Weston Jessie Laidlay
The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac
The invention of the Lancelot love-story, which I think we must regard as in its origin an invention, was probably brought about by two causes, the growth of Minne-dienst, and the popularity of the Tristan story.
To be absolutely accurate, I think we ought to consider it as invented to satisfy the demands of the first, and developed under the influence of the second. That it is, as some writers have held, a mere imitation of the Tristan story, I do not think, rather it is marked by certain complex characteristics which cannot be explained on the hypothesis of other than a dual source. Thus it is impossible not to feel that the relations of the lovers are dictated by the rules of a conventional etiquette rather than by the impulse of an overmastering passion. Even in the scene in which Lancelot first reveals his love to the queen, there is no touch of genuine passion or self-abandonment; the confession has been foreseen and expected, and you feel that Guinevere has carefully regulated her conduct in accordance with the etiquette prescribed for such an occasion.
In the Charrette, this artificial character is strongly marked; Lancelot's bearing becomes absolutely grovelling in its humility. The fact that he has been guilty of a momentary hesitation before mounting the cart is regarded by his capricious lady as a deadly offence against the rules of love, and resented accordingly, while Lancelot is so overcome by the assumed indifference of the queen that he promptly attempts suicide. Compare this with the story of Gawain and Orgeluse in the Parzival. Gawain is heartily in love with the lady, who treats him, not merely with indifference, but with absolute insolence—insolence to which Gawain opposes the most serene and unruffled courtesy, till the lady comes to her senses, when he reads her a well-deserved lecture on the correct behaviour due to a knight from a well-bred lady. Gawain is quite as well aware of the rules of the game as Lancelot, but understands how to play it with becoming dignity, and remain master of the situation.
There are moments in the Lancelot-Guinevere story when one wonders whether the whole business be not as platonic and artificial as the love-rhapsodies of the would-be poets of mediæval Italy, or of certain of the troubadours; but the night interview in the Charrette, the story of Lancelot's relations with King Pelles's daughter, and Guinevere's frantic jealousy, together with the final scene of discovery, forbid this charitable assumption.
Again, as I remarked above, the problem is complicated by the high character ascribed to Guinevere, and the absolute lack of any real condemnation of her relations with Lancelot. This is carried so far that even after the final discovery the kingdom of Britain is threatened by the Pope with an interdict unless Arthur will consent to take back his faithless wife; while throughout the war with Lancelot the sympathies of the reader are asked for the knight, not for the king. Nothing could well be lower than the morality of the Lancelot story as it now stands: the cynical indifference of what we may call the 'secular' sections, on the one hand, coupled with the false and wholly sickly pseudo-morality of the Grail sections on the other, cannot but be utterly distasteful to any healthy mind. For my own part, I must needs think the immense popularity of the Lancelot-Grail romances wholly undeserved.
Another point which is often overlooked is the discrepancy of age between Lancelot and the queen; the hero's birth takes place some considerable time after the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere. In the final war with Arthur we are told that Lancelot is twenty-one years Gawain's junior, this latter being seventy,126 while Arthur is ninety years old! It is quite clear that we have here no tale of the genuine spontaneous love of youth and maiden such as we find in Tristan and Iseult, but rather the account of the liaison between a young knight and a lady, his superior in years and station.
All these discrepancies and difficulties in the Lancelot story can, I believe, be best explained on the lines above suggested. The original story of Guinevere's infidelity had been dropped out of the legend, a reminiscence only surviving in the account of Mordred's treachery. Shortly after the middle of the twelfth century the tone given to courtly society by certain influential princesses, among them Eleanor of Aquitaine and England, and her daughter, Marie de Champagne, demanded the introduction into the popular Arthurian story of a love element, conceived after the conventions of the day. Doubtless the popularity of the older Tristan story was an element in the matter, but we must, I think, guard carefully against regarding the one as an imitation of the other; in colouring and characteristics the tales are, as I said above, diametrically opposed.127
Why Lancelot was selected as the queen's lover is a question which it is extremely difficult to answer with any certainty. When I treated the subject in my Legend of Sir Gawain, I suggested that he simply took the place of Gawain here, as elsewhere. That may have been the case, but the fact that, as I now think, we have distinct evidence of an intervening period, or rather of intervening stages, between the stories, somewhat militates against this idea. The choice may have been determined by quite simple considerations. It is noticeable that in each of the poems in which Chrétien mentions Lancelot previous to the Charrette he places him third in the list of Arthur's knights; in Erec the two first are Gawain and Erec; in Cligés they are Gawain and Perceval. None of the three here named would be available: Gawain from his relationship alike to Arthur and to Mordred, besides the fact that the character he early acquired as 'the Maidens' Knight' rather militated against the exclusive fidelity requisite for the post; Erec was already provided with a lady-love; Perceval was impracticable, not so much from the ascetic character ascribed to him, which was probably128 a later accretion, as from his essentially uncourtly manners, and very slight connection with Arthur's household. It may very well be that at the 'psychological moment' Lancelot, by his new-won position in the cycle, was the one hero who approved himself fitted for the rôle, and thus reached in the character of the queen's lover his final evolution as an Arthurian knight.
