#qrv

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2

The introduction is written by the translator of The Quest for the Holy Grail, E. Jane Burns. Burns begins by laying out the context of the Vulgate Cycle's structure, its history and development, and the different expectations historical readers have brought to the text.

Which underscores how expectation colors perception.

What happens if we imagine the possibility of multiple writers with different backgrounds, views, progressiveness, and agendas? Instead of assuming heteronormativity, homophobia, toxic masculinity, misogyny, and a single unified author with a singular agenda and vision - what if we stay open to the possibility of a different concept of gender than we're used to? What about possible queer subtext and the possibility of queercoding in medieval fiction, not just in modern fiction?

What if we look for those things, rather than assuming and looking for explanations that match the modern stereotypical assumptions of medieval people/writers/beliefs? (After all, it's those modern assumptions that lead to the phenomenon of "history will say they were roommates," or the all too common error of "woman buried with warrior stuff? must be religious, can't possibly be because she actually fought.")

That's what I mean by reading with a queer lens. Because most of the time, these works are read with a heteronormative, gender-normative lens, just unconscious or subconscious as a bias, and so any queer elements are missed entirely.

(Like. I still don't understand how anyone can read the passages with Galehaut as anything other than Extremely Gay. How do you miss that? Yet so many people assume it's "comrades" and "bros" despite the text going out of its way to say that it's more than companionship. Because of the default, unexamined lens that they're using.)

….anyway. off the soapbox. Back to the intro.

"Many literary historians… have mistakenly sought in Arthurian romance a recognizable ancestor text for the modern novel" and are disappointed in the somewhat disjointed conglomeration of the Vulgate. They then either dismissed it as incoherent and terrible, or defended it as having an underlying coherence and attempted to legitimize it by imagining a singular author (or unifying editor).

"The unwieldy mix of spiritual and chivalric modes that crisscross unevenly throughout… mark the Vulgate Cycle as a product of the emergent social and political tensions in thirteenth-century France," with the popularized chivalric tales of knights from the mid-twelfth-century getting infused with Biblical allusions and Grail mysteries around 1200. Prose had a more religious connotation and association than verse, which was more recreational (condemned sometimes as "vain pleasures").

"Lady readers, in particular, were exhorted after 1200 to abandon the deceptive tales of Arthurian knights." Which supports the idea that one of the primary audiences for these stories were women! Women of the 1200's French court, in the case of the French romances, though I'm sure readership extended beyond that.

This is another example of how expectation shapes perception. There's a tendency for modern readers to assume that medieval literature will be dry, dull, misogynistic, homophobic, etc… and so I've seen people assume that the vast numbers of unnamed ladies/maidens/queens are a product of misogyny, of being seen as too unimportant for distinct names.

And certainly there was systemic misogyny in the culture, just as there is nowadays - but I don't think that's the core reason for the nameless female characters. It doesn't match up with the Vulgate's characterization of these women as clever, competent, independent, and saving knights more often than being saved by knights. (Nor does it match up with how many women are named.)

I've heard a theory (probably on Tumblr somewhere, I can't remember where) that the unnamed women are the equivalent of "y/n" ("your name") in modern fanfic. Reader-insert. Perhaps the author(s) expected women reading the story to project themselves onto the characters, and so made extra room for them to do so.

…But back to the introduction once more. Burns unravels the idea of a single author or even a solid, novel-like coherent narrative for the Vulgate Cycle, and arrives at this:

"The Vulgate Cycle then provides us with a text that is not a text in the modern sense of the term, a text that is always fragmentary but always a composite of more than one text, a text located somewhere and uncertainly in the complex relation between many narrative versions created by many authorial if not authoritative hands.

"The literary map accurately representing this cycle of tales would contrast starkly with Lot’s set calendar. It would be a map that changed continually as we move through the narrative terrain it charts. Although it might incorporate on one level and for the text of the Prose Lancelot in particular the existence of a predictable calendar of events, a map detailing the whole of the Vulgate Cycle would have to reflect a much looser and more flexible narrative structure.

"It would be a map with no fixed perimeter, and no set or authorized format, a map that could shift and reshape itself at successive moments and with successive readings."

