Hail, brave friends, and welcome to the Classic English Literature Podcast. Rhyme remains unreasoned in this episode because today we’re going to look at a piece of prose fiction – some have even argued that it’s the first novel in the English language. We’ll also catch up with some old friends because we are once again in the realm of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Today’s text: Sir Thomas Malory’s mammoth work: Le Morte D’arthur.
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We’ve already looked at several of the most important texts in Arthuriana: Layamon’s Brut, Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, Marie de France’s Lays, and the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I suppose we could throw in the Wife of Bath’s Tale – maybe not canon, but it’s there. Singular about Malory’s work is that he synthesizes a great deal of matter, overwhelmingly from French sources, into a single, generally cohesive narrative. And there was a demand for that in the late 15th century. By this time, French writers had five major cycles of the Arthur myth:
Malory takes all those cycles and weaves them into an abbreviated (if you consider nearly 1200 pages in a paperback edition brief) form, adding some material of his own devising (like the last two sections on the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere and the fall of Camelot) while mixing in other major stories, like the Tristram cycle, which occupies almost a third of the Morte. There is a raging debate among scholars about whether Malory intended his book to be a “whole” book – that is, cohesive and novelesque – or rather a collection of separate prose romances. Well, one says “raging,” but I don’t believe it’s ever come to blows. Your position in this streetfight largely depends on the role you think William Caxton played in the text’s development.
Who’s William Caxton? Wait, who’s Thomas Malory? Well, let’s take a moment to introduce today’s dramatis personae. We’ll start with the author.
Thomas Malory could be any one of 3 to 6 different Thomas Malorys, depending on who's counting. The one who looms largest as the guilty suspect was a knight from Warwickshire who served with the Earl of Warwick during the Wars of the Roses. From about 1443, however, young Tom began to have some run-ins with the law. Among the charges: attempted murder, rape, breaking and entering, assault, extortion, theft, cattle raiding, jail break, and whistling on a Tuesday (no, strike that). A life crammed with incident. Many suggest that Tom’s crimes are not as black as they appear, for it was wartime, after all, and like many minor nobles of the day, he found it necessary to switch allegiance between the competing Houses of York and Lancaster in order to keep body and soul together. So perhaps many of these charges were levelled with a political bias. Who knows? He did receive a royal pardon in 1456, but found himself in prison again by 1469, blown in by the fickle winds of dynastic fate. Well, we say prison, it was probably a gentry house in which he had access to a massive library. At any rate, it is here that he writes Le Morte D’Arthur.
As I’ve said, Malory adapts what he calls the “French books,” changing their original religious and rather doctrinal frameworks (in which the famous Holy Grail is a symbol of knightly devotion used to contrast earthly and insufficient chivalry with divine perfection) to a more pragmatic rendering of chivalry as a good in and of itself. Though chivalry will fall to decay and disorder in a mortal, temporal world, it is not of itself corrupt. Action in the world is not worthless, even compared to heavenly perfection. I feel that Malory has the same nuanced attitude toward 15th century chivalry that the Monk who transcribed Beowulf had to comitatus and the Germanic warrior code. Theirs is a tone of tragic warning, but not of scorn, rather of sorrow.
Malory takes those voluminous French books and reorganizes them linearly, excising the knotted web of relationships, allusions, and cross-references that can bog down the narrative thrust. He writes in a very plain, straightforward English, though he does indulge in some mildly archaic flourishes to lend a sense of fancy, I fancy. One may call it a somewhat paratactic style if one wanted to be a pedantic prat. I do. That means that the clauses are often linked in the sentences by various coordinating and subordinating conjunctions without an always clear sense of necessary order. Here’s an example:
Then Sir Launcelot looked by him, and saw an old chapel, and there he weened to have found people; and Sir Lancelot tied his horse till a tree, and there he did off his shield and hung it upon a tree. And then he went to the chapel door and found it waste and broken.
All the “ands” pile up. When you read the battle scenes, this paratactic style gives a really chaotic, tumbling feel to the action. Some have chided Malory for this elementary style, but I find it often quite effective.
Especially if we accept the common explanation that Malory intended the Morte as an exemplum, a recommendation to the king and nobility as chivalry declined during the Wars of the Roses. Many readers see in the book an allegorized version of that civil struggle. Malory often favors Wales and the enemies are always northern. Malory keeps London the center of military power. There’s an episode early on in which Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, incapacitated by wounds and a fever, is carried by his men on a litter onto the battlefield of St. Albans, exactly as King Henry VI was in 1455.
So Malory’s purpose seems eminently practical and political. He tones down the magical and supernatural elements, preferring the moral force of more earthly examples. And we have to admit that, in the text as we have it (from the Winchester Manuscript discovered in 1934) there are occasionally repetitions, inconsistencies, and problems of chronology. So perhaps our idea of the Morte as a single text is not Malory’s idea, maybe it was his publisher’s.
