ROMANCES. 



367 



Qu'il soil contcz en cort royal : 



Ce est li contes de Oraal 



Dont li quens li bailla le livre," &o. 



Claude Fauchet, in his " Rccueil do 1'Origine de la Langue et Poesiefran- 

 9oise," from which these lines are taken, adds, " This shows that some of the 

 romances were written in prose before being rhymed." M. Gautier, there- 

 fore, is in error when he asserts that the romances in prose date only from the 

 fifteenth century; on the contrary, it is certain that the prose versions were 

 contemporary with those in rhyme. Claude Fauchet was of opinion that the 



Fig. 304. Imaginary Election of St. Peter as Pope. " St. Pol kissed the body of St. Peter in the 

 prison at Antioch, and, at the request of the two Apostles, Our Lord restored to life the son of 

 a King who had been dead more than fifteen years ; and henceforward St. Peter was seated 

 in the chair as Pope and true Lieutenant of God upon earth, and held the seat as Pope for 

 the term of eight years holily." In the division to the left is seen St. Peter being tonsured 

 by the " tirans," and this is erroneously said to bo the origin of the ecclesiastical tonsure. 

 Miniature of the " Sainte Escripture." Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century. In the 

 Burgundy Library, Brussels. 



printed romances of his day, such as "Lancelot du Lac," " Tristan," and others, 

 were rewritten after the old prose and verse editions. We know that the 

 in rhyme were sung, or rather recited, to the sounds of some instru- 



