No. 12

THE LEGEND OF SIR LANCELOT DU LAC

All rights reserved

Studies upon its Origin, Development,
and Position in the Arthurian
Romantic Cycle

By
Jessie L. Weston

London
Published by David Nutt
At the Sign of the Phœnix
Long Acre
1901

Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, (late) Printers to Her Majesty

[Pg v]

The Studies contained in the following pages were, in the first instance, undertaken some four or five years ago. From time to time the exigencies of other literary work have compelled me to lay them aside, but the subject has never been lost sight of, and, not infrequently, studies in appearance wholly unconnected with the Lancelot legend have thrown an unexpected and welcome light on certain points of the story. Undertaken, in the first instance, with an absolutely open mind (even after I had been working at it for two or three years I should have been sorely at a loss if asked to state a theory of the origin of the story), it was only by slow degrees that the real bearing of the evidence became clear, and I felt that I had at last grasped a guiding thread through the perplexing maze. The results, which perhaps to some readers may appear startlingly subversive of opinions formally expressed by certain distinguished scholars, were wholly unforeseen. They are the outcome of genuine study of original texts; whether, in the long-run they be, or be not generally accepted, I would at least plead that they be judged on the evidence of those texts.

In certain cases I have little doubt as to the verdict. So far as the evidence concerning the sources of Malory, and the differing versions of the prose Lancelot, is concerned,[Pg vi] the facts, now brought forward for the first time, are beyond dispute. They may, I hope they will, be hereafter added to, and confirmed. As they stand they encourage us to hope that further study of the material already available may yield welcome, and perhaps unsuspected results.

We are, so far, only on the threshold of a satisfactory and scientific criticism of the Arthurian cycle, and I doubt whether all who are engaged in this study recognise sufficiently either the extent and complexity of the questions involved, or the absolute futility of, at this early stage, enunciating dogmatic decisions on any of the various points at issue. Is there any one living scholar who is perfectly aware of all the evidence at our disposal for any of the great stories of the cycle? If there be, he will know, better than any other, that till critical editions place us in a position to determine the characteristic readings of the MSS. representing not one alone, but all those stories, their inter-relation, their points of contact with, and variance from each other, the very best work that can be done will be liable to bear the impress of a temporary character—it will not, it cannot be, final.

Elsewhere, I have urged that this fact be recognised and acted upon, and I cannot but hope that the evidence collected in these studies may help to convince others of the real necessity for a determined effort to edit and render accessible the principal Arthurian texts, and the certain and permanent profit likely to result from such a work.

Bournemouth, February 1901.

[Pg vii]

[Pg viii] [Pg ix]

[Pg xii] [Pg xi] [Pg x] [Pg 1]

THE LEGEND OF
SIR LANCELOT DU LAC

INTRODUCTORY

To the great majority of English readers, those who are familiar with the Arthurian legend through the pages of Malory and Tennyson, the name which occurs most readily to their minds in connection with the court and Table of King Arthur is that of Lancelot du Lac, at once the most gallant servant of the king, and the secret lover of the queen. To many the story of Lancelot and Guinevere is the most famous of all stories of unlawful love.

True, of late years the popularity of Wagner's music has made their ears, at least, familiar with the names of Tristan and Iseult. Still, that Tristan and Iseult were ever as famous as Lancelot and Guinevere, few outside the ranks of professed students of mediæval literature would believe; still fewer admit that the loves of Arthur's queen and Arthur's knight were suggested by, if not imitated from, the older, more poetic, and infinitely more convincing, Celtic love-tale; that Lancelot, as Arthur's knight and Guinevere's lover, is a comparatively late addition to the Arthurian legend.

[Pg 2]

Yet so it is. I doubt if any scholar of standing would now argue that Lancelot and his relation to the queen formed an integral portion of the early tradition; if any, conversant with the literature of the cycle, would reckon Lancelot among the original band of heroes who gathered round the British king.

In the introduction to my studies on the Gawain legend, I remarked that, if we desired to arrive at an elucidation of the Arthurian problem as a whole, we must first begin with the elucidation of its component parts—we must severally disentangle the legends connected with the leading knights of the cycle before we can hope to understand the growth and development of that cycle. When we have arrived at some clear idea concerning the stories originally told of the Arthurian heroes, and their relation to each other and to the king, we shall then be in a better position to judge of the nature of the original legend—whether it be mainly the product of literary invention, or in its more important features, the work of mythical tradition. It is not a matter of slight importance to ascertain to which of these two categories the leading heroes of Arthurian romance belong.

In the case of Sir Gawain we were able to detect certain features which, by their persistent recurrence in the great mass of tradition connected with this knight, seemed to indicate a general recognition on the part of the romance writers that they belonged to an early form of his story, and as such were to be preserved even when but incompletely understood. Further I pointed out the parallels existing between certain of his most famous adventures and those recorded in early Irish tradition, parallels which went far to prove, not merely the antiquity[Pg 3] of the feats ascribed to him, but their source in Celtic myth.

In the following studies I shall endeavour, in the same way, to trace to its origin the legend of Lancelot du Lac, to discover what was the tale originally connected with him, and, if possible, follow the steps which led to the immense development of his popularity. I do not for a moment suggest, any more than in the case of Gawain, the finality of the results arrived at; but I hope at least to present the reader with a sorely needed summary of the Lancelot legend, and to clear the ground for further researches into his story.

In some ways the task before us is less difficult than that involved in the examination of the Gawain legend; the literature connected with Lancelot, if extensive, is not diffuse; by far the greater portion is covered by the prose Lancelot and the Grail Romances. On the other hand the story, as compared with that of Gawain, is extraordinarily deficient in characteristic features. The adventures ascribed to Lancelot might just as well be placed to the credit of any other knight: they are the ordinary stock-in-trade of the mediæval romancer. Guinevere's lover he is, but the love-story is of the most conventional character: the more it is studied the more clearly do the records in which it is shrined appear the offspring of conscious literary invention, and that invention of by no means a high order. He is certainly no hero of prehistoric myth, solar or otherwise, as Gawain or Perceval may well be; nor does he by force of sheer humanity lay hold on our imagination, as does Tristan.

How then did Lancelot come into the Arthurian cycle? In the earliest records of Arthurian legend he holds no[Pg 4] place. Wace's Brut, the French metrical version of the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth, written about the middle of the twelfth century, gives the names of certain of Arthur's knights, Gawain, Kay, Bedivere, Iwein, but never mentions Lancelot. We have an account of Arthur's expedition to France, in the course of which he slew Frollo outside the walls of Paris, an adventure which the compiler of the Prose Lancelot places during the war against Claudas to recover Lancelot's patrimony, but in the Brut this expedition takes place at an early stage in Arthur's reign, and knows nothing of Lancelot or Claudas.[1]

Dating apparently from the same period, the middle of the twelfth century, is a bas-relief of the cathedral of Modena, representing a female figure standing on the summit of a tower, towards which several armed knights are approaching. Each knight is named, and we find represented Arthur himself, Gawain, Kay, Ider, Carados, and a certain Galuariun, who has not been identified. Lancelot is not among them.[2]

The Welsh Arthurian stories again know nothing of Lancelot, though certain of them contain long lists of heroes of Arthur's court.[3]

So far as we can at present tell, the earliest mention of the knight is that contained in the Erec of Chrétien de[Pg 5] Troyes, where in a long list of the heroes of the Round Table, ranged according to merit (at least in the case of the earlier names), Lanceloz del Lac is reckoned third, the first two being Gawain and Erec.[4] In the German version by Hartmann von Aue, he occupies the same place, but is called Lanzelot von Arlac. Nothing more is related of him: he plays no rôle in the story, he is a name, and nought else. In a later poem by Chrétien, Cligés, the same position, third on the roll of heroes, is ascribed to Lancelot, but here it is Perceval, and not Erec, who ranks second. The hero of the poem, Cligés, appears at a tournament four successive days, in different armour, and overthrows Segramor, Lancelot, and Perceval, finally fighting an undecided combat with Gawain.[5] The Cligés reference is particularly noticeable, as the motif of the story is the love of the hero for the young wife of his uncle and sovereign. In this connection the loves of Tristan and Iseult are often referred to, but Lancelot and Guinevere never. It seems clear that when Chrétien wrote this poem he did not know Lancelot as the lover of Arthur's queen and the chief of Arthur's knights.

But in the poem which followed the Cligés, Le Chevalier de la Charrette, Lancelot suddenly appears in both these characters, Gawain's superior and the lover of Guinevere: no explanation of the changed position is offered, but Chrétien takes for granted the familiarity of his audience with the relations between the knight and the queen. To add to the confusion, in the succeeding poem Le Chevalier au Lion, Lancelot is only once referred to, in connection with the Charrette adventure, and is never mentioned as[Pg 6] one of the knights of Arthurs household; while in Chrétien's last poem, the Perceval, he is altogether ignored.[6]

It is very difficult, indeed impossible, to date Chrétien's poems with exactness. The only two which afford clear internal evidence on the point, Le Chevalier de la Charrette and Le Chevalier au Lion, fall within the years 1164-1173. Erec was the first of his Arthurian poems, and between Erec and the Charrette, certainly one work, Cligés, and it may be several, intervened.[7]

Very probably the Erec was written early in the decade, 1150-60, and taken in conjunction with the negative evidence afforded by the Brut and the Italian bas-relief, it goes to prove that whereas the name of Gawain, as connected with Arthur, was known by the end of the eleventh century,[8] Arthurian tradition knew nothing of Lancelot till the latter half of the twelfth; and that no mention of his relations with Guinevere is found till between 1160-1170, that is, a decade after the first mention[Pg 7] of his name. It is, of course, a well-recognised fact in the study of romance, that the date of a manuscript does not fix the date of the story contained in it; a younger manuscript may contain the same story under an older form. As a rule, the versions contained in Chrétien's poems appear to present a fairly old form of the stories they relate, saving in the case of Lancelot. About this knight, Chrétien either knows nothing or he knows too much. The earlier stages of his story he leaves unrecorded; yet an allusion in the Charrette poem[9] shows that he was not unacquainted with the legend concerning his youth and upbringing. Two versions of this legend have been preserved to us, one in verse and one in prose. In the following chapter we will examine the older of these versions, and inquire into the origin of our hero's name.

[Pg 8]

THE 'LANZELET' OF ULRICH VON ZATZIKHOVEN

The origin of the name Lancelot has been a subject of considerable debate among scholars, and has given rise to the most widely differing explanations. M. de la Villemarqué, who was a warm advocate of the Welsh origin of the Arthurian stories, derived the name from the French l'ancelot, a youth or servant, which he held to be a translation of the Welsh Melwas, or Maelwas. This solution was rejected by M. Gaston Paris, in his study on the Lancelot poems,[10] in which he showed that ancelot was not a French common name, and that Maelwas did not bear the signification attributed to it. Professor Rhys,[11] adopting the theory of the Welsh origin of the name, which in its present form he admitted only exists in Welsh literature as borrowed from French or English sources, decided that it represented a Welsh variant of Peredur, the root of this latter name being Pâr=a spear or lance. 'The characters,' says Professor Rhys, 'were originally the same, though their respective developments eventually differed very widely.' I doubt if this solution ever found any adherents except its author: it is sufficient[Pg 9] to remark that the derivation of Peredur, on which it rests, is by no means universally accepted, and that Lancelot is in no special way connected with a spear or lance.[12] It is certainly true that the Lancelot story shows signs of having been affected by the Perceval legend, but as we shall see the borrowings are restricted to one special and purely continental form of the story.

M. Gaston Paris, in the study referred to above, suggested that Lancelot might be either a Celtic name altered, or, more probably, the substitution, by French poets, of a name of Germanic origin for one of Breton form strange to the ears of their French audiences, e.g. it might be a diminutive form of Lanzo. This is also the conclusion of Professor Zimmer.[13] The prefix Lant is often found in names of Frankish origin transferred to Breton ground: such names are Lando, Landolin; Lanzo, Lanzolin, etc.

In the introduction to his edition of the Charrette, recently published,[14] Professor Foerster announces his complete adhesion to this view.

It certainly seems that the evidence points strongly to this conclusion. The fact that Lancelot's name does not appear in the earliest obtainable Arthurian documents shows that he did not belong to the original 'stoff' of the cycle; the entire silence of Welsh literature, and the[Pg 10] practical silence of English vernacular romances,[15] seem to show that he formed no part of the insular Arthurian tradition. For my own part I unhesitatingly accept Professor Foerster's dictum, 'Lancelot ist den Kymren gänzlich unbekannt, und ist unter allen Umständen Kontinentaler[16] Herkunft.'[17]

A weak point in the proposed Celtic solutions appears to me to be that both entirely ignore the qualifying title du Lac, by which Lancelot is invariably known. Neither M. de la Villemarqué nor Professor Rhys appear to consider it of any special importance, yet if I mistake not this is just the significant point of the Lancelot story, and that which from the very outset differentiates it from the legends connected with Peredur or Maelwas. From the moment of his appearance in Chrétien's list of Arthur's knights to that in which the prose Lancelot records his death in the odour of sanctity, Lancelot is Lancelot du Lac, and the earliest version of his story which we possess amply justifies his claim to the title.

