View source for Sir Thomas Malory

'''Sir Thomas Malory''', (c. 1410 - 1471), was the author of ''Le Morte d’Arthur'', that compilation of tales from French and other sources about the [[King Arthur|Arthurian]] legends that has had great popularity since the second half of the fifteenth century. It was edited and printed by [[William Caxton|Caxton]] in 1485 as ''The Noble Histories of King Arthur and Certain of His Knights'' - one of the first books printed in English.

There were a number of Thomas Malorys around at the time, however the most likely candidate is a certain [[Warwickshire]] knight, a follower of [[Richard Neville]], who had represented his county in Parliament. If he is indeed the one, it is known that he took over his estates in 1433 or 1434, was a member of parliament in 1445, and that he spent much of his later life in prison for serious crimes including attempted murder, rape and extortion. From clues in his writings it is thought that he wrote ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' in prison between 1451 and his death.

The work itself was in 21 books and was a prose translation from the French of a selection of the mass of legends surrounding King Arthur. The main elements of the collection relate the life, reign and death of Arthur leading to the final destruction of the Round Table and the search for the Holy Grail. Malory's gift was to take these stories and put them into the [[vernacular]] English of his own time in beautiful but readable prose.

Malory's work is the basis for our modern conceptions of the [[chivalry|chivalric]] ideal.

==References== 
:''The Oxford Companion to British History'' 1997 p.612
:''A Dictionary of Chivalry'' Penguin 1977 p.188

[[Category:Wars of the Roses]]
[[Category:English History]]
[[Category:British Authors]]
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