Cornell University Library PR5560.M12 Tennyson's Idylls of the king and Arthur 3 1924 013 559 384 The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013559384 TENNYSON'S IDYLLS OF THE KING AND ARTHURIAN STORY PUBLISHED BV JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW, JJublishcrs tc the StniticrsU}}. MACMILLAN AND Lo7idon, € ntiibridge , - Kdinbnrgh^ - Cc.. LOXDON AND NEW YORK. Shnpkiit, Hajjiiltou, aiid Co. Macjiiillaji and Bowes. Douglas and Foulis. iMiM cxxr IV. TENNYSON'S IDYLLS OF THE KING AND ARTHURIAN STORY FROM THE XVlTH CENTURY '^j\^m: w. maccallum, m.a. PROFESSOR OF MODERN LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY NEW YORK MACMILLAN AND CO. 1894 V A. cy^/a DEDICATED TO D. M'^C IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF LIFE-LONG KINDNESS /\. (.7 Z f 3 PREFACE The collection of Arthurian story elaborated during the Middle Ages was too notable and impressive to be forgotten in the sixteenth century, when the distinctivel)' modern epoch of history began. At the same time, the -world had changed, and the feeling that the subject was a great one was for long unaccompanied by insight into where its greatness lay. Hence for three centuries it rather tantalised than satisfied the demands of the poetic imagination ; and its histor}- during that period is very largely the record of tentative and irresolute efforts to enter into its spirit once more. It has found really sympathetic treatment only within the last sixty or sixty-fi\-e \'ears, and, in its collectiAC aspect, only at the hands of Tennyson. These later fortunes of the legend are, of course, much less important than its development during the Dark and the Middle Ages, but they are in- teresting and instructi\c in their own way. At any rate, it seemed worth -while to give a more viii PREFACE detailed account of them than, to m^- kno\vledge, has hitherto been attempted. My difficult}- in the historical portion of m)' book (Chapters I. to V.) has been that, working to a great extent without predecessors, I have had for the most part to gather m\- data from chance hints and general reading. In the circumstances, I cannot hope to have a\-oided grave omissions with respect both to minor writers at home and abroad, and to the minor works of important continental writers. I shall be grateful for criticisms and suggestions. With the chapters on Tennyson (VI. -to IX.) the case is very different. Here there is certainly no reason to complain of an}" lack of material, and the danger is rather of sa}'ing over again what has been said ahead}'. M}- apology for adding another criticism to the many that already exist, is that, so far as I know, my interpretation is somewhat different from those that have hitherto been offered. /VAnd 1 cannot but think that much of the disparag- ing comment on the Idylls of the King which we have lately heard, is due to the neglect of their allegoric character, or to the adoption of a false allegoric clue. Righth' understood, the}^ seem to me to sohe the problem of modern Arthurian poetry,, and to represent the climax of at least the later development. ■ — To the essay which forms the proper substance of the book I ha\-e prefixed an introduction on the eariier growth of the legend. Of course, the ' more one makes oneself acquainted with Arthurian literature, whether it be the romances themsehes or the dis.sertations of scholars, the more disinclined PREFACE IX one must feel to express a decided opinion about the matter. Clear knowledge of the subject is still in the making. The experts are by no means in agreement with eacluDther, ^nd their most luminous researches oTten ser\c chiefly to show \\o\\ much remains dark. Moreover, since the publication of Mr. Nutt's Studies on the Holy Grail, in 1888, the problem has shifted to the region of Celtic philology, and my knowledge of Celtic literature, even in translated form, is not wide enough to entitle me to share in that part of the discussion. Two reasons, however, have decided me, with much reluctance and diffidence, to insert the preliminary sketch. In the first place, it seemed right to state the presuppositions on which my treatment of the later development to a great extent rests. In the second place, I did not know where else to refer readers who are not Arthurian students for some general idea of elder Arthurian story. I have therefore endeavoured, so far as possible, to keep to points on which the chief authorities are agreed or at least in regard to which their views are not irreconcilable, and clearly to mark as conjec- tural what is not yet passed as proven. My most important assumption is that there was a Brythonic nucleus of largely mythic material for the amplifications of romance. This theory, so far as the Grail is concerned, has in later years been revived and brought into prominence by Mr. Nutt in his laborious and brilliant essay ; and after a careful study of what a somewhat boisterous criticism has urged on the other side, it seems to me that, though some details may need to be revised, and X PREFACE though a very complex legend may not have existed among the Celts, Mr. Xutt's main con- tention still holds the field. A similar view for a larger range of stories has been maintained with immense knowledge and fertility of suggestion by Professor Rhys. Whatever the ultimate decision may be, it is difficult to see how some of the cases of filiation he adduces can be controverted ; and they would suffice to prove some sort of Celtic connection. For the rest, I do not think I have said anything that cannot easil)- be reconciled with the hypotheses of a British or of a Breton origin, of the existence or the non-existence of an Anglo- Norman literature, of the relative priority of the verse, or, in a more primitive form, of the prose romances. In the Introduction, especially in Section IV., I have made use with many modifications of an essay on The Tlurc Cycles of Medieval Romance, published by me in 1S83. M)' book as a whole is the outcome of many years' occupation with the subject, and more immediately of a course of lectures deli\'ered by me in the University of .Sydney in I 890-9 I. The pleasant dut)- remains of acknowledging the assistance which I have receixed from many friends. AI)' colleague, Professor J. T. Wilson of Sydney Universit)-, Professor \\. Caird, now Master of Balliol, Professor John Nichol, formerl)- of Glasgow- University, Professor Henry Jones of St. Andrews Universit)-, Professor W. Paton Kcr of University College, London, have read the manuscript or PREFACE XI proofs, altogether or in part, and I owe them many valuable suggestions. To the two last I am especially indebted for criticism, both general and minute, that has been of the greatest service. I have also to thank Professor Ker for procuring me information which at the time was inaccessible to me, and for putting me on the track of things which I should have missed. Other friends, too numerous to mention, have laid me under deep obligations by help of various kinds. M. W. MACCALLUM. 2nd January, 1894. < fl " y s^^^ ^ CONTENTS V Introduction— (yrhiy in. tW KiA'i' ^W jj j' I. Plan of the Essay . i t/II. Arthur among the Celts 3 t?-». n; chapter III The Romantic Revival 179 XIV CONTENTS Page CHAPTER IV Tennyson's Contemporaries on the Continent 214 CHAPTER V Tennyson's Contemporaries at Home . . 248 CHAPTER VI Tennyson as Arthurian Poet . . 280 CHAPTER VII |_^'' General Meaning of the Idylls 321 CHAPTER VIII The Idylls as a Series ■i'!,l CHAPTER IX The Idylls as a Series (Continued) 382 Appendix— I. Blackmore's Epics on Arthur . 414 II. Sebastian Evans' Arthurian Poems 419 III. The Time Occupied by the Idylls Index 423 429 TENNYSON'S IDYLLS OF THE KING AND ARTHURIAN STORY FROM THE XVlTH CENTURY INTRODUCTION PLAN OF THE ESSAY TN modern literature the story of Arthur occu- pies a somewhat peculiar position. On the one hand, it is among the themes, consecrated by a popularity long and wide, that the world cher- ishes and will not willingly let die. Having its first source in remote Celtic tradition, it worked a channel to medieval France, where, fed by tributary streams, it rose and swelled till it spread into Britain and the Empire, and even more dis- tant lands. Then, no doubt, it dwindled and almost disappeared ; but, in the present century, it flows once more, somewhat scantily, indeed, in its old French bed, but all the more freely in Ger- many and England. Nor among ourselves has it ever been long lost from view. It has been ab- solutely neglected only when the poetic spirit was languishing ; in periods of imaginative energy it has never wanted its witnesses, and has never failed to attract great minds. In so far, it might be compared with con- ceptions like the medieval visions of a future 2 INTRODUCTION state, or the Reformation legend of Dr. Faustus, or the typical embodiments in sculpture of the various Greek divinities, all of which were similarly dear to generations of men and passed through a development in which many successive minds co-operated. But, on the other hand, the Arthur- ian story has never produced an entirely perfect fruit, or, to put this in a slightly different way, no quite supreme genius has ever dedicated himself to its treatment. It has not found its Dante or its Goethe or its Pheidias. It is noticeable that Chaucer and Shakespeare, chief among our poets for broad and realistic humanity, pass it by with- out ever seeming to think of using it, save for casual allusions, mostly of a humorous kind. Spenser borrows Arthur's name, but profoundly alters the Arthurian legend. Milton, like Dryden, takes it up to let it fall. Only when we come to Tennyson do we find a poet of acknowledged power bu.sying him- self in earnest with the stories of the Table Round. And though none would deny that Tennyson is a very great poet, and few that the Idylls are very noble poetry, still he and they hardly occupy a first place in the literature of the world like Dante and Goethe with their greatest works. Nevertheless, in the Idylls is probably to be found the finest development that the cycle of Arthurian story has as yet attained, or will for long attain. Perhaps it might even be said, that they deliver the classic version of that story as a whole, and present it in the highest perfection of which it is capable. It may be maintained that its peculiar merits and defects correspond so PLAN OF THE ESS A V 3 closely with the inherent limitations and excel- lences of Tennyson's genius,[]that in him it found its unique predestined interpreter^ It is from this point of view that the present essay is written, and it aims at tracing the history of the legend after it had crystallised into its typical form, discussing its characteristic peculiarities, noting the more significant instances of its acceptance, its modification and its neglect, and showing how these in a manner lead up to a truer comprehen- sion of its spirit, till in the fulness of days Tenny- son comes to make the heritage his own. II ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS Shortly after the publication of Lady Char- lotte Guest's collection of Welsh tales, which she entitled the Mabinogion (i 837-1 849), Renan made it the chief basis for a very interesting and sympathetic article on the Poetry of the Celtic Races. Recognising the comparative lateness of the stories in their existing form, Renan was yet more impressed with the primitive character of much that they narrate. " Christianity hardly ap- pears " ; he writes, " not that one is not occasion- ally aware of its vicinity, but it in no wise alters the purely naturalistic medium in which every- thing occurs." Further on he explains what he means by the term naturalistic : " Among the Cymry, the idea of the marvellous lies in nature herself, in her secret processes, in her inexhaustible 4 INTRODUCTION productivity. It is a mysterious swan, a pro- phetic bird, the sudden apparition of a hand, a giant, a black tyrant, a magic mist, a cry that is heard and makes men die for fright, an object with extraordinary attributes. There is nothing of the monotheistic conception, according to which the marvellous is only a miracle, a dero- gation from established laws. Here, there is the perfect naturalism, the undefined faith in the pos- sible, the belief in the existence of independent beings that bear in themselves the principle of their own mysterious power." ^ A dozen years later, Matthew Arnold expressed himself to the same effect in his lectures on The Study of Celtic Literature? After enumerating some of the strange agents in the ]\Iabinogion, he exclaims : " These are no medieval personages ; they belong to an older, pagan, mythological world. The first thing that strikes one in reading the Mabinogion is how evidently the medieval story-teller is pillaging an antiquity of which he does not fully possess the secret : he is like a peasant building his hut on the site of Halicarnassus or Ephesus ; he builds, but what he builds is full of materials of which he knows not the history, or knows by glimmer- ing tradition merely : stones ' not of this building,' but of an older architecture, greater, cunninger, more majestical." Such were the impressions which the Welsh stories left on the minds of two men of genius, both of them scholars, and both with a singular!}- > Rezme des Deux Mondes, 1854. ^ Published in 1867. ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS S wide range of literary knowledge and culture. Their testimony shows that the world of ancient belief submerged in the medieval narrative is not perceptible to the philological specialist alone, but is visibly present for such as have eyes to see. The tenacious character of the race that owned the legends, and its seclusion from the outer world, have preserved much of its ancient lore, slightly disguised but perfectly recognisable under a more recent form. Meanwhile, the specialist, too, had already been busy with these and other data, and in subsequent years has exploited them on more scientific prin- ciples, to reconstruct, if it be possible, the edifice of Welsh and of Celtic heathendom. Nor for this is there any lack of material, though it can be utilised only by those who are thoroughly equipped in Celtic scholarship, and by them only with ex- treme caution and after laborious research. Thus there are the statements of Latin and Greek ob- servers, and the votive inscriptions on temples and altars ; but both are rendered dubious by the tend- ency which then prevailed to seek everywhere for bar- barous counterparts of the classic pantheon, and to romanise the national gods. Then there are the possibly primitive elements, embedded in the litera- ture of Wales and Ireland, which was committed to writing during the earlier or later Middle Ages, and also perhaps in medieval histories like those of Nennius and Geoffrey, and even in the chival- rous romances that profess to deal with the matter of Britain. But in all these cases it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to say whether a thing 6 INTRODUCTION belongs to the original stock, or whether it is a later addition ; and the difficulty is, of course, in- creased when recourse is had to the utterances of modern folklore, with its innumerable possibilities of further contamination. Last and chief is the evi- dence of scientific philology, which presides over the whole inquiry, and, by the analysis of Celtic names and words, makes large contributions of its own ; but though many of its results are established, many, too, are still conjectural. The materials are thus ample enough, but the task of examining them is beset with doubts and dangers, and those whose knowledge is most are least dogmatic in their as- sertions. Some points in these investigations that bear on the story of Arthur may be illustrated from Pro- fessor Rhys's Lectures on Celtic Heathendom, and Studies in the Arthurian Legend ; but it should be premised that the illustrations lose a great deal of their cogency when the arguments are curtailed and deprived of the cumulative support supplied by the whole body of his researches. One of the most interesting inscriptions which he cites, mentions a Mercurius Artaius} in which, according to a usual practice, the proper noun gives the god under his Roman name, and the adjective preserves one of his Celtic designations. Now the epithet Artaius admits of being derived from the Aryan root, which, indeed, exists in the word Aryan, meaning to plough, so that Mercurius Artaius would be equivalent to the pure Latin, Mercurius Cultor, as he is termed in another inscription. Can any * Celtic Heathendom, page 6. Artlmrian Legend, page 40. ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS 7 personage be found in Celtic legend with a similar name or function? In o ld Irish story a certain Airem occurs w hose n ame h as the same etymology arKi_ who learned _^ fi'orn_watching the fairies how to yoke ^xen_a t the neck and shou lders. I n the very_ primitive_ Welsh_ story of Kulhwch and Olwen, Arthur, whose name is possibly equivalent to the Latin arator (or artor, if there were a strong verb arere), is__associa_ted with _the^.. clearing, trenching, ploughing of a vast hill, and with the p roce s ses of agriculture gener ally. So this would suggest his i dentific ation .with the mysterious Gallic Mercury, n who presided oyer culture,. (a,n (i,^r i OU.^'^u^fO-l C^uliUftJ Further, the wife of the Airem mentioned above was known as Be Find, the white woman, and Arthur's wife as Gwenhwyvar, the white shadow or phantom. Each lady is carried away from her husband : the Irish one by Mider, king of the fairies, who were considered the denizens of Hades; the British one by Medrawd, the Welsh form of Modred and a derivative from the same root as Mider ; and in both cases the husband makes war against the ravisher. This was not the only ab- duction of which Guinevere was the victim. In the Life of Gildas, she is carried away by Melwas, the Meleaguanz or Mellyagraunce of later romance, where the place of her captivity is said to be the country " whence no stranger ever returns," a trans- parent description of the world of the shades.^ She would thus seem to be one of the numerous goddesses of the dusk or the dawn, who, like Helen of Greece, were considered now on the ^Arthurian Legend, pages 51-52. 8 INTRODUCTION side of the deities of light, now on the side of the deities of darkness ; and war is waged on her account between the rival powers. A reminiscence of this hostility survives elsewhere. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his account of Arthur, makes him not only rescue Britain from the Saxons, but lead victorious expeditions into Scandinavia and other foreign realms ; and this has often been considered one of the historian's most shameless inventions. But there seems good reason to suppose that such conquests originally had a mythic sense, and referred to the invasion by the culture-hero of the world of the shades. This was often associated by the Celts with a tract of waters, and was some- times placed beyond the sea. Thus the well-known story of Procopius tells how Brittia was regarded by the Gauls as the abode of the dead, and how the souls of the departed were ferried across in a phantom boat to its misty cliffs ; and there is ground for believing that Ireland, Spain, the Western Isles, the far side of some river, were all in various ways identified with the home of Hades. In earlier times, however, this fabulous country seems to have been placed not beyond but beneath the waters. The memory of it survives in the famous sunken land of Lyonesse, which would mean the land of Llion, or, as she is called in Irish, Liban, a noted personage, who was afterwards to become the Lady of the Lake, and was probably at first a goddess of the Nether World. It survives, too, in the stories of submerged cities and villages so common in modern Wales ; and a hostile mythic race of early Ireland, with whom the Aryan colonists had ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS 9 to contend, are called the Fomori, the Submarine Ones. Now, the name for Norway in Welsh and Irish is Llychlyn and Lochlann respectively ; but " before it came to mean the home of the Norsemen it denoted a mysterious country in the lochs or the sea."^ A flood of light is thus thrown on the \conquest by Arthur, not only of Scandinavia, but of (Ireland and Scotland, which seem to have a similar ! meaning. Thus he makes Arawn king of the latter, J and Arawn is known in Welsh story only as the I Head of Hades. The under world was conceived in many myth- ologies as a realm of wealth and knowledge, and the object of the culture-hero, in invading it, was to procure some of its blessings for men. And there are traces of this conception in the tales of Arthur ; for in one story he is represented as bringing back a cauldron of money from Ireland, and in the book of Taliessin he succeeds in carrying away the cauldron of Hades. This cauldron, which will not cook for a coward, and from which mysterious utter- ances issue, is one of a numerous class in Celtic legend that are highly prized and are endowed with wonderful properties. Thus the Irish tales have a cauldron from which no company, however large, went away unsatisfied ; and there are many allusions in Gaelic folklore to basins with strange nutritive and healing powers. Professor Rhys interprets this as a reference " to some primitive drink brewed by the early Aryan " ; and the sacred vessel, supposed, like other boons, to be derived from the other world by the medicine man, would be regarded as the 1 Celtic Heathendom, page 355. See, too, Arthurian Legend, 11. lO INTRODUCTION source of ecstasy, of poetry, of renewed vigour and life. And there is a kindred story, into connection with which the stories of the cauldrons have been brought, the very early Mabinogi of Branwen. A British saint of gigantic size, called Bran the Blessed, wades across to Ireland, his followers accompanying him in ships, and afterwards makes his body a bridge over a river, on which they pass to the other side. Eventually he is wounded with a poisoned dart in a contest that is very unequal ; for all his slain foes are every night restored to life by being thrown into a wondrous cauldron. Feeling his death approach, he bids his followers cut off his head and bear it with them to Britain ; they will want for nothing while it is in their company. And the promise comes true. For seven years they sit feasting at Harlech, for eighty years in Gwales, oblivious of all else amid the good cheer and enter- tainment that the presence of the friendly head provides. It is in these fancies that we probably have the origin of the Holy Grail. The cauldron of Hades, like the Sacred Cup, is associated with Carbonek, and its peculiarity that it would not cook for a coward may be considered a rough draught of the conception that the Grail is only to be attained by the pure in heart. Further, Bran, who, from his association with Ireland, may be taken as one of the dark divinities (for he is like no other saint in the Calendar, and his epithet of Blessed possibly refers less to spiritual beatitude than to the plenty of the under world), seems identical with the Bron,i who, in ^ This, of course, is only one explanation among several ; for in no portion of this subject is there complete agreement amono- ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS ir some later stories, is one of the early guardians of the Grail, and who also conducts a miraculous expedition across the sea. No mention is made of a dish in connection with the head of Bran ; but Professor Rhys remarks that it must have been carried about in some vessel, and suggests that Bran's head on a dish and the poisoned spear with which he was wounded formed the originals of the Bleeding Lance and the head in the dish which appear in the Grail Legends. And the strange virtue which Bran's head possessed of feeding those around with the choicest delicacies, just as the Irish cauldron sent none away unsatisfied, remained a characteristic of the Grail down to the time of Malory. " Thenne ther entred into the halle the Holy Graile, couerd with whyte samyte, but ther was none myghte see hit nor who bare hit. And there was al the halle fulfylled with good odoures, and every knyght had suche metes and drynkes as he best loued in this world ; and whan the Holy Grayle had be borne through the hall, thenne the holy vessel departed sodenly that they wyste not where hit becam."^ But the culture-hero, besides his own exploits for the benefit of men, is generally associated with a younger sun-god who is his prot6g6 and dependent, and very often his son. Is there any such person in Arthurian story ? Malory's compilation, late as it is, scholars. But the theory of the Celtic origin of the Grail, so ingeniously maintained by Mr. Nutt, and afterwards, on rather different lines, by Professor Rhys, seems to the present writer very hard to refute. 1 Morte Dartkur, xiii. 7. 1 2 INTRO D UCTION answers the question, in the account it gives of the fight between Sir Marhaus and Sir Gawain, the latter one of Arthur's nephews and principal knights. " And therwith Syr Marhaus sette his spere ageyne a tree and alyghte, and tayed his hors to a tree, and dressid his shelde, and eyther cam unto other egerly, and smote togyders with her swerdes that her sheldes flewe in cantels, and they brysed their helmes and hauberkes and wounded eyther other. But Syre Gawayne, fro it passed ix of the clok, waxed euer stronger and stronger, for thenne hit cam to the houre of noone, and thryes his myghte was en- creaced. Alle this uspyed Syr Marhaus and had grete wonder how his myghte encreaced, and so they wounded other passynge sore. And thenne whan it was past noone, and whan it drewe toward even-songe, Syre Gawayn's strengthe febled and waxt passynge faynte, that unnethes he myghte dure ony lenger, and Syr Marhaus was thenne bigger and bigger."'- Now Gawain's relation with the sun which reaches its meridian at noon is here unmis- takable ; and the name of Marhaus, who gets bigger and bigger with the evening as the gloom prevails against the light, is from the same root as that of King Mark of Cornwall, who had horse's ears, and of Margg, the leader of the Irish Fomori or submarine shades ; a root that means horse, with reference to the half-equine, centaur-like shapes of the powers of darkness. There are other grounds too for asserting that Gawain was at first a sun-hero, but the odd thing is that the primitive trait of his waxing and waning strength should have lasted so ^ Morte Darthur, iv. 1 8. ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS 1 3 long, quite in isolation as it is, and even in con- tradiction of many of his adventures ; for as Arthur's Knight he had victorious contests at all times of the day. But in some kindred mythologies there is, besides the various later impersonations of the solar hero, an older god associated with light and the sun, the Zeus, Jupiter, Father Sky of the classical races. And of him, too, in an undifferentiated form, there are traces to be discovered among the Celts. Pro- fessor Rhys identifies him with the enchanter Merlin or Myrddin, whose name he would explain as Mori- dunjos, him of the sea-fort, with reference to his sinking from sight in the western waters. Further, some Welsh stories of his disappearance represent him as going to sea in a glass-house, which connects him with Aengus, a mythic character in Irish story, also explained as the god of light, who went about with a portable crystal bower. The stories of Merlin's betrayal by the Lady of the Lake thus receive their explanation, and in some of the versions his prison, strikingly resembles the inaccessible trans- parency of Aengus' abode. It is " A tour withouten walles or with-oute eny closure .... a clos .... nother of Iren, ne stiell, ne tymbir, ne of ston, but .... of the aire withoute eny other thinge be enchauntment so stronge, that it may never be vn-don while the worlde endureth." No wonder that Professor Rhys, after quoting this passage, proceeds : " These pictures vie with one another in transparent truthfulness to the original scene in nature, with the sun as the centre of a vast expanse of light, which moves with him as he hastens to the 14 INTRODUCTION west. Even when at length one saw in MerHn but a magician, and in his pelhicid prison but a work of magic, the answer to the question what had become of him and it, continued to be one which the store- house of nature-myths had supplied. Where could Merlin have gone but whither the sun goes to rest at night, into the dark sea, into an isle surrounded by the waves of the west, or into the dusk of an impenetrable forest ? So it came about that legend sends Merlin to sea in his house of glass, never more to be heard of, or dimly moors him in the haze of Bardsey, or else leaves him bound in the spells of his own magic in a lonely spot in the sombre forest of Br^cilien, where Breton story gives him a material prison in a tomb, at the end of the Val des Fees, hard by the babbling fountain of Baranton, so be- loved of the muse of romance " ^ Nor is this the only appearance of the Celtic Zeus. Inscriptions mention a Nodens, identified by Professor Rhys with an Irish Nuada who lost his arm in fight with a malign race, and had to retire from the sovereignty till a silver hand was constructed for him. This recalls the T3^r'of the Eddas, who in name, as we see from the English Tiu, corresponds exactly with Zeus, and who had his arm bitten off by Fenri the Wolf — a reference to the conflict between light and darkness. And Nuada is the same with a Welsh mythic king called Lludd of the silver Hand, whose name is traced back to Lodens, a modification for phonetic reasons of Nodens, which would have yielded Nudd. Now this Lludd is the Lud of Ludgate Hill, and ^ Celtic Heathendom, 1 58. ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS iS the Lot or Lothus of romance, the famous brother- in-law of Arthur/ But just as the Northern races deposed their old supreme divinity to make room for Woden, so some of the Celts deposed their counterpart of Zeus to make room for the culture-hero. " They worship Mercury," says Caesar, " above all others." ^ And Mercury ( of whom Professor Rhys finds many reminiscences in the Welsh Gwydion, a name that he would connect with Woden), may be sup_posed, _as has been shown, to be th_e_ original of Arthur. But the culture-hero, in- displacing the elder sky- god, inherited some of his characteristics and func- tions. Thus the classical Zeus was fabled to have married his sister, and the same story was pro- bably told of his Celtic congener, and transferred to the culture-hero, who succeeded him. Such a marriage became impossible as civilisation ad- vanced, and, therefore, is effaced in later times ; but there is a trace of it in the medieval tales that Arthur was united in unholy love with his father's daughter, the wife of King Lot. The horror of the idea, however modified and extenu- ated in these adaptations, seems out of place among the fanciful conceptions of romance, and has its origin in a remote and alien world. In a similar way Arthur became the protagonist in the perpetually recurring warfare of Zeus with the powers of darkness, from which, as the winter ap- proached, he withdrew wounded and faint, to return strong and glorious in the spring ; and an 1 Celtic Heathendom, 125 and following page. 2 Bellum Gallicum, vi. 1 7. l6 INTRODUCTION echo of this has survived in the British King's departure from the battle in the West to be healed of his hurts in the Isle of Avalon. These examples, which might be multiplied in- definitely, will serve to show that much in later Arthurian fiction had its germ in the myths of the Celts, and, more particularly, of the Brythonic Celts. It is not, however, to be supposed that they were developed in a consistent or continuous history. It is inevitable that the modern mind should read niore system intothe conceptions of early religious belief than jn point of fact__t:he^ possessed. A floatin g tradition of detached stories, bringing into re lief t his or the ot her characteristic of th e various__obiects of their worship, and har- monised rather in _general feeling__than in defi nite thought, was the niost that . the primitive races were, likely^ to_ attain.. And thus the va gue and shifting figures were apt to pass into each other's places , to Jdc multipliedj _to_diyide, and to coalesce^ Mercury assumes the rank of Zeus, and absorbs^ his attributes ; and there must have been tales of many impersonations of the sun-hero. But if there were tendencies to confusion before, the ad- vent of Christianity was bound to increase the entanglement, and altogether blur the significance of the myths. It dislocated the whole system and deprived it of such order and cohesion as it may have had. The teaching of the new faith was that the deities were not divine. At one stroke they were degraded to a lower level, where, though they were far from appearing as ordinary men, they had ceased to be the great gods ; and much ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS 17 that formerly had its importance, became mere unintelligible lumber. Perhaps the story of Kul- hwch and Olwen, though it belongs to a later date, may illustrate the sort of change that was pro- duced. After a description of Kulhwch's birth and breeding, it tells how he sets out for Arthur's court to get the king to cut his hair, that he may demand the royal help in gaining Olwen as his wife. The household of Arthur is largely composed of persons whose meaning has been lost, and even those who are otherwise known to us, are presented in an unfamiliar and much more primitive aspect. Kai is a mighty warrior, as tall as a forest tree, who can keep his breath under the water for nine days and nights, and has such inward heat that he can dry everything a hand- breadth above and below his hand. He performs prodigious feats, and the final ruin of Arthur seems attributed to the want of his help. For enraged at a sarcasm of the king's, he withdraws, and " thenceforth neither in Arthur's troubles nor for the slaying of his men, would Kai come forward to his aid for ever after." Among the remaining courtiers are many with very queer characteristics. There is one on whose knife no haft would re- main, so that he dies of vexation. There is one who owned a short broad dagger, which, when laid on the water, became a bridge for armies. Of one it is said : " When he carries a burden, whether it be large or small, no one will be able to see it before him or at his back " ; of another " On the day when he was sad, he would let one of his lips drop down below his waist, while he 1 8 INTRO D UCTION turned up the other like a cap on his head " ; of a third, " When he came to a town, though there were three hundred houses in it, if he wanted any- thing, he would not let sleep come to the eyes of any one whilst he remained there." This quality was doubtless invaluable to its owner if not to his neighbours, and the peculiarities of his fellows are extremely interesting; but what Professor Rhys says of one, may be applied to most of them, that they are " hardly calculated to grace a court," and they are very different from the British and Armoric knights with whom the king is ordinarily begirt. With some of these companions Kulhwch sets out on his search for Olwen, and eventually gains ac- cess to her giant father, Yspyddaden Pencawr, the Epinogras of romance,^ who, having his eye- lids raised that he may see his future son-in-law, assails his visitors with a dart, which, on three occasions, is caught up and thrown back, wound- ing himself. In truth, he is in no hurry to have his daughter wedded, for he knows that that will mean his own death. In the end, however, he agrees to the suit on condition that his head should first be shaved. But the procuring of the necessary implements prescribes as long a series of apparently impossible tasks as Shibli Bagarag had to achieve before he could operate on Shag- pat. The adventures involved, which occupy the bulk of the story and lead up to the hunt of the wondrous boar called the Twrch Trwydd as their chief, are exclusively of a supernatural kind. In the end, the giant is shaved and his head cut off. * Arthurian Legend, page 3. ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS 1 9 Here it is interesting to observe the confused conglomeration of myths, to which the key has in most cases been lost, and the mythical character of the exploits, untouched by a trace of history, that are attributed to the prowess of King Arthur. In contrast, too, with the continental romances, he is an active personality and one of the chief performers, not a mere roi faineant, under whose auspices his more heroic knights do all the work.i These are probably early traits ; on the other hand, the massing of so many figures and adventures round him as their centre is an indi- cation that in its present form the story is com- paratively late. Meanwhile, if there was not much system about the original myths, and if the conversion of the Britons further disorganised them, another element of confusion had probably been added from a • purely historic source. In the struggles of the Cymry against the Teutons, the exploits of their famous leaders were sure to become the theme of story, and to lose nothing in the celebrations of their grateful countrymen. There is ground for believing that one of these leaders may, in fact, have borne the name of Arthur, or one of similar sound, and ingenious attempts have been made to discover some incidents of his life. Sometimes he has been localised in a particular part of the island, and the preference is now for the region formerly known as Cumbria. Thus Mr. Skene has endeavoured to find in the north the scenes 1 Prof. Zimmer's criticism of Mr. Nutt's Holy Grail. Got- tingische gelehrte Anzeige7t, 1890. 20 INTRODUCTION of his battles, as enumerated by Nennius ; while Professor Zimmer explains the selection in con- tinental romance of Carduel for his royal seat as a reminiscence of the actual Carlisle. Sometimes he is considered to have had a wider range of activity, and Professor Rhys would make him, if historical at all, a Comes Britanniae "with a roving commission to defend the province wherever his presence might be called for." ^ This, as the Count of Britain was the chief officer in the land, would explain why Arthur is always called Emperor in Welsh, and would tally with the account of Nennius, which represents him as the war-leader of the various British kings. Even his death, at the hands of his nephew, may have a basis in fact, if he is to be identified with the uncle of Maelgwyn, whom Gildas accuses the latter of murdering. And not only he, but some of his Knights may have been champions of the Romanised Britons in their patriotic war, not necessarily the contemporaries of Arthur at the outset, but after- wards attached to his group. Thus, Professor Zimmer would derive Geraint from an historical Gerontius, and Owen from an historical Eugenius. But the enormous fame of the later Arthur, as con- trasted with the meagre records of his actual career, cannot be explained from history alone. It must be supposed, and this theory is corroborated by innumerable instances of the kind already cited, that in th e_ gradual growth of national tradition, a person not originally of first-rate importance 1 Arthurian Legend, page l^ ; see also Celtic Britain, chap. 6. Zimmer would make him Dux Brittanniarum (Nemiius Vindi- catus, i8j. ARTHUR AMONG THE CELTS 21 entered into the position of an earlier divine hero. And~lt "is easy to see how, if the historic leader had a name like Arthur, much in the later story becomes clear. His identification with the god would secure his own pre-eminence and immortality; for his exploits against the Saxon invaders would be combined with the exploits of the Celtic Zeus, and of the culture-hero who took his place, in their perpetual warfare against the powers of darkness and the foes of man. On the other hand, the identification of the elder deity with an actual personage called by a name like Arthur, would explain why he should survive to fame under this rather than any other of his appella- tions. Ill THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS The first mention of Arthur's name outside the Welsh sources occurs in the History of the Britons attributed to Nennius, which according to the learned and ingenious argument of Professor Zimmer-^ be- longs in its original form to the last years of the eighth century. In it few borrowed splendours eke out the glory of the historic hero, if such there were, who led the islanders against the Teutons; and these are mostly of an ecclesiastical kind. He is described as fighting along with the kings of the Britons against the invaders, but he himself was their war-leader (sed ipse dux erat bellorum) in twelve successful battles. In one of these, at Castle Gurnion, he bore the image of the Holy Virgin on '^Nennius Vindicatus, 1893. 