, this Guinevere was trained to lead men by her indulgent father. After she marries Arthur, however, she is denied an active role in the struggle against Britain’s invaders, and so although she loves him, she grows bored and takes lovers, including Lanciris (Lancelot). Betrayed by Arthur’s half-sister Morgana, she is imprisoned, but eventually pardoned. After Arthur dies in battle, his men refuse to follow her, and she subsequently commits suicide. The story expresses Guinevere’s need to control her own destiny. [RHT] 239


Phelan, Laurel. Guinevere. New York: Pocket, 1996. PHILBRICK, RODMAN, author of Freak the Mighty, a children’s novel on which the 1998 film The Mighty was based (see FILMS). The novel tells the story of the developing friendship between two young boys, one a prodigy who is terminally ill, and the other a mentally challenged boy who is overly large for his age. Their friendship is cemented by the tales of King Arthur that the former spins for the latter. [KH] Philbrick, Rodman. Freak the Mighty. New York: Scholastic, 1993. PLEDGER, LYNNE, in ‘Gwenhwyfar’ (1995), draws on the Welsh tradition of three queens of that name. Arthur’s previous wife has died mysteriously, and an orphan girl is traded by her abbess to Arthur who needs a replacement to provide an heir. [AH] Pledger, Lynne. ‘Gwenhwyfar’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 63–76. POPKES, STEVEN, wrote ‘Dr. Couney’s Island’ (1994), in which a ‘drunken bum’ on Coney Island shares the memories of people from the past, especially Merlin. [RHT] Popkes, Steven. ‘Dr. Couney’s Island’. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (December 1994); rpt. in Isaac Asimov’s Camelot, ed. Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams. New York: Ace, 1998, pp. 123–40. PRATCHETT, TERRY, an English author well known for his comic fantasies, provides his own version of Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in ‘Once and Future’ (1995). The narrator, Mervin, is a time traveler marooned in fifth-century Albion. When he recognizes incidents from Arthurian legend, he rigs a sword in the stone test, but he finds an unexpected ‘Arthur’. [AH] Pratchett, Terry. ‘Once and Future’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 41–60. PROUD, LINDA, has based Knights of the Grail (1995) upon the legend of King Arthur, adapting traditional material very freely. Intended to be read aloud to children in daily episodes, the book has a narrative frame in which Bedivere returns from the Otherworld to tell the story of King Arthur to a modern boy. Prominent in the story, which encourages the qualities of showing mercy and doing one’s duty, is the quest for the Grail, here achieved by Parsifal. [RHT] 240


Proud, Linda. Knights of the Grail. Illus. Hayley Simmons. A Storyteller Tale. London: Good Company for Children, 1995. RESNICK, LAURA, reinterprets the tale of Elaine in ‘The Lily Maid of Astolat’ (1996). When Elaine dies in childbirth after an affair with Launcelot, her brother Torre challenges him to trial by combat. [RHT] Resnick, Laura. ‘The Lily Maid of Astolat’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 369–91. RESNICK, MIKE, and LINDA DUNN, combine talents in ‘Merdinus’ (1996), a story of an encounter between Merlin and Morgan le Fay as they take different routes to travel backwards in time. [RHT] Resnick, Mike, and Linda Dunn. ‘Merdinus’. In Castle Fantastic, ed. John DeChancie and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 226–46. RIO, MICHEL, French author of Merlin, a 1989 novel narrated in the first person by a one-hundred-year-old Merlin, who had withdrawn from the world at age fifty. He remembers the early wars, the reigns of Pendragon and of his brother Uther; the conception, birth, and youth of Arthur; the king’s marriage to Guenevere; the conception of Mordred, who is the son of Arthur and his sister Morgane; the power struggles and wars that brought down the Arthurian world; and the deaths of King Arthur and Mordred, each at the hand of the other. He also reflects on his relationship with Viviane, the Lady of the Lake. Following the narrative, Rio offers his own, admittedly fictional, chronology of the Arthurian age, as well as maps of Britain and Brittany showing major Arthurian sites and the territories won by Uther and by Arthur. [NJL] Rio, Michel. Merlin. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1989. ROBBE-GRILLET, ALAIN, includes numerous medieval and Arthurian reminiscences in the third volume of his autobiographical novel, Les derniers jours de Corinthe (‘The Last Days of Corinthe’, 1994). Here the fiction of the ‘last writer’ blends with the fable of the ‘last knight’, Henri de Corinthe. In this context, references to the matière de Bretagne hold no illusions: the ‘heroic age’ of belief is gone. The autobiographical quest thus becomes the imaginary wandering of a solitary knight, once wounded in the thigh by a lance. This character, announcing the disappearance of ‘good knight(s) of reason, good, and virtue’, prefigures ‘the chimerical hope’ of a free man, beyond absolute truth and myths, beyond any Grail. The work 241


