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'Gathering the Narrative Threads. The Function of the Court Scenes in the Narrative Technique of Interlace and in the Insertion of New Romances in the Lancelot Compilation' (2000)

'Gathering the Narrative Threads. The Function of the Court Scenes in the Narrative Technique of Interlace and in the Insertion of New Romances in the Lancelot Compilation'

(2000)–Frank Brandsma–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige

Gathering the narrative threads
The function of the court scenes in the narrative technique of interlace and in the insertion of new romances in the Lancelot Compilation1

Frank Brandsma

Introduction

Arthurian verse romances tend to begin and end at king Arthur's court. In Chrétien de Troyes' Le chevalier de la charrete, for instance, the actual story - after the well known prologue in which the author praises his patroness Marie de Champagne and explains that she has given him the matière and san of this romance - begins as follows:

 
[Chrétien] dit qu'a une Acenssïon
 
fu venuz devers Carlïon
 
li rois Artus et tenu ot,
 
cort molt riche a Chamaalot,
 
si riche com a roi estut.
 
Aprés mangier ne se remut
 
li rois d'antre ses conpaignons.
 
Molt ot an la sale barons,
 
et si fu la reïne ansanble;
 
si ot avoec aus, ce me sanble,
 
mainte bele dame cortoise,
 
bien parlant an lengue françoise;
 
et Kex qui ot servi as tables
 
manjoit avoec les conestables.
 
La ou Kex seoit au mangier,
 
atant es voz un chevalier
 
qui vint a cort molt acesmez,
 
de totes ses armes armez.
[On a certain Ascension Day king Arthur was in the region near Caerleon and held his court splendidly at Camelot, and luxuriant as befitted a king. After the meal, the king did not stir from among his companions. Many were the barons in the hall and the queen was among them; also with them, I'm sure, were numerous beautiful courtly ladies, skillful at conversing in French; and Kay, who'd overseen the feast, was eating with those who had served. While Kay was still at table, there appeared before them a knight, who came to court equipped and fully armed for battle.]2

This armed knight is of course Méléagant and soon the court will be thrown into

commotion as he claims the queen and challenges Arthur's knights to defend her in single combat.

The narrative starts off at court, as do two other of Chrétien's single hero verse romances, Erec et Enide and Yvain ou le chevalier au lion, and many Arthurian verse romances written after Chrétien.3 Like Le chevalier de la charrete, most of these also close the action at Arthur's court.4 As points of departure and return, the court scenes are important structural elements in the ‘episodic’ romances.

The Middle Dutch romances of this type start and end in a similar way. The Roman van Walewein, Ferguut, Perchevael, Moriaen, the Wrake van Ragisel (The Avenging of Ragisel), the Ridder metter mouwen (the Knight with the Sleeve), Walewein ende Keye and Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet (Lancelot and the White-footed Stag), all begin and end at Arthur's court. The only exception is Torec, which begins in a faraway land but comes to a happy conclusion at Arthur's court, even though a brief final episode describes Torec's return to his homeland. The court scenes in most of these romances will be discussed later on.

In the Old French prose romances, which cover larger stretches of time and include many protagonists in their interlaced narratives, the function of the court scenes is similar to that in the verse texts, although they are used here especially to mark the beginning and ending of smaller units (without separate prologues or epilogues) within the romance. The return of the knights from a quest to court indicates the closure of an episode; during their stay at court a new quest, a new episode, is initiated and they are off again, and the pattern continues.

In addition to serving as a launching point for quests, the court is also important as the fixed centre of information, where messengers' reports come in with news of questee or questers, where new knights arrive to join the quest, et cetera. Still, it is important to stress the difference between this more general function of the court throughout the prose and verse narratives, and the structural function of the court scenes as ending/beginning, which is my concern here.

In this article, I will investigate the structural function of the court scenes in the prose Lancelot and compare it to the beginning of Chrétien's romance, with a view to discussing the use of the court scenes in the Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation. The latter text is especially interesting in this regard since its compiler added to the framework of the verse translation of the prose Lancelot seven verse romances of the single hero type à la Chrétien, which in turn brought with them their own court scenes. A comparison of the phenomenon in the French and Middle Dutch texts may reveal similarities and differences in the use of the court scenes, thus helping us to assess the Middle Dutch compiler's method and to show his ingenuity and/or practicality.

