Malory's grail legend

I occurs to me I should do something about writing down the Welsh 'Peredur' and the Chretien versions of the grail legends as well, since this one is substantially different (i.e., Lancelot plays a part, there's more than one grail knight, etc.), but I'm writing about Malory since this one is freshest in my memory.

Malory's version of the Arthurian legends is big on gaps and open spaces where he leaves much to the imagination or merely gives a sort of outline of narrative. The grail section differs from this in that it's much more complete, much more thought out, and significantly different from the rest of the story. It seems to provide a moral 'corrective' to the rest of the text - whereas in most of the tales, villains and heroes seem to be fairly conflated and loose sexual morals are common, the grail legend stops all that in its tracks and almost all knights are found to be failures. This seems to be where Malory pauses and applies a Christian moral structure to the tales almost just to see what happens. The tale focuses on Galahad, Percival, Bors, and Launcelot mostly - Gawain is mention briefly, but the fact of his failure in this particular arena is quickly made apparent. Galahad is absolute perfection - he seems to be in many ways a saint or almost Christlike figure - he is able to heal people who should have been dead 500 years earlier and have just been waiting for his touch to be healed and freed from their mortal bodies, he is able to carry with no problems a specific, very holy sword which kills all of its other bearers (making him vaguely like Arthur in that he has a specific sword that is meant only for him), and people are constantly foretelling his coming as a sort of holy, happy, life-saving event. Malory piles the praise on fairly thick. Percival is not as bumbling or backwards or in need of teaching as he is in the French or Welsh versions of the legend - he is, like Galahad, a virgin; Percival's virginity is put to a clear test through a temptation scene with a disguised devil and Percival survives the ordeal still 'pure' or untouched, which proves his holiness. His other role seems to be to sit aroundon a boat and wait for Galahad and Bors to show up. Bors, on the other hand, isn't a virgin and had once had sex with one woman to save her life or something like that - he is the only knight of the three who is sent back to Earth after witnessing the grail mysteries. The sex seems to be the reason for that. Bors' other task is to help Launcelot.

Launcelot, Launcelot... Launcelot is constantly told by many holy men that he would have been the greatest of all grail knights and of all knights ever had he chosen to live the life of God rather than the life of the World (i.e., had he not given in to his intense lust for Gwennie...) - Launcelot goes through 24 days of nasty penance to make up for the 24 years of having sinned with the queen, and then wanders around a lot with a hairshirt on lamenting his fate and occasionally being helped by others, healed, or whatever he needs. He is allowed to SEE the grail for reasons that escape me completely, because while he seems to be relatively sincere in his repentance over all the adultery, and then gets to see the Grail and be accounted wonderfully holy and whatnot, he immediately jumps right back into bed with Gwen the moment the opportunity presents itself, which leads me to wonder how sincere he ever was. That he is the greatest knight in the world is left absolutely without doubt in the text - there are two clear standards of "greatness" operating in the text and Launcelot clearly works well in the chivalric codes of honor and glory and love, even if he's a bit hot-tempered and prone to disguising himself to win more honor (clear pride issue here). In the heavenly code of morality, however, he - like pretty much all the other knights - fails miserably because the chivalric code asks for people to ride around and occasionally murder people for other people, allows for adultery, and basis most of its high standards around lechery and pride. The only sin it clearly refuses to allow in is avarice, and that's mostly in the service of giving one's stuff away in abundance to other people who are already of high rank, rather than giving charitably to the poor who actually NEED the money. So it's hard to see where social good comes into this code.

The grail story, on the other hand, works in complete opposition, valuing only the knights who have followed the Christian code of ethics quite clearly and have never fallen into any of the deadlies (with the aforementioned oopsy of Bors, who is excused for having acted for reasons other than lust). I know I'm getting repetitive here, but this is why I have a tendency to web-map papers out before I actually write the stupid things. It helps keep the ADD under control...

Arthur, strangely, never goes on the Grail quest at all. He merely sits around and laments the fact that everyone else has gone. That Arthur is fully a character of the world (and specifically, of THIS world) is thus reaffirmed here - he, for whatever reason, cannot or will not go on a quest for the other-worldly grail (which, of course, seems to have had its origins in Celtic myths of Otherworld cauldrons which Arthur would lead the charge to go regain), and he cannot follow his kidnapped queen into Meleagaunt's otherworldly realm. It surprises me in this instance that it is in Arthur's court that the grail makes its first appearance - the tale starts in Malory with everyone sitting around waiting for a feast to start, having finally gotten ahold of Galahad, who appears magically having been raised by nuns and who is able to beat all knights in the realm - it is Galahad's appearance which leads to the distinction of sinful knights v. holy knights - anyway, eventually at a feast all are touched by the holy spirit and the grail comes through, smells wonderful (spicy and whatnot) and gives everyone on their plate their favorite type of food and then disappears. The food thing is strange as it seems to promote gluttony (love those deadly sins...). After that everyone disappears.

The other odd thing which ought to be quickly mentioned is that Galahad is Launcelot's son. Launcelot was forced into bed with one of the two Elaines who falls in love with him through the course of the story - she falls in love with him and then uses magic to get him into bed with her... so in a sense, Galahad is the bastard product of witchcraft rather than love which makes his sudden ascension to "greatest knight of all times" interesting and rather contradictory. So I guess the moral here is that when it comes to one's holy life, one's origins have nothing to do with one's purity and faith (this seeming contradictory to the idea of original sin, but Malory was in a bit of a pickle and shortly to be executed when he wrote this, so maybe he was hoping that he'd get off a bit lighter in the afterlife or something) :)