“Never of Myselff”: Failure and Interiority in Malory’s “The Healing of Sir Urry”
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Vincent Giordano
Abstract
The late medieval English author Sir Thomas Malory almost uniformly places the miracles of his Le Morte Darthur into the Grail Quest, itself an abbreviation and translation of the Grail Quest of the Old French Vulgate Cycle.[1] After the Grail Quest, the Morte returns to its priority of “secular chivalry” in “The Book of Lancelot and Guinevere,” which Malory concludes with “The Healing of Sir Urry.” Unlike the Grail Quest (and the Morte in general), the “Urry” seems to have no known source. In this episode, only the best knight in the world can heal the grievously wounded Sir Urry. Coming after a full book of Lancelot’s exploits, this closing episode pushes the knight to demonstrate more than just his martial prowess. Instead, he must also employ his moral and supernatural qualities, qualities that Malory reiterates before Lancelot’s actions contribute to the collapse of the Arthurian kingdom.
This paper argues that in the “Urry,” Malory divests the miracle of the Grail Quest’s grand sociopolitical implications, with heavenly interventions and the rise and fall of kingdoms, subsuming religious chivalry into the secular chivalry of the Arthurian court. Lancelot internalizes the lessons on his pride that he learns when he fails to achieve the Grail, an internalization that enables his healing of Urry in the presence of the whole court. Malory describes the relatively minor miracle in contradictorily earthy language, simultaneously humanizing what he extols as miraculous: once he has succeeded, Lancelot “wepte, as he had bene a chylde that had bene beaytn!” In the “Urry,” Lancelot performs a miracle despite his earlier sins and imperfections. The miracle in this tale is not the healing of Urry so much as the blessing of Lancelot: a sinful man is miraculously allowed to perform a miracle. This healing represents Malory’s attempt to absolve Lancelot from his role in the literal death of Arthur despite his pride and lust. The heights of his possibilities in virtue and the depths of his sinful nature reinforce each other in one act, showing the inseparable nature of religious and secular chivalry in the Morte as a whole, 556where the religious miracles of the Grail Quests grant a language and a signification of value and worth to the later, secular miracle of the “Urry.”
Abstract
The late medieval English author Sir Thomas Malory almost uniformly places the miracles of his Le Morte Darthur into the Grail Quest, itself an abbreviation and translation of the Grail Quest of the Old French Vulgate Cycle.[1] After the Grail Quest, the Morte returns to its priority of “secular chivalry” in “The Book of Lancelot and Guinevere,” which Malory concludes with “The Healing of Sir Urry.” Unlike the Grail Quest (and the Morte in general), the “Urry” seems to have no known source. In this episode, only the best knight in the world can heal the grievously wounded Sir Urry. Coming after a full book of Lancelot’s exploits, this closing episode pushes the knight to demonstrate more than just his martial prowess. Instead, he must also employ his moral and supernatural qualities, qualities that Malory reiterates before Lancelot’s actions contribute to the collapse of the Arthurian kingdom.
This paper argues that in the “Urry,” Malory divests the miracle of the Grail Quest’s grand sociopolitical implications, with heavenly interventions and the rise and fall of kingdoms, subsuming religious chivalry into the secular chivalry of the Arthurian court. Lancelot internalizes the lessons on his pride that he learns when he fails to achieve the Grail, an internalization that enables his healing of Urry in the presence of the whole court. Malory describes the relatively minor miracle in contradictorily earthy language, simultaneously humanizing what he extols as miraculous: once he has succeeded, Lancelot “wepte, as he had bene a chylde that had bene beaytn!” In the “Urry,” Lancelot performs a miracle despite his earlier sins and imperfections. The miracle in this tale is not the healing of Urry so much as the blessing of Lancelot: a sinful man is miraculously allowed to perform a miracle. This healing represents Malory’s attempt to absolve Lancelot from his role in the literal death of Arthur despite his pride and lust. The heights of his possibilities in virtue and the depths of his sinful nature reinforce each other in one act, showing the inseparable nature of religious and secular chivalry in the Morte as a whole, 556where the religious miracles of the Grail Quests grant a language and a signification of value and worth to the later, secular miracle of the “Urry.”