Again, as I suggested in discussing the Lanzelet, it may be that some peculiarity in his relations with his mysterious protectress gave the required suggestion. With the knowledge at our disposal the question cannot be definitely answered.
But the central idea once conceived, the process of evolution proceeded merrily: doubts, hesitation, despondency, on the part of the hero, gracious advances on that of the queen; advances on the part of other ladies, jealousy on the part of Guinevere; despair and madness of Lancelot; reconciliation, suspicion, detection, danger, deliverance, all the well-known formulæ of such a love-tale are employed, well interspersed with the knightly adventures of Lancelot and other companions of the Round Table. Such a story could be expanded, ad infinitum, and there is no doubt that it was expanded to an inordinate length, as we shall find when the day comes for a critical edition of the various redactions of the prose Lancelot.
Meanwhile, what of the romance which had given the initial impulse to the formation of the Lancelot story, the Tristan? As a matter of fact the Tristan was in the unenviable position of a Frankenstein. It had created, or rather helped to create, a monster which was its eventual destruction. So far as incidents go, the Lancelot has borrowed but little from the Tristan; the episode of the blood-drops, which betray the nocturnal meeting of Guinevere and Lancelot in the Charrette, is generally admitted to be borrowed from the similar episode in the Tristan poems, while the version given by Hartmann von Aue of the abduction of Guinevere shows points of contact with that of Iseult by Gandîn, but the incidental parallels between the stories are in reality very slight. Turn, however, to the prose Tristan, and you find the influence of the Lancelot absolutely dominant. Following the example of Lancelot, Tristan believes himself to have lost the favour of his adored queen, flies to the woodland, where he goes mad; attempts suicide; Iseult pours out her woes in letters to Guinevere, who is regarded as the noblest of queens, and a recognised authority on love! Guinevere invites the lovers to Arthur's court; Lancelot places his castle of Joyous Garde at their disposal. The details of the beautiful old love poem, the poignant tragedy of Tristan and Iseult, are lost sight of. In a fragmentary form they still exist, but are buried out of sight underneath the great mass of Arthurian accretion. It is no longer the love of Tristan for Iseult which is the central interest of the story, but the rivalry between Tristan and Lancelot, which of the two shall be reckoned 'the best knight in the world.'
Dr. Wechssler, in his study on the various redactions of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, points out the manner in which the two versions of the Tristan have been worked over and modified so as to bring them more into harmony with the Lancelot.129 But how thoroughgoing was this modification, and how disastrous to the older story, can only be understood by a first-hand study of the texts. An interesting point for future criticism to determine will be whether there was ever an earlier, and independent, prose Tristan, or whether the prose versions of this tale are not all posterior to and dependent upon the Lancelot. I do not think that any question can here arise as to the priority of the poetical relative to the prose form.
To sum up the conclusions arrived at in these pages, I would suggest that the order of Guinevere's lovers, so far as can be determined from the surviving Arthurian tradition, was as follows:
1. Gawain.—This being indicated by Gawain's close connection with kindred Celtic legends; traces of the relation surviving in the accounts given in the Merlin of Gawain as the 'queen's knight,' and in passages of Chrétien's Perceval, Wolfram's Parzival, and early English romances.130
2. Mordred.—Representing a period when such a relationship was held incompatible with Gawain's character as chivalrous hero, and the more unamiable features of the primitive conception were transferred to another character who was regarded as Gawain's only brother. The later stages of this period are preserved in the Chronicles.
