SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE POST-VULGATE SUITE DUMERLIN AND MALORY'S LE MORTE DARTHUR

Eugene Vinaver's three-volume edition of the Winchester manuscript versionof Malory's Z^ Morte Darthur includes much valuable comparison of Malory'stext with its sources.' The subject has been taken furtber, for example in theseries of essays edited by R. M. Lumiansky under the title Malory's Originality,and in the work of Terence McCarthy.^ These studies have tended to interpretdiscontinuities between Malory's wridng and tbe works on wbich it drew asreflective of varying interests in the content of the narrative, or varying waysof structuring this content. But it is possible, I shall contend, to relate many ofthe deviations between the Morte and its sources to a revision of philosophicalissues implicit in the material that Malory adapted. That Malory was interestedin abstruse concepts has been discounted by critics, one of whom has writtenthat 'Malory's style suggests that his mind was strikingly unacademic', and thatMalory shows no apparent interest in the 'fashionable intellectual issues' tbatoccupied other late-medieval authors of English literature.' This essay willargue that the stylistic simplicity of the Morte is not matched by an intellectualsimplicity on the part of its author, and, contrary to many interpretations ofMalory's writing, that a continuity with foregoing English writers is discerniblenot only in the issues raised by the Morte but in Malory's stance towards thoseissues as well.

Malory's principal source for the first 'tale' of the Winchester manuscriptMorte, the section entitled 'The tale of King Arthur' by Vinaver, was the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, a continuation of the Roman de Merlin that post-datesthe Vulgate Cycle of Arthurian narratives of which the Roman de Merlin is itselfa component.** The version of the Suite that Malory knew seems to have beenincorporated into a composite text that also included the Roman de Merlin and acontinuation of the Roman de Merlin that is part of the Vulgate Cycle — theother sections of the first tale of the Morte are based on material correspondingto the contents of these originally separate works, and it appears that Malorydid not conflate the French texts himself because a similar amalgam of themsurvives in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 7071.' The episodeinvolving Balin 'le Saveage', the knight with the two swords, has been thefocus of critical discussion of Malory's tale. It has been noted that the Morterecasts the relationship of Balin's adventures to the narrative enfolding them,dissociating them from their connection with the story of the Grail that isestablisbed in tbe Suite!" Here, it is the 'Dolereus Cop' struck by Balaain that

274 MEDIUM JEWUM LXXHI.Z

calls down the adventures that will come to an end only when Galahad comesto the kingdom of Logres, an event that wiU be a prelude to the demise ofArthur and his knights. The Morte, by contrast, emphasizes the pattern thatlinks what Balin does with what Malory's key protagonist, Lancelot, will dolater. As Balin slays the man he loves best — his brother Balan — so. Merlinsays, Lancelot, in the final disintegration of the Round Table, '"shall sie theman in the worlde that he lovith beste: that shall be sir Gawayne"'.' I shallreturn to the issue of the orderliness of events in the Morte, of which thenarrative patterning pointed to by Malory is one aspect. First, however, thepresentation of Balaain in the Suite needs to be considered in detail.

Balaain's role in the narrative in which he is involved is not the only way inwhich he differs from Malory's Balin. He does so also in the nature of hisresponses to what happens to him.' Balaain perceives himself as persecuted byFortune, and he reacts to the sequence of disasters that befall him with acrescendo of self-pity. When a knight who has been accompanying him on hisjourney is killed by the lance of an invisible knight afterwards identified asGarlon, Balaain remarks that he is 'li plus chetis et li plus mescheans chevaliersde tous cheus qui onques portaissent armes, car ore voit il apertement queFortune li est plus contraire et plus anemie que a nul autre houme'.' When helater reveals the unfaithfulness of another knight's 'amie', prompting the knightto murder her and then turn his sword on himself, Balaain claims that '"cestemale aventure est plus avenue par male meskeanche que par autre chose, carsans faille je sui li plus mescheans chevaliers qui soit"'.'" When he is killed bybis brother, here called Balaan, he laments that '"la mesqueanche i est si gransque vous me raves mort'". Balaan echoes this when he states, epigrammatically,'"onques si grant mesqueanche n'avint a .II. freres coume il nous est avenu"'.The two brotbers' agony and perplexity at tbeir fate is expressed in a jointprotestation: "'Ha! Diex, pour coi aves vous souffert que si grant mesqueancheet si grans mesaventure nous avenist?"'" The reverberation of mescheans andmesqueanche gives Balaain's speeches the quality of a refrain, making him seemtrapped in the misery of which he complains.'^

Critics have pitied Balaain as much as he has pitied himself. Sympathy forhim has centred on the view that he is a good individual whose fate is at oddswith what he has earned for himself. In his introduction to Dominica Legge'sedition of the Balaain section of the Suite, Vinaver comments that 'Thecatastrophe is prepared in no rational manner', and that Balaain's 'finest deedsturn to disaster ... not because he is a guilty man who deserves punishment,but because fatality pursues its course and turns his noblest tboughts intocrimes'." It may be true tbat Balaain has fine intentions - he discovers theinfidelity of the knight's 'amie', for example, in the course of an attempt tobring the couple together. Fine intentions, though, should not be equated witbinnocence. Balaain enters tbe text with a great deal going for him — he is'riches de cuer et de hardement et de proueche"'' - but what he doessubsequently appears rooted in sinfulness. After he has removed the swordattached to a damsel who enters Arthur's court, she warns him that if he

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refuses to return it, ' "vous emportes vostre mort avoecques vous"'. But hedoes refuse to return it, 'car trop li samble l'espee boine et biele'.'^ To hiscovetousness is joined an arrogant confidence in the self-sufficiency of hisabilities. Wben an anonymous 'puciele' teUs bim that his death will be theoutcome of his assumption of a shield other than his own, 'ce le rasseuremoult qu'il se sent sain et delivre et fort et legier et preu as armes':"' he is insuch good shape, and is such a good knight, that he will survive. BeforeBalaain strikes the 'Dolereus Cop', Merlin advises him to turn back, telling bimof tbe repercussions his deed will have if he does not; Balaain refuses toabandon tbe quest on which he has embarked." Pride according to StAugustine, is the start of every kind of sin, an evil committed in secret thatleads to evil committed in the open.'" The open 'crimes' that Balaain commitsare preceded by precisely tbis secret wrongdoing in their perpetrator.

