#post vulgate cycle

[gawrkin]

(Source: Post-Vulgate Merlin)

Merlin's prophecy about Guinevere. Very, very different from Malory's take, where Merlin full-on warns Arthur against his marriage to Guinevere.

Like a lot of things (meta reasons), I like this one better than Malory's.

[gawrkin]

It's basically the French Writers "trying" to be "faithful" to the original narrative - Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, where Mordred and Guinevere were the couple

Of course, the Vulgate narrative has MASSIVELY deviated from Geoffrey by simple inclusion of Sir Lancelot as Gwen's true love, leaving Mordred completely orphaned in his affections and rationale.

It's really of those "This is pre-modern writing and storytelling at work", where the medieval writers - who may not be professional storytellers by any standard - just added to the existing story without consideration for flow, characterization, changes to thereof, etc. the way today's writers think.

Akin to just copypasting and stapling together the new material to the old material and calling it a day.

It's how we got the "Evil Morgan le fay, who somehow still has to save and heal Arthur after trying to assassinate him" thing.

Or, as I've ranted before, "Gawain the super vengeful killer, who is somehow still part of the Court of the Guy who got his father killed"

Okay but Mordred’s whole thing with Guinevere in the Vulgate is so interesting to me. Like it’s gone over very quickly but it’s fascinating that he just. Falls in love with her apparently.

And then the Post-Vulgate straight up compares Mordred’s love for her to Lancelot’s??

WILD

It just fascinates me. Mordred is usurping the throne but also his attempt to marry Guinevere is seemingly just from a genuine desire to I guess. I don’t know I just think it’s neat. I need to know more about these hangouts during Mordred’s regency that caused Mordred to fall so deeply in love. What did they talk about? Did Guinevere consider them friends? I have so many questions.

[queer-ragnelle]

having a medlit blog on tumblr like

[liixlabrat]

hey gang welcome to: me ranting about the differences in fandom satbk lancelot and lancelot in arthurania (in an observational way) + some other things regarding the differences in satbk compared to legend (mostly my thoughts abt the casting. hint: i don't like it)

disclaimers:

- this will be a long post so it will be under a cut

- this will have a HEAVY lean towards the vulgate cycle in terms of characterization because that is what I'm most knowledgeable about.

- satbk is mostly based on thomas mallory and chrétien de troyes' work. there will be inconsistencies because of this

- i am a believer in dldr in fandom spaces. this isn't a critical rant about characterization. this is more about me talking about something I'm passionate about because i find it interesting

- this will also not be about MY characterization of lancelot bc that needs to be its own post (though my own thoughts will be mentioned)

- fandom's satbk lancelot will be called lance and arthurania lancelot will just be called lancelot for my sake

tws (all arthurania): rape, incest, drugging, kidnapping, death. stay safe, most of these are once mentioned in passing.

i find the differences between lance and lancelot absolutely fascinating simply due to the fact of how different they are. while a lot of lance's characterization can be excused by drawing parallels to shadow, it's still EXTREMELY different

the general consensus on lance (from what i can gather) is that he's a loyal knight who sticks by arthur's side through thick and thin, extremely stoic, and unwilling to say no to arthur (plus some shadow traits like being stubborn, prideful, caring etc etc)

and while that conclusion makes sense considering the information given about lance in satbk, it is incredibly different to actual lancelot.

lancelot is the best knight. he goes actively stir-crazy when forced to stay within arthur's kingdom, and knights don't enjoy times of peace because they are people made to fight. so more times than not, he's not in arthur's kingdom, and it's rare when he is. he's also not stoic in the SLIGHTEST. he openly worries (a lot), gets angry (a lot), cries (a lot), and wears his heart on his sleeve. he is DANGEROUS when he's angry, pretty much to the point of madness. he's also protective of those he cares about. at one point he actively left the round table because arthur fucked up (bad) and to be convinced by several people to return back to arthur's court. hell, he isn't even loyal to arthur! at all! that's his THING!!

lancelot isn't lancelot without guinevere. make it romantic or platonic he's still not lancelot without her. because guinevere is who he's loyal to, guinevere is who gives him his strength, and guinevere is who makes him a knight. (this is likely the reason why lance is such an inaccurate lancelot)

now in terms of satbk, transfer these traits to arthur/sonic and yeah, you can make it work. have your doomed medieval yaoi (even though theres already doomed medieval yaoi in arthurania but i'm getting ahead of myself)

another thing that i notice a lot of differences in is backstory

lance's backstory varies from person to person (commonly attributing parts of shadow's backstory) but i don't know how many people who write these backstories know lancelot's backstory??? or story in general?? like i genuinely have no idea

so bam. here's lancelot's story summarized:

lancelot was born in benoic (france) by king ban and queen elaine. his name was in fact NOT lancelot at the time and instead his name was galahad. when he was a baby benoic was overthrown by king claudas (which. king ban sent out pleas for help to king arthur. guess who left him on read. king arthur.), his father dies soon after bc he fell off a horse, nimue abducts lancelot/galahad, and his mother becomes a nun out of grief.

