Camelot Clearinghouse: Sources for Arthur, Merlin &c. up through AD 1600

[Extollager]

Baylor, I have a copy of Matarosso's translation of The Quest for the Holy Grail (not read -- yet!). It's a different work from The High History of the Holy Graal (Perlesvaus). The one you have is (I believe) part of a group of romances sometimes called the Vulgate Cycle. It's interesting that Penguin first issued it many years ago and has kept it in print, while Penguin has never, so far as I know, issued the High History/Perlesvaus; maybe the thought was that the one you have is a superior and/or more influential work.

Yes, your Quest and Parzival (another one I haven't read yet!) must be something like 250-300 years or so before Malory.

I'm a Tolkien fan from boyhood, but I much prefer Stone's translation to Tolkien's, to tell the truth. I've never read the original; but Stone's version is more readable than Tolkien's, I think.

 

[Elentarri]

Can anyone comment on the Penguin Classics vs Oxford World's Classics translations of Parzival by Wolfram Von Eschenback? Which one is more understandable?

 

[Extollager]

Ian Myles Slater is an exceptional Amazon reviewer. I had read some of his Amazon contributions before and been much impressed. He answers your question thus:

"Thanks to Edward's decision to reproduce Wolfram's stylistic oddities as much as possible, his translation [the Oxford World's Classics one] is less welcoming than the earlier translations, but also more intriguing for those who are willing to take it slowly."

Check out this Amazon review of Parzival and Titurel (Oxford World's Classics)

Ian Myles Slater on: A Quest for a Different Grail

www.amazon.com

My sense is that, for me, the translation I have -- Hatto's in Penguin Classics -- will be a good choice for a first attempt to read this book.

 

[Elentarri]

Ian Myles Slater is an exceptional Amazon reviewer. I had read some of his Amazon contributions before and been much impressed. He answers your question thus:

"Thanks to Edward's decision to reproduce Wolfram's stylistic oddities as much as possible, his translation [the Oxford World's Classics one] is less welcoming than the earlier translations, but also more intriguing for those who are willing to take it slowly."

Check out this Amazon review of Parzival and Titurel (Oxford World's Classics)

Ian Myles Slater on: A Quest for a Different Grail

www.amazon.com

My sense is that, for me, the translation I have -- Hatto's in Penguin Classics -- will be a good choice for a first attempt to read this book.

Thank you very much! That is very helpful.

 

[Extollager]

13 May 2022 St. Erconwald

Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) wrote a Journey Through Wales, translated by Lewis Thorpe for Penguin Classics. It abounds in reports of miracles as divine signs. There's a brief mention of the Brecon Beacons as being known as Cadair Arthur or Arthur's Chair at the end of the second chapter of Book I.

Book II, Chapter 8, says there were two men named Merlin. Merlin Ambrosius "prophesied when Vortigern was King. He was the son of an incubus." Merlin Celidonius or Merlin Silvester "lived in the time of Arthur. He is said to have made more prophecies than his namesake." The second Merlin went mad after seeing a monster in the sky, and lived the rest of his days "as a wild man of the woods." That's about all Gerald says about either.

Of further Arthurian interest is Thorpe's third appendix, "Gerald of Wales and King Arthur," quoting from other works of the author about the alleged discovery of Arthur's remains, in Gerald's own lifetime, at Glastonbury. A stone with a leaden cross was found with the remains. "I have seen this cross myself and traced the lettering which was cut into it... The inscription reads HERE IN THE ISLE OF AVALON LIES BURIED THE RENOWNED KING ARTHUR, WITH GUINEVERE, HIS SECOND WIFE." The king's bones showed him to be an unusually large man. Gerald reproaches a monk for lustfulness who descended into the grave to take out the queen's blond hair (but it disintegrated).

Gerald reproaches the "credulous Britons and their bards [who] invented the legend that a fantastic sorceress called Morgan had removed Arthur's body to the Isle of Avalon so that she might cure his wounds there [and that] this strong and all-powerful King will return to rule over the Britons in the normal way. ... they really expect him to come back." The exhumation around 1190 seems possibly to have been at King Henry II's behest; Thorpe thinks perhaps that the monks' uncovering of the remains might "put an effective end to Welsh dreams that their hero would come back some day to help them in their resistance to the Norman kings," etc. I won't summarize all that Gerald and Thorpe say.

 

[hitmouse]

I know of 2 ither Arthur’s Seats in Wales. One is on the Gower, close to where I live.