3. Intervening period wherein Guinevere undergoes same process as Gawain, and false Guinevere is evolved. The queen's character is regarded as irreproachable and Mordred as an unwelcome suitor. Strong traces of this period remain, both in the earlier metrical and prose romances, and complicate the subsequent presentment.
4. Lancelot.—His introduction in this character being due (a) to social conditions in courtly circles, (b) to desire to create within the Arthurian cycle a love-tale which should rival in popularity the well-known and independent Tristan story. Mordred, however, remains in the story, and he, rather than Lancelot, should be considered as representing the original 'infidelity-motif.'131
CHAPTER VIII
THE PROSE LANCELOT—LANCELOT AND THE GRAIL
We now approach the most difficult and complicated part of an exceptionally difficult and complicated question; rather, to be more accurate, we are now confronted with the union of two questions, each of them, in a high degree, intricate and obscure. We have not yet succeeded in solving the problems connected with the evolution of the Grail romances; we can scarcely be said to have begun the examination of the Lancelot legend; the union of the two might well appear to present such insuperable difficulties that the critic might shrink from grappling at close quarters with so formidable a task. And yet it may well be that this union of the two legends, which at the first glance appears so seriously to increase our difficulties, is precisely that factor which shall play the most important part in their final solution; that inasmuch as the Lancelot legend was the dominant factor in the later cyclic development of Arthurian romances, the disentangling of this particular thread will be the clue which sets free the other members of the cycle, and enables them to fall once more into their original and relative positions.
The elements composing the Grail problem are so well known that here I need do no more than briefly recapitulate them. The Grail romances are practically divided into two families: that dealing with the history of the relic—the Early History romances as they are very generally called; and that dealing with the search for the relic, the Queste, which latter family is again sharply divided into two sections differentiated from each other by the personality of the hero—the Perceval and Galahad Questes. I am not sure whether we ought not to go a step further and recognise a third clearly defined family, that of the Gawain Queste. Mr. Nutt in his Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail132 partly recognises this, but does not, I think, attribute sufficient importance to the matter, regarding Gawain as an understudy of Perceval. I incline to think that before the question is finally solved we shall require to study very closely the variants which regard Gawain as Grail hero, and compare them with the Perceval versions. I am not sure that we shall find the result quite what we expect!
So far criticism has confined itself to the question of the relation existing between the Early History and Queste versions, and that between the two main families of the Queste. In this latter case the general consensus of opinion is to regard Perceval, whose story is marked by certain definite and widely spread folk-lore features, as an earlier Grail hero than Galahad, whose Queste is strongly allegorising and mystical in character.
It is this latter Queste which here mainly concerns us, but we shall find that before we are in a position to examine it closely we must deal with certain features both of the Gawain and Perceval variants.
The Gawain versions will not detain us long. There is, correctly speaking, no definite Gawain-Grail romance, but we find records of Gawain's visits to the Grail castle scattered throughout the latter part of the Conte del Graal, Diu Krône (where he is really the Grail hero), prose Lancelot, and Dutch Lancelot (this latter, as we shall see, differing in very important particulars from the prose Lancelot). In each case these adventures are marked by peculiarly wild and fantastic features, sometimes apparently borrowed from the hero's feats at the Château Merveil, as recorded by Chrétien and Wolfram, sometimes entirely independent of those feats, but strongly reminiscent of Perceval's experiences in the Grail castle. In the distinctively Lancelot romances, where Gawain, Lancelot, and Bohort all attempt the adventures of Corbenic, Gawain is the first to do so, and his experiences are repeated, with a more fortunate result, in the case of the other two. The Grand S. Graal, which gives an account of the founding of Corbenic, and the establishment of its marvels, states that none are to escape with their lives till Gawain shall come, and he shall receive shame and dishonour.133 This same romance makes Gawain a descendant of Joseph of Arimathea.
I think it is quite clear that the Grail castle as depicted in the later romances is really a combination of the features of two originally distinct accounts, the Grail castle of the earlier Perceval story, and the Château Merveil of Gawain legend. The marvellous features which the Galahad-Lancelot Queste emphasises have clearly been borrowed from the Gawain romances, and are therefore to be considered as younger than these.