Pride — a turning away from God to worship oneself" — was also, forAugustine, the sin that led Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, andfurther correspondences between Balaain and our 'first parents' are made clearby the author of the Suite. After his departure from Arthur's court, Balaain istold by Merlin that "'Nous avons recouvre en toi Evain nostre mere"', andjust as all the pain of humanity derives from Eve's action, so, says Merlin, allmiseries in the world of the Suite will derive from Balaain's 'Dolereus Cop',through which three kingdoms will be put ' "en essil" '.^^ The first words thatBalaain speaks connect him with Adam and Eve, as if pointing forward to thedeed that will build on the similarities between them. Scorned by the damselwho bears the sword because be is 'povres d'avoir', he asks her not to despisehim because '"je fui ja plus riches'":^' he has lost the wealth he once enjoyedas, after their fall, Adam and Eve lost the abundance that they enjoyed inparadise. And, as Adam and Eve's transgression was punished with thesentence of death, so is Balaain's: 'a Nostre Seignur ne plout mie qu'il durastgrantment', the author of the Suite claims, 'e il meismes fu auques achaison'.^^Balaain is himself the cause of what happens to him, as, in their distortion ofthe good will with which they were created, Adam and Eve caused thevengeance taken on them.

The issue of the freedom of the will is prominent in the Vulgate Roman deMerlin, where it is asserted that the fate of an individual's soul is determined byhis own choice. The work opens in the wake of Christ's Harrowing of Hell,when a council of devils meets to express bewilderment at losing Adam andEve and the other souls whom Christ released: "'Ce ne cuidoiens nos mie quenus hom poist naistre de feme qui ne fust nostres."' One devil explains thepower of baptism, which washes away '"le delit del pere et de la mere"': thedevils cannot regain their power over any human beings "'devant que ilmeismes reviengnent a nos par lor euvres'".^' The idea is echoed in the figureof Merlin himself. Merlin's father is a devil, through whom he acquires thecapacity to know whatever has been done and said in tbe past. But because hishuman mother repents of her sins and is baptized. Merlin is given by God theability to foresee future events as well. Whether Merlin will ally himself with

276 MEDIUM MYVM

the devilish or the Godlike side is a matter of his free will: 'si se tenra a laqueleque il veura, car se il volt, il puet randre as deables lor droit et a NostreSeingnor le suen.'̂ '' In the now-fragmentary verse text on which the VulgateMerlin is based, a 'preudomme' indicates tbat the state of one's soul at death isdetermined by what one has done in life, and that if one has sinned, one hasfailed to exercise one's will as one should:

'Nous avuns de saint Augustin:"Bien feire atreit la boenne fin,Qui de mal ne se vieut tenirEn boen estat ne puet morir" '.̂ '

Augustine's insistence tbat one determines one's own fate is echoed in Balaain'scareer in the Suite, but here the fate at issue is not that of the individual's soul,but his fortune in this world.̂ ^ The text establishes a connection between sinand temporal affliction, suggesting that the latter is - or can be - a response tothe former, and that if one does wrong, one will — or may — be punished for itin this world as well as the next.

The 'Fortune' of which Balaain complains, therefore, is not a force thatinflicts miseries on individuals that they have not deserved: rather, it is thedispenser of a providential system of justice. If, as Vinaver claims, 'fatality'pursues its course in Balaain's story, it does not do so autonomously, but inthe sense of the term accepted by Augustine: as the manifestation of a chain ofcauses that is dependent on the will of God.^' What Vinaver elsewhere calls'the uncontrollable forces which govern man's destiny'̂ * are harnessed byGod, and activated by deeds that derive from Balaain's misuse of his own freewill.

At the end of the fourteenth century, Gower, in the prologue to the ConfessioAmantis, voices a philosophy of self-determination that is consonant with thedetails of Balaain's story in the Suite:

... after that we falle and rise.The world arist and faith withal.So that the man is overalHis oghne cause of wel and wo.That we fortune clepe soOut of the man himself it groweth.

That this is true can be seen in tbe bistory of the Israelites:

For evere whil thei deden wel.Fortune was hem debonaire.And whan thei deden the contraire.Fortune was contrariende.^'

A different relationship between one's deeds and one's fortune, however, hasbeen detected in tbe version of the Balaain episode in Z^ Morte Darthur, whereBalin has been said to accept 'a destiny laid on him, not created by him'. '" The

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argument leaves room for the existence of free will in Balin — his fate cannotmaterialize without the contingency of his freely chosen actions - but claimsthat Balin deploys his will to 'submit ... to chance, in order to discover whatchance has allotted him'. On several occasions Balin pledges, or is exhorted, to'take the adventure'; when he is told that he will be destroyed through hisretention of the damsel's sword, for example, Balin answers, '"I shall take theaventure ... that God woll ordayne for me."' The 'primary meaning' ofadventure in Middle English, it has been claimed, is 'chance' — hence theassertion that Balin commits himself to 'the control of chance'.'" But 'aventure',according to Balin, is something that God 'ordains'; Providence lies behind it.Ultimately therefore, it is not chance, although it may appear so to humanbeings — one might compare Lady Philosophy's observation in the fifth bookof Boethius' ^De consolatione Philosophiae that there is no such thing as chance inGod's scheme. There is also nothing to suggest that 'aventure' is a controllingmechanism: rather, Balin suggests, it is what will happen to him in answer tohis own deeds.'^ It is worth noting also that what Balin announces is hissubmission to any 'aventure' that God wiU send, not just the fate that thedamsel has predicted for him. His words create a space between the horrorsthat she has foretold and what may actually transpire. The issues that areraised by Balin's remark resonate through some of the changes that have beenmade to Malory's source material in the first tale of the Morte.