explicitly bids adieu to the ‘beaux chevaliers en armure blanche’ (‘fine knights in white armor’) and specifically to Gauvain, Tristan, Lancelot, Galaad, Corinthe, Sigurd, Brunehilde, Perceval, and Arthur. [OP-L] Robbe-Grillet, Alain. Les derniers jours de Corinthe. Paris: Minuit, 1994. ROBERSON, JENNIFER, is the author of ‘Never Look at a Gift Sword in the Horse’s Mouth’ (1992), reprinted with title changed to ‘The Horse Who Would Be King’. In this mildly amusing story, the Sword in the Stone, a test designed specifically to select ‘Artie’ as king, is set up by Merlin, but actually planned by the magician’s talking horse. She has also contributed a very short story to Return to Avalon (1996), an anthology that she herself edited as ‘A Celebration of Marion Zimmer Bradley’ (see NAE, p. 50). In ‘Guenevere’s Truth’ (1996), the queen reflects back on her reputation, and she discloses that her adultery was committed in an attempt to provide Arthur with an heir. [NJL/RHT] Roberson, Jennifer. ‘Never Look at a Gift Sword in the Horse’s Mouth’. In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine (Spring–Summer 1992); rpt. in The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Vol. II, ed. Marion Zimmer Bradley and Elisabeth Waters. New York: Warner, 1995, 142–63; rpt. as ‘The Horse Who Would Be King’. In The Merlin Chronicles ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 137–54. Roberson, Jennifer. ‘Guenevere’s Truth’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 395–8. ROBERTS, THEODORE GOODRIDGE (1877–1953), wrote ‘A Quest Must End’, a long story about the quest ‘of the soul of beauty’ undertaken by King Torrice and his grandson Sir Lorn. Merlin uses his magic to bring them to Lady Clara, a beautiful widow who may also be a sorceress. They defend her against Sir Drecker, who killed her husband and wants to marry her and take her lands. Torrice is killed in battle, but Lorn finds love with Clara and thus ends his quest. (See also NAE, pp. 387, 604.) [NJL] Roberts, Theodore Goodridge. ‘A Quest Must End’. Blue Book Magazine (April 1948); rpt. in Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 265–321. ROBIN, HARRY, American writer, gives us the reminiscences of Arthur’s half-sister in his short novel I, Morgain (1995). Recalling how she used her sexuality to control Merlin and manipulate others, Morgain tells how Arthur impregnated her while drunk, of the drinking horn and mantle

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tests she devised, and how her schemes resulted in the death of her lover Accolon. [DN] Robin, Harry. I, Morgain. Boston: Branden, 1995. ROTH, KURT, bases ‘The Gest of Sir Brandelis’ (1997) upon an episode in the First Continuation of Chrétien’s Perceval (see NAE, p. 99). In Roth’s account, however, Morgana’s malignant magic is responsible for the tragic death of Ragnelle at Gawain’s hands and the vengeance taken by her brother Brandelis. [RHT] Roth, Kurt. ‘The Gest of Sir Brandelis’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 148–64. SALMONSON, JESSICA AMANDA, author of ‘Namer of Beasts, Maker of Souls: The Romance of Sylvester and Nimuë’, a long and often lyrical story of Merlin (Sylvester) and of Nimuë. Recasting many of the early events of the traditional tales (such as the birth of Lancelot), the story progresses through the marriage of Arthur to Gwenhwyvar. It concludes with the Dolorous Stroke by which Balin wounds Pellinore and brings widespread blight in Britain. [NJL] Salmonson, Jessica Amanda. ‘Namer of Beasts, Maker of Souls: The Romance of Sylvester and Nimuë’. In Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 322–59. SAMPSON, FAY, has written ‘Just Chance’ (1997), an account by Uwain of how Morgan le Fay instigates Arthur’s nearly fatal combat with Accolon, then steals Excalibur’s protective scabbard. As in her Daughter of Tintagel sequence (see NAE, pp. 396, 604), the author reinterprets Malory’s account to cast Morgan in a more positive light, Arthur in a more negative. [RHT] Sampson, Fay. ‘Just Chance’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 283–305. SAN SOUCI, ROBERT D. American author of numerous children’s books, including a four-volume illustrated ‘Arthurian Cycle’ that treats the childhoods of four of the legend’s most prominent figures. San Souci’s retellings, richly complemented by the illustrations of Daniel Horne and Jamichael Henterly, draw largely on familiar episodes from the Arthurian stories. Young Merlin (1990) describes events in the magician’s early life, from his miraculous birth to his servitude to Vortigern and his eventual alliance with King Aurelius and his brother, the future king Uther. Young Guinevere (1993), the story of Guinevere’s girlhood until her betrothal to 243


Arthur, tells of the perilous journey to Tintagel she undertakes in order to secure Arthur’s help against King Rion, who is laying siege to her father’s castle at Cameliard. In Young Lancelot (1996), the orphaned Lancelot, raised by Niniane, the Lady of Lake, becomes the greatest knight at King Arthur’s Round Table, but only after learning to temper his arrogance with tenderness. Young Arthur (1997) recounts Arthur’s boyhood, including his pulling of the Sword from the Stone, his first victorious battle at Caerleon after receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, and his unification of a new kingdom. [BTL] San Souci, Robert D. Young Merlin. Illus. Daniel Horne. New York: Doubleday, 1990. ———. Young Guinevere. Illus. Jamichael Henterly. New York: Doubleday, 1993. ———. Young Lancelot. Illus. Jamichael Henterly. New York: Doubleday, 1996. ———. Young Arthur. Illus. Jamichael Henterly. New York: Doubleday, 1997. SCHIMEL, LAWRENCE, is a prolific writer who has recently turned his attention to Arthurian legend. In collaboration with Mark A. Garland, he has written ‘Shrouded in Mist’ (1996), a short story in which a knight, struggling through a swampy wasteland, meets another bearing the Shroud of Christ. A solo undertaking based upon an incident in Malory, ‘Belleus’s Demon’ (1997) gives Belleus’s version of his meeting with Lancelot whom he kisses in mistake for his lady. With the indefatigable Martin H. Greenberg, he has also edited Camelot Fantastic (1998), a recent addition to the burgeoning number of Arthurian short story anthologies that have appeared this decade. [RHT] Schimel, Lawrence. ‘Belleus’s Demon’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 213–18. ———, and Mark A. Garland. ‘Shrouded in Mist’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 178–84. ———, and Martin H. Greenberg, eds. Camelot Fantastic. New York: DAW, 1998. SCHWEITZER, DARRELL, has doubled the number of his Arthurian short stories from four to eight (see NAE, p. 605). In ‘The Knight of Pale Countenance’ (1995) a boy records in writing the adventures recounted by the Knight of Pale Countenance. Among those adventures was his temptation by a woman who, when he refuses her advances, takes a demon as lover and later gives birth to Merlin. The magician, born an old man who lives backwards (becoming younger with time), dictates his own story and 244