[Pg 11]

The poem of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven[18] is certainly later than either the Erec or the Charrette of Chrétien, but the tradition it embodies is anterior to the poem itself. Written in the opening years of the thirteenth century, it is, as explicitly stated in the text, the translation of 'daz welsche buoch von Lanzelete,' brought to Germany by Hugo de Morville, one of the hostages who in 1194 replaced Richard of England in the prison of Leopold of Austria.[19] The date of the original French version cannot, of course, be fixed. In any case it must have preceded its introduction into Germany; judging from internal evidence it represented an early and immature version of the Lancelot legend. The story as related in the Lanzelet is as follows: Lanzelet was son to King Pant of Genewîs and his wife Clarine. By a revolt of his people Pant was driven from his kingdom with his wife and child. In his flight he came to a stream, and there, overcome by his wounds, sank down and died. The queen had laid her child under a tree while she tended her husband, and before she could reach it again a water-fairy (mer-feine) came in a cloud of mist and carried off the infant. The fairy was a queen, ruling over ten thousand maidens, who knew no man. Her kingdom was called Meide-lant; there it was ever May-tide, and her palace had such virtue that whoso abode one day within it might never know sorrow till the day of his death. There the little Lanzelet was brought up, in ignorance of his name and rank, till he reached the age of fifteen,[Pg 12] knowing nothing of knighthood, nor even how to bestride a horse. Then eager to try his lot in the world outside he demanded leave to ride forth. This the fairy granted, but refused to tell him his name and parentage; he must first conquer the strongest knight in the world, Iweret, of the fair wood Beforet.

She gave him rich armour, white as a swan, the best that might be, a surcoat (wafen-roc) decked with golden bells; sword and shield, and a goodly horse. But the lad did not know how to ride, so let the bridle hang loose and held on by the saddle-bow. In this fashion he rode till he met a knight, Johfrit de Liez, who rebuked him for his childish bearing, and took him to his castle, where he was kindly welcomed by the host's mother and her maidens, and instructed in riding and the use of knightly weapons.

His next adventure is to ride with two knights to the castle of one Galagandreiz. In the night the daughter of the host, condemned by her father to perpetual virginity, offers her love to the three knights in turn; is accepted by Lanzelet, who fights a duel with her father, slays him, and weds the maiden. One day he rode forth seeking adventures, and found a road which led him to the castle of Limors. The folk attacked, and would have slain him, but for the intervention of Ade, niece to the lord of the castle. Lanzelet is thrown into prison, and only escapes by fighting single-handed, first with a giant, then with two lions, and finally with the lord of the castle himself. Having slain this last, he becomes the 'ami' of the maiden Ade. (Whether he marries her or not is not clearly stated. In any case we hear no more of his first wife, the daughter of Galagandreiz.)

Meanwhile the fame of Lanzelet's exploits has penetrated[Pg 13] to Arthur's ears, and Gawain is sent to find the unnamed hero, and bring him to Arthur's Court. They meet, and fight an undecided combat, terminated by the arrival of a messenger with tidings of a tournament between King Lot of Johenîs and Gurnemanz, den fürsten wîs. Lanzelet betakes himself hither, wearing each day a different suit of armour, green, red and white, overthrows many knights, including King Lot, whom he set free out of friendship for Gawain, and without revealing himself, rides away with Ade and her brother.

They come to a castle, Schâtel le Mort, the master of which, Mâbûz, is a magician, and son to the fairy who had brought Lanzelet up. Lanzelet rides to the castle, which has this property, that whoever crosses its drawbridge at once loses all courage and hardihood. Lanzelet falls under the spell, and is taken prisoner in the most ignominious manner, much to the dismay of Ade, who rides off with her brother and disappears from the story. The land of Mâbûz adjoins that of Iweret of Beforet, who is in the habit of raiding his neighbour's territory. Mâbûz, who is by nature a coward, determines that Lanzelet, whose fame is well known to him, shall be his champion. He has him carried by his men without the walls of the castle, when his natural courage at once returns. He rides to a fountain, beside which hangs a brazen cymbal on which he must strike three times with a hammer to summon his foe. In the meantime Iblîs, the fair daughter of Iweret, has had a dream of an unknown knight whom she meets beside the fountain; she rises early to seek the scene of her dream, and finds the original of her vision in Lanzelet. She beseeches him to carry her off without waiting for the conflict, but Lanzelet refuses. Iweret arrives and a fierce[Pg 14] fight ensues, in which he is slain. Lanzelet weds Iblîs and becomes master of Beforet.

A messenger now arrives from the Fairy of the Lake, revealing Lanzelet's name and parentage (his mother, Clarine, was sister to Arthur). The object of her theft of the child is now accomplished: she desired to secure a champion who would free her son Mâbûz from his too powerful enemy. Lanzelet decides to seek Gawain, whom he now knows to be his kinsman. On their way they meet a squire who informs them that the King Valerîn (or Falerîn, the spelling varies), has appeared at Arthur's court and laid claim to Guinevere, on the ground that she had been betrothed to him previous to her marriage with Arthur. If Valerîn cannot find a champion to oppose him he will carry off the queen. Lanzelet undertakes the combat, and defeats Valerîn.

(We must note here that Lanzelet's service to the queen is of a preventive character, i.e. he saves her from the possibility of abduction, he does not rescue her after the abduction has taken place.)

Lanzelet then leaves his wife at court, and goes forth to seek the castle of Plurîs, which he had passed on his journey from Meide-land and the adventure of which he desires to test. There he is challenged by one hundred knights, whom he successively overthrows, and weds the queen (Ulrich says quaintly, 'ich enweiz ob erz ungerne tet, wan diu königîn was ein schœne maget, 5530-1). Iblîs remains at Arthur's court, grieving for the disappearance of her husband, during whose absence she successfully withstands the Mantle test, an incident of not infrequent occurrence in Arthurian romance.

Hearing that Lanzelet is a prisoner at Plurîs, Gawain,[Pg 15] Karjet (Gaheriet?), Erec, and Tristan go in search of him, and, by means of a ruse, succeed in freeing him. The queen of Plurîs disappears from the story.

On their way to court they learn that, while engaged in hunting the white stag, Guinevere has been carried off by Valerîn, and imprisoned in a magic castle, surrounded by a dense thicket peopled with all kinds of serpents. Tristan, 'der listige Tristan'[20] suggests that they should seek the aid of Malduz[21] or Malduc, the magician, the Lord of the Misty Lake (Genibeleten Se), who will enable them to penetrate Valerîn's stronghold. Erec announces that neither he nor Gawain should take part in the expedition as they have respectively slain Malduc's father and brother. Arthur therefore sets forth accompanied by Karjet (Gaheriet), Tristan and Lanzelet (this is the order), and are later joined by Dodine le Sauvage. By the good offices of the enchanter's daughter, to whom Arthur appeals, Malduc consents to aid them on condition that Erec and Gawain are delivered up to him, to which these heroes willingly consent. Malduc then, by means of spells, disperses the serpents guarding Valerîn's castle, slays him and his men, and wakens Guinevere from the magic slumber into which Valerîn has cast her.

I have italicised this passage as extremely important for the criticism of the story. It will be seen that so far from Lanzelet being the means of Guinevere's escape, he plays[Pg 16] practically no part in the story, all he does is to accompany the king. The rescuer is Malduc; recourse to him is suggested by Tristan and made possible by the self-sacrifice of Gawain and Erec; but saving in the discussion as to whether Malduc's terms shall or shall not be accepted, Lanzelet's name is not even mentioned.[22]

Erec and Gawain are cast into prison by Malduc and nearly starved to death, but are rescued by one hundred of Arthur's knights, headed by Lanzelet and aided by a giant, Esealt der lange. They all return to Arthur's court, where great feasts are held.

Iblîs tells her husband of a curious adventure which had befallen one of the knights: how he had met in a forest a terrible dragon which, speaking with a human voice, besought a kiss from the knight; he refused and the dragon flew away lamenting. Lanzelet resolves to test the adventure, rides to the forest, finds the dragon, and gives the desired kiss. The monster bathes in a stream at hand, and becomes a fair maiden, Elidiâ, daughter to the king of Thile; she has been transformed into a dragon for trans[Pg 17]gressing the rules of Minne, and condemned to remain in that form till kissed by the best knight on earth. She remains at Arthur's court, where she is made judge of all disputed questions relating to Minne.

Here the story of Lanzelet practically ends. He wins back his lands of Genewîs without difficulty, promising to treat his subjects better than his father did. He and Iblîs betake themselves to the heritage of the latter, Beforet, where they receive Arthur and Guinevere with great pomp. The poem concludes by telling us that they have four children, three sons and one daughter, that they live to see their children's children, and die both on the same day.

The poem of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven has scarcely received the attention which, as a factor in the criticism of the legend, it undoubtedly demands. The questions arising out of it are not only interesting, but, as I shall presently show, in one instance at least, of the very highest importance. The questions may be grouped as (a) those relating to the structure and sources of the poem itself; (b) those which affect its relation to the other Lancelot romances. For the first it is obvious that we are dealing with a poem of very loose construction; the various parts do not harmonise with each other, and no attempt has been made to make them do so. Thus we have no fewer than four love affairs attributed to Lanzelet, and in three out of the four he weds the lady; yet these amours, one of which is subsequent to his marriage with Iblîs, are dropped as of no account. Professor Foerster[23] considers that this looseness of construction points to a late date, and that the source of the Lanzelet was a biographical[Pg 18] romance of the weakest order. According to Professor Foerster the clearer the composition, the better knit the incidents, the older the romance.

Now it seems to me that there are two orders of ill-constructed romances, and that we shall do well to differentiate between them. In one case we have a number of incidents of secondary character, obviously borrowed or imitated from those occurring elsewhere, strung together more or less cleverly on the thread of a hero's individuality. The incidents are all to be found in other romances, and as a rule none of them have any suggestion of Celtic or mythic origin. The literary style is superior to the matter. Such romances are e.g. Rigomer, Torec, Le Chevalier à la Manche. A very favourable example is Méraugis de Portlesguez. These are all certainly late romances.

In the other case we have a romance even more ill-constructed, but consisting not of incidents but of whole short tales, manifestly independent of each other, and some of them of distinctly antique and mythic character: the literary style is poor and the whole is less a romance, properly speaking, than the material out of which a romance can be evolved. This, I believe, marks an early stage of development, and of this we have naturally but few specimens. The Lanzelet is, I believe, one.

If I mistake not, the groundwork is a series of lais, each complete in itself, and having no connection with what precedes or what follows it. It is in no real sense a biographical romance, though perhaps it might be called a tentative effort in that direction. The Mantle episode certainly formed a single lai; the Fier Baiser, now found with other adventures, probably originally did so.[24] Certain[Pg 19] of the episodes, too, possess a distinctly archaic character, e.g. the description of the fairy's kingdom as a isle of women where no man penetrates, a conception much older than the Fata Morgana of the prose Lancelot; and the description of Guinevere's prison, the magic slumber in a fair dwelling, ein wünneclichez haus, surrounded by a dense thicket infested with serpents, is the sleeping beauty story in its oldest 'other world' form.[25] The position of Gawain in the story is that held by him in the earlier, pre-Lancelot romances.

I cannot accept the suggestion of a biographical Lancelot from which both the Lanzelet and the Charrette were drawn. If we remember that the first mention of Lancelot in Arthurian romance can only be traced to the second half of the twelfth century, it does not seem probable that by 1164 (when, or about when, Chrétien wrote his poem) he could have become the hero of a fixed biographical romance. Nor, the motif of his liaison with Guinevere once introduced into the story, is the compilation of such a version as the Lanzelet subsequently probable. Professor Foerster feels this difficulty, and suggests a solution, which a little more consideration would have shown him to be untenable. On page xlvi. of his introduction to the Karrenritter, he says, 'wenn wirklich Kristian zuerst den Ehebruch eingeführt hat, so ist doch die Annahme zulässig dass Verehrer Arturs und seiner Frau diese neue ehrenrührische Erfindung zwar gekannt, aber mit Entrüstung abgewiesen[Pg 20] haben, um ja nicht des idealen Königs Ehrenschild zu beschmutzen.' But a few pages further on the writer himself refers to the story of Guinevere and Mordred as told by Geoffrey[26] and Wace. He must therefore be well aware that there can be no possible question of Chrétien's having introduced the motif of Guinevere's faithlessness; that is one of the oldest and most original features of the Arthurian story. The question is not, 'Did the queen have a lover?'—that was answered in the affirmative long before Chrétien's day—but, 'When did Lancelot become her lover? Was it through the version of the Charrette?' a very different matter.[27]

Taking into consideration the construction of the poem, and the character of the contents, I think we are justified in considering the composition of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven as a collection of lais which have not yet been worked over or taken final literary shape. When the scattered Lancelot stories did this, it was under the influence of a motif foreign to the original legend, his love for Guinevere. How that came to be introduced into the legend is a matter for separate consideration, but I do not think there is room for doubt that it was this introduction which determined the final and literary form of the Lancelot story. All conflicting elements, such as the various[Pg 21] love affairs, were rejected and only the original germ retained.