I have suggested that what happens to Balaain in the Suite is just retributionfor what he himself does, but it is a consequence of his deeds that the justiceof other people's fates is jeopardized. When the 'Dolereus Cop' is struck, adisembodied voice announces that Balaain's action will lead '"li HausMaistrez"' to take vengeance on those '"qui ne Font pas deservi"'^' - as theoriginal sin comtnitted by Adam and Eve drove God to consign even therighteous to hell before the advent of Christ. Augustine writes of the loss ofthe 'true freedom' of the will with which God punished the Fall — now the willhas to contend with the rebellious Hesh '̂' - and this too characterizes events inthe Suite following Balaain's 'Dolereus Cop'. Gauvain intends to help a knight,Pellias, have his will of Arcade, the woman he loves, but tbe plan is ruinedwhen Gauvain himself falls in love with Arcade:^' his desire overcomes theresolution of his will. Merlin registers the cruelty of life for Arthur's knightswhen he describes their world as one in which God sends ' "corous et anuis"'"'as preudommes et as vassaus"'.''' It is also, he tells Arthur in a speech thathas been quoted by several critics, a world in which men's fortunes arechangeable and unpredictable:

'Rois Artus aventureus, ki fus coneheus par miervelles et fus norris par aventuretel que chis qui te norrissoit ne savoit qui tu estoies, et quant tu venis jovensenfes entre tes houmes liges qui ne te connissoient, Nostre Sires te connut bienet t'esleva par sa grasce dessus eus tous et t'en Hst signeur ensi coume tu ledevoies estre, et ensi fus engenres par aventure et par aventure rechus tu taeouronne, car ensi plaisoit a Nostre Signeur, et saiches que tantes aventures et simervilleuses ne te sont pas avenues pour noient, ains sont senefiances et

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commenchement de chou qui devoit avenir en ton ostel et en ta subjection et enmaint autre lieu. Et pour chou di jou que tu dois estre apieles rois aventureus ettes roiames li roiaumes aventureus. Et saches que tout aussi que aventure tedouna la couroune, aussi le te taurra elle.'"

The 'adventures' that occur in Arthur's kingdom are just part of the widerphenomenon of the aventures that are its lot. Galahad's unique capacity to makethese aventures cease can be compared with the transcendence of worldly instabilitymade available to men through Christ's Incarnation.-** The advent of Galahad,though, lies well in the future for men in the Suite, who lack any means ofsurmounting the buffets of aventure to which they are exposed.

The Morte diverges from all of this in a number of ways. One should not,perhaps, attach too much significance to the fact that when Malory tells of theeffects of Balin's ' "dolorouse stroke"', he writes that' "grete vengeaunce" ' hasbeen caused '"in thys contreyes"', but his phraseology does avoid the idea inthe French that the fate of individuals may be harsher than what their deedshave earned them.-" The Morte omits Merlin's speech to Arthur entirely, andwith it Merlin's representation of Arthur's realm as a place where fate appearsto operate capriciously. As for the story of Pellias and Arcade, who is renamedEttarde in the Morte, the behaviour of Malory's Gawain does not seem to bethe product of the concupiscence to-which Gauvain falls prey in the Suite. Inthe Suite, Gauvain is a callow knight, 'si jeune et si honteux' that he naively letshimself be drawn into a relationsbip with Arcade from which he then provesunable to extricate bimself" In the Morte, Gawain, true to his reputation in SirGawain and the Green Knight, is a more experienced operator, confiding toEttarde that he is in love with a woman who does not love him, making herpromise to help him '"gete me the love of my lady"', and then holding her toher vow when he reveals that it is no other than Ettarde herself with whom heis in love.'" Malory's Gawain is a controlling knight, and there is no suggestionthat he allows himself to be overcome by love any more tban by the wishes ofhis lover. His betrayal of Pellias is a mark of his falseness, not his enslavementto desire. The Morte revises the character of Gawain, turning him from a weakknight into a bad one — a character consistent with the one he holds in theGrail Quest in the sixth tale in the Winchester manuscript. It also imbues tbehuman will, in Gawain's case at least, with more power of resistance than it isthought to have in the Suite.

Other differences between tbe first tale of the Morte and its sourcescomplement these changes. Malory's reading presented him with anothermeans by which the power of an individual's will may be suppressed: throughthe workings of magic. In the Vulgate continuation of the Roman de Merlin, agroup of barons who rebel against Arthur are defeated when Merlin launches aspell that burns their camp. Later, Merlin conjures up a wind that devastatesthe camp of an alliance of kings who oppose Arthur."*̂ The Morte clears awayMerlin's supernatural intervention in both cases: Merlin gives Arthur advice,but Arthur achieves victory through his own tactics and prowess, and the'dedis of armys' of his men.""̂ In the Suite, Merlin becomes a victim of both

SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE POST-VULGATE SUITE DU MERIJN Z-JC,

magic and the wiliness of the female sex. He meets his death when the damselhe loves, Nivene, enchants him and seals him in a tomb 'par conjuremens etpar force de paroles': he is last heard of crying from the tomb when he realizes'que il estoit livres a mort par engien de feme et que sens de feme a le sien senscontrebatu'.'*'' Malory is often accused of misogyny, but in bis version of tbestory of Merlin's death, the damsel, whom Malory calls Nenyve, is not giventhe blame for Merlin's fate.''̂ The Morte emphasizes rather the role that Merlinhimself plays in his downfall: the damsel 'cowde not be skyfte of hym by nomeane', he 'wolde nat lette her have no reste, but allwayes he wolde be wytbher'.*"̂ Merlin may still be subjected to magic in tbe Morte - whether this iswhat Malory means when he describes how Merlin is led to his death throughthe 'subtyle worchyng' of the damsel is unclear - but his fate is the enactmentof a destiny of which he is more exclusively the author than he is in the Suite.

Several scholars have registered Malory's excision from the Morte of muchof the magic in which his sources delight.*" In the denouement of the story ofPelleas and Ettarde, however, magical happenings appear to have been addedto Malory's source material. In the Suite, Pellias and Arcade marry after Gauvainrepents of his betrayal of Pellias and persuades Arcade to make Pellias her' "amy"'.''° But in the Morte, Nenyve throws an 'inchauntemente' on Ettardethat makes her fall in love with Pelleas, while Pelleas's love turns to hate andhe rides off with Nenyve, causing Ettarde to die of sorrow.''''* Once again, whathappens to Ettarde here is established as of her own making. The Suite indicatesthat Arcade's initial rejection of Pellias is due to her sense of social superiorityto him — she is ' "extraicte de haulte gent"' whereas he is ' "de bas Ugnage" '̂ '' —but tbe Morte leaves no doubt about what drives Ettarde's behaviour. Ettardeis not only '"so prowde that she had scorne"' of Pelleas: Malory states that 'allladyes and jantyllwomen had scorne of hir that she was so prowde', andNenyve comments that '"hit is no joy of suche a proude lady that woll nathave mercy of such a valyaunte knight"'." She earns retribution, and tbeenchantment through which she receives this is, according to Nenyve, '"theryghteuouse jugemente of God"'.^^ Magic that overrides an individual's deedsmay not have found favour with Malory, but magic that brings into being afate tbat one bas initiated oneself does find a place in the Morte.