The idea of a sleeping Arthur waiting to ride to Albion’s rescue in time of need is a powerful one. There are analogous legends in Wales. Susan Cooper used it, and of course Alan Garner did too, in The Wierdstone of Brisingamen.

 

[Extollager]

Yes, the Weirdstone is an old favorite of mine. It's a memorable example of a topographic romance.

Topographic Romance - Fancyclopedia 3

fancyclopedia.org

I wonder if some of the folktales associated with certain locations (whether the tale provides an explanation for a toponym or not) started as stories known to be invented, but coming out of that feeling that the locations invited or even demanded stories -- and then these stories were retold and eventually came to be accepted as true or possibly true.

Robert Louis Stevenson has some remarks on places that seem to require stories to be told about them, in his essay "A Gossip on Romance."

 

[Extollager]

23 May 2022 St. William of Rochester (never canonized)

The Mabinogion has a thread of its own here at Chrons. The work thus known was compiled in the 19th century, though the component parts are medieval. Several of the stories refer to Arthur, and he is an important actor in "How Culhwch Won Olwen." For readers specifically interested in King Arthur, that tale might be the only "must read" in the compilation. It will be the most challenging of the stories for those who, like me, lack a firm grasp of the rules of Welsh pronunciation, because a great many names are mentioned. On the other hand, when one hears them pronounced by Gwyn Jones in the recording below they may fascinate the hearer.

Jones reads from the Four Branches, not any of the Arthurian stories. The Four Branches are about Pwyll, Branwen, Rhiannon, Math, Gwydion, and Blodeuwedd, et al.

On the basis now of two complete readings of the Mabinogion, I'd agree with what I take to be the consensus, that the Four Branches are the book at its best, although they have no Arthurian material.

"The Dream of Rhonabwy" is perhaps the second most interesting item, after "Culhwch," for the Arthurian reader. In this one, Rhonabwy dreams of Arthur and another man playing a game that seems either to interest them more than wars that are going on concurrently, or to be determining the way the wars go. There is much emphasis on the colors of the clothing of the warriors and of their horses. For readers today this may be a bit tedious, but I suppose that was another matter for an audience hearing the tale read, an audience for whom dyed clothing would have been restricted to a few, and most of those would not have many changes of clothing.

The tale of Geraint is likely to be hard for many readers to take, because of the knight's unfair jumping to a conclusion about his wife's emotional faithfulness and consequent very churlish behavior towards her -- we are far indeed from Gawain's courtesy to women in the Green Knight poem!

 

[Extollager]

First Rogate Day 2022

Other early Welsh Arthurian-relevant materials may pop up on this thread later, for example once I get my copy of a book of the Triads Rachel Bromwich's translation). It's amazing, the specialized books that even someone hunkered down in rural North Dakota can get hold of, these days. But I don't intend to buy "everything" that's available.

 

[Extollager]

24 May Second Rogate Day 2022; St. David of Scotland

I expect to read a trilogy of works by Robert de Boron and to write about them somewhat more extensively than about some of the other, better-known Arthurian works.

Translator Bryant says that the trilogy of Joseph, Merlin, and Perceval is “the earliest complete ‘Arthurian cycle’” (p. 12). Here are comments on Joseph of Arimathea. The first few paragraphs of comments are mostly theological and some readers might want to skip them.

Robert’s theological emphasis, in the first pages, on the fault of Eve is unlike the apostolic teaching, which focuses on Adam.

There are two references to Eve in the New Testament, both of them in epistles of St. Paul. In 2 Corinthians 11:3 we read that the serpent beguiled her, and in 1 Timothy 2:13 we read that Adam was formed first, then Eve. The context of the first reference is that St. Paul is warning a congregation of men and women about being seduced by teachers of false doctrine. He “is afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts” – the thoughts of you men and you women – “will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” The context of the second reference will displease some modern readers. St. Paul says that he “does not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”

Conversely, Adam is basic to the New Testament understanding of original sin. “In Adam all die,” thus Christ must be the “Second Adam” so that people may live (1 Corinthians 15:22). The “first Adam” was a “living being,” a “man of dust,” while Christ the “last Adam [is} a life-giving spirit… from heaven.” Where everyone (man or woman) has “borne the image of the man of dust,” the promise to the faithful is that they will “bear the image of the man of heaven.” “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned,” and the “many died through one man’s trespass,” but “much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (Romans 5).

