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malorydaily · 8 months

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The death of Uther Pendragon precipitates a succession crisis in England. At Merlin’s prompting, the dying Uther names his son Arthur as his heir but the boy, his parentage unknown, is lost, actually in the guardianship of Sir Ector where Merlin placed him at birth. The theme of the missing successor is in keeping with conventions of romance, but usually in this kind of narrative heirs, lost to their realms as children, recover their kingdoms after being tested by a series of adventures and prove ideal rulers. In this episode, the romance elements of the French version [Lestoire de Merlin], good kingship that carries the approval of God and the people, are steadily undermined.

– Ruth Lexton, Contested Language in Malory's Morte D'Arthur: The Politics of Romance in 15th Century England

#malorydaily #Book 1 #uther pendragon #merlin #sir ector #arthur pendragon #lestoire de merlin #ruth lexton

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eccles4il6by · 7 years

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Witch Hunt by Ruth Warburton epub download

Witch Hunt by Ruth Warburton epub download London, 1880. Eighteen-year-old Witch Hunter Luke Lexton has failed his initiation into the Malleus Maleficorum – the secretive brotherhood devoted to hunting witches. Instead of killing the witch he picked from the Book of Witches, he has committed the worst possible crime: he has fallen for her. Sixteen-year-old witch girl Rosa Greenwood has failed to…

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michelina8f0q873 · 7 years

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Witch Hunt by Ruth Warburton pdf download

Witch Hunt by Ruth Warburton pdf download http://book-release.info/2017/02/04/witch-hunt-by-ruth-warburton-pdf-download/ Witch Hunt by Ruth Warburton pdf download London, 1880. Eighteen-year-old Witch Hunter Luke Lexton has failed his initiation into the Malleus Maleficorum - the secretive brotherhood devoted to hunting witches. Instead of killing the witch he picked from the Book of Witches, he has committed the worst possible crime: he has fallen for her.

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malorydaily · 8 months

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In Lestoire de Merlin, Arthur’s ability to pull the sword from the stone amounts to an “election” to the kingship by God, a point that is repeated more than once as the Archbishop convinces the barons of Arthur’s right to the throne. The barons eventually agree to Arthur’s accession on the grounds that it is an enactment of God’s will. This divine confirmation of the king was a romance trope. In romance, dynastic legitimacy tends to be signaled by obvious means: Perceval of Galles, for example, is recognized by Arthur because of his physical resemblance to his father. His upbringing in the wilds of the forest does not alter visible marks of his heritage.

Divine support for legitimate inherited kingship in romance was in keeping with the theory of succession in medieval England and France, if with a strong element of wish-fulfillment in the undoubted identification of heirs. By the thirteenth century, the heir began to rule on the day of the old king’s death, rather than on the day of the coronation; there was no interruption to the king’s “body natural” and the descent of the Crown from father to son was understood as the manifestation of God’s will. The purpose of this was to avoid precisely the situation that arises in the Arthurian story, where dissension and delay over the choice of an heir leads to over half a year without a king.

Ironically, disrupted successions in late fifteenth-century England turned on occasion to the romance trope of the return of the lost rightful heir to prop up dubious claims. Although Henry VII preferred to emphasize his conquest of the throne rather than his hereditary title, which was indirect at best and cut out a number of other possible claimants, he exploited his dynastic association with Arthur to bolster his legitimacy. The expectations of romance and reality reinforced each other in the desire for a divinely sanctioned king.

– Ruth Lexton, Contested Language in Malory's Morte Darthur: The Politics of Romance in 15th Century England

#malorydaily #Book 1 #ruth lexton #community and context #politics #general: history

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malorydaily · 8 months

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In the Morte Darthur, Arthur’s accession is dominated by the actions of the commons:

And at the feste of Pentecost alle maner of men assayed to pulle at the swerde that wold assay, but none myghte prevaille but Arthur, and pulled it oute afore all the lordes and comyns that were there. Wherefore alle the comyns cryed at ones,

“We wille have Arthur unto our kyng! We wille put hym no more in delay, for we all see that it is Goddes wille that he shalle be oure kynge, and who that holdeth ageynst it, we wille slee hym.”...And so anon was coronacyon made. (Works, 16.7–21)

The “comyns” appear insistently in this passage: the word “comyns” is repeated three times here and once additionally in this context (Works, 13.15). It is otherwise used rarely in the Morte and only in this passage do the commons take political action. Despite Malory’s alteration of his source, his incorporation of the commons at this moment has been understood as a sign that Arthur is supported by all estates, and it has been argued that his accession would therefore have been viewed as typical by a fifteenth-century audience.