Elsewhere in Malory's first tale, the fate of indiviuals is characterized asmore malleable. In tbe narrative line preceding the story of Merlin and Nenyve,Merlin reveals that a damsel who killed herself after King Pellynore ignoredher pleas for help was Pellynore's own daughter:

'And because ye wolde nat abyde and helpe hir, ye shall se youre best frendefayle you whan ye be in the grettist distresse that ever ye were other shall be.And that penaunce God hath ordained you for that dede, that he that ye sholdetruste moste on of ony man on lyve, he shall leve you there ye shall be slayne.'

Pellynore's reaction to this is another addition to Malory's source material:

'Me forthynkith hit', seyde kynge Pellynor, 'that thus shall me betide, but Godmay -well fordo desteny.'"

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God may 'fordo' destiny spontaneously; but Pellynore's comment leaves openthe possibility that he may do so also in response to what an individual does inthe time before his fate is enacted. The idea that destiny is open to revisionmay lie behind the omission from the Morte of a striking detail in a passagenear the beginning of the Suite. In an attempt to forestall the '"moult de grantmal en terre"' that Merlin has predicted will come to pass through the sonwhom Arthur has engendered on his sister, Arthur has summoned all thechildren born in his kingdom in the month of Mordret's birth. But whenMordret is being put into his cradle for the voyage, he bumps his head and isleft with a scar on his forehead for the rest of his life.''' This should not, Ithink, be interpreted as a sign of the sinful circumstances of incest and adulteryin which Mordret was conceived: he has been baptized and thus cleansed ofany sin with which he has been tainted. What the scar does suggest of Mordretis his identity as Arthur's future nemesis: an identity as indelible as the scar hebears. Arthur's punishment through Mordret seems inalterable and ineluctablein the Suite. In the Morte the future is less sealed, the form that it will take moreamenable to change.

It has been argued tbat a comparison of the Morte with its sources cannotsafely be used to assess Malory's own contribution to the material he relates:since we do not have the manuscripts from which Malory worked, how can webe sure that any divergences between the Morte and the versions of Malory'ssources that do survive are the result of Malory's intervention, rather than thatof a redactor of a lost manuscript?^' The fact that later tales in the Morteengage with their sources in the same ways as the first tale suggests that it isindeed Malory who is bebind at least some of tbeir unique readings. Many ofthe events in Malory's sources for the seventh and eighth tales of the Morte, LaMort te roi Artu and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, are presented as caused by theprotagonists themselves. In I.^ Mort le roi Artu, the dying Gauvain requests thatthe reason for his death be starkly recorded as 'l'outrage Gauvain', ' "si que gesoie blasmez de ma mort si comme j'ai deservi" '.'^ Malory carries this over,but gives it more impact through the repetitiveness of the words that heassigns to Gawain: '"And all I may wyte myne owne hastynes and mywy[l]fulnesse, for thorow my -wylfulnes I was causer of myne owne dethe."'"In the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, when Gawain learns of the death of his brotherAgravain at the hands of Lancelot, he recalls warning Agravain that it was'"strong to hold'" against Lancelot.'^ Malory retains the substance of thiscomment, but expands on it: Gawain, in words tbat chillingly foretell his owndemise, identifies Aggravayne and Gawain's own two sons. Sir Florens and SirLovell, as '"the causars of their owne dethe"'.'' In the Stanzaic Morte Arthur,Gawain's observation is an expression of regret, part of his lament for hisbrother. Malory's Gawain remains coldly unemotional at the news he hasreceived, fixing the reader's attention on the issue of blame for what hashappened that is raised in his speech. At the beginning of the seventh tale ofthe Morte, Malory departs from his' sources more radically. In La Mort le roi

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Artu and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, a knight dies when Guinevere gives him apoisoned apple that another man has intended for Gawain.'̂ " Malory has theknight, whom he names Patryse, take the fruit himself, and he inserts a reasonfor his action: he is 'enchaffed with hete of wyne'.'' 'Enchaffed' has conno-tations of intemperance — in 'The tale of the Sank Greal', Perceval nearly loseshis virginity when he is 'enchaffed' with desire for a 'jantilwoman' who is infact ' "the mayster fyende of helle"' in disguise, and he is 'enchaffed' withdesire because be is 'chaffett' with wine 'a lityll more than he oughte to be'."̂ ^Patryse is not the innocent, and random, victim that he appears to be in theother texts. Like the other knights who perish in the last two tales of the Morte,he can be seen to have invited his own death.

A more complex series of revisions has taken place in the fifth, and longest,tale of the Morte, 'The book of Sir Tristram de Lyones'. Malory's source, LeRoman de Tristan en prose, tells how the love potion that is swallowed by Tristanand Yselt compels a change in the couple's feelings for one another. After itsingestion, Tristan 'ne desire nule chose fors Yselt, et Yselt ne desire riens forsTristan'; before this, Yselt has been the only damsel in the Irish court whodoes not love Tristan, and Tristan has been said not to love Yselt greatly yet."In the Morte, when the couple are still in Ireland, Isode is said to love Tristram,in his guise of Sir Tramtryste, 'passynge well', and Tramtryste 'kyste grete love'to Isode.'̂ '' When the potion is consumed, Malory states that 'Thus hit happedfyrst, the love betwyxte sir Trystrames and La Beale Isode': a statement that istrue in that Tristram is now Tristram and not Tramtryste.''' But the lovebetween Tristram and Isode renews the love that already existed betweenTramtryste and Isode - the effects of the potion are in line with, not contraryto, the attitudes previously held by the couple. In Le Roman de Tristan en prose,Tristan and Yselt are given the potion by their servants, Gorvenal andBrangain, who mistake it for wine.*"'' Malory has Tristram and Isode take thepotion themselves: any consequences that it has answer their own deeds."Malory's alterations to the love potion episode can be compared with histreatment in the eighth tale of the subject of Gawain's magical gift, by whicb'every day in the yere, frome undern tyll hyghe noone, hys might encresed thothree owres as much as thryse hys strength'.''^ In La Mort le roi Artu, Gawain'sgift makes him invincible around noon, when his strength revives.'"' Maloryplays down the power of Gawain's gift - it allows him simply to '-wynne gretehonoure' - and he qualifies its role in Gawain's temporary success in hiscombat with Lancelot: 'ever as sir Gawaynes might encresed, right so encrecedhys wynde and hys e-vyll -wyll."" Gawain's survival is propelled by his ownstamina and his own malevolence, which the magical powers that he has beengiven reinforce.

