That he did this deliberately is so unlikely as to be practically impossible: that he did it is certain.

The Arthurian Legend is the greatest of mediaeval creations as a subject--a "fable"-- just as the _Divina Commedia_ is the greatest of mediaeval "imitations" and works of art.

And as such it is inevitable that it should carry with it the sense of the greatest medieval _differences_, Chivalry and Romance.

The strong point of these differences is the way in which they combine the three great motives, as Dante isolates them, of Valour, Love, and Religion.

The ancients never realised this combination at all; the moderns have merely struggled after it, or blasphemed it in fox-and-grapes fashion: the mediaevals _had_ it--in theory at any rate.