The prose Lancelot and prose Charrette

The Old French prose Lancelot is a tale of subsequent quests.5 Lancelot, especially, manages to disappear regularly and hosts of knights go on quests for him. In addition, there is a quest for Gauvain, for the queen, and for knights that have not returned from a Lancelot quest.6 All quests begin and end at Arthur's court. The interlaced narrative of the knights' exploits shows a pattern of divergence and convergence: the narrative threads of the characters meet at court and separate when the knights go their own way in the quest, until they come together again.

The metaphor that comes to mind here is that of the court scene as a large ring, onto which the narrative threads are fastened when the impersonal narrator (‘li contes’) ties them off at the end of a quest. After the description of what took place at court, new segments of the threads are tied to the other side of the ring when a new quest is started. The ring is the gathering of the narrative threads and marks the temporary pause in the narrative action. The chronological length of the prose Lancelot results in a sequence of many rings, stretched out in time, with each ring indicating the boundary between two sections of the tale and each ring connected to the previous and the next by the interlaced narrative threads. The situation in the verse texts may also be described by means of this metaphor: they begin and end with a ring and these are connected by either a single hero's narrative thread (like Erec's in Chrétien's Erec et Enide) or by the threads of the multiple protagonists (e.g. Perceval and Gauvain in Chrétien's Perceval).

In the first part of the Old French prose Lancelot, Lancelot's identity is revealed in a series of quests, and he becomes the best knight in the world as well as the queen's lover.7 In the prose Charrette (Lancelot Part 2, the central section of the romance), these developments are joined with a new theme, the Grail. In this prose version of Chrétien's Le chevalier de la charrete, Lancelot comes to a churchyard with two tombs, where Chrétien's version has only one. The added second tomb is Symeu's grave, which Lancelot is unable to open. From the burning tomb, the holy man Symeu admonishes Lancelot for his worldly love for the queen, which will disqualify him in the future Grail quest. The subsequent final section of the prose Lancelot (Lancelot Part 3) leads up to the Queste del Saint Graal and Mort Artu.8

The beginning of the prose Charrette may serve to demonstrate the role of the court scene at the outset of a quest. Following Chrétien's verse romance, the prose Charrette begins with Méléagant's challenge to the king and his court, but there is a brief ‘appetiser’ in which Lancelot (who is wandering about in a confused way) is told by the Lady of the Lake to be near - but not at - the court in Camaalot at none on Ascension Day. Also, the mood has become sad in comparison with the joyous atmosphere at

Arthur's court in the verse romance.9 Méléagant comes to Arthur's court. Kex (Kay) forces the king to let him accept Méléagant's challenge. When Kex has taken the queen away and they fail to return, Gauvain leaves court to search for them, bringing two spare horses.10 The divergence of the narrative threads begins, and it will be quite some time before the threads of Kex, the queen and Gauvain will converge with those of Arthur and the court again. When the Charrette action begins, almost all relevant narrative threads are present in the court gathering (tied to the ‘ring’), with the exception of one thread: Lancelot's.11

While Chrétien keeps his mysterious hero anonymous for a long time, the audience of the prose romance is told straightaway that the familiar protagonist Lancelot is on his way to the court. Lancelot encounters Kex and the queen, sees Méléagant defeat Kex, fights the abductor until his horse is killed and finally meets Gauvain, who does not recognise him but still provides him with a fresh horse and joins him in the pursuit of the queen and her abductor. Lancelot's narrative thread skips the gathering, yet becomes part of the divergent interlace very soon after its beginning.

The fact that the court scene takes almost all threads together indicates that a new section of tale and interlace is about to begin. Lancelot's thread is not connected to the ‘ring’, but thus serves the continuity of the story all the more, as it runs on from one section into the next.12 Self-contained in Chrétien's version, the Charrette now becomes an integrated part of the larger Lancelot by means of the ‘ring’ already present in Chrétien's text, as well as through Lancelot's thread and thematic links like the addition of Symeu's warning.13

Before the Charrette action comes to a close, a new thread, Bohort's, has already been inserted, which links the Charrette to the adventures of Bohort and Lancelot that will come next. Bohort, absent from Chrétien's romance, appears in a cart at Arthur's

court on the day of Pentecost and defeats a number of Arthur's knights, showing that even a knight in a cart may be brave and worthy (and thus taking away the stigma from Lancelot's previous cart ride). In the end Gawain and even the queen ride in the cart and Bohort is welcomed to court as Lancelot's nephew and Lionel's brother.14

The final duel of Méléagant and Lancelot at Arthur's court, resulting in Méléagant's beheading, forms the end of the prose Charrette. This general gathering at court provides a pause in the narrative, albeit a brief one, since Lancelot is immediately accused of killing Méléagant treacherously. Lancelot stays at court for another week, Arthur's clerks record his adventures, and then he leaves secretly in order to defend himself in combat against this allegation.15 Bohort soon follows him and the quest is on again.