And what was this germ? Authorities will no doubt differ. Some perhaps will say it was the story of Guinevere's imprisonment and rescue, but they must remember that in the Lanzelet this is not the work of the hero. I think myself that the root of the Lancelot tale was simply a Breton lai, relating the theft of a king's son by a water fairy: this seems to be the one abiding and persistent element in the tale, all else is uncertain and shifting. Here the hero is Arthur's nephew; elsewhere he is but the son of an old ally; at one time his father is a tyrant, 'chassé' by his own people; again he is a noble king, the victim of treachery and a foreign foe. Sometimes Lancelot's mother lives to see him restored to his kingdom; sometimes she dies while he is yet in the care of the fairy, and never sees her son again. He has two cousins on the father's side, Bohort and Lionel, and a bastard half-brother Hector; he has no relations on his father's side, but is cousin to Gawain through his mother. He is Guinevere's lover; he is not Guinevere's lover. He is unmarried; he is very much married—three times at least! He has four children born in wedlock; he has but one son, the offspring of a liaison. He is the most valiant knight of Arthur's court; he is scarce worthy of mention. Among all this shifting tangle and contradiction, there is but one thing, and one only, fixed and certain, he is Lancelot du Lac. I do not see how we can avoid the conclusion that in this record of his youth we have the one fixed point of departure for all the subsequent unfoldings of romance.

Not that this story was always unvarying in its details,[Pg 22] on the contrary we find in it marked divergences. Thus in the Lanzelet the motive of the theft is clear, the fairy desires a champion and protector for her cowardly son; the motive in the prose Lancelot is not apparent; probably it was a mere capricious fancy for a beautiful child.

And if the motive was not always clearly understood, still less so was the character of the fairy. In fact she seems to have considerably puzzled the mediæval romancers. In the first instance the story would be excessively simple, she would probably be such a water-fairy as we find in Tidorel, and Ulrich seems to have retained this idea when he calls her a Merfeine or Merminne, but as the lai gained popularity, and it became necessary to supply details as to her kingdom, etc., it would be supplemented from other legendary sources. Ulrich's own description, the land of ten thousand maidens where no man penetrates, is manifestly the Meide-land which in Diu Krône Gawain visits, and which is universally admitted to be a remembrance of the 'Isle of Women' of old Celtic tradition. It may have touched the Lancelot lai through the medium of the Gawain's story, but as a 'property' of old Celtic belief it may well have been known independently. I think it probable that this identification may explain a very curious passage in Diu Krône, where Kei reproaches Lancelot who has failed in the glove test in the following terms:

Certain it is that while the queen of the 'Isle of Women' does not appear to be addicted to child-stealing, she does entice, or abduct, earthly knights to be her lovers. It[Pg 23] is not impossible that a version of the Lancelot story, redacted by some one familiar with the real character of the kingdom, may have represented him as the queen's lover. It is also not impossible, were this the case, that the story of the imprisonment of Guinevere in the other world, a story which, as we shall presently see, must have existed at a very early date, may have led to her being confused with the queen of that kingdom, and to the transfer of Lancelot's affections from the one to the other.

The prose Lancelot version is entirely different, and far less archaic: there is no real lake, the appearance is but a mirage; men are admitted; Lancelot has not only his cousins for companions, but other knights as well. The lady herself is conceived of more as a mortal versed in enchantment than as a fairy proper. In the Suite de Merlin she is identified with the Demoiselle Chaceresse, daughter of the King of Northumberland;[28] and in both these romances, the Lancelot and the Merlin Suite, she is the lover and the betrayer of Merlin. It may not be out of place to remark here that the tendency of later romances, as exhibited in the Suite and notably in Malory, is to connect the Lady of the Lake rather with Arthur than with Lancelot.

It may be asked, how did so simple a lai as we here postulate attain so great a popularity? The incidents would be few, and the characters at first probably anonymous.[29] Here, I think, we may take into account a factor[Pg 24] hitherto practically ignored, the music of the lais. As we know they were intended to be sung, and each was connected with its own melody. It would be a truism nowadays to say that the success of a song depends less upon the words than upon the music to which the words are set, and though less true of an age in which the songs of the people were also its folk-tales, yet the influence of music upon the development of popular legends is a point we do ill to ignore. It may help us to solve certain puzzles. Certain heroes of course represent what we may call the general stock-in-trade of Aryan tradition: their names vary with the lands in which their tales are told, but whether Cuchullain or Gawain, Siegfried or Perceval, the hero represents a traditional tale which antedates any special form of recital; such a tale would be assured of welcome, and practically independent of musical aid. But in the case of Lancelot we have no such prehistoric tradition, no striking parallels in early legends. Previously unknown, he leaps into popularity, as it were, at a bound. Even the most ardent adherent of Chrétien de Troyes cannot appeal to the popularity of that writer to help us [Pg 25]with a solution, for his Lancelot poem, the Charrette, is but seldom referred to in contemporary literature. Much of Lancelot's later popularity is doubtless due to his rôle as the queen's lover; but how account for the initial popularity which caused him to be chosen for that rôle? I can only explain the phenomenon of a knight, whose very name is unknown before the middle of the twelfth century, becoming before the end of that century the leading hero of a cycle to which he was originally a stranger, by supposing that there was some special charm in the lai originally connected with him, by means of which his story took hold of the public fancy. Had that charm been in the lai itself, in word or form, then I think it would have been preserved to us. We possess more than one beautiful lai, the hero of which, originally independent of the Arthurian cycle, became by virtue of his story admitted within the magic precincts. Failing that, I think the charm must have lain in the air to which it was wedded, and which so pleased the ears of the hearers that they demanded its repetition, and lengthening, by the addition of episodes foreign to the original tale. Thus other lais, whose fate had been less happy, might for a time at least win a spurious popularity, till the 'survival of the fittest,' which operates in literature as elsewhere, discarded the weaker portions, and fixed the outline of the story in the form we know. This theory may or may not be correct, but I can suggest none other that will meet the problems of the case; and at least it has the advantage of offering an hypothesis which may be of use in other stories besides the one under discussion.

But there is another point in the discussion of Ulrich's poem which urgently demands attention. What is the con[Pg 26]nection between the Lanzelet and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach? A connection of some sort there is, and that a fairly close one. Take for instance the passage describing the hero's departure from his magic home for the world of men, a passage extending over two hundred lines (ll. 400-666). He does not know how to sit his horse, how to hold the bridle,[30] or use his weapons; is ignorant of his name and birth; is called der kindische man (l. 598), der namenlôse tumbe (l. 2045), all features which irresistibly recall Perceval to our mind, but are in no way characteristic of Lancelot.[31]

The tourney at which Lancelot makes his first appearance at Arthur's court has been undertaken between King Lot von Johenis and Gurnemanz den fürsten wîs (l. 2630). It commences with a vesper play:

In the Parzival, Book II., we read of the tourney before Kanvoleis that it began with a vesper play:

In connection with which we may note that both[Pg 27] Chrétien and Hartmann von Aue spell the name of Gurnemanz with o, not with u, as does Wolfram. Other names, some of them peculiar to Wolfram's version, occur in the Lanzelet, such as Galagandreiss (Galogandres), also found in Hartmann's Erec though not in Chrétien; Iwân de Nonel, l. 2935 (Parzival, v. 312); Iblîs, l. 4060 (Parzival, xiii. 895). Ulrich's Iblîs is connected with the cloister jaemerlichen urbor, Wolfram's with Terra de Lâbur; Kailet, l. 6032 (Parzival, ii. 737); Maurîn, whose name in each case is similarly qualified, mit den lichten schenkeln her Maurîn, l. 3052, Mit den schœnen schenkeln Maurîn (Parzival, xiii. 1069).[32] In the description of Iweret we read, einen wâfen roc fuort er und guldîn schellen dran er schein ein engel niht ein man, ll. 4428-30, which should be compared with the description of Karnachkarnanz.

Now how are all these points of contact to be explained? Scholars are agreed in placing the date of Ulrich's poem in the opening years of the thirteenth century, therefore anterior to the Parzival. Did Wolfram borrow from Ulrich? If it were a mere question of a name here and there we might think so, but the points of contact amount to more than this. We have the characteristics of Perceval postulated of Lancelot; we have correspondence in details, even verbal identity; further, the prose Lancelot, as we shall see, presents other points of contact with Wolfram's poem[Pg 28] in details where he differs notably from Chrétien. It is not probable that Wolfram, who never alludes to any adventures related in the Lanzelet, and to all appearance knows nothing of the hero save the Charrette adventure, should have borrowed from two such widely different versions of his story. The fact that where Lancelot appears to have borrowed from the Perceval legend, the borrowed matter is marked by characteristics special to one version of the story is, to say the least, curious. If the Lanzelet really preceded the Parzival—a philological question upon which I am not qualified to pronounce an opinion—and Ulrich, as is generally supposed, closely followed his source, only one conclusion seems possible, i.e. that that source knew, and quoted, the poem of Kiot. It is significant that in the mention of Gurnemanz he is spoken of as den fürsten wîs, which shows that to the writer he was not a mere name, but a well-known character, distinguished by the qualities which mark him in the Parzival

My own impression is, however, that Ulrich knew Wolfram's poem, or at least part of it (between the Lanzelet and the last three books of the Parzival there do not appear to be any points of contact). There are numberless small coincidences in language and phrase, trifling in themselves, but which as a whole seem to argue a familiarity with the words of the Parzival. Such a correspondence is more likely on the part of Ulrich than on that of Wolfram, who by his own confession could not read or write, and must have become orally familiar with his source. But it is quite clear that a critical comparison of the two works is urgently needed, both in the interests of Arthurian tradition and of German literature. The popular impression, i.e. that Wolfram merely borrowed a[Pg 29] few names from the Lanzelet, will not stand the test of investigation. Two conclusions alone are open, from which we must make our choice: either to admit the existence, beyond any doubt, of the French poem, other than Chrétien's, which Wolfram declared to be his source;[33] or to place the date of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven some few years later than that usually assigned to him. We await the aid of some one of the many competent scholars Germany possesses to solve this puzzle for us.

[Pg 30]

LANCELOT ET LE CERF AU PIED BLANC

Before examining Chrétien's poem of the Charrette, which, whatever the date of composition, belongs by the nature of its contents to the later stages of Arthurian tradition, it will be well to direct our attention to a short episodic poem, undoubtedly French in origin, but, so far as we at present know, only to be found in a translation incorporated in the vast compilation known as the Dutch Lancelot.[34] The contents of the poem are as follows: A maiden arrives at Arthur's court, attended by a brachet. She is the messenger of a queen who demands a champion to accomplish the following feat: in her land is a stag with one white foot, guarded by seven lions; she promises her hand to whoever will slay the lions, and present her with the white foot of the stag. The brachet will be guide to any knight who may undertake the adventure. Kay announces his intention of being the first to try his fortune, and sets out, guided by the dog. After riding some distance he comes to a deep and swiftly[Pg 31] flowing river, which the dog promptly swims. Kay's courage, however, fails him at the sight of the water, and he turns back, feigning a sudden illness, which had prevented him from pursuing the quest. Lancelot then determines to try his fortune: he sets out, passes the river in safety, and is attacked by the seven lions. After a fierce conflict, in which he is desperately wounded, he succeeds in slaying them, and secures the white foot. At this moment a stranger knight appears, and Lancelot, exhausted by the fight, gives him the foot, bidding him carry it to the queen, and say that the knight who has achieved the adventure lies sorely wounded, and prays her aid. The knight promises this, but having received the foot, deals Lancelot a treacherous blow with his sword, and leaving him for dead rides off to the castle, and claims the reward due to the slayer of the lions.

The queen is much distressed, as the knight is both ugly and cowardly, and summons her lords and vassals to ask their advice. They recommend that the marriage be postponed for fifteen days, greatly to the disappointment of the knight.

Meanwhile Gawain has become anxious at the non-return of Lancelot, and sets forth to seek him. He finds him apparently dead, revives him, and conveys him to the dwelling of a physician, whom he instructs as to the proper treatment,[35] and then rides himself to the court to punish the treacherous knight.

He arrives on the eve of the marriage, accuses the knight of his treachery, challenges him to single combat and slays[Pg 32] him. The queen is much rejoiced at the news. Gawain brings Lancelot to the queen, who regards him as her future husband; but, on the excuse of calling together his kinsmen for the marriage, Lancelot contrives to leave the country, 'not for anything in the world would he have been faithless to Guinevere.' He and Gawain return to Arthur's court, and the queen is left vainly awaiting her bridegroom.

This conclusion is of course obviously lame and ineffective. The hero should wed the maiden, whose hand was the previously announced reward of successful accomplishment of the feat. That Lancelot undertakes the adventure at all can only be explained by supposing that the tale was connected with him previous to his being generally recognised as the queen's lover.

