Lionel's Name and Title 127 



Tenseigne au roi Artus/ remarks: 'Clarence est une cite de 

 Norgalles, grande et plantureuse, ou jadis avait reside le roi 

 Taulas, aieul d'Uterpendragon. De la le cri que ses descend- 

 ants avaient conserve/ 



The mythical Clarence of a legendary North Wales, the Clar- 

 entza of a chivalrous emprise in Greece, the Clare of Suffolk — 

 are all these blended, then, in Lionel's title? However that may 

 be, it would seem that, had it not been for the Roman de Lancelot, 

 we should have known Chaucer's earliest patron neither as Lionel 

 nor as the Duke of Clarence.^^ 



" See Hist. Background, p. 185. 



