The Mammoth Book of King Arthur

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The Mammoth Book of King Arthur Page 53

by Mike Ashley


  An original French text is in Floriant et Florete by Harry F. Williams (University of Michigan Press, 1947) whilst a French prose version is in Le Roman de Floriant et Florete edited by Claude M.L. Lévy (Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1983).

  CLARIS ET LARIS, anon. (French, begun 1268), 30,370 lines.

  Claris and Laris are two friends at the court of Arthur. Laris is abducted by the fey Madoine, and after much adventuring is rescued by Claris, who then marries Lidoine, widow of the King of Gascony. Laris professes his love for Marine, sister of Yvain. Marine’s father King Urien is besieged by the king of Denmark, and is helped by the two friends along with Gawain and Yvain. Laris is taken prisoner, however, and it requires a fair amount of questing and adventuring, plus the help of Merlin, before he is found and marries Marine.

  LES MERVEILLES DE RIGOMER (The Marvels of Rigomer), Jehan (French, c1270s), 17,271 lines.

  A curious Arthurian romp written more like a parody. A maiden seeks the help of Arthur’s knights to rid her mistress’s castle of enchantment. The castle, called Rigomer, is purportedly in Ireland. Lancelot undertakes the task, and has many adventures before he reaches the castle, but contact with a magical lance deprives him of all power and he ends up as a scullion. Gawain and other knights have to rescue Lancelot and they too meet many strange and supernatural foes until at last Gawain triumphs. There is a separate quest where Arthur and Lancelot manage to right the wrongs done to the heiress of Quintefuele. The ending is missing but this does not detract from the overall gusto of the narrative.

  A translation is The Marvels of Rigomer by Thomas E. Vesce (Garland, 1988).

  ESCANOR, Girart d’Amiens (French, late 1270s), nearly 26,000 lines.

  A romance dedicated to Eleanor of Castile and her husband Edward I, this is a stereotypical miscellany drawing upon Arthurian motifs to create two new stories. In the first, Kay falls in love with Andrivete of Northumberland but does not declare his feelings, so has to rescue her when, after her father’s death, she nearly enters into an enforced lowly marriage. The second has Gawain accused of murder and disinclined to challenge his accuser, Escanor le Beau. It is left to Galantivet to champion Gawain’s honour. Escanor’s uncle pursues Gawain but instead captures Galantivet’s brother Gifflet, and only then is Gawain galvanised into action to save the day.

  An extract appears in King Arthur in Legend and History edited by Richard White (Dent, 1997).

  DIE RIDDERE METTER MOUWEN (The Knight with the Sleeve), anon. (Dutch, late 1290s), 4,020 lines.

  A routine late verse romance, probably based on an earlier lost lai and only incidentally Arthurian. Miraudijs is a foundling raised in a monastery who comes to Arthur’s court and is knighted. The love of his life is Clarette whose white sleeve he pennants from his lance, hence his nickname. He goes through the usual adventures, eventually discovering his parents, who wed, and marries Clarette.

  MORIAEN, anon. (Dutch, early 1300s).

  A Dutch romance which may have been based on a French original, and may have variant versions, because the surviving version incorporates some of the Dutch Walewein. It is an offshoot of the Perceval story and concerns Moriaen, a Moorish knight who is seeking his father, who in this version turns out to be Perceval’s brother Agloval, but who in the original was probably Perceval himself. Walewein and Lancelot are also seeking Perceval for different reasons, and the three knights separate in order to complete their quest. Curiously it is Walewein’s brother Gariet who eventually helps Moriaen find his father.

  A translation by Jessie L. Weston was Morien (Nutt, 1901) reprinted as The Romance of Morien (Llanerch Press, 1996). It is also on the Celtic Twilight website < camelot.celtic-twilight.com >

  ARTHUR AND GORLAGON, anon. (Latin, early 1300s).

  Another tale which, like Walewein, is a blending of traditional folk tales with the Arthurian legend. Guenevere admonishes Arthur for kissing her in public and tells him he has no understanding of the nature of women. Confused, Arthur sets off secretly with Kay and Gawain to find an answer to the feminine psyche and is directed to the castle of Gorlagon, who tells Arthur the story of a lord who is turned into a werewolf by his unfaithful wife and who strives to retain his humanity despite his animal traits.