predictions to the narrator. ‘The Unwanted Grail’ (1996) unfolds the strange consequences of a meeting between a scavenging thief and a knight mortally wounded during his quest for the Holy Grail. In ‘The Dragon of Camlann’ (1997), Artegall and Valentinus, brothers of Arthur’s successor Constantine, are carried off from the stricken field of Camlann through the magic of Morgan le Fay, in order to do battle against the dragon of human pride and anger. ‘Running to Camelot’ (1998) is an account of the time that Lancelot spends with an enchantress, as narrated by her son. Though warned of the doom that awaits him, the knight nevertheless embraces his fate, drawn by his longing for glory. [RHT/NJL] Schweitzer, Darrell. ‘The Knight of Pale Countenance’. In The Merlin Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 391–407. ———. ‘The Unwanted Grail’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 185–94. ———. ‘The Dragon of Camlann’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 391–405. ———. ‘Running to Camelot’. In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, 10.4 (Summer 1998): 46–51. SCOLLARD, ROSE, Irish-born Canadian playwright, has transposed the legend of Tristan and Isolde to the twentieth century in her play Shea of the White Hands (1995). The action takes place in Toronto, Canada, where Tristan is on his honeymoon with Shea (Isolde) of the White Hands, with flashbacks to Belfast, N. Ireland, twenty years earlier, where he fell in love with Isobel (Isolde of Ireland). The play comments upon the senseless brutality of the struggle in Northern Ireland, while preserving much of the tragic power of the original story. [RHT] Scollard, Rose. Shea of the White Hands. Toronto: Playwright’s Union of Canada, 1995. SHWARTZ, SUSAN, has added another short story to her growing list of Arthurian fiction (see NAE, pp. 417–18, 605). In ‘A Refuge of Firedrakes’ (1996), a young British captive witnesses the meeting between Myrddin and Vortigern at Dinas Emrys (see NAE, p. 495), and learns that Linnet, the daughter she is destined to bear, will serve Arthur well. [RHT] Shwartz, Susan. ‘A Refuge of Firedrakes’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 152–81. SMITHIES, RICHARD H. R., joins the small company of authors who have introduced Arthurian elements into mystery novels in a modern 245


setting (see NAE, pp. 339–40). The Pendragon Caper (1991) involves a search for the Lance of Longinus, a character who believes himself to be a reincarnation of King Arthur, and a few parallels with situations in the legend. [RHT] Smithies, Richard H. R. The Pendragon Caper. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1991. SPIRN, MICHELE, is the author of In Search of the Ruby Sword (1984), a children’s book where two contemporary children travel to an Arthurian world. [AH] Spirn, Michele. In Search of the Ruby Sword. Illus. Gene Feller. Fairlawn, NJ: January Prod, 1984. SPRINGER, NANCY. The Arthurian works of this American fantasy author often concern the characters’ struggles against Fate. I Am Mordred (1998), a novel expanded from the short story ‘The Raven’ (1995), recounts Mordred’s attempts to escape the destiny Merlin prophesied for him. Only Nimue and Arthur believe in him, but every action Mordred takes seems to cause harm, despite his best intentions. Desperate, he seeks a spell to end his torment. In ‘The Queen’s Broidery Woman’ (1998), Springer plays on the image of lives as threads, spun and then cut. Guinevere’s seamstress sews spells as well as stitches, but she realizes too late that she has sewn Arthur’s and Mordred’s deaths. [AH] Springer, Nancy. ‘The Raven’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 137–51. ———. I Am Mordred. New York: Philomel, 1998. ———. ‘The Queen’s Broidery Woman’. In Camelot Fantastic, ed. Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1998, pp. 51–71. STABLEFORD, BRIAN, British author of numerous works of science fiction and fantasy, has been drawn to Arthurian legend in three short stories. ‘The Lost Romance’ (1996), set in the fourteenth century, links the fate of a Grail manuscript with the origins of the legend of Robin Hood. Based upon an incident in Guillaume le Clerc’s Fergus (see NAE, p. 216), ‘My Mother, the Hag’ (1997) not only views sympathetically the predicament of the various supernatural creatures destroyed by the heroes of romance, but also (like the other story) ponders both the irony of fate and the distortions that writers introduce into their material. ‘The Architect of Worlds’ (1998) paints a picture of Merlin’s efforts to maintain a balance 246


