In the previous chapter I studied description in a romance, and in the chapter following this one I shall focus on a history. What kind of work is Morte Arthure, and what are the nature and functions of its descriptions? The varied interpretations of the poem are in part attributable to varied perceptions of its genre. At different points it associates itself with both ‘cronycle’ and ‘romance’, unsettling and in the end evading genre classifications.

In fact, the poet draws on both history and romance, and develops the descriptive techniques and topics characteristic of both: the main source of the framework is the ‘historical’ account of Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth as mediated through Wace, while some episodes draw on romances, in particular an episode involving Gawain and Priamus (2513–649) modelled on the Charlemagne romance Fierabras. The dreamvision and its descriptive conventions contribute yet another strand to the make-up of the poem in the two episodes we shall be examining. Most striking are the numerous set-piece descriptions and the extraordinarily vivid scenes of action, with detailed accounts of hand-to-hand combat, armour and naval equipment. We need to consider how these descriptive passages contribute to the nature of the poem and our interpretation of it. The reaction of an early reader is captured in a colophon added to the unique text of the poem in Robert Thornton's manuscript, following an account of Arthur's Requiem Mass and burial: ‘Hic jacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus’ – the once and future king. Buried he may have been, but Arthur was still alive in the fourteenth century, appropriated as a historical validation for suzerainty as well as an exemplar of chivalry in an age when a state of war was the normal condition. To flesh out this cult figure as an authentically historical hero as well as a man whose psychological complexity stirs our interest and evokes our sympathy, the poet needed to supplement his ‘historical’ sources with material from romances and elsewhere, material which is just as ‘true’: true to this portrait of the man who was Arthur.

In a prologue the poet affirms his fidelity to history (story, 25) ‘þat trewe es and nobyll’ (16), outlining the ‘historical’ account of Arthur's defeat of the Roman emperor Lucius and then affirming his dependence on fact-based chronicle with a list of thirty-three countries and provinces conquered by Arthur.