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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2023
Source fiction and definition of interlace
One of the most intriguing aspects of the narration in the Vulgate Cycle is the way it suggests trustworthiness by explaining what the story is based upon. Since this ‘source fiction’ in the Lancelot is helpful in understanding and defining the narrative technique of interlace, it will be discussed in some detail here. The text itself explains that the ultimate source of the Prose Lancelot tale is the narration of the events by the protagonists. The knights are reliable spokesmen according to the medieval ideas on narrative veracity, because they are eyewitnesses. When they leave the court to begin a quest, Arthur's knights solemnly swear to give a full and true report of their adventures. At the beginning of a quest for Lancelot in Part 1, for example, the text states:
Et li saint furent aporté avant, si com il estoit costume que nus chevaliers ne movoit de la maison le roi por aventure querre que avant ne jurast sor sains que il verité diroit au revenir de toutes les choses que li avendroient a son essient; et s’il a l’esmovoir nel juroit, il le juroit al revenir, ains qu’il fust crues de nule riens.
And the holy relics were brought forward, as it was the custom that no knight would set forth from court to seek adventure without first swearing on relics that upon his return he would tell the truth as he knew it concerning everything that befell him. And if he did not swear that oath upon setting out, he did so upon his return, before he was believed about anything.
This custom is kept throughout the text, and halfway through section 2 of Part 3, for example, Lancelot makes the same vow on the relics before he recounts his adventures, because he did not do so at the beginning of the quest.
When the knights return to court, a recording session is organised and Arthur's clerks are called to write everything down, as in this – the most famous – case:
Chelui jor furent assis li .III. chevalier en la Table Roonde et furent mandé li clerc qui metoient en escript lez proeches des compaignons de la maison le roy Artu.
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