3 - A Question of Time: Romance and History

Summary

Stories and Histories

L’Estoire de Lancelot, as the epilogue of the Mort Artu seems to call the entire Lancelot-Grail Cycle, is indeed a long story. From its beginnings that merge with the origins of Christianity in the Holy Land under the Roman emperor Vespasian, to its end de vers Occident with the passing of Arthur in the year 542 at Avalon, what we tend to see as a ‘romance’ shares much of its action with what medieval readers probably would have not hesitated to call ‘history.’ In particular the stories of Utherpendragon, the account of Arthur's youth, the Saxon and Roman wars, and the treason of Mordred have all been told by ‘historians’ such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace. There is no doubt that the Lancelot-Grail draws on this historiographic model, at least in part, but it does so in order to create something entirely new.

Ostensibly historical, yet overtly merveilleux, the Lancelot-Grail Cycle shifts from story to history and combines the two modes of narration as well as the two kinds of source material. This is not unusual. In British, and especially Anglo-Norman historiography the dividing line between romance and chronicle has always been ill-defined, and the issue has not been neglected by scholars, but the fact is that it involves most of the early literary narratives in the vernacular that deal with historical matters. A prime example is Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie, which draws on sources that are unimpeachably ‘historical’: the reports of two ‘eye-witnesses’ recording the Trojan war in the most trustworthy manner imaginable – in Latin (originally Greek) prose.

In this particular context, it is worth remembering that the matter of Britain was not necessarily perceived as pure fiction, despite Jehan Bodel's early thirteenth-century claim that ‘Li conte de Bretaigne si sont vain et plaisant/ Et cil de Ronme sage et de sens aprendant.’ There is no need to search for the ‘historical’ Arthur, when manuscript compilation offers ample evidence that the Arthurian material was considered non-fiction. For example, the Brut is either preceded or directly followed by texts that are indisputably ‘historical,’ such as Geoffrey Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis, the chronicles of Pierre de Langtoft or Jordan Fantosme, genealogies, annals, etc. The Arthurian chronicles might therefore claim the same status as any historical text.