#I have a lot of Vulgate feelings okay

[liminalpsych]

Queer reading of Vulgate pt 2: Intro pt 1

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…

…Well. That sounds like the very definition of queer.

[mordredpendragon]

For the arthuriana ask game: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🫅🏻😏💛💚

thank you so much <3

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Pick A Pelli Spawn (Percival, Aglovale, Tor, Lamorak, Aylane, Dindrane, Donar, ect)

PERCIVALSWEEP

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Okay Now You Can Talk About Orkneys

i need a retelling focused around them that's got the same energy as dostoevsky's the brothers karamazov. apart from henry newbolt's mordred, a tragedy, i haven't found something that really scratches the orkney brothers itch in the same way TBK does for complicated brother dynamics in general. there's a lot of potential here

anyway, i have a lot of thoughts on them as you can imagine. to me, the orkneys are like if cain and abel was split into 5 equally unhinged brothers. mordred is a unique case though.

🫅🏻 - already answered in my previous ask :p

😏 - gawain

if i said what i wanted to say tumblr would get my blog flagged. anyways.... i need him. there's a lot of really good gawains, i think people should get into perlesvaus though. yes the MC is percival but gawain is another POV there and he's so well fleshed out it's amazing. i love his friendship with percival

also i think everyone should read @queer-ragnelle's book when it comes out because her gawain is also a favorite of mine spot on 10/10 welcome back vulgate anonymous monk

💛A Sibling Group/Dynamic That IS NOT The Orkneys

there's a lot i could mention, but DEFINITELY lancelot and bors though. that's such an upcoming favorite for me they're soooo so good in vulgate death of arthur + BBC TLOKA. i think their dynamic is underutilized.

morgause and morgan as well. i love to see anything that expounds on arthurian women, but especially those two.

and this is kind of an oddball but mordred and sagramore? considering that sagramore was mordred's foster brother when mordred was brought up by the fisher family before being brough to court. i don't remember them having much interactions (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong) and that he ends up killing him during the battle at camlann.

💚 Favorite Quest/Story Arc

percival grail quest next question

jk. literally anything to do with percival and mordred is my favorite but those are such obvious answers lol. if i had to get specific, i'm especially fond of that time mordred and lancelot went to go questing in vulgate. probably think of it everyday and it's another underrated dynamic i really adore, i could honestly do a dissection of it if i wanted to bc there's a lot of details about it that i like.

my hc is that lancelot looks after mordred the same way he looks after gareth. kinda cute kinda fucked up! adds to the tragedy <3

[gringolet]

INTRO TO ARTHURIANA MASTERPOST

under the cut for absurd length

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH ARTHURIANA

The Arthuriana fandom is very broad and there's no one piece of media, which can be confusing for people just getting into it! There’s no right way to engage with arthuriana, and no minimum level of knowledge or reading you need to attain to qualify. 

The basis of the Arthurian Legend is a body of hundreds of texts written across the medieval and early Renaissance period in dozens of languages and cultural traditions. Which can seem pretty overwhelming, but there are a lot of modern vernacular translations-- you absolutely don’t have to learn old French or anything. I’ll go more in depth on where to get started with texts further down.

You also don’t have to read texts at all. As I said, there is no minimum basis-- if you prefer to engage with modern adaptations, or want to engage with medieval arthuriana outside of reading texts, that's also cool! 

In terms of modern adaptations there is a wealth of choices, which I am very much not an expert in lol, so I’m afraid I can’t give much in the way of reccs. Books I have heard good things about are, Exiled from Camelot, Idylls of the Queen, The Buried Giant, the Squire's Tale series, and Gawain by Gwen Rowley (warning that this one is apparently erotica? Good for him). I trust @princesslibs  for modern book reccomendations. and if you speak French Kaamelott is purportedly a very good tv show. Frankly no modern adaptation will ever be better than Spamalot to me, but that's just my personal take. 

If you are curious about engaging with texts but (understandably) don’t want to read a ton of dense medieval literature, one really cool resource is Norris J Lacy's New Arthurian Encyclopedia, which you can pick up at most used bookstores for under ten bucks. It’s a very thorough easy to look through reference of characters stories and texts. I know a lot of people like the Nightbringer wiki, though I personally am wary of it because it basically never cites sources. It’s a good quick reference though and a lot of people like it, I’d just take it with a grain of salt. Sparknotes also has a lot of summaries of the major texts like Le Morte D’Arthur and the romances of Chrétien De Troyes. You are not a fake fan for doing this I promise. And of course you’re always welcome to send me an ask <3 

Finally, getting started with texts. Quick glossary of terms:

--Verse Romance

    A verse (poem) story which can vary a great deal in length. These deal with the adventures of individual knights, usually Gawain, and tend to have a great deal of magical elements and the stereotypical monster slaying, questing, damosel rescuing knight adventures.

--Prose Novel or Romance

    A non poetic narrative, more like a modern novel, more likely to deal with the fall of Arthur, sword in the stone, Mordred, fall of Camelot sort of affair. They are usually quite long. Most famous of these are Le Morte D’Arthur and the French Vulgate, but there are a slew of late medieval Prose novels floating around. Eluding Rey.

--Pseudohistory

    I’m gonna b real these are boring I think. These are, as the name suggests, written as accurate depictions of history.  They very much are not, but they claim to be. Most famous of these is Jeffrey of Monmouth, Mr Jeff Mouth himself, and his History of the Kings of Britain, which I haven’t read because it bores me. You can if you want. It’s in Latin. Whatever. These tend to be some of the earliest texts, and include the “lives of saints” stories. Life of Gildas is the only funny one.