  This was first translated by F.A. Milne in Folk-Lore vol. 15 (1904) and is reprinted in the anthologies The Magic Valley Travellers edited by Peter Haining (Gollancz, 1974), Phantasmagoria edited by Jane Mobley (Anchor Press, 1977), and The Unknown Arthur (Blandford, 1995) and The Book of Arthur (Vega, 2002), both by John Matthews.

  MELIADOR, Jehan Froissart (French, completed 1388) 30,771 lines survive.

  A late French verse romance written by Jehan Froissart at the request of Wenceslas, Duke of Luxembourg. Early in Arthur’s reign Hermondine, daughter of the King of Scotland, declares that she will marry the knight who shows the greatest valour over the next five years. Various knights vie for her hand and there are frequent quests and tournaments but of course Meliador, son of the Duke of Cornwall, prevails.

  GISMIRANTE, Antonio Pucci (Italian, 1380s)

  Gismirante is the son of a former Round Table knight whose adventures help revive an otherwise moribund Arthurian court. He vows to find the most beautiful woman in the world, starting with a strand of her hair given him by a fairy. He undergoes many perilous adventures to find her and rescue her from an enchanted castle where she is held captive with other ladies by a giant. He of course wins her hand and they are married at Arthur’s court.

  LE CHEVALIER DU PAPEGAU (The Knight of the Parrot), anon. (French, 1390s)

  A late French prose romance unusual in that for once Arthur is the hero and not one of his knights. Even stranger, Arthur is accompanied by a parrot in a beautiful gilded cage that both keeps him company and urges him on. Early in his reign, Arthur responds to a damsel’s plea to help her mistress who is being oppressed by a knight. Arthur achieves his quest and meets a fascinating array of strange adversaries including a sea creature in the shape of a knight on horseback and a giant who is the son of a dwarf.

  A translation is The Knight of the Parrot by Thomas E. Vesce (Garland, 1986). A substantial extract is in King Arthur in Legend and History edited by Richard White (Dent, 1997). It is retold in The Unknown Arthur (Blandford, 1997) and The Book of Arthur (Vega, 2002), both by John Matthews.

  THE AVOWING OF KING ARTHUR, anon. (English, c1400), 1,148 lines.

  Like The Carle of Carlyle and The Awntyrs off Arthur-e, this story starts during a hunt in Inglewood Forest in Cumbria. It also features Arthur, Gawain, Kay and Baldwin. All four declare different vows. Arthur’s is to slay a giant boar, Gawain’s to stand guard all night at Tarn Wadling, Kay’s to keep watch through the forest. Baldwin has three vows, unconnected with the hunt: not to be jealous of his wife, not to refuse food to anyone, and not to fear death. Arthur puts him to the test and he passes all three. Baldwin then recounts the past experiences that caused him to take these vows and these show Baldwin as a matter-of-fact, worldly-wise individual who has experienced life’s vicissitudes.

  A translation by Roger Dahood is The Avowing of King Arthur (Garland, 1984). It is retold in The Knightly Tales of Sir Gawain by Louis B. Hall (Nelson Hall, 1976), Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales edited by Thomas Hahn (Kalamazoo, 1995) and in The Unknown Arthur (Blandford, 1997) and The Book of Arthur (Vega, 2002), both by John Matthews.

  EACHTRA AN MHADRA MHAOIL (The Adventure of the Crop-Eared Dog), anon. (Irish, pre-1450)

  One of several little-known Irish Arthurian stories which were circulating in the early fifteenth century but may have originated a century or more earlier. Though this has some elements in common with the Cumbrian Gawain stories, it otherwise gives full vent to the Celtic imagination. At the end of a day’s unsuccessful hunting Arthur and his knights are challenged by a bejewelled knight with a lantern. None can defeat him, although Bhalbhuaidh (Gawain, though some translate it as Galahad) holds his own. The Knight of the Lantern disappears in a Druid mist but Gawain i
s determined to follow him and does so with the help of an earless dog who is really the King of India transformed. Their adventures take them right across the world, encountering wonder after wonder, until the Knight of the Lantern is caught and the curse lifted from the King of India.

