A MALORY MS.

THE DISCOVERY AT WINCHESTER

VARIANTS FROM THE TEXT OF CAXTON

The manuscript of the "Morte Darthur," the discovery of which in Winchester College Library was announced in "The Times" of June 26, is submitted below to a preliminary analysis by the discoverer and shown not only to differ occasionally from the printed text but to throw light upon both Malory and Caxton.

By Walter F. Oakeshott

Though the labours of scholars in England, France, Germany, and America have been devoted to the study of Malory during the past 50 years, he has remained a baffling figure. There are few prose books in which one can get a sense of more intimate personal contact with the writer, and yet any definite knowledge of him has been made impossible by lack of information and the unknown quantity of Caxton's revision, for all our texts are derived from his edition. No manuscript of Malory has hitherto been known to exist. The concluding words of the printed text give all the information we have hitherto had of the methods which Caxton adopted.

I pray you [it says], all ientil men and ientil wymmen that redith this book of Arthur and his knyghtes from the beginning to the endying praye for me whyle I am on lyve that God sende me good deliverance and when I am deed I praye you all praye for my soule. For this book was ended in the IX yere of the reygne of King Edward the fourth [1469-70] by Syr Thomas Maleore knyght as Ihesu helpe hym for hys grete myght, as he is the servant of Ihesu both day and night. Thus endith thys noble and ioyous book entitled le Morte Darthur . . . whych book was reduced into englysshe by Syr Thomas Malory, Knight, as afore is said, and by me devided into XXI bookes, chaptyred and emprynted and fynysshed in thabbey Westmestre the last day of Juyl the yere of our lord MCCCCLXXXV. Caxton me fieri fecit.

Caxton, then, printed Malory's work 16 years after it left Malory's hands. But did he content himself with making the (not very intelligent) divisions into books and chapters, or did he also revise the text? And who was Sir Thomas Malory or Maleore, knight?

Investigation brought to light the existence of three families of Malory in the fifteenth century, and in two of their pedigrees the name Thomas occurred. But none of them, it seemed, would do, and by some the author was held to belong to a conjectural fourth. Then Professor Kittredge unearthed a Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, about whom certain fragments of judicial information survived; he was arrested in 1451 and again in 1452, and was in prison in 1468, for he was specifically exempted from general amnesties of that date. His epitaph proved that he had died in March, 1470-1. But the identification of this Malory with the author of the Morte Darthur was necessarily tentative, resting indeed almost solely on the fact that the date of his death made it not impossible.

A VELLUM FRAGMENT

These problems seemed likely to remain unsolved, when a few weeks ago a manuscript of the Morte Darthur came to light in the Fellows' Library in Winchester College. If the beginning or the end of the manuscript had survived, its importance would no doubt have been recognized long ago, but it has lost a gathering of eight leaves at both ends, and any "uncapped" and colophon which the book as a whole may have had have therefore disappeared. Considering the bulk of the work-it now has about 475 leaves, that is, 950 pages-the losses are small, amounting only to two or three odd leaves apart from the missing first and last quires. It contains no early indication of ownership, the binding being comparatively modern. Nor does it appear in the 1630 catalogue of the College Library, and an entry in the Donors' Book dated 1648 can only be tentatively referred to it. A more positive entry in the catalogue of 1839 is not under Malory's name.

One small detail of its early history has been established. A vellum fragment used to repair a tear proved to have print on the gummed side and has been identified by Mr. J.V. Scholderer, of the British Museum, as part of an indulgence granted by Innocent VIII. in1489 and printed by Caxton himself.

As induilgences lost their validity after a certain time [Mr. Scholderer comments], they tended to be remaindered, and hence to be turned over to the binders, since the printer could do nothing further with them. . . . It suggests that the Malory manuscript was at one time in the hands of a London binder.

The manuscript was certainly not that actually used by Caxton, but the probabilities are that it was already in existence by 1486. Mr. A.J. Collins, of the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, found that one of its watermarks is identical in design and almost identical in size with that on a document dated 1475, and the writing would suit a date about 1470-80. Moreover, it is unlikely that a manuscript would be ordered when printed copies existed.

BREAKING INTO FRENCH

The manuscript's first point of interest is that it preserves the colophons or notes of authorship at0 the end of several of the main division, no doubt in exactly the form that these were written by Malory himself. Since Caxton printed the final colophon (missing in our manuscript), we now probably have the complete series. It is curiously satisfactory to have Malory's footnote to Book IS., even though it gives us no new information. Sir Tristram has just arrived with the shield made by Morgan le Fey to spite Arthur:-

So here levith of this booke, for hit is the firste book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, and the secunde booke begynnith where Sir Tristram smote down kynge Arthure and Syr Uwayne, by cause why he wolde not tell them wherefore that shylde was made, but to say the soth Sir Trystram coulde nat telle the cause for he knew it nat.

Similarly one is delighted to discover Malory breaking into french before the story of the Morte proper begins-where the scribe, himself feeling that this was an occasion, writes the last two lines of the colophon in scarlet:--

And here I go unto the Morte Arthur and that caused Sir Aggravayne, and here on the other syde folowyth the most pytevous tale of the morte ARTHURE SANNZ GWERDON.

PAR LE SHYVALERE SIR THOMS MALLEORE KNYGHT IHU AYED ELY PAR VOUT BONE MERCY AMEN.

Incidentally in our manuscript the next book follows immediately below, so that the phrase "on the other syde" is certainly Malory's, referring to his own manuscript. The footnote to the Beaumains Story, Book VII. in Caxton's edition, is particularly interesting.

