Thomas Malory
c. 1415–c. 1471 · England
“Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus.”
Peak-work percentile in the canon.
The lineage through Thomas Malory
Drew From(1)
who shaped Thomas Malory
- Camelot rises and falls on Boethius's Wheel of Fortune — and the Consolation is where the medieval world learned to see it that way
- Read it first and Malory's fatalism clicks into place: Lancelot all but quotes Boethius on the wheel "so moveable," and Arthur dreams of being thrown from it on the eve of ruin
- The philosophy behind the doom — fortune, providence, sin redeemed — is Boethius's, standing quietly behind the swords
Famous Quotes
“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.”
“So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand.”
“Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross.”
“And thou were the courteoust knight that ever bare shield. And thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrad horse. And thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman. And thou were the kindest man that ever struck with sword.”
About Thomas Malory
English writer best known for Le Morte d'Arthur, the definitive English-language retelling of the Arthurian legends. He likely wrote it while imprisoned, drawing on earlier French and English sources. His work fixed the Arthurian canon — Lancelot, Guinevere, the Round Table, the quest for the Holy Grail — in the English-speaking imagination.