ROMANCES 



775 



sense, to the style and tone prevailing therein. 

 By 'the romances,' using the term specifically, we 

 generally mean the prose fictions which, as reading 

 became a more common accomplishment, took the 

 place of the lays and Chansons de gestes (q.v.) of 

 the minstrels and trouveres, and were in their 

 turn replaced by the novel. Of these the most im- 

 portant in every way are the so-called romances 

 of chivalry, which may be considered the legiti- 

 mate descendants of the chansons de gestes. The 

 chivalry romances divide naturally into three 

 families or groups : the British ( which, perhaps, 

 would be more scientifically described as the Ar- 

 morican or the Anglo-Norman), the French, and 

 the Spanish ; the first having for its centre the 

 legend of Arthur and the Round Table ; the second 

 formed round the legend of Charlemagne and the 

 Twelve Peers ; and the third consisting mainly of 

 Amadis of Gaul followed by a long series of sequels 

 and imitations of one kind or another. In strict 

 chronological order the Charlemagne cycle should 

 stand first, for the Charlemagne legend was appar- 

 ently of an earlier formation than the Arthurian ; 

 but on the other hand the materials out of which 

 the Arthur legend shaped itself must of course 

 have been the older, ana the prose romances which 

 either grew out of it or were grafted upon it are 

 for the most part of an earlier date than those be- 

 longing to the Charlemagne story. 



The first appearance of Arthur is in the history 

 of Nennius, where he is presented in a quasi-his- 

 torical shape, simply as the chosen leader of the 

 Britons in twelve successful battles fought with the 

 Saxons ; but it is in the Historic* Regum Britannia! 

 of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1140) that he first 

 appears as the hero of a connected story. Geoffrey, 

 in fact, may be fairly claimed as the founder of 

 the Arthurian legend. Whatever his materials may 

 have been or whatever the source from which he 

 obtained them, he contrived to give them ' un 

 caractere chevaleresque et courtois,' to use the 

 words of M. Gaston Paris, which was altogether 

 foreign to them when they came to his hands, and 

 thus succeeded in presenting a picture of Arthur 

 and his court which at once proved acceptable to 

 the age in which he lived. It is this character, 

 impressed upon the Arthur legend by Geoffrey, 

 that led Cervantes to regard it as the fountain- 

 head of chivalry ami chivalry romance, as he does 

 in Don Quixote (part 1, chap. xiii.). The story, 

 however, an Geoffrey left it, is little more than the 

 foundation of the structure raised by his successors 

 a century later. Whether we accept in its entirety 

 or in part only his account of the ' very ancient 

 book' from Brittany which he professed to have 

 translated, or hold that his authorities were simply 

 Nenniiis, Welsh traditions, and Breton lays and 

 tales, it is clear that Ids sources of information 

 conveyed no hint of the Round Table or of the 

 (Trail, to say nothing of Lancelot and other per- 

 sonages who have come down to us as part and 

 parcel of the Arthurian story. The first reference 

 to the Round Table is in the Brut of Wace (1155), 

 which is in fact an amplified metrical version of 

 < li'offrey's history, and from the words used ' Fist 

 Artus Ja roonde table, dont Breton dient mainte 

 fable ' we are left to suppose that it was through 

 Breton tradition that it found its way into the 

 Htory. By some it has been conjectured that in 

 the Round Table we have only an imitation of 

 the Peers of the Charlemagne legend, but in truth 

 the two institutions represented two totally dis- 

 tinct ideas. The peers were simply a fraternity, 

 ' xii. citmpaignuns,' as the Chanson de Roland 

 rails them, bound together by mutual affection 

 alone, with no ulterior aim or object, and entirely 

 uninfluenced by the sovereign. The Round Table, 

 on the other hand, was a kuiglitly fellowship in which 



the bond of union was the pursuit of chivalrous 

 adventures and 'deeds of worship,' of which the 

 king was the head, and by which he was ' upborne ' 

 and the quiet and rest of hi.s realm insured. The 

 distinction deserves notice, for it is characteristic 

 of the difference between the two legends and the 

 romances that represent them. The Arthurian 

 stories were knightly and courtly, their authors 

 were courtiers, sometimes knights if we may trust 

 the statements of early editors, they were written 

 to order at the instance of magnates, among whom 

 Henry II. and Henry III. of England are named, 

 and at any rate were obviously addressed to what 

 would now be called the aristocratic section of 

 society. With the Carlovingian it was very 

 different ; the chansons de gestes from which they 

 were derived were made for and sung to no one class 

 in particular, and it is manifest that the selection 

 for translation into prose was always governed by 

 considerations of popular interest. Hence the phe- 

 nomenon noticed by more than one observer, that 

 the Arthurian stories have never become in the 

 strict sense of the word popular in any age or 

 country, while the Carlovingian have enjoyed a 

 wide-spread popularity, and in some instances con- 

 tinued to hold their own as popular stories down to 

 the present day. Mr J. A. Symonds observes that 

 in Italy the Arthurian stories, though relished by 

 the cultured classes, never took the fancy of the 

 people at large in the same way as the Carlo- 

 vingian ; and in Spain the romances and ballads 

 that treat of Arthur are few and meagre, while 

 the Charlemagne literature is extensive and rich, 

 and the History of Charlemagne and the Twelve 

 Peers is still a current chap-book in high request. 

 A more obscure question is how the Holy Grail 

 came to be linked to the Arthurian story. There 

 can be no doubt that Celtic tradition and myth- 

 ology present sufficient analogies to justify Ji 

 theory that the idea of the Grail is a purely 

 Celtic one which may be traced back to pagan 

 times. But none of these analogues, not Fionn'f 

 healing cup or the mystic basin which figurei, 

 in Peredur, can be in any true sense called ;i, 

 Grail. The essence of the Arthurian Grail lien 

 in its character of a Christian relic, and the very 

 name suggests that the conception as it is there 

 presented to us was an Anglo-Norman one. It is 

 very possible, no doubt, that Celtic tradition may 

 have liad a share in shaping the conception, but 

 that is all that can be safely said. Some little 

 light, perhaps, is thrown on the question by the 

 curious coincidence between the book presented in 

 a vision in the year 717, which Robert de Borron 

 (circa 1190) sets up as the prime authority for his 

 Bainct Greal, and the vision in the same year in 

 which the Grail itself was seen by a British hermit, 

 as recorded by Helinand in 1204. The return of 

 the first Crusaders stimulated that enthusiasm for 

 relics of the Passion of which we have a proof in 

 the Sacro Catino at Genoa and its rivals. A very 

 natural consequence would be an eagerness to dis- 

 cover the hiding-place of the true catino, and this, 

 when the Round Table idea had been once imported 

 into the Arthurian story, would furnish the ' deed 

 of worship ' par excellence necessary to its constitu- 

 tion, while an equally natural consequence would 

 be that the poets in working out the idea would 

 avail themselves of any floating traditions of mystic 

 vessels endowed with miraculous properties which 

 could be pressed into their service. Arthur him- 

 self has, no doubt, been treated in the same fashion. 

 Hero-worship is almost always accompanied by 

 annexation. The Charlemagne legend is largely 

 made up of fragments that properly belong to 

 Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charles the Bald. Even 

 in the comparatively modern case of the Cid, one 

 of the most famous exploits, the unseating of the 