nimue raises lancelot in a place thats disguised as a lake (its not a lake) with two of lancelot's cousins (lionel and bors). lancelot doesnt have a name anymore at this point and is instead called "the child" "the fair foundling" or in nimue's case "my prince." he doesnt know about his actual origins and believes nimue to be his actual mother. he learns archery, swordfighting, academics, etc etc

he grows up, leaves at either 15 or 18, gets knighted, falls in love with guinevere, so on and so forth

in the case of vulgate cycle (i'm unsure if this carries over to other versions) he goes under several identities (white knight, red knight, black knight) before revealing himself as lancelot. he only learns of his name (and origins) when he conquers dolorous guard and finds his tomb. (which. yes lancelot owns a fortress and he renames it to joyous guard) this all happens relatively early on

everything else varies so i'm not going to tell a specific story bc the only one i'm very familiar with is vulgate.

however: something that i've seen several times is morgan (arthur's sister) kidnapping and drugging lancelot. the motivations vary (from wanting lancelot herself or from hating guinevere) and the actions themselves vary but it's a consistent event. i've personally read both him being thrown into a dungeon and him being actively manipulated

anyway after more varying events: the court finds out about guinevere and lancelot's affair, a civil war breaks out and camelot falls

OKAY. so theres a distinct lack of galahad in said backstory and it's like that for a reason. because galahad is an entire thing in of itself

a common thing that i see is lance raising galahad. this in fact didn't happen with lancelot, and while i do think lance WOULD raise galahad, it would also be miserable for lance specifically. (and galahad too probably)

see, while the time of when galahad was born varies from source to source, the time i see most often is when he was freshly a knight or just entering camelot (not in vulgate). the fact that galahad was a result of elaine of corbinec drugging and raping him because he saved her from morgan boiling her (which made her fall in love. but she also knew that she was not lancelot's true love so instead she tricked him) makes the situation much worse. the reason why lancelot spared her was because she was pregnant with his child. events happen again three years later (minus the child and the boiling water) except this time guinevere found out and banished him for a year. during all of this galahad was raised by a convent

(during a fit of madness, elaine showed him the holy grail which cured him. they got married and i am in a pit of despair.)

galahad gets knighted at 15 by lancelot because it was the one time he ever lost a fight, then he dies between the ages of 15 to early 20s because of the holy grail quest. (tldr: he ascended)

so. thats arthurania. time for me to complain about segas casting because HOLY FUCK ITS ASS

the ones i'm not commenting on are lancelot, gawain, galahad and lamorak as shadow, knuckles, silver and jet respectively all of them are bc i think they're fairly accurate with the exception of lamorak because i know fuck all about jet or lamorak

however the largest atrocity is sonic as king arthur. BECAUSE KING ARTHUR FUCKING SUCKS DUDE. benoic fell because king arthur didnt respond, nobody likes him, he's had several affairs, a massive hypocrite (look at the previous point), a shitty ruler, camelot is still running because of lancelot (whos literally only there because of guinevere), and he hates his own kid WHOS MOTHER IS HIS OWN SISTER. I CANNOT THINK OF A LESS SONIC CHARACTER THAN KING ARTHUR. i know in my heart and soul sonic would fucking HATEE him. i'm convinced the only reason why sonic is king arthur is because of being a main character. (but even then the stories are NEVER about king arthur! they're always about his knights!!)

if it were me, he'd be galehaut. a strong, well liked ruler who despite taking over 29 kingdoms their people adore him. hes ambitious, charismatic and absolutely SMITTEN for lancelot. ("i will die if you are not here with me" is something said many times. hes also very serious about this sentiment)

idek who king arthur would be

the next one is amy as nimue. while it's not AS bad as sonic as king arthur, she doesn't fit as nimue. in my heart of hearts she would not be a teasing fae who abducted a kid to be raised as her own. however someone who sounds like they would do that is one (1) rouge the bat. (plus shadow and rouge family parallels!!)