22 INTRODUCTION his shoulders, and the pagans were routed and put to great slaughter by the virtue of our Lord Jesus Christ and St. Mary his mother. At Mount Badon nine hundred and sixty men perished through Arthur's onset, and he alone overthrew them without any aid. In all his wars he emerged triumphant. This is the statement of the most summary manu- script. In some versions there are other details on similar lines. Thus he is described as the "magnani- mous Arthur," and it is said of him that, though many were more noble than he, he was twelve times chosen leader and was as often victorious. In an interval of quiet he has time for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ; there he has a cross made of the size of the Saviour's, and after three days' fast before the true cross, has this counterfeit consecrated that " the Lord, by this sign, should give him victory over the heathens " ; fragments of the image of St. Mary, which he bore, " are still preserved with great veneration " ; his prowess at Mount Badon is ascribed to a higher power, nine hundred and forty fall by his hand alone, " none but the Lord assist- ing him." " In all these engagements the Britons were victorious, for no strength can avail against the strength of the Almighty." This is practically all that Nennius records in the fullest paragraph devoted to Arthur's career.i There is indeed the prophecy of Merlin Ambrosius ; but it refers rather to the future expulsion of the Saxon white dragon than to the actual achievements of the red dragon of Britain in the days of Arthur. Yet an isolated passage in another connection shows that the blend- ^ Nennius, § 56. THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS 23 ing of history and myth had already begun when the earliest version of Nennius was composed.^ Arthur's name is associated with some of " the wonders " of Britain ; with a sepulchral mound where his son Amir lies buried, and especially with a cairn of stones, the topmost cum vestigio canis, which, even if displaced, returns to its position on the morrow. It was the hound Cabal which made this impression on the stone when Arthur was chasing the boar " Troynt." 2 Thus, already in the days of Nennius, the individual whom he celebrates as an actual warrior, was connected with the mythic hunt of the Twrch Trwydd, commemorated in Kulhwch and Olwen. Popular imagination had thus begun to amplify the career of the hero, and stray notices prove that the process continued as the years went by. In the Annales Cambriae, which may belong to the second half of the tenth century, the entry for 537 records the battle of Camlan, "in which battle Arthur and Medrawt perished," and thus presents the mythic foe in an altogether historic aspect. We have no further definite information till the appear- ance of Geoffrey ; but about 1 1 2 5 William of Malmesbury, after mentioning the prowess of Arthur, proceeds : — " This is the Arthur, of whom nowadays the frivolous tales of the Britons babble, (de quo Britonum nugae hodieque delirant), but who evidently deserved celebration not in the dreams of fallacious fable but in the declarations of authentic history." ^ This shows that when William wrote much improbable legend had gathered round the 1 Zimmer's Nennius Vindicatus, 8. ^ Nennius, § 73. ' Gesta Regtiin Angliae, i. 8. 24 INTRODUCTION British king, though the historian does not con- descend to mention what precisely it was. In another respect, too, his statement is vaguer than might be desired. Who were the Britons whose babble excites his scorn ? Professor Zimmer brings arguments to show that they were the Celts not of Wales but of Brittany. It may well be that the latter, being more remote from the scene of the actual struggles, began earlier and proceeded further in the confusion of historic and mythical tradition than their kinsfolk on the island. And there is some indication of this in the great and epoch- making version of Arthur's story, to which we now pass, the account of him in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, completed about the year 1135. According to Geoffrey's own statement he used for his compilation " a certain most ancient book in the British tongue," -"^ which Walter, arch- deacon of Oxford, had procured. Now the form of some of the names that he mentions, above all that of Gawain, is rather Breton than Welsh, though the native variants were long familiar to his countrymen. So it seems likely that a portion at least of his material was actually derived from an Armorican source. And it is quite possible that a new stimulus may have been transmitted from Brittany to Britain, in the work of combining the Arthur of myth and the Arthur of fact. Geoffrey's narrative may be abridged as follows: To Uther Pendragon, the King of Britain, Merlin prophesies the greatness of his house, and, since Uther loves Igerne, the wife of Gorlois, the wizard, ' Quendam Britannici Sermonis vetustissimum librmn, i. THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS 25 to fulfil the prophecy, lends him the semblance of her lord, and he becomes the father of Arthur. Afterwards, on the death of her first husband, Uther takes Igerne as his queen, and thus Arthur, despite his doubtful birth, succeeds to the throne as rightful heir. Hardly is he crowned when he is called to face the Saxons, whom he repeatedly engages, and, with the aid of Hoel of Brittany, smites from shore to shore. Encouraged by his victories, he extends his operations, and in a series of campaigns subdues Ireland, the Orkneys, and the Continent from Nor- way to Aquitaine. Gaul is the spoil of his own hand, for he wins it in single combat on an island of the Seine, while the hostile armies look on from opposite banks. His success in war is only equalled by his magnificence in peace, and Geoffrey lays stress on his liberality in distributing the conquered lands, the state he keeps with his queen Guanhumara at Caerleon-upon-Usk, the grand assemblage of kings and knights by whom he is surrounded, the gallantry of the court, where the ladies give their love only to such as have approved themselves in three combats. In the midst of all this pomp and circumstance envoys arrive with a demand for tribute from Lucius Tiberius of Rome. In full assembly it is refused; and Arthur, leaving his nephew Modred in charge of queen and kingdom, sets out with his knights and vassal kings to enforce his counter- claim. On the way he is visited with a premonitory dream which is satisfactorily fulfilled in Normandy, where, in single fight, he slays a lustful giant who has carried off Helena, the niece of Hoel. Looking at the carcase, he exclaims, " I have found none of 26 INTRODUCTION so great strength since that Retho who challenged me to fight on Mount Aravius," a giant who had the foible of making himself fur with the beards of the kings he vanquished. Resuming his march, Arthur leads his hosts against the Romans. He carries all before him, for the Grecian and Eastern allies of Lucius avail little when confronted with the chivalry of the West. In its ranks Gawain takes the first place, and for some time he is almost the chief person of the story, his prowess obscuring that of Arthur himself Nothing seems able to prevent the Britons from capturing Rome, when they are suddenly checked in mid career. News arrives that Modred has seized the kingdom, married Guan- humara, and strengthened himself with heathen auxiliaries. Arthur must leave his conquest in- complete, and return to take vengeance on the traitor. A great battle is fought, in which Gawain is slain, but the rebels are put to flight. Guan- humara, losing heart, flees to the cloister, and becomes a nun of the order of Julius the Martyr ; but Modred rallies in the West, whither Arthur follows him in grief and wrath. In another battle the multitudes on both sides perish, Modred is defeated and slain ; " even the renowned King Arthur himself was mortally wounded, and, being carried to the isle of Avallon to be cured of his wounds, he gave up the crown of Britain to his kinsman Constantine." ^ Such is the career of Arthur according to Geoffrey, and under the elaborate superstructure the possible basis in fact is almost lost from view. Some of his ^ Bk. viii. 1 5 to Bk. xi. chap. i. THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS 27 additions do not seem to be of specially Celtic origin, but either invented by himself or borrowed from current literature, like the stories of Charle- magne and Alexander. But there is also a large accretion of popular myth. Arthur, no longer a mere leader, but a king, has for his wife Gwenhwyvar or Guanhumara, who deserts him for his enemy Modred of the Shades ; Gawain, the sun-hero, and others of the same type, appear in his train ; and the mythical conquest of Hades or Llychlyn has become the conquest of the Scandinavian countries. Sometimes circumstances of more recent history may have determined the selection of particular items. Thus in the war with Ireland, in the alliance of Hoel of Brittany, in Arthur's distribution of his conquests. Professor Zimmer detects respectively reminiscences of the troubles with the Dublin vikings, of the Breton auxiliaries who helped the Normans against the hated Saxon, and of William the Conqueror's gifts of land to his 'favourite followers.^ It is probably, too, the historical exi- gencies and the tradition of what happened to the actual leader that make Geoffrey represent Arthur as fatally wounded in the final battle, even while in the same sentence he sends him to Avalon to be healed. The death of the mortal man disturbs the myth which told of the return of the sky-god to triumph over the powers of darkness ; yet a reserved and partial acceptance of the elder story betrays Geoffrey into a certain inconsistency of statement. On the continent, however, the historical factor ^ Article on Gaston Paris, Gbttingische gelehrte Anzeigen. 28 INTRODUCTION was of less account and the original conception would be apt to prevail more easily and soon. A canon of Laon, named Hermann, who visited Corn- wall in 1 1 13, mentions a scene that was caused by a Breton insisting that Arthur still lived.-^ Henry of Huntingdon, writing in 11 39, represents Arthur as slaying Modred in the last fight, and himself succumbing to the wounds he received ; but he adds that the Bretons deny that he died and " solemnly expect " his return. This belief lingered on for centuries, if we may judge from a ballad cited by Villemarque, but in the lapse of years it underwent a change, and Arthur, with his phantom hosts, was conceived as leading the men of Brittany to the fight. This seems the meaning of the stirring war song translated by Mr. Tom Taylor : — " Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, to battle din ! Tramp son, tramp sire, tramp kith and kin ! Tramp one, tramp all, have hearts within. The chieftain's son his sire addrest As morn awoke the world from rest : ' Lo ! warriors on yon mountain crest — Lo ! warriors armed, their course that hold On grey war-horses riding bold, With nostrils snorting wide for cold! Rank closing up on rank I see, Six by six, and three by three. Spear-points by thousands glinting free. 1 "Ein Laoner Zeugniss," etc. Zimmer, Zeitschrift fiir franz'ds. Sprache und Literatur, bd. xiii. THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS 29 Now rank on rank, twos front they go, Behind a flag which to and fro Sways as the winds of death do blow ! Nine sling casts' length from van to rear— I know 'tis Arthur's hosts appear ; — There Arthur strides — that foremost peer ! ' ' If it be Arthur— Ho, what, ho ! Up spear ! out arrow ! Bend the bow ! Forth, after Arthur, on the foe ! ' " ^ Meanwhile, when such stories were current among the Bretons and persons of Breton de- scent, it was natural that Geoffrey's histor}', on passing to the continent, should absorb new ele- ments of tradition into itself And this it has done, at least in the version of Wace (1155), which was the most influential and significant. The name by which this work is generally known, Li Romans de Brut, if not minutely accurate, at any rate brings into relief one of its most essen- tial characteristics, for it is romantic in metre and language, and emphasises the romantic side of Geoffrey's narrative. Wace, it is true, does not add much to his authority. His importance lies rather in the fact, that writing in a vernacular, and that the leading vernacular of Europe, he was able by his fluent verse and vivifying touches to commend the story to a larger audience than would feel at home with Geoffrey's Latin. His variations for the most part are matters of de- tail. Yet, to some extent, he employs, and to a far larger extent he knows, the assumptions of ' Ballads and Songs of Brittany. so INTRODUCTION popular fancy. Thus, in reference to Arthur's end, he writes : "Arthur, if the story lies not, was wounded fatally in the body ; he had himself taken to Avalon to heal his wounds. Still is he there ; the Bretons expect him, as they say and believe ; thence will he come, yet may he live. Master Wace, who made this book, will not say more of his end than said the prophet Merlin. Merlin said of Arthur, and , he was right, that his end would be doubtful. The prophet spoke sooth ; ever since, men have doubted concerning it, and, believe me, they always will doubt whether he be dead or quick. He had himself conveyed to Avalon six hundred and forty-two years after the incarnation .... but never since has Arthur returned." ^ In this matter, however, Wace had been anticipated by others. His most original contribution to Arthur's story is the men- tion of the Round Table, which, in so far as it was a fellowship, may have been suggested by the peerage of Charlemagne, but, in so far as it was a table, had probably a more primitive and mythic origin. And in this case, too, Wace is more in- teresting for what he does not tell us than for what he says. For the barons, each of whom thought himself the best, "Arthur made the Table Round, of which Bretons tell many a fable" ;^ and there is a similar reference to the marvels and adventures recounted of Arthur, which are not wholly lies or truth, fable or fact ; such has been the activity of the story-tellers in embellishing their narratives, that they have made all seem fabulous. '13683. 