VI. HISTORY OF BOOK distinguished into two dissimilar classes; one, the Fic TITIOUS ROMANCES, written in the Anglo-Norman LITERARY language, and principally on the knights and court of Arthur and the Round Table, which were most popular in this country, and also in that of Charlemagne, which were more valued on the Continent;and the other, the poetry of the TROUBADOURS, in their Provençal tongue, which, after the accession of Henry II. became a part of our courtly literature, till the loss of our dominions in the south of France occasioned both the language and the poems of this celebrated class of men to fall into neglect and oblivion, or rather to be superseded by the original productions of our national genius, arising in vigorous growth to new forms and beauties peculiar to itself, and gradually increasing in their importance and fertility. The prolixity of the versified histories in time lessened their popularity; their lengthy and uniform narrations ceased to interest when the novelty was over; the rage for histories in verse expired in satiety. Narrated fiction became more pleasing than their tedious realities. The Trojan story was found to interest when the Chronique de Normandie could gain no listeners and the extraordinary adventures accompanying the Crusades, made the usual incidents of common life and business seem flat and unprofitable. An Arthur that could be exaggerated or fabled upon, at the pleasure of the imagination, was a far more delightful person than a William Lung-espée, or than a Henry fiz-Maheut, whose sober actions were too well known to be misrepresented with credit. A new description of narrative compositions then prevailed, before whose superior charms the estorie gave way. These were the actual romans, the numerous IV. fictions starting at first under the garb, and vaporing CHAP. with the name of history, but with every incident a fable. Some renowned characters in former times ANGLOwere taken as the basis of the story, as Arthur, Charlemagne, and Alexander, but on their foundation CULAR the writer raised what superstructure he pleased. NORMAN POETRY. Chevalier In these, likewise, the indefatigable Wace led the Wace's way. His Chevalier au Lion seems to be one of the au Lion. earliest fictitious romans that has descended to our knowlege." But he was soon followed by an endless and motley train.92 That there were tales and traditions in circulation about Arthur, before either Jeffry or Wace, both these writers acknowlege." Jeffry's book seems to have 91 M. Galland mentions that the MS. of this romance, which he inspected, dates its composition 1155-Thus Mil e cent cinquante ans Fit Maistre Gasse ce romance. 3 Mem. Ac, 468. Yet M. Plaquet ascribes this Romance to Chretien de Troyes; which cannot be if these verses are a part of it. The Chevalier au Leon is supposed to be the French original of the Ywaine and Gawin,' published by Mr. Ritson; if so, I should suppose it to have been a Breton tale. 92 In the British Museum, Bib. Reg. 15. E 6. is a large handsome MS. folio that contains several French romances, viz. Charlemagne, Ogier le Danois, and Chevalier au Signe, in verse-and Alexandre, Montauban, Roy Pontus, and Guy de Warwick, in prose. The MS. 8. F 9. contains Guy de Warwyck, in eight foot verse, rhymed.-The MS. 16. G 2. the quatrefilz d'Aymon.-The MS. 20. B 19. has les Gestes de Garin, in French verse-and the MS. 20. D 2. and 20. D 3. consists of Tristram, and Lancelot du Lac, in prose.-The MS. 14. E 3. contains the ponderous St. Graal.-These will sufficiently satisfy any general curiosity on this subject. 93 Jeffry Hist. 1. 1. c. 1.; and Wace, in these passages of his Brut- ENGLAND. BOOK been the parent of some of the romans on Arthur; VI. but the numerous incidents which others describe, of LITERARY this king and his knights, which have no resemblance HISTORY OF to any thing in Jeffry, may have been derived from the Breton tales." The story of Tristram discovers its Breton origin in every part; 95 the San Graal, and many of the round table lays, point to the same source. Hence the most rational idea which we can form of the origin of the three great classes into which we have distinguished the poems that prevailed in England and in Europe, before the full reign of the English vernacular and native poetry; after weighing all theories and circumstances, will be, to refer the VERSIFIED HISTORIES to the Anglo-Norman clergy; the ROMANCES and TALES, to the Breton bards, the Trouveurs, the Jongleurs, and the Minstrels of the first part of the Middle Ages; and the more cultivated PROVENÇAL poesy, to those Troubadours whose actual origin is less discoverable by our cu. riosity, and who will be more particularly noticed in the Fifth volume of this History. 