This chapter examines some of the core structural features of the five chronographies in this study with the aim of highlighting common strategies of adaptation and identifying the organisational choices open to late medieval compilers and adaptors of Arthurian material. As discussed in the Introduction, the term ‘cycle’ may be too prescriptive to provide a helpful basis for discussing structure and genre. In contrast, the word ‘adaptation’ appositely describes a process that, in the case of these medieval authors, we can assume to have included selecting, sometimes translating, always ordering, usually pruning and frequently re-phrasing earlier Arthurian material. It is therefore a term that is sufficiently broad to encompass the heavily involved editing of authors such as Malory, as well as the sometimes less interventionist approach of the Dutch Lancelot-author, for example. In order to clarify how these five texts are constructed, this chapter will include an overview of source treatment in each work and highlight those elements of the adaptive process that are of particular interest in the individual collections. To ensure a rounded impression of the works, this will be followed in Chapter 3 by an illustrative discussion of the style in which the five adaptors present their material.

It is beyond the scope of this study to fully explicate the relationship between each work and its sources, although this relationship is of course vital to understanding the adaptive process of each author.