374 



ROMANCES. 



selves to compiling the various episodes of a romance or of several romances, 

 so as to vary the impressions produced 011 the audience. These assembleurs, 

 like the Greek rhapsodists of Homer's time, modified the text which they 

 intended to narrate or to sing, and they in many instances corrected and 

 transformed the ancient romances when the language in which they were 

 couched had become obsolete, and especially when the popular taste of the 

 day called for the addition of some new ornaments. This is how it came to 

 pass that the primitive text of many romances underwent changes of dialect, 

 the existence of which it would otherwise be difficult to understand. Some- 

 times an assembleur who desired to transpose the original into another dialect, 

 or even into another language, simply changed the termination of the words, 

 and so composed a sort of grammatical balderdash utterly incomprehensible. 

 There still exist certain romances written in the Oil language which have 

 been thus travestied by the jugglers into the Limousin and Provencal dialects, 

 and even into Italian. The public library of St. Mark, Venice (Fig. 306), 

 contains some curious manuscripts of these Italianised French romances, 

 which are, while preserving the precise original form, neither more nor less 

 than gibberish. 



Most of the romances belonged, as we have said, not only to the ancient 

 popular songs in Celtic, Teutonic, or Romance, but also to the early legends 

 written in Latin under the name of Cfesta. These two distinct but not incon- 

 gruous sources are often to be traced in the romances of the first epoch, in 

 which the author, in order to distinguish the two different origins, repeats 

 either cum dit la Geste, or si cum dit la Chanson. The Geste soon acquired 

 more influence than the Chanson, and nearly all the trouveurs felt no scruple in 

 declaring that they had obtained their stories from some of the old monasteries, 

 notably from the Abbey of St. Denis. This is the case with several romances 

 relating to the history of France. In the " Enfances Guillaume," a genti! 

 moine (a good-natured monk) is said by the author to have supplied him 

 with the materials for his work, " Si m'a les vers enseignes et monstres." 



The author of " Berte aux Grans Pies " states even more explicitly that it 

 was a courteous monk (moine coiiois) of St. Denis, named Savari, who 



" Lc livre as histoires me monstra.'' 

 Moreover, the monks of St. Denis themselves composed fables which they 



