Chapter III. Referring our readers to Vol. 2 for analyses of these romances, we shall now examine the successive members or "branches" of the Vulgate cycle in the same order that they occur in our cyclic MSS. 1. L'Estoire del Saint Graal. The Estoire del Saint Graal presupposes the Lancelot and the Queste,1 and there are apparently allusions in it even to the 1 That the Queste was older than the Estoire was the opinion of Birch-Hirschfeld, pp. 55 ff., Nutt, pp. 108ff., and G. Paris, Manuel, $ 60. See, too, quite recently A. Pauphilet, in his review of Lot's Lancelot in Romania, XLV, 524 ff. Pauphilet argues convincingly, also, that the Estoire and Queste are by different authors. The present writer had already expressed the same views, MLN, XXXIV, 397, on both points. Some scholars, however, hold the contrary opinion: viz., on the one hand, Heinzel, pp. 125 ff., who believed, moreover, that the two romances were by different authors, and, on the other, E. Wechssler, Sage rom heiligen Graal, p. 126 (Halle, 1898), Miss Weston, Legend of Sir Lancelot, p. 139 (London, 1901), Brugger, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Litt., XXIX', 89, note 45, and 99, note 58 (1905), and Lot, Lancelot, pp. 122ff. (1918), who believe that they have the same author. On these matters see, still further, note 3, below. If the four scholars last named were right, the numerous allusions in the Estoire to the Queste would be to a work planned, but not yet executed. Heinzel supposes that such allusions did not belong to the hypothetical first form of the Estoire which Nutt, pp. 75, 95, and himself assume. (The redaction of the only extant form of the Estoire he places, p. 125, after 1223, because of an allusion in Hucher's text, III, 655, to King Philip Augustus as dead. The allusion, however, may well be a late scribe's addition.) As a matter of fact, apart from the question of the relative dates of the Estoire and Queste, there are some circumstances that excite suspicion that there did exist such a version. For example, the introduction from Robert of the Bron-Alain Grail-keeper group towards the end of the branch (Sommer, I, 247), when the whole action of the romance up to that point had been carried on by an entirely different set of Grail-keeper characters Mort Artu. In his Joseph, Robert de Boron had given an ac -Joseph excepted. Observe, too, that, according to the extant MSS. of the Estoire, the Grail Winner (Galahad) had no connection by descent at all with the original Grail-keeper (Joseph of Arimathea). The latter's direct descendant, according to the romance, is Yvain, who, of course, nowhere in Arthurian romance has any real connection with the Grail. (When Sommer, side-note to p. 281, also, makes Gawain a direct descendant of Joseph's this is an error). It is hardly credible that such was the case in the original authentic text. all this see Bruce, RR, IX, 2531. Note, also, that according to On the Estoire I, 81, the Maimed King, who is to be cured by Galahad's coming, is destined to be wounded with the (Grail) lance a conception which harmonizes with Queste, VI, 150, where this king, here called Pellinor in some MSS., enters Solomon's ship, despite the warning inscription, draws David's (the Grail) sword, and at the same moment is pierced through the thighs with a lance. On the other hand, in the Estoire, I, 290, the Maimed King, here called Pelleam (Pellehan), got his wound (with what weapon is not said) in a “bataille de Rome", the author (as Lot, Lancelot, p. 241, has suggested) having, no doubt, in mind Chrétien's Fisher King, who was thus wounded (11. 3471 ff.). Lot, loc. cit., sees no difficulty in accepting these conflicting statements as the blunder of a single author. I confess that I find this explanation not so easy. It may be remarked in passing, that the names, Pelleam and Pellinor, are doubtless really the same name, the one springing from the other by MS. corruption. See, respectively, Bruce's "Pelles, Pellinor and Pellean in the Old French Arthurian Romances," MPh, XVI, 113ff., 337 ff. (1918), where Pellinor is taken to be the original form, and Lot, Lancelot, pp. 242 ff. (1918), where Pellehan (variant of Pelleam) is supposed to be the original. In regard to the question under discussion it should be observed that in two of the extant MSS. of the Estoire there is an indisputable interpolation, viz., the Grimaud episode, Hucher's edition, III, 311ff. This failed to fix itself in the general MS. tradition, but it is possible that some earlier changes or interpolations were more fortunate. Especially open to suspicion is the prose fabliau, I, 171ff., concerning a woman's deception of the wise physician, Hippocrates. Apropos of this episode, Lot himself remarks, p. 382, note 2, that the text of the Estoire shows "traces de remaniement." 2 Cp. references to this branch in the Estoire, I, 226, 280, 283. To be sure, the Tower of Marvels, I, 226, does not occur in the Mort Artu. count of the early history of the Grail that is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of mediaeval Christian legend and doctrine. In this work, however, neither Lancelot nor his ancestors nor his posterity had been brought into any sort of connection with the Grail, as, indeed, they are not mentioned in the whole poem. But just as in the Queste such a connection is established for the quest of the Grail through the supplanting of Perceval, the original Grail Winner, by Lancelot's son, Galahad, so for the early history of the Grail this connection is also established in the Estoire through the linking of the vessel's fate in its earlier wanderings with that of the ancestors of Lancelot and his son. Now, whether we accept the theory of some scholars that these intimately connected branches, the Estoire and Queste, were the work of the same hand3 or not, it seems reasonable to suppose that the latter 3 For arguments against identity of authorship, see Birch-Hirschfeld, pp. 58 ff., Nutt, pp. 81, 108f., and Pauphilet, op. cit., pp. 522ff. Birch-Hirschfeld cites the fullness with which in the Queste matters related in the Estoire are recapitulated as tending to prove that the two were by different hands. It is true that we do have incidents in the former retold in the latter rather fully (cp. respectively, VI, 24ff. with I, 21 ff., VI, 54f. with I, 216, VI, 60ff. with I, 231ff.), and, in at least one case, a long passage copied virtually verbatim (cp. VI, 151, I. 11-161, 1. 