Le Morte d’Arthur
There is much debate over the way in which these two versions relate to each other. Field observes, however, that certain drastic and deliberate changes are made. Scholars continue to debate whether Caxton or Malory authorized these alterations. Roland argues that the differences between the Caxton and Winchester versions of this narrative suggest that Caxton "overwrote his copy text to comply with his world view, just as Malory had overwritten his source texts before him," and observes that the Roman Wars accounts in both Caxton and Malory's versions are informed by "almost four hundred years of struggles for dominion over the east and a gradual slipping away of the conquests made by the First Crusade". According to Roland, Caxton's version of the Roman War and his possible amendments to the Morte are a direct response to contemporary fears of Turkish expansion. In addition, she discovers that Malory's Morte was "written in the arc of an ascending fear of the Turks, an arc that reaches its zenith just as Caxton publishes Malory's work in the mid-1480s, a time when Europe was awash in uncertainty as to the repercussions of Mehmed II's death". For these reasons, the emphasis on crusades and on fears of foreign invasion begin to take on a deeper significance when the context of the Winchester and Caxton versions is considered.