Dr. Wechssler's study, Über die verschiedenen Redaktionen des Robert von Borron zugeschriebenen Graal-Lancelot-Cyklus, to which I have previously referred, is of value in helping us to the next stage of our investigation. The writer points out that the redactors of the prose romances we possess were familiar with two compilations, practically covering the entire ground of Arthurian romance, one of which, the earlier, was ascribed to Robert de Borron, the other, the later, to Walter Map; or rather, as the author is careful to write throughout, pseudo-Borron and pseudo-Map.134 The original cycle, which the writer designates A., consisted of Livre del Graal,135 Merlin, Suite Merlin, Lancelot, Queste, and Mort Artur, but only traces of the Borron cycle remain, the romances as we have them belonging to the pseudo-Map redaction.136
Further, Dr. Wechssler claims to have detected clear traces of two subsidiary cycles formed by selections from the original; redaction B. consisting of the Livre del Graal, the Merlin, and Suite Merlin, and the Queste and Mort Artur. The redaction B. he considers the earlier shortened version of the pseudo-Borron cycle.137
A still later and shortened redaction was composed of the Merlin and Suite Merlin, Queste and Mort Artur; this also being attributed to the pseudo-Borron.138
According to Dr. Wechssler the distinguishing mark which separates the pseudo-Borron from the pseudo-Map cycle is the introduction into the former of the personages of the Tristan legend absent from the Map cycle.
This is very clear, and very interesting, but let us wait a minute before we examine it, and see how, in the hands of its own author, the theory works out. The study to which I have just referred was published in 1895; in 1898 another study appeared from the same pen, this time dealing exclusively with the Grail romances,139 in which Dr. Wechssler practically adopted the standpoint of Professor Birch-Hirschfeld, that the Grail is ab initio a Christian symbol, but at the same time endeavoured to harmonise this view with that which regards the Grail as originally a heathen talisman, while, in the same way, he claimed to discover a viâ media between the conflicting variants of the Queste, presenting us, as the result, with a curious composite hero, who was named Galahad, but whose story was the story of Perceval.
I do not know if the author was himself really satisfied with the result of his ingenuity; I am convinced no other student of the Grail romances was; but the interest of the study for us lies in this, how did a scholar who three years before had published a really sound, solid, and valuable piece of criticism, such as that on the Grail-Lancelot cycle, come to wander so far astray in the quagmire of pure hypothesis and unfounded assumption? Simply and solely, I believe, because it had never occurred to Dr. Wechssler that the Lancelot romances could be associated with any Queste other than the Galahad Queste. He saw, and saw rightly, that the Lancelot story played a very important rôle in the cyclic evolution of the Arthurian romance; he saw that it was closely connected with a Grail Queste, and never suspecting that the hero of that Queste could be other than Galahad, while at the same time he recognised the priority of certain elements of the Perceval story, he endeavoured, with a fatal result, to combine the two, and evolve such a Queste as would suit the earlier redaction of the Lancelot story.
And yet the key to the truth was in his hand all the time, had he but known it. He knew M. Paulin Paris's 'Romans de la Table Ronde'; on p. 87 of vol. iv. the writer quotes a passage from a MS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, to which I have previously referred, but which is of such paramount importance for the question before us that I make no apology for repeating it here: 'Et le grant conte de Lancelot convient repairier en la fin à Perceval qui est chiés et la fin de tos les contes ès autres chevaliers. Et tout sont branches de lui (c'est-à-dire se rapportent à Perceval140) qu'il acheva li grant queste. Et li contes Perceval meismes est une branche del haut conte del Graal qui est chiés de tos les contes' (MS. 751, fol. 144-48).
To this quotation M. Paulin Paris added the remark, 'Mais dans la Quête du Saint Graal, Perceval n'est plus le héros qui découvre le Graal et accomplit les dernières aventures. Galaad, le chevalier vierge, fils naturel de Lancelot, est substitué au Perceval des dernières laisses de Lancelot. La manie des prolongements aura conduit à ces modifications des premières conceptions. Et c'est la difficulté de distinguer ces retouches successives qui a donné à la critique tant de fils à retordre.'
The position could scarcely be more clearly stated to-day; one can only regret that this luminous hint of the great French scholar should have remained so long unfruitful. When the passage first attracted my attention, which it did some years ago, I made a note of it as important for the theory of the early evolution of the Perceval story, but not till I had read Dr. Wechssler's study of the Grail-Lancelot cycles did its immense importance as evidence for the evolution of the Arthurian cycle, as a whole, dawn upon me. Yet here we have a piece of evidence of the very highest value, a direct and categorical statement that at one period, and that an advanced one (otherwise it would not be termed 'le grant conte'), of its evolution, the Lancelot legend was connected with and subordinate to the Perceval story, and that in its full and complete Grail-Queste form.
