#vulgate cycle introduction

[liminalpsych]

Queer reading of Vulgate pt 2: Intro pt 1

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2

The introduction is written by the translator of The Quest for the Holy Grail, E. Jane Burns. Burns begins by laying out the context of the Vulgate Cycle's structure, its history and development, and the different expectations historical readers have brought to the text.

Which underscores how expectation colors perception.

What happens if we imagine the possibility of multiple writers with different backgrounds, views, progressiveness, and agendas? Instead of assuming heteronormativity, homophobia, toxic masculinity, misogyny, and a single unified author with a singular agenda and vision - what if we stay open to the possibility of a different concept of gender than we're used to? What about possible queer subtext and the possibility of queercoding in medieval fiction, not just in modern fiction?

What if we look for those things, rather than assuming and looking for explanations that match the modern stereotypical assumptions of medieval people/writers/beliefs? (After all, it's those modern assumptions that lead to the phenomenon of "history will say they were roommates," or the all too common error of "woman buried with warrior stuff? must be religious, can't possibly be because she actually fought.")

That's what I mean by reading with a queer lens. Because most of the time, these works are read with a heteronormative, gender-normative lens, just unconscious or subconscious as a bias, and so any queer elements are missed entirely.

(Like. I still don't understand how anyone can read the passages with Galehaut as anything other than Extremely Gay. How do you miss that? Yet so many people assume it's "comrades" and "bros" despite the text going out of its way to say that it's more than companionship. Because of the default, unexamined lens that they're using.)

….anyway. off the soapbox. Back to the intro.

"Many literary historians… have mistakenly sought in Arthurian romance a recognizable ancestor text for the modern novel" and are disappointed in the somewhat disjointed conglomeration of the Vulgate. They then either dismissed it as incoherent and terrible, or defended it as having an underlying coherence and attempted to legitimize it by imagining a singular author (or unifying editor).

"The unwieldy mix of spiritual and chivalric modes that crisscross unevenly throughout… mark the Vulgate Cycle as a product of the emergent social and political tensions in thirteenth-century France," with the popularized chivalric tales of knights from the mid-twelfth-century getting infused with Biblical allusions and Grail mysteries around 1200. Prose had a more religious connotation and association than verse, which was more recreational (condemned sometimes as "vain pleasures").

"Lady readers, in particular, were exhorted after 1200 to abandon the deceptive tales of Arthurian knights." Which supports the idea that one of the primary audiences for these stories were women! Women of the 1200's French court, in the case of the French romances, though I'm sure readership extended beyond that.

This is another example of how expectation shapes perception. There's a tendency for modern readers to assume that medieval literature will be dry, dull, misogynistic, homophobic, etc… and so I've seen people assume that the vast numbers of unnamed ladies/maidens/queens are a product of misogyny, of being seen as too unimportant for distinct names.

And certainly there was systemic misogyny in the culture, just as there is nowadays - but I don't think that's the core reason for the nameless female characters. It doesn't match up with the Vulgate's characterization of these women as clever, competent, independent, and saving knights more often than being saved by knights. (Nor does it match up with how many women are named.)

I've heard a theory (probably on Tumblr somewhere, I can't remember where) that the unnamed women are the equivalent of "y/n" ("your name") in modern fanfic. Reader-insert. Perhaps the author(s) expected women reading the story to project themselves onto the characters, and so made extra room for them to do so.

…But back to the introduction once more. Burns unravels the idea of a single author or even a solid, novel-like coherent narrative for the Vulgate Cycle, and arrives at this:

"The Vulgate Cycle then provides us with a text that is not a text in the modern sense of the term, a text that is always fragmentary but always a composite of more than one text, a text located somewhere and uncertainly in the complex relation between many narrative versions created by many authorial if not authoritative hands.

"The literary map accurately representing this cycle of tales would contrast starkly with Lot’s set calendar. It would be a map that changed continually as we move through the narrative terrain it charts. Although it might incorporate on one level and for the text of the Prose Lancelot in particular the existence of a predictable calendar of events, a map detailing the whole of the Vulgate Cycle would have to reflect a much looser and more flexible narrative structure.

"It would be a map with no fixed perimeter, and no set or authorized format, a map that could shift and reshape itself at successive moments and with successive readings."

A shifting mélange of a narrative, flexible and unbounded, containing multitudes, eluding attempts to define or confine it into one single known element…

…Well. That sounds like the very definition of queer.

[queer-ragnelle]

All three! Apologies. I want to learn as much as I can about him.

You got it!

The first text that Galahad appears in is the Vulgate. His predecessors and legacy are first described in The History of the Grail; then he’s conceived, born, and raised during the Lancelot books; finally in Post-Vulgate he’s a knight on Grail Quest where he achieves his life’s purpose and passes away. Additionally, here’s A Companion to The Lancelot-Grail Cycle which may help you navigate the text.

