ROMANCES 



ROMAN EMPIRE 



777 



nometimes linked with the Charlemagne cycle ; 

 Cleomades, or Clamades, where Cervantes found 

 the magic wooden horse, which by a lapse of 

 memory he assigns to Pierre of Provence and 

 Magalona, another romance of the same kind; 

 Partenopeus of Blois ; Melusina ; The Knight of 

 the Swan, in some respects the most interesting of 

 all, and curious as an illustration of the growth of a 

 romance. Originally a folklore legend of Brabant, 

 the source of Lohengrin, the story was turned into 

 a poem and incorporated in the series on Godfrey 

 de Bouillon, who was made a descendant of the 

 Knight of the Swan ; then it was annexed by Vin- 

 cent de Beauvais for his Speculum Historiale, from 

 which it passed into the shape of a romance, and 

 was translated into English at the instigation of 

 Edward, Duke of Buckingham, who claimed to be 

 one of the knight's descendants. 



Cervantes correctly claims Amadis de Gaula as 

 the founder of Spanish chivalry romance, though 

 he may have been in error as to its being^ the first 

 work of the kind printed in Spain ; the Valencian 

 Tirant lo Blanch must have preceded it. It was long 

 held to be of Portuguese ongin on the bare state- 

 ment of Gomez de Azurara that it was entirely the 

 work of Vasco de Lolieira ; but there is ample proof 

 that an Amadis was extant in Spain at least as 

 early as the middle of the 14th century, very prob- 

 ably as early as 1300, but at any rate before Lobeira 

 was born. Southey, in whose time the evidence 

 was not forthcoming, may be excused for asserting 

 the Portuguese origin of the romance ; but it is 

 strange to find M. Gaston Paris still describing it 

 as ' portugais puis espagnol aux XV et XVI" 

 M.-.-I.^. Whether this Amadis was in verse or in 

 prose is uncertain ; we only know from one witness 

 that it wits in three books, and Garci de Mont.il vo, 

 who is responsible for the existing Amadis, merely 

 claims to have corrected three Imoks, which pre- 

 vious editors and scribes had left in a corrupt state, 

 and to have added a fourth. Nor is it a certainty 

 that it was of purely Spanish origin. The influence 

 of the Arthurian romances is manifest, but what is 

 far mure suspicious is the absence of Spanish colour 

 anil indications of Spanish parentage ; the names 

 are almost all akin to those of the Arthur stories, 

 the fay Urganda is a distinctly Celtic creation, and 

 the scene throughout is laid on Arthurian ground, 

 Wales, England, Brittany, or Normandy, a choice 

 not easily explained in a romancer whose business 

 was to interest Spanish hearers or readers. But 

 whether or not the original may have l>een some 

 northern French story, it certainly was not, as has 

 been sometimes suggested, Amadas et Ydoine in 

 which there is no more resemblance to Amadis 

 than there is in Aucassin and Nicolette. 



The earliest known edition of the Amadis (q.v.) 

 is nf 1508, but this cannot be the first ; it is too 

 near the date of other romances obviously inspired 

 by it and born of its success, and it is evident 

 that it was finished shortly after the fall of 

 (iranada in 1492. The date is significant in its 

 bearing on the curious phenomenon of the sudden 

 outburst of a chivalry romance literature in Spain, 

 just as the middle ages were drawing to an end 

 and other nations were beginning to put away 

 chivalry among the bric-a-brac of bygone days. 

 But in Spain it marked the close of a campaign of 

 seven centuries and the end of a national life of 

 sustained excitement. Under the new order of 

 things, the triple despotism of crown, church, and 

 Inquisition, the nobles and minor nobility were left 

 witli a superabundance of leisure on their hands, a 

 condition, as every seaside librarian knows, always 

 favourable to the circulation of fiction, so that 

 Montalvo could not have chosen a better time for 

 his venture. But it would be unjust in the 

 extreme to deny to the merits of the Amadis their 



share in the creation of Spanish chivalry romance. 