--Ballads

    These are only arguably texts, as most of them were written after the time of the “canon” being composed. But I like them. These are songs telling stories, recorded by people like Francis Child and Thomas Percy. They are very short and fun and include stories like The Boy and the Mantle, Kempion, and King Arthur and the King of Cornwall.

--Lai

    A specific type of French verse poem, usually quite short. The most famous collection of lais are those of Marie le France, including things like Bisclavret and Lanval. 

--Traditions

    Since Arthuriana was written all over, there are different literary traditions across time and space. The French tradition is one of the most famous, including works like the vulgate, Chretien and a lot of verse romances. The English tradition is one of the most influential on modern adaptations, including the Morte D’Arthur and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. There are also Welsh, German, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Tagalog, Greek, Belarussian, Scottish, Irish, Breton, and probably even more. There’s a lot. It’s very cool and sexy.

A note that there is also a big tradition of Victorian revival Arthuriana. I wrote a starter guide to that here, it’s all very fun and like, aesthetic. 

Alright, now, which texts do you start with?

If you’re a little intimidated by long texts or medieval lit, starting with short verse romances in modern translation is a great place to start. These include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is very good and gay and well known, Lancelot and the Hart With The White Foot, which is very good and gay and underappreciated, or Lanval, which is homophobic but funny. 

If you want to start with what is considered the oldest King Arthur Story, Culwch and Olwen is short and fun!

If you want to read about the grail quest, you can start where it started with Story of the Grail or Percival, then the four continuations, Essenbachs Parzival, the vulgate version of the Grail quest which you can buy paperback for like 5 bucks (I can also scan my copy for you just shoot me an ask <3)

If you want to read about the fall of camelot, I have the Vulgate death of Arthur section scanned here. There’s also the Alliterative and Stanzaic mortes, which are in middle English. I have scanned Simon Armitage's Alliterative Morte translation here. I’m working on my own translation of the Stanzaic but it’s not done lol. If you want the first third or so DM me lol. King Artus is very short and readable and it’s a Jewish text which is really cool.

If you want to read about Lancelot, Chrétien de Troyes Lancelot is his first text. He also has a whole long vulgate section, the first part is scanned here by val <3, and there's Lanzelet,  Sebile is in it so it’s probably very good. He’s also basically the main character of Le Morte D’Arthur which I might as well talk about here uhm. It’s long and fun in places and boring in others but it does have like the version most modern adaptations take from and tells the whole story of Arthur and Camelot from beginning to end. The Keith Baines version scanned by val is the most readable but it is an abridgement I believe. people who like le morte usually read this version so its probably the best choice lol

If you want to read about Gawain, good news! He’s in basically everything. Even texts that aren’t supposed to be about Gawain are doomed to become The Gawain Show Featuring The Protagonist Of This Text As A Sidekick. Which is so funny of him. The Roman Van Walewein is very funny and long and Gawain™. I also recommend, L’atre Perilous, Diu Krone, Sir Gawain and the Turk, and I could go on but for brevity's sake let's start there. 

If you want to read about Tristan, go shoot an ask to Valentine @lanzelet on tumblr because Tristan scares me. 

Thank you to rey @gawain-in-green for helping me find links and put this together! They are also a super great resource for stuff and very cool and nice <3 They have a tag on their blog for full text resources so deffo look at that if you want more scans and links, and an info tag and tons of cool shit that is way better organized than my blog lol

Okay finishing this off, if you want content warnings for any texts, feel free to shoot an ask! I know medieval lit can be A Lot and there aren’t a lot of good warning systems, so if I’ve read it or know someone who has I can give you warnings if you want to read something but are understandably wary . <3

In terms of tagging, Arthuriana and Arthurian Legend are the main ones on tumblr. Arthurian Mythology is also used but tbh shouldn’t be. On Ao3, we’re trying to get our own Arthurian Literature tag but <3 its a whole thing. Anyway the tag is Arthurian Mythology, but I’ll b real, it’s kind of flooded with stuff that doesn’t really belong there, because even though it’s a fandom tag other people unknowingly tag stuff as Arthurian Mythology when it’s like, a knight au. Which is not their fault bc it’s confusing but, ah, alas. ANyhow, feel free to drop in my inbox anytime with questions, suggestions, reccs, etc!

Okay godspeed!! Have fun reading, watching, browsing, etc! 

[tillman]

Hi! I just found your bog and I love it so much. I've been taking an arthurian lit class recently and I will say the fandom was a bit of a shocker, so your posts were a nice relief. I was wondering what you meant in your post where you said people think Lancelot is a slutty/vapid bimbo? Honestly I don't see many people talking about Lancelot (aside from you and Gringolet) and I haven't seen that. (Also since it's obvious I backread your blog, sorry about the weird drama.)

woa hi thank u ! and 8oe4trh39052857 its okay thank u fr the thoughts. this is gonna be really weird and kinda all over the place deeply sorry i think about this topic a lot and genuinely it upsets me in a lot of regards. 

uhhhhhh okay this is a very big issue with not just the arthurian fandom but also with a lot of modern shit apparently which is baffling to me. anyways theres this really weird compulsion for modern authors to make lancelot into basically the stereotypical ........ asshole standoffish stupid “vapid whore” kind of character? which 

1) is just so much more boring than lancelot in the texts. like im sorry but lancelot is one of the most nuanced and interesting characters in med lit and reducing him to star quarterback who is a slut is just lame and cringe and im going to bully you for it. its stupid and i dont think you should be writing lancelot if you write him like that. 