The existence of free wiU was being proclaimed in Malory's day via theEnglish translations of Boethius' De consolatione Philosophiae by Chaucer andWalton." In Troilus and Criseyde, the folly of Troilus' notion that events arepredestined - ' " . . . al that comth, comth by necessitee: / Thus to ben lorn, it ismy destinee"' — is suggested when, in begging '"Almygbty Jove in trone'" to

MEDIUM

take pity on him, he reminds the reader of the potential of prayer to direct anindividual's fate along the lines that he or she chooses.'^ In Usk's Testament ofLove, Love affirms that man has ' "fre choice of arbitrement" ' at his disposal:' "Wherefore, the comune sentence of the people in opinyon, that every thyngeafter destenye is ruled, false and wicked is to byleve."' If men did not havefree will. Love points out, ' "it contraried Goddes charite"', which, after one'sdeath, '"badnesse and goodnesse rewardetb after desert of payn or ofmede"'." Altbough she does not, for the most part, distinguish Malory's owncontribution to the Morte from what is in his sources, Carolyn Martin Craft hasargued with great perspicacity that the human will also determines whathappens in each of the tales of Le Morte Darthur?* But the interpretation of thefinal tale that has obtained wider circulation is that articulated by MarkLambert, wbo claims that Malory points to 'luck, fate, fortune, chance, ratherthan moral responsibility' as causes of the destruction of Arthur and hisknights." Lambert notes the recurrence of words sucb as unhappe or mysfortunedin tbis section of the Morte - the subject of the tale is 'a grete angur andunhappe that stynted nat tylle the fioure of chivalry of [alle] the worlde wasdestroyed and slayne', Lancelot's killing of Gareth and Gaherys is described aswhat it 'mysfortuned' him to do'^ — and writes that these 'present thedestruction as an occurrence of unknown or at least impersonal causation'.'Unhappe', however, is what befalls the knights: it is not the 'cause' of whathappens to them. 'Misfortune' is the outcome of Lancelot's deeds: it does not'cause' the deaths of Gareth and Gaherys. Like their brothers, Gareth andGaherys can, in fact, be regarded as tbe causers of their own deaths in theMorte. Malory follows the Stanzaic Morte Arthur in having Gareth and Gaherysattend Guinevere's burning unarmed; in Iui Mort le roi Artu, Gaheriet andGuerrehet are armed." The gesture of Gareth and Gaherys in the Morte may benoble, but its result is unsurprising.

Arthur dreams that he falls from a wheel into 'an hydeous depe blak watir',filled with 'all maner of serpentis and wormes and wylde bestis fowle andorryble';'* but this does not mean that his fate is caused by the Fortune who,implicidy, is mistress of the wheel. Rather, Arthur's destruction is determinedby his own choices. In spite of the punishment that Arthur has earned in thefirst tale of the Morte by engendering Mordred on bis half-sister, in the eighthtale he is given the opportunity to escape death. In Arthur's second dream inthe tale, Gawain tells how he has been sent by God's '"speciall grace"' towarn Arthur to '"take a tretyse"' with Mordred for a month; if he does so,Lancelot will come back and rescue bim.^' Arthur does forge a truce withMordred, and he is spared when almost all of the rest of his men, and all ofMordred's, are killed. He is now warned once more against fighting Mordred,this time by Lucan, who reminds his ' "good lord"' of what Gawain has toldhim, and points out that '"God of Hys grete goodness hath preserved youhyddirto"': ' "And therefore if ye leve of now, thys wicked day of Desteny yspaste." '̂ ° Arthur, however, insists on fighting Mordred, and consequently hisevasion of disaster comes to an end. Arthur is an impressive figure: he is 'the

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moste kynge and nobelyst knigbt of tbe worlde'."' But he does not receive anyspiritual reward for his deeds: he remains 'saunz gwerdon', as the rubric at theend of the seventh tale of the Morte declares. Lancelot, according to the dreamof the Bishop of Canterbury, is assumed into heaven, but Arthur's disappear-ance from the text via the barge that carries him off to the vale of 'Avylyon'precludes reference to the fate of his soul after death. In another passage thathe adds to his sources, Malory expresses his distress and bewilderment at thecollapse of his material at this point:

Thus of Arthur 1 fynde no more wrytten in bokis that ben auctorysed, nothirmore of the verry sertaynte of hys dethe harde I never rede, but thus was he ladaway in a shyp wherein were three quenys ...*^

Malory returns to what he has already related, as if thwarted in his search forthe information that he craves.

Malory adds to the climactic quality of 'The Day of Destiny' section of theeighth tale by extending the issue of self-determination to the macrocosm ofthe community. The fate that afflicts Arthur's England comes about becauseof the actions of its 'new-fangill', ungrateful people, who desert Arthur forMordred." The fate of Malory's England has arisen because of the 'gretedefaughte' of its inhabitants, by which 'there may no thynge us please noterme'."'' And the projected future of Malory's world can also be related towhat those who live in it have done. The uncertainty surrounding Arthur'sdeath that Malory has noted allows him to raise the possibility that the kinglives on: maybe, as some claim 'in many p[art]ys of Inglonde', he is 'h[ad] bythe wyll of oure Lorde Jesu into another place' — 'and men say that he shallcom agayne, and he shall -wynne the Holy Crosse'." In the idea that Arthurmight reappear to win victory for Christendom in the Holy Land, Maloryconnects the king's career with the destiny of his readers: it is, perhaps, theirown actions that will decide whether this version of the future comes to pass,rather than another, less idealistic fate. For a moment, Malory posits an openfuture for Christendom, as he has posited an open future for the individualswho have occupied Le Morte Darthur up to this point: the form that the futurewill take will be determined by Christendom, as the other individuals in theMorte have determined their fates also. That Malory follows hope withpessimism — 'I woll nat say that hit shall be so' — says as much about his viewof the fate that Christendom has merited as it does about his belief in thelikelihood of Arthur's return. His England has shown him a renewal of thedivisiveness that brought down Arthur's world, and there is litde to convincehim that a revival of the triumphs of that world has been earned.