In other words, the distinction between the cycles respectively attributed to Borron and to Map is not only the presence or absence of the personages of the Tristan story (as Dr. Wechssler supposes), but the much more important and radical distinction that, in the first the Queste was originally a Perceval, in the second always a Galahad Queste. It is surprising that this distinction had not occurred to the original framer of the thesis, any one familiar with the genuine Borron romances must be aware that the Queste they presuppose is a Perceval Queste. Probably the disinclination, to which I have referred above, to connect Lancelot with any Grail hero save his own son had very much to do with the matter; further, I do not think that Dr. Wechssler had formed a clear idea of the process of evolution of the cycle he postulated, which he represents as progressing by contraction, i.e. the earliest form being the fullest, or why that cycle should have been connected with the name of Robert de Borron. In fact, he reserves the discussion of the questions concerning original formation for another study.
Now I would submit that the rational progress of evolution is by expansion, not by contraction, and that the name of Robert de Borron became associated with a cycle representing the ensemble of Arthurian romance because there was a smaller cycle which was really the work of the genuine Robert de Borron, which smaller cycle formed the germ of the later and more extended body of romance.141
Scholars have long ago recognised that the three works attributed to Robert de Borron, and which, as we possess them, probably represent prose versions of that writer's original poems, are closely connected with each other, and have every appearance of having been intended to form one consecutive work. These three are the Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, and Perceval, which latter is only represented by one MS. and is what we generally call the 'Didot' Perceval.142
Now if we examine the Didot Perceval, as printed by Mr. Hucher in vol. i. of Le Saint Graal, we shall find that the last twenty pages, succeeding Perceval's achievement of the Grail Quest, are devoted to Arthur's expedition to France, his conquest of Frollo and war with Rome, succeeded by Mordred's treachery, the final battle and Arthur's departure for Avalon—in fact, precisely the contents of the Mort Artur, which, as we know, generally follows the Queste, only related in a more concise and summary manner;143 and one more in accordance with the Chronicles than is the case with the other prose romances.
I think it is quite clear that the Perceval, whether in the original form in which Borron wrote it or not, as we possess it, shows distinct traces of having formed the concluding portion of a cycle.
It is quite obvious that a genuine Borron cycle, such as suggested above, would contain the germ of later expansion. Thus the Joseph of Arimathea certainly appears to represent what we may perhaps call the first draft of the Grand S. Graal. Merlin was certainly expanded into the Merlin Vulgate and Suite. Perceval represents Queste and Mort Artur. Only the Lancelot is unrepresented, and with that I do not think the original 'Borron' cycle had anything to do.
The introduction of the Lancelot probably belongs, as Dr. Wechssler suggests, to a subsequent writer, who borrowed the more famous name, to the pseudo-Borron; and from the quotation given by M. Paulin Paris, I should think it likely that, at first, the juxtaposition of the Lancelot and Perceval-Grail stories was purely external, and that they did not affect each other by contamination. The Didot Perceval may well have been the Queste of the earliest pseudo-Borron, whether or not it represents the Queste of the genuine Borron cycle.144
But the growing popularity of the Lancelot story would render such a contamination inevitable, and I am strongly tempted to believe that in that perplexing romance, the prose Perceval li Gallois, we have the Queste of a later pseudo-Borron cyclic redaction. The perplexing features of this version are well known: the whole tone is highly ecclesiastic, there are numerous references to an earlier Perceval story, Lancelot plays an important rôle, yet Galahad is unknown, and there are certain mysterious folk-lore features not met with elsewhere. Hitherto no one has succeeded in satisfactorily placing this romance. I would suggest that it represents the Queste of a late pseudo-Borron Lancelot-Perceval-Grail cycle; and I am encouraged in this supposition by the fact that this romance knows the Questing-Beast, a mysterious creation only found in the Suite Merlin and the Tristan Palamedes romances. Now the Suite Merlin claims to be by Robert de Borron, and the introduction of the Tristan figures into the Arthurian story is, as we saw above, held by Dr. Wechssler to be the distinctive 'note' of the Borron-cycle.145
This conclusion is further strengthened when we examine the rôle assigned to Lancelot in these two romances. In each case he is one of the most distinguished knights at Arthur's court, but he is much less en évidence in the Didot Perceval than in the Perceval li Gallois. In the first-named romance he is represented as overthrowing all the knights of the Round Table, till the appearance of Perceval, by whom he is himself overthrown. He would thus appear to rank next to the hero of the tale and to be the superior of Gawain. So far as we can gather, the order of superiority runs thus: Perceval, Lancelot, Gawain, Yvain. But he is, apparently, not of those who start on the Grail quest; nor is there any indication of his liaison with Guinevere. But the author mentions among the knights 'le fiz à la fille à la femme de Malehot.'146 We do not know the lady of Malehault save through the medium of the prose Lancelot.