2 5ggg_ THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS 31 Wace, amplified from Geoffrey, became in turn the basis for further amplification. The son of Leovenath, our own Layamon, writing about the close of the twelfth century, tells in his simple way how he journeyed wide over land to get the books ; how he laid them down and turned the leaves : " he beheld them lovingly : may the Lord be merciful to him : pen he took with fingers and wrote a book skin." The book skin that he wrote was the Brut, and of the books that he loved, the most important was Wace ; but he enriches the story with additions from various quarters. Probably an Englishman by descent, and, at all events, writing, in the English language in a modification of the old English measure, a chronicle which he partly drew from foreign sources, he can- not be considered to have obtained all his loans from uncontaminated Celtic tradition. In point of fact, some of them have an unmistakably Teutonic ring, and others seem of a generally romantic char- acter. Still, in the western shires where he lived and wrote, there is a large Cymric admixture in the population, and it is reasonable to suppose that he levied some contributions on the legends that were current among them. As a rule he follows in the track of Wace, but he lingers over the journey and plucks the wild flowers by the way. Thus, as soon as Arthur is born, he is entrusted to the elves, who bring him up and bestow on him various graces and gifts. His wars are described in greater detail than with Wace, and more stress is laid on his personal prowess. Great attention is paid to his equipment : 32 INTRODUCTION Rone, his spear, was made by Griffith of Caer- marthen ; on Pridwen, his shield, was engraved in gold tracing a precious image of God's Mother ; "he put on his burney, broidered with skill, which made an elfish smith — he was called Wygar, the witty wight ; Calibeorn, his sword, he hung by his side ; it was wrought in Avalon with magic craft."^ A much fuller account is given of the origin of the Round Table. A quarrel for precedence has arisen, when a strange smith comes to the king with the offer : " I will make thee a board ex- ceeding fair that thereat may sit sixteen hundred and more, all by turn, so that none be left out; and, when thou wilt ride, thou mayst carry it with thee and set where thou wilt after thy pleasure, and never fear to the world's end."^ When it is ready and the trial is made, the equality is indeed perfect : " One measure was for all ; high and low had the same ; none might boast other kind of drink than his comrades." ^ In the advice to carry it about, though (unless it had other strange qualities than those mentioned) it must have been rather an unwieldy piece of furniture, and in the abundance and equality of the diet for so large a company, may there not be an echo from folklore of some myth, such as those already described, of magical apparatus for the feeding of multitudes ? Layamon's comment, enlarged from that of Wace, implies his knowledge of many fabulous tales, not necessarily about the knights of the Round Table, but about the table itself and the King who owned it. "This ^Sir F. Madden's edition, line 21 130. 2 Line 23910. ^ Line 22946. THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS 33 was that same table of which the Britons boast, and say many leasings of Arthur the King : so doth every man that loves another. If he is dear to him, he will lie and say worship of him more than he is worth: . . . The Britons loved him greatly, and often lied of him, and said many things of Arthur the King that never happened in the kingdom of this world." ^ Most of these popular stories, Layamon, perhaps out of respect for his written authorities, refrained from setting down, but we must be grateful for what he has given. He inserts a pict uresque dream, .somewhajt .i n the ton e of the prophetic literature of the daji, which comes to Arthur just before the news of Mo d red's and Guineve re's t reason. He sits a stride on th e roof of his ha ll, view ine his realijij and Gawain sits before him be_aring his sword. JThen. Modred comes with numberless folk and with Guinevere, dearest of women, _and hews the posts that bear the Jiall;, The fall breaks both arms of Gawain and the right arm of the king ; he seizes his sword in his left hand, strikes off Modred's head, cruelly wounds the Queen,^ and puts her in a dark pit. But all his people are dispersed, and he knows not under Christ what has become of them. He himself wanders alone on a moor among griffins and grisly fowls, till a golden lion, made by the Lord, catches his middle and bears him off to the sea. But the driving floods tear them apart, and a fish carries him wet and weary to the land, when he wakes and begins to shiver and to bum as with fire.^ But probably the most inter- '22987. ^ Tosnadde, cut in pieces. ^ 28017. c 34 INTRODUCTION esting passages in Layamon are those that refer to Arthur's return. He mentions it twice — once in the body of the story,-^ and again with fuller detail when he describes the end of the last battle. " Slain were Arthur's warriors, high and low, and all the Britons of Arthur's board, and all his fosterlings of many a kindred. And Arthur was forwounded with a broad spear of slaughter ; fifteen cruel wounds had he, in the least one might thrust two gloves. Then in the fight there were left no more of twenty thousand men, that there lay mangled, but only Arthur the King and two of his knights ; and Arthur was wondrously sore for- wounded. Then came to him a child that was of his kin ; he was son of Cador, Earl of Cornwall ; the boy was called Constantine ; he was dear to the King. Arthur, as he lay on the earth, looked on him and said these words, with sorrowful heart : — " Constantine, thou art welcome ; thou wast Cador's son, and here I betake thee the kingdom. Watch thou my Britons well to thy life's end, and keep them the laws that have stood in my days, and all the good law that stood in Uther's days. And I will fare to Avallon, to the fairest of all maidens, to Argante the Queen, a right fair elf She will make my wounds all sound again, all whole will make me with healing draughts ; and then will I come to my Kingdom and dwell with my Britons in mickle joy." Even with the words came wending from the sea what was a little boat, driven by the waves, with two women therein wondrously clad ; and they took Arthur, they took him quickly, laid him down softl}-, ' ^3052. THE ROA/ANTIC HISTORIANS 35 and departed away. Then was fulfilled what Merlin said of yore, that there should be measureless sorrow at the passing of Arthur. Still the Britons ween that he yet lives and dwells in Avallon with the fairest of all elves ; and still the Britons ever look for Arthur's coming. Never was man born of any fair lady who can say more of the truth about Arthur: but once was a prophet, erewhile was Merlin ; he said with words — and his sayings are sooth — that Arthur should yet come to succour his Britons." Layamon's narrative, besides being vivid and forcible throughout, contains passages of high poetical beauty. His version, too, is important, as showing how the story of Arthur became more and more legendary as the years went by. Moreover the Brut has for us the grand interest that it is the first celebration of , the British King in the English tongue. For all these reasons it claims a detailed notice. Yet, in a certain sense, it was a mere eddy in the stream of literature, out of the current and leading to nothing. At any rate it was by no means so influential as the chronicles of Geoffrey or even of Wace. It is difficult to exaggerate, though it is easy to misconceive, the importance of Geoffrey's book. In a certain sense its appearance is the literary incident of the twelfth century. The repeated translations of it into French attest the eager wel- come it received from imaginative writers and from the general public. Its lasting popularity is proved by the denunciations which were launched against it, even at the close of the century, by exact historians 36 INTRODUCTION and by historians who were not exact. [\\''iniam of Newbury thus gives voice to the indignation of experts : — '' A certain writer has come up in our times to wipe out the blots on the Britons, weaving together ridiculous figments about them, and raising them with impudent vanity high above the virtue of the Macedonians and the Romans. This man is named Geoffrey, and has the by-name of Arthur, because, laying on the colour of Latin speech, he disguised with the honest name of history the fables about Arthur, taken from the old tales of the Britons with increase of his own."'- Even Gerald de Barri, Geoffrey's own countryman and himself a lover of the adventurous, tells of a Welshman possessed by unclean spirits : — " If the evil demons oppressed him too much the Gospel of St. John was laid on his bosom, when like birds they immediately vanished away ; but when that book was removed, and the history of the Britons by Geoffrey-Arthur, for the sake of experiment, substituted in its stead, they settled in far greater numbers and for a much longer time than usual, not only upon his entire body but upon the book that was placed on it." Q These ebullitions of wrath are very intelligible, for no doubt Geoffrey by his credulity and inventive- ness had troubled the waters of history for_many^ century to come. But there is asjittle dou bt that iiis book is the well-head of a living stream of poetry that has not yet ceased to flow. The" Elizabethan dramatists, with Shakespeare at their head, Spenser and Milton, Wordsworth and Swin- ^ His tor ia Rerum Avglicaruni : prooemium. ^ Itinerariuin Catitbriae, i. 5. THE ROMANTIC HISTORIANS 17 burne, to mention only a few of the chief, have alike drawn inspiration from his story. And more particularly he is the pioneer and sponsor, if not the father, of Arthurian romance. His narrative, either directly or through the medium of Wace and Wace's adapters, is the archetype of the romantic histories of Arthur. In them the British worthy, represented as an actual King of Britain, is the flos regum, the Christian warrior, the incarnation of knightly valour, the champion of female honour, who attains a European empire and renown ; the tragedy of his career comes from the betrayal of his religion, his love, and his vows, and the invasions of the Christless heathen from over sea. This, with omissions of one or another par- ticular, and with additions from legend and romance, is the conception of chronicles like those of Robert of Gloucester, of Peter Langtoft, of Robert of Brunne, of the alliterative Morte Arthure, of the fifteenth century rhymed Arthur, and in the main of Boccaccio in his collection De casibus Vh'oruni Illustrium, of Lydgate in his Falls of Princes, and of Nichols in the Winter Wights Vision, the supple- ment to the Mirror for Magistrates, as late as 1610. In our own day it has been revived with a difference by Lord Tennyson. And, though the Arthurian Romances, strictly so called, are for the most part to be traced to other sources, the appearance of so authoritative and popular a book was nothing less than mo- mentous for their development. The historical mould in which it is cast, and which we are never suffered to forget, engaged attention for its narratives, 38 INTRODUCTION and ensured their being taken more or less seriousi}-. But within this setting Geoffrey had found room for so much fiction from various sources, which he ac- commodated so admirably to the taste of the time, that the whole had the charm of an imaginative work composed on the lines of contemporary tendency. As it became known in the original or in Norman-French adaptations, the result was in- evitably to give prominence and vogue to the store of Celtic tales, some of which doubtless had already a wide circulation. It supplied the lofty figure of Arthur as centre, round which many stories, in- cluding some that originalh' may have had nothing to do with him, could be grouped ; and it gave as background for the several incidents the splendour of his reign and court. IV CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUJREJIENTS One of the strangest phenomena in the history of literature is the outburst of Arthurian romance in the second half of the twelfth century. A few years suffice to lift the hero of obscure and half-subjugated tribes into unrivalled popularity and fame, and the exploits of his followers, a little while before unknown to the world at large, be- come all at once the engrossing topic for the imagination of Europe. Whatever circumstances may have contributed to this sudden success, it cannot be fully explained sa\-e by supposing that the new matter was exceptionally suitable to the CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 39 spirit of the time. Fit must have met a deep-felt want, and shown itself capable of receiving the stamp of the medieval spirit and expressing the medieval modes of life and thought more per- fectly, than any previous themeT? And in the history of the typical and international fiction of the Middle Ages there are indications that this was the case. The imaginative activity of these centuries seems to attempt the satisfaction of cer- tain spiritual demands, but till the Arthurian stories become available, the attempt has only partial success. The nearest approach to a typical and inter- national fiction is to be found in the literature of France. Not that in its remoter origins it always belongs to that country. The raw materials are contributed by German and by Celtic tribes, by the new and by the ancient world, but the}' obtain completion and currency only when transmuted in the crucible of Romance thought. Their recog- nition is quite local till they receive the seal of the French spirit ; thereafter, they pass at once into European circulation. Something of the same kind has happened more than once since then. France has often been the instructor and law-giver of Europe ; but not last century, when its "illumin- ated" led the fashions in philosophy, not a hun- dred years earlier when its dramas invaded every stage, had its literature so universal a sway as at the