Malory’s changes to his sources here, however, particularly his inclusion of the “comyns,” are extremely significant for the nature of Arthur’s kingship in the Morte. In Malory’s source, the French Prose Lestoire de Merlin, the “communs pueples” weep for joy at the election of Arthur by the sword in the stone and ask if anyone will oppose it. Their intervention, however, is not decisive. It is the barons who, having tested Arthur extensively, ensure that he becomes king; the accession itself occurs without reference to the commons. In Merlin, the cry of the commons comes before the barons delay the coronation and test Arthur’s fitness to be king. In Malory’s version, the scene is com- pressed and the commons’ intervention occurs after the barons’ delay; it becomes a moment of outcry against the barons, the sign of a separate political force in the realm. The commons’ involvement in the political process dramatically alters Arthur’s accession.

Malory evidently made a deliberate decision to specify that the “comyns” were the channel through which Arthur becomes king. Why might he have done this and how does it square with the contemporary understanding of the “comyns” and their relationship to the king? What was their usual role in royal “election” and what might this suggest to a fifteenth-century readership about Arthur’s accession? The use of the “comyns” here recalls two related traditions prevalent in fifteenth-century thought both broadly based on the notion of vox populi vox dei: the official role of the people in acclaiming the king at his coronation and the responsibility of subjects to articulate their collective needs to the king that he might be guided in serving the community of the realm. Co-opting the commons for a moment of vox populi acclamation, however, harnessed a political element of uncertain definition and authority, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the monarch.

By comparing Arthur’s accession in Malory’s text to his sources, to the conventional form of the English coronation and to the “election” of two fifteenth-century kings, Edward IV and Richard III, I suggest that his installation on the throne by the commons marks a troubling type of kingship.

– Ruth Lexton, Contested Language in Malory's Morte Darthur: The Politics of Romance in 15th Century England

#malorydaily #Book 1 #arthur pendragon #general: history #leestoire de merlin #thomas malory #ruth lexton

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malorydaily · 8 months

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Even if the sword in the stone establishes Arthur as king of all England, here Merlin gives him a mandate as the future overlord of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland and “moo reams.” Malory omits to mention at this point that the kings hold territory from Arthur and owe him allegiance. The initial group of kings are subsequently joined by six more, some of whom appear to already hold the lands that Arthur claims including Scotland and Ireland. The borders of England are pushed outwards, a territorial gage thrown down at the feet of kings with lands on England’s peripheries who may or may not owe allegiance. Merlin does not try to negotiate the terms with subordinates, but threatens potentially equal kings with conquest. It seems that a landgrab is on the agenda and there is no just cause for the war.

In conducting a wrongful war, Arthur flouts both conventions of advice literature and romance. Contemporary literature condoned bru- tality and ruses such as ambush in war if the war was just and if the ultimate end of the war was peace but advised mercy to the vanquished and drew a distinction between boldness for the sake of the common- wealth and rashness to win personal renown. Romance corroborated this view. Elizabeth Porter argues that the war of the Alliterative Morte Arthure, which Malory drew on heavily for the Roman War episode, conforms to contemporary ideas of a just war.97 In the poem, Arthur’s cause is lawful and his destruction of his enemies is matched by his mercy to those who are innocent. His conquest results in peace and stability in Christendom, making possible a crusade to win back the Holy Land. By contrast, the belligerence of Malory’s Arthur in The Tale of King Arthur is unjustifiable expansionism; the savagery of the combat compounds the error of an already dubiously motivated war.

– Ruth Lexton, Contested Language in Malory's Morte Darthur: The Politics of Romance in 15th Century England

#malorydaily #Book 1 #arthur pendragon #general: history #leestoire de merlin #thomas malory #ruth lexton #alliterative morte arthure

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