2) SUPER disrespectful if you actually look at who lancelot is as a character. is a victim of sexual abuse and as an exploration of what it means to be a good knight. (theres also a lot about masculinity in his character but im not turning this into a “lancelot is a trans guy” rant so). I just think to call a canon victim of sexual abuse a slut and a whore for “sleeping around” is gross. the opposite goes the same ive seen him called a “loser turbo virgin” ...... also doesnt sit well at all. just fucking THINK about how you refer to characters even a little bit. 

i feel like a lot of modern authors and hell even people in the fandom tend to just read a summary of KOTC and that lancelot is the best knight and then think his entire character is a) his relationship with guenevere and b) Being the best knight which r both entirely untrue. this is i personally think a bigger issue w guenevere in terms of loss of character but the point still stands for lancelot that their romance is made the only thing discussed at all about these two characters when both of them are WAY more nuanced. Lancleot in particular, his relationship with guenevere explains who he is as a person but is NOT the only thing ... to him. him being a knight of the round is also such a small part of who he is as a person i thikn its honestly easy to not even associate him WITH the round yet they are intrinsically linked in modern media and fandom. (hell look at the vulgate he was explicitly forced to join the round and spends as much time as possible avoiding it) 

theres aslo this really weird modern thing that comes from im pretty sure TH White of having lancelot only interested in guenevere to get closer to arthur. which is almost ALWAYS used as another “haha what a SLUT” angle but also on another hand is just haha weird considering lancelot doesnt.... like.... arthur and arthur explicitly says a shit ton in the texts that he loves lancelot as a son so that is uhm weird. and totally completely makes guenevere just a stepping point for lancelot to get to his “twu wuv <3″ which just feels fucking gross. like god i think lancelot and guenevere r better as friends than in love but you have to understand lancelot TRULY does love guenevere. as a friend or as more doesnt MATTER. his devotion is a key aspect of his charatcer.

anyways its just a weird weird trend which completely ... i think ruins the point of lancelot as a character. hes a weirdo. hes a crybaby mommas boy who is always described as overtly polite and kind. he loves with his entire heart but he is so scared of being hurt he only loves a few close people and is fully unable to branch out from that. he hates talking to people who arent those few and usually will have to have guenevere or gawain or galehaut to talk FOR him in most social situations. he is described as beautiful in an explicitly feminine way, going against modern notions of masculinity and the “best knight” yet he still... is the best knight. despite being weird and fucked up. he enjoys being a good knight and he strives to meet peoples expectations for him AS the knight of someone hes so devoted to. i think reducing him to some “bimbo” (real word ive seen used for him!) type vapid “whore” completely goes against what makes lancelot actually..... interesting. 

wahtever i hope that made any sense thank u anon 

[321hanz]

Alright I literally just read the last line of the first part of the Vulgate so it’s funny post time.

For continuity sake, lets start off with Kay. So he’s there and still a douche but he doesn’t almost kill a dog so at least he’s improving. We love to see growth. Anyways, Kay: 0 The Dutch: like 38, sorry Kay maybe you’ll finally win next time.

I think the Vulgate can be best summarized by “noooo Lancelot aha doooon’t you’re so sexy <3″ and then he commits murders for the sake of women. Dream man. Anyways, LANCELOT. Wow okay I’m a little bit in love with him, but I think it’s because he’s dumb. Like he’s smart but he’s so dumb there’s rocks up in that head of his and every time they hit each other he kills a random knight for looking in his direction. Also, horrifying but I found out that he’s either a Gemini or a Cancer and if he IS a cancer I might have to mind-wipe myself because I can’t associate with another cancer. It will break me. BUT MURDER! Let’s talk about that!

Besides the fact that Lancelot has some stockholm syndrome to deal with, he’s definitely got some self esteem issues. He’s like the gifted child/honors student stereotype where his life is built around proving his worth and being the best and that’s become his personality and now he just doesn’t know what to do. So he kills people. Which like, sure but also you are barely 19 maybe go take a nap and do your calculus homework?

BESIDES THAT! Let’s get into some highlights of the Vulgate. Lancelot has unlocked a level of gender that I wish I possessed. Please sir spare your gender. This is one of my favorite aspects of Lancelot because it’s really interesting how he has a lot of “feminine” attributes but that’s still considered the best part of him. Idk I just really like it. And the way his angry eyes are described....Lancelot sans undertale???? ALSO I think his interactions with women is really interesting, especially given that he was raised by a single mom and surrounded by women basically. I feel like him being helpful towards women isn’t so much about being romantically in love with them so much as maybe having a better understanding and respect for them? I’d let him hold my drink.

AND THE GRAVESTONE NAME REVEAL??? Ouchie!!! That definitely fucked him up lmao!!!! I really liked Dolorous Guard and I wish more came out of it because it was so spooky and haunted. Sigh.... the gothic literature potential.