 In almost every respect, story, incidents, characters, 

 and human interest, it will bear comparison with 

 the best of its predecessors, and as a romance of 

 chivalry, pure and simple, it has no equal. In 

 this lay the secret of its success. For Spain chivalry 

 romance had a reality unknown elsewhere. Amadis 

 came to a generation which had seen round Fer- 

 dinand and Isabella knights who could match any 

 of Arthur's or Charlemagne's in exploits. Coming 

 at such a time it is no wonder that Amadis was 

 followed by a cry for more, and that more was 

 promptly supplied. But Esplandian, Florisando, 

 Lisuarte, Amadis of Greece were of a very differ- 

 ent vintage. It was by Feliciano de Silva, the 

 object of Cervantes' special detestation, that the 

 work of continuation was ehietly carried on. He 

 was a clever man, with a facile pen, and if not 

 imagination, at least invention in abundance, but 

 his greatest gift was his intuitive perception of the 

 tastes of his readers. He perceived that it was not 

 so much recreation as excitement they wanted, and 

 that so far from objecting to rant, bombast, and 

 extravagance, the more they got the better they 

 were pleased. He seems to have been the first 

 author who reduced writing nonsense to a system, 

 and also the first who made a handsome fortune 

 by his writings. The professed continuations 

 formed, however, only a small portion of the 

 romances, more or less in imitation of the Amadis, 

 and infected by the style of Feliciano de Silva, 

 the Felixmartes, Belianises, Olivartes, which con- 

 tinued to flow from the press until the long line 

 ended with Policisne de Boecia, two years before 

 Don Quixote was sent to the press. 



With Don Quixote, fittingly, the history of 

 romances as a branch of fiction conies to a close. 

 There are, indeed, two other groups that claim the 

 title, the Pastorals, and those sometimes called 

 the Heroic, an epithet better deserved by the 

 readers who were bold enough to face entertain- 

 ment in such a formidable shape. But to these 

 quite as much space as their merits entitle them 

 to has been already given (see NOVELS). 



See Paulin Paris, Les Rimans du Table Bonds ( 1868- 

 77); Gaston Paris, La Literature Francaise au Moyen 

 Aye (2d ed. 1890), Histoire jioetique dc Charlemagne 

 (1865), De Pmedo Turpinv : Hint. CaruliMagni (1865); 

 Oskar Sommer, Morte Darthur (3 vols. 1889) ; A. Nutt, 

 Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (1888); Pro- 

 fessor Rhys, The Arthurian Leyend ( 1891 ) ; G. Paris and 

 J. Ulricli, Merlin, Rmnan en Prose d'aprii le MS. appt. 

 a At. Huth (Socie'te des Anoiens Textes Francises, 

 1886); W. F. Skene, The Four Ancient Books of 

 Wales (1868) ; J. S. Stuart Glennie, Arthurian Localities 

 (1868); Birch-Hirschteld, Die Sage rom Oral (1877); 

 Herz, Saf/e vom Parzival und detn Oral (1882); E. 

 Martin, Zur Oral Sage (1880); H. Zimmer (on the 

 Breton sources of the Arthur Legend - Goltingische 

 Gelehrte Anzeii/en, Oct. 1890); L. Gautier, Les Epopfis 

 Francaises( 1878-82); Melzi, Biblwyrujia dei Romanzi 

 ItaKmi (1865); Gayangos, Libras de Caballtrias (liib 

 de Autores Espanoles, vol. xi.) ; Mily a Fontanals, Poesia 

 heroico-popular Caste/Ulna ( 1874 ) ; Turpini Historia, 

 Caroli Mayni, Texte Revue par F. Castets (1880) ; Ward, 

 Catal. of Romances in the Dept. of MS.S., British Museum 

 (1883); Quaritch, Catal. of jiomances of Chivalry (1882) ; 

 Early English Text Society's publications ; Romania ; 

 many papers by Gaston Paris ; the section on Literature 

 in the article SPAIN ; George Saintsbury, The Flourish- 

 ing of Romance ( 1897 ) ; W. P. Ker, Epic and Romance 

 (1897). 



Roman de Ron. See WAGE. 



Roman Empire. HOLY (more fully in German, 

 Heiliges Itumisclies Reich Dentscher Nation), the 

 official denomination of the German empire from 

 962 down to 1806, when Francis II. of Hapsburg 

 resigned the imperial title. The Western Roman 

 empire came to an end in 476 A.D. ; Charlemagne 

 sought to reconstitute it when he was crowned 



