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 Grail[132] 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.