Another book I suggest for your Galahad research is The Legend of the Grail by Nigel Bryant and Norris J. Lacy. It’s got a lengthy introduction about the history of the Grail story and touches on all the characters who’ve achieved it throughout Arthurian literary history including Perceval, Gawain, and of course, Galahad. Each chapter is taken from a different text and newly translated by Nigel Bryant for this publication. It’ll give you an idea of the progression of the Grail story which eventually led to Galahad and introduce you to some adjacent texts that may be of interest.

The next medieval text that includes Galahad is La Tavola Ritonda. It’s mostly a Prose Tristan story, but does cover the whole Grail Quest with a fun Italian Galahad named Galeazzo/Galasso. I enjoy this one a lot! Regarding Galasso specifically, it’s an interesting take on the character—he’s described as very gracious and he wields a cool named sword. Plus his purity grants him necromancy powers—at one point he convenes with the dead and doesn’t bat an eye. Just keeps on adventuring. Focused. In his lane. Pretty neat!

After that comes probably the best known Arthurian text, Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. I’ve attached the version of this story abridged by Keith Baines. It’s much easier to read with proper formatting to add quotation marks to dialogue and tighten up the prose. This one also comes with A Companion to Malory which I found exceedingly helpful in breaking down the sometimes convoluted plot threads and character dynamics present in Malory’s story. Many of the essays I’ve attached below relate to this text specifically.

Lastly I would be remiss to exclude The Arthurian Handbook by the goats Norris J. Lacy and Geoffrey Ashe. This volume not only covers medieval texts, but much of the art history that goes hand in hand with Arthurian literature too. There are many paintings, tapestries, stained glass windows, and murals featuring Galahad highlighted in this book. It also includes family trees, heraldry, and maps which can help you conceptualize things detailed in writing throughout the Vulgate.

Now I’m going to list essays without descriptions since there are so many and the titles are pretty self explanatory.

Absent Fathers, Unexpected Sons: Paternity in Malory’s Morte Darthur by Cory Rushton

Born-Again Virgins and Holy Bastards: Bors and Elyne and Lancelot and Galahad by Karen Cherwatuk

Constructing Spiritual Hierarchy through Mass Attendance in the Morte Darthur by David Eugene Clark

Disarming Lancelot by Elizabeth Scala

Galahad, Percival, and Bors: Grail Knights and the Quest for Spiritual Friendship by Richard Sévère

'A Mayde, and Last of Youre Blood': Galahad's Asexuality and its Significance in Le Morte Darthur by Megan Arkenberg

Gender and the Grail by Maureen Fries

Malory and Rape by Catherine Batt

Mothers in the Grail Quest: Desire, Pleasure, and Conception by Peggy McCracken

Seeing Is Believing and Achieving: Viewing the Eucharist in Malory's 'Sankgreal' by Sarah B. Rude

Wounded Masculinity: Injury and Gender in Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte Darthur" by Kenneth Hodges

And that about covers it! This should give you plenty to work with. Beyond these, we’re left with literature outside the medieval era, which is a different conversation. No doubt Alfred Lord Tennyson had a huge influence on how Galahad is perceived today, but that’s irrelevant to a discussion regarding medieval source material, and a topic for another time. Hope this helps you out and you learn all you want to about Galahad!

Take care!

[gawrkin]

(Source: Post Vulgate Cycle - Merlin Continuation)

The Lady of the Lake explaining herself on becoming Arthur's magical guardian after Merlin's exit.

I can't explain it exactly but I've always felt an undercurrent of machinations behind LotL's benevolence towards Arthur.

I suppose it goes back to fact that LotL/Nimue is, fundamentally, a LancexGwen shipper, always supporting the adultery behind the back of a King she supposedly loves and honors. It's especially notable in the original French Vulgate (where LotL never had this specific scene with Arthur) and in the Italian Tavola Ritonda (where LotL - being Arthur's own sister in that story - arranges for Lance, Gwen, Tristan and Isolde to get kidnapped so they can have a magic "honeymoon" together whilst LotL deceives the Arthur and the Court)

The Post Vulgate's introduction of LotL as Arthur's protector, combined with the original role of being Lancelot's benefactor, leads to her having this certain shade of exploitation (and, on an unofficial level, treason...)

[onceandfuturecourt]

The blog: Arthuriana from a queer, polyamorous, psychological perspective.

The blogger: A queer, late-30-something psychotherapist who writes/facilitates live-action roleplaying games, takes care of horses, and reads Arthurian medieval literature.

Expect influences from: existential psychology, chronic illness/disability, trauma psychology, ADHD, theater/larp, equestrian experience, aviculture, queer culture, polyamory, bdsm culture, being a white U.S. ex-vangelical pastor's kid with religious trauma, and Western occultism.

Fandom-focused introduction on my main blog, liminalpsych

AO3: liminalpsych

Frequent/relevant tags:

#arthurian medlit quest: My first impressions, reactions, and stream of consciousness thoughts in response to reading through the huge backlog of Arthurian literature and exploring Arthuriana in general. - Reading progress: All the Arthurian literature I’m reading or have read, and I’ll try to include links from specific texts to the corresponding tag.