A linking procedure similar to that at the start of the prose Charrette is used at the beginning of the next section of the prose Lancelot. This section starts one year after Méléagant's death.16 Here again we find a pause in the narrative, a complete gathering - with one exception - of narrative threads at Arthur's court, as well as thematic links between the old and new section. This time, the thematic connectors take the form of promises made by Lancelot and Bohort.

The narrative seems to make a fresh start. Almost everyone is at court just after Pentecost; Arthur organises a hunt. Within a few paragraphs a weeping knight appears and tries to abduct the queen. Later this would-be abductor turns out to be Bohort, who made a rash promise to kidnap the queen a little earlier in the text.17 Lancelot is one of the knights accompanying the queen. As he prepares himself to defend her, an elderly lady summons him to follow her, referring to a promise to this effect he gave her some time before.18 She grudgingly allows him to protect the queen. Lancelot defeats the weeping knight. Once on his way with the lady, Lancelot meets a knight who demands his armour, again referring to an earlier promise.19 The three obligations bind the two sections together. Bohort's narrative thread skips the general gathering at court, like Lancelot's did at the beginning of the Charrette, and, like Lancelot's, it is taken up immediately in the interlace of the next section when Bohort reappears, albeit at first incognito.

In this manner court gatherings connect these sections of the prose Lancelot. The narrative action is paused; almost all narrative threads are gathered to the ‘ring’, awaiting a new divergence. They rest until a new adventure comes to court and a new quest is initiated. In the composition of the cyclic Lancelot the sections are carefully linked by means of structural and thematic connections.

The Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation

The maker of the Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation faced a situation not unlike that of the French (re)writer of the prose Charrette, working mostly with pre-existing texts, which he adapted for the insertion into his compilation.20 Before the role of the court scene-system in this insertion process is discussed, a brief introduction regarding the compilation and its making is in order.

The Lancelot Compilation dates from the first decades of the fourteenth century. We have only the second volume of what seems to have been a two-volume book. The compilation as it has come down to us contains a verse translation of the final section(s) of the prose Lancelot, of the Queste and the Mort Artu. Between these translations seven verse romances have been inserted, as the diagram below shows.

The making of the Lancelot Compilation21
Old French Vulgate trilogy:


illustratie
* Flemish translation in verse (ca. 1280):


illustratie
* First phase of the compilation:


illustratie
Lancelot Compilation (The Hague, K.B., 129 A 10):


illustratie

1: Perchevael (adaptation of pre-existing translation of Chrétien's Conte du Graal)

2: Moriaen (adaptation of pre-existing Middle Dutch romance)

3: Wrake van Ragisel (The Avenging of Ragisel; adaptation of pre-existing translation of the Vengeance Raguidel)

4: Ridder metter mouwen (The Knight with the Sleeve; adaptation of pre-existing Middle Dutch romance)

5: Walewein ende Keye (adaptation of lost original or composed for the compilation?)

6: Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet (Lancelot and the White-footed Stag; adaptation of lost original or composed especially for the compilation?)

7: Torec (adaptation of now lost translation (by Jacob van Maerlant?) of lost Old French romance)

The translation in verse of the Lancelot and the other parts of the trilogy was probably made in Flanders around 1280. It is one of at least three independent translations of the prose Lancelot. The Flemish translator put the French prose text into rhyming couplets, verse being the only literary form in Middle Dutch romance at the time.22 Taking this translation as the basis for his Lancelot Compilation, the compiler was able to insert additional verse romances. Why the compiler felt the need to insert more Middle Dutch Arthurian material into his version of the chronicle of Arthur's reign is far from clear. In the prologue to Moriaen he states that the maker of the Lancelot translation forgot the beautiful story of Moriaen and that he intends to remedy this omission. The urge to bring together all available Arthurian stories into the biographical and chronological prose Lancelot framework may reflect the Summae tendency visible in many fourteenth century works, especially since in the same Moriaen prologue, the compiler considers it the poet's duty, and by extension his own, to tell the complete story and to include the Moriaen; we may assume that other suitable Arthurian stories were to be included as well.23

Codicological research of the single manuscript has revealed that there were several phases in the making of the compilation.24 At first, the compiler inserted an adaptation of the Perceval story, the Perchevael, into the final episode of the prose Lancelot. In this state the codex was given its decoration and its text was corrected by a corrector who left his mark in the text columns and in the margins. This concludes the first phase in the making of the compilation. In what may be called, for sake of simplicity, the second phase, the Perceval adaptation was given a new position - not in but after the Lanceloet - and six more romances were inserted.

With regard to the Perchevael, the function of the court scene raises two questions: how did the compiler prepare the Perchevael text for the insertion, and where and how did he insert it? The first question entails the issue of the status of the Perchevael text in the compilation manuscript. The leaves containing the Perchevael and its Lanceloet context in the manuscript show signs (e.g. a gap between the texts) of being still ‘under construction’. There are codicological and textual reasons to assume that the beginning of the text as it has been transmitted is a revision, made in order to fit the text into the compilation in the second phase.25 It is impossible to ascertain whether this text differs greatly or only in minor details from the first-phase-Perchevael. In this first version, the text may have begun differently; as will become evident below, however, it is hard to imagine that in this version the compiler could have started his adaptation of the pre-existing Middle Dutch Perchevael at a point other than the court scene, with which the second-phase-Perchevael takes off.

In the present state of the manuscript, the compiler's Perchevael begins at court on the day the hideous damsel appears. This differs greatly from the beginning of Chrétien's text, which does not actually start at court, and which describes the adventures of the naive Perceval, his first visit to Arthur's court and to the Grail castle, et cetera, up to his return to court, where the damsel will take him to task for not asking the question that would have healed the Grail king. The compiler used an existing Middle Dutch translation of the Conte du Graal, but the fact that the prose Lancelot (translation) had already provided an alternative version of Perceval's coming to court made it impossible to insert this text as it was.26 The first section had to be removed and a new starting-point chosen.

In the text as it has come down to us, and most probably also in the first version, the compiler found this new beginning in the second court scene in the middle of the Perceval/Perchevael. Recognising the stop-and-go function of the court scene, he turned this in-between court scene into a fresh start, cutting away all that came before and omitting the references to Perchevael's earlier adventures. The beginning now recounts how Perchevael and his brother Aglovael, who were on a mission abroad described in a now lost episode of the compiler's making, have returned to court (this may be one of the details added in the second version) and that the king has invited all Round Table knights to attend him. During this general gathering, the ugly damsel arrives, as in Chrétien, but here she only challenges Arthur's knights to come to the rescue of the damsel of Montesclare, whereas in the French text she first chastises Perceval severely for his failure at the Grail Castle.27 Thus the damsel's arrival becomes the standard beginning of a new quest. As he departs, Perchevael states that he hopes to find adversaries to fight, in contrast to his intention in the original text to find out the truth of the Grail and the Bleeding Lance.

The second question of the role of the court scene is that of the actual insertion into the Lanceloet. In the prose Lancelot and its translation, the new story of Perceval's coming to court restricted the possible points of insertion strongly, since it is given in the very last episode.28 Here the text describes a final quest for Lancelot, who fled from the court insane after the queen found him in a damsel's bed. Bohort, Lionel, Gauvain, Agloval and a number of other knights have set out to look for Lancelot. When, during this quest, Agloval finds his brother and brings him to court, Perceval is made a knight and joins the Lancelot quest. By this time, most of the questers have returned to court without news of Lancelot, but Bohort, Lionel and Hestor are still abroad and their narrative threads are not tied to the court ‘ring’. Perchevael's thread is followed: he leaves the court and ultimately fights Hestor until they learn each others' names and the Grail floats by to heal their wounds. They decide to ride together in search of Lancelot and do so for many days.

At this point, the French text has what Kennedy has called a ‘formal switch’, a for-

mula which brings about the change from one narrative thread to another and which in the manuscripts is usually marked with an initial and/or a miniature. Here the impersonal narrator (li contes) ties off the threads of Perceval and Hestor in order to return to Lancelot's thread.29 The Middle Dutch manuscript here has obviously been meddled with: there is more text than usual on this leaf in order to let its final lines correspond to the beginning of the ‘formal switch’ and, furthermore, the lines which may have contained this ‘formal switch’ to either Lanceloet's thread or to another thread/story have been erased and replaced by the beginning of Perchevael-Hestor adventures not found in the French text. In the second phase of the compiler's work, he added these new adventures in order to fill the gap which emerged when he took the Perchevael out of the Lanceloet and sought to reconnect both ends of the translation (the Perchevael-Hestor thread just tied off and the Lanceloet-thread about to begin). The evidence of the reparation reveals that this must be the point at which, in the first phase, the Perchevael was inserted.

