The relationship of the Portuguese and Spanish "Demandas" to the extant French manuscripts of the Post-Vulgate "Queste del Saint Graal"

Abstract

The Portuguese Demanda do Santo Graal preserved in a unique fifteenth-century manuscript, no. 2594 of the National Library of Vienna, and the Spanish Demanda del Sancto Grial the greater part of which has only survived in two early printed editions, Toledo, 1515 and Sevilla, 1535, derive ultimately, though not independently of each other, from the French Post-Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal and Post-Vulgate Mort Artu. The latter have not come down to us in their entirety in any single manuscript; only fragments of varying lengths have been preserved in MSS B.N. fr. 112, 116, 340 and 343. However, the second half of the Queste del Saint Graal incorporated in the Second Version of the prose Tristan offers us, apart from certain variants, substantially the same version as the latter portion of the Quest section of the Demanda. As regards the first half of the Quest section, the Demanda here also shares a number of incidents with the Tristan Queste, but whereas the latter reproduces faithfully the correspondin...