#character study: Character analysis and character-focused posts.

#my writing: My writing (that isn’t just a rambling essay, anyway). Larpwriting and fanfic, mostly. - Once and Future Court: Everything related to the Arthurian live-action roleplaying game I’ve written and facilitated.

#resources: Arthuriana resources I’ve found or reblogged.

#reading list: Arthurian literature and academia to read later.

#queering arthuriana: Queer readings (and sometimes retellings) of Arthurian medieval literature. - #qrv: Queer reading of the Vulgate Cycle.

[lefresne]

can i ask you to share your favorite essays on medieval lit/arthurian legends? i wanted to read something that shows me different ways to interpret things, like i've been reading some bible lore essays recently (like ones that can deepen my knowledge on specific subjects/there's a book about cannibalism and how it's really keen to the figure of Jesus) and i really wanted to see if there was something similar for arthurian stuff, i'm sure there is but personally i wouldn't know where to start, sorry if my english was bad i hope you understood, thank you in advance for your answer, have a good day :)

hiiii <3 so obviously this all depends on your personal interests but as you are interested in cannibalism in Christianity I can imagine we have similar interests hehe :)

Here are some of my all time favourite academic essays ! I like them because they are thought-provoking to me and often involve applying (post)modern critical lenses to medieval literature!

The Ends of Excitement in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Mark Miller: examines the intersection of horror and eroticism in SGATGK and the notion of 'climax'.

Gawain and the nick of time: Fame, History, and the Untimely by Richard Godden: on temporality and intertextuality in SGATGK

From Lancelot to Galahad: The Stakes of Filiation by Emmanuelle Baumgartner : chapter in a book - really interesting reading of the introduction of the character of Galahad and how it works on both an intra- and extra-diegetic level within the Vulgate Cycle.

Feminine Knots and the Other by Geraldine Heng: a reading of the relationships between women in SGATGK. Heng is also the author of Empire of Magic (book on the trauma of the crusades and how it inflects romance) and The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages and Enchanted Ground (a book chapter but very difficult to get a hold of, examines the role of women within chivalric ideology)

Guinevere's Politics in Malory's Morte Darthur by Kenneth Hodges: very interesting analysis of Guinevere's political machinations in Malory.

[fuckyeaharthuriana]

Hi! Link for a free dual language (French/English) version of the Vulgate Cycle (since it doesn't seem to be in the masterlist): https://archive.org/details/vulgateversionof01sommuoft/page/n29/mode/2up

this is the part 1, but Internet Archive has the other parts

Thank you! I think that is only in french! The introduction is in English, but the text is untranslated

[luanna801]

@neverland-in-space replied:

Could you elaborate in that? I'm so curious 😲

I absolutely can and would love to, but I don’t have time to write as full a post as I’d like to right now, so you’ll get a slightly shorter version than you might have otherwise.

Gawain is one of the oldest Arthurian characters, going back to the Welsh Arthurian stories (where he’s called Gwalchmai) and the 12th-century Historia Regum Brittaniae (where he’s called Walgan). Unsurprisingly, his characterization varies from version to version, but overall if you look at the English and Welsh stories on him, as well as early French material like Chretien de Troyes’ Romances, you find a fairly consistent portrayal of a noble and honorable knight, particularly notable for his chivalric “courtesy” and ability to save the day through honor and compassion rather than brute force, as well as for his incredible loyalty to his uncle, King Arthur.

Things start changing with the introduction of Lancelot, a later addition to the mythos. This didn’t happen immediately - Lancelot seems to have been created by Chretien de Troyes, and yet as I mentioned, Chretien portrays Gawain very favorably. However, as time went on and there started to be more focus in these French Arthurian retellings on Lancelot as the Main Hero of Arthur’s court, Gawain started getting portrayed more and more negatively to serve as a foil to Lancelot.

From what I can tell, this well and truly took off in what’s known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, a retelling of an earlier version of the King Arthur story called the Vulgate Cycle, which shortened a bunch of things and added others to the story. In this version and later ones based on it, Gawain has a murderous temper and is far less honorable, and eventually becomes obsessed with revenge against Lancelot. (As this article notes, “By the time of the Post-Vulgate romances (such as the Suite du Merlin and Post-Vulgate version of the Quest, c. 1240-1250) and the Prose Tristan (c. 1250), Gawain was shown not as a hero, but a murderous villain.”)

In the 15th century, Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte d’Arthur, which like I mentioned is probably the best-known and most influential Arthurian retelling to this day, and he mostly went with the post-Vulgate characterization of Gawain. Numerous later versions have been primarily based on this version, right up to 1958′s The Once and Future King by T.H. White, which basically defined modern Arthuriana. And the rest is history.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, though - easily Gawain’s most famous story, outside of Le Morte - is from the English Arthurian tradition and portrays Gawain, like I said, as an imperfect but extremely noble and admirable hero. So this movie could have been a chance for the more positive portrayal of Gawain to make a major comeback in pop culture, but alas, the filmmakers drastically changed the story and squandered that opportunity. As a Gawain fan since childhood, I can’t deny I’m kind of crushed by that.