The point chosen for the insertion does not correspond to a court scene or ‘ring’, but only to a switch from one narrative thread to another. There is no pause in the narrative action, the Lanceloet quest remains in full swing. The tale is alternating the threads of Lanceloet, Bohort, Lioneel and the couple Perchevael/Hestor. Right in the middle of this interlace, the compiler placed his Perchevael, starting with a court scene/‘ring’. In the wake of the inserted Perchevael text, the narrative of the Lanceloet quest was to be taken up again and the final pages of the Lanceloet were to make the usual connection to the Queeste.30

This ambitious plan, inserting this text into the interlace of the final Lanceloet quest, was evidently not successful, since in the second phase the compiler removed the Perchevael from its position in the Lanceloet and placed it after this text.31 The reason for its failure may lie in a specific inconsistency: the crazed Lanceloet (roaming about naked and wild is his status in the Lanceloet at this point) suddenly makes his appearance, mentally sane, in the Perchevael: he fights Keye (Kay), Dodineel and Tristram (Tristan) and is then taken to the Lady of the Lake, while he still was to be cured by the Grail in the final Lanceloet pages.32

A comparison of this first Perchevael insertion with the use of the court scenes in the French text indicates that the inconsistency may be indicative of a larger problem

lying in the incongruity of the point of insertion and the inserted narrative. Within the Lanceloet quest it would have been possible to add new (segments of) narrative threads and to connect them by means of formal switches to the interlaced tale, but the compiler seems to have taken the matter a step too far when he introduced a new ‘ring’ where no such gathering was present in the Lanceloet.33 As the prose Charrette demonstrates, and the compiler's own work in the next phase also makes clear, it is possible to combine two ‘rings’ into one court scene, and even have a thread skipping this gathering. The insertion of a ‘ring’ into an ongoing interlaced narrative, however, risks conflicts between the inserted cell and the surrounding threads, as the Lanceloet-thread in the Perchevael reveals. In contrast to the threads of Bohort and Lancelot that were skipping the gatherings, discussed above, in the French text, the loose threads here are not quickly taken into the interlace of the inserted narrative; only Lanceloet's thread reappears later on in the Perchevael, but then is not congruent with his previous and later status in the Lanceloet. Only when the narrative has come to a temporary halt at a court scene is it possible to open it up and to insert new, self-contained texts like the Perchevael.

The situation of the Perceval/Perchevael-character in the prose Lancelot and the Lanceloet forced the compiler to create his own version out of the pre-existing Middle Dutch Perchevael. To turn the second court scene into a new beginning for the text was in itself a clever idea, and the same is true for the attempt to slip the Perchevael into the Lanceloet as an integrated part of the ongoing narrative. It seems, however, that the combination of these two interventions led to unforeseen problems, which forced the compiler to take the Perchevael out of the Lanceloet and to place it after this text.

Much remains unclear with regard to this operation, especially since the final Lanceloet leaves have disappeared from the manuscript in its present state. As things now stand, the manuscript breaks off in the middle of Lanceloet's final adventures before his restoration to sanity. After this gap, the Perchevael starts as described above. Assuming that the Lanceloet followed the French original in its final pages and thus ended with all knights at court, a smooth connection to the ‘ring’ at the start of the Perchevael should have been possible, and Lanceloet's appearance in this text would no longer have been a problem, since he has been restored to sanity by the Grail. Because of the current state of the manuscript, however, these remarks must remain speculative.

The moving of the Perchevael leads us to the second phase in the making of the compilation (see the final configuration in the diagram). Perhaps as a result of his experiences with the Perchevael, in this second phase, the compiler confined himself to the court scenes as places where he could put the metaphorical screwdriver or knife into the trilogy safely. The court scenes at either end of the separate romances-to-be-inserted could be fitted together, the two ‘rings’ involved merged into one. Those at the outer edges of the resulting set could be linked to the courts in the trilogy at the beginning of the Queeste and Arturs doet. To vary the ring-metaphor: the technique is similar to adding wagons in a toy train set, with the court scenes functioning as firm yet flexible coupling mechanisms.