Final thing I will talk about is that scene where Gawain realizes that the knight is Lancelot and smiles and then Guinevere pulls him away to gossip. Gay shit thank you

[studywurfavwasian]

wassup homies

so i’m officially done my first year (still feel like i’m in high school though) and my summer plans are looking very academically oriented :)

i want to get through tons of classics this summer. i’m currently reading the brothers karamazov by dostoyevsky and oh my god i love it! if you like philosophy then you’d probably love this book so i highly recommend (to be honest, i have no idea what’s going on but that’s what spark notes is for). i’d like to read all of dostoyevsky’s work because i’m vibing with it, and so that’s sort of my current plan.

i’m participating in a latin reading group (voluntarily — i know) with my professor and another guy from my class. i’m not sure why i’m doing this but i’m excited because i’ll get to brush up on my skills and form a closer relationship with my prof who is so funny and has a really cute cat named mango :) we are going to read the latin vulgate (bible) and compare it to ovid and the metamorphosis which is super cool and exciting!!

i’m also (hopefully) participating in a writing summer camp for youth hosted by the young writers initiative! i’m really looking forward to it — i hope i get in lol — and i think it’ll be really helpful in terms of honing my writing skills (i’m not very good but that’s okay, you can always get better). i’m scared too because i suck at taking criticism and feedback (like i’m so bad at it guys i always take it so personally) but i think it’s important for me to continue to expose myself and take opportunities. i can’t live in fear forever, and i’m tired of being restrained by this fear of being wrong in a kind of way. i’m glad i’m aware of it, and i’m working towards becoming someone who is more resilient :)

oh also might mess around and do an analysis on the ethics of war in the avengers movies, learn some greek (bc i need to learn it in the fall), and maybe write my second book. OH ALSO i’m learning german for my book (yes i am learning an entire language in case i ever want to use actual german in my book because one of my characters is from germany and can speak some german — yes i have a friend who speaks german, yes i would much rather learn an entire language than ask my friend for help with translating) and WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT I DONT UNDERSTAND

anyway, i hope you are all doing well! take care.

lots of love,

miyuki

[queer-ragnelle]

Can I just--Malory not describing anything ever was the single most frustrating part of that book. Like, the only description we ever get of anyone is to acknowledge that Lancelot and Tristan are both "big" which sure, I mean they do excel at knocking people off horses, but what does that mean? Plus, yes omg the ages thing. How old is anyone at any time? And he also loves to contradict himself and then trail off without finishing stories. I mean its interesting, but god was that rough

Bro! I know. Like I have the Vulgate now which gave me some much-needed clarity on a lot of things but also the timeline is whack like Lancelot younger than Mordred? I hate that! Rejected!

So like even with the details I will sometimes choose to ignore them but at least I have a clearer picture of dynamics like for example the grail quest. Bors is older than Percival and Galahad but by how much? Is it like a babysitter role in that he’s older by a little or is it fatherly? It’s impossible to tell because Malory not only excluded all the personal details but Galahad, who was already pretty stoic in the Vulgate, is now about as interesting as almond in Le Morte, so the dynamic between him and the other two is completely lost.

And like the dynamic between Gawain/Lancelot is super hard for me to wrap my mind around because in Malory they seem more like peers and even have a lot of homoerotic tension at the end there with the whole forgiveness letter in blood thing (Malory bro are you okay?) but then in the vulgate turns out Gawain is WAY older and that throws me off. It seems most modern adaptions or even some medieval ones (even without specifics, just implied more than Malory as it is in de Troyes where they’re kinda bros) bring them closer together so they can truly be on equal footing in maturity and skill levels rather than having age gaps that make no sense.

But even on a completely creative level divorced of the practicality, I like to picture them. We all have a mental image, because the legend is so prevalent in our culture at this point, but I still like to have some flourish to embellish the story and immerse me! Part of the fun is that Gawain is SO short in canon and still a great knight or that Mordred actually looks exactly like Arthur, tall and blonde and handsome rather than dark and broody like modern depictions, not to mention the wealth of queer-coding we get from physical descriptions alone on top of the multitude of interactions and nuances Le Morte is lacking. Having that detail makes the characters feel alive. Malory reads like a synopsis, which I suppose it is, but it confuses me too much to enjoy it.

Here is one of many, many Lancelot descriptions from the vulgate. We get a ton of detail plus a definitive age as well as a nod to the elapsed time so we are kept on track as we read and not wondering “when” the fuck we are. Also! Short Gawain! You could pick this apart so much, it’s wonderful. Wish we had some of this in other texts.

[exercise-of-trust]

le morte d’arthur readalong notes, book 6

i am very fond of lancelot, really i am, i just wish malory weren't quite so obvious in the narration which knights he likes best. it tends to make me like them less. i like lancelot! but i would like him more if i didn't have malory singing his praises nonstop

...is the vulgate the thing i have to read if i want to understand what the fuck is going on with lancelot's family tree? i'm still new to this and still very confused

okay t h white is a coward for omitting the kissing in the whole mess of lancelot crashing in belleus's pavilion and almost killing him. that makes the story so much better, holy shit

i realize it's absolutely ridiculous for me to expect any kind of timeline consistency here, but i feel obliged to point out that unless time has been passing in really, really weird ways, it seems a bit of a stretch for mordred to be a knight yet, and yet here he is?

