The History of the Arthurian Legends in Ten Easy Steps (with Recommended Reading)

[zahrawithaz]

There is no set canon. There never has been.

Unlike many other legends that have been retold repeatedly, there’s no unified original text for the stories about Arthur and his associates. Bear in mind that for most of their history, the Arthurian legends circulated orally and through manuscripts; just as oral traditions can vary over time, different

Comments

Probably more than you wanted to know about the Vulgate Cycle

[zahrawithaz]

So glad you appreciated! The differences between the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate can be incredibly confusing (made MUCH WORSE by the very confusing and varied names used for each part of the Cycles), and a lot of specialist literature sometimes collapses the distinction. (Part of the problem is that we don't have an entire surviving manuscript for the Post-Vulgate, just fragments.)

But I think each cycle is an important and distinct step in the evolution of the legends, especially if you're interested in the gradual vilification of Morgan le Fay. As you can probably tell from my summary, the legends began as largely secular stories and remained that way for many medieval centuries, and then in the 13th c the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate authors start to make them more overtly Christian. That's also the point at which certain characters, who had previously been wholly positive, become more morally dubious--Morgan is the obvious example, but it's also true of Gawain and many others (arguably including Guinevere).

FYI, it's thought that there was an "architect" of the Vulgate Cycle who planned out the plots for its three main sections--Lancelot, the Queste de Sant Graal, and the Mort le roi Artu--but that three different writers actually wrote them in the 1210s. And then other authors came along in the 1230s and wrote the Estoire de Sant Graal and Estoire de Merlin, which were then added on to the first three section to form parts 1 and 2 of the 5-part Cycle. What makes it even more confusing is that most of these parts contain assertions about who actually wrote them (everyone from actual historical figures who died before the texts were written, to fictional ones--the Merlin section is supposed to have been dictated by Merlin himself to his scribe Blaise), which we're now sure are made up in every case. It gets very confusing!