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]
So far then we have traced the evolution of the Lancelot story, and found that at one period of its development, and that an advanced period, it was connected with a Grail story, which regarded Perceval as its hero and knew nothing of Lancelot's son, Galahad. How then did the latter appear upon the scene, and in what light are we to regard the romances dealing with him?
I have studied the Galahad Queste closely, and have compared versions gathered from widely different sources, French originals, and translations, and I am distinctly of the opinion that we possess the romance practically in its original form. It is a homogeneous composition, it is not a compilation from different sources and by different hands. There is no trace of an earlier and later redaction, save only in the directly edifying passages, which in some cases appear to have undergone amplification. The difference between the versions is not that of incident or sequence, scarcely even of detail, but rather of the superior clearness and coherence with which the incidents are related in some of the versions as compared with others. I am strongly inclined to think that there is no peculiarity in any of the Queste MSS. which cannot quite well be ascribed to the greater or less accuracy of the copyist, or his greater or less taste for discourses of edification.
Nor is the Queste by the same hand as was responsible for the final moulding of the Lancelot story; though so closely connected with, indeed dependent upon, that story, it yet in many points stands in flagrant contradiction with it, and there is little doubt that the Lancelot would gain greatly in coherence if the Queste were omitted, and the passages preparatory to it eliminated from the original romance. These remarks apply also to the Grand S. Graal in its present form, though, as we shall see, this last named romance does not stand on precisely the same footing as the Queste with which it is now closely connected.
The following facts seem to stand out clearly. Both these Grail romances, the Queste especially, depend entirely for their interest on Lancelot. They are the glorification of his race as that from which the Grail Winner is predestined to spring. The genealogies, however they may vary (as they do in the different versions), are all devoted to this object. They are most closely connected with, and practically presuppose each other; yet admitting, as I think we must admit, that they do not represent the original form of the Grail story, they do not produce the impression of romances which have been worked over with the view of substituting a new hero for the one in whose honour the tale was originally constructed.
Nevertheless in the case of the Grand S. Graal we must, I think, admit imitation; even as in the original Borron cycle the Joseph of Arimathea was designed as an introduction to the life and deeds of the Grail Winner, Perceval, so in this, the latest form of the cycle, the introduction to the Queste is built upon and expanded from the Joseph. The introduction is based upon and follows the lines of the old introduction, but the Queste is a new Queste.