In contrast, Robert says that Eve “caused” Adam to sin (pp. 15, 20). In Robert’s book, Jesus appears to Joseph of Arimathea and tells him that “It was through a woman that the Enemy took possession of men; and as a woman had caused man’s soul to be imprisoned, it was right and necessary that it should be recovered and redeemed through a woman,” i.e. the Blessed Virgin (p. 21). I don’t know whether the cult of the Virgin gave rise to the emphasis on the fault of Eve, or an emphasis on the fault of Eve that grew up after the apostolic period (perhaps among monks?) then gave rise to the cult of the Virgin, etc.

From a New Testament and, say, Lutheran understanding, Robert gets things backward: he says that Christ “ordained that if they were willing to repent and abandon their sin and keep the commandments of Holy Church, they might [!] come to be granted grace” (p. 16). He has Christ say that “‘sinners can always cleanse away sin [sic], just as I washed your feet in the dirty water’” (p. 17) when He bathed the disciples’ feet. This doesn’t seem to align with what Christ says about what He did (John 13).

 

[Extollager]

More about Robert de Boron's Joseph of Arimathea from the late 12th century or so.

Robert has it that Judas betrayed Christ for 30 silver pence because he had felt entitled to a 10% cut of the price of Mary Magdalene’s ointment if it had been sold; when the Lord was anointed instead, Judas was enraged and “sought to recover those thirty pence from God’s enemies” (p. 16).

Robert has it that Judas warned those who came to arrest Jesus in the Garden, who grabbed Him “from all sides,” to hold Him fast because “he knew how great was Christ’s strength” (p. 17).

Robert tells that the vessel Christ used “when He had made the sacrament” was at the house of Simon the Leper. It was taken from thence by an unnamed Jew who gave it to Pilate (p. 18). Pilate didn’t want to keep it and gave it to Joseph, “who received it with great joy” (p. 19). Joseph used the vessel to catch drops of blood shed by Christ’s dead body when it was taken down from the cross, “and set it to one side.” Joseph was arrested after the body of Christ was found to be missing from the tomb. Joseph was imprisoned in a dungeon and Christ appeared to him with reassuring words and gave him back the vessel, the Grail. Robert says that Christ told Joseph certain mysteries that he would never share with readers – if someone tried to compel him he would have to lie, because the “creed of the great mystery of the Grail” must not be disclosed by him (pp. 21-22).

The story turns from Joseph in prison to the story of Vespasian, leper son of the Roman emperor. Vespasian suffers from a loathsome disease and smells so bad that he is kept in a room with only a small opening that allows him to receive food. A wandering pilgrim from Judaea stays with a rich host and tells him about the miracles of Jesus, and the rich man brings the pilgrim to the emperor, to whom the pilgrim repeats his story. He tells that the good man was executed under Pilate, but more specifically, the pilgrim says that “the Jews [sic] had put him to death in the land governed by Pilate” (p. 24). The way the ensuing story is told, Pilate seems to be more or less exculpated. (This may reflect notions expressed in some apocryphal works.)

The emperor sends messengers out to find the prophet Jesus or something that had been touched by Him so that, perhaps, Vespasian may be healed. Veronica and her cloth that had wiped the face of Jesus are found and brought to Rome (pp. 27-28). Vespasian is immediately healed by touching the cloth (p. 28). As soon as Vespasian knows that the worthy man whose face was imprinted on the cloth had been put to death, he vows revenge on the killers (p. 29). Nothing is said of Christ’s resurrection. Vespasian arranges for the responsible Jews to be brought together and tricks them into incriminating themselves. He starts having them killed, and tells the survivors that they too will be killed unless they deliver the body of Christ. They say that they gave the body to Joseph (the soldier of Arimathea) but don’t know where the body is (p. 30). The Jews had imprisoned Joseph and assume he must have died in his dungeon by now, but when Vespasian goes down there, by rope (the dungeon seems to be an abandoned well or something of the sort) he finds Joseph healthy and cheerful, and is greeted by him by name (p. 31). Joseph tells Vespasian a version of the Gospel, but says “‘Since it was through woman that man had been delivered into the power of the Devil, Our Lord, not wishing to do wrong, said it was through a woman that He would redeem all mankind. …Because Eve committed sin with the apple, the Son had to die on a tree’” (p. 32).