That he was not the original hero of the tale is proved by the fact that we possess a Breton lai which relates the story in a better and more coherent form, ascribing it to a certain Tyolet, whom we do not meet in any of the later Arthurian romances.[36]

The main points in which the versions differ are: (a) the maiden who comes to Arthur's court is herself the prize of the victor. This is a better version, as it simplifies the action, and accounts for the anxiety felt at the absence of the knight, who should have returned to court at once on achieving the venture. (b) Gawain's action (which is the same in both poems, with the exception that instead of his slaying the traitor, Tyolet arrives in time to prevent a combat) is clearly explained; the brachet, which has[Pg 33] acted as guide, returns alone to court, and leads Gawain to the scene of the combat. In the Lancelot version it is difficult to understand how Gawain, who had no guide, finds his friend so quickly. (c) Tyolet weds the maiden, and returns with her to her own land, where he becomes king.

Here we have an unmistakable instance of a lai originally told of another hero being transferred to Lancelot.

The story itself, however, seems to be older than its connection with either hero; even in the Tyolet version, superior as it is to the Lancelot, the real meaning of the tale appears to have been overlooked or misunderstood. In its original form I think it was clearly a transformation tale. The stag was the enchanted relative of the princess who sought the hero's aid, and the spell which detained him in animal form could only be broken by the cutting off of the foot. We know that the smiting off of a member of the body (generally the head) is a well-recognised form of terminating an enchantment, and in this case the proposed solution would explain what, in the tale as it stands, appears a piece of unredeemed brutality.

A peculiarity of the Tyolet version is that it falls into two well-marked divisions, the first recounting the upbringing of the hero, and his arrival at Arthur's court, a tale bearing a marked affinity to the Perceval Enfances; the second being the 'white-foot' adventure. Now in this first part the hero, going into the woods in search of game, sees and follows a stag, which is transformed into a man before his astonished eyes. I suspect that this episode formed the connecting link between the two sections of the lai, the real meaning of the latter stag not having been lost when the two were united. A confirma[Pg 34]tion of this theory is found in the fact that one of the numerous 'shape-shifting' changes of Merlin was into the form of a stag with a white fore-foot.[37] I also think this may well be the origin of the mysterious white stag guarded by lions which meets us so often in later Arthurian story. In the Queste stag and lions change into Our Lord and the Four Evangelists, thus preserving the transformation character.

But whatever the original character of the story, it has, in the form in which we now possess it, become affected by a motif extremely popular in mediæval times, that of the False Claimant. The leading characteristics of this widely spread tale may be summed up as follows. The hero at great risk to himself performs a feat, and possesses himself of a proof (previously agreed upon) that he has done so. The traitor comes on the scene, possesses himself of the proof (either attempting to slay the hero himself or believing him to be already dead), and claims the reward; not knowing that the hero has possessed himself of a further proof of his deed. The hero, left for dead, recovers, and appearing at the critical moment, confutes the traitor by the production of the second and decisive proof.

Of this story practically countless variants exist; Mr. E. S. Hartland, in his Legend of Perseus, vol. iii., has tabulated a large number gathered from all parts of the world. The most general version appears to be that in which the feat consists in the slaying of a dragon, to be testified by the production of the head. The hero, not content with cutting off the head, also cuts out the tongue, and is thus enabled to confute the traitor, who has omitted to look within the monster's jaws. It will be noted that[Pg 35] neither in the Tyolet or Lancelot versions does the hero possess such a proof: in the first instance the impostor is put to shame by Tyolet's inquiry as to who slew the lions; in the second Gawain settles the matter by slaying the traitor. This lack of an important feature of the original tale seems to indicate that the lai in its primitive form did not belong to this group of stories, though from the character of the feat related the borrowing of features from so widely known a folk-tale was almost natural development.

A very good example of the False Claimant is found in some versions of the Tristan legend, notably the poems of Gottfried von Strassburg, and his source, Thomas of Brittany: very few of the prose versions have retained it.[38]

M. Gaston Paris seems inclined to connect the 'white-foot' adventure with this. Ultimately, of course, the stories must go back to a common source; but the Cerf au pied blanc presents the adventure in so general a form, that one can hardly connect it with any special variant of this very widespread folk-tale. The Tristan variant is, as I have said above, an especially good example, with many well-marked features, none of the more characteristic of which are reproduced in the lai. But we have in the same vast compilation the account of another adventure of the same character, also ascribed to Lancelot, which does appear to be directly drawn from the Tristan story.

In Morien[39] we learn that Morien, Gawain, and Lancelot,[Pg 36] seeking for Perceval and Agloval, come to a hermit's cell at four cross-roads. They ask whither the roads lead, and learn that that on the right hand leads to a waste land devastated by the ravages of a devil in the form of a beast. Lancelot determines to brave the adventure and, in spite of the remonstrances of the hermit, chooses this road. The writer of the tale informs us (but it should be kept in mind that the hermit does not tell Lancelot) that the lady of the country has promised her hand to whoever will slay the monster. A knight who has long loved her, but is too cowardly to dare the venture, keeps a watch upon all those who may attack the beast, with the secret intention of, if possible, slaying the victor and taking the credit of the deed to himself. Lancelot arrives at the monster's lair, which is surrounded by the bones of men and animals slain by the fiend. No description of the creature is given, but it is quite clear from the incidental details that the writer conceived of it as a dragon; Lancelot's sword and spear can make no impression on its skin; its claws pierce through shield and hauberk and score deep wounds on the knight's body; it breathes forth venom, which would have slain Lancelot but for the ring he wore (no doubt the ring given him by the Lady of the Lake); finally, as it opens its jaws to devour him, the knight thrusts his spear down its throat and pierces the heart. The monster utters a loud cry, which is heard over two miles off, and expires. The traitor knight, hearing the cry, knows that the monster is slain and rides to the spot. Lancelot is binding up his wounds; the traitor approaches, making feint to aid him, deals him a treacherous blow and leaves him for dead; then he cuts off the foot and is riding away when Gawain appears upon the scene and[Pg 37] challenges him. Lancelot recovers from his swoon in time to bid Gawain slay the traitor, which he does. Before Lancelot can recover from his wounds news comes that the King of Ireland has invaded Arthur's kingdom, and is besieging the queen in one of her castles. Lancelot and Gawain go at once to her aid, and nothing is heard of the lady whose hand was to have been the reward of the venture. But, as I have noted above, there is no sign that Lancelot knew anything of the promised guerdon; his conduct is therefore more intelligible and less unchivalrous than in the lai.

The special points of contact with the Tristan story are these: (a) The nature of the animal, which is undoubtedly in both cases a dragon. (b) The hero undertakes the adventure unsolicited. Tristan lands in Ireland, hears of the dragon's ravages and goes off secretly to slay it. He has no thought of winning Iseult for himself. In both versions of the lai the lady herself invites the adventure. (c) The character of the traitor: in both Tristan and Morien he is represented as being too cowardly to dare the feat himself but as watching his opportunity to rob a brave man of the fruit of his valour. In the lai variants 'opportunity makes the traitor'; in these two versions the traitor is on the watch for his opportunity. (d) In both cases he is attracted to the spot by the death-cry of the monster. The appearance of Gawain, on the other hand, the death of the traitor, and the fact that it is the foot and not, as it should be, the head, which is cut off, clearly show the influence of the lai.

The ending is, of course, unsatisfactory, and it is curious that the writer, who in the details noted above clearly shows a knowledge of the excellent and complete version[Pg 38] of the Tristan legend, should not have finished his story more in accordance with that tale. It is not impossible that the original adventure as contained in the Morien poem was the stag adventure, and that the compiler of the Dutch Lancelot, who evidently possessed an extensive collection of Arthurian documents, knowing that he was going to relate the story later on, purposely altered the earlier portion more in accordance with the dragon adventure of the Tristan tale, retaining the later portion for the sake of the rôle played by Gawain, who is one of his heroes, and who, it is scarcely necessary to say, does not appear in the Tristan legend. Unfortunately we have no other version of the Morien save that of the Dutch Lancelot, so the question must remain undetermined; all we can say with certainty is that the adventure as there related is combined from two distinct variants of the same original motif.

An interesting feature of the Morien story is that it shows the Lancelot legend influenced by the Tristan at a point practically unconnected with the central motif of that story, the loves of Tristan and Iseult.

The story of the cerf au pied blanc as attributed to Lancelot does not appear to have obtained any popularity. In no variant of the prose Lancelot is it related, or even alluded to; the version preserved by the Dutch compiler is, so far, the only one that has been discovered. But existing as it does, it clearly points to a date at which the Lancelot story was still told in isolated lais, and before the introduction into the legend of his love for Guinevere. Once fixed as Guinevere's lover, we can understand how the tale dropped out of the completed legend: alter the ending as they might the obstinate fact would remain[Pg 39] that Lancelot voluntarily undertook an adventure the successful achievement of which would necessitate him becoming the husband of a stranger maiden; it was an impasse from which he could only escape at the cost of an insult to one or the other queen, and very wisely the compilers of his legend ignored the story.

It also seems probable that the original character of the tale itself was not properly understood by its compilers: an evidence, if evidence were really needed, of the extreme antiquity and, if I may use the word, 'unlocalised' character of the elements which went to compose the Arthurian cycle.

[Pg 40]

LE CHEVALIER DE LA CHARRETTE

With the poem, the title of which heads this chapter, we reach a fresh stage in the Lancelot tradition, and one which, though it has already been the subject of acute and scholarly discussion, still presents many points of difficulty.[40]

The story related in the poem is so well known, and the poem itself so accessible, that it is unnecessary to do more than summarise the leading features. It is, as we all know, the story of Guinevere's abduction by Meleagant, and her rescue by Sir Lancelot.

A knight (Meleagant) appears at Arthur's court, and boasts of the Breton subjects he holds in captivity. Arthur can free them if he will commit Guinevere to the care of a knight who will fight a single combat with him; if he (Meleagant) be defeated, all the prisoners shall be freed; if he be victor, Guinevere, too, is his captive. Kay, by[Pg 41] demanding from Arthur a boon, the nature of which is unspecified, and which the king grants before hearing, obtains permission to escort the queen. Gawain follows, meets Kay's horse, riderless and covered with blood, and is then confronted by an unnamed knight (Lancelot), who begs the loan of a steed. Gawain gives him his, and follows on a spare steed as quickly as possible, only to find traces of a sanguinary conflict, and his own horse slain. He overtakes Lancelot, who, meeting a dwarf driving a cart, mounts after a momentary hesitation, and the two continue the pursuit together. Meleagant's land (or rather that of his father Baudemagus) is surrounded by deep water, crossed by two bridges, one of a sword-blade, the other under the water. Lancelot chooses the first, crosses in safety, fights with Meleagant, and frees Guinevere, who, however, receives him coldly, being offended at his momentary hesitation before mounting the cart. Lancelot, in despair, tries to commit suicide; Guinevere, hearing a rumour of his death, is overwhelmed with grief, and on his next appearance receives him with the greatest favour. They pass the night together, Lancelot gaining access to the queen's chamber by means of a heavily barred window, and severely wounding his hands in wrenching asunder the bars. The traces of blood on the bed-clothes cause the queen to be accused of a liaison with Kay, who, severely wounded, is sleeping in the ante-chamber. Lancelot undertakes to prove Guinevere's innocence by a combat with Meleagant, which shall take place at Arthur's court; but, having set out to seek Gawain, is treacherously decoyed into prison by his foe. Meleagant, by means of forged letters, persuades the queen that Lancelot has returned to court, whither Guinevere repairs, escorted by Gawain, who has mean[Pg 42]while arrived on the scene. Lancelot, who has been released on parole by his jailor's wife, to attend a tourney, is subsequently walled up in a tower by Meleagant, from which prison he is released by his rival's sister, and reaching court at the last moment, overcomes and slays Meleagant.[41]

The capital importance of this poem lies in the fact that here, for the first time, so far as our present knowledge goes, we meet with those relations between Lancelot and the queen which form so important a part of the completed Arthurian legend. Are these relations, then, an invention of Chrétien, or were they already familiar to the public for whom he wrote? Here I shall only treat this question incidentally, deferring a full study of the point to a subsequent chapter; the questions which mainly concern us relate rather to the nature (a) of the story itself, (b) of Chrétien's share in its development.

In the introductory lines we learn that the poem was written at the instance of the Countess Marie de Champagne, who supplied 'Matiere et san.' I take this to mean that she only supplied a verbal outline of the story, and left it to Chrétien to fill in details. Thus, as regards source, Chrétien stands in a different position in this poem than in his other romances. In every other instance he had either in livre or conte[42] (which latter I take to be the recital of a professional story-teller) a fixed source from which he drew his tale.

