Finally he is represented as the father of a son who bids fair to rival his ancestors in valour. When a critical study of the Lancelot mss. is seriously undertaken, I think we shall find that the position occupied by Bohort in the story will afford a valuable indication of the relative age of the redaction.
I am quite prepared to find that among the objections which will doubtless be advanced against the theory here advocated one will be that it is too complete in detail, too 'cut and dried,' if I may use the term, to be free from suspicion. To this I would answer that I believe in examining the later stages of Arthurian romance we must follow a somewhat different process from that which we employ for the earlier. The Arthurian poems, being in a large measure independent, and never having formed part of a 'cyclic' whole, may well be studied separately, in, and for, themselves, though of course we would not leave out of sight variants of the same story. But the later prose romances, those which have avowedly formed parts of a cycle, must be studied, not separately, but in conjunction with the other romances with which they were connected. They are in the position of the parts of a dissected puzzle, the study of one part by itself will never really help us to understand the whole, it is only by studying collective sections, and trying continually new combinations, that we can hope to find the original disposition of the parts.
It is no use to study the Queste romance by itself. If we wish to know how it stands with regard to the Lancelot, we must study it with the Lancelot, and if we do this certain points become absolutely clear. The Queste pre-supposes a very advanced stage of the Lancelot story; one at which the family of the hero, quite as much as the hero himself, is the subject of glorification.[157]
The Galahad Queste is absolutely unthinkable without a previous knowledge of the Lancelot romances; as a matter of fact, it stands in closer relation to these than it does to any earlier Grail quest. The Lancelot romances, on the contrary, would be quite complete and far more coherent without the Queste. I have commented already on the striking discrepancies between the sections, but I have not so far dwelt at any length on the extraordinary lack of Grail references in the Mort Artur, the section immediately following the Queste. If we set on one side the introductory passage, which I have no shadow of doubt does not belong to the Mort Artur at all, but is the concluding passage of the Queste, there is no evidence of the influence of the latter throughout the whole of this last section of the cycle. Galahad is never mentioned; he was—and is not—as completely as if he had never been. Lancelot never thinks of, never refers to, his valiant son; his whole thought and care is for the queen, whom we were previously told he had renounced. I do not think it possible for any one to read the Mort Artur and believe that the Queste forms an integral part of the Lancelot story. On the other hand, cut out the Queste, suppress the few passages in the immediately preceding section of the Lancelot story which relate to it, and you have a tale as complete and coherent as is possible for any legend which has been the fruit of long growth and evolution, and has not possessed from the outset a clear and definite purpose and outline.
Admit, as I think we must needs admit, that the Lancelot and the Grail stories form two independent streams of tradition; recognise, as we must recognise, their diverse character,—one strongly secular, the other strongly ecclesiastical,—and I think we must own that if in their completed form they were to coalesce, that coalition could only be carried out under the conditions suggested above, which conditions we find fulfilled in the Galahad Queste. For me this romance is the last word of the Lancelot evolution, the final blending of two separate and important streams of tradition, the grant conte of Lancelot and the grant conte of Perceval and the Grail, the which is chiés et fin de tous les contes.
CHAPTER IX
THE DUTCH LANCELOT