But how do these three stand as regards each other? On the whole =1533= appears to represent the better text, and it also appears to have preserved signs of an earlier redaction, yet I do not think it is the direct source of the other two. We often find =D. L.= and =M.= agreeing in details of numbers and names, as against the other version; certainly in the case of such a name as Brimol van Pleîche, Bromel la Pleche, the agreement must be due to a French source common to both. I should be inclined to postulate some such scheme as this.
=A.= (Original French Version). | +-----------+---------------+ | | =1533.= =B.= French. | / \ / \ =D. L.= =M.=
As will be seen from the summary of =D. L.= appended to these studies, both this version and =M.= show, in the _Lancelot_ section, a certain _plus_ of incident as against =1533=, though these incidents vary in each case. The relation cannot, therefore, be exactly determined, but I think there can be no reasonable doubt that for the _Lancelot-Queste_ section of his compilation Malory used an _Agravain-Queste_ MS.
That he had _two_ MSS., one for the _Lancelot_, another for the _Queste_, as Dr. Sommer[190] suggests, is highly unlikely. It would be too curious a chance that he should in each case hit on a version so closely corresponding to that of the two with which we have compared his reading.
This appears to me practically to dispose of the argument, that Malory had before him a number of episodic romances, an argument often brought forward;[191] the 'Turquine' episode in Book VI., the whole of Book VII., and the adventure with the damsel of Escalot being instances in point. Turquine certainly came out of the _Lancelot_, as did the lady of Escalot; Book VII. may have been an episodic romance, as also the handling of Urre of Hungary; though this latter, as we shall see, may equally well be an amplification of an adventure found in the prose _Lancelot_.[192]
Again, it very greatly limits the probability of Malory's having elsewhere worked with a free hand, inventing and rearranging, when we find, as we have done, that numerous small details, hitherto ascribed to him, are faithful reproductions of his source. We are justified in cherishing very serious doubts as to the originality of any marked deviation from the traditional version of an adventure which we may find in his compilation.