amy would probably be guinevere. it just. makes sense. sweet to her people, generous with her words, a good leader. checks out

blaze as percival is not something i have an issue with but its more like i think her being queen blaye of malehaut would fit her more. (tbf blaye is a vulgate exclusive i believe). blaye took care of lancelot when he was injured from dolorous guard, accidentally fell in love, never confessed, and was planning to get married to galehaut. (however, if i'm being so fucking real guinevere, blaye, galehaut, and lancelot are all in a polyamorous relationship. this also opens the door for blazamy & sonadow so there's a win there!!)

if i had to assign percival to anyone it'd probably be espio. he's close with silver and while i dont know a lot about either of their characters it Just Makes Sense with the minimal research i did.

anyway. this was mostly an excuse for me to yell about arthurania lancelot i'll be real. love that guy. there's absolutely shit that i forgot to mention so if i remember i'll probably tack it on at some point.

[grail-lifesupport]

Um Galehaut, I don’t think your jailer is wicked when he is trying to protect you from Lancelot, who has almost killed you btw

[queeringclassiclit]

Lancelot & Galehaut

from Arthurian Legend

anon said:

galehaut from arthurian literature, specifically the vulgate cycle. his wikipedia page has “homosexuality in medieval europe” linked as “see also”, though, so maybe he’s a bit too obvious. i guess you could ask if the voters think he’s gay specifically or not

and I figured that we would only be debating Galehaut's sexuality in relation to Lancelot so I've decided to post them as a pair

(middle artwork is by Karina Refrynn on Artstation)

[sara-ide]

Of the many random Vulgate details that swirl in my brain one of the ones I think about the most is the fact that Dodinel was just sat at the Arthur's feet one time.

From Part 3 Chapter 74, Page 247 of The Vulgate Lancelot

Arthur is sitting with all his knights at this point so Dodinel is presumably just...chilling on the floor right where Arthur's chair is. It's such a cute and funny visual to imagine.

[kittsarthuriana]

Highlights from todays reading of The Story of Merlin, second book of the Lancelot Grail Cycle

- Kay’s only half a year older

- Being chosen by God trumps being a bastard when it comes to whether you should get to be King

- Arthur unhorses not one but two of his brother-in-laws in their first battle. Talk about establishing dominance at the family reunion.

- Excalibur is a Hebrew word? I need verification for this I don’t trust these med-lit authors to not be pulling this out their ass. Apparently means “cuts through iron and steel and wood”. Also she glows, love that.

- Arthur is chopping people and horses in half. This is just a lad. Verily he should be at the club.

- We should make a sport of who can get their King back on his horse the fastest.

- Arthur is so covered in blood, gore, and dirt by the end of his first battle that nobody could see the paint or varnish of his armor through it. That’s actually kinda terrifying, no longer a little lad I suppose.

- I know that often the first and most prominent book read by these medieval authors was the Bible and thus its impact on the writing style can’t be understated but can Merlin stop cosplaying as Jesus for one page please.

- Kings Ban and Bors have an unnamed other brother who is a very learned clerk and knows more about astrology than anyone but Merlin

- Kay made a friend! Astonishing. Griflet the son of Doon must be a special type of person.

- King Ban is in the Merlin fan club.

- Merlin made a friend!! Even more impressive. It’s actually the brother of Ban and Bors who’s been given a name now, Guinebal.

- Medieval sleepovers. The kings get one room to themselves while Merlin and Guinebal stay up all night trading magic secrets.

- Arthur cries a lot, all tears of joy. Not beating the little lad allegations.

[historynerdj2]

It get’s better, Galahad was another invention by a different French poet in the 13th century and it was in part a response to a cultural change away from courtly love that created Lancelot.

This change essentially changed courtly love from “This type of love is a legitimate form of romance” to “this is a moral sin.”

So not only is Lancelot basically a self-insert x author’s fav, but Galahad is essentially someone turning around and going “that’s cool, but it’s kinda problematic, so here’s my OC who will show why it sucks”.

Finding out that Lancelot was apparently the invention of a french writer is absolutely hysterical to me. 12th century french poet sitting around reading arthurian romances and thinking "yeah these stories are pretty good but I think what they really need is a french guy who shows up and fucks arthurs wife"

[i-dont-know134]

holy shit that’s insane. Wasn’t galehaut like 7 feet tall??

[gawrkin]

(Source: The Post-Vulgate Cycle - Merlin Continuation)

(Source: Le Morte D'Arthur, by Thomas Malory )

(Source: La Tavola Ritonda)

Because, just like Modern Nerds and their favorite comic books, anime and video games, one of the things Medieval Writers love to talk about when it comes the Knights of the Round Table is their Power Levels™.