William Caxton set up the first English printing press in Westminster in 1476. At this location, his first printed book was Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, followed soon after by Malory’s Arthurian compendium. It is from Caxton that we get the now familiar title of Le Morte D’Arthur. In the preface to the 1485 printing, Caxton refers to "The Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table.” But in a colophon to that edition, Caxton calls it “this noble and joyous book entitled Le Morte D’Arthur.” Maybe an error, but I think it’s a better title, don’t you? And we can see that Caxton wants to emphasize the “noble and joyous” aspects of chivalric romance while seeing the practical political example as a secondary purpose. He writes,
And I, according to my copy, have done set it in imprint, to the intent that noble men may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtuous deeds that some knights used in those days, by which they came to honor, and how they that were vicious were punished and often put to shame and rebuke.
Caxton divides the Morte into eight separate romances, covering a different aspect of Arthur's life and reign. Book I begins with the story of Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father, and his seduction (read: magical rape) of Igrayne, the wife of Duke Gorlois. Book II covers the birth and upbringing of Arthur, including the famous drawing of the sword from the stone that signifies his destiny as king. Arthur is then taken under Merlin’s wing, who helps him establish his kingdom.
The third book details the establishment of the Knights of the Round Table, including the stories of Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain, as well the budding love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. Book IV relates the adventures of Sir Tristram, a knight who is in love with Isolde, the wife of King Mark of Cornwall, the other great adulterous romance in Arthur legend. Book V covers the war between Arthur and his enemies, complete with Roman invasion and Sir Mordred’s treachery, he who is Arthur’s illegitimate son. The book ends with the death of Gawain, one of Arthur's most trusted knights. Book VI details the search for the Holy Grail, ultimately found by Galahad, as well as the stories of Percival, Bors, and other knights who undertake the quest.
Books seven and eight are what I’d like to focus on today, however. Book VII deals with the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, which leads to the downfall of the Round Table and the siege of Joyous Gard, where Lancelot is forced to fight against Arthur and his knights. Finally, Book VIII covers the last battle between Arthur and Mordred, in which both men die. The book ends with the departure of the Queen of Avalon, who takes Arthur's body to the mystical island of Avalon.
I want to focus a bit here because this is where Thomas Malory seems most in evidence as an author, and not merely a translator or collator. While we may notice a somewhat episodic and perhaps even random organization to some of the text, by the time we arrive at these books we see clearly that Malory has been building to a tragic climax all along. So, let me actually take you back to early in the Morte, when Arthur delivers the Pentecostal Oath. It is a code of conduct statement, the distillation of chivalric behavior:
The king established all his knights, and gave them that were of lands not rich, he gave them lands, and charged them never to do outrage nor murder, and always to flee treason; also, by no mean to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asketh mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of their worship and lordship of King Arthur for evermore; and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succor upon pain of death. Also, that no man take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law, ne for no world’s goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round, both old and young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of Pentecost.
This section is original to Malory, as it appears in no other version of the Arthur cycle. Note that the oath stresses practical every day action and conspicuously lacks lofty, abstract ideals and language. Stripped of its evident feudal costume, the ethics here directly descend from the Beatitudes from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which fits well because, of course, Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples when they were charged with their own holy quest of justice and proselytization. Chivalry is thus a behavior, something you do, not merely an amorphous principle.
But, as we’ve seen in other texts, implicit in such codes are often tragic moral dilemmas. Malory’s rendering of the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere explores this conundrum. Incidentally, Malory’s is the first telling of this tale in English and he carefully shapes it to contribute to his inevitable tragic conclusion.
Everyone knows that Lancelot is the greatest, most noble of knights. He embodies the virtues encoded in the Pentecost Oath, the very card or calendar of chivalry. But, we also know that Lancelot’s love for Queen Guinevere brings about the destruction of the Round Table and Arthur’s death. Hardly cricket, eh?
It does seem an untenable literary construct. Quite tricky to make Lancelot the hero and the destroyer, but it would make the legends much richer if Malory pulls it off. Spoiler: I think he does.
The Lancelot and Guinevere affair does not feature very strongly in the book until quite late in the narrative. Malory begins rather ominously: “So in this season, as in the month of May, it befell a great anger and unhap that stinted not till the flower of chivalry of all the world was destroyed and slain.” He goes on to tell how Mordred and Agravain, who despise Lancelot and Guinevere, decide to tell Arthur of the couple’s suspected dallyings, though their motives are not as wholesome as they pretend. The brothers Gawain and Gareth try to prevent such a discovery, saying, “Alas . . . now is this realm wholly mischieved and the noble fellowship of the Round Table shall be disperpled.” Great word, disperpled – means scattered.