[Pg 43]

The internal evidence agrees with these indications: the Charrette is far inferior to Chrétien's other work; the construction is feeble in the extreme, and bristles with contradictions and obscurities. Why, for instance, does Meleagant suggest that Guinevere shall be put in charge of a knight and follow him? Why not challenge a single combat at the court, where there would be a public to see that the rules of such combat were observed? It may be that the original scene of abduction was a wood, and this is an awkward attempt to combine a later version, i.e. Arthur's court, with a primitive feature; but in any case it starts the story on wrong lines. Gawain (who is also mounted) follows directly on Lancelot's track, but before he comes up with him there has been time for a fierce conflict to take place. These conflicts with a valiant knight do not as a rule terminate so quickly, even though the odds be unequal! Gawain, who of course knows Lancelot well, apparently fails to recognise him, even when he unhelms for supper. The maiden of the castle warns them against sleeping in a certain bed; whoever does so will scarce escape with his life. Lancelot braves the adventure, but the next morning when he is found safe and well, the lady expresses no surprise. We are told that the maiden whom Lancelot frees from the knight at the ford knows him and is afraid he will know her, but no explanation of this is vouchsafed, and her identity is not revealed. We are expressly told that the kingdom of Gorres is surrounded by a water which none may pass, but before Lancelot even arrives at the water and bridge he is in the kingdom of Gorres, peopled by captive Bretons. No explanation is given of how Guinevere knew of Lancelot's hesitation to mount the cart; there was no[Pg 44] witness but the dwarf, and if he noted so momentary an indecision he must have had a curiously keen appreciation of the rules of Minne; and how did he come to see Guinevere? But perhaps it was a case of telepathy. In the same manner Kay becomes mysteriously aware of what has passed between Lancelot and the queen. And these instances might be indefinitely multiplied. Chrétien's Lancelot is scarcely less incoherent than Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's; and we begin to wonder if there were not some inherent weakness in the legend itself, which rendered it impossible for any one to give an intelligible account of the hero's proceedings.[43]

I think it is clear that the decided inferiority of the Charrette as compared with Chrétien's other poems is due to the deficiencies of his source. He was left in the lurch, and his genius was not of a nature to extricate him from his difficulties. When he had before him a story the form of which was already practically fixed, and which required polishing rather than rearrangement, Chrétien could put it into charming language, and make a finished and artistic piece of work out of a simple original. I should express the charm of his work as being that he clad the folk-tale in the garments of the court, and taught it to move easily in its foreign trappings. But when his materials were scanty, and he was called upon to supplement them from his own imagination, he was unequal to the task; and[Pg 45] he was artist enough to know it, and to leave unfinished a work which did him little credit, while he turned to one the nature of which precisely suited his special talent. It is not, I think, without significance that the best of Chrétien's poems follows immediately on his worst. He had a reputation to retrieve, and he did it gallantly in the Yvain.

Nor is Chrétien really successful in depicting lovers as lovers: they are little more than lay figures; they talk at great length, and indulge in analysis of their feelings, expressed in the most graceful and ingenious language; but one

is worth all Chrétien ever wrote on the subject; the breath of the god is not in it. Yet, so far as the Charrette goes, this is scarcely to be laid to his blame. Nowhere, save perhaps in one chapter of Malory, is there the least ring of reality in the loves of Lancelot and Guinevere. They go through all the prescribed gestures of their rôle with admirable precision. Guinevere is by turns gracious, disdainful, frantically jealous, and repentant of her jealousy; Lancelot is courteous, humble, despairing, hopeful: their relation to each other is all that Minne dienst can require between a knight and his lady, but nowhere in the whole wearily drawn-out story does the real, pent-up human feeling break through. We can never imagine these two taking one another by the hand and wandering off into the wilderness, content, and more than content, with each other's presence. The story of Lancelot and Guinevere is artificial, not natural; it demands the setting of the court, not of the woodlands. Only in the passage where[Pg 46] Malory describes their parting do they, for a moment, become real; and the effect produced is probably due to the simplicity of the old knight's language, and the virile force of the English tongue.

Nor do I think that these relations are due to Chrétien. He treats them as an already established fact, well known to his readers, and needing no explanation. Certain episodes of the poem, the finding of the comb, the testing of the knight's fidelity to the queen by the lady in whose castle he passes the night, presuppose a state of things generally familiar. Every one knows who Lancelot is; every one will know why he, and no other knight, shall rescue the queen.

That there was a previous story of Guinevere's rescue from imprisonment under analogous circumstances is quite clear: the references found in the Arthurian romance are too numerous, and too archaic in form to be derived from a poem so late in date, so artificial in character, and so restricted in popularity as the Charrette. Of this story we have at least three distinct accounts: (a) that given by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, where the 'other-world' character of the imprisonment is strongly marked, but the rescue is the work of an enchanter, and not of Arthur or any of his knights; (b) that given in the Vita Gildæ, when the abductor is Melwas, king of Æstiva Regis (Somerset), the place of imprisonment Glastonbury, and there is again no special rescuer, Arthur marches at the head of his armies to her relief, but it is the intervention of St. Gildas and the Abbot of Glastonbury which brings about the desired result; (c) the account given in the poem under discussion.[44]

[Pg 47]

Of these three variants the version of the Lanzelet stands by itself; it represents the 'other-world' under an entirely different, and probably more primitive, aspect, and makes no effort at localisation.[45] The other two variants fall together, Melwas, the king of Æstiva Regis, which is admittedly Somerset=Meleagant of Gorres, whose chief city is Bade=Bath, also in Somerset. These later versions have been localised, and I think it is clear that the localisation took place on English soil, i.e. it is an insular and not a continental variant.

Now, from the very nature of the story it is clear that in its earliest forms it would not be attributed to any special locality, and therein the Lanzelet version again appears to be the elder; further, the variants must have arisen at a time when it was clearly understood that, however they might apparently differ, Valerîn's thorn-girt dwelling and Meleagant's water-circled castle meant one and the same thing, i.e. that both were recognised methods of describing the 'other-world.' In this connection it is instructive to recall the versions of Brynhild's wooing by Siegfried; her residence is universally admitted to be an 'other-world' dwelling, and we find it depicted under forms closely corresponding with the variants of the Guinevere story;[Pg 48] e.g. Waberlohe (Volsunga saga)=Valerîn's hedged magic slumber; Castle surrounded by water (Thidrek saga)=Meleagant's stronghold; Glasberg (Folk-songs)=Glastonbury. The parallelism is significant.[46]

It is quite clear, I think, that such a story can be in no way ascribed to the invention of a poet living towards the end of the twelfth century, but must be of very much earlier date. Chrétien was dealing with a late variant of a primitive and very widely known theme. But could this variant, which, as seems probable, only reached him through the medium of a tale related by the Countess Marie of Champagne, have come from England, to which country the localisation of Glastonbury, Somersetshire, and Bath point? It is quite possible. We must remember who Marie de Champagne was: she was a princess of France, the daughter of King Louis VII. and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who, on her divorce from the French king, married Henry of Normandy, afterwards Henry II. of England. That is, at the time Chrétien wrote, the mother of his protectress was Queen of England and wedded to a sovereign who took a keen and personal interest in all that concerned King Arthur. The possibility of transmission is as clear as daylight; the question of course is, Would Marie be inclined to take advantage of it? The relations between her father and his divorced wife were certainly curious, as Louis made no objection to the marriage of the eldest son of Henry and Eleanor with his daughter by his second marriage, but whether there was intercourse between mother and daughter I have not been able to discover. But the question ought to be easily solved by some historical[Pg 49] specialist who has made a study of that period. The point is interesting and important, and it is to be hoped some one will clear it up for us.

A question of secondary interest is whether Chrétien's poem is the source of contemporary and later allusions to the story. Of such allusions, or rather versions, we have two of special importance, that contained in Malory's compilation, and that given by Hartmann von Aue, in his Iwein. With regard to the former, I can only say that though I am in a position to offer new and important evidence with regard to the manuscript Malory used, and his method of composition, yet that evidence leaves the Charrette question unsolved. Of direct evidence there is none; the indirect and inferential evidence tends to show that Malory's source was not the poem of Chrétien de Troyes. The two points on which we can be certain are, (a) that Malory did not know the earlier part of the prose Lancelot at all, that his manuscript began at a point subsequent to the Charrette adventure; and (b) that he does not invent adventures, and but rarely details. Dr. Sommer's conclusions, as set forth in his Study on the Sources of Malory, are founded on very insufficient premises, and will need to be thoroughly revised to bring them into accordance with our present knowledge. This question I shall discuss fully in a later section. The Iwein version is of great importance, and though I have previously referred to it,[47] yet in the light of Professor Foerster's strongly repeated assertion that Hartmann knew no other version of the story than that given by Chrétien, I think it is worth while going over the evidence again.

[Pg 50]

It must be remembered that Hartmann's Iwein is a translation of Chrétien's Chevalier au Lion, and though rather more diffuse, follows its source closely. In the French poem which, as we have noted above, immediately succeeded the Charrette, Chrétien deftly introduces more than one allusion to Guinevere's abduction. He says that Guinevere has been carried off by a knight d'estrange terre, who went to the court to demand her; but he would not have succeeded in carrying her off had it not been for Kay, who deceived or deluded (anbricona) the king into putting the queen in his charge (ll. 3916-39). In another place, he says that the king, 'Fist que fors del san Quant aprés lui l'an anvoia. Je cuit que keus la convoia Jusqu'au chevalier qui l'an mainne' (ll. 3706-11). Now, let us suppose that, as Professor Foerster insists, Hartmann had not read the Charrette and knew no other version of the story, what would he, who knew French well, and translates without blunders and confusion, understand by this? We must note particularly what Chrétien tells and what he omits. He distinctly says that the knight came to the court and demanded the queen (the real version of the poem is less blunt, as we have seen); that Arthur, deluded, put the queen in Kay's charge to lead her to the knight, and that they followed him. He does not say that the whole catastrophe came about through Arthur's granting a boon before he knew in what it consisted; he implies that the folly lay in Arthur's sending the queen after the knight, not in the circumstances which forced him to do so.

Now what does Hartmann say? In his version a knight appeared before Arthur and demanded a boon, the nature of which he refused to specify beforehand.[Pg 51] Arthur granted it. It was that he should carry off the queen. This he did. The knights armed and followed. Kay was the first to overtake him, and was struck from his horse with such violence that his helmet caught in a tree and he hung suspended. He was not carried off captive. One after another all the knights are vanquished, and the queen carried off. Gawain is not at court; he returns the next day, and goes in search of the queen. Lancelot is not mentioned throughout; and the inference is that Gawain frees her.

What is specially noticeable in this account is that Hartmann agrees with Chrétien in the very feature which the French poet does not specify, i.e. the cause of the queen's abduction—a boon rashly granted, though he transfers the asking from Kay to the knight; while he differs from Chrétien in the feature which he does specify, i.e. that Kay takes Guinevere after the knight. Further, he adds details which would clear up some of the inconsistencies in Chrétien's own account: i.e. if Gawain were not present at the time, and all the knights followed one after the other and were defeated by Meleagant, we can quite understand that when Gawain returned the next day and followed on the trail, he would find traces of the severe and bloody conflict for which Chrétien's version leaves no room. On the face of it, Hartmann's version is much the more logical and coherent of the two. I have remarked above on the extreme awkwardness of the action at the outset of the story; that Meleagant should carry off Guinevere by a ruse similar to that employed by Gandîn in the Tristan poems is far more in accordance with mediæval tradition. If Hartmann's divergence is a mere 'invention,' he not only deserves praise for his sagacious skill in con[Pg 52]structing a story,[48] but excites admiration for the acuteness which enabled him to detect the leading motif of the adventure to which his source afforded absolutely no clue.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's references to the Charrette adventure are curious; at first sight it seems certain that he is referring to Chrétien's poem, but on closer examination the matter is not so clear. Thus he says that Lancelot crossed the sword-bridge, fought with Meljakanz (Meleagant), and freed Guinevere—all of which agree with Chrétien.[49] But, on the other hand, he mentions Kay's suspension on the tree (Hartmann's version), and does not know that Meleagant was slain by Lancelot, or that the captive Bretons were freed by his coming—both Meleagant and the Breton knights are fighting at the tournament of Beaurösch.[50] Indeed, Wolfram appears to know far more of these latter than can be gathered from Chrétien's poem. Of course, we cannot here say whether these references are due to Wolfram or to his source, which, as recent research has clearly shown, was certainly the work of a man of varied and extensive learning.[51] Nor is it at all clear that Wolfram knew Lancelot as Guinevere's lover;[Pg 53] he simply says that her imprisonment grieved him 'im was gevancnisse leit, die frou Ginòvêr dolte,' which might be postulated of any loyal servant of Arthur's. Again when, at the beginning of Book xii., the poet recites Gawain's love-sorrows, he compares his pains first to those suffered by various heroes in the achievement of knightly deeds in general, and then rehearses the parallel cases of sundry lovers. In the first list Lancelot and the sword-bridge appear in company with Iwein and the fountain, and Erec and the 'Schoie de la kurt' adventure, neither of which were undertaken for the sake of love (why Garel slew the lion and fetched the knife, we do not know), but among the lovers he and Guinevere are not mentioned.

