Le Morte D'Arthur

' (originally written as '; inaccurate Middle French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source.

Apparently written in prison at the end of the medieval English era, ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' was completed by Malory around 1470 and was first published in a printed edition in 1485 by William Caxton. Until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934, the 1485 edition was considered the earliest known text of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' and that closest to Malory's original version.Bryan, Elizabeth J. (1994/1999). "Sir Thomas Malory", ''Le Morte D'Arthur'', p. vii. Modern Library. New York. . Modern editions under myriad titles are inevitably variable, changing spelling, grammar and pronouns for the convenience of readers of modern English, as well as often abridging or revising the material.

History

Authorship

The exact identity of the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' has long been the subject of speculation, owing to the fact that at least six historical figures bore the name of "Sir Thomas Malory" (in various spellings) during the late 15th century. In the work, the author describes himself as "Knyght presoner Thomas Malleorre" ("Sir Thomas Maleore" according to the publisher William Caxton). This is taken as supporting evidence for the identification most widely accepted by scholars: that the author was the Thomas Malory born in the year 1416, to Sir John Malory of Newbold Revel, Warwickshire, England.

Sir Thomas inherited the family estate in 1434, but by 1450 he was fully engaged in a life of crime. As early as 1433, he had been accused of theft, but the more serious allegations against him included that of the attempted murder of Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, an accusation of at least two rapes, and that he had attacked and robbed Coombe Abbey. Malory was first arrested and imprisoned in 1451 for the ambush of Buckingham, but was released early in 1452. By March, he was back in the Marshalsea prison and then in Colchester, escaping on multiple occasions. In 1461, he was granted a pardon by King Henry VI, returning to live at his estate. Although originally allied to the House of York, after his release Malory changed his allegiance to the House of Lancaster. This led to him being imprisoned yet again in 1468, when he led an ill-fated plot to overthrow King Edward IV. It was during this final stint at Newgate Prison in London that he is believed to have written ''Le Morte d'Arthur''. Malory was released in October 1470, when Henry VI returned to the throne, but died only five months later.

The most likely other candidate who has received support as the possible author of ''Le Morte Darthur'' is Thomas Mallory of Papworth St Agnes in Huntingdonshire, whose will, written in Latin and dated 16 September 1469, was described in an article by T. A. Martin in the '' Athenaeum'' magazine in September 1897. This Mallory was born in Shropshire in 1425, the son of Sir William Mallory, although there is no indication in the will that he was himself a knight; he died within six weeks of the will being made. It has been suggested that the fact that he appears to have been brought up in Lincolnshire may account for the traces of Lincolnshire dialect in ''Le Morte Darthur''.

Sources

As Elizabeth Bryan wrote of Malory's contribution to Arthurian legend in her introduction to a modern edition of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', "Malory did not invent the stories in this collection; he translated and compiled them. Malory in fact translated Arthurian stories that already existed in 13th-century French prose (the so-called Old French Vulgate romances) and compiled them together with Middle English sources (the Alliterative ''Morte Arthure'' and the Stanzaic ''Morte Arthur'') to create this text."Bryan (1994), pp. viii–ix.

Within his narration, Malory refers to drawing it from a singular "Freynshe booke", in addition to also unspecified "other bookis". In addition to the vast Vulgate Cycle in its different variants, as well as the English poems ''Morte Arthur'' and ''Morte Arthure'', Malory's other original source texts were identified as several French standalone chivalric romances, including '' Erec et Enide'', '' L'âtre périlleux'', '' Perlesvaus'', and ''Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion'' (or its English version, '' Ywain and Gawain''), as well as John Hardyng's English ''Chronicle''. The English poem '' The Weddynge of Syr Gawen'' is uncertainly regarded as either just another of these or possibly actually Malory's own work. His assorted other sources might have included a 5th-century Roman military manual, '' De re militari''.

Publication and impact

''Le Morte d'Arthur'' was completed in 1469 or 1470 ("the ninth year of the reign of King Edward IV"), according to a note at the end of the book.Lumiansky (1987), p. 878. This note is available only in the Pierpont Morgan Library version of the book, since in the Winchester manuscript and the John Rylands Library copy the final pages are missing. It is believed that Malory's original title intended was to be ''The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table'', and only its final section to be named ''Le Morte Darthur''. At the end of the work, Caxton added: "Thus endeth this noble & joyous book entytled le morte Darthur, Notwythstondyng it treateth of the byrth, lyf, and actes of the sayd kynge Arthur; of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table, theyr meruayllous enquestes and aduentures, thachyeuyng of the sangreal, & in thende the dolorous deth & departynge out of this worlde of them al." Caxton separated Malory's eight books into 21 books, subdivided the books into a total of 506 chapters, added a summary of each chapter, and added a colophon to the entire book.Bryan (2004), p. ix

The first printing of Malory's work was made by Caxton in 1485. Only two copies of this original printing are known to exist, in the collections of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York and the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It proved popular and was reprinted in an illustrated form with some additions and changes in 1498 and 1529 by Wynkyn de Worde who succeeded to Caxton's press. Three more editions were published before the English Civil War: William Copland's (1557), Thomas East's (1585), and William Stansby's (1634), each of which contained additional changes and errors (Stansby's being notably poorly translated and highly censored). Thereafter, the book went out of fashion until the Romanticist revival of interest in all things medieval.

The British Library summarizes the importance of Malory's work thus: "It was probably always a popular work: it was first printed by William Caxton (...) and has been read by generations of readers ever since. In a literary sense, Malory’s text is the most important of all the treatments of Arthurian legend in English language, influencing writers as diverse as Edmund Spenser, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Mark Twain and John Steinbeck."

The Winchester Manuscript

An assistant mas