94 The above extracts from Wace are such decisive evidence of the existence of the Breton lays about Arthur, that Bretagne has certainly great claims to the origin of this cyclus of romance-the earliest, perhaps, that appeared in England and France. 95 There is a Drem-ruz famous in the Breton history. I have sometimes asked whether he was the Tristram of romance, who is always made a Breton prince. Drem ruz inverted would be ruz-drem-It means ruddy-face.-M. Douce, in answer to my query, says, 'The inverted name of Tramtris was given to Tristram in his infancy, when he was bred up as the son of a person not his parent. He more than once assumes the name in the course of the romance-once as the tutor of Iseult, and again when disguised as a merchant.' CHAP. V. The ROMANCES upon ARTHUR and the Knights of the the ro mances on As the earliest romances which appeared either in Origin of England, in Normandy or in France, were those on Arthur and his knights, it is natural for an English- Arthur. man to inquire from what source or country they originated. In the appendix to the first edition of the first volume of the Anglo-Saxon History, published in 1799, some circumstances were mentioned, which made the author desirous to ascertain, whether the tales of the romancers on Arthur and his knights did not originate in Wales and Bretagne.' It was also remarked, that the coincidence between several things mentioned in these tales, and those preserved in the Welsh traditions of Arthur and his friends, could have arisen only from communication; and that the Bretons must have been the medium thro which the Welsh narrations got into France. A similar opinion was afterwards expressed by Mr. Leyden,3 and adopted by Mr. G. Ellis. In the second edition of Anglo-Saxon History, published in 1807,5 the author remarked on the colonization of Bretagne from the British islands, and shewed that druids, a 4 1 Hist. Anglo-Sax. V. 1. p. 389. 1st ed. 1799. 5 6 Anglo-Sax. V. 1. p. 108-116. 2d ed. 4o. 2 Ib. 383. HISTORY OF BOOK branch of the ancient bards of Britain, were in that VI. province in the fourth century; and reasoned, that LITERARY from the subsequent emigrations of both chiefs and ENGLAND. people from our island to Bretagne, and from the fact, that bards were a part of the household of every chieftain's family, there must have been bards, and a cultivation of poetry in Bretagne during the sixth and seventh centuries. Some circumstances were mentioned, which made it probable that the Breton bards would gradually deviate into more popular poetry; and from the peculiarities of their new situations, and the necessity of acquiring subsistence, would seek rather to amuse the people by tales, than by the artificial verses which they had composed in Britain and Wales. A decisive evidence that there were in the sixth and seventh centuries, in Armorica and Wales, wandering bards or minstrels, who descended from their original loftiness of character to humbler efforts, to please the people by more amusive tales and songs, was given in a translation of a Satire of Taliesin, distinctly describing and expressly written to reproach this new, and, as he thought, demora, lizing vagrant from the ancient British Parnassus." 6 In 1815, M. de la Rue, to whom we are indebted for first bringing to the public notice some of our most ancient Norman poems, by his letters on them read before the Antiquarian Society, and printed in its Archaeologia, published a work on the Bards of Bre 8 This passage was omitted in the editions of the Anglo-Saxon History since the second, and has been inserted in the new edition of the Vindication of the Ancient British Bards, which has been added to the 4th edition of the Anglo-Saxon History. V. 3. p. 552-7. 7 This is now reprinted in the Vindication, 3 Anglo-Sax. 556–7. 4th ed. In the 13th and 14th volumes. |