Both D. L. and 1533 conclude the Queste section with the passage relating the death of the twenty-two (twenty-four) questers, eighteen of whom fell by the hand of Gawain; the writing out of the knights' adventures, and the preservation of the record in the abbey of Salisbury where Map found them, this latter item being omitted by 1533. This passage is, as a rule, now found at the beginning of the Mort Artur section, but, I think, it is clear that its proper place is at the end of the Queste; as I have pointed out already, the light in which it represents Gawain is entirely in keeping with that romance, while it does not agree with either the Mort Artur or the Lancelot, both of which regard Arthur's gallant nephew with genuine respect. Further, the drawing up of a record of adventures is better placed at the end of the section dealing with the adventures to be recorded than at the beginning of another. M.'s words, 'alle this was made in grete bookes / and put up in almeryes at Salysbury /' coupled with his total omission of any corresponding passage at the commencement of the next book, seem to prove that in his source, too, it stood at the end of the Queste.[189]
What now are the results we may deduce from this examination of four versions of the Galahad Queste? First, I think it is clear that the verse translation in D. L. and the prose 1533 both offer a text very decidedly superior to that edited by Dr. Furnivall, and, if Dr. Sommer's extracts are to be relied on, that represented by the majority of the printed editions of the Lancelot. Second, it is equally clear that the text used by Malory stood in close relation to these two versions. Many variants attributed by Dr. Sommer to the English compiler, are, it is now certain, due to his source, in the treatment of which he shows little sign of intelligence or invention, but rather a tendency to compression at all hazards, sometimes omitting the very part of a phrase which was required to make the whole intelligible. The general tendency of our examination, therefore, goes to establish the practical agreement of D. L., 1533 and M., as against Q. and S. The version given by W. is so free a rendering, and omits so many details, that it is scarcely possible to place it. It seems clear that the original source must have belonged to the same MS. family as the former three, but whether the agreement was with 1533, rather than with D. L. and M., or vice versa, it is impossible to say.
But how do these three stand as regards each other? On the whole 1533 appears to represent the better text, and it also appears to have preserved signs of an earlier redaction, yet I do not think it is the direct source of the other two. We often find D. L. and M. agreeing in details of numbers and names, as against the other version; certainly in the case of such a name as Brimol van Pleîche, Bromel la Pleche, the agreement must be due to a French source common to both. I should be inclined to postulate some such scheme as this.
As will be seen from the summary of D. L. appended to these studies, both this version and M. show, in the Lancelot section, a certain plus of incident as against 1533, though these incidents vary in each case. The relation cannot, therefore, be exactly determined, but I think there can be no reasonable doubt that for the Lancelot-Queste section of his compilation Malory used an Agravain-Queste MS.
That he had two MSS., one for the Lancelot, another for the Queste, as Dr. Sommer[190] suggests, is highly unlikely. It would be too curious a chance that he should in each case hit on a version so closely corresponding to that of the two with which we have compared his reading.
This appears to me practically to dispose of the argument, that Malory had before him a number of episodic romances, an argument often brought forward;[191] the 'Turquine' episode in Book VI., the whole of Book VII., and the adventure with the damsel of Escalot being instances in point. Turquine certainly came out of the Lancelot, as did the lady of Escalot; Book VII. may have been an episodic romance, as also the handling of Urre of Hungary; though this latter, as we shall see, may equally well be an amplification of an adventure found in the prose Lancelot.[192]
Again, it very greatly limits the probability of Malory's having elsewhere worked with a free hand, inventing and rearranging, when we find, as we have done, that numerous small details, hitherto ascribed to him, are faithful reproductions of his source. We are justified in cherishing very serious doubts as to the originality of any marked deviation from the traditional version of an adventure which we may find in his compilation.