The Perchevael ends with a court scene at ‘Carlioen’ which could be linked to the opening at court of the next romance to be inserted before the Queeste, Moriaen. The narrative action is interrupted for a moment by a brief prologue and then is taken up again where it left off: at Arthur's court.34

Because the Moriaen has a prologue, and because there is a lacuna at the beginning of the Perchevael, the insertion of the two texts before the Queeste has not, in the present state of the manuscript, led to smooth transitions from one text to the other. The texts do not form an organic whole, even though the compiler has taken care to give them the same format by adding ‘formal switches’.35 The Moriaen also has a brief epilogue, in which the narrator announces that now the story of the Grail will begin since the ander pertie van Lancelote (the second part of the Lancelot) ends here.36 He even utters a brief prayer and says amen. When it comes to the insertion of the five texts after Queeste, the compiler will achieve smoother connections.

A closer look at the gatherings of narrative threads in the linked court scenes and at the coupled romances of Perchevael and Moriaen reveals that some characters absent from one gathering are present in the next and vice versa. In Perchevael, Lancelot goes off to see the Lady of the Lake, whereas in Moriaen he is present at court right from the start, and no mention is made of his return. Perchevael, on the other hand, is at court at the end of Perchevael romance, yet in Moriaen it is essential to the story that he has been absent for a long time. So in this text, he is not ‘in’, even though his departure is never mentioned.37 It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss each of the inconsistencies in the inserted texts, but the general impression is that, when it came to the actual insertion, the compiler looked no further than the immediate context of the link between the two texts.38 He must have assumed that the gatherings of threads at either end of the texts to be inserted were essentially complete. This was to be expected if the romances had functioned independently before; at least four of them did so, as fragments of their original versions testify.

In the second phase of his work, the compiler came to rely on the court scene as a convenient and practical tool. The coupling mechanism of the court scene provided links between Moriaen and Queeste, between the Queeste and the group of five romances, between the five romances, and - with some modifications - between the final romance of the five and Arturs doet. Especially in the connections between the Queeste and the first four texts that follow it, the court scene-tool seems to work well. These texts flow into one another without interrupting prologues and, given the ‘formal switches’ the compiler sprinkled into his adaptations of the texts, look like one ongoing interlaced narrative rather than five romances in a row. If this was the compiler's intention when he first incorporated the Perchevael, he seems to have succeeded here - at least at first sight - by means of his pragmatic use of the court scenes.

The connection between the Queeste and the Wrake van Ragisel (text 3 in the diagram) is prepared well in advance in the Queeste by a number of references forward to the fact that a damsel will take Gaheriet prisoner in order to bring his brother Walewein (Gawain) to her castle.39 At the end of the Queeste, the first person narrator follows the Old French text in speaking of Walter Map writing the Grail book for King Henry and in stating that this is the end of the History of the Holy Grail. Then, however, the ‘I’ continues with a ‘formal switch’ announcing the story of Gaheriet's capture. There is no explicit, auctorial prologue to the Wrake, the ‘I’ leaves the actual beginning of the story to die aventure (‘the adventure’, i.e. ‘the story’, li contes in the Old French text). This transition in the narrative voice from first person to impersonal is typical for the compiler's version of the ‘formal switch’ and reveals all the more clearly his responsibility for the connection to and insertion of the Wrake.40 In about sixty lines a brief passage of the compiler's own making then explains how the damsel of Galastroet fell in love with Walewein - or rather with his reputation - and hopes to lure him to her castle by taking his younger brother prisoner.41 After this explanation the main line of the narrative is resumed where it was left, at Arthur's court. The compiler begins his adaptation of the Wrake, which like the Perchevael and Moriaen is based on a pre-existing translation, by saying: Daventure seget hier, Dat Artur die coninc fier Tenen Paesschen hof helt (J Book III, ll. 11235-11237; ‘The story tells here that Arthur the proud king held court one Easter Day’). The rather vague indication of the time (‘one Easter Day’) makes it all the easier to see the connection between this court scene and the one at the end of the Queeste, especially since neither the Old French nor the Middle Dutch give exact dates for that court. The narrative action that came to a stop at the end of the Queeste now begins again at Arthur's court in the Wrake.

