Background

• Introduction

• Difference Between Old and New

• Post Vulgate Cycle

• Le Morte d'Arthur

Introduction

During the twelfth and thirteenth century, several French authors were major contributors to the Arthurian legends. Perhaps the most influential of these works in the 13th century was the Vulgate Cycle (and later Post-Vulgate cycle).

The Vulgate Cycle was sometimes known as "Prose Lancelot", and is now commonly called the "Lancelot-Graal" cycle.

The whole purpose of the cycle was to combine three themes: the quest for the Grail, the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and the death of King Arthur. The authors of the Vulgate Cycle attempted into interweave these three themes together.

The Vulgate Cycle originally comprised mainly of three core works: Lancelot Proper (or "Lancelot"), the Queste del Saint Graal ("Quest of the Holy Grail"), and the La Mort le Roi Artu ("Mort Artu" or "Death of King Arthur"). It was written in the Old French, in the second half of thirteenth century (c. 1225-1237).

Two additional works were later included in the Vulgate Cycle. Both of these works were influenced by the work of a French poet named Robert de Boron. One of these was called L'Estoire du Graal ("History of the Holy Grail", c. 1240). This work deals with the history of the Grail, when Joseph of Arimathea took his family and the Grail to Britain. Rather than translating from verse to prose, the L'Estoire du Graal is actually a rework of Boron's Joseph of Arimathea, c. 1200. Boron's version is quite simple and different from the Vulgate Grail's history. You will only find Boron's version of Joseph of Arimathea in the Grail Legends, titled the Origin of the Holy Grail. I have read L'Estoire du Graal, but I have not included the Vulgate version of the Grail's history.

The second additional work was called the Prose Merlin or the Vulgate Merlin. This was a prose adaptation of another work by Robert de Boron, also called "Merlin". This had the episodes of Arthur's birth and how he was raised by Sir Anton (Sir Ector) and educated by Merlin, and how Arthur became king by drawing the magic sword out of the stone. The story ended with the death of Merlin through the magic of the Lady of the Lake. Most of the Prose Merlin can be found in Legend of Excalibur.

(Notice the third work of Boron, titled Perceval, has been ignored, because they introduced a new hero into the Grail romance – Galahad.)

There is an additional collection of works, commonly known as the Post-Vulgate romances or cycle, written between 1240-1250. The Post-Vulgate cycle comprised mainly of Suite du Merlin (Continuation of Merlin), a longer and alternative version of the Quest of the Holy Grail, and the Prose Tristan which tried to introduce the legend of Tristan into the cycle. There is also the Post-Vulgate version of Mort Artu which is very short. See the next article called Post-Vulgate Cycle for more details.

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Before you began reading tales from the Vulgate Cycle, I suggest reading the Legend of Excalibur first. This is sort of like a prologue to the Vulgate Cycle. My sources for the Legend of Excalibur come from the Vulgate Prose Merlin, 1240, and Suite du Merlin (or Merlin Continuation, c. 1245 Post-Vulgate). I combined the two Merlins for the Legend of Excalibur. There are differences between the Prose Merlin and the Merlin Continuation. After reading the Legend of Excalibur, I suggest that you read the Vulgate romances in the order of Lancelot, the Quest and Death of Arthur.

Lancelot is a huge work that can be divided into three sections: "Galehaut", "Charrette", and "Agravain". (See Lancelot du Lac for the full story.)

• The "Galehaut" explains Lancelot's origin, including how the Lady of the Lake raised the hero. It also includes his early adventures where he captured a castle called Dolorous Guard and then befriended the giant Galehaut. Galehaut was the man who arranged for Lancelot to receive his first kiss from Queen Guinevere. The Galehaut ended with the death of Galehaut.

• The "Charrette" was the adaptation of Chretien's first story of the hero called Le Chevalier de la charrette ("Knight of the Cart" or "Lancelot"), c. 1175. It recounts of Lancelot rescuing Queen Guinevere from her abductor, Meleagant. This section ends with the death of Meleagant's cousin.