"and sir mordred brake a spear upon him, and sir launcelot gave him such a buffet that the arson of his saddle brake, and so he flew over his horse's tail, that his helm butted into the earth a foot and more, that nigh his neck was broken, and there he lay long in a swoon" i fully acknowledge the futility of asking this, but at this particular point in the already dubious flow of this timeline is this in any way a reasonable - oh never mind. i fucking give up.

for all the rumors that are apparently circulating about lancelot and guinevere and how they're so obviously in love with each other, we still haven't gotten any proper on-page interaction between them and i don't know if malory is trying to build suspense or if he just doesn't think it's important but i really, really wish he would stop presenting us with conclusions before he's gotten around to the evidence part

it's really difficult for me to be objective about the lancelot of the text? because t h white rewrote so many of these lancelot stories so closely to the originals, and malory gives so little information about what's actually going on in lancelot's head that it's very difficult not to just project all of the extra modern complexity onto him just for a break from all of the monotone rescuing

this last point ended up being way too long to fit in the list format so it gets its own paragraphs. i keep trying to write out what, specifically, is bothering me about it, without much luck, so i’m just going to leave some disjointed thoughts here and hope they make sense to other people, or they’re enough of a reference for me to rewrite from later when i feel like a human being again.

so, i don't really like what lancelot does in the whole incident where he takes out the three knights pursuing kay, and makes them surrender to kay, and runs off with kay's armor in the middle of the night. because, and i think this might just be a side effect of too much rosemary sutcliff as background noise during last night's knitting vigil from hell, it feels like a kind of fundamental stomping all over kay's pride? thats not quite right but it’s close. anyway a lot of sutcliff's writing focuses on relationships built around people standing on their dignity to varying degrees, but a common theme is "some people will not thank you for helping them, even when you are able to fix the thing in question, because you will have hurt their pride."

and with malory it's weird because he seems perfectly fine with young knights taking on challenges too big for them and then refusing to back down because Honor and Chivalry and also pride, and he also seems to attach some degree of moral value and, again, Honor, to things like "number of times you've been knocked off your horse" or "number of fights you've won/lost." basically, whether, and to whom, and under what circumstances you yield all seem to be Important, in some way that seems at least partly connected to your honor and reputation as a knight. but malory doesn't have a problem with lancelot making decisions about that kind of thing for other people; kay doesn't get a choice in whether or not he's credited with the defeat of the three knights who came after him, or any of the other knights lancelot defeated in his armor. and malory doesn't even tell us how kay feels about the situation, because the story is about lancelot, and lancelot is the hero, and therefore all his decisions are good ones. disregard any concerns you may have about the agency or desires of other individuals involved i guess.

(there’s a 20% chance i’m onto something here and an 80% chance i’m going to reread this later and think “what the blithering fuck” so we’ll just have to see how that shakes out)

[gringolet]

I'm curious what makes you ship gawain and lancelot in the first place?

shulregahlugrahugr okay… look….

short answer: I just think they’re neat and should hold hands

LONG ANSWER:

it just seems like they just genuinely really care about each other even though they’re in some ways very different, like they’re technically rivals right, because at least in vulgate and (kinda) la morte de arthur, lancelot is the best with gawain a close second, but they never seem all that competitive.

especially in chretiens kngiht of the cart where they have this whole like buddy cop thing going on, where lancelot is younger and more impulsive and emotional and gawain is like just sort of along for the ride, stopping lancelot from falling out of windows and sleeping wierd places. then lancelot gets captured and has this whole. deeply homoerotic monologue about why gawain hasnt rescued him yet.  here is is:

“Ah, Gawain, you who possess suchworth, and whose goodness is unparalleled, surely I may well be amazed that you do not come tosuccour me. Surely you delay too long and are not showing courtesy. He ought indeed to receive youraid whom you used to love so devotedly! For my part I may truly say that there is no lodging place or retreat on either side of the sea, where I would not have searched for you at least seven or ten yearsbefore finding you, if I knew you to be in prison. But why do I thus torment myself? You do not carefor me even enough to take this trouble. The rustic is right when he says that it is hard nowadays to finda friend! It is easy to rest the true friend in time of need. Alas! more than a year has passed since first Iwas put inside this tower. I feel hurt, Gawain, that you have so long deserted me! But doubtless youknow nothing of all this, and I have no ground for blaming you. Yes, when I think of it, this must be thecase, and I was very wrong to imagine such a thing; for I am confident that not for all the worldcontains would you and your men have failed to come to release me from this trouble and distress, ifyou were aware of it. If for no other reason, you would be bound to do this out of love for me, yourcompanion. But it is idle to talk about it – it cannot be. “ 

basically sitting in a tower moping playing ‘he loves me, he loves me not,’ so thats certainly a lot, lets move on to the vulgate, where gawain pretty infamously says the following about lancelot:

“I’d immediately wish to be the most beautiful maiden in the world, happy and healthy, on condition that he would love me above all others, all his life and mine,”

so. theres that.

the main reason is deffo the end tho, where gawain gets fully unhinged and keeps trying to cut of lancelots head, which sounds wild but like lemme explain.

so lancelot and gawain fight and its really close, but eventually lancelot wins. gawain refuses to yield though, so lance now has to choose between killing gawain, which will also end the war and solve a lot of his problems, and dishonorably leaving the field, prolonging the war and shaming himself. its worth noting that gawain is literally begging lancelot to kill him at this point. but lancelot cant bring himself to do it, and returns to his cousins in shame.

theyre like dude what the fuck, and he says uh some things which speak for themselves:

“he would have killed you if he could,” said Hector, “Why did you not do the same to him?”

