A Fine and Terrible Mystery - Episode 31: As the Frenche Boke Sayeth or Not

This is episode 31 of my exploration of the life, times and works of Sir Thomas Malory.  Episode 1 can be found here.

There are but a handful of historical references to Malory in the last decade of his life and, as I’ve discussed previously, they only pose more, sometimes dramatic questions about his character and the events that led to them.  What do Malory’s sources, how he used them and Le Morte d’Arthur itself tell us about him and particularly the last decade of his life?

When I decided to turn to Malory’s works for answers I assumed, naively, that he had more or less concatenated and translated a series of French and English sources, erratically and occasionally adding small emendations, such as details in the siege of Guinevere in the Tower and that there might be some clues in those few emendations.  The view was encouraged by Malory himself and his occasional allusions to the “Frenche boke.”  Ralph Norris’ Malory’s Library quickly convinced me otherwise.  Malory, he writes, “expressed his originality most often in his selection and organization of older stories and elements rather than by invention.”  So the emendations could well be just a small part of the story and there could be much more to be learned from Malory’s selection of detail and story and construction.  Subsequently I’ve come to appreciate that Malory undertook a large and complex project requiring substantial management and reconciliation of detail as well as significant structural revision.  Indeed, the more I learn, the less I can rationalize it as the casual pastime of an incarcerated aristocrat:  that just doesn’t do justice to the passion, imagination and difficult detail work such a project would have entailed.

What were Malory’s sources?  The three major ones were the three great Old French prose Arthurian cycles:

1. The Vulgate or Lancelot-Graal Cycle of the 13^th century derives from the  romances of Chrétien de Troyes, the French prose Grail Romance Perlesvaus, Robert de Boron’s poem Merlin and elements of the Old Testament.  It consists of five sections: “The Estoire del Saint Grail” (predominantly concerned with the history of the Holy Grail and how Joseph of Arimathea brought it to England), “the Estoire de Merlin” (including the Hugh manuscript of “the Suite du Merlin”) concerned with Merlin’s history and Arthur’s early life, “the Lancelot Proper,” concerned with the adventures of Lancelot and other Round Table knights, “the Queste del Saint Graal” concerned with the quest for the Grail and Galahad’s completion of the quest, and “the Mort Artu” concerned with Arthur’s death at the hands of Mordred.
   
2. The cyclic version of the Prose Tristan, written after the Vulgate is the seminal version of the story of Tristan and Iseult but also introduces prominent Arthurian characters such as Lamorak, Dinadan and Palamedes.  It also reprises the Grail story.
   
3. The Post-Vulgate Cycle or Romance of the Grail derived from the Vulgate consists of four sections, three of which closely parallel the counterparts in the Vulgate and a fourth “the Quest del San Graal,” which has a very different tone from the story in the Vulgate.  In general the importance of Lancelot and Guenevere is deprecated and an almost Puritanical ethos is strongly affirmed.

Then there are the many minor sources, so far scholars have identified 24, here are some of the more important and notable ones:

1. Alliterative Morte Arthure.
2. John Hardyng’s rhyming Chronicle of England.
3. Chrétien de Troyes Le Chevalier au Lion.
4. The Perlesvaus, one of the sources for the Vulgate mentioned above.
5. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
6. The poems of John Lydgate.

So, in some cases, Malory was reconciling and making use of both a source and its sources.

A particularly telling aspect of his work is the number of minor, previously anonymous characters whom Malory takes the trouble to name and whose reconciled roles stretch across the narratives of multiple sources.  Some derived from the sources whilst others were entirely original.  Malory occasionally makes errors with his vast cast but not often, which argues remarkable time spent cataloging and managing them.

For this reason I find it harder and harder to concur with the supposition by some of the most prominent Malory scholars that Le Morte d’Arthur was a work composed in the final few years of his life.  It is simply too big and the changes he made were too large and detailed.   I find I’m in good company with this opinion as it’s shared by Christina Hardyment, Malory’s most recent biographer who quotes T. H. White on Le Morte d’Arthur’s structure and literary immediacy:

He “…was thrilled and astonished to find that (a) the thing was a perfect tragedy; with a beginning, a middle and an end implicit in the beginning and (b) the characters were real people with recognizable reactions which could be forecast.  Mordred was hateful; Kay a decent chap with an inferiority complex; Gawaine that rarest of literary productions, a swine with a streak of solid decency. He was a sterling fellow to his own clan. Arthur, Lancelot, and even Galahad were really glorious people, not pre-Raphaelite prigs.”

(I find it difficult to think of the pre-Raphaelites or their representation of Arthurian characters as prigs, but that’s a minor point.)

So, for the sequel I’ll be presuming that during the that final, presumably tempestuous decade, Malory was at work on Le Morte d’Arthur.  In the next few posts I’ll be following and commenting on Norris’s analysis of Malory sources for each of Malory’s eight tales, possibly with some additional biographical deductions.