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Miracles, Wonders, and Human Existence Globally and in the Pre-Modern Age: Also an Introduction 1
- (False) Miracles, Doctors and the potentia of Saints in the Gaul of Gregory of Tours 107
- Apostle’s Miracles and Kings’ Authority in West Francia (ca. 850–ca. 1050) 127
- Fecundity, Motherhood and Healing Karāmāt (Miracles): A Comparative Study of Sayyidah Nafīsah and Christian Women Saints 161
- Intertextuality and the Transcendental Miracle of Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s Risālat al-Ghufrān (The Epistle of Forgiveness) (1033 C.E.) 189
- The Miracles of Solomon: A Comparative Study of Al-Thaʿlabī’s Qiṣaṣ Al-Anbiyāʾ and “The City of Brass,” a Tale in the Arabian Nights Collection 215
- Miracle Accounts as Teaching Aids and Learning Tools: Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum as a Mirror of Everyday Life and the History of Mentality 241
- The Ultimate Miracle: Revival of the Dead in Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa Maria 275
- Miracle of Miracles: Improbable Choices and Impossible Outcomes in Dante’s Paradiso 299
- Miraculosa gratia: Discerning the Spirit, Discerning the Body in the Liber of Angela of Foligno and in the Vita of Clare of Montefalco 337
- Miraculous Revelation in the Middle English Pearl 375
- The Miracles of the Immaculate Conceptions in the St. Anne’s Legend and the Middle English Joseph of Aramathie 405
- “Many ferlis han fallen in a fewe ȝeris”: Debt, Obligation, Godly Presence, and Grasping the Miraculous in Piers Plowman 427
- Margery Kempe and Miracles: Guarding Understanding and Interpretation of Experience 459
- Where Has God Gone in the Vernacular Renderings of Lanfranc’s Chirurgia magna? 477
- Non vidit, sed firmiter credit – The Many Roles of Jews in Christian Miracle Narratives 505
- “Never of Myselff”: Failure and Interiority in Malory’s “The Healing of Sir Urry” 555
- Between Wonders and Miracles. The Use and Abuse of Natural Substances in the Healing Rituals of Late Medieval and Early Modern Popular Culture 581
- Between Wonder and Science: Alchemy in Augurello’s Mini-Epic Chryrsopoeia (1515) 619
- “Miraculous Light” – Natural Phenomena and Divine Salvation in the Medieval and Early Modern World 647
- Biographies of the Contributors
- Index
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Miracles, Wonders, and Human Existence Globally and in the Pre-Modern Age: Also an Introduction 1
- (False) Miracles, Doctors and the potentia of Saints in the Gaul of Gregory of Tours 107
- Apostle’s Miracles and Kings’ Authority in West Francia (ca. 850–ca. 1050) 127
- Fecundity, Motherhood and Healing Karāmāt (Miracles): A Comparative Study of Sayyidah Nafīsah and Christian Women Saints 161
- Intertextuality and the Transcendental Miracle of Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s Risālat al-Ghufrān (The Epistle of Forgiveness) (1033 C.E.) 189
- The Miracles of Solomon: A Comparative Study of Al-Thaʿlabī’s Qiṣaṣ Al-Anbiyāʾ and “The City of Brass,” a Tale in the Arabian Nights Collection 215
- Miracle Accounts as Teaching Aids and Learning Tools: Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum as a Mirror of Everyday Life and the History of Mentality 241
- The Ultimate Miracle: Revival of the Dead in Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa Maria 275
- Miracle of Miracles: Improbable Choices and Impossible Outcomes in Dante’s Paradiso 299
- Miraculosa gratia: Discerning the Spirit, Discerning the Body in the Liber of Angela of Foligno and in the Vita of Clare of Montefalco 337
- Miraculous Revelation in the Middle English Pearl 375
- The Miracles of the Immaculate Conceptions in the St. Anne’s Legend and the Middle English Joseph of Aramathie 405
- “Many ferlis han fallen in a fewe ȝeris”: Debt, Obligation, Godly Presence, and Grasping the Miraculous in Piers Plowman 427
- Margery Kempe and Miracles: Guarding Understanding and Interpretation of Experience 459
- Where Has God Gone in the Vernacular Renderings of Lanfranc’s Chirurgia magna? 477
- Non vidit, sed firmiter credit – The Many Roles of Jews in Christian Miracle Narratives 505
- “Never of Myselff”: Failure and Interiority in Malory’s “The Healing of Sir Urry” 555
- Between Wonders and Miracles. The Use and Abuse of Natural Substances in the Healing Rituals of Late Medieval and Early Modern Popular Culture 581
- Between Wonder and Science: Alchemy in Augurello’s Mini-Epic Chryrsopoeia (1515) 619
- “Miraculous Light” – Natural Phenomena and Divine Salvation in the Medieval and Early Modern World 647
- Biographies of the Contributors
- Index
