In a volume that deals largely with the Quest for the Holy Grail, my contribution may stand out by its failure to do so. The manuscript I wish to discuss here does indeed contain a version of the Queste, and I will have something to say about it. But it contains a great many other ‘quests’, which take many forms, and ultimately it is the quest to find meaning in the composition of the manuscript as a whole that forms this paper's central concern.

Perhaps the single most important witness to the Dutch Arthurian tradition is MS The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek Hs. 129 A 10, also known as the Lancelot Compilation, which contains no fewer than ten Arthurian romances. It was compiled sometime in the early fourteenth century, probably around 1320, in Brabant. The Lancelot Compilation comprises translations of the core trilogy of texts that make up the Old French Vulgate cycle: the Roman van Lanceloet, the Queeste vanden Grale, and Arturs doet are readily recognizable as the Middle Dutch counterparts to the Lancelot–Queste–Mort. The manuscript originally consisted of four books contained in two codices, the first of which has been lost but presumably corresponded to the first third of the Lancelot proper. Into this core trilogy seven additional romances have been interpolated.

There is a striking difference between this Dutch compilation and others familiar to students of the Arthurian legend: the Lancelot Compilation clearly constitutes a cycle intended to stand as a unified whole. Whereas many have questioned this aspect of Malory's work, it is harder to do so with the Lancelot Compilation.