zenith of the Middle Ages. For then it penetrated into every neighbouring land and was adopted by every neighbouring people ; and though modified by the genius and language of each in- 40 INTRODUCTION dividual nation, retained its birth-marks to the end and could always be described as Romance. And this term is important for another reason. It is not unparalleled to have an international scientific literature, and, in so far as this genus existed at all in the Middle Ages, it belonged to all Western Europe. But the strange thing is that these times also possessed a common stock of imagina- tive work, of poetry and fiction, which, in its great narrative type, always elaborated on the lines laid down in France, appropriately received the above designation, and was generally called the Romance. This, of course, was possible only when the literary classes of Europe were impelled by a common spirit to a common ideal, when this ideal was more clearly realised in France than elsewhere, and when certain stories were found to express it in special perfection. Now the ideals that swayed the higher classes in those days were almost summed up in what is styled Chivalry. It would be wrong to call all the romances chivalrous, for only one group of them fully answers this description ; but, at least, they are all of chivalrous tendency and aim at embodying its conceptions. And t hese conce p- tions were e ss entially ideals. _It__has_ojj££_and_ again been^ shown that there never was an actual age of chivalry, _a.nd_ that when in later times peo ple tried , _as they thought, to restore it , they were attempting to import into^jDraxtjcal hfe„ what_ was in truth a minstrel's dream. ^Neve rtheless, as i t was a dream jthat_^itte(ijDefore the eyes of many generations, Jt was injts way a very sub- CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 41 stantial reality. There never was a time when rtie feu9al Icmghts were exactl y kn ights errant^ but there was a time when the best of them wished that they might be such, eagerly attaching themselves to any hazardous enter- prise that had been set on foot for more politic objects ; and that time was practically over when the semblances and outward trappings of knighthood were most in vogue for spectacle and pageantry. Prhe real meaning of chivalry lay deeper. It had arisen as a kind of compromise between the ascetic theology of the medieval church and the un- sanctified life of the world which that church re- jected as wholly bad. It is sometimes described as the projected shadow of feudalism, and so it is, but only because in the upper feudal ranks there was most need felt of a modus vivendi between practice and belief The masses of the people are never much swayed by theoretical doctrine. The exigencies of their position keep them near a course of life that may be rude, but is not unnatural. In the present case, with a certain varnish of Christian theology, and some real education by the spirit of the Christian faith, in the main they acted on traditions of conduct, the heritage of the race from heathen times. But this stubborn placidity was not within the reach of the upper classes. They had the same heritage, but could not have the same rest in it. They were taught to consider the religious life as the highest, but what could be more opposed to their ancestral habits and lawless passions than the three monastic vows of poverty, 42 JNTRODUCTION chastity, and obedience ? They gained wealth by plundering, they freeh' gratified their desires, it was hard to limit their fierce self-assertion, as the remains of old English, old German, and especiall)' of Icelandic literature abundantly prove. No doubt this societ}-, even in its wildest phase, contained the germs of a higher life. Classical observers remarked among the northern barbarians profound respect for the sanctities of wedded and family life, and unshrinking loyalty among the pledged companions of a prince ; nor was the acquisitive impulse sanctioned at the expense of feelings like these. And when the popular mind was enlightened and ele\ated, however gradually, by the new faith, its nobler principles received new stimulus, and shone forth in stories that grew up scarce brushed by a dogma of the schools, but not, therefore, quite destitute of Christian sentiment. Faithful service, unselfish virtue, chaste constancy in love, are celebrated in se\'eral popular poems especially of England and Germany, which are all more modern, though more rude in feeling, than the international romances. But for that very reason they are less representatively medieval. They attained only a local, or at most a national, but never an international success ; and not till our own day have they begun to enjoy a European reputation. The comparatively healthy ethics of lay life which they expressed, lacked, in truth, all basis in and all reference to the received theoloeical standards. They could obtain the sanction of religion only if they were baptised into it and were modified in the direction of its code. Since CHIVALRy.AND ITS RE(2UIREMENTS 43 they lack that sanction, they fail to exhibit the spirit of their age had they obtained it, they would have ceased to be what they are, and would have lost a portion o1" their native vigour. But the adaptation of lay ethics to clerical ethics was the problem of the higher classes, and its solution was found in chivalry. The transition from the primitive to the medieval state of things is marked by the picturesque trait, that the h ero becomes a knight. This short state- ment implies a very important change, which is s3^mbolised in the complicated ceremonies of knightly investiture, verj^ different from the few simple rites that used to accompany the Teutonic youth's as- sumption of arms. The young candidate spends the time with priests and receives the sacrament ; he is led to the bath and endued with a white robe to signify his change of life ; his sword is blessed and his vows are taken. Thus the knight, if belonging to lay life, partakes in the character of a monk, as medieval writers clearly saw and frequently ex- plained. His admission to the order is a religious service, and brings with it duties which, though of course different from those inculcated by the three monastic vows, have some analogy with them. Thus, if he is not pledged to poverty and retains his share of the world's possessions, it is on the understanding that he may be called at any moment to relinquish them. He is required to swear that he will always be ready to fight for the Church against the infidel ; at mass, when the Gospel is read, he must point his sword to the book to show that he is its sworn soldier ; and especially he must give up all for the 44 INTRODUCTION defence and recovery of the Holy City.i Lands and lordships must be forsaken when the Church has a crusade on foot, all material interests sacrificed for a visionary religious quest. Again, it would have been impossible to exact complete obedience from men of such aggressive personality as the feudal knights ; but neither are they left to their isolated and uncontrolled self-will. The principle of honour is introduced, which appeals to the individual's desire for pre-eminence and mastery, but which gratifies it only if he submit to a certain code of conditions. His valour must be carried to an extravagant pitch ; he must seek out adventures, and face the greatest odds ; he must refuse advantages and show mercy to the suppliant and courtesy to all ; his quarrel must be just, and he must succour the poor and the distressed. Far removed is the knight from the old heathen who fought and fled, waylaid and slew, precisely as it pleased himself And in the third place, while only some of the knightly orders were pledged to celibacy, they were all bound to uphold the honour of women ; and gradually, without oath, they submitted themselves to that strange kind of gallantry known as the Service of Love, which at this distance of time strikes one almost as the most obvious feature of the chivalrous character. This fantastic fashion, in which the relation par amour usurped the place of marriage, at once gave scope for the devotion of the knight, and suited a society in which the highest minds regarded marriage as at best but a necessary evil. J If the attempts to harmonise the demands of lay ' See Hallam's Middle Ages, chap, ix., pt. 2. CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 45 Teutonic life and Latin ecclesiastical theory originated these ideas, it is easy to see why they were specially developed in a nation to which Teuton and Latinised races have given its mingled blood. Nowhere else was there such a fusion of the Germanic conquerors and the conquered provincials as in Gaul. It is just a sign of this that it puts off its old name, and, taking the new name of Franken from the invaders, modifies it to suit the pronunciation of the elder population, as France. There was nothing like this in the German fatherland where the connection with Rome was confined to politics and religion, without ever becoming a matter of daily social life. There was nothing like it in England, where, though to some extent they may have intermarried with the provincials, the new settlers practically cleared the ground, and began again at the beginning. Things were as different in Italy, where Ostrogoth and Lombard succumbed to the traditions of Rome, and were lost among the original inhabitants ; and in Spain, where the Visigoths long maintained them- selves as a supreme alien caste, separated by a deep gulf from the natives. In these latter countries the difference of race was accentuated by the difference of religion. The Teutons were Arian heretics, the provincials were orthodox Catholics ; it was impos- sible to mediate between them ; quarter was given to the antagonist only on condition that he should give up all that was characteristic. But the Gauls, like the Franks, were of the Catholic Church ; they could meet on a middle ground, to barter and com- promise their peculiarities. It is just this co mpromise between Teutonism and L atinism^ this duality of 46 INTRODUCTION principles, that is the note of the Middle Ages. And /therefore, it is just as we should expect, that in France we find the prerogative phases of medievalism, the feudal, the scholastic, and, among others, the chi- valrous ; and there the earliest, the most persevering, the most effective efforts were made to express the last in successive cycles of Romance. Three such groups, French in fabrication, but European in circulation and development, are progressive attempts to exhibit the life of chivalry : the Charlemagne romances, the Classical romances, and the Arthurian romances. If chivalry sprung from the union of medieval religion and secular morality, the relation of these cycles to each other may be formulated as follows : The Ecclesiastical predomina tes in_^ the lSZ5— °L_£harlemagne, _the__Secular in the lays of Greek and Roman content ; _oiily in the stories of Arthur do both sides, as it were, come to their riglitsj The earliest poems of the earliest group give the knightl}' ideal on its monastic side. TFrom the first, Charlemagne is emphatically the hero of the Church. He and his house and his race owed a great part of their success to their championship of the Catholic faith against Arian heretics on the one hand, against heathens and Mohammedans on the other. In the old poems he is a notably religious personage, a soldier of the Cross, a crusader in the best sense of the word. Now- a-days, we are apt to look for the Charlemagne of poetry in such romances as Huon of Bordeaux. But these are of a later growth. In them he is no longer the chief person ; when introduced at CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 4/ all he figures as a wilful tyrant. Such tales arose when chivalry was finding other channels of ex- pression ; they employed the great emperor's name, but he himself no longer suited their wants ; he was thrown into the background and criticised. But in the early stories he is the proper hero, and, whenever hero at all, he is an ecclesiastical one. To see him at his most characteristic and his best, we must go to the Chanson de Roland, which is based on an actual occurrence, the destruction of his rear-guard by Gascon robbers in the passage of the Pyrenees. In the legend, however, the enemies are transformed into Saracens, that the emperor may be shown at war with the infidel, and his slaughtered soldiers exhibited as martyrs of the faith. This change gives the clue to the whole poem. ,T''}^. P^^'"-'' _.2££-JlSi'i^ly l'^"!siji£t but rn ere fight ing monks. Both Charlemagne and his nephew Roland are the favourites of heaven, who receive miraculous gifts and enjoy the intercourse of angels. The French champions are like Crom- well's Ironsides. When not m the fight they are_ on the ir knees, and, ponscious of their divine mission, are instan t in exhortation and have a tendenc}- to prea ch. Strong and fearless, they slay their thousands ; but they do not joust for the pleasure of it ; they do not crave adventures for the honour to be gained ; they want the splendid courtesy of the chevalier, and, above all, have no sense for the service of women. Roland does not spare his lady a thought. At his death he thinks of God and fatherland, of the emperor and his former conquests, and the men of his line ; he bids his 48 INTRODUCTION sword a tender farewell ; but he is undisturbed by any grief for the woman who holds him dear. Neither he nor his fellows know the meaning of earthly love. Only at a later day does Roland, the soldier of the Church, become Orlando Innamorato under the hands of an Italian, who no longer believes in the story but mocks at it.J "^When the French engaged in a religious war of their own, and took part in the great crusading movement of the Middle Ages, one result was to widen their acquaintance with the world, and bring