I pray you all [it runs] that redyth this tale to pray for hym that this wrote that God send hym good deliverance sone and hastely. Amen.

The wording of this may, I believe, imply that the book (of which no original is known either in English or French) is in the main Malory's own work, for elsewhere he does not talk of having "written" the book, but of having translated it, "drawyn out of the French" or "breffly drawyn out of the French" being his phrases. And further, here occurs the word, already familiar from the last colophon in Caxton's edition, "deliverance." Its meaning is made certain by yet another colophon:--

And this booke [it is Caxton's Book IV.] endyth where as Sir Launcelot and Sir Tristrams com to courte. Who that woll make any more lette hym seke other bookis of King Arthure or of Sir Launcelot or Sir Tristrams. For this was drawyn by a knight presoner Sir Thomas Malleore that God sende hym good recover. Amen.

The identity of Malory, author of the Morte Darthur, with Malory, Knight prisoner, is thus at last established, and we now also know that the great bulk of the work, if not all, was written in prison. This is a striking confirmation of the results of recent scholarship. Professor Vinaver had lately suggested that the phrase "good deliverance" might be a reference to imprisonment, and had noticed that a sentence in which the horrors of imprisonment are movingly described by Malory was his own work, and did not occur in the "French book" from which he was at that point drawing his material.

CAXTON AS EDITOR

Caxton, as we now from the preface to one of his editions of Chaucer, appreciated a good manuscript when he saw one. His text of Malory sometimes contains phrases which can be traced to the sources Malory was using and yet do not appear in the Winchester manuscript. In such instances Caxton's text is to be preferred. There are reasons for believing that the Winchester manuscript and that used by Caxton were derived independently from the same source. Malory's manuscript, and that where accidental omissions occur in one text the other will be found to supplement them. Some of the obvious gaps in the Caxton text are doubtless due to the carelessness of his compositor, but when the text has been edited to cover the traces of an omission this explanation will not do. There is no reason why Caxton should have left out, for example, a line from Gawaine's confession on his death-bed:--

. . . I fele myselff that I must [nedis be dede by the owre of noone, and thorow me and pride ye have all thys shame and disease] for had that noble knyght Sir Launcelot been with you as he was and wolde have been thys unhappy warr had never ben beginne.

Caxton, finding that his text, which omitted the words in brackets, made nonsense, rewrote it slightly, in order that it should at least be readable. This was reasonable. But our manuscript proves that Caxton's literary conscience did not check him there. He went through the whole book rapidly, touching up passages where the grammar seemed to him to be rough and altering phrases which seemed to him archaic-he mentions in another preface how the English language was changing in his day-or otherwise unsuitable.

He did not like Guenever saying that she would take her death "as meekly as ever martyr took his death for Jesus Christ's sake," so he wrote instead "meekly for Jesuit Christ's sake as ever did any Christian Queen." He disliked Malory writing the "Roche Dure" and translated it when he noticed it; and he altered "pardie" to "forsooth" whenever it caught his eye-which it by no means always succeeded in doing. Malory, in describing the joy of Sir Tristram and La Beale Isoud at their reunion, wrote, "To tell the ioyes . . . there ys no maker can make hit nother not harte can thynke hit nother no penne can wryte hit, nother no mowth can speke hit." That struck Caxton as excessive, so he revised it: "There is no tonge can telle it nor herte thynke hit nor pen write hit." Often there are pages and pages with scarcely a correction, and then Caxton reaches a paragraph he does not like and uses his pencil freely.

ROBUST RHETORIC

The most notable example is the story of the Roman expedition, Caxton's Book V., where Malory was following an English original, a long alliterative poem which survives, in a single manuscript, in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. Malory thoroughly enjoyed this robust rhetoric, and he used it as he used his French sources, incorporating long passages and adapting them with slight changes to his purpose. He was clearly interested in the manner as well as the matter of the poem, and he catches its spirit so well that many passages which do not appear to correspond with anything in the Lincoln manuscript give the strong impression in the new text that they have an alliterative original behind them.

It was an experiment, and a most interesting one; but Caxton could not stand it. He has therefore rewritten the book, reducing it to less than half its original length. One or two passages he has retained more or less intact, such as the magnificent "dream of Arthur," though here , too, the manuscript's agreement with Malory's source proves that what Arthur saw was not a boar but a "grymly Beare . . . all to-rougeled with lugerand lokys, and he was the fowlyst beeste that ever ony man sye." But most of Caxton's Book V. is simply a matter-of-fact précis of Malory. The summary phrases of Caxton start into life when they are read in this new text.

We have a new glimpse of the more violent characteristics of Arthur's nature, which Caxton may well have thought not sufficiently chivalrous to be allowed. A messenger has just arrived to tell the king of the successes of Sir Gawayne, but at the same time that he is badly hurt.

. . . the kynge thanked cryste, clapping his hondys, . . . but there is no golde under god that shall save their lyvys. I make mine avow to god, an Sir Gawaine be in any perel of deth; for I had levir that the Emeprour and all his chyff lordis wer sunken in to helle than any lord of the rounde table were byttyrly wounded.

The evidence of this manuscript will clearly be of the highest importance to any future editor of Malory, and the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College have arranged that it should be available for Professor Vinaver's use in the edition of the text of Morte Darthur which he has in hand. The writer of this article is indebted to them for permission to publish this preliminary statement, and in particular to Sir Frederic Kenyon for the help he has given him.

[Times Literary Supplement, Saturday August 25, 1934]