University College London MARILYN CORRIE

MEDIUM MVVM LXXIII.2

NOTES

For comments on earlier versions of this essay, I am very grateful to Susan Irvine andFred Biggs, to the editors oi Medium jEvum, and to the anonymous referee who reviewedthe article for the journal. I would particularly like to thank Nigel Palmer for veryhelpful feedback. Issues in the essay have been aired in papers presented to the OxfordEnglish Dictionary Forum and the Graduate Seminar of the English Department atUniversity College London. Questions from the audiences on both occasions havehelped me to refine my ideas. 1 am, of course, responsible for any deficiencies thatremain.

' See The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Eugene Vinaver, 5rd edn, rev. P. J. C. Field(Cxford, 1990), HI, i25 3flf.^ Malory's Originality: A Critical Study of Le Morte Darihur, ed. R. M. Lumiansky(Baltimore, Md, 1964); Terence McCarthy, v4« Introduction to Malory (Cambridge, 1991),esp. ch. iv, and 'Malory and his sources', in A Companion to Malory, ed. ElizabethArchibald and A. S. G. Edwards (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 75—95. See also selected essaysin P. J. C. Field, Malory: Texts and Sources, Arthurian Studies 40 (Cambridge, 1988).•* P. J. C. Field, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Matory, Arthurian Studies 29 (Cambridge,

'995). P- >7Z-•* On the relationship between the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin and the Vulgate Cycle,see Fanni Bogdanow, The Romance of the Grail: A Study of the Structure and Cenesis of aThirteenth-Century Arthurian Prose Romance (Manchester, 1966), esp. chs i—iii and v—vii.The treatment of the Vulgate Cycle by subsequent writers is also discussed inBogdanow's edition of La X^ersion Post- Vulgate de la 'Queste del Saint Craal' et de la 'MortAriu', 4 vols (Paris, 1991), 1 (introduction).' This manuscript does not appear to have been the one used by Malory, or used byhim exclusively, because sections of the first tale of the Morte correspond more closelyto readings in other manuscripts of the French texts: see The Works of Sir Thomas Malory,111, 1281. The Cambridge manuscript is also discussed in L. Anne Doherty and P. J. C.Field, 'The Amsterdam University fragment of the Old French Prose Merlin', in Field,Malory: Texts and Sources, pp. 114—2;. Details of editions of the Roman de Merlin and itscontinuations are given below.'• Vinaver, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, III, i276f. The link between Balaain's deedsand the beginning of the Grail adventures is stated by Merlin in the Suite: see La Suite duroman de Merlin, ed. Gilles Roussineau, 2 vols (Geneva, 1996), 1, 118. Subsequentreferences to the Suite will be to this edition. On Malory's version of the Balin episode,see also Laura A. Hibbard, 'Malory's Book of Balin', in Medieval Studies in Memory ofCertrude Schoepperle Loomis (Paris, 1927), pp. 175—9;; Robert L. Kelly, 'Malory's "Tale ofBalin" reconsidered'. Speculum, 54 (1979), 85—99; Jill Mann, '"Taking the adventure":Malory and the Suite du Aiertin', in Aspects of Malory, ed. Toshiyuki Takamiya and DerekBrewer (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 71—91; and Thomas C. Rumble, 'Malory's Balin and thequestion of unity in the Morie Darihur', Speculum, 41 (1966), 68—85.' The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, I, 91." On Malory's Balin, see further below, pp. 276f.' Suite, 1, 142. 'He is the most wretched and unfortunate knight of any who ever borearms, as he now sees clearly that Fortune is more perverse and inimical towards himthan towards any other man.' All translations from the Suite are my own, as aresubsequent translations from other French texts.'" Ibid., I, T79. ' "This bad event has come about more through ill fortune than anythingelse, as without doubt 1 am the most unfortunate knight alive."'

SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE POST-VULGATE SUITE DU MERIJN 28;

" Ibid., I, 190. '"So terrible is our misfortune that you have killed me'"; '"no twobrothers ever suffered such terrible misfortune as has been suffered by us'"; '"OhGod, why have you allowed such terrible misfortune and such a terrible mishap tobefall us?"''̂ Mescheans, derived from mescheoir, 'to fall badly', does not seem to have developed thesense of modern French mechant— 'bad, wicked' — until some time after the compositionof the Suite: Roussineau glosses it as 'infortune, malchanceux'. Mesqueanche, or mescheance,seems to have acquired the connotation of moral deficiency earlier, and Roussineaugives the meaning 'conduite mauvaise, malhonnete' (rather than 'malchance' or'malheur') for one instance of its use in the Suite. This is not in the extracts that I havequoted, but it does not seem impossible that the author is playing on the meaning ofthe word in these citations. Is Balaain's mesqueanche what happens to him or thesinfulness that provokes this?'̂ Le Roman de Balain: A Prose Romance of the Thirteenth Century, ed. M. Dominica Legge(Manchester, 1942), p. xxix.'•* Suite, I, 68: 'fuU of integrity, boldness and prowess'." Ibid., I, 70: ' "you are carrying your death with you" '; 'for the sword seems too goodand beautiful to him'." Ihid., I, 184. 'He is greatly reassured by the fact that he feels in good health and agileand strong and nimble and a good knight.'" Ibid., I, i4of." See in particular De civitate Dei, ed. Bernard Dombart and Alphonse Kalb, 4th edn, 'reprinted with corrections, 2 vols. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 47—8 (Turnhout,19;;), II, 434f. (book XIV, ch. xiii). That 'Initium ... omnis peccati superbia est', asAugustine asserts here, is a quotation from Ecclesiasticus x.13." Cf. De civitate Dei, II, 434—5.^̂ Suite, 1, 8;. ' "In you we have found a reincarnation of Eve, our mother."''̂ Ibid., I, 69: 'poor in possessions'; '"I was once richer."'