before their notice many realms of feeling, of imagination, and of knowledge that had hitherto been hid from them. In so far, the campaigns in the East, which began in a spirit of devotion, but could not fail to foster a spirit of curiosity and culture, had rather a secularising tendency. This is reflected in their literature, which takes a freer sweep in choice of subjects and liberality of treatment. " The Crusades," says Professor Forster, " introduced much new material, including the story of Alexander, who is now celebrated in the style of the Chansons de Geste, so that he appears as a French conqueror surrounded by the paraphernalia of oriental magic." A legendary biography of the Hellenic hero, compiled in By- zantium from many sources and the contributions of many races, had been made accessible in Latin to the nations of the West. From this are ul- timately derived the numerous vernacular versions of the story. In several respects Alexander was more suitable to the requirements of chivalry than the clerical warriors who preceded him. He has CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 49 a store of adventures in love and war ; his respect for his female captives has something of a knightly colour ; his triumphant marches, enlarged by eastern imagination into miraculous expeditions into fabulous lands, have points of contact with the fantastic quests of errantry. Nevertheless, and the remark is true of other heroes of classical antiquity who were afterwards medievalised in similar fashion, he could never be thoroughly accommodated to the changed civilisation into which he was imported. On the one hand, he was too healthy and humane; on the other, he had not religion enough for a knight of the Middle Ages. The grand figures of Hellenic heathenism might be approximated to the chivalrous ideal on its mundane side, but they could never embody it altogether. / Chivalry, therefore, whether seeking its expression in German or in antique story, had failed to achieve a complete success. In each case the hero, whether the great statesman and warrior of the Catholic West or the champion of Greek ideas amid the populations of the East, had a character too obstinately representative of another age and another code of life, thoroughly to submit to a change that would make him merely a chivalrous knight, neither more nor less. It was at this juncture that Arthur became known, and it was immediately felt that the problem was solved. The British leader who fought for the Christian faith against the invading pagans, was well suited to fulfil the ecclesiastical demands of the chivalrous ideal : the culture-hero of the heathen myths was no less fit to reflect its secular aspect ; and his D so INTRODUCTION story had been recast in accordance with the spirit of the day. Physiology teaches that the human embryo passes through a series of phases hke this or that order of the lower animal kingdom before it assumes its ultimate shape. Something similar may be observed in the previous development of the Arthurian legend. At first this hero of the Bretons and the Welsh is vague and formless as the mists on their own hills, but additions are made to his story in such an order and in such a way that he suggests now Charlemagne and now Alexander, before he appears as the Arthur of romance. In Nennius there is little to distinguish him from the great Prankish emperor. Both are quite ecclesiastical, fighting for faith and fatherland, bearing sacred armour in a sacred cause, perform- ing prodigies of valour through miraculous aid. Both represent races fabled to have sprung from ancient Troy. Indeed, it is possible that the one set of legends may have directly borrowed from the other, for the journe}^ to Jerusalem is common to both. In the versions of Geoffrey and Wace some of the new traits help in the first place to increase Arthur's resemblance to Charlemagne. He wages not only a defensive, but an offensive religious war. He is not alone, but is surrounded by worthies soon to be as famous as the paladins themselves, and Wace, when he describes the institution of the table, may have had in his mind the peerage of France. The exploits of the Briton extend from the island to the mainland ; he breaks the power of Rome and grasps at the crown of the CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS Si world. Yet, on the whole, this set of additions is more suggestive of Alexander than of Charle- magne. The mighty continental kingdom is com- mon to both, but Nennius' hint of Arthur's disadvantage of birth, Geoffrey explains away with a tale of magic exactly like that which made Nectanabus the father of Alexander. With the help of Merlin's prophecies the greatness of Arthur is not less clearly prefigured before his birth than that of Alexander. Like Alexander, he avenges an insulting demand for tribute and wins kingdoms in single fight. But the new episodes contain much, also, that has the genuine stamp of chivalry. The single-handed strife with giants, the suppression of evil customs, the vindication of female honour, the acquisition of love by prowess, were all typical of the knightly character, in so far as they went. All that was needed was a further elaboration on the same lines. And this was not difficult. Arthur's story, con- genial in all essential respects to the spirit of the day but without the rigidity of a fixed historical tradition, was still plastic in the hands of the medieval poets and lent itself to all their desires. His exploits and feats could be made to reflect the adventurousness, the sense of honour, the courtoisie in love which were the dream of knight- hood in the twelfth century. There were only two limitations to the perfect adequacy of the material. In the first place no single person could completely exhaust the possibilities of chivalry ; the biography of Arthur was insufficient to portray its whole fulness and wealth, and though it might 52 INTRODUCTION fulfil the requirements in little, it could not bring out the various developments of the one scheme. Arthur's career invited supplements from the careers of his followers, and even in the Romantic historians, as we have seen, Gawain comes prominently to the front during the war with Rome. But in the second place, these personages were in some ways even more suitable for chivalrous treatment than their chief For they were knights while he was king. His exploits were necessarily on the large public scale, while they had leisure for the private ad- ventures of errantry. They offered themselves for the illumination of the knightly character in the individual, which was the more important side, in all its various aspects. It was natural, therefore, that medieval poetry should occupy itself with them rather than with the king. To make room for them he is thrust aside, as Charlemagne had been by the peers, and his historical significance is altogether forgotten. There were circumstances that considerably facili- tated this process. Some, if not most, of these tales were derived from Brittany rather than from Wales, and in Brittany the tradition of the national struggle with the Saxons was probably never of capital importance. Prominence would be given to the mythic at the expense of the historic element from the first, and many of the persons would originall}- have no connection with Arthur. In some cases there are even indications that circumstances, not of British but of Breton history, have left their trace in later romances. Thus^Professor Zimmer derives the name of Erec of Destregales from a Gothic Eoricus CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 53 of Dextra Gallia, and the name of Lancelot from one or both of two Lantberts, who played a conspicuous part in the ninth century.^J If this be so, though it would explain the origin of the names rather than of the adventures ; or even if the stories are purely mythic, without a trace of history, it is not surprising that they should not be subordinated to the person- ality of Arthur, and that in them all I'eference to the strife with the Saxons should be wanting. The notoriety procured for his royal hero by Geoffrey would emphasise the tendency to group other traditions round his court ; but if these were very different in origin or development they would retain a great measure of relative independence. Such narratives, in the versions of conteurs, early enjoyed a wide popularity possibly in England and certainly in France. It is easy to understand their attraction. In the first place they would have the inalienable charm of style which seems the heritage of Celtic literature. It fascinates us now ; it could not fail to fascinate people so quick-witted as the Normans and the French of the Middle Ages. Contrast the monotonous tirades of the Chanson de Roland with the delicate varietj'- of a primitive Arthurian story like Kulhwch and Ohven. Here is the well-known description of the heroine : — " The maid en was clothe d in a robe of flam e-coloured silk, and_about hej jieck was a collar of ruddj- gold,^n^ which were precious^ emeralds and rubies. More yel low wa sjherliead~than the flow^er of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foarn_ of the wave, 1 " Beitrage zur Namenforschung," etc. Zeitschrift fiir franzos. Sprache ttnd Lit. 1891. 54 INTRODUCTION and fairer were her hands and her fingers than Jhe^ blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the s£rajj^_of the meadow fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the mewed falcon was not brighter than hers. Her bosom was more snowy than the breast of the white swan, her cheek was redder than the reddest roses. Who so beheld her was filled with her love. Four white trefoils sprung up wherever she trod, and therefore was she called Olwen." Scarcely less beautiful is the description of Kulhwch : — " And the youth pricked forth upon a steed with head dappled gray, of four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed hoof, having a bridle of linked gold on his head, and upon him a saddle of costly gold. And in the youth's hand were two spears of silver, sharp, well tempered, headed with steel, three ells in length, of an edge to wound the wind and cause the blood to flow, and swifter than the fall of the dewdrop from the blade of reed- grass to the earth when the dew of June is at the heaviest. A gold-hilted sword was upon his thigh, the blade of which was of gold, bearing a cross of inlaid gold of the hue of the lightning of heaven ; his war horn was of ivory. Before him were two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, having strong collars of rubies about their necks, reaching from the shoulder to the ear. And the one that was on the left side bounded across to the right side, and the one on the right to the left, and like two sea- swallows sported round him. And his courser cast up four sods with his four hoofs like four swallows in the air about his head, now above, now below. About him was a four-cornered cloth of purple, and CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 55 an apple of gold was at each corner, and every one of the apples was of the value of an hundred kine. And there was precious gold of the value of three hundred kine upon his shoes and upon his stirrups, from the knee to the tip of his toe." ^ It is not wonderful that the imagination of the Middle Ages turned from the rude celebrations of Prankish warriors or the distorted reproductions of classic antiquity to stories that came from the same pure fountain of literature as this. £And not only had the Celtic tales a universal witchery that is as potent now as it could be then. They had other qualities that especially appealed to medieval feeling. There is_ " a Cel tic air," ^ays Matthew Arnold, " jibout the , extravagances of chivalry."^ At any rate, as it expressed rather an aspiration than an actual condition of things, and was a dream that contrasted with the rude realities of life, it may be described as ^ It may be said that these passages are of later origin, but this is unhkely. At any rate the same virtuosity in style is to be found in the earliest Irish remains. For example, the Voyage of Brian MacFebail, which belongs to the seventh century, thus describes the abode of the departed :— " Fair is that land to all eternity beneath its snowfall of blossoms. The gleaming walls are bright with many colours, the plains are vocal with joyous cries. Mirth and song are at home on the plain, the silver- clouded one. No wailing there for judgment, nought but sweet song to be heard. No pain, no grief, no death, no discord. Such is the land." Or, again, this is a picture of the same country from the Wooing of Etain :—" A magic land and full of song : primrose is the hue of the hair, snow-white the fair body, joy in every eye, the colour of the fox-glove in every cheek." Both passages quoted by Mr. Nutt in Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition. 2 Celtic Literature. 