366 



ROMANCES. 



" History of the Bretons," and the " Life of Merlin/' written in Latin by 

 Geoffrey of Monmouth, were the materials used by Wace in his romances of 

 the "Rou" and of the "Brut," as also by Robert de Borron in his romance, 

 "Joseph of Arimathea," and by the anonymous author of the "St. Graal." 

 Then, too, there is the Latin Chronicle attributed to Archbishop Turpin of 

 Rheims. This spurious Chronicle is in two parts : the first, consisting of five 

 chapters, was written by a monk of Compostello in the middle of the eleventh 

 century ; the second, beginning at Chapter VI., is the work of a monk of 

 St. Andrew of Vienna, who wrote between the years 1109 and 1119. Such, at 



Fig. 303. Joshua, King David, and Judas Maccabseus. From a Series of Ancient Engravings, 

 representing the Nine Heroes of Sacred, Ancient, and Modern History, who figure in the 

 Komance, " Le Triomphe des Neuf Preux." These Coloured Drawings, apparently of the 

 Fifteenth Century, form the Frontispiece of a Manuscript in the Colbert Room, National 

 Library, Paris. 



least, are the conclusions arrived at by M. Gaston Paris. This Chronicle at 

 once acquired such celebrity that five or six prose translations were made, 

 and this was the source from which the jugglers obtained much of their lore. 

 Chrestien de Troyes, the beginning of whose romances is here appended, 

 intimates that he has merely put into verse a rose romance : 



" Chrestiens qui entent et paine 

 A rimoier le meillor conte 

 Par le commandement le Comte 



