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Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition ed. by James P. Carley

2003; Scriptoriun Press; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/art.2003.0003

1934-1539

Stephen Stallcup,

Linguistics and language evolution

114ARTHURIANA james P. carley, ed., Gbstonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition, Arthurian Studies 45 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2001), Pp. xii, 646. isbn: 0-85991-572-7. $130; £75. In 1191, the monks ofGlastonbury Abbey announced that they had discovered die body of none other than King Arthur buried on the abbey grounds. The announcement instigated what would become a cottage industry for the abbey in the Middle Ages, making die Somerset village the center of a lucrative Arthurian cult that continues even today. Modern scholarly interest has mirrored popular exuberance, and rhe last 30 years have witnessed the emergence ofanotherArthurian cottage industry, this time in Glastonbury studies. The editor ofthis thick volume, James Carley, has been a motivating force in this industry—not only through a series ofanieles on Glastonbury (many ofwhich are reprinted here) but also with his important edition ofJohn ofGlastonbury's Cronica siveAntiquitates GbstoniensisEccUsie (Woodbridge: Boydell P., 1985)—and rheweight (both literal and figurative) of the present volume testifies to the importance of Glastonbury studies within recent Arthurian scholarship. The anthology contains 23 articles: all but one date from 1971—1998 and all but two have been printed previously (some contain slight revisions). They have been divided into six categories: "The Background,' 'Departure Points,' 'Arthur's Death and Burial at Glastonbury,' 'Joseph ofArimathea,' 'Romances and Chronicles,' and 'Other Texts.' Because Glastonbury studies have reached critical mass only in the last few decades, this anthology is able to print all the major relevant article-length pieces. As such, readers maywitness the evolution ofa very specialized conversation among a group ofscholars that developed largely in rhe pages of the annual Arthurian Literature. There is, ofcourse, a certain amount ofrepetition, as writers retrace and summarize the work ofprevious scholarship. But most users ofthis book will probably not be reading it cover to cover anyway, and rhe convenience ofhaving at hand many of the articles referred to in the footnotes far outweighs the tedium of reiteration inherent in such a specialized book. The first two sections contain the earliest essays in the book, by Aelred Watkin (published 1997 but written in the 1950s), Antonia Gransden (1976), and Valeric Lagorio (1971). Their work maps out the complex interweaving offact and fiction, history and legend, that developed in medieval Glastonbury (both the village and die abbey), a tangle of traditions that marks the starting point ofall Glastonbury scholarship. Watkin helpfully describes the multiple currents that coalesced to give Glastonbury its special status in the Middle Ages—the association ofGlastonbury withAvalon; the final (?) restingplace ofArthur; the 'discovery' ofArthur's bodyin 1191; the special relationship between the abbey and Joseph ofArimathea, credited with bringing the Holy Grail to England—and summarizes many ofthe primary sources necessary to navigate them. Gransden interrogates a number ofdiese sources (especiallyWilliam ofMalmesbury and his subsequent interpolators) and explores REVIEWS115 the motives behind the historiographie propaganda emanating from the abbey in the twelfth century. Lagorio explores the similar (and similarly complex) history of rhe connection of Joseph of Arimathea with the abbey and his legend's rise to prominence in the fifteenth century. The book's third (and longest) section is composed of11 anieles dealing with the problems ofArthur's deadi, burial and exhumation. Chiefamong these are pieces by Richard Barber and Michael Lapidge dealing with the twelfth-century Latin narrative known as the Vera Historia de Morte Arthuri, a text which, despite its seemingly definitive tide, ultimately provides no resolution ofthe vexed question ofArthurs death. Lapidges edition ofdie Vera Historia, updated especially for this anthology, expands his edition ofthe text for the premiere volume ofArthurian Literature in 1981. In the interveningyears, Barber and others have discovered several new manuscript witnesses, and this new edition incorporates them in the apparatus criticus. Although Lapidge's base text remains the same, his new edition and translation provide readers with the most up-to-date edition ofthe text. A second group of essays in rhe third section considers another text intimately connected with Arthur's burial, his epitaph. In four essays, Charles T. Wood, Neil Wright, John Withrington, and Michelle Brown and James Carley examine the textual tradition of the Glastonbury epitaph and discuss some of its important cruxes. Wood and Wright weigh...