  The author provides some impressive statistics about Arthur’s knights, referring to the twelve knights of the Round Table, twelve knights of the Council, twelve knights of activity, two-hundred-and-two score knights of the Round Table and seven thousand knights of the royal household: 11,076 knights in total. Arthur’s court is called the Red Hall.

  This is translated in Two Irish Arthurian Romances by R. A. Stewart Macalister (Irish Texts Society, 1908, reprinted, 1998 with new Introduction). A new version is in Secret Camelot (Blandford, 1997) and The Book of Arthur (Vega, 2002), both by John Matthews.

  CEILIDHE IOSGAIDE LEITHE (The Visit of the Grey-Hammed Lady) and EACHTRA AN AMADAIN MOR

  (The Story of the Great Fool), both anon. (Irish, pre-1450) In the first a knight pursues a doe for three days but just as he is about to kill it the doe reveals herself as a beautiful woman. At Arthur’s court she tells the other ladies that she has a tuft of grey hair behind her knee and when challenged by the court to show it she demands that all the ladies be examined. When they raise their skirts all the ladies except the visitor are punished for their immodesty by finding tufts of grey hair, and the knights have to undergo various Otherworld adventures as a penance for their scepticism. The second is a retelling of the Perceval story blended with Gawain and the Green Knight but without the Grail theme.

  The first is available in The Book of Arthur (Vega, 2002) by John Matthews. The second is in The Arthurian Yearbook II, edited by Keith Busby (Garland, 1992).

  EACHTRA MHACAOIMH AN IOLAIR (The Adventures of the Boy Carried Off by an Eagle), Brían Ó Corcráin (Irish, c1460s)

  Although often associated with “The Adventure of the Crop-Eared Dog”, this story has an identifiable author who claims, in his preface, to have been inspired by an earlier French story. A small baby is stolen by an eagle and dropped at Arthur’s feet. He is raised at Arthur’s court and undertakes many adventures to find his true heritage.

  In Two Irish Arthurian Romances by R. A. Stewart Macalister (Irish Texts Society, 1908, reprinted, 1998).

  19

  MALORY – CAMELOT IN A PRISON CELL

  If there’s only one Arthurian romance that we know, it is the Morte Darthur of Thomas Malory. Why should that be? And why did Malory write it, since by his day the heyday of the Arthurian romance was over and nothing of much significance, besides Gawain and the Green Knight, had appeared for over two hundred years? In this chapter I want to see what Malory did and why, and to do that we need to find out who Malory was.

  1. Malory

  For centuries there has been uncertainty as to who Thomas Malory was. That’s because there were at least nine people of that name alive at the time Malory claimed to have finished Morte Darthur, and although most of them can be ruled out for one reason or another there are two or three that might just have been the real Malory. But thanks to the extensive and quite remarkable detective work of P.J.C. Field, presented in The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory, there is now no argument that the author of the best known of all Arthurian works was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel, a manor in Warwickshire.

  Field has deduced that Malory was born in about 1416, give or take a year. His father John Malory had been a sheriff of Warwickshire, a Member of Parliament and a Justice of the Peace, so Malory was born into a family of repute. Thomas Malory succeeded his father as a landowner, but clearly had further plans. By 1441 he had acquired a knighthood, and in 1445 became a Member of Parliament for Warwickshire.

  In 1443 Malory seems to have had an altercation with a certain Thomas Smythe of Northampton. Charges brought against Malory were dropped, but in light of later developments we can already see that Malory was not a man to be trifled with. We may even see here the first indications of a bully or, perhaps, of an ambitious man unlikely to brook opposition. Whatever the nature of this assault, it was as nothing compared to what happened during a remarkable spree of violence in 1450–51.

  Malory was apparently involved in an attempt to murder Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, on 4 January 1450. It was over a year before Malory was arrested, and in that time he was accused of raping the same woman on two separate occasions, of extorting money by threat, of stealing cattle and of raiding the Duke of Buckingham’s lodge, killing his deer and causing considerable damage. Even after he was arrested, he escaped and twice after that raided nearby Combe Abbey, stealing money. Most of these activities were carried out with a gang of accomplices, up to at least a hundred on the Abbey raid. None of these seems like the activities of a politically astute individual, but we have no idea as to either Malory’s motives or the contextual circumstances of the crimes. We do not even know for sure whether he committed them all, or whether some may have been malicious charges. It nevertheless suggests that Malory was good at making enemies.

