University of Virginia Library

II

In a study of corrected mistakes in Winchester, Takako Kato demonstrated
that, contrary to the impressionone might get from the apparatus of Vinaver's
edition, the Winchester scribes were not human automata, only reproducing their
text accurately or making only unconscious errors. 44 They also sometimes noticed
mistakes in their copy and tried to correct them.

One of her examples comes from the story of Balin. Balin has recently been
released from King Arthur's prison when he encounters his brother, Balan. The
Winchester version records Balan'swords as follows: "I am ryȝt glad of your
delyueraunce and of youre dolerous presonment." 45 Kato rightly observes that
the inclusion of the and makes nonsense of the passage, which certainly is why
the scribe deleted it, 46 but that the same word appears without the correction
in the Caxton: "I am ryght glad of your delyueraunce and of youre dolorous

prysonement." 47 Kato draws convincing conclusions about how most of the er-
rors she discusses probably originated, but her discussion of this error is less
extensive than the others, leaving the reader with the impression that the Win-
chester scribe restores Malory's original intention. However, as above, something
must have led the scribe of the archetype to make this mistake.

Here internal contamination can be ruled out, if not as swiftly as in the case
above. It is true that the scribe of the archetype could possibly have been misled
to write delyveraunce and by the words delyverde and which appear in the line below
in Winchester and two lines below in the Caxton. 48 Yet if that were so he must
have paused after delyveraunce, returned to his exemplar and found delyverde and
resumed his copying but realized his mistake after writing the single word and.
Then he must have returned to the correct place and continued without either
adapting the wording to tidy up the mistake or even, like his successor of the
Winchester manuscript, deleting the word. Such a situation would be most un-
likely in a case of internal contamination.

By way of comparison, to illustrate a more probable instance of internal
contamination, consider thissimilarly illogical sentence from "The Tale of Sir
Launcelot:" "Than Sir Launcelot made his complaynte unto the kynge, how he
was betrayed, and how he was brother unto Sir Lyonell, whyche was departed
frome hym he wyste not where" (197.34 – 198.1). This reading has been retained
by every edition based upon the Winchester, nor has any editor commented
on what appears to be an example of unintended humor: Launcelot complain-
ing that he has recently been betrayed and also complaining that Lyonell is his
brother. A look at the Caxton text illuminates how the Winchester scribe came
most probably to produce this reading. The Caxton reads, "Anone syre launcelot
made his complaynte vnto the kynge how he was bytrayed And how his broder
syre lyonel was departed from hym / ne nyst not where /" 49 The Winchester
scribe apparently committed an error of saut du même au même and returned to the
first how in the phrase in the line above the one that he intended and recopied "he
was," only realizing his mistake as he reached the word "betrayed." The scribe
then altered the rest of the sentence to compensate, an example of what Field
has called invisible mending. 50

The textual situation is different in the example from the story of Balin. Field
believes that this is a case of an intruded and, which "W often and C and the
archetype sometimes use … to cure textual difficulties, real and imaginary." 51
Given that the scribe ofthe archetype shared this tendency with his successor
of the Winchester Manuscript, this is a neat solution to this mystery. However,
it begs the question of what textual difficulty, an imagined one presumably, the
scribe of the archetype might have thought he was solving by adding a word that
destroys the sense of what he was copying.

A better solution is that the scribe of the archetype misread a word in his
exemplar without realizing it, and the misread word would almost certainly be
out. One can see easily how such a misreading could take place. Mistaking the
loop of the o for an a, the scribe would naturally interpret the double minims of
the u as an n, and finally mistake the stroke of the t for a d, the same error, in the
opposite direction, as above. This hypothesis would produce as the reading of the
archetype's exemplar, "I am ryght glad of youre delyveraunce out of youre doler-
ous presonment." This reading is idiomatic, makes very good sense, and is typical
of Malory's style. Malory never uses the word presonment other than this once, but
he refers to knights' release (or otherwise) from prison fourteen times and always
uses the construction oute of preson, never, say, merely delyverde of preson 52

The similarity of this misreading on the part of the scribe of the archetype to
the misreading of had for þat is remarkable. In both cases short functional words,
an auxiliary verb and a preposition, have been mistaken for another word, and
both contain a similar d/t confusion. Each of the two cases provides supporting
evidence for the validity of the other.