. Known by many titles, the Arthurian Vulgate Cycle (ca. 1215–35) derives its most common name from the first, and only complete, edition of the cycle, undertaken by H.Oskar Sommer between 1908 and 1916. Using British Museum Additional manuscripts 10292–10294, Sommer provides a text of the Estoire del saint Graal (Vol. 1), Estoire de Merlin (Vol. 2), Estoire de Lancelot del Lac (known commonly as the Prose Lancelot, Vols. 3–5), Queste del saint Graal (Vol. 6), and Mort le roi Artu (Vol. 7). More rigorous editions have been undertaken subsequently for all volumes except the Estoire del saint Graal. French scholars of the Vulgate romances refer typically to their material as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, although this appelation generally includes only the last three works of the series, omitting the Merlin and sometimes also the Estoire del saint Graal Attribution of the Queste and Mort Artu to Walter Map has fostered occasional reference to the whole corpus as the Pseudo-Map Cycle. The diverse titles all reflect 13th-century French prose composition through their common use of the term “cycle,” depicting thereby an expansive narrative structure that chronicles the deeds of whole generations of knights across numerous volumes of text.
Taking as their subject the entire history of the Grail from its origin in the Passion of Christ to the successful accomplishment of the quest by the chosen hero, the Arthurian prose texts adopt the comprehensive scale of literary and theological summae of the 13th century, such as Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose, Vincent de Beauvais’s Speculum naturale, and Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologica. One of the earliest literary examples of this effet totalisant is found in the Roman du Graal (ca. 1210), a prose trilogy attributed to Robert de Boron, which recounts the history of the Grail vessel (Joseph d’Arimathie), its arrival in Great Britain along with the discovery of the future King Arthur (Merlin), and the quest for the Holy Grail and subsequent demise of Arthur’s world (Perceval).
The Vulgate Cycle offers a more elaborate version of this narrative scenario, expanding the prose Perceval into two separate tales, the Queste del saint Graal and the Mort le roi Artu, and adding a lengthy rendition of the Lancelot story to make a total of five roughly sequential narratives. The Lancelot propre (or Lancelot en prose), the Queste, and the Mort Artu were written first, then supplemented by the Estoire del saint Graal and the Estoire de Merlin (or the Vulgate Merlin), although the latter two are designed to head the sequence in terms of narrative chronology.
As we move from the classic Arthurian verse romances of the 12th century, which tend to focus on the chivalric exploits of a single knight, to protracted prose accounts of the Grail quester’s complex heritage and inheritors, the scope of the Arthurian adventure story becomes simultaneously more historical and more religious. Appeal is made to two distinct traditions of authority: historical chronicle and the Divine Book. The Queste and Mort are attributed to Walter Map, a scribe at the court of the English king Henry II (r. 1154–89). Throughout the Vulgate Cycle, fictive genealogies claim that the tale we read descends from eyewitness testimony of events in the Arthurian past. As knights-errant completed feats of heroism in the Arthurian forest, we are told, they returned to Arthur’s court, where royal scribes recorded in writing their tales of adventure. The story we read is presented as an accurate transcription or historical documentation of events that actually occurred. But while posing as historiography, the adventure story also claims descent from an authoritative tradition of scriptural writings. The Merlin results ostensibly from Merlin’s dictation to his scribe, Blaise, who combines accounts of the Arthurian past with those of Christ’s miracles. The Estoire claims to issue directly from the mouth of God and from a book that Christ, the divine author, gave the vernacular “author” to copy.
An elaborate matrix of cross-references involving prophecy and family lineage thematizes the conjunction of spiritual and chivalric modes cultivated throughout the cycle. The Lancelot announces at its beginning that Lancelot was given the baptismal name of Galahad, thus forging a crucial link between the archetypical knight-lover and the chosen hero of the Queste del saint Graal. At the end of the Lancelot, we learn that Lancelot is in fact Galahad’s father, having engendered the Grail hero during a visit with King Pelles’s daughter at Corbenic, although the son far surpasses the more courtly Lancelot in spiritual achievement. Galahad represents the ideal conjunction of religious and chivalric modes and of past and future epochs. Descending from King David on his father’s side and from Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail kings on his mother’s, he is the embodiment of biblical history destined to cure the ills of the Arthurian world.