[false-guinevere]

Okay there’s like a whole post I wanna make on Mordred and Guinevere but I was reading Mordred’s usurpation in the Vulgate and I forgot how funny Mordred’s fake Arthur letter is

“Yes I am Arthur and I am currently dying. You should definitely make Mordred king. Because I will be dead. Also he should totally marry Guinevere. It is very important that he marry Guinevere.”

Like I know that was Mordred’s first draft and he was just really banking that none of the Barons would ask questions (and they didn’t so I guess he was right).

[queer-ragnelle]

Hi! I really want to read the vulgate cycle but I have a hard time staying focused when reading it. Are there any sections of the vulgate that are not as important to the understanding or able to skip? Thank you so much for making all these stories accessible and thanks for your reply :))

Hello my friend! This is a great question and one I get a lot. The Vulgate Cycle is long and daunting, but I can help you navigate it!

Firstly, here is the full Vulgate Cycle PDF collection for everyone to read. Secondly, I'll summarize what you can do, and elaborate below a cut.

TL;DR

If reading a PDF, use CTRL+F to find your favorite character's name/stories.

If reading a physical copy, utilize the index (located at the very end of the Post Vulgate) to find them.

Discover chapters of interest from the summary page (also located at the very end of the Post Vulgate).

Skip The History of the Holy Grail and begin with The Story of Merlin or Lancelot I.

Now, let's break down the ways you can navigate the Vulgate Cycle step by step.

CTRL+F

This option will certainly be less effective if your favorite character is a prominent one such as Lancelot or Gawain as they appear a million times. However, if you want to learn more about someone else, say, the Lady of the Lake, you can search her up and find every instance of her appearance. Like so.

Index

In the very back of the final book of the Post Vulgate, there's an Index listing every named character [Ex: Gawain], location [Ex: Orkney Isles], entity [Ex: Holy Spirit], animal [Ex: Gringalet the horse], and language [Ex: Hebrew] mentioned in the entirety of the Vulgate Cycle. There you'll find a list of which book/chapter/page they appear in. Here are all the mentions of Gawain's horse in The Book of Merlin.

Chapter Summaries

Each book of the Vulgate Cycle has a Table of Contents with the chapter numbers and long, descriptive titles. That alone may give you an indication of what you want to read. However, at the back of the Post Vulgate, right before the Index, there's a list of every chapter in the Vulgate Cycle with a summary of events. That will give you more detail and may help you decide if you want to read in full.

Skip

If it sucks, hit da bricks. The beauty of the Vulgate Cycle is that you don't need The History of the Grail or The Book of Merlin to understand what comes later. I enjoy them because History gives a ton of background to the religious themes the Grail Quest will eventually explore and sets up all the motifs way in advance and Merlin has the Orkney Bros as well as Yvain and Sagramore as kids which is fun. But the fact is you can begin with Lancelot I and you won't be lost. Lancelot I was written first, Merlin is a prequel, so it's optional, and the motifs of the Grail Quest are going to be heavy handed when you get there anyway without the added stuff from History. That's hundreds of pages you can skip if you want to! Norris J. Lacy, the head editor, and his translation team did a phenomenal job with footnotes throughout, so if a character off-handedly refers back to something, you can rely on them to leave a little note at the bottom for you to refresh your memory with. It'll even give you a chapter/page number if you want to refer back yourself. Here's a footnote referring to Agravaine's unnamed amie [his ladylove] who helped wing woman her sister to romance Gawain. That was 4 chapters prior to this moment.

So there are plenty of ways to navigate the Vulgate Cycle and make it more digestible. That being said, it's translated so beautifully by Lacy and his team, that it reads like a modern novel. I have no doubt that once you get started, you'll become invested, and find it much easier to work through than you first thought. It's long-winded and character dense but it's fun. I do hope you're able to read it and understand why I love it so much! Thanks for this ask and I hope this helps. Have a great day!

[colleendoran]

No, Sir Galahad is not in the Bible, and I never said he was.

OK, so in my series of posts and lectures about my work on Neil Gaiman's Chivalry, I pointed out that Sir Galahad's first appearance in Arthurian fiction was in the Vulgate, and that his name was originally spelled Galaad. Therefore the spelling in Neil Gaiman's Chivalry is correct, and Galahad is a later variant spelling.

Someone recently took me to task for saying this meant that I claimed Sir Galahad was in the Bible, and yet Sir Galahad appears nowhere in the Bible.

I never said Sir Galahad was in the Bible.

I said he was in the Vulgate.

Vulgate means "common version" in Latin.

The confusion here stems from the word "vulgate" which often refers to the 4th century Latin translation of the Bible commonly known as the Vulgate Bible.