among the rival forces striving for political dominance within Arthur’s realm, only to conclude that blind chance is the final arbiter, ‘the Architect of Worlds’ – and their destroyer. [RHT] Stableford, Brian. ‘The Lost Romance’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 394–406. ———. ‘My Mother, the Hag’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 380–90. ———. ‘The Architect of Worlds’. In Camelot Fantastic, ed. Lawrence Schimel and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: DAW, 1998, pp. 72–123. STEWART, MARY (see NAE, p. 432), has returned after a number of years to the Arthurian legend with The Prince and the Pilgrim (1995), which transposes Malory’s tale of Alisaunder le Orphelin and Alice la Beale Pilgrim to the more realistic Dark Age setting found in her earlier Arthurian novels. Before the lovers meet, however, Alice and her father get involved in the bloody political struggles among the Merovingians in Gaul; they smuggle back to Britain one of the young princes who carries with him a vessel he believes to be the Holy Grail. [RHT] Stewart, Mary. The Prince and the Pilgrim. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1995. STEWART, R(OSALIND) H., in ‘The Perfect Stranger’ (1997), describes how Sagramor leaves Africa for Britain where he not only becomes one of Arthur’s most trusted commanders, but also secures the friendship of a lively Queen Morgan, rejects the amorous advances of a wanton Guinevere, and eventually finds true love with a ‘loathly’ damsel. [RHT] Stewart, R. H. ‘The Perfect Stranger’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 36–64. STEWART, SHARON, transplants an unhappy teenager, who lives for his music, from Canada to Wales in The Minstrel Boy (1997). His theft of a motorcycle draws the attention of the Lady of Flowers who effects his time shift to the Dark Ages. There he encounters and comes to care for Bear (Arthur), Emrys (Merlin), Cai, Bedwyr, the wolfhound Cabal, and others in a proud and valiant community of Celts resisting the influx of Saxons. By learning the songs of the people and using his minstrelsy bravely, he earns both his return to present-day Wales and a resolution of his unhappiness. [HT] Stewart, Sharon. The Minstrel Boy. Toronto: Napoleon, 1997.

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STILL, BILL, creates a contemporary conspiracy thriller, Legend of the Holy Lance: A Novel (1992), from the story of the Lance and Sword of Longinus. One long passage discusses the background of both weapons, which Arthur used to conquer Europe in the 490s. He received the sword, later known as Excalibur, from Merlin of Brittany, and the lance from Lancelot (‘Lance-bearer’). After his death, the Lady of the Lake took the sword for safekeeping, and Lancelot brought the Lance back to Gaul. [MAT] Still, Bill. Legend of the Holy Lance: A Novel. Lafayette, LA: Huntington House, 1992. STRAY, P. J., has written Lost in Merlin’s Castle (1997) as one of his Passport Mysteries series. Six teenagers encounter Merlin, Viviane, and their butler Percival in a castle. Merlin wakes to save the world from the threat of pollution: ‘Magic is what you make of the world’, he tells the teens, ‘Just try to make it better’. [MAT] Stray, P. J. Lost in Merlin’s Castle. Passport Mysteries, 3. Parsippany, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1997. SUTTON, DAVID, author of the short story ‘Midwinter’. Olwyn visits the elderly Merlin, intending to kill him as revenge for the death of her husband, who died in battle when the enchanter’s predictions of deliverance and victory proved incorrect. [NJL] Sutton, David. ‘Midwinter’. In Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 377–85. TARR, JUDITH, is the author of numerous fantasies, including her short story ‘The Grail of Heart’s Desire’ (1996). Here an idealistic young knight painfully learns not only the barriers that pride places before those who seek the Grail, but also that the vessel, though holy, is not exclusively Christian. [RHT] Tarr, Judith. ‘The Grail of Heart’s Desire’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 29–57. TAYLOR, JEREMY JAMES: see ALLWOOD, PETER. TAYLOR, KEITH, author of the Bard series (see NAE, pp. 445 and 607), shifts his setting from the Dark Ages to the High Middle Ages of medieval romance in two new stories. In ‘The Castles of Testing’ (1996), the Grail Castle manifests itself to Gareth and his former foe Ironsides in three different forms. Despite their genuine spiritual struggle and growth, both 248


achieve only limited success on the Grail Quest because they are unable to put away the concerns with this world that ultimately doom Arthur’s kingdom. In ‘Tournament of Rogues’ (1997), Lancelot’s cousin Lionel foils a plan by an enchantress to steal the horses and equipment of the knights gathered for a tournament. [RHT] Taylor, Keith. ‘The Castles of Testing’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 109–44. ———. ‘Tournament of Rogues’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 80–104. TELEP, PETER, American novelist, uses a nominally Arthurian background for his Squire trilogy. This describes the adventures of Christopher, the son of a saddlemaker who becomes a knight’s squire after his village is destroyed by Saxons. Arthur, Merlin, and Lancelot are relatively minor figures as the action centers on Christopher, the two women he loves, and a cluster of other characters who engage in endless captures, escapes, rescues, and reconciliations in a world that implausibly blends the Dark and Middle Ages in pure pulp adventure fiction. [DN] Telep, Peter. Squire. New York: Harper Prism, 1995. ———. Squire’s Blood. New York: Harper Prism, 1995. ———. Squire’s Honor. New York: Harper Prism, 1996. TELEVISION. The 1990s have been an extremely productive decade for Arthurian television in the United States. J. Michael Straczynski’s syndicated science fiction series Babylon 5 includes two Arthurian episodes: in ‘Grail’ (1994), written by Christy Marx, a traveler arrives on Babylon 5 in search of the Holy Grail; in Straczynski’s ‘A Late Delivery from Avalon’, another wanderer turns up claiming to be King Arthur; with the assistance of station personnel, ‘Arthur’ is able to reclaim his past. In addition to these two episodes, a strong Arthurian subtext runs throughout the series. The two commanding officers of Babylon 5 are Arthurian archetypes, and the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh assumes a Merlin-like role in their presence. The novel Babylon 5: To Dream in the City of Shadows (1997), by Kathryn M. Drennan, further reinforces the Arthurian parallels. Set c. AD 400 in Celtic Ireland, the 1997 Fox series Roar, created by Shaun Cassidy and Ron Koslow, features the figure of Longinus from the Grail legends as a magic-user and virtual immortal who in vain seeks his lance, the Spear of Destiny. Roar continues as a series of novels by Sean Kiernan. Animation continues to be an important vehicle to disseminate Arthurian legend. Steven Spielberg’s Animaniacs includes two Arthurian stories: ‘Sir Yaksalot’ (1993) features Merlin and Arthur, and ‘Spellbound’ (1993) 249