Taking into consideration the fact that the story is, by its very nature, far older than any literary form we possess; that there was certainly in existence one version at least other than Chrétien's (proved by the Lanzelet); and that Chrétien's source was avowedly an informal one, I do not think it impossible that in the poems of Hartmann and Wolfram we have references to the original form of the story of which Chrétien had only an incomplete knowledge. Hartmann's version is certainly not drawn from the Charrette; in Wolfram's case we can only give the verdict 'not proven.'

In the whole investigation I think we can only consider two points as satisfactorily settled: the original character of the story, and the fact that Lancelot was not at first the hero of the adventure.

[Pg 54]

THE POSITION OF CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES IN THE ARTHURIAN CYCLE

At the stage which we have now reached in our examination of the Lancelot legend, it is, I think, imperative to form a clear idea of the position which, in the great body of Arthurian literature, shall be assigned to the author of the romance we have last studied. On the question of the literary excellence of Chrétien's handling of his material all are more or less agreed, but the problem of his relation to his sources, the question whence he drew the stories he told with such inimitable grace and felicity, is one which has long provoked a lively interchange of argument. The romances of Chrétien de Troyes form one of the chosen battlegrounds of widely differing schools of Arthurian criticism.

Inasmuch as during the varying fortunes of a long-continued conflict the elementary principles underlying the views respectively advocated have a tendency to become obscured, and gradually misunderstood, it is well that from time to time they should be clearly and formally re-stated, in the light of such knowledge as recent investigation may have cast upon them. We are then in a better position to judge whether they retain, unimpaired, the[Pg 55] force and cogency their adherents have ascribed to them. Professor Foerster has apparently felt this necessity, and, impelled by it, has, in the introduction to his edition of the Charrette, given to the world what he evidently intends us to regard as his matured and final conclusion on the question of the source of Arthurian dramatic tradition.

Doubtless a similar statement from some leading scholar among the many who hold views differing from Professor Foerster will be forthcoming; in the meantime the present study appears to me to offer an excellent opportunity for the re-statement of certain principles, and the reiteration of certain facts, which cannot safely be left out of consideration in such a study, and which Professor Foerster's argument practically ignores.

To understand the position of Chrétien de Troyes to his sources, whatever they may have been, we must, in the first place, have possessed ourselves of the answer to two leading questions. (a) What is the nature of the Arthurian tradition itself? (b) What was the popular form assumed by that tradition at the time Chrétien wrote? These are the main points, but they, of course, involve subsidiary issues.

Generally speaking, the tendency of the school represented by Professor Foerster is to regard the Arthurian tradition as divided into two branches, historic and romantic. The former branch being primarily represented by the Historia of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the popularity of which practically introduced Arthur to the literary world, and secondarily by certain passages in the earlier prose romances. This branch contains features of insular origin, reminiscences of the historic Arthur and his fights[Pg 56] with the Saxons; but the second and far more important branch, the romantic, is of purely continental origin. Arthur, as a romantic hero, is the product of Breton tradition and folk-lore; Armorica, and not Wales, is the cradle of Arthurian (romantic) legend; and it was Geoffrey's Historia which gave the requisite impulse to the formation of this tradition.

So much for theory, what now are the facts?

Without in any way minimising the popularity and influence of Geoffrey's work, either in its original form or in the translation of Wace, it is quite clear (a) that it did not represent all the historic tradition current concerning Arthur; (b) that his popularity was of considerably earlier date. A comparison with the Brut of Layamon[52] will prove the first point; for the second, we have already noted Professor Rajna's discovery of Arthurian names in Italian documents as proving that such names must have been popular in Italy at the end of the eleventh century. Further, from the testimony of the bas-relief at Modena we see that the traditions associated with the British king were not purely historic, but that he and his knights were already the heroes of tales which have not descended to us. We cannot, therefore, fix with any approach to certainty the date at which Arthur became a romantic hero, but evidence points to a period anterior to that generally admitted.

Then ought we not to distinguish between romantic and mythic? Professor Foerster's arguments appear to me to[Pg 57] ignore Arthur as a mythic hero. Romance and myth are not the same thing; though their final developments are apt to overlap, their root origins are distinctly different.

The mythic element in Arthurian legend cannot be ignored—in fact, it is practically admitted; but some scholars appear to lose sight of its character. Yet if that character be rightly apprehended it will, I think, be recognised that the distinguishing features are not due to any demonstrable Armorican element; that the connection of Arthur with Celtic myth must have taken place on insular rather than on continental ground. Thus while Arthur may, or may not, represent the Mercurius Artusius of the Gauls, it is not possible to deny that he, and at least one of his knights, Gawain, stand in very close relation to early Irish mythic tradition. The persistence of Irish elements in the Arthurian story is not a theory but an established fact. Where would these stories, Arthurian and Irish, be most likely to meet and mingle, in Great Britain, or in Armorica? The first is a priori the more probable; not only is the distance less, but we know that during the centuries between the life of the historic Arthur and the appearance of Arthurian story a constant interchange of population went on between Ireland and the northern parts of the British Isles. The conclusion at which we should naturally arrive would be that stories in which the Celtic element was presented under a form identical with early Irish tradition would reach Brittany viâ Great Britain, and would not be of Armorican origin.

And this conclusion is strongly supported by the facts. We have two remarkable stories told of Gawain, both of which find striking parallels in early Irish legend, both are excellently preserved in insular versions, neither[Pg 58] is adequately represented by any known continental text. I allude of course to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Marriage of Sir Gawain.[53]

Of the first the existing French versions are, one and all, poor; immensely inferior to the English poem, and showing in certain cases, notably in Perceval li Gallois, a manifest lack of comprehension of the story. The German version, Diu Krône, is preferable to any of the French, but in no case is the story so well and fully told as in the English poem, which cannot possibly be derived from any known continental source. Of the main point of the second story, the wedding of a young knight to a 'Loathly Lady,' the French poems have no trace, though some seem to have retained a confused remembrance of the transformation of a hideous hag into a maiden of surpassing beauty. Mr. Maynadier, in his study of all the known variants, pronounces unhesitatingly for the direct dependence of the English upon the Irish tradition.[54]

In the first story, the Green Knight, the original hero of the beheading challenge, is Cuchulinn, who, if he does not himself represent a god, is certainly the son of a god. In the second the lady is 'the sovereignty,' and through granting her request the hero obtains the sovereignty of Ireland.

[Pg 59]

Both are thus distinctly mythical in character; and though the English versions, as we now possess them, are of comparatively late date, in neither case can the Irish version be later than the eleventh century, while the internal evidence points a period anterior to the introduction of Christianity.

Let us take another instance, the story of Guinevere's abduction and rescue. Of purely mythical origin, the story was at first unlocalised, but when localised it is on insular and not on continental ground. To say, as Professor Foerster does,[55] that the mention of Bath is no proof of an insular source simply shows that the writer has not grasped the real facts of the case. The mention of Bath does not cover the whole ground, it must be taken in connection with Æstiva Regis (Somerset) and Glastonbury. The latter is, if I mistake not, the real point of identification. A confusion between Glastonbury, Avalon, and the abode of the departed had taken place previous to William of Malmesbury: the exact date cannot be ascertained, but M. Ferd. Lot considers the author of the identification to have been an Irish monk writing in the tenth century. In a subsequent note M. Lot further identified Melwas=Meleagant, whom all scholars admit to be a king of the other-world, with the Irish 'king of the dead,' Tigern-Mas, of which name he considers Mael-was to be the Welsh translation.[56]

Now it seems to me quite obvious that the connection of the king of the other-world with the place looked upon as the special dwelling of the departed must have preceded[Pg 60] his being considered as lord also of the surrounding lands, i.e. Tigern-Mas=Maelwas must have been connected with Glastonbury=Avalon before he was thought of in connection with Bath and Æstiva Regis. It is most probable that such a connection would take place on insular not on continental ground, and as a matter of fact the only text which connects Melwas with Glastonbury, the Vita Gildæ, is an insular text, as is that which connects Glastonbury with Avalon. Here, too, again, if M. Lot be right, we find Irish influence at work.

It is probable that we may be able to add to this list the story of Arthur's fight with the demon cat. The story is certainly told in a continental text (Merlin), and located on continental ground, but the identification of the monster with the Cath Palug of Welsh tradition and that again with the mysterious Chapalu of French romance depends on insular evidence.[57]

In his notice of Herr Freymond's monograph[58] M. Gaston Paris suggests that the source will be found to be 'un trait sans doute fort ancien, de mythologie celtique, que Gaufrei de Monmouth n'a pas accueilli'; while M. Loth, in a note appended to this critique, remarks that the original vanquisher of the cat was certainly not Arthur but Kay. The localisation of the story in Savoy, Herr Freymond considers to have been due to the narration of pilgrims, and discusses the relations of the houses of Savoy and Flanders with our Anglo-Norman kings.

Here then we have a group of stories, possessing a distinctive (Celto-mythic) character, all of which are either[Pg 61] better preserved, solely retained, or originally localised in these islands; i.e. the evidence of facts is here in favour of an insular rather than a continental origin. Nor do I think we shall be wrong if we ascribe a decided importance to the fact that the tales told in these islands appear to have been of a mythic rather than of a romantic character.

Granting then, that at Chrétien's time, and long previous, there was current a body of tradition, historic, mythic, romantic, dealing with the British king, how was it handed down, and in what shape did he find it? Of course it will generally be admitted that for a long time the transmission of such stories would be entirely—in Chrétien's days it would still be partially—oral.[59] But in saying this we must have a clear idea of what, in the case of traditional stories, oral transmission implies. It does not mean a game of 'Russian scandal,' where the point is to see how much a story told from mouth to mouth can be made to vary from its original form in the process; professional story-tellers were, and are, more conservative than story-writers. The tales crystallise into certain formulæ of incident and expression which survive often after the real signification has been forgotten.[60]

In the words of a recognised authority on folk-lore: 'Among many peoples the ipsissima verba of traditional tales are insisted upon; the form, and even the details of the form, are often as much a part of the tradition as the[Pg 62] substance of the tale.'[61] Therefore when we find two stories of marked traditional and folk-lore character agreeing with each other in sequence of incident, detail, and even words, we do not necessarily conclude that the versions are connected by borrowing: they may be, but it is at least equally possible that they represent independent versions of the same oral original.

This is, of course, well understood by the folk-lore student; but unfortunately it is too often ignored by the literary critic, who is too prone to devote attention to the literary form, while he ignores the essential character of the story. Yet in solving the problem of sources it is this latter which is the determining factor.

In examining into the sources of Chrétien de Troyes it is well to remember that it is easy to exaggerate the necessity for a literary source; it is difficult to exaggerate the conservative tendencies of a professional story-teller of that date.

But besides the Arthurian legend proper, there was also current in Chrétien's time a great mass of popular folk-lore, which, certainly on the Continent, probably also on our island,[62] was told, or rather sung, in the form of mythical tales or lais. These lais, in the first instance in the Breton tongue, and independent of the Arthurian cycle, were later translated into French eight-syllabic verse, and largely Arthurised—if I may use the word.

The process in vogue appears to have consisted of two stages: in the first, the king at whose court the events took place (himself generally anonymous) was identified with Arthur; in the second stage, the original hero was replaced by one of Arthur's knights. Among the speci[Pg 63]mens which have been preserved we have examples of all the stages: lais entirely independent of Arthur; lais, the scene of which is laid at Arthur's court; lais in which the hero is one of Arthur's knights; but one and all are in the same metre, that of Chrétien's poems. Of an intermediate French form we have no trace.

The lai of Tyolet, to which we have previously referred, is an excellent example of this gradual 'Arthurisation.' As we have it, the court at which the events take place is that of Arthur, the loyal friend of the hero is Gawain, but nowhere else do we meet with Tyolet as one of Arthur's knights: the inference is that we have here a lai in the first stage of assimilation. The lai consists of two parts; the latter half, the stag adventure, is found in a separate form, but here the hero is one of Arthur's most famous knights, Lancelot—the process of assimilation is complete.

The first part of the lai has many features which recall the more famous 'Perceval' Enfances. That Tyolet is anterior to the evolution of the Lancelot story we have shown above[63]; the probability is that it is also anterior to the great popularity of the Perceval story. When Perceval was once universally recognised as the son of the widowed lady of the forest, there would be little probability of the tale being told of a hero practically unknown to Arthurian story. His adventures taken over by more famous knights, Tyolet disappeared from the roll of heroes.

Again, among the lais we have an important group dealing with the main idea of a knight beloved by the wife of his lord, rejecting her advances, incurring her displeasure, and finally departing to fairyland with a fairy bride. Of this story we have three important[Pg 64] variants, agreeing in their main features but differing in detail: the lais of Graalent, Guingamor, and Lanval. Of these three, the scene of the two first is laid at the court of an anonymous king; the action of the third, translated by a contemporary of Chrétien, passes at the court of Arthur. But, though the lai of Guingamor has only reached us in its earlier and independent form, Chrétien himself refers to it in an Arthurised version. He brings Guingamor to Arthur's court, and says of him,

M. Ferd. Lot[64] suggests that the identification is probably due to Chrétien himself, but if we examine the passage closely I do not think we shall find it to be so. It occurs in a list of knights who visit Arthur's court for the marriage of Erec. The passage immediately preceding deals with a certain Maheloas of l'Ile de Voirre.[65] He then names[Pg 65] two brothers, Graislemier de Fine Posterne and Guingamor. The first named is generally identified as Graalent-Mor, the hero of the lai to which I have referred above.