But "vulgate" is also a term used to refer to The Lancelot-Grail Cycle, a 13th century French Arthurian cycle which is also known as the Vulgate or Vulgate Cycle -i.e. common version. Later translations of this work are known as Post-Vulgate.

Specifically, Galahad or Galaad appears in the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal.

Happy to help.

Chivalry is available wherever fine books are sold, and you can come see me at the San Diego Comic Con Museum on October 4 where I will be signing and lecturing and showing art. Thanks.

[gawrkin]

Personally, I'll take the Vulgate's lead and say Arthur lives to his 90's.

He starts his career at 15 years old and fights to rebuild and reunite Logres, which ends around the time he gets married to Guinevere in his late 20's.

That gives you ~60 years of proper reign, long enough shove in every concievable adventure the Knights of the Round Table could have.

It's also important to note that certain characters are much younger than Arthur's generation and are in their youth during Camelot's heydey.

Notable among these is Tristan and Palamedes, whose fathers have their interactions with Arthur, with Meliodas being part of his own mini cycle spanning from Uther's era to Arthur's era.

How long does Camelot last? How old are the characters during their key plot points?

[liorlenn]

(Spoilers for KCD2 romance)

One thing that really surprised me about Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (particularly the Hansry romance) was the direct reference to Galehaut and Lancelot (let me tell you I CHEERED), so I wanted to start talking about some other queer medieval Arthurian texts and Arthuriana adjacent texts.

I’m by no means an expert (I focus more on Welsh poetry and prose) but medieval Welsh literature includes some Arthurian literature, so I know a little about Arthurian Literature in general. Most of these stories are either Old French or German and about 13th century. SGATGK is 14th century.

For one, I want to say that the tale being referenced in the game is the Vulgate Cycle or the Lancelot-Grail Cycle (the Vulgate Cycle itself is multiple parts, with Lancelot’s (The Story of Lancelot/Prose Lancelot) being the largest). It’s a big ol’ mash up and retelling of a huge part of the early tradition + new stuff. There’s also the Post-Vulgate which is itself a retelling of the Vulgate Cycle. This is NOT the one you want if you’re looking for Lancelot and Galehaut.

Another thing of note about the Vulgate is that Galehaut and Lancelot are not the only ones I would give the old side eye. Gawain says (about Lancelot even!), “If God were to grant me my health… I’d immediately wish to be the most beautiful maiden in the world, happy and healthy, on condition that he would love me above all others…” Come on man.

Now, for other queer texts!

First up, I have to plug my best friend and my silly rabbit: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Thanks to the movie (which was good but fairly different) this one is a bit more well-known. I could talk endlessly about the moral of the original story and I think the Gawain Poet is incredibly talented at weaving together imagery. I also appreciate Gawain’s willingness to kiss women AND men. Some argue that it’s not queer because of differing social norms but personally I think Gawain wanted it. And by it, haha well let’s jusrt say—

Next we have Parzival/Percival (referencing the German “version” by Wolfram von Eschenbach here. Each iteration of a “Percival”, including Chrétien de Troyes’ earlier (and unfinished) Story of the Grail, all have their own differences). This one is even more up to interpretation than SGATGK. There’s a very explicitly performative aspect to Parzival’s presentation (his gender is “knight”), focusing distinctly on clothing and the role clothing plays in others’ reactions to him that I think is very relatable. I don’t have much else to say about this one unfortunately. I read parts of it once years ago but it was super interesting and there has been scholarship done on Parzival and gender so…. take what you will from it.

The next stories are Arthurian adjacent (as in, medieval stories about knights). First off: Le Roman de Silence is either about a woman knight or a trans knight who is… sighs. Forcibly outed. Interesting read but definitely a bit of a downer if you interpret Silence as a trans man.

Yde et Olive, however is very explicitly about a trans man! Happy ending too! I was incredibly surprised to read a 13th century story about a trans man getting magical/miraculous top and bottom surgery (yes, forreal).

And to cap off this small list, here is some medieval Welsh literature. This one is just me being a little wistful, but let me tell you about Blodeuedd/Blodeuwedd and the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi (Math fab Mathonwy). This one is…sad. It’s not a good ending for Blodeuedd, but I could wax poetic about her: how she was fashioned from flowers to fulfill a gendered role. How she failed to do so and was punished.

There are plenty of other stories with queer interpretations in Arthuriana and other medieval literature (do not get me started on Guinevere and Morgan le Fay’s whole… thing. Also Luned and her Lady…) and there are plenty of modern/early modern retellings that are explicitly queer. I just wanted to stick to medieval texts for this and also limit myself to a select few among that even.