  Malory was eventually arrested and cast into prison in London in January 1452, where he remained for the best part of eight years, though he was never brought to trial. He was bailed several times, and on one of those occasions went horse-stealing in East Anglia. He was also charged with various debts. With the passing years, a storm was gathering in England – the rivalry between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. Henry VI, who had been a brilliant youth and of whom so much had been expected, had sunk into mental decline. In March 1454 Richard of York was made Protector of the Realm, a role he did not want to relinquish when the king recovered his wits the following February. Richard was dismissed and his arch-enemy, the Duke of Somerset, whom Richard had imprisoned, was released. Conflict broke out in May 1455 with the first Battle of St Albans, in which Somerset was killed. There was a period of reconciliation, and when Henry’s mental illness returned that November, Richard of York was again protector.

  However, Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s queen and a formidable character in her own right, despised York and promoted her own favourite, the new Duke of Somerset, Henry Beaufort. Hostilities broke out at the Battle of Blore Heath in Shropshire, in September 1459, starting what became known as the Wars of the Roses. Although the fighting was instigated by the Lancastrians under Margaret of Anjou, the victors at Blore were the Yorkists, but the roles were reversed three weeks later at Ludford Bridge near Ludlow when, confronted by a Lancastrian force led by the king himself, many Yorkists defected. Richard, Duke of York, beat a hasty retreat to Ireland, whilst his second in command, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, slipped away to Calais.

  There was a resurgence the following June when the Yorkists, led by the Earl of Salisbury and his son the Earl of Warwick (both called Richard Neville, the latter best known as “the Kingmaker”), along with Edward, Earl of March (son of Richard of York, and the future Edward IV), met the Lancastrians at Northampton on 10 July 1460, in what proved to be a significant Yorkist victory. The king acceded to Richard of York’s demands and Richard was made heir to the throne. That could have meant an end to it all had not Margaret of Anjou been so determined. She raised a major army in the north with the support of the new Duke of Somerset, the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Clifford, and overwhelmed the Yorkist army at Wakefield on 30 December 1460. At that battle Richard of York and the Earl of Salisbury were killed.

  It was in the midst of this upheaval that Malory was released and pardoned. During the false calm of the autumn of 1460 he may have felt there was a chance to resume his old life, but with the battle of Wakefield everything changed. Driven by her success, Margaret of Anjou marched towards London and was met by the Yorkist forces under the Earl of Warwick at St. Albans on 17 February 1461. Outnumbered once again, the Yorkists were forced to retreat and Henry VI was reunited with his wife.

  We do not know if Malory was present at that battle. One would expect him to be on the Yorkist side, as it was the Yorkist
s who had pardoned him, and the Earl of Warwick was technically his liege lord. However, despite fighting against one’s king being against all codes of chivalry and loyalty, the nature of the fighting in the Wars of the Roses caused many to consider that chivalry died in those days.

  Malory almost certainly fought at the next battle, the bloodiest of the war – in fact, the bloodiest ever fought on British soil: Towton. The Lancastrians had retreated to their strongholds in the north rather than regain their grip on London. Edward, Earl of March, declared himself king on 4 March 1461, raised a new army and marched in pursuit. There were several conflicts en route but the main battle was fought just south of Tadcaster in Yorkshire on 29 March, in a snowstorm. It might have been a victory for the Lancastrians had not the forces of the Duke of Norfolk arrived in support of York and driven the Lancastrians back. It has been estimated that some 28,000 people, over half the combatants, died that day, most in that final retreat. Malory may have recalled that battle when, in describing Camlann, he wrote:

  And thus they fought all the long day and never stinted till the noble knights were laid to the cold earth; and ever they fought still till it was near night and by that time there was an hundred thousand laid dead upon the down.

  Towton was the decisive victory, although there would be plenty of minor battles and skirmishes. It is known that Malory was in the army that headed north in October 1462 to capture the Lancastrian castles of Alnwick, Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh. When Malory came to write the final chapters in Morte Darthur, and lay Lancelot to rest, he said that, “some say Joyous Garde was Alnwick and others Bamburgh.” These imposing castles clearly made a lasting impression on Malory. It was also on this campaign that he met Anthony Wydville (Woodville), later Earl Rivers.

 

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