'What? seyde Sir Launcelot, is he a theff and a knyght? And a ravyssher of women? He doth shame unto the Order of Knyghthode, and contrary unto his oth. Hit is pyté that he lyvyth!' This indignant outburst by Sir Lancelot in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur has long been an embarrassment to admirers of the work and of its author. Ever since G.L. Kittredge, a hundred years ago, identified the author of Morte Darthur with Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, a gap has grown between the Morte Darthur itself, Caxton's 'noble and joyous hystorye', and its presumptive author, in C.S. Lewis's phrase, 'little better than a criminal'.

LRB 24 February 1994 | PDF Download