A shifting mélange of a narrative, flexible and unbounded, containing multitudes, eluding attempts to define or confine it into one single known element…

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2 | HHG merlin pt 1 | merlin pt 2 | merlin pt 3.1 | merlin pt 3.2

Ulfin the pickup artist / dudebro podcaster over here 😒 advising King Uther Pendragon on his "love" (lust) for Duchess Ygraine (who is visibly distressed by Uther's advances, btw. Enough so that the rest of the court notices she's upset):

So Uther asks Ulfin what he should do, and Ulfin says, "You groom her husband Duke Gorlois of Tintagel and the rest of the court by showing Gorlois so much favor, being his best friend, gifts, spending tons of time with him. Meanwhile I'll court Ygraine on your behalf and send her lots of gifts and compliments."

Which Ygraine refuses, because she's aware that Uther's stalking her, and she's not into it.

When Ulfin finally admits he's doing this on behalf of the king, she crosses herself and says, "God! what a traitor the king is to make a show of loving my husband and me, yet he means to shame him! Ulfin,” she went on, “take care not to let it happen that you should ever say such words to me! For I want you to know that I would tell my husband, and if he knew it, you would have to die!"

Ulfin: ::slides into Ygraine's DMs on behalf of Uther:: hey my king thinks ur hot

Ygraine: wtf no, he's been acting like a friend to my husband and me just to try to get me to cheat on my husband? Don't say anything like this to me ever again. I'll tell my husband next time and he'll kill you.

Ulfin: gladly :D

Ulfin: oh c'mon, what about a pity date, he's dying bc he wants u so bad, ur such a (expletive)

Ulfin: haha funny joke

Ulfin: fr tho, date the king

Ulfin: or else

(later)

Uther: omg of course! She's just saying that for appearances, I just have to be ✨ persistent ✨ and then she'll be into me

...

...y'all, some things haven't changed in 800+ years.

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2

Some context on 1. this readthrough and 2. the Vulgate Cycle in general!

I've read large chunks of the Vulgate Cycle all out of order, sporadically, but I haven't read it from cover-to-cover yet. I want to remedy that, though I want to read it through a queer lens. (Also a trauma psychology lens, but I don't have a good shorthand term for that.)

The Vulgate Cycle (aka the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, the Prose Lancelot, or the Pseudo-Map Cycle) is an Arthurian romance composed between 1215 and 1235-ish, by Anonymous. Who may have been one person, but more likely was multiple authors. (I'm in the "multiple authors" camp, I can see no other explanation for the dramatic tone shift of The Quest for the Holy Grail. Or the History of the Holy Grail, for that matter.)

It's a massive text. It attempts to "elaborate the full story of the Arthurian era and to set that era in a framework of universal history" (so writes Norris J. Lacy in the preface to the translation).

The History of the Holy Grail (originally the "Estoire del saint Graal") - actually one of the last sections to be written, even if its contents come first chronologically. Traces the early history of the Grail and Grail-keepers. Lots of Bible fanfic bits in this one. My least favorite section (I find it tedious and dull).

The Story of Merlin - also one of the last sections to be written. Focuses on Merlin and his role in Arthur's conception, birth, and coronation. Also focuses on Arthur's early days as king, and some of his early knights (young Orkney brothers!), and Arthur's early relationship with Guinevere (back when things were really good between them).

Lancelot Proper (aka Le Roman de Lancelot, Lancelot propre, or just "Lancelot du Lac") - Lancelot's life and adventures (and everyone else's adventures that end up vaguely connected to him) from birth until… right before the Grail quest. Divided into 3-6 parts by modern scholars (Lacy divides it into 6, so that's what I'll be going with).

The Quest for the Holy Grail (La Queste del saint Graal) - My second-least-favorite section; it's less tedious and dull than the History, but it's such a departure from the tone of the rest of the Vulgate Cycle, and it feels like a text designed to convert people to Christianity (and that may indeed have been its intended purpose). It's possible that the tone shift might be because each sectio nhad a different translator, but I don't think that explains it sufficiently.

The Death of Arthur (La Mort Artu) - the most readable section, imho, and probably my favorite. It promptly unravels all the purity nonsense that Quest put into place (feels like when a show gets a new showrunner for a season, and then the old showrunner gets the reins back a season later and is doing damage control on all the weird turns that the interim showrunner took), Lancelot and Guinevere get back together, and the story leaps into intense drama and beautiful tragedy.

Then there's the Post-Vulgate, which is basically just a grimdark and more religious rewrite of the Vulgate, minus the Lancelot Proper. Lots more Grail focus. I don't know if I'll do a readthrough of it or not.

