Preface

Acknowledgments

Chronologies
• Arthur before Malory
• The War of the Roses
• Malory Life Events
• Receptions of Malory to 1934

Reading Malory’s English

Editorial Procedure/Reading this Edition

Page Numbers Corresponding to Vinaver (0_) Section Titles

The Text of Le Morte Darthur or The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble
Knyghtes of the Rounde Table:

FRO THE MARYAGE OF KYNGE UTHER UNTO KYNG ARTHURE THAT REGNED
AFTIR HYM AND DED MANY BATAYLES
How Uther Pendragon Gate the Noble Conqueror Kyng Arthur
The Tale of Balyn and Balan
The Weddyng of Kyng Arthur
Aftir thes Questis
The Noble Tale betwixt Kyng Arthure and Lucius the Emperour of Rome
A Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake
The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkeney
The Fyrste and the Secunde Boke of Syr Trystrams de Lyones
The Noble Tale of the Sankgreal
The Tale of Sir Launcelot and Quene Gwenyvere
The Dethe of Arthur

Contexts and Backgrounds
SOURCES
From the Prose Merlin
From the Suite de Merlin
From the alliterative Morte Arthure
From John Hardyng’s Chronicle
From the Prose Lancelot
From Perlesvaus
From the Prose Tristan
From the Queste del Saint Graal
From the stanzaic Morte Arthur
From the Mort le Roi Artu

RESPONSES TO THE TIMES
From the Berkeley Letters:
Isabel, Lady Berkeley warns Lord Berkeley of Plans to Seize his Lands
Lord Berkeley agrees to Trial by Combat with Viscount Lisle

From the Paston Letters
Lord Moleyns seizes Gresham manor
Moleyns’ Men Threaten to Abduct Margaret Paston

FROM CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS OF THE WAR OF THE ROSES
John Whetamstede: The Duke of York Claims the Throne and is Rejected
Gregory’s Chronicle: On the Battles of Mortimer’s Cross and Second St. Albans
George Neville: Letter to Francesco Coppini on the Battle of Towton
From Edward IV’s Act of Attainder, December 16, 1461

CHIVALRY IN PRINCIPLE
From Gilbert Hay’s Buke of Kynchthede
How Knyghtis of the Bath Shulde be Made
Oath of a Herald

TOURNAMENT AND BATTLE
Christopher Gravett * Knights at Tournament: The 15th Century
John Keegan * Agincourt, 25 October 1415:
The Wounded
The Will to Combat

Criticism
Catherine Batt * Malory and Rape
William Caxton * Prologue and Epilogue to the 1485 Edition
Helen Cooper * Counter-Romance: Civil Strife and Father-Killing in the Prose Romances
P.J.C. Field * The Rhetoric of Dialogue
Geraldine Heng * Enchanted Ground: The Feminine Subtext in Malory
Mark Lambert * Shame and Guilt
Terence McCarthy * On Malory’s Style
Carol Meale * Manuscripts, Readers, and Patrons in Fifteenth-Century England:
Sir Thomas Malory and Arthurian Romance
Felicity Riddy * Divisions
Paul Strohm * Mellyagant’s Primal Scene

Glossary

Index of Proper Names

Selected Bibliography