Vespasian becomes a Christian believer (nothing is said of his being baptized, though). He sells some of the Jews to his retinue as slaves, 30 for a penny. But we read also that “the Jews came before Joseph and said they would believe in Jesus.” He says that if they really mean this, they will leave their property and follow him into exile. “Then Vespasian pardoned them. And this it was that he avenged the death of Christ” (p. 34).

 

[Extollager]

More about Joseph of Arimathea by Robert de Boron.

The final sequence of the Joseph sets up the story of the Grail’s journey to Britain. Joseph’s brother-in-law is Bron, who comes to Joseph on account of a terrible famine that has beset their folk. It is due to God’s anger over “the sin of unbridled lust” (p. 34), but Joseph doesn’t know what the fault is that has provoked the famine. He prays before the Grail and the Holy Spirit assures him that he, Joseph, is not guilty of the fault in question. Seats at a table are arranged, with Joseph sitting, as divinely directed, in the place of Christ, and the seat where Judas would have sat being left empty till Moyse, who falsely claims to be a truly good man, seats himself there. Moyse immediately disappears into “‘abysmal depths’” (p. 38).

Bron is the Rich Fisher, the rich Fisher King (p. 43). He and his wife Enigeus have 12 sons and Bron asks Joseph for counsel about them. Joseph again seeks God’s counsel by praying before the Grail and is told the men should find wives as they wish, but that one of them will choose celibacy and become leader of the others. This one is Alain li Gros (pp. 39-40), who becomes their guardian (p. 41). Alain then leads them into “strange lands” (p. 42). God has told Joseph that the family is to go to the farthest West, to Avalon (pp. 41-42). Bron, the Rich Fisher, receives custody of the Grail from Joseph, who dies in the land of his birth. This concludes the Joseph of Arimathea.


The translator, Nigel Bryant, quotes Norris J. Lacy as saying that Robert de Boron is second only to Chrétien de Troyes as "'the most influential writer within the French romance tradition'" (p. 1). Bryant adds that "Robert's inspirational idea was to make the Grail clearly, unambiguously Christian by giving it a Biblical early history. It is very easy, especially when coming to Arthurian literature for the first time, to forget that the so-called 'Holy Grail', connected with Christ, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, is not explicitly Christian in the first Grail romance," that of Chrétien (p. 4).

 

[Extollager]

25 May 2022 Commemoration of the Venerable Bede; Third and Final Rogate Day Before Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord

Some comments on Robert de Boron’s Merlin, translated by Nigel Bryant (in Merlin and the Grail, published 2001 by Brewer).

Merlin begins in Hell, with the Devil and demons raging over Christ’s descent thereto and His rescuing of souls whom they had thought were securely their own. Now, after the earthly ministry of Christ, people “‘cleanse themselves in water in the name of the Father and of the Mother [sic] so that we can no longer take them as ours’” (p. 45). But one of the demons says that another of the devils is able to impregnate women (p. 46). (There is no explanation of how he could have been made able so to do.) A plot is put into motion.

The bad wife of a wealthy man admits to a demon that her husband would be “‘mighty angry’” if his possessions were destroyed. (Perhaps Robert wants to make sure that the “fall” of this family begins with a woman; see comments on his Joseph.) The demon afflicts the man’s animals etc. and the enraged man gives “everything that remained to him to the Devil” and murders his wife (p. 47). The man’s son dies, and two of his three daughters give themselves up to carnality. A man of God warns the eldest daughter, who has remained chaste, that she must never give way to rage, but, visited by her promiscuous younger sister and a “band of young men” (p. 50), she does so, and evidently neglects her prayers before bed. While she sleeps that night, unprotected by grace, she is visited by the demon, who impregnates her. She is horrified when she wakens and realizes she is no longer a virgin (p. 51). She tells the holy man what has happened, and he has her drink holy water in the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and urges her to good works and to come to him whenever she has spiritual need (p. 53). He assures her that God will care for her if she is innocent. She goes home and is arrested when her pregnancy become obvious (p. 54).