• The main theme of the Agravain was the conception of Galahad, when Lancelot was tricked into sleeping with Elaine, daughter of Pelles, the Fisher King or Grail-keeper. This sets up the scene for the next book, the Quest of the Holy Grail (Queste del Saint Graal). Perceval also make his first appearance in this section.

The Quest of the Holy Grail introduced the new Grail hero: Galahad, the son of Lancelot and Elaine, daughter of King Pelles. Galahad with his two companions, Sir Perceval and Sir Bors, were the only Knights of the Round Table to complete the mysterious quest. It was only Galahad who achieved the ultimate spiritual enlightenment of the Grail mystery. The story ended with the death of Galahad and Perceval. With Galahad's death, the Grail vanished.

With the disappearance of the Grail from Britain, it also meant the withdrawal of God's grace from Britain. This led to the final work of the Vulgate Cycle, The Death of King Arthur. The story tells of the adulterous love of Lancelot and Guinevere, which led to the death of Gawain's brothers and the war between Arthur and Lancelot. During Arthur's absence, his son/nephew Mordred betrayed Arthur, which in turn led to Arthur's final battle and death.

One of the things that is interesting is that the English writer, Walter Map, has been credited as the author of the three main works. This is highly unlikely because Walter Map died in 1209, and the Vulgate trilogy was written at least 15 years after his death. The author or authors of these works remain unknown, but there is some speculation that the authors were Cistercian monks (particularly in regards to the Queste del Saint Graal).

Due to the size of these three works from the Vulgate Cycle, I've decided to retell these stories on three separate pages.

Difference Between Old and New

The Vulgate Cycle is remarkable, not only because of its size, but because it tried to take into account every aspect of the time of Arthur.

The original romances of the Vulgate Cycle only comprised three works, beginning with the birth of Lancelot and including his early adventure (Lancelot Propre), then following through with the Grail quest (Queste del Saint Graal) and the death of King Arthur (Mort le roi Artu). The other two additional works included the origin of the Grail (L'Estoire du Graal) at the time of Joseph of Arimathea, and the Prose Merlin (or Vulgate Merlin) which included the birth and early reign of King Arthur. So the whole life of Arthur was covered.

Yet the three main works weren't about Arthur at all. Lancelot was the predominant player in the drama, even in the last volume, titled the Death of King Arthur (Mort le roi Artu). The tale only ended with Lancelot's death and how he was taken to heaven after four years of penitence.

What is remarkable is the difference between the core works of the Vulgate Cycle. In Lancelot Propre, Lancelot undertakes adventures with not only for glory for himself, but because of his love for Arthur's queen, Guinevere. Lancelot became the best knight in the world. This volume was fairly typical of knightly adventures and courtly love. Many of the adventures were magical, where the hero had to defeat powerful knights, enchantresses, giants and dragons.

In Queste del Saint Graal, the tale moved away from courtly love to spiritual love. Attention is then drawn to Lancelot's own son, Galahad, becoming the greatest knight in the world. Lancelot himself fell from grace because of his sin of adultery with the Queen, Lancelot failed to achieve the Grail.

In Mort le roi Artu, Lancelot returned to the foreground of this tale. His love for Guinevere and the treachery of Mordred would bring the fall of Arthur and the kingdom he had established. In this last volume, the adventure and tragedy seemed more real, because the magic was kept to a minimum. Here, the tragedy is more human, the scenes are more somber, and yet they were also more moving.

The Vulgate romances may have derived from many sources, including Geoffrey of Monmouth's original, yet it has blossomed.

Post Vulgate Cycle

The Post Vulgate Cycle tried to tie together the story of Tristan with that of the Grail (c. 1240). The Post Vulgate romances include a number of works which rework the Vulgate Cycle. Another name for the Post Vulgate Cycle was Post Vulgate Romance of the Grail or Roman du Graal.

