page_title: Lancelot-Grail
section_title: Composition and authorship
hierarchical_section_title: Lancelot-Grail / Composition and authorship
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Aliénor d'Aquitaine et Henri II Plantagenêt écoutent Gautier Map conter l'histoire de Lancelot du Lac. Enluminure ornant le manuscrit Lancelot du Lac de Gautier Map, deuxième partie, la Quête du Saint Graal, la Mort d'Arthus, vers 1301-1400, BnF, Manuscrit Français 123, folio 229. Čeština: Elonora Akvitánská a Jindřich II.
context_page_description: The Lancelot-Grail, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance in Old French. The cycle, presenting itself as a chronicle of actual events, retells the legend of King Arthur by focusing on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere as well as the quest for the Holy Grail, expanding on the works of Robert de Boron and Chrétien de Troyes and influencing the Prose Tristan. After its completion around 1230–1235, the Lancelot–Grail was soon followed by its major rewrite known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle. Together, the two cycles constituted a highly influential and most widespread form of Arthurian romance literature during their time and also contributed the most to the later English compilation Le Morte d'Arthur that formed the basis for the legend's modern canon.
context_section_description: The Vulgate Cycle emphasizes Christian themes in the King Arthur tradition, in particular through its expansion of the quest for the Holy Grail. Like Robert de Boron's original poem Merlin (c. 1195-1210), it claims that it is derived from a book titled the Livre dou Graal which was supposedly dictated by Merlin to his scribe Blaise. Welsh writer Gautier (Walter) Map (c. 1140-1209) is attributed to be the author, as can be seen in the notes and illustrations in some manuscripts describing his supposed discovery of an archive of the chronicle of Camelot (supposedly dating from the times if Arthur and even told by eyewitness of the events beings described) at Salisbury, and his translation of these documents from Latin to Old French as ordered by Henry II of England. This claim of Map's connection has been discounted, however, as he died too early to be the author and the work is distinctly continental. It also uncertain whether the contemporary medieval readers actually believed in the truthfulness of the 'chronicle' characterization, or did they recognise it as a work of creative fiction.
  The cycle's actual authorship is unknown, but most scholars today believe it was written by multiple authors. There might have been either a single master-mind planner, the so-called "architect" (as first called so by Jean Frappier, who compared the process to building a cathedral), who may have written the main section (Lancelot Proper), and then oversaw the work of multiple other anonymous scribes. One theory identified the initiator as French queen Eleanor of Aquitaine who would had set up the project already in 1194. Alternately, each part may have been composed separately, arranged gradually, and rewritten for consistency and cohesiveness. Regarding the question of the author of the Lancelot, Ferdinand Lot suggested an anonymous clerical court clerk of aristocratic background.
  Today it is believed by some (such as editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica) that a group of anonymous Catholic monks wrote the cycle – or at least the Queste part (where, according to Fanni Bogdanow, the text's main purpose is to convince sinners to repent), as evident by its very Cistercian spirit of Christian mysticism (with  Augustinian intrusions). Others doubt this, however, and a compromise theory postulates a more secular writer who had spent some time in a Cistercian monastery. Richard Barber described the Cistercian theology of the Queste as unconventional and complex but subtle, noting its success in appealing to the courtly audience accustomed to more secular romances.
caption: "Gautier" purportedly recounting the tales of Lancelot to Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine in a 14th-century manuscript of the Lancelot-Grail (BnF Français 123)
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