“I could not do it,” said Lancelot, “because my heart, which directs me, would not allow it for anything,”

and

“I should not kill him for all the world…he is the man, out of all those in the world that have meant anything to me, that I have most loved,”

and 

“it is certainly remarkable of you, “said King Bors, “to love him so deeply when he hates you mortally,”

“find it remarkable if you wish,” replied Lancelot, “but he will never be able to hate me so much that I stop loving him.”

fuck oh god i made myself sad holy shit. guys they love each other. god this post is so long but like. feel free to send me asks about them when fuckin ever i will drop everything to talk about how much i think these two medieval literature characters should kiss.

[djemsostylist]

Oh my god you should not offer me that power--but can I request Percival?  

I’ve never really had an opinion on Gaheris either way (he was always sort of the forgotten brother to me) but I was always interested in more of Agravaine’s motivations, even if he was never my favorite (that honor goes to Gareth, which I feel like is obvious but *shrug*).  I think that is what I’m looking for in Vulgate, at least to come degree, motivation.  Malory and even de Troyes have things which happen to characters but there is isn’t really a reason for it...it just is. 

I do love love Elaine and Lancelot.  Malory does a truly horrible job with both Elaine’s (I prefer a hybrid).  The Elaine that was in the 1957 Knights of the Round table was actually my favorite interpretation, lol.  And with Guinevere it’s hard, because I always really want to like her--I mean, there has to be some sort of reason both Lancelot and Arthur love her besides just, “she’s pretty” right?  I like that she can be petty and a little judgemental, but Knight of the Cart and Malory just make her so completely unlikeable, like.  I mean I think of a lot of that is that in order to make Lancelot ~perfect Malory had to make other characters awful, which, I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive.  Howard Pyle did pretty okay at making her likable but flawed, I think.  

Also, yes, can we please get a good movie adaptation of Gawain and Ragnell or just Gawain. I know we do have a new Gawain movie coming out but tbh it looks so serious and it’s like, Gawain for me has always just been a bundle of joy and not angst like every other Arthurian character?  Or maybe that is just me?

Can I just--Malory not describing anything ever was the single most frustrating part of that book. Like, the only description we ever get of anyone is to acknowledge that Lancelot and Tristan are both "big" which sure, I mean they do excel at knocking people off horses, but what does that mean? Plus, yes omg the ages thing. How old is anyone at any time? And he also loves to contradict himself and then trail off without finishing stories. I mean its interesting, but god was that rough

Bro! I know. Like I have the Vulgate now which gave me some much-needed clarity on a lot of things but also the timeline is whack like Lancelot younger than Mordred? I hate that! Rejected!

So like even with the details I will sometimes choose to ignore them but at least I have a clearer picture of dynamics like for example the grail quest. Bors is older than Percival and Galahad but by how much? Is it like a babysitter role in that he’s older by a little or is it fatherly? It’s impossible to tell because Malory not only excluded all the personal details but Galahad, who was already pretty stoic in the Vulgate, is now about as interesting as almond in Le Morte, so the dynamic between him and the other two is completely lost.

And like the dynamic between Gawain/Lancelot is super hard for me to wrap my mind around because in Malory they seem more like peers and even have a lot of homoerotic tension at the end there with the whole forgiveness letter in blood thing (Malory bro are you okay?) but then in the vulgate turns out Gawain is WAY older and that throws me off. It seems most modern adaptions or even some medieval ones (even without specifics, just implied more than Malory as it is in de Troyes where they’re kinda bros) bring them closer together so they can truly be on equal footing in maturity and skill levels rather than having age gaps that make no sense.

But even on a completely creative level divorced of the practicality, I like to picture them. We all have a mental image, because the legend is so prevalent in our culture at this point, but I still like to have some flourish to embellish the story and immerse me! Part of the fun is that Gawain is SO short in canon and still a great knight or that Mordred actually looks exactly like Arthur, tall and blonde and handsome rather than dark and broody like modern depictions, not to mention the wealth of queer-coding we get from physical descriptions alone on top of the multitude of interactions and nuances Le Morte is lacking. Having that detail makes the characters feel alive. Malory reads like a synopsis, which I suppose it is, but it confuses me too much to enjoy it.

Here is one of many, many Lancelot descriptions from the vulgate. We get a ton of detail plus a definitive age as well as a nod to the elapsed time so we are kept on track as we read and not wondering “when” the fuck we are. Also! Short Gawain! You could pick this apart so much, it’s wonderful. Wish we had some of this in other texts.

[djemsostylist]

Ah, you got a physical Vulgate.  I’ve been eyeing one for a while, but it’s pricey, lol.  I’ll probably start with a few volumes and then go from there.  I appreciate the link--I didn’t think to look on the internet archive. I was super into Arthur as a kid/teen and I read a lot of iterations of Malory and de Troyes stories (rewritten and often “simplified”), but I’ve recently been getting back in and I want more original sources, not rewritten and compiled ones.  

I’ve kinda always pictured the ages pretty much the same.  I mean, I guess if you treat it like a mythology, then ages don’t matter and everyone is just some nebulous age of “not too old” but I like to frame things in a way that makes more sense.  I NEVER pictured Bors as the youngest, that is so crazy to me.  Like, he always had older vibes, both with Lancelot and with the younger Grail kids, lol.  I do like Percival being younger--I always sort of pictured him being 10ish years older than the Galahad generation and about 10ish younger than the Arthur generation, so he sort of exists in this space where he is everyone’s kid brother?  