The Suite du Merlin was sort of a continuation of the Vulgate Prose Merlin. It contained the early episodes of Arthur's life, particularly about him having unwittingly committed incest with his half-sister Morgawse, who then begot Mordred. The tale also included Arthur's early warfare against barons and lords, including King Lot, who was killed by Sir Pellinor in battle. When Arthur's sword broke, it told of how Merlin brought Arthur to the Lady of the Lake, where he received a new sword called Excalibur. It also included the episode of Morgan le Fay, who tried to kill her brother by stealing his sword, then giving Excalibur to her lover Accolon. The story also included how the knight Balin de Savage wounded the Grail Keeper (Parlan) with the Dolorous Stroke, which caused his kingdom to become the Waste Land. Most of these episodes in the Suite du Merlin can be found in the Legend of Excalibur.

The Prose Tristan was also called Le Roman de Tristan de Léonois (c. 1230). The Prose Tristan was notably different from the earlier accounts by Thomas and Beroul. This tale said that Tristan became a Knight of the Round Table, but in the end he was murdered by his uncle King Mark of Cornwall. I have only briefly gone over the Prose Tristan in the Tristan and Isolde page.

The other was called Le Livre d'Artu (c. 1250) which recounts the origin of Arthur and his early adventures, including his early wars and Arthur drawing the sword from rock, which proved him to be the true and rightful king of Britain.

Le Morte d'Arthur

We can't talk about alternative accounts (Vulgate and Post-Vulgate romances) to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain", c. 1137) without talking about the Le Morte d'Arthur.

Sir Thomas Malory was the last great medieval author of Arthurian literature, and he penned Le Morte d'Arthur, a Middle English prose writing in 1469. Le Morte d'Arthur was available in two main media: the Winchester Manuscript and the mass printed edition from Caxton printing company, in 1485.

Malory was writing at the time when England was embroiled in a long civil war and the power struggle between two powerful houses: York and the Lancasters. The war was known by a very quaint name: the Wars of the Roses. The name came from the fact that House of Lancaster was symbolised by a red rose, while the House of York used a white rose. The House of Tudor, with tainted bloodline to Lancaster, the eventual victor of the bloody conflict (Henry Tudor or Henry VII), tried to legitimatise his claim to the throne through his marriage to Elizabeth of York, uniting the white rose with the red.

Not much is known about Malory, though there are rumours that he may have been imprisoned for siding with one of the two houses in the mid-1460s.

It is very clear that Malory used a number of sources to compose his own work. Malory's main sources come from the Old French prose romances of the early half of the 13th century and the Middle English prose romances of the 14th century.

In the French Arthurian literature, Malory used a bit of the Prose Lancelot, substantial parts of the Queste del Saint Graal and Mort le roi Artu; all three works from the Vulgate Cycle. Malory also used many parts of Suite du Merlin (Merlin's Continuation) for the early part of Arthur's reign, and the Prose Tristan for the episodes of Tristan, both from the Post-Vulgate romances.

His English sources were from the stanzaic Le Morte Arthur, which was written about 1350, and the alliterative Morte Arthure of 1400.

Note that Malory selected episodes with care from his sources, and only a couple of his episodes were clearly his own invention, such as the book he devoted to the adventure of Gareth, brother of Gawain, and the adventure of Sir Urry.

Malory also rearranged the timeline of the episodes that were markedly different from that of the Vulgate romances. Geoffrey's Historia and the Mort le roi Artu (Vulgate) put Arthur's Roman war near the end of Arthur's reign and after the Grail, while Malory set this episode earlier in Arthur's reign.

The Prose Lancelot (Vulgate) includes the Charrette scene where Lancelot rescued Guinevere from Meleagant, and where the hero rode in a cart. This scene was set before the Grail quest began. In Le Morte d'Arthur however, Malory placed this between the end of the quest but before the war between Lancelot and Arthur.

Another little discrepancy is that in the quest of the Grail, King Baudemagus was killed by Sir Gawain. Though we only know of the king's death from the inscriptions of his tombstone, it is certain that they didn't recognise one another when they fought. However in the last book of the Le Morte d'Arthur, Baudemagus was seen supporting Lancelot in the war against Arthur. (This error doesn't occur in the Vulgate tales.)

It is unlikely that I will do a page on the Le Morte d'Arthur, because of the similarity to the French Vulgate and Post-Vulgate romances. However, I may retell a couple of episodes from Le Morte d'Arthur in the future.