The Lancelot–Grail Cycle, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an influential 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle of unknown authorship written in Old French. Consisting of a series of interconnected prose episodes, it is a lengthy faux chronicle-style chivalric romance that retells the legend of King Arthur while focusing on the character of Merlin, the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, and the religious quest for the Holy Grail.
Expanding on Robert de Boron's "Little Grail Cycle" and the poems of Chrétien de Troyes, the work ties their previously unrelated and disparate stories together into a coherent single tale while supplementing them with new material, such as additional details, original characters, and side stories. It also features an ending inspired by the Arthurian chronicle tradition by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
There is no unity of time and place within the plot, but most of the episodes take place in Arthur's British kingdom of Logres. One of the main characters is Arthur, around whom gravitate many other heroes, including the Knights of the Round Table. The chief of them is Lancelot, whose chivalric tale is centered around his illicit romance with Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere. However, the cycle also tells of adventures of a more spiritual type, featuring the Round Table's search for the Holy Grail, ultimately completed by the pure knight Galahad. Other major plot lines include the accounts of the life of Merlin and of the rise and fall of Arthur.
After its completion around 1230–1235, the Lancelot–Grail was soon followed by its major reworking known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle. Together, the two prose cycles with their abundance of characters and stories represent a major source of the legend of Arthur. They constituted the most widespread form of Arthurian literature of the late medieval period, during which they were both translated into multiple European languages and rewritten into alternative variants, including having been partially turned into verse. They also inspired various later works of Arthurian romance, eventually contributing to the compilation Le Morte d'Arthur, which formed the basis for a modern canon of Arthurian legend.
Title The cycle as a whole did not have an original title. The popular modern title, Lancelot–Grail Cycle, was invented by Ferdinand Lot. Another widely used modern title is Vulgate Cycle (from the Latin , "common version"), popularized (but not invented) by H. Oskar Sommer.
The cycle is also sometimes known as the Vulgate Version of Arthurian Romances, or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, named so after Walter Map, the work's pseudo-author. Less common alternative titles include that of Philippe Walter's 21st-century edition Le Livre du Graal ("The Book of the Grail").
Composition and authorship The first two branches of the Vulgate Cycle, the Estoire del Saint Graal and Estoire de Merlin, were adapted from the first two parts of the so-called Robert de Boron trilogy in prose (c. 1220). Hence, it preserves where the first part connects Christ's legend (Holy Grail) with King Arthur, followed by a second part about the birth of Merlin who eventually serves Arthur. These first two parts were incorporated later into the other parts of the Vulgate, and "considerable amplifications" have been made from the Boron material.
The Vulgate has a number of pseudo-sources. In the first branch, the narrator claims to have obtained a "Book of Christ" given to him in revelation, which included a "Book of the Holy Grail"., followed by iconography with colored photos of miniatures, pp. 75–80, fig. 1–5 In the second branch, it is pretended that Merlin himself dictated an account of events to his confessor , who recorded it in a book. The Vulgate claims it has made an translatio of the pseudo-Christ independent of Boron and also a parallel translatio from the pseudo-Blaise (though not referring here to Boron), but scholars reject the notion this is what really happened. There are more supposed original (fictitious) authors of the later parts of the cycle: Arodiens de Cologne (Arodian of Cologne), Tantalides de Vergeaus (Tantalides of Vercelli), Thumas de Toulete (Thomas of Toledo), and Sapiens de Baudas (Sapient of Baghdad). These characters are described as scribes of Arthur, who recorded the deeds of the Knights of the Round Table, including the grand Grail Quest, as per eyewitnesses of the events being told. It is uncertain whether the medieval readers actually believed in the truthfulness of the centuries-old "chronicle" characterization or if they recognized it as a contemporary work of creative fiction. Typically for medieval stories in pseudo-historical settings, it is also highly anachronistic.
Welsh writer Gautier (Walter) Map () is attributed to be the editing author. Some notes and illustrations in some manuscripts describe his discovery in an archive at Salisbury of the chronicle of Camelot, supposedly dating from the times of Arthur, and his translation of these documents from Latin to Old French as ordered by Henry II of England (the location was changed from Salisbury to the mystical Avalon in a later Welsh redaction). Map's connection has been discounted by modern scholarship, however, as he died too early to be the author and the work is distinctly continental.
The cycle's actual authorship is unknown, but most scholars today believe it was written by multiple authors. There might have been either a single master-mind planner, the so-called "architect" (as first called by Jean Frappier, who compared the process to building a cathedralBrandsma, Frank. "LANCELOT PART 3." Arthurian Literature XIX: Comedy in Arthurian Literature, vol. 19, Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, Suffolk; Rochester, NY, 2003, pp. 117–134. JSTOR. Accessed 1 Aug. 2020.), who may have written the main section (Lancelot Proper), and then overseen the work of multiple other anonymous scribes. One theory identified the initiator as French queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who could have set up the project as early as 1194. Alternatively, each part may have been composed separately, arranged gradually, and rewritten for consistency and cohesiveness. Regarding the question of the author of the Lancelot, Ferdinand Lot suggested an anonymous clerical court clerk of aristocratic background.