^̂ Ibid., I, 75. 'Our Lord did not want him to go on living much longer, and he himselfwas the reason.'^̂ Robert de Boron, Merlin: roman du Xllle siecle, ed. Alexandre Micha (Geneva, 1980),pp. 18-20. ' "We did not think that anyone could be born of a woman who was notours'"; baptism washes away '"the sin of the father and the mother'"; the devils haveno power over human beings '"until they themselves return to us through theirdeeds"'. 'The sin of the father and the mother' seems to refer to the original sin ofAdam and Eve with which all infants, according to Augustine, are born (cf. De civitateDei, II, 532 (book xvi, ch. xxvii); Confessionum lihri XIII, ed. Luc Verheijen, after MartinSkutella, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 27 (Turnhout, 1981), p. 127 (book viii,chapter x)).•̂' Merlin, pp. 5of. 'He will hold with whichever he wants, because if he wants to, he can

give the devils what is theirs, and Our Lord what is His.'^̂ Ibid., p. 13 (lines 397—400). ' "St. Augustine tells us: 'Good works bring a good end.Anyone who is not willing to refrain from doing wrong cannot have a good death' ".'^̂ For Augustine's fullest discussion of the issue of free will, see De lihero arbitrio libritres, ed. W. M. Green, in Contra academicos, De heata vita, De ordine, De magistro, De liheroarhitrio. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 29 (Turnhout, 1970), pp. 205-321. Cf. alsoDe civitate Dei, especially books v and xiv.'̂ See De civitate Dei, book v, chs viii—xi, esp. pp. 135 ('Qui uero ... omnium

conexionem seriemque causarum, qua fit omne quod fit, fati nomine appellant ...quidem ipsum causarum ordinem et quondam conexionem Dei summi tribuunt

286 M E D I U M ^ E V U M

uoluntati et potestati') and 138 ('Non est autem consequens, ut, si Deo certus estomnium ordo causarum, ideo nihil sit in nostrae uoluntatis arbitrio. Et ipsae quippenostrae uoluntates in causarum ordine sunt, ... quoniam et humanae uoluntateshumanorum operum causae sunt ...').^' Le Roman de Balain, p. xxix.'̂ fohn Cower's English Works, ed. G. C. Macaulay, 2 vols, EETS, ES 81 and 82 (London,

1900-1), I, 19-20, lines 544-9, 552-5 ('Prologus').'" Mann, ' "Taking the adventure"', p. 80." Ibid., p. 79. For Balin's comment, see The Works of Sir Thomas Maloty, 1, 64; cf. also p.70, where Balan tells his brother, '". . . ye must take the adventure that God wollordayne you'", and p. 89, where Balin says, '"1 wille take the adventure that shallecome to me."''̂ Cf. Joy Wallace, 'Transposing the enterprise of adventure: Malory's "take theadventure" and French tradition', in Shifts and Transpositions in Medieval Narrative: AFestschrift for Elspeth Kennedy, ed. Karen Pratt (Cambridge, 1994), 151-67. Wallace notesthat putting oneself 'en aventure' in French romance means submitting oneself to 'thenotion of immanent justice' (p. 154); when protagonists in Le Morte Darthur say thatthey will 'take the adventure', they are articulating 'the Providentialist viewpoint thatGod ordains the outcome of a joust' (p. 165). Wallace argues that the knights'invocation of this concept appears increasingly problematic in the light of the situationsin which they are involved.•'̂ Suite, I, 162: '"the Great Lord'" will take vengeance on '"those who have notdeserved it"'.^* See De civitate Dei, book xiv, chs xi and xv, esp. pp. 432 and 437; De lihero arhitrio,book III, ch. xviii (pp. 305f.).' 5 Suite, l l . A l l .•" Ibid., I, 265: God sends '"hardship and affliction'" '"to good and valiant men"'.•" Ibid., I, 234. 'Arthur, king oi aventures, you who were conceived through marvelloushappenings and were brought up by such aventure that the man who brought you up didnot know who you were; and when, as a young child, you entered the company of yoursubjects who did not know you. Our Lord knew well who you were and through hisgrace raised you above all of them and made you lord of them just as you ought to be;and so you were engendered by aventure and through aventure you received your crown,because this is what Our Lord wished; and be aware that it isn't for nothing that somany marvellous aventures have happened to you - they signify and are the start of whatwas to come to pass in your household and in the lands subject to you and in manyanother place. And this is why I say that you are to be called the king oi aventures, andyour kingdom the kingdom of aventures. And be aware that just as aventure gave you thecrown, so it will take it away from you.' Bogdanow interprets 'aventure' as 'chance' or'm i schance ' (The Romance of the Crail, p p . 153—5), bu t as with aventure o r adventure in

Middle English, 'chance' seems to he more the connotation than the denotation of theword. 1 have chosen not to translate the term because of the difficulty of rendering itby a single modern English equivalent: 'fortune' probably captures its meaning best.Merlin's speech to Arthur is also referred to in Mann, '"Taking the adventure"', pp.88f.•** Cf. De civitate Dei, book xxi, ch. 15.'̂ The Works of Sir Thomas Matory, I, 86.

"" Suite, II, 410.•" The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, I, 169. Ettarde's justification of her compliance withGawain's wishes — '"1 may nat chese ... but if I sholde be forsworne'" — seems

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disingenuous in the wake of her comment to him that' "there is no lady in this worldeto good for you"'.*^ See the text of the Vulgate continuation of the Roman de Merlin in The Vulgate Versionof Arthurian Romances Edited from Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. H. Oskar Sommer,8 vols (Washington, DC, 1908—16), II {Lestoire de Merlin), 93 and 114. The continuationbegins at p. 88 of Sommer's edition; the foregoing material is from the Roman de Merlin.^^ The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, I, 19 and 27.'*'' Suite, II, 335 f. Merlin is trapped 'by spells and by the power of words'; he realizes'that he was at the end of his days through a woman's machinations, and that awoman's cunning has got the better of his own intellectual powers'."' For a recent discussion of the attitudes to women implicit in Le Morie Darihur, seeElizabeth Edwards, 'The place of women in the Morie Darthur', in A Companion toMalory, pp. 37-54. Another episode where Malory seems to distance himself from theanti-feminism of his sources can be found in his 'Tale of the Sank Greal'. In theFrench, the account of the construction of the Ship of Faith at the command ofSolomon's wife is prefaced by a diatribe against her deceitfulness and the cunning of allwomen: all Solomon's 'granz sens' 'ne pot durer contre le grant engin sa fame, que elene le deceust assez souvent ... Et ce ne doit Ien pas tenir a merveille; car sanz faille,puis que fame veut metre s'entencion et son cuer en engin, nus sens d'ome mortel nes'i porroit prendre ...' {La Queste del Saint Craal: roman du Xllle siecle, ed. AlbertPauphilet, Les Classiques franjais du Moyen Age 33 (Paris, 1923), p. 220). The Morteomits this: Malory writes simply, ' "So this Salamon had an evyll wyff, wherethorow hewente there had be no good woman borne, and therefore he dispysed them in hysbookis"' {The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, II, 991). To some extent, the alteration isgoverned by Malory's decision to have the account of the Ship of Faith related throughPerceval's sister; but the Morte still suggests the dubiousness of Solomon'sgeneralization about women on the basis of a single bad experience.'"' The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, I, i25f.•" See, for example, Vinaver in The Works of Sir Thomas Maloty, III, 1278f.; cf. McCarthy,An Introduction to Malory, pp. 111 f.••* Suite, II, 420-5.•" The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 1, 172.™ Suite, II, 402: '"descended from the high-born'"; "'of humble stock"'.'̂ The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, I, 166 and 171.