56 INTRODUCTION a '' reaction against the desgotism of fact," and such reaction',' Arnold, ""quoting^Trom Henri Martin, considers pecuharly characteristic of Celtic races and of Celtic poetry. Renan, too, finds a subtle affinity between the conceptions of chivalry and the stories of Wales, because the latter possess " L'element romantique, par excellence, I'aventure ; cet entraine- ment d'imagination qui fait courir sans cesse le guerrier breton apres I'inconnu." ' What is mys- terious and undefined, what refuses to be formulated and is best seen in half-lights, attracts the Celt, and he is enabled by his sensibility to anticipate and divine it. The same sensibility reveals to him the distinctive notes of female character, and makes him delight in portraying the ways, the beauty, the power of women. And how this would influence a society that was in the state of youthful exaltation implied in the Service of Love, when men were- occupied with the same questions, and were awaking to the same experiences !7 Not that the importance of these stories is to be exaggerated, at least to the disparagement of what was contributed, by the French poets who afterwards made use of them. " Sensibility gives genius its materials," says Arnold in another con- nection, when talking of the Celtic temperament and its deficiency in patience and the capacity for architectonic. Probably the native soil produced only series of short stories (such as have been versified in some of the lays of Mary of France), and little attempt had been made to work them together into an artistic whole. " Only the first ^ La Poisie des Races Celiiques. CHIVALRY AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 57 steps had been taken towards a unifying concep- tion," says Professor Zimmer of the early Arthurian saga : "It was rather the hero of the narrative who was the connecting element of the several parts ; hence the addition and insertion of new episodes under the hands of each narrator."^ It was the French trouveres who appropriated the un- cemented cairns and used the stones for their own elaborate edifices. Professor Forster insists that only the machinery of the verse romances is Celtic, " while the content, the soul, the treatment, are purely French " ; and elsewhere says that they show the French spirit in foreign costume just like the classical tragedy of the seventeenth century.^ Perhaps an exacter illustration of his view might be found in the fashion in which antique themes are treated in romances like Clelie or the Grand Cyrus. The gist of the whole matter is summed up in the words : " The knights of Arthur appear above all as genuine figures of romance that were produced by the activity of the poetic fancy. They do not vanish in the mists of Celtic philology." ^ Which, of course, does not mean that a great many mythical traits have not survived in their adven- tures. ' " Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen." Article on Mr. Nutt's Holy Grail. 1890. ^ See the introductions to his edition of Chrestien. 3 Golther, Zeitschrift fiir fnmz'ds. Sprache unci Lit., 1891. 5 8 INTRODUCTION V THE VERSE AND THE PROSE ROMANCES Thus round the story of Arthur as nucleus, especially after the appearance of Geoffrey's his- tory, many others were gathered, which became the property of Europe through the medium of Bretons, and possibly of Welshmen, who were bi- lingual or had altogether laid aside their mother- tongue. Such was the prestige of Arthur's Court that almost everything belonging to Brythonic tra- dition, and a good deal that was not Celtic at all, mingled and discharged in the Arthurian miscellany. The' historical conditions may have aided the process. " The spread of a national heroic," says Mr. Nutt, " is mainly determined by political considerations. Thus the spread of Arthurian romances through- out Europe coincides with the establishment of an Angevin empire, of which the centre of gravity was in England." ^ Such influences, however, must have been very indirect, for it was chiefly the French who seized upon the new material. Even the theory of Gaston Paris, that lost Anglo-Nor- man poems dealing with the matter of Britain delivered their material to the French trouveres, has recently been called in question. Probably, indeed, it will survive the assaults made on it, for the form of some of the romantic names seems to be derived not only from Welsh, but from Welsh ' " Development of the Ossianic or Fenian Saga." Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, ii. VERSE AND PROSE ROMANCES 59 as it was written, not as it was spoken ; ^ and it seems more natural to suppose that the manu- scripts thus postulated were Anglo-Norman than that they were Welsh. But even granting the existence of Anglo-Norman romances, to all in- tents and purposes they have disappeared, and therefore would seem to have had less permanent merit than the French versions that superseded them. If we take the literature just as we find it, it falls into the following groups : — First, the Metrical Romances, which describe the biographies of the Knights of the Round Table, or isolated episodes in their careers. In them Arthur himself achieves little, the wars with the Saxons disappear, and the final catastrophe is un- known. The great representative of this class is Chrestien de Troyes, whose literary career begins not earlier than shortly before 1150 and con- cludes not later than 1 1 90.^ It was he who gave the grand impulse to the whole movement, "which, however, both in form and content, after culminat- ing in Chrestien himself, soon grows vapid." ^ His best successors are to be found not among his own countrymen, but in the minnesingers of Germany. Further, the three Welsh Arthurian stories of Geraint, Owen, and Peredur, stand in some sort ^ See the article of M. Loth in the Revue Celtiqiie, Oct., 1892, summarised by Mr. Nutt in his Celtic Myth and Saga, Folk- lore, Sept., 1893. ^ These are the limits suggested by Forster. Paris makes him begin later and stop earlier. 2 Forster. 6o INTRODUCTION of relation, cognate or derivative, with Chrestien's poems on Erec, Yvain, and Percivale. Second, the Prose Romances, most of which have undergone a constant process of editing, combina- tion, and enlargement, so that their order, pedigree, and mutual relations, are among the most compli- cated problems of literature.-' In their present form they must be later than the metrical stories, which have influenced their conceptions ; but they are not renderings from the verse, and frequently take a different view of things. Moreover, like the romantic histories, they celebrate the deeds of Arthur, his victorious combats with enemies and monsters, and his fatal strife with Modred. But there is also much in them that the romantic his- torians do not mention, for example, the criminal relation of Arthur with his sister. Professor For- ster, therefore, thinks that some of them contain, though with many interpolations and much elabor- ation, a deposit from the original Armorican stories. ^ If the metrical narratives had most influence in Germany, these, on the other hand, had most in- fluence in the South. " Generally speaking, the Romance nations hardly knew the poetic forms, and only translated the prose." ^ But the foreign ver- 1 For a sketch of their conjectural development, see the chapter on British Romance in G. Paris' LitUratiire Frati- (;aise au Moyeii Age. 2nd edition. ^ Edition of Chrestien. ' G. Paris, Hist. Lit. de France, vol. xxx. He is, of course, referring to the Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese, not to the Provencals. VERSE AND PROSE ROMANCES 6 1 sions are not so interesting in this as in the other case, being much less independent. There is not in Italy a new development of the Arthurian as of the Carolingian cycle. Indirectly it was of great im- portance, for it inspired Boiardo with the idea of adding the ingredient of love to the stories of Charlemagne, and transforming them by means of it.-^ Directly, it furnished Italian literature not with entire poems, but only with episodes and subordinate passages, like the incidental celebration of Tristram and the intervention of Merlin and of Morgan (the latter very much disguised) in the Orlando Inna- morato and the Orlando Furioso. Thirdly, the huge accumulation of diverse ad- ventures that were constantly overlapping, and yet had no consistent connection, seemed to demand reduction to some kind of system. The initial attempts in this direction were made in the prose stories themselves. "It was a pronounced tendency , of the Romance-writers of the later thirteenth century to unite the three principal branches of Arthurian Romance — the ' Merlin,' ' Tristan,' and "Lancelot' to the'^uest del Saint Graal.'"^ There Iwas work for tTie summarist and the compiler, and the task was undertaken in French by the Italian, ^ Contrasting the Courts of Britain and of France, he says of the latter : " Perche tenne ad amor chiuse le porte E sol si dette a le battaglie sante, Non fu di quel valore et quella stima, Qual fu quell' altra, eh' io contava in prima." Orlando Innamorato^ ii. i8. .i. 5 Sommer's Malory, vol. iii., page 289. 62 INTRODUCTION Rusticien of Pisa, about 1270; in German, for the German versions, by Ulrich Fiiterer or Fiirterer towards the close of the fifteenth century, and in English by Sir Thomas Malory about the same time. Fourthly, there is a bulky Arthurian literature in English derived from all these sources, from the romantic historians, from the romances in verse and in prose, from Malory's compilation ; and part of it perhaps of independent origin. In its present form most of this is comparatively recent, and little can be attributed to the twelfth or even to the thirteenth century. As late as 1338, when Robert of Brunne's Chronicle appeared, he could say : " In alle landes wrot men of Arthur Hys noble dedes of honur ; In Ffrance men wrot and yit men wryte But herd liaiie we of Itym bid lyle, Therefore of hym more men fynde In farre bokes, als is kynde, Than we haue in thys lond." ' And elsewhere he speaks of " Thyse grete bokes so faire language Writen and spoken of Ffraunces usage That neuere was writen throw Englischemen. Swilk stile to spake kynde ne can But ffrenschemen wry ten hit in prose. "^ It is with the third quarter o f the fourteenth century that the _stream_ of Arthurian romance begms to flow at ail abundantly in English. One result of this late origin is that, except when they ^ 10607. - 10971. VERSE AND PROSE ROMANCES 63 closely follow the French, the English versions are apt to be more popular in treatment, and to lose a little of the chivalrous medieval colour. Interesting to the scholar for the questions of origin they involve, and to the critic for beauties of their own, their specific contribution to the story of Arthur is a certain national robustness of treatment. Char- acteristically they issue in a long series of ballads, and in the ballads are to be found not the most excellent, but the most distinctive specimens of English Arthurian romance out of Malory. In the verse romances, the heroes are repre- sented as knights of the Round Table, and the story tells either of some particular quest they undertake, or of their career as a whole. In the episodic romances, Gawain commonly is the chief person. He is represented as the mirror of knighthood and courtesy ; the false report of his death fills the wicked with insolence and the good with grief; ladies fall in love with him on hearsay ; he is practically invincible, and it is honour enough for the other knights not to be overcome by him ; ^ he undertakes the quest in which others fail, and brings it to a triumphant conclusion. In the typical biographical romances, an unknown youth arrives at court ; an apparently impossible task solicits his prowess ; he accomplishes it and many others, and wins the hand of a lady, who is somehow involved in them, and who brings him a lordship or kingdom for dowry. ^ 1 G. Paris, Hist. Lit. de France, vol. xxx. See also Romania, vol. X. ^ G. Paris, as above. 64 INTRODUCTION And if there is a general sameness jn the p lots, _there_is also a general sanieness_in^ the mac hinery, which _ is jperfectly accommodated to the fanciful^ and unreal taste of the time. Descriptions of ceremonies and combats, of palaces and decorations, magical fountains and nameless cities, revolving or vanishing castles, swords that cannot be unsheathed or ungirt save by the predestined knight, ships bearing dead men, whose murderers can only be slain with the truncheon of the lance which dealt the blow ; these and the like form the romancer's ordinary stock-in-trade. Gaston Paris^ quotes Jodel's line — '^^ " Li conte de Bretaigne sont si vain et plaisant," and proceeds to comment on it. " This vanity, this complete absence of seriousjiess and c onse- quence, this confused succession of unmotived adven- tureSj of which the extravagance sometimes goes the length of utter absurdity, was what gave pleas ure m those days. It is what wearies us_now in the perusal of these poems. Their factitious world, des- titute alike of probability and of variety (for all the adventures have a mutual resemblance, and are often copied from each other), soon affects us with weari- ness, and, at the same time, with the desire to refresh ourselves with some living reality."' From th is vast. complicated, and, with all its charrn, most monoton- ous^ literaturejjLwill be enough to select one or two of the more famous specimens, and briefly indicate a few of their salient features. Leaving aside Gawain, wdio already in the roman- ' Hist. Lit. de France, vol. \xx. VERSE AND PROSE ROMANCES 65 tic historians has a prominence that prefigures his popularity in the later verse romances, the first knight of the British cycle who engaged the atten- tion of poets was Sir Tristram. ■'• That may be one reason why his story was, and always remained, but loosely connected with the main series, which was composed when the centripetal attraction of Arthur's court was fully felt. On the other hand, in its relative isolation, it had perhaps more in- ^ Everything connected with the origin and development of his story is very obscure. On the one hand. Professor Zimmer (" Beitriige zur Namenforschung, etc." Zeitschrift fiir franzos. Sprache zmd Lit., 1890) thinks that his name is Pictish, traces the saga to an historical origin, and would localise its birthplace in Scotland at the time when there were dealings with the viliings of Ireland. This would explain the Irish tribute, several of the names, notably that of Isolt, which is said to be non-Celtic, and the absence of the legend in Welsh literature. According to Professor Zimmer, it became known to Breton auxiliaries, who went north with the Normans in 1072, and they changed the localities and setting to suit themselves. On the other hand, Mark is undoubtedly mythical, being one of the centaur-lil