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The Conquests of the Grail Castle and Dolorous Guard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. Neale Carman
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Abstract

In the Perlesvaus the conquest of the Grail Castle and in the Prose Lancelot the conquest of the Castle of Dolorous Guard both serve to establish the supremacy of the hero. The succession of events in the two recitals contains many parallels proving that they are closely related. The details of the Prose Lancelot are such as to show a probability that it used the Perlesvaus as a source. For instance, the despair of the besieged, but noncombatant, lords, demonstrated on the walls of their castles, is carried swiftly to suicide in the Perlesvaus, reduced to flight and suicidal behavior in the Prose Lancelot. Again, the three shields that give Lancelot marvelous strength and that differ in appearance only through the number of bands that decorate them celebrate nothing, though the whole episode stands as the crowning step in the process by which the Lady of the Lake brought the child whom she educated to acceptance as the best knight in the world. In the Perlesvaus the various supernatural aids all manifest la vertu de Deu in harmony with the sole purpose of that romance, the exaltation of Christianity.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 85 , Issue 3 , May 1970 , pp. 433 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1970

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References

Note 1 in page 433 Numerals following quotations from the Perlesvaus refer to the line numbers in William A. Nitze and T. A. Jenkins, Le Haut Livre du Graal Perlesvaus, Vol. i (Chicago, 1932). Numerals following quotations from the Prose Lancelot refer to page and line numbers in H. O. Sommer, The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, Vol. iii (Washington, 1910).

Note 2 in page 434 Some manuscripts speak of a third gate opened with a loud noise without a combat. The variant does not affect the story otherwise.

Note 3 in page 436 J. Neale Carman, “The Symbolism of the Perlesvaus,” PMLA, lxi (1946), 42–83.

Note 4 in page 436 Certainly the Vulgate Cycle was a more popular work than the Perlesvaus, but this fact cannot be alleged as evidence of its earlier composition. The authors of the Cycle repeatedly show the influence of works that turned out to be less popular. For example, Robert de Boron's Joseph, in the opinion of all scholars, influenced the Cycle, but the Joseph had relatively few readers. The episode of the poisoned apple in the Mort Arlu is generally considered borrowed from Parise la Duchesse, but few would declare that the chanson de geste became as popular as the story of Guenevere. The sources of Chrétien de Troyes must be considered less popular than his works. The French romance from which the Lanzelet was drawn probably served him in the Charrette, but no one would claim popularity for this source.

Note 5 in page 438 Carman, pp. 44–47.

Note 6 in page 438 Not all the manuscripts of the Prose Lancelot contain the passages which tell of the fall into the water. Sommer's text and three MSS from which he quotes variants do (145:39, 146:3, 11). Though Sommer's master manuscript is in a less acceptable group, my impression is that here it continues the earlier tradition. Even if it does not, it makes evident the fact that the forty springs impressed the scribes.

Note 7 in page 439 Carman, p. 46.

Note 8 in page 439 J. D. Bruce, “Human Automata in Classical Tradition and Medieval Romance,” MP, x (1912–13), 520–521. Bruce thinks the Tor borrowed from Lancelot.

Note 9 in page 439 Carman, p. 57.

Note 10 in page 441 Carman, p. 43.

Note 11 in page 442 F. Lot in his Elude sur le Lancelot en prose (Paris, 1918) lists on pp. 265 and 266 five cases in Sommer's Vols. IV and v in which Lancelot or others destroy “mauvaises coutumes.” The exploit at Dolorous Guard was evidently popular so early as to guarantee a public for repetitions. Lot also observes that when there are strange “coutumes” originating in “les antiques thèmes folkloriques” (p. 271) the Prose Lancelot gives an explanation for their existence. The lack of such a rationalization in the case of Dolorous Guard might be proposed as evidence that the source for its conquest was not an “antique thème folklorique.”