The fact that Chrétien makes the two knights brothers clearly indicates that he knew the close kinship existing between their stories; but why, if dealing with a free hand, he should have made Guingamor, and not Graalent, the lord of Avalon it is difficult to say. If free to choose we should have expected the latter; the lai of Graalent stands in far closer connection with that of Lanval (being a variant of the same story) than with that of Guingamor; and Lanval weds the mistress of Avalon. Or, since both were brothers, both might have been represented as dwelling in that mystic island which had not one queen alone as its denizen but nine. The real explanation alike of the connection and the separation of the two knights appears to me to be that Chrétien knew the one lai, and not the other, in an Arthurised form.

Certainly it seems more probable that the gradual assimilation by the lais of an Arthurian character would, so far as the Continent is concerned, take place on Breton rather than on French grounds. They are originally Breton lais; Arthur is a Breton,[66] not a French, hero; where would Breton folk-lore and Breton traditionary romance be more likely to coalesce than in the home of both? I do not myself believe that such coalition was the work either of Marie de France or Chrétien de Troyes.

In any case it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that when Chrétien wrote his first Arthurian poem there was[Pg 66] already afloat a vast body of popular folk-lore connected with the Arthurian legend, and existing under the form of short poems in rhymed, eight-syllabic verse, the same metre, in fact, as that adopted by Chrétien himself. It is also certain that he knew these lais; highly probable that he knew some of them, as his contemporary Marie de France did, in their Arthurised form. As we shall see presently, there is strong ground for the presumption that for the main incident of his most famous poem, Yvain, he was indebted to such a lai.

Now, without accepting the mechanical theory of Herr Brugger,[67] which would make the first Arthurian romances consist of continental lais automatically strung together, I certainly think that the lais played a more important part in the evolution of these romances than we generally realise. In a previous chapter[68] I have indicated what would probably be the method of procedure. The original lai would be expanded by the introduction of isolated adventures; other lais, which through demerit of style or music had failed to win popularity, would be drawn upon for incident, or incorporated bodily; one or more popular lais would be added, and the whole worked over and polished up into a complete and finished romance. At first the parts would hang but loosely together, and there would be a good deal of re-selection and discarding of incident before the work crystallised into shape, though the form of the original tale, which was the kernel of the subsequent romance, would not be likely to vary much.

The Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven is, as I suggested[Pg 67] above, an example of a romance arrested in development: the kernel of the whole can be detected, but the parts fit badly, and it has never been really worked up into shape. But, unless I am much mistaken, we have in the Welsh tale of The Lady of the Fountain a specimen of the same process at work, of capital importance for critical purposes, since we also possess the completed work, i.e. the Mabinogi has preserved Chrétien's Yvain in process of making. The adventures are practically identical, sequence and incident agree in the main, but in the Welsh version they are much more loosely connected, and there are significant breaks which seem to show where the successive redactions ended. If we follow the indications of the version we shall conclude that as first told the story ended with Yvain's achievement of the 'spring' adventure and his marriage with the lady. This would, I think, represent the original lai, which in its primitive form might well be unconnected with Arthur's court: the king was probably anonymous. The next step would be to Arthurise the story; Yvain must start from Arthur's court, and naturally the court must learn of his success: this was arranged by bringing Arthur and his knights to the spring where they are themselves witnesses, and victims, of Yvain's prowess. It is significant that in all the versions extant Yvain is influenced in his secret departure from court by the conviction that Gawain will demand the adventure of the spring, and thus forestall him; but in the Welsh variant alone is this forecast literally fulfilled and the undecided conflict between Yvain and Gawain fought at the spring. And here the Welsh version breaks again. This was evidently the end of the Arthurised lai, and the point where the conflict between the friends was originally placed. All the variants bear the trace of[Pg 68] this second redaction; the Welsh tale alone indicates clearly what was the primitive form. Yvain's transgression of his lady's command (probably first introduced for this purpose), a transgression much more serious in the Welsh, where he stays away for three years, than in the other versions, offered an elastic framework for the introduction of isolated adventures; finally, when the whole was worked over in romance form, his combat with King Arthur's invincible nephew was transferred to the end of the poem, where it formed an appropriate and fitting climax to his feats.

The theory suggested above is based upon certain recognised peculiarities in the evolution of the Breton lais; but the question whether we are justified in making such use of ascertained facts naturally depends upon whether the story related in the romance in question was in its origin one that we might expect to find related in a lai; if it were not, then, however rational the hypothesis may otherwise appear, we should regard it with suspicion as lacking solid foundation.

Granting then that a considerable share in the completion of Arthurian romantic tradition was due to the influence of lais originally independent of that tradition, that the process of fusion had already commenced when Chrétien wrote his poems, and that he was himself familiar with such lais, each of the above points having been already proved, our next step must be to examine the character of the stories related by Chrétien.

Two of the five works we possess (I do not count the Guillaume, which whether it be by Chrétien or not lies outside the scope of our inquiry) must at once be put on one side. Neither Cligés nor the Charrette story (in[Pg 69] the form Chrétien tells it) can be based upon lais. But the character of the three more famous poems, Erec, Yvain, and Perceval, is precisely that of a romance composed of traditional and folk-lore themes. In the case of Erec and Perceval this is partially admitted even by the most thoroughgoing advocate of Chrétien's originality, though Professor Foerster would limit the element to the Sparrow-hawk and Joie de la Court adventures in the first, and to Perceval's Enfances as representing a Dümmling folk-tale in the second.[69]

On this subject I shall have more to say later on; for the present I will confine my remarks to Yvain, on the construction of which Professor Foerster holds a theory, highly complicated in itself, and excluding, as a necessary consequence, any genuine folk-lore element.[70]

According to this view the main idea of the poem is borrowed from the story of The Widow of Ephesus, a tale of world-wide popularity, the oldest version of which appears to be Oriental (Grisebach considered it to be Chinese), and which in Latin form, as told first by Phædrus and then at greater length in the compilation of The Seven Sages of Rome, was well known in mediæval times.[71] With this is combined other elements: a Breton local tradition, classical stories (the Ring of Gyges and the Lion of Androcles), and other stories of unspecified origin.

On the face of it, this theory postulates a highly artificial source, and one calling for great powers of invention and combination; and when we examine it, we find the main[Pg 70] idea wholly inadequate to sustain the elaborate fabric reared upon it. I have carefully studied The Widow of Ephesus, both in earlier and later variants, and can only see the slightest possible resemblance to the Yvain story; true, in both a widow, overcome with grief for the loss of her husband, speedily forms a fresh attachment, but situation, details, motif, all are radically different. In every variant of the first story the lady's action is prompted by mere sensual caprice; in the second, it is the outcome of a sound instinct of self-preservation. True, Laudine does eventually fall in love with Yvain, but she contemplates marriage with him before she has ever beheld him, influenced by the advice of her servant, who paints in strong colours the defenceless condition of the land, and who is aware of Yvain's passion for her lady. In no variant of the earlier tale does the lady marry the slayer of her husband (a point, I believe, essential to the Yvain story). Indeed, in many her advances are rejected by the object of her passion; in all she is represented as refusing to leave the grave, and none are free from the repulsive details accompanying her new-fledged passion, though these are amplified in the later versions. In insisting on the fact that the lady's re-marriage (often entirely lacking in the earlier story), 'unter hässlichen unser Gefühl schwer verletzenden Bedingungen,' is the central point of both stories,[72] Professor Foerster overshoots his mark. The conduct of the Lady of Ephesus is certainly offensive in the highest degree, not so that of Laudine. For a woman, especially if she were an heiress, in mediæval times marriage was an absolute necessity. The true parallel to[Pg 71] Laudine is here not the widow of many wanderings, but the Duchess of Burgundy, in Girard de Viane, who, on the death of her husband, promptly appeals to Charlemagne. 'A quoi sert le deuil?—donnez-moi un autre mari. Donnez moi donc un mari qui soit bien puissant.'[73] Un mari bien puissant was a necessity of those days. The real truth is, that the situation was already in the story, and mediæval compilers explained it in accordance with the social conditions of the time, and the parallel situations in contemporary stories.

A minor objection to the theory is, that it would make, not the hero, but the lady, the real centre of the story, which is certainly not the case. But, as we shall see, the tale in its original form is far older than Chrétien, and could by no possibility have been invented at so late a date as Professor Foerster suggests.

Yvain, as one of Arthur's knights, is of a date considerably anterior to Chrétien. We find him in Wace's Brut, as a valiant hero, on whom Arthur, after the death of Aguisel, bestows the crown of Scotland.[74] Now, Professor Foerster himself states, and I think the great majority of scholars will fully agree with him, that neither Erec, Yvain, nor Perceval were originally Arthurian heroes, and undoubtedly their connection with Arthur's court was of the slightest. If their connection with Arthur marks a secondary stage in the story, and Yvain in the Brut is already an Arthurian knight, it is pretty obvious that the original tale connected with him, by virtue of which he was admitted into the magic circle of Arthurian romance, must be older[Pg 72] even than Wace; in other words, he must have been the hero of a popular adventure upwards of thirty years, at least, before Chrétien wrote his poem. And if that original story was not the fountain-story, what was it?

But if we look at the tale aright, I think we shall discover that its essential character is so archaic that it may well be as old as the most exacting criticism can require. What is it but the variant of a motif coeval with the earliest stages of human thought and religious practice—the tale of him 'who slew the slayer, and shall himself be slain'? The champion who must needs defend his charge single-handed against all comers, and whose victor must perforce take his place; and how old this tale may be, Mr. Frazer has taught us.[75]

This surmise is strengthened by the nature of the challenge; Yvain's pouring the water, which is followed by a storm, is a simple piece of sympathetic magic—of rain-making, and, as such, is practised even to-day by savages in different parts of the world. Such a story must, by its very nature, have been originally unlocalised, even as it cannot be dated; it could be postulated of any place, it might be practised everywhere—it belongs just as much, and just as little, to South Africa in the present day as to the wood of Broceliande in the twelfth century.

To treat such a story as a local tradition is a grave error. It may have recalled in its details certain stories told of the Fountain of Barenton, and, therefore, when transported to the Continent from Wales (to which country the earlier redaction certainly belongs), the continental story-tellers, finding the Fountain unlocalised, as it naturally was in the original tale, connected it with the Breton forest.[Pg 73] But it is obvious that such connection is purely arbitrary, and has no critical value. It is at variance with all the geography of the story, which is located in Wales or on the Welsh border; and neither the compiler of the Welsh version nor the English translator of Chrétien's poem admit it, but adhere to the earlier and unlocalised form.

I may here quote a remark of the distinguished folk-lore authority to whom I have previously referred. Mr. E. S. Hartland says: 'The rain-making incident has always seemed to me a very good evidence of the traditional origin of the (Yvain) story. At all events it is an incident very closely connected with savage magic.'

I do not suppose it would very much astonish any competent student of these questions if some missionary in Africa, or traveller in the South Sea Islands, was to publish a savage variant of our romance: the substitution of the slayer for the slain, and the practice of rain-making by the pouring out of water, are customs alive in certain parts of the world to this day. But what would Professor Foerster say? Would he still maintain that his 'Meister' invented the story, and credit the savage folk, whoever they might be, with the remains of a vanished civilisation and literary culture?

I think it also highly probable that in the Balaan and Balaain story, and in Meraugis de Portlesguez, we have variants of the same theme. In each of these cases the hero must take the place of the champion he defeats, and hold the post till in his turn he be defeated and slain; while at the same time he succeeds to his predecessor's relations with the lady of the castle, whose ami he becomes.[76][Pg 74] It will be observed that Herr Ahlström's suggestion that the lady may originally have been a fairy—a suggestion contemptuously scouted by Professor Foerster[77]—might be accepted without any detriment to the original signification of the story, whereas Professor Foerster's theory excludes any possible archaic origin, and is demonstrably out of harmony with the very primitive rain-making incident.

It is obvious that such a tale as I have indicated above, belonging as it does to the family of folk-lore and traditional tales, is precisely the kind of story that might be related in a lai; and this was, I believe, its original form. It is significant that Chrétien records the fact that there was a lai more or less closely connected with the lady who became Yvain's wife; and, according to the reading of one MS., that connection was very close indeed, being nothing less than the relation of how Yvain won her to wife.

I print here the reading to which I refer, together with that of Professor Foerster's edition:—

MS. 12560, Bib. Nat. (Anç. fr. 210), fol. 14, recto 2nd col.

Professor Foerster's critical edition.

[Pg 75]

(Translation.)

It will be observed that, grammatically, the phrase 'don an note un lai' may refer to the wedding quite as well as to the supposed Laudunet, while in no other passage in the entire poem is the lady's name or that of her father mentioned.