[gawaincomic]

I've seen interpretations of Gawain as shady and and a fake-polite villain. Wonder what texts people are getting that from. I know later stories turned him into an antithesis of knightood.

I’m not sure what level of detail you are looking for XD... The ‘worst’ Gawains I’ve actually read myself are featured in well-known texts; the ‘even worse’ ones I’ve only read *about*.

‘Shady Gawain’ is definitely rooted in medieval texts, and more specifically French ones. His bad reputation is a result of the introduction of new heroes and of an evolution in medieval fashions.

Heroes like Lancelot and Tristan have one great love and became popular in the courtly love tradition. Because Gawain is never attached to one single lady, he falls short of that ideal and is sometimes used to contrast with the Tristans and Lancelots. In some texts this degenerates into his being depicted as a rapist even (Prose Tristan? I’m not sure; I’m happy to say I’ve never read a Gawain this evil).

You also see that when the Grail Quest turns more religious, Gawain is shown to be a ‘bad knight’ because he’s considered venal and sinful, and his famous courtesy is seen as vain and superficial. At that point, even Lancelot isn’t considered good enough anymore (...he’s an adulterer) and Galahad the Pure is the only worthy hero. This happens in the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate cycles. These are 13th-century texts, so it’s not actually a ‘linear descent’ for Gawain’s character: there are later French romances in which he’s still an exemplary knight.

It’s funny, really: as far as I know, there are no negative depictions of Gawain in the German- and Dutch-language romances. That said, it’s not always easy to determine whether medieval authors are being serious, or rather poking fun at Super Gawain :). The French tradition is divided - it has quite a bit of Good Gawain but it also seems to have introduced Evil Gawain. The French Evil Gawain then carried over into the English tradition, and most strongly so with Thomas Malory, whose Morte darthur (...the title is a strong indication) was based on French sources - the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate mainly - and became THE Arthurian reference text in English, no doubt helped by the fact that it got printed by William Caxton, the first English printer.

Malory then spawned some of the most famous newer Arthurian texts, such as Tennyson’s Idylls of the King in the 19th century and T.H. White’s The Once and Future King in the 20th. These were very influential in their turn, so you’ll be hard-pressed to find a positive Gawain in the 19th century, and I’ve read quite a few Gawains that clearly bear traces of White’s. (On a lighter note, I strongly suspect that White is the sole responsible for every red-headed Gawain out there, including my own!)

[tillman]

i kinda rly wanna learn more about arthuriana stuff bc of ur posts but i have almost no idea where to start 🥺 do u have any recs or links?

YES ill copy and paste my usual answer under the cut real quick cus its . late and im tired . maybe tomorrow ill make a doc explaining this better actually...

sorry to mobile users fr the read more <3

i think the best two starting options involve the same strategy of “pick a knight you like the most and consume all the content you can find on them until you get bored/think of another knight and repeat” and its as simple as “do you want to start with sir gawain or do you not know who you want to start with.”

sir gawain i think is the best starting knight if you wanna go the route of reading as much as u can about one and moving on, since theres a LOT of varied content and hes just in a lot. hes important! anyways the first recommendation i have to start with is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. its a wonderful piece of poetry about a homoerotic beheading game, getting a movie this summer! its fucking gorgeous and a really good introduction if youve never read this old of texts before. i have a few different links so you can take your pick of what you prefer :-)

heres it in the original middle english, its beautiful and if you get the beat down sounds fucking gorgeous but i understand how hard it is to get through if youve never read through it before.

lou recomends Raffels translation above all others which i kinda have to agree with. heres part one and heres part two of that.

and the other link i have directly on hand atm is tolkiens translation which ive skimmed before and it seems really solid.

if you dont want to start with a short and tender christmas party, consider another text most arthuriana fans will consider a must read. its a bit more intimidating than sgatgks poetry but like. hey. its Sir Malory’s Le Morte D’arthur.

this is more on the level of most of the story things youll find for arthuriana and a good starting point to get an overview of a lot of major plot points and characters that show up time and time again in the legends, all of the major knights are covered through malory’s own spin on them and he tries to cover a lot of older tales in his weird fanfiction.

the text can be weird ESPECIALLY if you arent used to middle english since he …. used some weird as fuck words? even for the time. but thats malory.

