I was going to reply to Ian and Heather regarding Walter's book (but
thought
better of it this time). Because, before writing, I came across this
interesting little snippet:
"Only one literary work can be attributed to him [Walter Map] with
certainty: "De Nugis curialium" (Courtiers' Trifings), a book of gossip,
anecdote, and observation, written, regardless of form, on the suggestion
of
one Geoffrey, to set down his (Map's) sayings and doings that had not been
committed to writing. It is also implied by Map that he wrote at the wish
of
Heny II, at whose court the work was composed. Besides this work in Latin,
there is good reason to believe that the earliest prose "Lancelot" was
based
on a French poem of Walter Map (see LEGENDS, Arthur)."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09635a.htm
Now, as far as I am aware, it is the generally received wisdom that
Chretien
wrote "The Knight in the Cart" from his imagination and, in so doing, was
solely responsible for introducing Lancelot into the corpus. [For reasons
I
will not go into here, I have long had my doubts about that position, but
without evidence of a prior written source have been unable to take that
any
further.] I have not previously come across this suggestion, that "there
is
good reason to believe that the earliest prose "Lancelot" was based on a
French poem of Walter Map"
Has anyone else heard of it, or can point me in the right direction, at
least as to what the "good reason" is (reasons are?), even if it no longer
exists?
Kind regards
Malcolm Martin
London UK
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