Le Morte d'Arthur

The Arthurian legend is very complex and confused, and we do not need to concern ourselves today with the development of the historiography of Arthur.

But in 1485, that crucial year that the Tudor regime began, William Caxton's fledgling printing press published Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

This presented to an English audience for the very first time the story of the once and future king.

And Mallory actually identified Winchester in England as Arthur's amulet.

Here lies Arthur, king who was and king who will be.

So reads the inscription on King Arthur's gravestone in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

Writing in the 15th century, Malory couldn't have known how prophetic this inscription would turn out to be.

King Arthur has risen again and again in our collective imagination, along with his retinue of knights, Guinevere, the Round Table, Camelot, and, of course, Excalibur.

Numerous adaptations in French and other languages followed from Chrétien's work.

In the course of these retellings, Caerleon became Camelot, and Caliburnus was rechristened Excalibur.

In the 15th century, Sir Thomas Malory synthesized these stories in Le Morte d'Arthur, the basis of many modern accounts of King Arthur.

In the thousand years since Arthur first appeared in a Celtic poem, his story has transformed over and over to reflect the concerns of his chroniclers and their audiences.

And then all the knights of medieval Europe who lived and loved and fought in emulation of the Knights of the Round Table.

And then William Capstan, who published The Mort d'Arthur.

In 1485, with the stated aim of refuting those who claim that, and I quote him, all such books as be made of him be but feigned and fables.

But one of the reasons why Caxton feels the need to say that in the end of the 15th century is that by that point, skepticism about Arthur was starting to become very difficult to keep at bay.

in...

His book, right? His translation of Le Morte d'Arthur, right? Mm-hmm.

So the title of the book is...

I

Sure.

And...

I mean, at this point, while we're reading Steinbeck, it's based on Le Morte d'Arthur, right? Right.

It's coming from a very...

But anyone who has seen Sword and Stone will know that this is not how the myth ultimately takes form.

Because by the time Mallory comes to write the Mort d'Arthur, and we've been saying basically the myth of Arthur that people have in their heads now essentially comes from Mallory.

In Mallory's account, Merlin takes the newborn Arthur And he gives him to an obscure knight called Sir Ector to be raised alongside Sir Ector's own son, Kay.

And Kay is the useless knight who in due course will become the Seneschal.

Yeah.

But I remember reading it, you know, thinking like, "Oh, this'll be..." Because I think we had read, like, one of the early Robin Hood texts, and maybe something to do with King Arthur, and then maybe Le Morte d'Arthur.

And, um-

Not your favorite.

... how I view myself as a writer.

Mm-hmm.

Le Morte d'Arthur, um, by Thomas Malory-

Mm-hmm

And for a young man of obscure background to be knighted by a famous chevalier, a famous knight, it's a tremendous social leg up, and the bond between the guy who's been knighted and the guy who has done the knighting comes to be seen as something almost holy, something that is incredibly precious.

And the classic example of this in courtly romance is in Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and it's the story of Lancelot's knighting of Sir Gareth, who is the youngest brother of Gawain and who has ridden and is pretending to be a scullion in the kitchens, and so is kind of roundly mocked.

Yeah.

You know, treated as a kind of varlet, but who displays his knightly prowess.

I mean, it's been there right from the very beginning.

Right.

And I think that in the greatest romances, this generates a, a really profound tension, on occasion a tragic tension, and there's no romance that illustrates this better than the greatest of all the romances, which is Malory's Morte d'Arthur.

Hmm.