centers upon Merlin’s spell book. An episode of Beetlejuice (Geffen Picture and Nelvana, 1991) entitled ‘King B. J’. parodies Twain’s Connecticut Yankee. Directed by Greg Garcia and written by Peter S. Beagle, with lyrics by Merrill Fainsworth, ‘Camelot’ (Golden Films and Sony Music Entertainment, 1997) aired as part of the syndicated educational series Enchanted Tales. Beagle presents a full account of the Arthurian legend from Arthur’s birth to his death and journey to Avalon. In this version, Arthur falls in love with Morgawse of Avalon and as a result does nothing to stop Lancelot and Guinevere’s affair. Bohbot Entertainment syndicates Robert Mandell’s Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders (New Frontier Entertainment and Enchanted Camelot Productions, 1995, 1997). In recounting the adventures of Princess Gwenevere and her fellow Jewel Riders, the series appeals to young girls and teaches them the values of friendship. Both Merlin and Morgana appear from time to time. Arthurian legend is also a vital element in story arcs appearing in two cartoon series: Darkstalkers, syndicated by Graz Entertainment and the Summit Media Group, and Gargoyles syndicated by Buena Vista Television. Based on the video game ‘Night Warriors’, by Capcom Co., the premise of Darkstalkers (1995) is that humankind shares the Earth with a variety of supernatural beings known as the Darkstalkers. The hero of the series, a modern-day descendant of Merlin, is a practicing wizard, and the Darkstalker Morrigan Aeslaed, a succubus, is descended from Morgan Le Fay. Both ancestors make occasional appearances. Gargoyles recounts the adventures of a clan of tenth-century Gargoyles who have awakened in the twentieth century. The second season (1995–6) includes five Arthurian episodes. The Gargoyles seek to recover the Scrolls of Merlin in ‘A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time’ (written by Brynne Chandler Reaves and Lydia C. Marano). The isle of Avalon features in the three-part episode titled ‘Avalon’ (written by Lydia C. Marano). In the third part, a Sleeping King is wakened with the words ‘Arthur Pendragon, king of all Britain, you are needed’. He reappears in ‘Pendragon’ (also written by Lydia C. Marano) and is transported to Manhattan, where the Lady of the Lake advises him how to reclaim Excalibur. [MAT] Drennan, Kathryn M. Babylon 5: To Dream in the City of Sorrows. New York: Dell, 1997. Killick, Jane. Babylon 5: Season by Season. 5 vols. New York: Ballantine, Feb. 1998 – Jan. 1999. McNeil, Alex. Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present. 4th edn. New York: Penguin, 1996. 250


Salda, Michael N. Arthurian Animation. The Arthuriana / Camelot Project Bibliographies. October 1998. Bibliography online. Internet. Accessed 12 October 1998. Available from http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/ acpbibs/toonbib.htm ———. ‘ “What’s Up, Duke?” A Brief History of Arthurian Animation’. In King Arthur on Film: New Essays in Arthurian Cinema, ed. Kevin J. Harty. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999. TIEDEMANN, MARK W., in the short story ‘All the Iron of Heaven’ (1995), tells of the aftermath of the battle of Camlann from the perspective of a young man who has arrived to find his brother and become a knight. After seeing the destruction at Camlann, however, he abandons his belief in the glories of knighthood. [AH] Tiedemann, Mark W. ‘All the Iron of Heaven’. In Camelot, ed. Jane Yolen. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995, pp. 153–72. TIMLETT, PETER VALENTINE, a student of the occult with a special interest in the Arthurian world, has published four Arthurian short stories. In ‘The Rite of Challenge’ (1995), Morgan le Fay challenges her adversary Merlin to ‘the rite of challenge’. He survives the subsequent trials, but one of them places him into the body of a young girl and excites the lust that, according to Morgan, will be his eventual ruin. ‘Maidens of the Grael’ (1996) describes how, during the early days of the Roman conquest of Britain, a special order of maidens is established in Glastonbury to guard the Grael. ‘Launcelot’s Grail’ (1996) recounts Launcelot’s return to Britain after Arthur’s death, his passionate meeting with Guenevere, and his death as a hermit; and in an Epilogue, the passing of Morgan le Fay, reconciled at last with Merlin. ‘The Hedge of Mist’ (1997) follows the traditional Welsh tale of Gereint and Enid (see NAE, p. 182), except that their reconciliation at the end is brought about through a dream wrought by an enchantress. [RHT/NJL] Timlett, Peter Valentine. ‘The Rite of Challenge’. In The Merlin Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 165–98. ———. ‘Maidens of the Grael’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 34–57. ———. ‘Launcelot’s Grail’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 292–306. ———. ‘The Hedge of Mist’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 7–35. TREMAYNE, PETER, has followed his first Arthurian short story (see NAE, p. 609) with three more. ‘The Temptations of Merlin’ (1995) is set in 251