I highly recommend, if you can get a copy, Kieth Baines modern retelling of Le Morte, it rewords things to make more sense to those used to a more modern prose and while it takes out some of the nuance of some scenes, its way easier to pick up and read. were working on a full scan of it atm actually but the book of arthur is up in our shared drive :-) ill shove a link down here for u

heres the first bit of baines rendition. honestly if u can find a copy for cheap grab it is a fun time

heres the pdf i use for the full text, warning for how weird its structured? its long paragraphs with no quotes around text but if you have no problems with that go for it. heres book one and heres book two.

from there, theres a ton of different options you can follow, but again i think the least overwhelming way to go about it is pick a knight you like and read whatever seems fun that has them in it !

best choices include gawain again, the marriage of sir gawain and dame ragnelle is fun, l’atre perilleux is so fucking wild and just a fun time, the turke and sir gawain has gawain playing tennis? like what more do you need

lancelot has a decent collection of old stories including the entire vulgate cycle (my favorite piece of arthurian lit, im working on scanning the entire english translation ;-)), lancelot and the hart with the white foot IS SO FUCKING GOOD and i have scans of most of the lancelot compilation works, if you have like 10 bucks to spare, Lancelot and the lord of the distant isles is on amazon for cheap and retells the book of galehaut section of the vulgate and its . so good. please care about galehaut.

tristan as wild as he is is also a really good choice for how popular the Tristan and Isolde legend was in europe. you can find a ton of versions of it, though i prefer the german one by gottfried von strassburg, another amazing one is the povest o’tryschane which is a slavic take on the legend that weirdly throws sections of the vulgate and some italian romances in? i adore it either way.

uhmmm some more off the cuff recommendations include Troyes four romances and also Perceval. as much as i bully troyes knight of the cart, knight of the lion, and knight of the grail are some of my favorite words. skip cliges if youre doing that though it sucks so bad. troyes hated his version of tristan and isolde so much he wrote cliges. that alone should keep you from it. eric and enide is ok but eric sucks SO HARD. i hate that bitch.

more modern but tennysons Idylls of the king? fucking stellar. i recently got a copy and its really gorgeous poetry. kinda like le morte in having a good overview of key events in the texts and some notable characters so this works as a good jumping off point

and finally one i cant really speak on much due to my preference of the romances, but i have many good friends who say the welsh sources are REALLY REALLY good and worth checking out :-) the mabinogion mainly, but a lot of the scattered poetry is really fun!

for finding pdfs for some of the ones i just named, u can check out my doc of whatever sources i have on hand. im missing quiet a few but i got most of the ones i recommend at least io3hewt. heres the link to that. ill post a link to the vulgate when i can finish up scanning the prose merlin !

anyways mwah feel free to msg me if u have questions im insane and like researching this stuff for hours and am willing to find out any information

[forthegothicheroine]

hey :) i'm trying to wrap my head around arthuriana, but i don't know where to start. i tried reading le morte d'arthur, but it's just so long. do you have any recommendations what to read?

Sure do!  If you’re after texts rather than modern day fiction, I’d start with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (I read the translation by Tolkien,) then The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell.  If you want something longer but still fast paced, pick up a collection of Chretien de Troyes’ Arthurian romances (complete with the introduction of Lancelot to the mythos!)  I’d love to recommend the Vulgate Cycle, but alas, that is basically impossible to get ahold of unless your library has it for academic purposes.

From there, my advice is to pick your favorite character and look for texts centering on them.  I’m obviously a Gawain partisan, so I tracked down Diu Krone, a text where he achieves the Grail- it’s ridiculous and has basically no impact on any other texts, but I loved it.

[liminalpsych]

Queer reading of Vulgate pt 3, intro pt 2

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2

Still on E. Jane Burns' Introduction to the Vulgate Cycle. It continues exploring the same basic thesis: the indefinable nature of the Vulgate, and the author(s) of and influences on the text.

"If the Vulgate’s textual genealogies demonstrate an obsession with origins that parallels that shared by Chapelain and Lot, they reveal simultaneously how, in the case of these narratives, the preoccupation with origins leads consistently to no verifiable authorial source. We are left rather with a plurality of authorial voices and competing subtexts that cannot be aligned in logical sequence. Credit for narrative invention falls on a cohort of fictive authors that range from the chivalric heroes who speak their adventures at King Arthur’s court to the Active dictator Merlin and his vernacular scriptor Blaise, to the bogus author/translator Walter Map, the storyteller Robert de Boron, and the oracular voice of Christ. Amid all these references to creators and their sources, both written and oral, no mention is made, curiously, of the actual textual antecedents for the Vulgate Cycle. Yet there are many."

Burns goes in depth on the textual antecedents, but it doesn't provide anything new to talk about for the purposes of these reading reaction posts, so I'll gloss over those.

"The truth told here is obviously of a different sort. It is a truth not of events or revelations, but a truth anchored solidly in the pleasurable, rhetorical use of words. Herein lies the answer to critical objections raised by Chapelain and Lot. For the insistent repetition of too many words that put Chapelain to sleep and offended the aesthetic sensibilities of Ferdinand Lot lies at the very heart of the Vulgate’s project to validate the literary text over and above its more erudite predecessors. Repetition serves in many ways as the hallmark of the Vulgate romances: repetition of authorial voices, of stock motifs and thematic material, or of whole segments of narrative lifted from the Queste and relocated in the Estoire. And that repetition draws attention to the specifically literary character of the Vulgate romances, undermining their professed pretentions to more lofty theological or historical expression."

Apparently, repetition of this variety was a liturgical device, theological. So the Vulgate's use of repetition becomes a kind of "textual idolatry" (as far as St. Augustine would see it).