Very well anticipated, fellas. Arthur is, of course, not all happy about these nasty rumors (he seems more troubled by the rumors than the putative acts, actually – and more with his loyalty to Lancelot than to his wife. He says, “much more am I sorrier for my good knights’ loss than for the loss of my fair queen. For queens I might have enow, but such fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company.” Bros . . . .).
But . . . let’s consider those putative acts briefly, shall we? Malory is quite precious in his, well, “retelling” is not quite the word for his rendering of the suspected lovers’ midnight tryst. Here’s how he puts it: “And then, as the French book saith, the queen and Lancelot were together. And whether they were abed or at other manner of disports, me list not hereof make no mention, for love that time was not as is nowadays.”
OK, there’s a bit here to unpack. Malory defers to his sources in admitting that Lancelot and Guinevere were together, but he refuses to speculate what they were doing together (perhaps they were playing Scrabble). We sophisticates of the 21st century find such coyness laughable – of course they were abed and at all manner of disports! But I think Malory actually asserts their sexual innocence – I think he expects, no wants, no needs us to believe that the pair have not had sex, that Guinevere’s marriage vows and Lancelot’s fealty are still technically intact. Malory even says that love back then was not like it is today, implying that their love was pure, not base and fleshly.
Believe what you will, but this argument is consistent with the tenets of courtly love that we’ve seen before. The knight-lover must express devotion to the unattainable married lady without physically consummating the love. In this way, Lancelot’s love for Guinevere, all along, has been but a prompt for his exemplary deeds of chivalry. And since it is actually love of some higher, superlunary caste – disconnected from lust – then we can more easily accept the affair as part of the moral quandary inherent in chivalry. The affair is necessary for romance generically. Lancelot must be the best knight – Arthur cannot be. Remember, chivalry is an activity. Arthur’s main role in much of the Morte is not the questing knight carrying out the Pentecostal Oath. He holds court, he maintains the center – he sends men out on quests to carry out the Pentecostal Oath.
So Lancelot is the greatest romance hero. Who does such a hero deserve in the amour courtois idiom: the greatest lady. That must be Guinevere. Thus, the generic demands of romance sow the seeds of a blooming and inevitable tragedy. We should note that, throughout, Lancelot proclaims both his own and especially Guinevere’s innocence: “she is true and clean to you,” he says. “There is no knight under heaven that dare make it good upon me that ever I was traitor unto your person.” No duh, of course he would. But we’ve no reason to doubt this.
It’s interesting, in the struggle which follows, that both sides of the conflict – supporters of Arthur and those of Lancelot – equally use the terms “treason” and “betray” to describe the behavior of their opponents. It’s certainly good that we are free from such myopia in our enlightened age. Guinevere is rescued from the stake by Lancelot who spirits her away to his castle, Joyous Gard, that he temporarily renames Dolorous Gard. And the dolor comes from the tension between competing allegiances and obligations: between love and loyalty, between chivalry and vassalage.
While Arthur besieges Joyous Gard, Mordred usurps the throne, sending out false letters that Arthur has been slain in battle and making arrangements to be wed to the captive Guinevere. She’s cagey, though, susses out his scheme and escapes to the Tower of London which she fortifies. All this, however, dishonours Arthur, who must raise the siege and return to reclaim his crown. At this point, Malory interrupts the narrative to scold his contemporaries:
Lo ye all Englishmen, see ye not what a mischief here was! for he that was the most king and knight of the world, and most loved the fellowship of noble knights, and by him they were all upholden, now might not these Englishmen hold them content with him. Lo thus was the old custom and usage of this land; and also men say that we of this land have not yet lost nor forgotten that custom and usage. Alas, this is a great default of us Englishmen, for there may no thing please us no term.
This is a none too oblique criticism of 15th century noble behavior – indeed, perhaps the behavior Malory himself engaged in as a knight caught up in the Wars of the Roses. The Morte can be read as a critique of factionalism and usurpation very like that which plagued England in his own lifetime. Mordred personifies the degraded chivalry of 15th century England. As a culture, the feudal aristocracy suffered a series of calamities in the preceding century and a half: the interminable Hundred Years’ War with France, the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the weak kingship of Henry VI, and, of course, the civil war that engendered. In fact, I’m certain that Malory sees his own imprisonment, during which he wrote the Morte, as a consequence of the degraded times in which he lived.
Arthur fights his last battle with Mordred on “a Monday after Trinity Sunday” – that is, near the feast of Pentecost which instituted the chivalry now collapsing. We know there was a parley, during which each side was warned to attack if they saw so much as a drawn blade on the other side. Of course, “right soon came an adder out of a little heath bush, and it stung a knight on the foot.” The knight draws to slay the snake, that archetype of changeableness and temptation, and the armies crash calamitously together. Arthur and Mordred slay each other and Britain’s most glorious epoch ends as the once and future king sails to Avalon. Lancelot laments at the death of his friends and the end of the Table Round: “Alas, who may trust this world.”
Indeed.
Thanks for listening.