One theory (as is held by editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica) is that a group of anonymous French Catholic monks wrote the cycleor at least the Queste part, where, according to Fanni Bogdanow, the text's main purpose is to convince sinners to repent. The evidence of this would be its very Cistercian spirit of Christian mysticism (with Augustinian intrusions), including the Cistercian Saint Aelred of Rievaulx's idea of "spiritual friendship" seen in the interactions between the Grail knights (Galahad, Perceval, and Bors). Others doubt this, however, and a compromise theory postulates a more secular writer who had spent some time in a Cistercian monastery.Karen Pratt, The Cistercians and the Queste del Saint Graal . King's College, London. Richard Barber described the Cistercian theology of the Queste as unconventional and complex but subtle, noting its success in appealing to the courtly audience accustomed to more secular romances.
Overall structure
The Lancelot–Grail Cycle is dated between and . It may be divided into three main branches, although more usually into five. In the latter division, the romances Queste and Mort are regarded as separate from the Vulgate Lancelot.
The cycle's centerpiece is the trilogy Lancelot–Queste–Mort Artu, collectively also known as the Lancelot en prose, the Estoire de Lancelot (Story of Lancelot), or Le Livre de Lancelot du Lac (The Life of Lancelot of the Lake). These three internal parts differ so greatly in tone that they are regarded as likely, and by some as even doubtlessly, the work of different authors. The first, Lancelot, () can be characterized as colorful: the second, Queste, () as pious; and the third, Mort Artu, () as sober.
It seems that the story of Lancelot had been initially a standalone prose romance in the original so-called "short version". Despite its placement in the middle of the cycle, it is believed to have been actually written first, probably beginning in the "non-cyclic" form, initially largely as an adaptation of the story by Chrétien de Troyes before its expansion . The preceding stories of Joseph and Merlin, adapted from Robert de Boron, joined the cycle late, probably before , serving as "prequels" to the main story.
The cycle has a narrative structure close to that of a modern novel in which multiple overlapping events featuring different characters may simultaneously develop in parallel and intertwine with each other. This technique, known in French as entrelacement (interlace), is especially prominent in the Queste.
The History of the Holy Grail
The Vulgate Estoire del Saint Graal (Story of the Holy Grail), being a rework of the prose Boron Grail story, preserves the germ of Boron's inventions in his verse (or its prose redaction) – namely the identification of the Holy Grail as the vessel that caught the blood of Christ, which came into the possession of Joseph of Arimathea (the caretaker of Christ's body and tomb provender in the New Testament), and which Joseph (probably) took to Britain. In the Vulgate, Joseph has a son named Josephus who brought the Grail to Britain from the Holy Land; thus new characters and episodes are added. Modern translations print it in 41 chapters.
The Grail is the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper and in which Joseph collected the blood of Jesus from the crucifixion. The Grail alleviates Joseph's suffering during his long captivity by Caiaphas. Freed by Vespasian, Joseph leaves Jerusalem with a group of companions, founding a Christian community around the Table of the Holy Grail (Round Table). The table includes a special reserved seat, on which Moses sits, deeming himself worthy enough (to be burned) – this is a predecessor of the Siege Perilous, later used as a test for the one worthy of accepting the Grail Quest.
Joseph's son Josephus and his brother-in-law Bron (Hebron), the Rich Fisher, take the Grail to the west with the mission of guarding it. They Christianize much of Britain, including Camelot, and many of them become martyrs in the process. The guardianship of the Grail is granted to Bron's son Alain, the first Fisher King. Later parts, exclusive to the cycle, tell how the dynasty of the Grail kings continues to the time of Arthur. It includes the stories of the original Lancelot and the original Galahad (ancestors of the Arthurian figures by the same names).
The History of Merlin
The Vulgate Estoire de Merlin (Story of Merlin), or just the Vulgate Merlin, concerns Merlin's complicated conception and childhood and the early life of Arthur, which Merlin has influence over. It too is a reworking of the Prose Merlin of Boron, a prose redaction of Robert de Boron's poem Merlin.
Vulgate Merlin propre The Vulgate Merlin propre (Merlin Proper), also known as Le Roman de Merlin (The Novel of Merlin), is directly adapted from Robert's Merlin. It constitutes about one-fifth of the entire Vulgate Merlin.
It covers Merlin's conception and childhood deeds; Merlin's revealing of the reason Vortigern's tower tumbles; Merlin's involvement with Uther Pendragon and the creation of the Round Table; Merlin assisting Uther's bedding of Ygraine to conceive Arthur; Arthur's fosterage under Antor/Ector, father of Kay; and up to the "Sword in the Stone" episode, ending with Arthur's kingship.
Vulgate Suite du Merlin