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 Perceval[140]) 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.