The specific translation notes in the Preface are fascinating, and I highly recommend them (I love translation notes), but the most relevant bit is this:

"…the translators have tried to steer a middle course. Our primary concern was to present a reliable and readable text to modern readers, but we have also made an effort to retain a certain number of the stylistic features of the Old French romances, provided those features were reasonably compatible with the characteristics of modern English usage.

Lacy warns the reader that the History of the Holy Grail has "a convoluted, dense style" far more than most texts of the period. (It's so tedious, do not recommend.) "The author appears to be far more concerned with substance and symbolism… than with concision and grace." They've cleaned up the text in some places but overall kept the characteristics of the style. If this is the more accessible version, I would not want to read a literal direct translation. D:

I’m going to start with The Story of Merlin and then come back to HotHG after Death of Arthur.

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2

Still on E. Jane Burns' Introduction to the Vulgate Cycle. It continues exploring the same basic thesis: the indefinable nature of the Vulgate, and the author(s) of and influences on the text.

"If the Vulgate’s textual genealogies demonstrate an obsession with origins that parallels that shared by Chapelain and Lot, they reveal simultaneously how, in the case of these narratives, the preoccupation with origins leads consistently to no verifiable authorial source. We are left rather with a plurality of authorial voices and competing subtexts that cannot be aligned in logical sequence. Credit for narrative invention falls on a cohort of fictive authors that range from the chivalric heroes who speak their adventures at King Arthur’s court to the Active dictator Merlin and his vernacular scriptor Blaise, to the bogus author/translator Walter Map, the storyteller Robert de Boron, and the oracular voice of Christ. Amid all these references to creators and their sources, both written and oral, no mention is made, curiously, of the actual textual antecedents for the Vulgate Cycle. Yet there are many."

Burns goes in depth on the textual antecedents, but it doesn't provide anything new to talk about for the purposes of these reading reaction posts, so I'll gloss over those.

preface | intro pt 1 | intro pt 2 | HHG

I've given up for now on the History of the Holy Grail, so let's move on to The Story of Merlin instead, translated by Rupert T. Pickens.

We get a lot of worldbuilding in this first chapter! Devil lore, Merlin lore, medieval Christian magic lore, and some of the cultural beliefs about women:

Things that make you vulnerable to devils: not crossing yourself before you get into or out of bed, sleeping in the dark ("a devil does not come willingly where light is"), being by yourself instead of in a crowd, and getting angry.

Women are seen as lustful, sexual beings ("We women are made for just one thing: taking our delight from men" - this comes up more later in the Vulgate Cycle).

Incubi live in the air, can have sex with humans if they're secretive about it, and can impregnate women.

Devils have the "art of knowing things that are done, said, and past." They're also cunning, intelligent, clever, and have good memories.

Merlin's mother is the eldest of 3 sisters (the middle of which is deceased before Merlin is born) and a brother (also dead).

Merlin is named after his maternal grandfather, who was driven to death by Merlin's incubus father.

Merlin was born extremely hairy, his midwives and mothers were very frightened of him from the moment of his birth, and he started speaking in full sentences at 18 months old.

Merlin is born with "the power and mind of a devil, and the cunning, because he was sired by one" (he gets to keep their craft, artifice, and their "intelligence and memory"). He also gets to keep the "devils' art of knowing things that are done, said, and past," and also gets the divine ability to know the future.

Because Merlin's mother was devout and repentant, because she "had not wanted or willed what had happened to her" (the incubus impregnating her while she slept), and because Merlin was baptized immediately after birth, he's protected from the influence of the devils. But God grants him their abilities, powers, and the additional divine power of prophecy. Cambion with the Cleric class, I guess?

Merlin defends his mother in court, and absolutely roasts the attendees and judges in the process. Reveals secrets and so on. It's all very courtroom TV show types of dramatic.

It starts at the beginning: with Merlin's conception and childhood. And the story of Merlin's conception starts further back than that, with the devils being upset about the whole Jesus thing, because apparently that involved freeing a bunch of people who were in hell.

This is a corner of theology that I'm less familiar with. (I went on a tangent about religion in Arthuriana at this point and made it into its own post.) It gets a little preachy in a weird way, kind of reminding me of Screwtape Letters (C. S. Lewis).