"Thirteenth-century clerical pronouncements deplore the falsehoods and lies written about Perceval and the Holy Grail, lamenting those who have abandoned religious truth in preference for stories about Lancelot and the secularized holy relic. If the Grail material is the most religious component of the Vulgate corpus, it appeared as most irreligious to medieval Church authorities."

So even the religious elements of the Vulgate Cycle were seen as distractions from true spiritual pursuits by the religious authorities of the times. Sacrilegious, even.

(In other words, don't confuse all the Christian symbolism for religiosity. That was just the symbolism of the era. Writers worked with what they had available to them.)

The Quest for the Holy Grail, of course, is the most religious. Some think it might have been written by Cistercians; others think it was by laypersons trying to make it palatable or acceptable to the Cistercian order. Burns argues that "Meaning in the Queste is not first hidden and then revealed, but rather it is systematically displaced from one textual segment to the next." Adventure stories are interspersed by a hermit telling a parallel Biblical tale that doesn't actually have a lot to do with the event they're supposedly interpreting. (This … makes the Quest make a lot more sense to me, actually. The parables always felt shoehorned in and interruptive rather than actually relevant.)

"In their narrative wandering, the thirteenth-century prose tales of love and adventure remind us that when analyzing them we need not look for a reassuring map to guide our literary voyage. And that in taking this trip we need not choose necessarily between unity and disunity, coherence and incoherence, between the ingenious author’s masterpiece and the barbarian’s literary dungheap. These excessively polarized options are perforce limiting and exclusionary in their own way."

Is Burns arguing that we should read the Vulgate in a nonbinary way? Delightful. :D

"…that very distortion can lead us to ask more productive questions, in particular questions about those sectors of the literary terrain that the quest for authority and textual unity has so often marginalized or effaced."

Oh, don't worry, Burns, I have years of practice deciphering queercoding in media. I'm all about looking for the "marginalized sectors of the literary terrain".

And that's the introduction! Whew. Finally. Now to actually reading the Vulgate Cycle. Starting with my least favorite: The History of the Holy Grail.

[onceandfuturecourt]

QRV - Religion tangent

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2 | HHG

Started to write something on the Story of Merlin, went on a tangent about religion in the Vulgate Cycle, and then it got a little out of hand (thanks, ADHD), so I made it into its own post.

The medieval-Catholic-specific stuff in the Vulgate goes over my head sometimes. I was a pastor's kid, but I was raised in the southern baptist evangelical church, which… only bears so much resemblance to the 13th century French Catholicism that informs the Vulgate Cycle. We're not sure which branch of Catholicism is most relevant, though the Quest for the Holy Grail is probably heavily Cistercian (which branched off the Benedictines).

(It also doesn't help that I left the evangelical church ~20 years ago, so despite the intensive indoctrination of my childhood/adolescence, I'm rusty on a lot of it.)

I will say that if you grew up conservative Christian and are concerned about religious trauma triggers when reading Arthurian medieval literature (I was a bit nervous going into it, originally)… it really depends on which strain of Christianity you come from. I haven't found it particularly triggering, because the Christianity in Arthuriana is so alien to what I grew up with. People who grew up Catholic might find it more triggering; I'm not sure, I don't actually know enough about modern Catholicism vs medieval Catholic mysticism to tell one way or another. But if you grew up Protestant, you'll probably be fine.

The Christianity of the Vulgate Cycle is often more of a societal default or a cultural context, rather than a driving force, except in the Holy Grail books.

I also want to direct you to Part 2 of my reaction to the Introduction, and this quote from Burns:

"Thirteenth-century clerical pronouncements deplore the falsehoods and lies written about Perceval and the Holy Grail, lamenting those who have abandoned religious truth in preference for stories about Lancelot and the secularized holy relic. If the Grail material is the most religious component of the Vulgate corpus, it appeared as most irreligious to medieval Church authorities."

So even the religious elements of the Vulgate Cycle were seen as distractions from true spiritual pursuits by the religious authorities of the times. Sacrilegious, even.

(In other words, don't confuse all the Christian symbolism for religiosity. That was just the symbolism of the era. Writers worked with what they had available to them.)

[gawrkin]

(From Visions of History: Robert de Boron and the English Arthurian Chroniclers by Edward Donald Kennedy)

The way I interpret the French Tradition is that it "started" with Robert de Boron. In a way, Robert de Boron is like the "Second Father of Arthuriana". Robert de Boron didn't so much alter King Arthur's story as he instead gave it a new context.

Despite Chretien de Troyes and Robert Wace introducing the Round Table, the Holy Grail and Sir Lancelot, it was Robert de Boron who truly established the "Christian Chivalric Universe" - by writing about the history of the grail and the introduction of Joseph of Arimathea as a patriarch, Robert de Boron gave the (Literary) Chivalric genre a Mythic Past and a continuity of sorts. It fits in the Christian worldview of history as part of a giant plan - and story - of God's for Mankind's salvation.