The final text inserted into the compilation may have been number 4 in the diagram: the Ridder metter mouwen, the ‘knight with the sleeve’. This text exactly fills a single quire and could perhaps have just been sown into the codex, but the compiler's way, albeit pragmatic, is more sophisticated than that. The first leaf of the quire shows the large initial that one would expect at the beginning of a romance, but in a surprising position: not right at the top of the first column, but six lines down. The six lines above it contain a ‘formal switch’, modelled on those used in the interlace of the prose Lancelot translation. The compiler has introduced these formulas in the inserted texts to make them look like Lanceloet, Queeste and Arturs doet and now uses a similar phrase to connect the end of the Wrake to the beginning of the Ridder metter mouwen. Especially the six lines before the initial make it appear as if the interlaced narrative simply continues whereas in fact a new romance has been put in. The phrasing of the six lines beginning the ‘formal switch’ is so cleverly vague and generic about what came

before, that this whole quire could just as well have been placed at another point in the compilation manuscript. As usual in the compiler's ‘formal switch’, the first person narrator speaks:

 
Nu selewi swigen van desen
 
Ende van enen jongelinc vord lesen,
 
Die te hove nu sal comen;
 
Eest alsict hebbe vernomen
 
Soe salmen noch van hem sien
 
Groet wonder hier na gescien.42
[Now we will speak no more of this and tell you about a young man who will now come to court. If things are as I have heard, we will see him perform great wonders after this.]

Then, with a big initial and chapter title, the new section begins at court in Kardeloet one Whitsuntide:

 
Ons vertelt die aventure,
 
Dat coninc Artur op dese ure
 
Hilt een hof soe overgroet
 
In die stat te Kardeloet,
 
Recht op enen tsinxendach
 
Dat men nie gelijc des ne sach.43
[The story tells us that King Arthur at this time held so great a court in Kardeloet one Whitsuntide that never its equal was seen.]

The narrative action of the Wrake ended at Karmeloet (J Book III, l. 14563) just after Whitsuntide (J Book III, ll. 14106). The place name differs in just one letter from the Kardeloet mentioned here, but the two names do usually indicate different places. The time mentioned also means that almost a year lies between the two courts.44 This time-in-between may explain the Karmeloet/Kardeloet difference, since the Arthurian court does move about through the realm. On the other hand, the fact that the compiler did not create an exact correspondence between the locations of the two courts, may also indicate once again that he looked only at the immediate context of the link. The latter is corroborated by discrepancies with regard to the characters, the most conspicuous one being the resurrection of Perchevael, dead since the end of the Queeste and now playing an active role in the Ridder metter mouwen.45

The scribal work at the end of the Ridder metter mouwen quire - now the connection

between this text and the next (Walewein ende Keye) - indicates that, when the quire was made, different options for its insertion were considered possible.46 At first the final line was left blank. The preceding line begins like a ‘formal switch’: Nu laticse hare feeste driven (‘now I will let them celebrate’). It provides the rhyme word driven, which in Middle Dutch almost automatically leads to scriven (‘to write’). On insertion, the missing line of the couplet could be added, containing the name of the main character who would be written about in the romance to come. As it turned out, the next romance begins to speak about the king and court, so the line added - by the same hand but in a slightly different ductus and a lighter ink - states: Ende sal u vanden coninc scriven (‘and I will write for you about the king’). The compiler kept all options open when preparing this one-quire-romance for insertion: the familiar coupling mechanism of the standardised court scene is provided with the extra flexibility of the blank line for last minute adjustments.47

The link between Walewein ende Keye (5) and Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet (6) is the final one to be discussed, since in the connections between 6 and Torec (7) and between Torec and Arturs doet the court scenes are less important. Even though both 6 and 7 end at court and Arturs doet begins there, the connective role of the court scenes is diminished, since, respectively, the long story of Torec's youth and the elaborate prologue of Arturs doet separates them from the court scenes in the text that follow.

At the end of Walewein ende Keye the deceitful boaster Keye (Kay) is defeated; he flees the court and the king is glad to see the last of him.48 By means of a ‘formal switch’ the connection is made to the court scene at the beginning of the next tale, the story of Lancelot and the White-footed Stag. A new adventure is announced: a queen will marry the knight who brings her the stag's white foot. Rather surprisingly, it is Keye who makes a first, and of course unsuccessful, attempt to find the beast. Keye may be the natural foil for better knights, but wasn't he out of favour, if not absent? The compiler answers this question in a belated explanation of Keye's return to court:

 
Des ander dages vele vroe -
 
Eer die joncfrouwe daer quam alsoe -
 
Soe was Keye te hove comen,
 
Want gi hebt wel hier vore vernomen
 
Dat hi qualike te hove was.
 