She’s confined in a tower and watched lest she take her own life. “There she stayed until it pleased Lord God that she had the child. And when he was born, he had the power and intelligence of the Devil – he was bound to, being conceived by him [but see later]. But the Enemy had made a foolish mistake, for Our Lord redeemed by His death all who truly repent, and the Enemy had worked upon the child’s mother through sheer trickery while she slept, and as soon as she was [p. 54] aware of the deception she had begged for forgiveness and submitted to the mercy and commandment of Holy Church and of God, and had obeyed all her confessor’s instructions. God had no wish to deprive the Devil of what was rightfully his, and since the Devil wanted the child to inherit his power to know all things said and done in the past, he did indeed acquire that knowledge; but, in view of the mother’s penitence and true confession and repentant heart, and of her unwillingness in the fatal deed, and of the power of her cleansing baptism in the font, Our Lord, who knows all things, did not wish to punish the child for the mother’s sin, but gave him the power to know the future” (p. 55). The infant is named Merlin after the woman’s father.

At 18 months, little Merlin astonishes his mother by speaking for the first time thus: “‘Mother, have no fear, for you will not die on my account’” (p. 55). He subsequently speaks with amazing maturity and knowledge in the presence of others, but only while with his mother. He confounds people who denounce his mother as having conceived from a clandestine lover, threatening to reveal secrets of their own and revealing that a woman’s priest is her secret lover (pp. 58-59).

Merlin says he was fathered by “‘a devil… one of a kind of demon called Hequibedes, who inhabit the air’” (p. 60) – so evidently not by satan after all. In Robert’s telling, Merlin’s mother’s confessor is named Blaise (p. 61). Merlin tells Blaise to write down the story of Joseph of Arimathea – i.e. I suppose the idea is that Robert de Boron drew upon the book Blaise wrote down from Merlin’s narration – Merlin having knowledge of the past. This brings a unit of Robert’s book about Merlin to its close.

 

[Extollager]

Pages 63-78 tell of the usurper King Vortigern and his counselors about the matter of the tower construction that kept failing. Stumped by the problem, they agree to tell the king, as it were “independently,” that a boy with no father must be found and his blood mixed with the mortar (p. 67). The “vision” that gave them this idea turns out to have been effected by Merlin’s demon father (p. 76), who wanted his son killed because he had lost him, i.e. because Merlin is a Christian. The learned men plead for mercy and receive it. Merlin reveals that the tower project has failed because the builders were working on a site under which is an aquifer, and under that are a red dragon and a white dragon. I think this story derives from Geoffrey of Monmouth, but I don’t remember the detail about Merlin’s father’s plot.

 

[Extollager]

30 May 2022 Eve of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

I've paused in the enjoyable reading of Robert de Boron. I read a few pages from the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (completed about AD 730) and from William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England. Bede mentions Ambrosius Aurelianus in the 16th chapter of his first book, as a surviving Roman who led the Britons to victory against the Saxons at Badon Hill. Bede says nothing of Arthur. William does refer to Arthur as being the hero of Mount Badon. "It is of this Arthur that the Britons fondly tell so many fables, even to the present day [early 12th century]; a man worthy to be celebrated, not by idle fictions, but by authentic history." Despite William's displeasure about "fables" attributed to Arthur, he seems to accept that "he engaged nine hundred of the enemy, single-handed, and dispersed them with incredible slaughter" (Book I, Chapter 1).

 

[Extollager]

3 June 2022 St. Charles Lwanga

A thread for discussion of modern (post-1600) Arthurian works has been established:

Camelot Clearinghouse: About Arthur, Merlin &c. *AFTER* AD 1600

Here's a thread for discussion of works done more recently than the period (up through AD 1600) in the thread dedicated to the likes of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Robert de Boron, the Arthurian tales in the Mabinogion (there's a thread for...

www.sffchronicles.com

Do we have any folk at Chrons who have written Arthurian stories or poems, or made Arthurian pictures, etc.? The new thread might be a place to mention them (not this thread, to avoid confusion).

 

[Extollager]

5 June 022 Whitsunday

Here's a place to visit to see Malory manuscripts, etc.

Malory Project - Facsimile Viewer

 

[Extollager]

9 June 2022 St. Columba

Back to Robert de Boron's Merlin. The white dragon kills the red one with flame, which, Merlin tells Vortigern forthrightly, signifies the false king’s imminent defeat and death by fire, which duly occurs (p. 78).

The adult Merlin is skilled at shapeshifting (p. 81) and is even a bit of a showoff (p. 82). He needs to be away from people sometimes (p. 85). Robert tells us from time to time that Merlin visits Blaise in Northumberland, imparting to him an account of things to write down (e.g. pp. 77, 94, 114), so that Blaise’s record is certainly the source of what we are reading.