It fully establishes the Christian origin and heritage of (Literary-)Chivalry-as-an-institute by not only having Joseph bring Christianity to Britain, where the future fantastical setting of Arthur and his warriors was to be established, but also having him serve as the ancestor to multiple Arthurian characters such Percival, Tristan, Lancelot, King Lot, his son Gawain, and Arthur himself (fulfilling the aristocratic need for genealogical fantasy).

This essentially pushes away, and negates the symbolic consequences of, the original narrative set forth by Geoffrey of Monmouth - the almost kind-of secular and worldly portrayal of Arthurian History.

For all intents and purposes, Joseph of Arimathea replaces Brutus in importance for the Era of Camelot. This is why (in Vulgate cycle, at least) Joseph is said to be a knight.

Nowhere is that felt more than in Robert's introduction of one of the most iconic pieces of Arthuriana: The Sword in the Stone.

The Sword of the Stone, an item not mentioned at all in Historia Regum Britannia, and its attendant story arc of Arthur's hidden upbringing by Antor/Ector, essentially functions as a second origin story for King Arthur without having to negate or omit Geoffrey's older story of Arthur being born through a thoroughly un-Christian manner.

Whatever or whoever Arthur was before pulling the sword doesn't particularly matter, the sword in the stone effectively grants the same Divine privilege to rule as if he was conceived and raised as a normal royal.

AND

Arthur's ignorance of his heritage affords him synergy with his knights, many of whom are often of the "Fair Unknown" archetype, including Lancelot, Gawain, and of course, Percival.

[queer-ragnelle]

Hi @fanficwritinggremlin!

The Vulgate Cycle is a collection of books. There are: The History of the Holy Grail, The Story of Merlin, Lancelot-Graal Cycle Parts 1-6, The Quest for the Holy Grail, The Death of Arthur, then the Post Vulgate Parts 1 and 2.

While Sir Thomas Malory was writing Le Morte d’Arthur, he largely drew from the Post Vulgate, which is itself a condensed version of the previous books. So it’s like a game of telephone shortening the story into more manageable lengths until a lot of detail is lost. Malory also added some of his own stories to his version, such as the kitchen boy story of Beaumains, which is not present in Post Vulgate.

I recommend these because they have a ton of detail, every character gets their own introduction, many get unique quests found in no other texts, and the Norris J. Lacy translation is a breeze to read as it’s formatted much like a novel with footnotes right along the bottom for ease of reading.

Here’s a link to my Vulgate For Beginners tutorial that might help you get started if it’s something you’re interested in. The links for PDFs of the Vulgate Cycle are available there as well. Happy reading!

To me, reading Le Morte d’Arthur felt like following a trail of breadcrumbs looking for the loaf of bread and never finding it.

The Vulgate is the whole bakery.

[queer-ragnelle]

Percival goodness from his introduction in Lancelot VI of the Vulgate Cycle for @djemsostylist

So it begins with Aglovale joining the search for Lancelot after Guinevere broke up with him when Elaine, Galahad, and Brisen came to court and he slept with Elaine by mistake and he ultimately went insane. Aglovale ends up finding his mom and meeting Percival who is 15. We don’t have an exact age of Galahad but he is referred to as “a little child” so we can say for certain they’re at least 10 years apart based on these chapters.

As we know, Percival ultimately goes with Aglovale to court and is knighted by King Arthur and his mother dies from grief, same as De Troyes and the Mabinogion. What is whack is this woman who apparently becomes possessed by the Holy Grail and speaks to Percival about his destiny and we get an interesting visual of he and Bors on either side of the Siege Perilous where Galahad will sit, with Percival as the “right hand” to Galahad so to speak and even exalted above Bors for his virginity. And then she died. Kinda terrifying but alright, loving the horrific implications of the Holy Grail’s power. Dial that horror element UP.

Then some time passes, we get another cute visual of knights organized by age, and a description of Percival’s simplicity in form and spirit. And then Kay and Mordred bully him into leaving haha so he takes up the quest to find Lancelot to increase his prowess.

He ends up finding Hector and they fight and mortally wound each other by mistake. :^( But then the Holy Grail magically heals them? And what was very interesting to me was Percival’s first explanation of the grail was given to him by Hector of all people. Kinda random? Expected it to be a priest jumping out from behind a tree like every other time someone needed shit explained but nope! Hector did his homework! I kept that last page saturated because a rainbow ended up over the paragraph with the Holy Grail... I’m sure it means nothing. ;^)

Okay fast forward a while, Lancelot was cured of his madness by the Holy Grail and has been living at his castle with Elaine while Galahad is being raised by King Pelles at Corbenic. Percival is now about 19/20 as he says he’s been seeking Lancelot for 4 years. They dual as Lancelot is in disguise as The Guilty Knight (eyeroll) and then they start chatting. I love that when Lancelot realizes who Percival is through his kinsman Aglovale, he refuses to fight and calls them “house where all sweetness dwells.” What the fuck? That’s the cutest shit I ever heard. Welsh faction confirmed cuties, I don’t make the rules, it’s canon.