22 with I, 124, 1. 6-137, I. 3). To a single author, says the German scholar, a mere allusion to the other romance would have seemed sufficient. One might object to this, with some plausibility, that, after all, the two romances were separate works and that the author could not count on both of them being at the same time in the hands of his readers, so that he may have inserted in the two romances such passages by way of supplying the necessary thread of connection. In my own opinion, however, these insertions are much more likely to have been the work of the redactors of the cycle. It may be remarked, furthermore, that if such redactors did undertake to interpolate passages of this kind, there is no reason to doubt that they made other adjustments of the two romances to each other more particularly, of the Queste to the Estoire. Birch-Hirschfeld, also, cites supposed contradictions between the two branches as proving that they were from different hands. These, it is true, have, for the most part, been reasonably explained away by Lot, Lancelot, pp. 80 ff. Such inconsistencies, however, as the following seem, to say the least of it, very singular, under the theory of single was first composed. The great departure in Grail tradition which distinguishes the two romances is the substitution of the chaste Galahad for the unchaste Perceval of Chrétien and his earlier continuators as the Grail Winner. But the ascetic who first hit upon the idea of this substitution would surely have proceeded forthwith to endow his new conception with life to create his new hero and put him in action instead of first composing a long romance (the Estoire) about this hero's ancestors and their re authorship: (1) In the Estoire, I, 247, the vacant seat at the Grail table is reserved for Christ or for some one whom he will send to fill it, and Moys (a relative of Josephe's, according to I, 248), who tries to occupy it, is snatched away by fiery hands; in the Queste, VI, 55, this seat is said to be reserved for Josephe, and a rebellious relative (unnamed) of his, who tries to occupy it, is swallowed up by the earth. (2) In the Estoire (I, 247) the vacant seat is at the Grail table; in the Queste (VI, 5, 7) at the Round Table. In the present writer's opinion, however, Pauphilet, loc. cit. has furnished a conclusive argument against the theory of identical authorship, by pointing out essential differences of conception between the two in respect to various passages not noted by Birch-Hirschfeld, including those in the respective romances (I, 40, VI, 190, 578) which reflect the conflicting views in contemporary theology as to the point in the sacramental service when the miracle of transubstantiation took place. In conclusion, with regard to these questions of identical authorship and relative date, I wish to add the following: If the Bron-Alain group really belonged to the Estoire from the beginning which, to be sure, is very doubtful and is not a later addition, it would seem that considerable force should be credited to Nutt's argument that, if the Queste were later than the Estoire, some mention would have been made of this group in it. Again, such an obscure allusion as that to the maiming of the Maimed King by the lance in the Estoire, I, 81, seems much more naturally interpreted as an allusion to an incident already related (Queste, VI, 150) than to one that the author merely intended to write about. If the latter supposition is true, he took his time about executing his intention; for, leaving out of account the intervening branches, I, 81 and VI, 150 are separated by upwards of 400 quarto pages. Although generally similar, moreover, in style, the differences noted above, between the two works in this respect should be observed. The Queste is compact and austere, the Estoire runs easily into the romantic and the sensational. - lation to the early history of the Grail a romance, indeed, half as long again as that which tells the hero's own story. Just as in the chansons de geste the poets naturally began by celebrating the great deeds of their heroes, performed in the full vigor of maturity the deeds that had given these characters their renown and only later (the original author, or more frequently, another), if occasion arose, exploited the curiosity which the narration of such feats of arms may have awakened among their hearers or readers by presenting, still further, the story of the enfances (achievements of early youth) of the heroes in question, so, doubtless, it was with the Grail. First would come the narrative of the holy vessel, where its quest constituted the highest adventure that could enlist both the bodily and the spiritual energies of the best knights of Arthur's court; in the second line would come the history of its origins and early fortunes. Thus everything in the Estoire would be conditional on the conceptions and narrative of the Queste. But when the two romances were brought into intimate manuscript union, as members of the Vulgate cycle, such insertions would have to be made in the Queste by the assembleurs as would harmonize it with the new inventions concerning the early history of the Grail (the Estoire). Similar insertions were certainly made in the original Lancelot after the Lot, who believes that the Estoire and the Queste are by the same man and that the Queste was the later of the two has the following theory (pp. 122 ff.) concerning the composition of the Estoire: Owing to certain allusions to Perceval as the Grail Winner in the early part of the Lancelot (cp. Part IV, below), he conjectures that the author of the Lancelot-Grail corpus had written a considetable portion (approximately, a third) of the Lancelot before it occurred to him to deprive Perceval of that honor in favor of a new character, Galahad. He then laid aside the Lancelot, went back and composed the Estoire, returned again to the Lancelot, completed it and composed thereafter, in succession, the Queste and the Mort Artu. For criticism of this theory see Bruce, RR. X, 385 f. and Pauphilet, Romania, XLV, 521f. The enormous length of these romances, besides, should be remembered; but, even in the case of shorter compositions, can anything parallel to the procedure which Lot attributes to his hypothetical author be found anywhere in the world's literature? |