A Fine and Terrible Mystery – Episode 14: The Two Accusations of Rape

This is the 14^th  episode in my investigation of the dramatic and difficult life of Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte d’Arthur.  Episode 1 can be found here.

In August of 1451, the first set of specific charges against Sir Thomas Malory were presented in an indictment at a special court convened under the Duke of Buckingham at the Priory of Nuneaton.  Among the most serious were two counts of rape.  The indictment specifically states that on both occasions Malory had sexual relations with Joan Smyth, “felonice rapuit & cum ea carnaliter concubit.”  There is no indication the Malory was present to hear the charges read.

This is one of the most difficult issues in his life to address.  So many have written about it from so many points of view from so many different levels of understanding of the extant evidence of Malory’s life, of medieval law, of culture in 15^th century Warwickshire.  Notable, careful scholars take widely different positions, from complete acceptance of the accusations to insistence upon his innocence.  Then there is the problem that our own perception of the prevalence, severity and consequences of sexual assault in our own time is dynamic.  Is it possible for us to determine what happened almost 600 years ago?  Do we have the information and perspective to do so?

If the evolution of modern media teaches us anything it is that people will judge anyway.  It seems to me, therefore, that it’s incumbent upon anyone addressing the subject to present his or her evidence and reasoning with as much clarity and precision as possible with all pertinent context.

And context is where I want to begin.  My deductions from data in English Medieval Population:  Reconciling Time Series and Cross Sectional Evidence, by Stephen Broadbury, et al., place the population of Warwickshire in 1451 at around 44,000.  Carpenter’s study of Warwickshire landed society, indicates that in 1436 there were 55 gentlemen, 59  esquires and 18 knights residing in the county.  Given the demographic changes she discusses, I would expect that by 1451, the number of gentlemen and esquires to have increased very modestly while the number of knights would have decreased, possibly substantially.  The county itself was heterogeneous with the great proportion of farmland to be found in Feldon to the east and the greatest proportion of forest in the Arden to west.  The largest towns lay, not surprisingly, along the River Avon drainage, i.e. Coventry, Warwick, Leamington, Stratford.  Sir Thomas Malory, was one of relatively few at the top of the lesser gentry.  It is probable that he would have been commonly and easily recognized by many.

29 days after the indictment at Nuneaton, King Henry VI and Queen Margaret arrived in Warwickshire “to judge noble peacebreakers” in Coventry according to the chronicler William Worcester.  Malory’s case wasn’t among those arbitrated; instead on October 5, a writ certiorari was issued, elevating Malory’s case from Warwickshire to the Court of King’s Bench in Westminster.  Hardyment states that the reason for the writ was revealed a week later when Hugh Smyth stood personally before the Court of King’s Bench and appealed Sir Thomas Malory, William Weston, gentleman, late of Fenny Newbold, Adam Brown, weaver of Coventry and Thomas Potter, husband of Bernangle  for the rape of his wife Joan.

The accusation differs from the Nuneaton accusation:  no time(s) or place is specified and on this occasion  Malory is identified as one of four.  According to P. J. C. Field, the appeal again unambiguously states that sexual relations took place.

The Nuneaton indictment, the writ certiorari, and Hugh Smyth’s appeal together are an example of elegant 15^th century legal engineering.  The Nuneaton indictment, emanating as it did from a court, gave the accused no opportunity to appeal his accuser if he weren’t convicted, which would have been the case had the first accusation been a direct appeal by Hugh Smyth or Joan Smyth, whose voice is not present in the record.  The defendant was precluded from seeking ‘trial by combat,’ nor could he sue for damages.  However, the second personal appeal by Smyth meant that in the case of a conviction, Smyth could expect substantial financial compensation personally, both for incident and for the stolen property mentioned in the indictment.  Finally, the writ took jurisdiction from Warwickshire to London, which may have been essential for any hope of conviction.  The date for the hearing was the 20^th of January.

Malory didn’t appear.

Hardyment speculates he may have been in Warkwickshire restructuring the feofees (trustees) of his estates to insulate his property from the damages from a conviction should that come to pass.   Indeed, the Sherriff of Wawickshire who was ordered to “attach” them, i.e. confiscate all their goods and chattels as surety for their appearance, responded that “they had nothing.”  Their arrest was ordered.

Two sheriffs of London, Mathew Philip and Christopher Warton brought Malory to the bar 5 days later to answer the Nuneaton indictment.

Malory declared himself “in no wise guilty.”  Further, “for good or for ill” he put himself “upon his country.”  He was claiming the right to be tried by a jury of his own Warwickshire countrymen.  He was then returned to the custody of the sheriffs and a trial date of 9 February, 1452 was set.

Those are the events.  In subsequent posts I will be examining 15^th century English law pertaining to rape which is surprisingly interesting in its own right, both legally and culturally.  I also want to evaluate what evidence, if any, can be deduced, from Malory’s own writing in the context of the pre-eminent scholar’s opinions and the case of rape against Geoffrey Chaucer.  At that point it will be time to visit the accusations again and evaluate their meaning and veracity.

Episode 15 can be found here.