Knight, prisoner, writer, collator of tales 1414-1471
‘The very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady’
From Newbold Revel in Warwickshire (there were other contemporary Sir Thomas Malorys but this Malory seems to fit the bill.)
Born in 1414, the son of a knight, himself a knight, he wrote about knights, compiling a full life of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, ‘Le Morte d’Arthur.’
Malory was a man of two sides: an MP and a criminal accused of attempted murder and robbery, a lawmaker and a prisoner. Sometimes he was incarcerated for crimes he committed, sometimes he was a prisoner of war - he fought on both sides of the War of the Roses. He wrote in prison, lots of time on his hands. In Newgate Prison again in 1468 he finished his book, gained his freedom in 1470, when Henry V1 returned to the throne, and died a few months later.
Le Morte d’Arthur was published by William Caxton in 1485, one of the first books ever printed in English.
A chivalric romance, a tale of love and war, it starts in Cornwall with Arthur’s conception and birth, and tales of the Cornish knight Tristan and his love Isolde feature prominently.
Malory collected the Arthurian tales from French and Middle English written sources, then translated and collated them into a new narrative. Originally they were tales from the oral tradition.
This is both one of the best known works of Arthurian literature and source of many other retellings of King Arthur’s tale.
Le Morte d’Arthur 1485
