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| Walter Map taking down a story of the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table on the quest of the Holy Grail at the dictation of King Arthur, from the Manchester Arthurian Romance, c.1300 |
The elements of the Vulgate Cycle, comprising The History of the Holy Grail, The Story of Merlin, Lancelot, The Quest of the Holy Grail and The
Death of King Arthur, are cleverly interlaced in a number of ways. The last
two are linked, or better, locked together, by the introduction of a putative
author, Walter Map. Here are the passages which outline this linking; first
from the end of The Quest of the Holy
Grail,
When they had dined King Arthur
summoned his clerks who were keeping a record of all the adventures undergone
by the knights of his household. When Bors had related to them the adventures
of the Holy Grail as witnessed by himself, they were written down and the
record kept in the library at Salisbury,
whence Master Walter Map extracted them in order to make his book of the Holy
Grail for love of his lord King Henry, who had the story translated from Latin
into French. And with that the tale falls silent and has no more to say about
the Adventures of the Holy Grail.
Next, from the beginning of The Death of King Arthur:
After Master Walter Map had put
down in writing as much as he thought sufficient about the Adventures of the Holy Grail, his lord King Henry II felt that what
he had done would not be satisfactory unless he told about the rest of the
lives of those he had previously mentioned and the deaths of those whose
prowess he had related in his book. So he began this last part; and when he had
put it together he called it The Death of
King Arthur, because the end of it relates how King Arthur was wounded at
the battle of Salisbury and left Girflet who had long been his companion, and
how no one ever again saw him alive. So Master Walter begins this last part
accordingly.
And finally from the end of The Death of King Arthur:
At this point Master Walter Map
will end the Story of Lancelot,
because he has brought everything to a proper conclusion according to the way
it happened; and he finishes his book here so completely that no one can
afterwards add anything to the story that is not complete falsehood.
This seems very convincing evidence that the author of these
two last works and perhaps of the cycle as a whole was Master Walter Map.
Unfortunately “Map died before the works attributed to him were written”.
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| The body of Elaine, the Maid of Astolat, arrives at Camelot |
BLOG QUESTION: Why would the group of anonymous Cistercian
monks responsible for constructing the Vulgate Cycle want to see the work
attributed to Walter Map?
Perhaps, the Cistercian monks thought that a single author would add more credibility to the 'histories' by following the tradition of Gildas, Bede, Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth. Each of these works has a single author, and the Cistercian monks could have been trying to emulate these authors/historians in order to adopt what they would have seen as the tradition of historical writing. Alternatively, and this is a BIG guess, perhaps they viewed attributing the work to themselves as the sin of pride and wanted to attribute it to someone else in order to remain humble. This is a complete guess, as I don't know whether humility is a tenant of the order or not.
ReplyDeleteOn a personal note, however, I'm really fed up with people fabricating these 'histories'. Why can't they all just just be true?!
Good. It published this time :)
DeleteSince Walter Map died before the Vulgate Cycle was written, we can assume that the attribution to him is false. The attribution might make sense given that Map was a clerk in the court of King Henry II and the Cistercian monks could have been trying to gain favour and legitimise the myth in the court of Richard I by attributing it to a man who worked in the court of his father, alas the work is dated in the time of King Henry III, the predecessor of King John. As a stab in the dark, perhaps the work was attributed to Map because, while he did not write it, he found out something, or wrote something down that influenced the later Vulgate Cycle.
ReplyDeleteAdd on: However, Map's attribution is well-explained by Hollier, who argues that as Map had a connection with Henry I and Henry I had an association with the legendary King Arthur (supposedly finding the tombs of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere at Glastonbury), he was ideal for asserting historicity and authenticity to the work. The fact that Map was an Arthurian author in his own right would only have added to the appeal of attributing the Vulgate Cycle to him.
DeleteHenry I = Henry II.
DeleteIt is interesting that these works are attributed to Maps even though he was not alive when they were written. It is also interesting to note Henry II desire to have the extra parts onto the story. With this in mind, maybe the monks felt that by attributing the works to Maps they were 1)able to find more credibility as Maps was a respected historian and 2)because Maps wrote the earlier works maybe they wanted to continue his work and were humble in not wanting to take credit for work that was already inspired by Maps?
ReplyDeleteElouise Johnson
I agree with what has been said by the others in that perhaps by attributing the works to Maps, the monks were simply remaining humble and refraining from any encounter with pride. Also if they were attempting to continue Maps work as Elouise pointed out, it would seem fitting for the monks to give credit to Maps, again remaining humble but also to not take credit for what is not theirs to an extent
ReplyDeleteSamantha dunne