The belated prologue to the Vulgate Cycle supplied by the Estoire del saint Graal recasts this father-son scenario in a yet more religious vein. A highly christianized version of Robert de Boron’s Joseph, this tale adds to the story of the Grail keeper, Joseph of Arimathea, the narrative of his son, Josephe, whose purity and chastity qualify him to become the first bishop. Joseph catches Christ’s blood in the holy vessel after the Crucifixion, but it is Josephe who has a privileged vision of Christ while con templating the Grail and later becomes the spiritual leader of the Christians. The evangelization of East and West ensues through a series of miraculous conversions and a final voyage to Great Britain. When Josephe dies, he confers the Grail on Alain, the first Fisher King, who places it in Corbenic castle to await the arrival of the bon chevalier.
In the Estoire de Merlin, the most chroniclelike of the Vulgate stories, Merlin as prophet and enchanter becomes the nexus where chivalric and sacred threads of the narrative cross. With a knowledge of the past inherited from his incubus father and a divine gift of foresight, Merlin confounds onlookers with his ability to explain mysterious events and predict the future. He uses his magic to engineer the conception of the future King Arthur, to ensure Arthur’s success at pulling the sword from the stone, and to devise military strategies that ensure the king’s power. Arthur’s military exploits are detailed in a narrative suite (the Suite-Vulgate, Suite du Merlin, or historical suite) that links the Merlin proper to the Lancelot.
The Lancelot, which alone accounts for half of the Vulgate Cycle, narrates the adventures of its most popular, if flawed, chivalric hero. Different from the Lancelot story provided by Chrétien de Troyes’s Chevalier de la charrette, the quintessential Arthurian hero’s chivalric prowess is here marred significantly by his adulterous liaison with Guenevere. The cemetery scene, which in Chrétien’s version proclaimed Lancelot as the future liberator of Gorre, now contains two tombstones that the hero must lift. Lancelot’s failure to remove the second stone predicts his subsequent exclusion from the Grail quest. His cousin Bohort joins Perceval and Galahad on the final quest of the Grail.
The Queste begins with a description of Galahad’s uncanny powers as chosen hero and ends with his privileged viewing of the mysterious Grail vessel. But the bulk of the tale is concerned with attempts of less successful knights: Lionel, Hector, and Gawain, who form the elite of earthly questers, and Perceval and Bohort, who are chosen but less accomplished than Galahad. The adventures of these knights along with their visions and dreams are routinely interpreted by hermits who offer to tell the senefiance and verité of what we read.
Providing a suite for the Queste and a conclusion for the entire cycle, the Mort le roi Artu recounts the final holocaust on Salisbury Plain in which Arthur and his bastard son, Mordred, kill each other. This violent finale, marking the end of the cycle of tales by signaling the end of the whole Arthurian world, results from an inexorable chain of cause and consequence set in motion by the renewed love affair between Lancelot and Guenevere. Despite its emphasis on chronological sequence, this chronicle of Arthur’s last days does not come to a definitive close. Arthur, though dead and buried, is also conveyed out to sea by fairies from the isle of Avalon, thus leaving open the possibility of his return and the return of the adventure story that bears his name.
Frappier, Jean, ed. La mort le roi Artu. Geneva: Droz, 1964.
Micha, Alexandre, ed. Merlin: roman du XIIIe siecle. Geneva: Droz, 1979.
——, ed. Lancelot: roman en prose du XIIIe siecle. 9 vols. Geneva: Droz, 1978–83.
Pauphilet, Albert, ed. La queste del saint Graal. Paris: Champion, 1921.
Sommer, H.Oskar, ed. The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute, 1908–16.
Lacy, Norris J., ed. Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation, trans. Norris J. Lacy et al. 5 vols. New York: Garland, 1993–.
Burns, E.Jane. Arthurian Fictions: Rereading the Vulgate Cycle. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1985.
Frappier, Jean. Étude sur La mort le roi Artu. Geneva: Droz, 1961.
Kibler, William W., ed. The Lancelot-Grail Cycle: Text and Transformations. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
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