Note 189 — Chapter X

I cannot agree with M. Gaston Paris's suggestion that this passage, which he takes as part of the Mort Artur, refers to an earlier Queste redaction. A Queste giving a full account of the fate of so many of the knights engaged would be of portentous length, and there is absolutely no sign of this Galahad Queste having existed in another form. I regard it as a summing up, by the author, of the general results of the expedition, a postscriptum which enabled him to have a final fling at his bête-noire Gawain. The addition of Baudemagus's name may have been his work, or that of a copyist, and designed to give point to his accusation. Whether the tradition that he should be killed by Gawain arose from this passage, or was incorporated in the Merlin from another source we cannot say. The Baudemagus tradition demands study. In the Merlin he is represented as but six years older than Gawain, whose dearest friend he is, but in the Charrette he appears as quite an old man, whose son, Meleagant, is the contemporary of Gawain and Lancelot; while in the prose Lancelot and Queste he appears as the devoted friend of the family of King Ban, sharing the adventures of these young knights on an equal footing. The whole presentment is hopelessly confused. The frequent reference to the Arthurian records, as kept in the 'almeryes' at Salisbury, appears to me to be a parallel case to the allusions in the Charlemagne Romances to the records at S. Denys. I suspect there is as much, or as little, truth in the one ascription as in the other.