Lancelot-Grail

The Lancelot-Grail Cycle (a modern title invented by Ferdinand Lot), also known as the Vulgate Cycle (from the Latin editio vulgata, "common version", a modern title invented by H. Oskar Sommer) or the Pseudo-Map Cycle (named so after Walter Map, its pseudo-author), is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance originally written in Old French. The work of unknown authorship, presenting itself as a chronicle of actual events, retells the legend of King Arthur by focusing on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere as well as the religious quest for the Holy Grail. The cycle expands on Robert de Boron's "Little Grail Cycle" and the works of Chrétien de Troyes, previously unrelated to each other, by supplementing them with additional details and side stories, as well as lengthy continuations, while tying the entire narrative together into a coherent single tale. Its alternate titles include Philippe Walter's 21st-century edition Le Livre du Graal ("The Book of the Grail"). There is no unity of place in the story, but most of the episodes take place in Arthur's kingdom of Logres. One of the main characters is Arthur himself, around whom gravitates a host of other heroes, many of whom are Knights of the Round Table. Among them is the famed Lancelot, whose chivalric tale is centered around his illicit romance with Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere. However, the cycle also tells of adventures of a more spiritual type; those involve the Holy Grail, the vessel that contained the blood of Christ, for which many of the members of the Round Table are searching, with Lancelot's son Galahad ultimately emerging as the winner of this sacred contest. Other major plotlines include the accounts of the life of Merlin and of the rise and fall of Arthur. After its completion around 1230–1235, the Lancelot–Grail was soon followed by its major rewrite known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle.