Le Morte D'Arthur (1485)

“The Death of Arthur”

written 1469-1470

by Sir Thomas Mallory (b.1450-d.1471)

We didn't always know who the author was, although we knew his name, Thomas Malory, and the editor's name, William Caxton. A professor at Harvard provided the evidence in 1896 that it was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel.

The reason this identity is interesting is that, in addition to being a soldier and a member of Parliament who fought at Calais, Malory had been imprisoned as a thief, bandit, kidnapper and rapist, which hardly seemed in keeping with the high chivalric standards of his book. Helen Cooper referred to his life as one that "reads more like an account of exemplary thuggery than chivalry." Mallory wrote the entire 800 page romance in a knight's prison, which was more like being locked in a hotel room with room service for the rest of your life.

By the time Thomas Malory sat down to write Le Morte D'Arthur (first published by Caxton in 1485), the characters of Arthur and his knights were already well-known in England.

In the ninth century, a monk-historian named Nennius gave the name Arthur to a sixth-century Roman-British general who waged some successful battles against invading Saxons, but the term "arthwyr" was the Celtic term in general for “prince”.

In any case, I stress that the stories of King Arthur are fictional, and based largely upon English legends and French literature.

During the 1100s, the French Normans who invaded England traced their ancestry back to Arthur, using that as an excuse for their reign in England.

In the beginning, these tales were mostly in French. Mallory relied on both English and French sources as he was writing Le Morte – except for the Tale of Sir Gareth, which is his own invention.

Potential Allegorical Meaning

England was knee-deep in the Wars of the Roses (1399-1485), a fight between rival groups, the Lancasters and the Yorks, who claimed the English throne. It's way too complicated to go into the whole story here, but what's important to keep in mind is that the War of the Roses was an internal and civil war, kind of like the one between the rival groups of Arthur's knights, so it's popularity at the time might have been as social commentary and allegorical examples.

The fact that you know who Arthur is in the first place is all thanks to Le Morte D'Arthur. That's because this book collected the numerous, scattered legends of the Arthurian tradition, from multiple languages, into one narrative in English.

The story is a Medieval romance, a term you should already have in your notes, about chivalry and heroism told in an episodic form. It is 21 books long, and our excerpts are only from Book 20 (Chapters 1-4 & 8-10) & Book 21 (Chapters 3-7 & 10-12).