The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend (review)

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

Reviewed by: The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend Janet Hadley Williams Purdie, Rhiannon and Nicola Royan , eds, The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend ( Arthurian Studies, 61), Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2005; cloth; pp. x, 156; RRP £40; ISBN 1843840367. The tensions between the idea of Arthur as historical king and the Arthur of legend, exploited in both literature and politics during this period, are discussed in 'Introduction: Tartan Arthur?' – in particular, how these tensions were reflected in Scotland's relations with England. The importance of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae as the first 'shared history for the realms of Britain' (p. 2) is underlined, his influence a fertile topic throughout. With this, The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend contains ten essays, an appendix of principal texts, and an index. The authors are proficient in many medieval languages and aware of their co-contributors' findings. Juliette Wood explores Welsh and Scottish attitudes to Arthur in 'Where Does Britain End?' She illuminates the political, economic and poetic confluence of the Welsh idea, expressed by Geoffrey and others, of Arthur as the fulfilment of British destiny, projected on to Henry Tudor and Elizabeth I. Wood contrasts this to the often-ambivalent attitude of the Scots: Arthur is linked to issues of kingship and sovereignty but not always preferred to the alternative Scots story origin myth, and is at his most viable under James VI and I's Galfridian proposal to be king of Great Britain. Sergi Mainer in part continues the exploration in 'Reinventing Arthur', studying the differing receptions by Scotland and Catalonia of the Arthur of the French romances. The lesser-known Catalan and Occitan Arthurian romances are provided with translations. It is the Anglo-Norman verse Chronicle by Peter of Langtoft, with its late thirteenth-century political context – Edward I's requests for evidence to establish England's suzerainty over Scotland, the responses of the pope, and the barons – with which Thea Summerfield is concerned. She traces through these documents the less-than-straightforward ways in which the Arthurian history of Britain was both ignored and used to help Edward's cause, and how the testimony accumulated from legendary history was later invoked to justify the Anglo-Scots union. In examining the treatments of Arthur throughout the fifteenth century, Nicola Royan's 'The Fine Art of Faint Praise in Older Scots Historiography' extends Wood's and Summerfield's discussions. Royan focuses on references to Arthur in vernacular works, often in verse – Wyntoun's Original Chronicle (c. 1412), the anonymous Scottis Originale (c. 1513), Barbour's Bruce (c. 1375), [End Page 197] and Hary's Wallace (c. 1485) – but notes the authoritative, and hostile, views of Bower's Latin prose Scotichronicon (c. 1449). Her assessment differentiates these writers, yet also demonstrates their common assumptions about Arthur. The Roman de Fergus as 'a work of pastiche rather than parody' (p. 58) is ably argued by Tony Hunt, whose vast knowledge of all of Chrétien's romances is brought to bear on Guillaume's reworkings of details, puncturing of idealising features, demystification of landscapes, and inventive borrowings of motifs, together with his attention to the psychological development of his characters (unlike, especially, Yvain). Findings, meticulously presented and entertaining, offer important evidence of Chrétien's reception in the thirteenth century. If Fergus has a place among Arthurian romances with Scottish connections, the claims of a Sir Lamwell fragment, frequently considered to be Scottish, are found wanting, the piece derived from an English work, by Priscilla Bawcutt. Yet she also shows that this 'lightly Scotticized' text (p. 82) throws light on the English printed version of the romance; on the literary tastes and activities of its copyist, James Murray of Tibbermuir, Perthshire; and on the potency of Arthur into the seventeenth century. A transcript of the fragment, correcting Furnivall's of 1867, is appended. Elizabeth Archibald examines the sources, genre and reception of the Scots Arthurian romance, Lancelot of the Laik. Archibald is interested in Lancelot's individuality – as revealed by the introductory Chaucerian dream vision; the section translated from the prose French source (a choice unique among English and Scots Arthurian texts); and the expansion of the section giving Arthur advice...