The Post-Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Post-Vulgate Arthuriad, the Post-Vulgate Roman du Graal** (**Romance of the Grail) or the Pseudo-Robert de Boron Cycle, is one of the major Old French prose cycles of Arthurian literature from the early 13th century. It is considered essentially a rewriting of the earlier and more popular Vulgate Cycle (also known as the Lancelot-Grail cycle), with much left out but also much added, including characters and scenes from the Prose Tristan. The cycle has not survived in any manuscript in its entirety and has been reconstructed from fragments in various languages.

History

The Post-Vulgate Cycle, written anonymously probably between 1230 and 1235 (different estimates of the beginning date) to 1240, is an attempt to create greater unity in the material, and to de-emphasise the secular love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere in favor of the Quest for the Holy Grail. It omits almost all of the Vulgate Cycle's Lancelot Proper section, making it much shorter than its source, and directly condemns everything but the spiritual life. It did not survive complete, but has been reconstructed from Old French, Castilian, Old Spanish, and Galician-Portuguese fragments. Earlier theories postulated that the so-called "pseudo-Boron" cycle, named so due to one manuscript's attribution of its original authorship to Robert de Boron, was either older than the Vulgate or derived from the same common and now lost source. The Post-Vulgate (or at least its Suite du Merlin section ) was also one of the most important sources of Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

Branches

The work is divided into four parts, named similar to their corresponding Vulgate versions.

Modern editions

The first full English translation of the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles were overseen by Norris J. Lacy.

Sources