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Malory the Secularizer? Although P. J. C. Field has concluded that Malory drew upon at least four Grail romances as he composed his tale of the Sankgreal, this conclusion in no way undermines the scholarly consensus that Malory based his Grail story on the French vulgate Cycle’s La Queste del Saint Graal.1 both eugène vinaver and his successors in studying Le Morte Darthur have explored the possible meanings of Malory’s translation of La Queste, particularly his simultaneous compression of it to just over one-third of its original length and retention of every significant narrative episode.2 Some scholars interpret this abbreviated quest as remaining faithful to the Christian content of the thirteenth-century work while others interpret it as secularized—a function of Malory’s tendency to stress chivalric ideology over Christian doctrine throughout Le Morte Darthur.3 In the first group are Charles Moorman, who argues that Malory “is always careful to keep, usually in summation , the religious core of the argument presented,” and Richard barber, who notes how, when describing the Grail ceremonies, “Malory follows the French almost word for word, abbreviating slightly but never interfering with the central theological imagery.”4 Also in this group is dhira b. Mahoney, who, like a good number of her colleagues, concludes that “the Quest still signifies, for Malory, a completely different order of adventure from the rest of the Morte Darthur.”5 nevertheless, the second group includes a large number of scholars who echo vinaver, particularly in interpreting Malory’s omission of some of the theological context of the Grail Quest as evidence of secularization.6 Many members of this second group accept and build upon vinaver’s conclusion that Malory’s “one desire seems to be to secularize the Grail theme as much as the story will allow” (3:1535).7 These scholars tend to see Malory’s quest as a means of measuring knightly prowess and of increasing the glory—or at least the number of opportunities for earning glory—of Lancelot and his companions of the Round table. vinaver eloquently encapsulates this perspective in his comment that Malory ’s “attitude may be described without much risk of oversimplification as that of SlouchingtowardsBethlehem: SecularizedSalvationinLeMorteDarthur Fiona Tolhurst 127 a man to whom the quest of the Grail was primarily an Arthurian adventure and who regarded the intrusion of the Grail upon Arthur’s kingdom not as a means of contrasting earthly and divine chivalry and condemning the former, but as an opportunity offered to the knights of the Round table to achieve still greater glory in this world” (3:1535). Since his conclusions define so precisely Le Morte Darthur ’s relationship to its French source for the Grail Quest, it is easy to agree with vinaver that Malory substituted Arthurian values for Christian ones because he saw the quest as an intrusion upon the Arthurian story, and therefore did his best to secularize the quest as much as possible. nevertheless, an episode-by-episode comparison of La Queste del Saint Graal and Malory’s tale of the Sankgreal confounds the seemingly neat categories of “Christian”and “secular.”8 Certainly, Le Morte Darthur significantly compresses the spiritual adventures of Perceval, bors, Lancelot, and Galahad—severely truncating their tutorials in spiritual perfection. However, if Malory had regarded the Grail Quest as an “intrusion” upon the Arthurian world, he could have omitted whole episodes of the quest, abbreviated all the episodes more drastically, or eliminated discussion of their theological significance. Furthermore, if Malory had found the quest bothersome, why would he have woven the issue of salvation into the fabric of his “hoole book of kyng Arthur and of his noble knyghtes of the Rounde table” (3:1260.16–17)? The deficiencies of vinaver’s characterization of Le Morte Darthur’s quest narrative become evident through analysis of Malory’s references to Christian morality; explicits requesting the aid of God,Jesus,or readers ; and conflation of earthly and spiritual chivalry. In addition, Malory’s accounts of the conversion of Sir Palomides,the healing of Sir urry,and the conversion and death of Lancelot confirm that his retelling of the Grail Quest is part of a larger project: to model secularized salvation for his late fifteenth-century audience. Several contributors to this volume, along with other Malorians, have highlighted passages that seem to indicate Malory’s traditional Christian morality and his faith in intercessory prayer,9 but even these passages either clash with the apparent messages of other...

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