And that’s it for Lancelot VI! Next I’ll look at the Post-Vulgate where Galahad arrives at court and the quest for the Holy Grail actually begins and get some more Percy details. But now we’re acquainted with him. It makes sense this was not in Le Morte, as Malory was sourcing from the Post-Vulgate and thus he may not have had access to Percival’s adventures prior or may not have wanted to include them in favor of Lancelot and Tristan. But yeah, Percival is great. What a cutie. :^3c

[tillman]

what should i read 4 arthurian legend idk where to start

ok hold on lemme find one of my other answers to this ask for u :-) im too tired to write out the whole thing rn

yunder the cut . rip mobile users LOL

i think the best two starting options involve the same strategy of “pick a knight you like the most and consume all the content you can find on them until you get bored/think of another knight and repeat” and its as simple as “do you want to start with sir gawain or do you not know who you want to start with.”

sir gawain i think is the best starting knight if you wanna go the route of reading as much as u can about one and moving on, since theres a LOT of varied content and hes just in a lot. hes important! anyways the first recommendation i have to start with is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. its a wonderful piece of poetry about a homoerotic beheading game, getting a movie this summer! its fucking gorgeous and a really good introduction if youve never read this old of texts before. i have a few different links so you can take your pick of what you prefer :-)

heres it in the original middle english, its beautiful and if you get the beat down sounds fucking gorgeous but i understand how hard it is to get through if youve never read through it before.

lou recomends Raffels translation above all others which i kinda have to agree with. heres part one and heres part two of that.

and the other link i have directly on hand atm is tolkiens translation which ive skimmed before and it seems really solid.

if you dont want to start with a short and tender christmas party, consider another text most arthuriana fans will consider a must read. its a bit more intimidating than sgatgks poetry but like. hey. its Sir Malory’s Le Morte D’arthur.

this is more on the level of most of the story things youll find for arthuriana and a good starting point to get an overview of a lot of major plot points and characters that show up time and time again in the legends, all of the major knights are covered through malory’s own spin on them and he tries to cover a lot of older tales in his weird fanfiction.

the text can be weird ESPECIALLY if you arent used to middle english since he …. used some weird as fuck words? even for the time. but thats malory.

I highly recommend, if you can get a copy, Kieth Baines modern retelling of Le Morte, it rewords things to make more sense to those used to a more modern prose and while it takes out some of the nuance of some scenes, its way easier to pick up and read. were working on a full scan of it atm actually but the book of arthur is up in our shared drive :-) ill shove a link down here for u

heres the first bit of baines rendition. honestly if u can find a copy for cheap grab it is a fun time

heres the pdf i use for the full text, warning for how weird its structured? its long paragraphs with no quotes around text but if you have no problems with that go for it. heres book one and heres book two.

from there, theres a ton of different options you can follow, but again i think the least overwhelming way to go about it is pick a knight you like and read whatever seems fun that has them in it !

best choices include gawain again, the marriage of sir gawain and dame ragnelle is fun, l’atre perilleux is so fucking wild and just a fun time, the turke and sir gawain has gawain playing tennis? like what more do you need

lancelot has a decent collection of old stories including the entire vulgate cycle (my favorite piece of arthurian lit, im working on scanning the entire english translation ;-)), lancelot and the hart with the white foot, though i havent been able to find a FULL translation, is wonderful and with that the lancelot collection of old stories is a lot of fun the dutch loved him, if you have like 10 bucks to spare, Lancelot and the lord of the distant isles is on amazon for cheap and retells the book of galehaut section of the vulgate and its . so good. please care about galehaut.

tristan as wild as he is is also a really good choice for how popular the Tristan and Isolde legend was in europe. you can find a ton of versions of it, though i prefer the german one by gottfried von strassburg, another amazing one is the povest o’tryschane which is a slavic take on the legend that weirdly throws sections of the vulgate and some italian romances in? i adore it either way.

uhmmm some more off the cuff recommendations include Troyes four romances and also Perceval. as much as i bully troyes knight of the cart, knight of the lion, and knight of the grail are some of my favorite words. skip cliges if youre doing that though it sucks so bad. troyes hated his version of tristan and isolde so much he wrote cliges. that alone should keep you from it. eric and enide is ok but eric sucks SO HARD. i hate that bitch.

more modern but tennysons Idylls of the king? fucking stellar. i recently got a copy and its really gorgeous poetry. kinda like le morte in having a good overview of key events in the texts and some notable characters so this works as a good jumping off point

and finally one i cant really speak on much due to my preference of the romances, but i have many good friends who say the welsh sources are REALLY REALLY good and worth checking out :-) the mabinogion mainly, but a lot of the scattered poetry is really fun!

for finding pdfs for some of the ones i just named, u can check out my doc of whatever sources i have on hand. im missing quiet a few but i got most of the ones i recommend at least io3hewt. heres the link to that. ill post a link to the vulgate when i can finish up scanning the prose merlin !

anyways mwah feel free to msg me if u have questions im insane and like researching this stuff for hours and am willing to find out any information