Introduction: Locating Fifteenth-Century Historiography

Anachronistic characterizations of the Morte Darthur's historiographical content have been made in passing by many a distinguished medievalist. One critic writes: ‘It is well known that from the late twelfth to the early seventeenth centuries practically all Englishmen thought that Arthur was a genuinely historical figure; and it is clear from the general situation and from his own remarks (e.g. Works, 1229) that Malory shared this view.’ Another: ‘… for history (and the Arthurian romances were considered as such) the fifteenth-century was an age of prose’. Neither critic claims to have proved the argument, being busy enough with different questions; nevertheless, such formulations can form a critical inheritance which all too easily goes unquestioned. A later critic, for example, writes: ‘Before turning to the political bias which informs Malory's reading of the story, we need to establish the fact that for the Middle Ages and especially for the later English Middle Ages, the Arthurian story claimed the status of history.’ The critic seeks to establish this fact by yoking Malory's understanding of historia to that of the twelfth-century historians, thus eliding some three hundred years of change in historiographical theory.