In the Perceval li Gallois (Perlesvaus Professor Heinzel prefers to call it), Lancelot is one of the three best knights in the world, the other two being Perceval and Gawain; he takes part in the Grail quest, but on account of his sinful relations with Guinevere is not worthy to behold the sacred talisman, which does not appear, even in a veiled form, during his stay at the Fisher King's castle, whereas it appears clearly to Gawain. The position, so far as Lancelot is concerned, is thus nearer to the presentment of the Galahad Queste than is the Didot Perceval. This last-named, we have seen above, shows clear indications of betraying a cyclic redaction; these indications, though differing in form, are not less clear in the Perceval li Gallois. The concluding passage runs thus: 'Après iceste estoire commence li contes si comme Brians des Illes guerpi le roi Artus por Lancelot que il n'aimoit mie et comme il aséura le roi Claudas qui le roi Ban de Bénoic toli sa terre. Si parole cis contes comment il le conquist et par quel manière, et si com Galobrus de la Vermeille lande vint à la cort le roi Artus por aidier Lancelot, quas il estoit de son lignage cist contes est mout lons et mout aventreus et poisanz.'147
In quoting this passage, Professor Heinzel remarks: 'Auch der Perlesvaus ist einem grösseren Romanwerk einverleibt, aus dem die Handschrift von Mons den Perlesvaus ausgeschrieben hat. Was ihm folgte muss eine Art Lancelot gewesen sein.'148
There is a further and interesting possibility before us. The compilers may—in one instance, I think, we can show reason to believe that they did—have incorporated the Chrétien Perceval (or a version closely akin to it) into their cycles as representing the Queste.
In the work of preparing these studies I felt that I ought to leave no available version of the Lancelot unexplored, and therefore undertook to read carefully the immense compilation generally known as the Dutch Lancelot. Well was it for me that I did not shrink from the task! I had not read far before I began to suspect that the text represented by this translation was, in every respect, a fuller and a better text than that used by Dr. Sommer in his Malory collation; in the Queste section in particular was this the case. In the succeeding chapters I intend to go fully into what is, I believe, in the interests of Arthurian criticism, a very important discovery. Here I will only say that I eventually found that the text of the Dutch Lancelot, of the printed version of the prose Lancelot Lenoire, 1533 (which, as I have remarked before, Dr. Sommer does not chronicle), and Malory's Lancelot and Queste sections all stand together as representing a much fuller and more accurate text than that of the prose Lancelot 1513, or the Queste MSS. consulted by Dr. Furnivall for his edition of that romance. Whether we have not here an important part of the unshortened pseudo-Borron-Lancelot into which the Map Queste has been introduced is a matter for careful investigation. The point to which at the present moment I would draw attention is, that the Dutch Lancelot incorporates a very considerable section of a Perceval romance, which bears a very close resemblance to Chrétien's poem, with this curious difference, that it gives an account of the achieving of the adventures named by the Grail messenger, which, so far as I know, is found nowhere else. This section, which occupies over two thousand lines, demands a special study, but for us its significance lies in this that it seems to point to the conclusion that in the evolution of a Lancelot-Perceval cycle (the existence of which I think we may hold for proven) the compilers allowed themselves considerable latitude in the Queste section. There were several Perceval Questes to select from, and they took which they preferred, even pressing the original, manifestly independent, Perceval romances into their service. I suspect that this variation in the Perceval Queste helped towards its suppression in favour of the Galahad variant, which had the advantage of existing only in one form, though the cause mainly operating was an entirely different one.149