52 Ibid., I, 172.' ' Ibid., I, 120.5'' Suite, I, 57. See p. 8 for Merlin's prediction of the havoc that Mordret will bring.55 The point is made in Stephen Knight, The Structure of Sir Thomas Malory's Arthuriad,Australian Humanities Research Council Monograph 14 (Sydney, 1969), p. 16. But cf.Robert H. Wilson, Characterisation in Malory: A Comparison with his Sources (Chicago,1934), which contrasts the inconsistencies displayed by some of the characters inMalory's sources with the much greater consistency that the same characters show inthe Morte. Since it is unlikely that this greater consistency could have been derived fromlost versions of Malory's sources in every case, it seems probable, Wilson suggests, thatit was Malory himself who reshaped the characters.5' La Mort le roi Ariu: roman du Xllle siecle, ed. Jean Frappier, 3rd edn (Geneva, 1964), p.220: '"so that I shall be held responsible for my death as 1 have deserved." ' Gauvain'srequest is omitted in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur." The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, III, 1230. Gawain's statement is discussed in CarolynMartin Craft, 'Free will in Malory's 1^ Morte Darthur and in some earlier Arthurian

288 M E D I U M ^EVUM LXXIII.2

writings' (unpub. Ph.D. diss.. University of Pennsylvania, 1973), p. 384. On Craft'sthesis, see further below.5' Stanzaic Morie Arthur, in Bang Arihur's Death: The Middle English Stanzaic Morie Arihurand Alliterative Morie Arihure, ed. Larry D. Benson (Exeter, 1986), p. 53 (line 1919).5' The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, III, i T 76. In La Mort le roi Artu, Agravain is not killedin his attempt to expose Lancelot's affair with Guinevere but later, when Gawain'sother brothers, Gaheriet and Guerrehet, are also killed." La Mort le roi Artu, p. 76; Stanzaic Morte Arihur, p. 26. In La Mori le roi Artu, thepoisoner is a knight called Avarlan and his unintended victim Gaheris de Karaheu. Inthe Stanzaic Morte Arthur, the poisoner is a squire and the man who dies an unnamed'Scottish knight'.'•' The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, II, 1049.•5̂ Ibid., II, 918.''^ Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Renee L. Curtis, 3 vols (Munich (vol. I), Leiden (vol.II), and Cambridge (vol. Ill), 1963-85), II, 66-7; I, 174 and 175. The rest of the text ispublished in 9 vols, edited by various scholars under the direction of Philippe Menard(Geneva, 1987—98)." The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, I, 389 and 385.

'5 Ibid., I, 412. Isode, however, is said to love 'sir Trystrames' most 'of all men erthely'at p. 411. On Malory's appellation of his characters according to the names hy whichthey are known to other characters in the Morte, see Dhira B. Mahoney, 'Narrativetreatment of name in Malory's Morie D'Arihur {sic)', English Literary History, 47 (1980),646-56." Le Roman de Tristan en prose, I I , 65.

'•' The potion is consumed in the Morte in a spirit of levity — Tristram and Isode'lowghe and made good chere and eyther dranke to other frely'. The eflFects of thedrink could be interpreted as punishment for their heedlessness; but Malory removesthe extended intimations of the torment to come that make the taking of the potionseem a dire event in Le Roman de Tristan en prose. The potion's eflFects in the Morte areregistered but not dwelt on, making them appear inconsequential. Malory's attenuationof the significance of the incident is complemented by the tone struck at its beginning.'" The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, III, 1216." La Mort le roi Artu, pp. 197-9. The Stanzaic Morie Arthur does not specify the extentto which Gawain is aided by his gift (cf. p. 78). In having Gawain's strength increasefor three hours before it reaches its peak, Malory is following the Stanzaic Morie Arthur.™ The Works of Sir Thomas Matory, III, 1217 and 1220." See The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston, Mass., 1987), pp. 395-469;Boethius: 'De consolatione Philosophiae' Translated hy John Walton, Canon of Oseney, ed. MarkScience, EETS, OS 170 (London, 1927). Mann, '"Taking the adventure'", p. 205 n. 46,comments that ' . . . the influence of Chaucer [on Malory] should ... be considered, ...because it is hard to conceive of a literary Englishman in the fifteenth century nothaving read Chaucer'.'̂ Troilus and Criseyde, IV.958-9 and io79ff. I" Chaucer's Boece, V, pr. vi (p. 469), LadyPhilosophy states that, '"Ne in ydel ne in veyn ne ben ther put in God hope andpreyeris that ne mowen nat ben unspedful ne withouten effect whan they beenrightful" '; cf. also V, pr. iii (p. 461), where Lady Philosophy suggests that if it were truethat ' "the ordenance of destine ... knytteth and streyneth alle thingis that men maidesiren"', ' "what scholde any wyght hopen to God, or why scholde he preien to God... ?"' Troilus' prayer, of course, is misdirected, and its end is far from clear (' "Reweon my sorwe: or do me deyen sone, / Or bring Criseyde and me fro this destresse!"').

SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE POST-VULGATE SUITE DU MERIJN 289

" Thomas Usk, Testament of Love, ed. Gary W. Shawver, based on the edition of John F.Leyerle (Toronto, 2002), pp. 133, 190.'•• Craft, 'Free will', pp. 237flF. In her introduction. Craft discusses some of the writingsof medieval theologians that deal with the subject of free will. Malory's engagementwith the issue, however, may have been stimulated by vernacular texts." Mark Lambert, Malory: Style and Vision in 'Le Morte Darthur', Yale Studies in English186 (New Haven, Conn., 1975), p. 162."• The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, III, 1161 and 1177." Ibid. , i n , 1177; cf. Stanzaic Morte Arihur, p . 5 3 (line 1941), La Mort le roi Artu, p . 123.

™ The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, I I I , 1233.

" Ibid., m , 1234."» Ibid., m , i236f.»' Ibid., Ill, 1229."̂ Ibid., m , 1242." Cf. Craft, 'Free will', p. 395.»" The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, III, 1229."5 Ibid., m , 1242.

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