And yeah, Malory is real fast and lose with time frames, but the Grail Quest I always assumed had to be longer than like, the year Malory made it seem.  Otherwise, again, it’s not that much of a tragedy?  It’s honestly the one bit of Vulgate I’m most excited about--I’ve always had a soft spot for both Galahad and Percival, and both of them feel like after thoughts in Malory and, therefore, in pretty much anything based on his work.  Pyle did better with both of them, and I liked how he worked their relationship with Bors.  

Honestly, reading Malory was like reading Tolkien, “fair of face” means literally fucking nothing JRR, and “dark hair” is like--gee thanks.  I LOVED the passages you linked--thank god for medieval monks and their desire to obsessively record things tbh.  That Lancelot description is the best thing I had read in a long time.  And honestly, it’s not even just the physical descriptions either--I mean, I do love to actually have an image in my head that gives me a good idea of what everyone looks like (especially when we have 18 Yvains) but I also appreciate the notes on character as well.  Like, I’ve always liked the Orkney clan, and this description of Gawain is really fantastic.  

That’s a really interesting take on Mordred in Vulgate.  Tbh it definitely works better than any version I’ve read so far (and yes, I tried TH White once and I couldn’t stomach it, blech) and I sort of like the parellels with Igraine and Uther.  I just have always like the Orkney’s for some reason, and it struck me in Malory how weird he was about making them all evil (even Gawain, which like, he can be a little bit of a dumbass sometime, but actively jumping and murdering Lamerok was like...okay?) I agree with a lot of your thoughts that you reject--I always sort of had this idea of the Orkneys sort of being the “ideal family” but with flaws?  Like, I guess I sort of imagined Agravaine and Gawain were never especially close, but that was more due to a difference in personality than any hatred on Gawain’s part--he just got along better with Gaheris/Gareth.  (And yeah, it was really weird in Malory how totally okay they were with murder?  Like, Morgause gets murdered by Gaheris and everyone is like, oh, shame.)  Morgause to me always represented sort of the “ideal mother/queen” so having her randomly fuck Arthur for no reason in the beginning of Malory was like--well okay then.  

Thank you for the suggestion of the modern versions as well.  I am working my way through medevial texts, but I would eventually like to move into some more modern interpretations that don’t just use character names attached to characters which bare little to no resemblance to the actual Arthurian characters themselves.  Especially the women--Guinevere is pretty unlikable in Malory and de Troyes, and it’s like, I think you can make her complicated without making her a self-centered pain the ass who doesn’t really add anything to the story other than “she’s in love with Lancelot.”  And I’ve ALWAYS had a soft spot for Gawain and Ragnell, and I would love to read other versions with them!  Also, I was dying at this (*slaps Marion Zimmer Bradley with a newspaper* no not you!)  because YES.  I read MOA like, maybe 15 or more years ago when I was a teenager, but adult me is not really about that so...

I will probably be hitting you up for more thoughts and ideas and debate, it’s been a while since I have submerged myself in Arthur and I’m loving it again.   

Can I just--Malory not describing anything ever was the single most frustrating part of that book. Like, the only description we ever get of anyone is to acknowledge that Lancelot and Tristan are both "big" which sure, I mean they do excel at knocking people off horses, but what does that mean? Plus, yes omg the ages thing. How old is anyone at any time? And he also loves to contradict himself and then trail off without finishing stories. I mean its interesting, but god was that rough

Bro! I know. Like I have the Vulgate now which gave me some much-needed clarity on a lot of things but also the timeline is whack like Lancelot younger than Mordred? I hate that! Rejected!

So like even with the details I will sometimes choose to ignore them but at least I have a clearer picture of dynamics like for example the grail quest. Bors is older than Percival and Galahad but by how much? Is it like a babysitter role in that he’s older by a little or is it fatherly? It’s impossible to tell because Malory not only excluded all the personal details but Galahad, who was already pretty stoic in the Vulgate, is now about as interesting as almond in Le Morte, so the dynamic between him and the other two is completely lost.

And like the dynamic between Gawain/Lancelot is super hard for me to wrap my mind around because in Malory they seem more like peers and even have a lot of homoerotic tension at the end there with the whole forgiveness letter in blood thing (Malory bro are you okay?) but then in the vulgate turns out Gawain is WAY older and that throws me off. It seems most modern adaptions or even some medieval ones (even without specifics, just implied more than Malory as it is in de Troyes where they’re kinda bros) bring them closer together so they can truly be on equal footing in maturity and skill levels rather than having age gaps that make no sense.

But even on a completely creative level divorced of the practicality, I like to picture them. We all have a mental image, because the legend is so prevalent in our culture at this point, but I still like to have some flourish to embellish the story and immerse me! Part of the fun is that Gawain is SO short in canon and still a great knight or that Mordred actually looks exactly like Arthur, tall and blonde and handsome rather than dark and broody like modern depictions, not to mention the wealth of queer-coding we get from physical descriptions alone on top of the multitude of interactions and nuances Le Morte is lacking. Having that detail makes the characters feel alive. Malory reads like a synopsis, which I suppose it is, but it confuses me too much to enjoy it.

Here is one of many, many Lancelot descriptions from the vulgate. We get a ton of detail plus a definitive age as well as a nod to the elapsed time so we are kept on track as we read and not wondering “when” the fuck we are. Also! Short Gawain! You could pick this apart so much, it’s wonderful. Wish we had some of this in other texts.