the days of the Saxon troubles. Myrddin, a young Druid, joins forces with a stranger (‘Artio son of Uther’) to attack the Saxon Cynric and rescue the lady Gwendoloena. Only when their adventures are ended does Myrddin realize that Artio is destined to draw the Sword from the Stone and become leader of the Britons. The Magic Bowl’ (1996) is an ironic account of how Joseph of Arimathea brings the Cup of the Last Supper to Britain, where its story merges with that of the Celtic magic bowl of plenty. ‘The Knight of the Golden Collar’ (1997) describes how Tor, here an Irish prince, proves he is worthy to serve Arthur by overcoming a West Saxon champion in single combat. [RHT/NJL] Tremayne, Peter. ‘The Temptations of Merlin’. In The Merlin Chronicles, ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 36–109. ———. ‘The Magic Bowl’. In The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1996, pp. 11–33. ———. ‘The Knight of the Golden Collar’. In The Chronicles of the Round Table, ed. Mike Ashley. London: Raven, 1997, pp. 65–79. WATERS, ELIZABETH, in her humorous short story ‘Trees of Avalon’ (1996), explains how the dryad, within whose tree the Merlin has been imprisoned by Nimue, helps him to achieve a satisfying revenge. [RHT] Waters, Elisabeth. ‘Trees of Avalon’. In Return to Avalon, ed. Jennifer Roberson. New York: DAW, 1996, pp. 209–17. WEBBER, COLLIN, in his novel Merlin and the Last Trump (1993), records Merlin’s efforts to save mankind from evil, aided by Uther Pendragon’s ghost, the Arthurian knight Sir Griswold, and the suicidal, twentieth-century James Dimmot. Characters travel from Arthur’s time to the twentieth, twenty-first, and thirty-eighth centuries, experiencing humorous misadventures. [AH] Webber, Collin. Merlin and the Last Trump. London: Gollancz, 1993. WHATELY, FRANK: see ALLWOOD, PETER. WHYTE, JACK, has added three more historical novels to his Dream of Eagles cycle (see NAE, p. 613), thereby expanding the originally envisaged four novels to six, with more to come. All three, like the one preceding, are narrated by Merlyn, and they tell his story during the years from Arthur’s birth to his coronation as High King, when he draws Excalibur from the stone. The Saxon Shore (1995) opens with Merlyn adrift in a boat with the newborn Arthur whom he has saved from the battlefield. They are rescued 252


by an Irish ship commanded by none other than Arthur’s maternal uncle. Merlyn later travels to Ireland, forges an alliance with this sea-faring clan, and helps them migrate to the western isles of Caledonia where they become known as the Scots. He then travels to the Pendragon lands of south Wales to form an alliance with Uther’s cousin and successor Dergyll, and he accompanies his half brother Ambrose (Ambrosius Aurelianus) on a visit to Vortigern’s kingdom of Northumbria. After an assassination attempt upon Arthur, however, he goes into hiding with him, leaving Ambrose to command in the Romano-British colony of Camulod. This period of concealment, in Cumbria, is covered in The Sorcerer: The Fort at River’s Bend (1997), which focuses upon the adventures of Merlyn and his small band of companions and upon Arthur’s training. The invasion of the Pendragon lands and the death of Dergyll eventually compel their return to Camulod. After a prolonged campaign, the combination of Pendragon archers, Scottish fleet, and highly disciplined Camulodian infantry and cavalry defeats the invaders in The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis (1997). Arthur is proclaimed king over his father’s lands and, after the death of Ambrose and maiming of Merlyn during the war, he takes over leadership of Camulod as well, just as Horsa launches another massive invasion. The author adapts a number of Arthurian traditions in his often fanciful story, which follows the dual metamorphosis of Arthur from helpless infant into inspirational leader, and Merlyn from soldier and military commander into ‘sorcerer’ and counselor. [RHT] Whyte, Jack. The Saxon Shore. Toronto: Viking Penguin, 1995. ———. The Sorcerer: The Fort at River’s Bend. Toronto: Viking Penguin, 1997. ———. The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis. Toronto: Viking Penguin, 1997. WILLIAMS, MARCIA, accompanies her straightforward retelling of the legend for children in King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1996) with quirky comments in the tongue-in-cheek watercolour and ink illustrations. A cartoon-style large format book with simple text set apart below the illustrations, it presents the major episodes and characters, drawn from Malory, up to the conclusion of the Grail Quest. [HT] Williams, Marcia. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. London: Walker, 1996. WILMOT-BUXTON, E. M., author of ‘The Seven Champions’ (1906) an account of Kilhugh’s efforts, aided by Merlin, Kai, Bedivere, and others, to

253


win the hand of Thistlehair. [NJL]