We have the story here of Merlin bringing the stones from Ireland to make Stonehenge (p. 91). Three Tables are explained. There is the Table of the Last Supper, “made” by Christ (p. 113) – the verb allows the idea that it was created miraculously, but is there any reason it could not have been made by Him working as a carpenter? The second Table is that made at the command of Joseph of Arimathea, where there was the Grail hidden under white cloths, and with an empty chair, which a bad man presumed to sit in, upon which he was lost in an abyss; also, the other secret sinners were unable to stay in its presence. This revealed the sin that had spread among some of Joseph’s people in their desert exile and brought about a decline of blessing (pp. 112-113). Merlin directed Uther to (begin to) make the third Table – the Round Table.

Merlin tells the young King Arthur that Joseph of Arimathea bequeathed the Grail to his brother-in-law Bron, the Fisher King. Bron settled in Ireland. One of Bron’s sons, Alain li Gros, and his people have arrived now in Britain. Bron is infirm but cannot die till a knight of the Round Table comes to the court of the Fisher King and asks him “‘what purpose the Grail served, and serves now’” – then he will be healed. “‘Then [the Fisher King] will tell him [the knight] the secret words of Our Lord,’” and that knight will receive Christ’s Blood into his keeping. “‘With that the enchantments of the land of Britain will vanish’” (p. 113). Then Merlin says he must depart: “‘I can be in this world no longer, for my Saviour will not give me leave’” (p. 114).

Before this, Robert has told the story of Arthur’s begetting by Uther in the assumed shape of Igerne’s husband, Merlin taking their baby and having him fostered by Entor and nursed by Entor’s wife, the story of the miraculous Sword in the Stone, the attempt of Kay to pass off the sword as having been drawn out by himself, etc. New to me was the idea that Kay’s base behavior was due to his missing out on being nursed by his own mother, whose milk nourished Arthur; instead he acquired his faults from the milk of the woman who did nurse him (p. 108). Arthur will feel obliged to put up with Kay on this account.

So in Robert’s account, Merlin is the founder of the Round Table, which seems to seat 50 men (p. 93). For Robert, Logres is a city (p. 105) rather than the name of Arthur’s country. As (if I recall correctly) in Malory, Arthur’s acceptance as rightful king is associated with the feasts of Christmas, Candlemas, Easter, and Pentecost. Merlin tells young Arthur that his destiny was prophesied 200 years before the new king was born (p. 112). This statement plus the information about Joseph, the Fisher King, and Alain suggests that the Arthurian period is imagined as being very far back in time, only a few generations after the time of Christ. In Robert’s telling, before Uther and Arthur there had been time for a “few Christian kings” – Christianity being “newly arrived in England” (p. 63). But that’s not as ancient as in The High History of the Holy Graal (Perlesvaus), discussed in postings above.

 

[Le Panda du Mal]

22 April '22 St. Alexander

I really don't intend or expect to be drawn into a lot of Glastonbury woo-woo, but anyway I'm now reading the Lyfe of Joseph of Armathia (1520) as printed in Skeat's Early English Texts volume (title page below). This tells how Joseph was arrested and imprisoned; but, freed by Christ, he hides in his home in Arimathea. He then serves Our Lady 18 years till her Assumption,* then goes to France for a time, and then to Britain. There, 31 years after Christ's Passion, he's imprisoned by the Welsh king, but at a divine command King Mordrayous makes war and the Welsh king submits, and the two rulers are reconciled, with Mordrayous marrying the Welsh king's daughter Labell.
View attachment 88811
*This reflects the Latin tradition of her assumption into heaven, made Roman Catholic dogma relatively recently, while the Eastern (Orthodox) tradition of the Dormition is that she did die, with the surviving disciples gathered there. The late composer John Tavener has a piece in which she says before her death, "Bury my body in Gethsemane, and Thou, my Son and God, receive my spirit."

As I recall from my time in the Orthodox Church, the belief is that Mary died but was resurrected on the third day after the Dormition and then assumed bodily into heaven. The Catholic Church accepts this as an alternative position among its Byzantine-rite Catholics. Eastern Orthodoxy does not have a universally authoritative catechism like the Catholics do but the common body of hymns- most of them written by Byzantine poet-theologians between the 8th and 10th centuries as I recall- act as a dogmatic guide. (The Tavener piece is actually a setting of one of these old hymns.)

 

[Extollager]

Thanks, Panda. This topic is a digression from the focus on Arthur et al., but then, as the Angelic Doctor might have written, homo est animal quod digreditur.