MALORY, SIR THOMAS, Knight, was born probably about 1400, the son of Sir John Malory of Newbold Revell. As a young man he served in France under the renowned Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, known as the "father of courtesy." In 1445 he was member of Parliament for Warwickshire, and he took part in the Wars of the Roses on the Lancastrian side. He died on March 14, 1470, and was buried "in the Chapel of St. Francis at the Gray Friars, near Newgate, in the suburbs of London," leaving a widow and a grand son.
This is practically all that is known of the author of the famous "M'orte d'Arthur," which he finished in the year of his death, and which was printed by Caxton in 1485. The "Morte d'Arthur is a compendium, not particularly order ly or consistent, of the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, translated from somewhat de graded French versions into English prose. These stories had formed one of the chief themes of the French and Eng lish metrical and prose romances from the 12th century, and in this book Ma lory collects them in a form which may be regarded as summing up the medimval treatment, while it constitutes the source from which many modern poets have drawn the material for numerous poetic and dramatic versions.
The little that we know of Malory corroborates the impression we derive from his book, that he was a man in love with chivalry. When he was an old man, in the period when chivalry was beginning to decline, he appears to have devoted his last years to translat ing into his own tongue the stories which seemed to him to be the best embodiment of that spirit of knightly courage and loyalty, of devotion to women and the church, of generosity, honor, truth, and courtesy, which marked the finest type of medimval gentleman.
Though Malory's work is a transla tion, it is written in a dignified yet natural style, which flows smoothly, and is capable of great variety of expression, being vigorous and forcible in the descrip tions of fighting, delicate and tender in the pathetic passages, and suffused throughout with a fine idealism. It stands at the end of the Middle Ages, transmitting to the modern world the best of the preceding age.