Olwen,

daughter

of

the

giant

Thornogre

Wilmot-Buxton, E[theldreda] M. ‘The Seven Champions’. In Mike Ashley, ed., The Merlin Chronicles. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995, pp. 231–47. WOLF, AMY, has written ‘The Hour of Their Need’ (1995), where the Knights of the Round Table awaken to find themselves transformed into Royal Air Force pilots on the eve of the Battle of Britain. Lancelot returns as Air Marshal Hugh Dowding, and Arthur is now Winston Churchill. [MAT] Wolf, Amy. ‘The Hour of Their Need’. Realms of Fantasy (April 1995), 40–7. YOLEN, JANE (see NAE, pp. 529, 624), continues her fascination with Arthurian legend in several of her recent writings. The Wild Hunt (1995) twice mentions Arthur when listing examples of boy heroes. The Dragon’s Boy (1990), an expansion of her short story of the same title that appears in Merlin’s Booke (1986), tells the story of young Artos’s apprenticeship to a dragon. The childhood of Merlin is the subject of The Young Merlin Trilogy, which consists of Passager (1996), Hobby (1996), and Merlin (1997); each of the titles refers to a type of falcon. Passager is based on ‘The Wild Child’, another story from Merlin’s Booke. In the novel, Merlin, eight years old and living alone in the forest, is caught and ‘tamed’ by a forester. In Hobby, Merlin finds himself alone again, discovering more of his powers as he meets a thief and then a magician. In Merlin, he is discovered by the wild folk of the forest, who imprison him when they realize that he has true dreams. A little boy, named Cub or Artus, helps him escape, however. The trilogy includes familiar episodes, like Merlin’s prophecies for Vortigern, and characters such as Ambrosius, Vivian, and Uther, but the context is historical rather than chivalric. Yolen has also edited an anthology of Arthurian short stories called Camelot (1995); it includes her own poem ‘Amesbury Song’ (1987), here set to music by Adam Stemple. In another poem, ‘Tintagel Morning: Song’ (1990), a woman hears an echo of Ygraine giving birth to Arthur, and then calling for Merlin to take the newborn away. [AH/MAT] Yolen, Jane. The Dragon’s Boy. New York: Harper & Row, 1990. ———. ‘Tintagel Morning: Song’. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (April 1990), 64–5. 254


———. The Wild Hunt. Illus. Franciso Mora. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995. ———, ed. Camelot. Illus. Winslow Pels. New York: Philomel, 1995. ———. Hobby. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace, 1996. ———. Passager. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace, 1996. ———. Merlin. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace, 1997.

255

Contents of previous volumes I Constance Bullock-Davies Richard Barber Michael Lapidge Derek Brewer Karl Heinz Göller

Chrétien de Troyes and England The Vera Historia de Morte Arthuri and its Place in Arthurian Tradition An Edition of the Vera Historia de Morte Arthuri Malory and the Archaic Mind From Logres to Carbonek: the Arthuriad of Charles Williams II

Neil Wright Beate Schmolke-Hasselmann Fanni Bogdanow Toshiyuki Takamiya and Andrew Armour Mary Wildman

M. F. Thomas Irene Joynt

Twentieth-Century Arthurian Literature: an Annotated Bibliography

Richard Barber Rosemary Morris Carol Meale Tony Hunt

Lister M. Matheson Angelika Schneider

(1984)

An Early Text of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae and the Circulation of Some Latin Histories in Twelfth-Century Normandy Was Mordred Buried at Glastonbury? An Arthurian Tradition at Glastonbury in the Middle Ages Uther and Igerne: A Study in Uncourtly Love Manuscripts, Readers and Patrons in Fifteenth-Century England: Sir Thomas Malory and Arthurian Romance Ernest Chausson’s ‘Le Roi Arthus’ V

Martin Puhvel

(1983)

The Prologue of Crestien’s Li Contes del Graal The Presentation of the Character of Lancelot: Chrétien to Malory The Briar and the Vine: Tristan Goes North Vengeance and Love in ‘The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere’ IV

David N. Dumville

(1982)

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gildas The Round Table: Ideal, Fiction, Reality The Tradition of the Troubadours and the Treatment of the Love Theme in Chrétien de Troyes’ Chevalier au Lion Kairo-kã: A Dirge

III Claude Luttrell Derek Brewer

(1981)

(1985)

Art and the Supernatural in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Arthurian Stories of Lambeth Palace Library MS 84 A Mesh of Chords: Language and Style in the Arthurian Poems of Charles Williams

VI David N. Dumville Neil Wright Rosemary Morris Merritt R. Blakeslee

The Historical Value of the Historia Brittonum Geoffrey of Monmouth and Bede The Gesta Regum Britanniae of William of Rennes: An Arthurian Epic? Mouvance and Revisionism in the Transmission of Thomas of Britain’s Tristan: The Episode of the Intertwining Trees VII

Linda M. Gowans Elizabeth Andersen Geraldine Barnes John Withrington Joanne Lukitsh

D. D. R. Owen introduction and transl. Edward Donald Kennedy

John Hardyng and the Holy Grail

Christine Poulson

The Arthurian Hunt with a White Bratchet Arthurian Legend in Fine and Applied Art of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: A Catalogue of Artists (1990)

Gildas the Poet The Grail and the Third Crusade: Thoughts on Le Conte del Graal by Chrétien de Troyes Arthurian Legend in Fine and Applied Art of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: A Subject Index XI

Janet Grayson Richard Wright

(1989)

Erec et Enide: The Structure of the Central Section Two Aspects of Laamon’s Narrative Art

X A. H. W. Smith Armel Diverres

(1988)

Arthur and Mordred: Variations on an Incest Theme Un ‘Fin’ Amant’ et l’ironie romanesque: Lancelot et la chanson de change Guillaume le Clerc: The Romance of Fergus

IX Oliver Goulden W. R. J. Barron and Françoise Le Saux Claude Luttrell Christine Poulson

(1987)

New Perspectives on the Didot Perceval Heinrich von dem Türlin’s Diu Crône and the Prose Lancelot: an Intertextual Study Arthurian Chivalry in Old Norse The Arthurian Epitaph in Malory’s Morte Darthur Julia Margaret Cameron’s Photographic Illustrations to Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King VIII

Elizabeth Archibald Jan Janssens

(1986)

(1992)

In Quest of Jessie Weston Index to Arthurian Literature, volumes I–X

XII Martin B. Shichtman and Laurie A. Finke N. M. Davis Helen Phillips Felicity Riddy Bonnie Wheeler Richard Barber