[djemsostylist]

So, I’ve been sort of working my way backwards through Arthur.  I started with Howard Pyle, which was a fucking delight, tbh, but everyone is Pyle is just a little too perfect.  I just finished Malory and I’ve been kinda mixing in de Troyes (Malory has absolutely nothing on de Troyes in terms of randomness and side quests, whew) and now I’m moving into Tennyson and Monmouth.  I would LOVE to read Vulgate--you wouldn’t happen to have any good links to a copy would you?

The timeline is the crazy thing to me.  Lancelot’s age seems to fluctuate wildly, but I agree that making him younger than Mordred is very what?  Like, I always pictured him at least a little younger than Arthur, but decades younger than the original crew seems...weirdly out of place?  And Bors is another one I can’t get a feel for, but that mostly has to do with how old Galahad is?  Because he pops up fully formed at like, 16? maybe, and Percival has been a knight for a while (I think) which puts him in his 30s maybe, and Bors seems to have been around from close to the beginning, so maybe more of a Dad role?  Although Malory’s take on Bors is weird honestly, and he almost completely ignores Percival until the grail quest.  Does anyone care about Galahad?  

Which, not to go down another road here, but that is one thing that has been lacking so far for me, is the set up and pay off.  Like, Seat Perilous is a Big Thing but then Galahad shows up and everyone is like okay cool, and then three days later he goes on the Grail Quest and dies.  So like..

Also, Vulgate having Gawain being way older than Lancelot blows my mind tbh.  Like, de Troyes definitely seems to set them up as contemporaries/equals (or at least that is how I read it) and Malory does the same, although Malory does this thing where he sets up their relationship in the beginning, then spends 2/3 of the rest of the book talking about how close Lancelot and Tristan and Lamerok are, and then wraps up by going back to Gawain and Lancelot’s friendship and their ending (which yeah, that letter in blood was a thing).  Malory meanders a lot.  

And yeah, I agree.  I like having some sort of picture in my head, even to just get a feel for the character, but the sources I’ve read so far are like “he was a man.”  I LOVE the idea that Gawain is short in canon, that is beautiful honestly, especially since Lancelot is a mini giant apparently.  I also didn’t know about the description of Mordred.  It actually works a lot better (I’ve never really understood “sinister” Mordred because if he was that sketchy, why would Arthur even keep him around?).    

And not to tangent again, but Malory’s whole thing with his birth is...bizarre to say the least.  He’s like, “yeah, anyway Gawain’s mom came to Camelot and seduced Arthur and then she left and had his baby” and it is...literally never mentioned again.  Like, Gawain and co get all mad that Lamerok is sleeping with Morgause, but not that she had Arthur’s baby??

Thank you for that description of Lancelot!  I really need to read Vulgate--I feel like it will fill in a lot of gaps. 

Also, I love that you said you like having details, even if you sometimes ignore them, because same.  I mean, there are something for me which are sort of in enough things to be “set in stone” even if I don’t love love it, but there are a lot of things which I like one version of over another.  

Can I just--Malory not describing anything ever was the single most frustrating part of that book. Like, the only description we ever get of anyone is to acknowledge that Lancelot and Tristan are both "big" which sure, I mean they do excel at knocking people off horses, but what does that mean? Plus, yes omg the ages thing. How old is anyone at any time? And he also loves to contradict himself and then trail off without finishing stories. I mean its interesting, but god was that rough

Bro! I know. Like I have the Vulgate now which gave me some much-needed clarity on a lot of things but also the timeline is whack like Lancelot younger than Mordred? I hate that! Rejected!

So like even with the details I will sometimes choose to ignore them but at least I have a clearer picture of dynamics like for example the grail quest. Bors is older than Percival and Galahad but by how much? Is it like a babysitter role in that he’s older by a little or is it fatherly? It’s impossible to tell because Malory not only excluded all the personal details but Galahad, who was already pretty stoic in the Vulgate, is now about as interesting as almond in Le Morte, so the dynamic between him and the other two is completely lost.

And like the dynamic between Gawain/Lancelot is super hard for me to wrap my mind around because in Malory they seem more like peers and even have a lot of homoerotic tension at the end there with the whole forgiveness letter in blood thing (Malory bro are you okay?) but then in the vulgate turns out Gawain is WAY older and that throws me off. It seems most modern adaptions or even some medieval ones (even without specifics, just implied more than Malory as it is in de Troyes where they’re kinda bros) bring them closer together so they can truly be on equal footing in maturity and skill levels rather than having age gaps that make no sense.

But even on a completely creative level divorced of the practicality, I like to picture them. We all have a mental image, because the legend is so prevalent in our culture at this point, but I still like to have some flourish to embellish the story and immerse me! Part of the fun is that Gawain is SO short in canon and still a great knight or that Mordred actually looks exactly like Arthur, tall and blonde and handsome rather than dark and broody like modern depictions, not to mention the wealth of queer-coding we get from physical descriptions alone on top of the multitude of interactions and nuances Le Morte is lacking. Having that detail makes the characters feel alive. Malory reads like a synopsis, which I suppose it is, but it confuses me too much to enjoy it.

Here is one of many, many Lancelot descriptions from the vulgate. We get a ton of detail plus a definitive age as well as a nod to the elapsed time so we are kept on track as we read and not wondering “when” the fuck we are. Also! Short Gawain! You could pick this apart so much, it’s wonderful. Wish we had some of this in other texts.