1800.] | - 
tranflated Six Lancelot of the Lake from the 
French of Arnaud Daniel: Albert of Hal- 
ber(tade and Wolfram of Efchenbach tran{- 
lated from the French of Guyot the Ro- 
mances Gamuret and Percival, about the 
year 1200; Rupert of Orbent, in 1226, 
tranflated Fleur Blanchefleur 5; and God- 
frey of Strafburg, in 1250, Sir Tri- 
fftram. The Icelanders, itfhould feem from 
* Peringfkiold, have borrowed ufually from 
the Germans: as the Niflunga-faga, which 
js the moft ancient of their ballads not my- 
thological, appeals to Teutonic poems for 
vouchers. 
II. The French romances originate in 
the north of France. 
Among the provincial diale&ts of that 
country, the only + two which attained in 
the middle ages a degree of polifh and 
fafhion, were the Provenzal and the Nor- 
man, then called Jangue d’oc and langue 
ad oui. South of the Loire the cultivated 
claffes {poke and wrote in Provenzal, north 
of the Loire in Norman French. In each 
of thefe dialeéts the kings of France were 
accuftomed to pronounce the coronation- 
oath ; and in each, a variety of verfified 
compofitions were early drawn up. But 
among the Provenzai poets the Hittory of 
the Troubadours enumerates only { two 
makers of metrical romances, Arnaud de 
Carcafles and Raimond Vidal. Nor is 
there more than a fingle romance of Pro- 
venzal origin (for Philomena is placed by 
Count Caylus § under Saint Louis) which 
has probable claims to high antiquity and 
originality : that namely of William the 
Short-nofed,a companion of Charlemayne, 
who, for his fervices againft the Spanith 
Moors receives the duchy of Aquitain, 
and at laft turns monk. Whereas || in 
the /angue d@’oui, or Norman French, above 
a hundred romance-writers have been 
reckoned. The caufe of this difparity 
feems to be, that in the fouth of France 
poetry was cultivated as an accomplith- 
ment of the gentry, as a gay /cience, and 
dealt chiefly in galant fozuets, or fatirical 
Jprvenies ; while in the north of France it 

* See alfo Bragut III. p..354. 
+ Legrand’s Preface to the Fabliaux. 
t Hittoire des Troubadours. II. 390, and 
Ill. 296. 
Oeuvres badines. 
} See Corps d’extraitsdes Romans de Che- 
valerie, par le Comte de Treffan: Fauchet’s 
Recueil de Vorigine, &c. plus les noms et 
fommaire des oeuvres de CXXVIh poetes 
Francois vivans avant l’an MCCC: and the 
Appendix, No. 11, to Eichhorns Gefchichte 
der Cultur, 
~The Enquirer. 5 
was the bufinefs of an * order of reciters, 
who travelled from caftle tocaftle, amufing 
with their tales thofe vacant hours which 
the modern novellift occupies. Rimed 
{tories of marvellous import,’ merry 
fabliaux, miraculous legends, romances of 
chivalry, were beft adapted for the pur- 
pofes of {uch an employment. »* 
IIJ.. The older romances of chivalry, 
have efpecially celebrated the heroes of 
greater or leffer Britany, and are there- 
fore of Armorican origin. 
Armorica was the north weft corner of 
Gaul, included between the Loire, the 
Seine, and the Atlantic. In imitation of 
Britain, and in concert with it, this + pro- . 
vince favoured, about the year 410, the 
revolt of Conftantine againft the Roman 
emperor Honorius ; but it did not refume 
-on the death of the rebel its ancient alle- 
giance. Under a conftitution in which the 
clergy, the nobility, and the city-corpora- 
tions had all a formal influence, it conti- 
nued in aftate of independence until Char- 
lemayne. The titular { fovereignty of 
Clovis, who, by an opportune converfion 
to chriftianity, obtained the voluntary fub- 
miffien of the § Armoricans, encroached 
fo littfe on the real franchifes of the 
burghers, that neither he nor his royal. 
fucceffors rivalled in power the metropo- 
litan mayors, and were often removed by 
them. The conduct of the independent 
Britifh was fimilar:; fir& they hired the 
protection of the Gothic ftragelers, next 
they conferred a limited and local fove- 
reignty, and finally they fubmitted wholly 
to the fway of the barbarian intruders, a 
revolution which may be confidered as 
completed throughout this ifland, with the 
_ exception of a few Welfh mountains, in 
the time of Offa, the correfpondent of 
Charlemayne. Among the chieftains of 
continental Britany, Charles Martel ac- 
quired. the ftrongeft claims to public grati- 
* In the Encyclopédie, article ongleurs, 
a tariff of Saint Louis is quoted, in which 
thefe wandering ftory-tellers are exempted 
from the taxes levied at the gates of Paris, 
on condition of their repeating, to the toll- 
gatherer a ftanza from fome ballad. 
+ Zofimus, liv. VI. 
} Mezeray, Abregé Chronologique, I.°313. 
§ The name Armorican, which fignifies 
on ibe fea-foore, was perhaps applied as far eaft 
as the mouth of the Rhine (Procopius peri 
Gothik6n,as amended by HadrianValefius) ; it 
feems to be tranflated in the law of Clovis 
by the term répuaire, and in the maritime code 
by anfedtics 
tude 