Nu was hi versoent, sijt seker das,
 
Want sijn vrouwe die coninginne
 
Haddem gemaect pays ende minne
 
Jegen den coninc ende Waleweine.49
[The other day early, before the damsel arrived, Keye had come to court (you must have heard how, before this, he was out of favour at court). Now he was reconciled, rest assured, because his lady the queen had restored peace and love between him and the king and Walewein.]

Since this inconsistency is revealed immediately after the court scene link which followed Keye's flight from court, the compiler provided this ad hoc explanation for his return.50 The inconsistency disturbs the connection and the compiler seems focused on damage control: it is almost as if he slipped these lines in on the spur of the moment, while copying the text from an exemplar into the compilation.51 This would explain why the lines follow Keye's appearance which they should have preceded.

Structurally, the set up is the same as at the beginning of the Charrette and of the other section of the French text discussed above, but the thread skipping the gathering (Keye's) has not been given a connective function here. In the compiler's situation the Keye-thread became a threat to the connection rather than a connective device to be treasured. Making clever use of the court scene-tool, the compiler ‘clicks’ his texts together. The possibility of (minor) discrepancies within the inserted narratives was taken into the bargain; these do not seem of concern as long as they are not overly conspicuous, and were remedied only when in the immediate context of the connection, as the case of Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet shows.

Conclusion

In the compositional technique of both the Middle Dutch compiler and the prose Lancelot composer, the court scenes are key elements. As pauses in the narrative action, and as gatherings of the narrative threads, they provide the connections between sections of the narrative, as well as optional openings for the insertions of new material. For the reader/listener and performer, the court scenes are points of rest and recuperation. For authors and compilers, they are flexible and extremely useful narrative devices, prime among the generic tricks of the trade.

The comparison of the way the Middle Dutch compiler handles the narrative device of the court scene with its use in the French prose Lancelot brings to light the com-

piler's more practical approach, especially in the second phase of his work, when putting the compilation together seems to have been more important than merging new material with the trilogy, evidently the goal of the first phase. In the second phase, the compiler is putting together a cyclic manuscript, not (or perhaps: no longer) composing a romance cycle.

Samenvatting

In de verteltechniek van de Arturromans in verzen en proza spelen hofscènes een cruciale rol. Arturromans in verzen beginnen en eindigen gewoonlijk aan Arturs hof, terwijl de hofscènes de prozaromans in kleinere secties, die veelal één zoektocht beschrijven, verdelen. Bestudering van twee hofscènes uit de Lancelot en prose leert dat de verhaaldraden op de ‘ring’ van het hof samenkomen (zodat er een rustpunt in de verhaalhandeling ontstaat) en vandaaruit weer vertrekken, en laat tevens zien dat er steeds één verhaaldraad is die zich aan deze algemene samenkomst onttrekt, maar snel weer in het entrelacement wordt opgepakt en zo de continuïteit versterkt.

De compilator in de Lancelotcompilatie gebruikt de hofscènes vooral als koppelingen: omdat de handeling even stil ligt, is het mogelijk de tekst te openen en extra romans toe te voegen die met zo'n zelfde rustpunt (de hofscène) beginnen en eindigen. Bij de invoeging van de Perchevael maakt hij gebruik van de tweede hofscène uit de originele tekst/vertaling om zijn bewerking een in de Lanceloet passend begin te geven. In eerste instantie lijkt hij te hebben geprobeerd dit nieuwe begin in te vlechten in het lopende entrelacement van het Lanceloet slot, maar dat ging de verteltechnische mogelijkheden van de hofscène, zoals die blijken uit o.a. de Franse tekst, te boven. Het inzicht dat alleen aan een hofscène in de basistekst een nieuwe hofscène plus navolgende tekst gekoppeld kan worden, heeft als leidraad gediend voor de verdere werkzaamheden van de compilator. Daarbij heeft hij kleine inconsequenties tussen de te koppelen teksten voor lief genomen zo lang deze niet te zeer opvielen in de directe context van de koppeling.

 

Adres van de auteur:

Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies

Opleiding Literatuurwetenschap Universiteit Utrecht

Muntstraat 4

NL-3512 EV Utrecht

Frank.Brandsma@let.uu.nl

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