‘If this Sir Thomas Malory was a Welshman, as Leland and others after
him assert, he was probably a Welsh Priest; as appears not only by the
legendary vein which runs through all the stories he has thus extracted
and wove together, but by his conclusion of the work itself, in these
words: “Pray for me, whyle I am on lyve, that God sende me good
delyveraunce; and when I am deed, I praye you all, praye for my soule;
for this booke was ended the 9th yeer of the reygne of Kyng Edward the
Fourth, by Syr Thomas Maleore, Knyght, as Jesu helpe him for his grete
myght, as he is the _servaunte_ of Jesu, bothe day and nyght.”’
But no references are given as to where this supposed assertion by
‘Leland and others’ is to be found; in fact, it is not to be found in
any of Leland’s writings. And the origin of the statement remained an
unexplained puzzle, until Dr. Sommer has now apparently discovered the
key to it in a passage which he quotes from Bale’s _Illustrium Maioris
Britanniæ Scriptorum_, &c., first edition, folio 208. In this passage,
Bale, after praising Thomas Mailorius and his history of King Arthur,
goes on to say, ‘_Est Mailoria in finibus Cambriæ regio_,’ on the
authority of Leland[23]. I have not myself verified these references,
but I infer from what Dr. Sommer tells us, that Bale, perhaps writing
from an imperfect recollection, supposed that he had the authority of
Leland for a connection between Mailorius, and the Welsh place of the
like name: and then the writer of the _Biographia Britannica_, still
more inaccurately, converted the possible suggestion of Bale into the
direct statement that Leland had asserted Malory to be a Welshman,
while Bale himself is referred to as ‘the others.’ Nor is there any
reason to suppose from Malory’s own book that he was a Welshman. Though
Caxton tells us that there were books in Welsh about Arthur and his
Knights, Malory never quotes any but the French and English books. He
shows no acquaintance with Welsh legends or traditions, unless it be
with those in Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote in Latin, nor of any
local knowledge of Welsh places. Then as to the fanciful and
inconsequent conjecture that he was a priest, he himself tells us that
he was a knight, and thus implies that he was not a priest, while the
words that ‘he is the servant of Jesu by day and by night,’ which
suggested the notion that he was a priest, are evidently put into that
form in order to give a rhythmical ending to the book. Nor did the
priest’s usual title of ‘Sir’ make him a knight. What we may say of Sir
Thomas Malory is that he was probably of an old English family: that he
was a knight both in rank and in temper and spirit, and a lover alike
of the gentle and the soldierly virtues of knighthood. He was a man of
genius, and a devout Christian: he wrote for gentlewomen as well as
gentlemen, believing that they would read his book ‘from the beginning
to the ending,’ and that it would call forth in them a sympathy which
would properly express itself in prayers for the pious writer.