Profiting from the Past: History as Symbolic Capital in the Historia Regum Britanniae Gawain’s Rationalist Pentangle The Awntyrs off Arthure: Structure and Meaning. A Reassessment John Hardyng’s Chronicle and the Wars of the Roses Romance and Parataxis and Malory: the Case of Sir Gawain’s Reputation Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and Court Culture under Edward IV XIII

Claude Luttrell Lesley Johnson James P. Carley and Julia Crick Corinne J. Saunders

Lisa Jefferson Aelred Watkin Jeanne Krochalis David Allan Karen Cherewatuk

(1996)

Alexander and the Conte du Graal Robert de Boron’s Vision of Arthurian History Gerbert and Manessier: The Case for a Connection Tournaments, Heraldry and the Knights of the Round Table: a Fifteenth-Century Armorial with Two Accompanying Texts XV

Sarah Kay Nick Corbyn

(1995)

The Heart’s Mirror in Cligés Return to Albion Constructing Albion’s Past: an Annotated Edition of De Origine Gigantum Women Displaced: Rape and Romance in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale XIV

Barbara N. Sargent-Baur Fanni Bogdanow Louise D. Stephens Lisa Jefferson

(1993)

(1997)

Who was Chrétien de Troyes? Irony and Gender Performance in Le Chevalier de la Charrete A New Fragment of the First Continuation of the Perceval (London, PRO, E122/100/13B) The Glastonbury Legends Magna Tabula: The Glastonbury Tablets (Part 1) ‘Arthur Redivivus’: Politics and Patriotism in Reformation Scotland ‘Gentyl’ Audiences and ‘Grete Bookes’: Chivalric Manuals and the Morte Darthur

XVI Christopher Young Charles T. Wood Jeanne Krochalis James P. Carley and Martin Howley Claude Luttrell David Starkey Ruth Evans

The Character of the Individual in Hartmann von Aue’s Erec Guenevere at Glastonbury: a Problem in Translation(s) Magna Tabula: The Glastonbury Tablets (Part 2) Relics at Glastonbury in the Fourteenth Century: an Annotated Edition of British Library, Cotton Titus D.vii, fols. 2r–13v The Upbringing of Perceval Heroes King Henry and King Arthur Gigantic Origins: an Annotated Translation of De Origine Gigantum XVII

Bart Besamusca and Erik Kooper Walter Haug Douglas Kelly Norris J. Lacy Matthias Meyer Ad Putter Felicity Riddy Thea Summerfield Jane H. M. Taylor Bart Veldhoen Norbert Voorwinden Lori J. Walters

Christine Ferlampin-Acher Angelica Rieger Norris J. Lacy Peter S. Noble Karen Pratt

1999

The Study of the Roman van Walewein The Roman van Walewein as a Postclassical Literary Experiment The Pledge Motif in the Roman van Walewein: Original Variant and Rewritten Quest Convention and Innovation in the Middle Dutch Roman van Walewein It’s Hard to Be Me, or Walewein/Gawan as Hero Walewein in the Otherworld and the Land of Prester John Giving and Reveiving: Exchange in the Roman van Walewein and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Reading a Motion Picture: Why Steven Spielberg Should Read the Roman van Walewein The Roman van Walewein: Man into Fox, Fox into Man The Roman van Walewein Laced with Castles Fight Description in the Roman van Walewein and in Two Middle High German Romances. A Comparison Making Bread from Stone: The Roman van Walewein and the Transformation of Old French Romance XIX

Elizabeth Archibald

1998

2003

Comedy and Tragedy in Some Arthurian Recognition Scenes Merveilleux et comique dans les romans arthuriens français (XIIe–XVe siècles) La bande dessinée virtuelle du lion d’Yvain: sur le sens de l’humour de Chrétien de Troyes Convention, Comedy and the Form of La Vengeance Raguidel Le comique dans Les Merveilles de Rigomer et Hunbaut Humour in the Roman de Silence

Bénédicte Milland-Bove Frank Brandsma Marilyn Lawrence Francesco Zambon Marjolein Hogenbirk Donald L. Hoffman Elizabeth S. Sklar Linda Gowans

La pratique de la ‘disconvenance’ comique dans le Lancelot en prose: les mésaventures amoureuses de Guerrehet Lancelot Part 3 Comic Functions of the Parrot as Minstrel in Le Chevalier du Papegau Dinadan en Italie A Comical Villain: Arthur’s Seneschal in a Section of the Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation Malory and the English Comic Tradition ‘Laughyng and Smylyng’: Comic Modalities in Malory’s Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake The Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir as a Response to the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes

Arthurian Literature XVIII (Arthurian Literature)

Arthurian Literature XIX: Comedy in Arthurian Literature

Arthurian Literature XXIII (v. 23)

A Companion To Arthurian Literature

Arthurian Literature XXI: Celtic Arthurian Material (v. 21)

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romances

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Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction (Blackwell Introductions to Literature)

Four Arthurian Romances

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Four Arthurian Romances

The Arthurian Tradition

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Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia (Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures)

The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend (Arthurian Studies)

Four Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut

Arthurian Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia

New Directions in Arthurian Studies

The Changing Face of Arthurian Romance: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in memory of Cedric E. Pickford (Arthurian Studies)

The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend (Oxford Paperback Reference)

The Arthurian Saga 02 - The Hollow Hills

Paganism in Arthurian Romance (Religion & Mythology)

A Companion to Malory (Arthurian Studies)

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The Legend of the Grail (Arthurian Studies)

The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

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Arthurian Literature XVIII (Arthurian Literature)

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Arthurian Literature XXIII (v. 23)

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Arthurian Romances

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Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia (Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures)

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