Annotating the Winchester Malory: A Fifteenth-Century Guide to the Martialism, the Marvels, and the Narrative Structure of the Morte Darthur

Abstract

The Winchester Malory, the sole extant manuscript of Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, contains a series of marginal notes in the hands of the main scribes. These notes mark the position of particular events in the text, and by examining which events have been marked, it is possible to determine what one contemporary (whether author, reader or scribe) found worthy of notice: the martial, and, to a lesser but still important degree, the marvelous. Rather than providing practical full-manuscript finding aids, the notes act as a guide to illuminate the narrative structure of some subsidiary episodes or tales. Clearly both produced and intended to be read during the process of working through the text, they set forward a simplified, causal plot in the Balin, a tightly-structured series of combats against colored opponents in the Tale of Sir Gareth, and the progress of a marvelous but still secular chivalry in the Sankgreal.