The MS. which offers the interesting variant quoted above is, Professor Foerster tells us, in the dialect of Champagne (Chrétien was a Champenois) of the thirteenth century, and stands in close relation to the source of Hartmann von Aue's translation.[79]

For many reasons it appears to me that this reading deserves more attention than it has yet received. It is, to say the least, curious that Chrétien should go out of his way to remark upon a lai dealing with an absolutely unknown personage and one to whom he never refers again. Chrétien's poems stand, not at the commencement of the Arthurian tradition, but at a very advanced stage of its evolution: had there been current at that date, the end of the twelfth century, a lai important enough to be chronicled in this unusual manner (I can recall no other instance in Chrétien's poems), some trace of the hero of[Pg 76] the lai, if not the poem itself, would surely have been preserved to us. On the other hand, the version given in the Welsh tale has a break precisely at this point, showing where the primary redaction ended, and the character of the tale is, as we have seen, such as might well be preserved in a lai. I believe that Chrétien is here indicating the original source of this section of his poem.

The passage, moreover, has a curious affinity with one to which I shall have occasion to refer later on, where the carelessness of a copyist in running together two or three words has created what the editor of the text read as a proper name, a reading adopted by his critics. But here the text had not been worked over, and the result was a confused reading which has baffled more than one commentator. The mere chance that the right reading (here undoubted) has been preserved in a text hitherto unaccountably neglected has enabled me to detect the error; but had the copyists of the Queste been as careful to preserve the grammatical sense as those of the Yvain, we should have been much puzzled to decide whether D'Estrois de Gariles was or was not originally des trois de Gaule![80]

It is a question for experts in palæography which is the more likely error to be made, the running of two or three words into one, eventually read as a proper name, or the separation of the letters composing a proper name into two or three words.

It appears to me that the arguments advanced for the above view are, as compared with Professor Foerster's arguments, objective versus subjective. Professor Foerster sees in the story of Yvain and his lady a resemblance to the tale of the Widow of Ephesus, therefore he concludes[Pg 77] that Chrétien based his romance on that story; but in support of his theory he offers no proof whatever: there is no evidence that Chrétien knew the tale, no reference to a book in which it might be contained, no correspondence of name or phrase, and the most characteristic incidents, the dwelling by the grave, and the insult to the corpse, have no parallel in the romance.[81] The evidence is purely subjective; satisfactory to the framer of the theory, but not satisfactory to others.

The evidence for the theory advanced above is, on the contrary, purely objective. The story must be of such a character that it might be told as a lai—it is of such a character, i.e. folk-lore and traditional; proof—the rain-making incident, and correspondence with the motif of 'slayer and slain.' We must have proof that Chrétien knew the lais current in his day—he refers to one of the most famous, Guingamor, and couples the hero with that of another, Graalent. We should like a reference to a lai connected with the story—we have the reference, at the very point where, according to our theory, we might expect to find it. Further, the reading of one MS., and that neither a late nor a poor one, gives a remarkable indication of the contents of the lai. If on these grounds we decline to accept the Widow of Ephesus theory we are surely neither prejudiced nor oblivious of facts.[82]

[Pg 78]

Nor is Professor Foerster more fortunate in his theory of the origin of Perceval. He states it at great length in the introduction to the Charrette,[83] but the main points may be summarised thus. The book given to Chrétien by Count Philip of Flanders was a Grail as distinct from a Perceval romance. The two were independent stories and their combination was the work of Chrétien de Troyes. 'Dieser original Gralroman enthielt natürlich keinen Perceval und auch nicht dessen Sagen-motiv, sondern wird den uns sonst bekannten Gral-texten ähnlich gewesen sein.'[84] 'Sollte das livre aber, aller Unwahrscheinlichkeit zu trotz, dennoch ein Perceval (d. h. Dümmlings-) Roman gewesen sein, so erklärt sich ebenfalls warum das livre nicht gefunden worden ist: der Name Perceval stand natürlich nicht in demselben sondern ist durch Kristian von einem schon in Erec genannten Ritter auf den Helden übertragen worden.'[85]

Into such pitfalls can the obstinate adherence to a preconceived idea lead the most distinguished scholar! What are the facts? In Erec, Chrétien mentions Perceval by his full title, Perceval li Galois, as at Arthur's court, but does not include him in the list of knights of the Round[Pg 79] Table;[86] but in Cligés, written some years later than Erec, and according to Professor Foerster himself between twenty and thirty years before the Perceval, the whole position is changed: Perceval is not merely one of Arthur's knights, but second in rank, inferior only to Gawain, thus displacing Erec, whose praises Chrétien had sung at length, and superior to Lancelot, whom the poet also celebrated before he wrote of Perceval.

This is the position. Cligés has come to a tournament at Ossenefort, and has on the first two days overthrown successively Segramore and Lancelot; on the third day:

This is the Perceval who was only a name to Chrétien! But Chrétien's hero knows him! Can we avoid the conclusion that, at the time Cligés was written, Perceval was already the hero of a well-known and highly popular tale; so popular that the author felt justified in displacing in his favour the hero (Erec) whose deeds he had already sung with such marked success? If the story of Perceval li Galois be due to Chrétien, then we must believe that, having conceived the tale in his mind, and paved the way for its reception by the above reference, he yet abstained from presenting it to the public for nearly thirty years! Or could Perceval have been the hero of some other tale, the popularity of which has waned before[Pg 80] that of Chrétien's poem? Of any story connected with him save the Enfances-Grail adventure there is no trace, and of these we have variants of the former minus the Grail tradition (Peredur and the English Sir Percyvelle); but all the Grail stories know the Enfances.

It is also significant that Chrétien in the Erec mentions both Gurnemanz (Gornemant) and L'Orguelleus de la Lande, both of them noted characters of the Perceval story; in fact, but for that story the former would be nothing more than a name to us.

I have remarked in a note to chap. ii. that Chrétien apparently also knew the enchanter of the Lanzelet. I had not noted this till I had completed my study of the poem, and, as a footnote is apt to be overlooked, I draw attention to it here. In the list of the knights of the Round Table given in Erec, Chrétien ranks as eighth Mauduiz li Sages; in Hartmann's translation the name is given as Malduiz li Sages; Diu Krône has Malduz der Weise; the Lanzelet spells the enchanter's name Malduz or Malduc, and qualifies him as der Wîse.[87]

I do not think there can be the least doubt that it is one and the same individual who is referred to in these quotations, and the only adventure known of him, and one which would fully account for his sobriquet li Sages, is one which is preserved in a poem bristling with Perceval allusions,[88] the Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven.

[Pg 81]

I have said above that a critical edition of the Lanzelet is urgently needed, and I should not be surprised if the result of a close examination of that poem were to show good reasons for fixing the date of the Perceval story (as a Perceval and not a mere Dümmling story) at a much earlier period than we have hitherto been inclined to admit.[89]

Is it not the fact that story-tellers in mediæval times depended for their popularity less upon the manner in which they told their stories than on the stories themselves? i.e., if they wished to write a really popular poem they took a subject already popular, and which they knew would be secure of a favourable hearing. Are we really so unreasonable when we contend that it was the traditional, folk-lore, popular character of the stories told in Erec, Yvain, and Perceval, which made them so much more popular than Cligés? The Charrette is so manifestly inferior to Chrétien's other works that we will not call it as evidence; it was, and deserved to be, little known. But Cligés stands on a different footing. The story is interesting, it is well written, and the love-tale of Alexander and Soredamors contains some of the poet's most characteristic writing; yet, compared with the other poems, it took little hold on the popular fancy. Was it not because the story was unknown to the general public with whom the tale itself counted for more than the skill with which it was told?

[Pg 82]

I cannot but think that to treat such stories as the three named above, solely as Arthurian stories, is to base our criticism of them on an entirely false foundation: they are only Arthurian in a secondary sense, and criticism of them, to be accurate and scientific, must be founded as much on folk-lore as on literary data. Nor, I submit, are arguments, which may be sound enough as applied to the rise of the Arthurian romantic legend, of necessity equally sound when applied to stories of independent origin incorporated in that legend. I do not say for a moment that Arthur as a romantic hero is a continental creation, personally I very much doubt it; but of this I am quite certain, were that continental origin proved up to the hilt, it would still leave unsolved the problem of the origin of these stories.

Before closing this chapter I would touch for a moment on the geographical questions involved; for it seems to me that not sufficient account has been taken of the marked difference between the geography of these three and that of Chrétien's remaining two poems. The first three have a common character. Yvain's adventures pass in and on the borders of Wales. He starts from Carduel en Galles (Kardyf in the English version), and after one night's rest reaches the fountain. It is at Chester, not otherwise an Arthurian town, but one well within the bounds of the story, that his wife's messenger finds him. Erec is 'd'Estregalles'; the towns are Caradigan, Carduel, Cærnant, Nantes. So with Perceval, who is li Galois, we have Carduel, Dinasdron, the Forest of Broceliande—exactly the geography we might expect in stories of Welsh origin redacted on Armorican ground. Many of the names here, as in certain of the lais, may be either insular or[Pg 83] continental, inasmuch as they are common to the Celtic race on both sides of the Channel.

But in Cligés, and in a minor degree in the Charrette, we are on different ground: the geography is that neither of Wales nor of Brittany. Here we have Dover, Wallingford, Winchester, Windsor, Southampton, Oxford, Shoreham, Bath, London; while we note a marked omission of the distinctively Arthurian localities. The Charrette opens at Carlion, which it, however, apparently confuses with Camelot.

Now this is surely significant. If Chrétien had a free hand in the arrangement of his stories, if they were really compounded of elements drawn from all sources and thus combined for the first time, why did he shift his mise-en-scène backwards and forwards in this curious manner? Why turn from the geography of Erec to that of Cligés and the Charrette, only to revert to his first love in Yvain and Perceval? Is it not most probable that in those three stories, at least, he was dealing with traditional matter, the localising of which had already been effected?

In the case of Cligés and the Charrette it seems not improbable that closer investigation may find grounds to support the theory of a possible Anglo-Norman transmission, which would account for the southern England geography.[90]

A point on which we may well lay stress is, that the[Pg 84] independence of Chrétien as a story-teller does not stand or fall with the existence or non-existence of Anglo-Norman Arthurian poems. Their importance, in relation to Chrétien, may easily be exaggerated by those unfamiliar with the character of oral tales. If we once accept as a principle the well-ascertained fact that such stories have a tendency to fall into a set form, a fixed sequence of incident and detail, would always be related in practically the same words, and, moreover, could well contain more than one sagen motif, we shall realise that the necessity of postulating a written source as explanation for the agreement in sequence, incident, and phrase, becomes infinitely less pressing.[91]

To my mind, the correspondences between the Welsh Arthurian tales and Chrétien's three poems in question offer no proof that the former repose directly on these poems as basis; but I consider it extremely probable that many of the perplexing features of the question—e.g. the occurrence in the Welsh stories, and in translations of Chrétien's poems, of details not to be found in the best mss. of those[Pg 85] poems—may be accounted for by copyists and translators familiar with an oral version of the tale, filling in details which Chrétien had either never heard, or had purposely omitted. If we postulate, as from the character of the stories we are justified in doing, a very widespread knowledge of those tales, apart from any written source, we shall not be surprised at the existence of a large number of minor variants; the impossibility of explaining which on purely literary grounds drives Professor Foerster and those who share his views to the unsatisfactory expedient of multiplying MS. 'families.'[92]

To sum up the considerations advanced in the preceding pages, I think we are justified in saying that the real crux of Arthurian romance is the period before and not after[Pg 86] Chrétien de Troyes. Not that the latter period does not offer us puzzles: it does, many and great, but when we arrive at some definite and proven conclusion as to the materials with which the earliest compilers of metrical romance were dealing, we shall have made a great step towards unravelling the problem of their successors. So far, I do not think we have arrived at such a conclusion; many theories are in the field, but none seem entirely to meet the conditions of the question. My own conviction is that, whether oral or written, Arthurian romantic tradition is of much older date than we have hitherto been inclined to believe.

To arrive at any solid result in our investigations there are certain principles which we must always keep in view, e.g., if the Arthurian tradition consists (as it admittedly does) largely of folk-lore and mythic elements, it must, so far as these elements are concerned, be examined and criticised on methods recognised and adopted by experts in those branches of knowledge—and not treated on literary lines and literary evidence alone. Thus it is essential to determine the original character of a story before proceeding to criticise its literary form. To treat stories of folk-lore origin from an exclusively literary point of view is to render a false conclusion not merely probable but certain.

In every case where an oral source appears probable, or even possible, we must ascertain, from the evidence of experts in story-transmission, what are the characteristics of tales so told, and what is the nature of the correspondence existing between tales of common origin but of independent development.

The evidence of proper names is valuable only in a secondary degree, as testifying to the place or places of[Pg 87] redaction. But the older the story the less valuable they are as indications of original source, the oldest tales having a strong tendency to anonymity. So we find that in the lais the older versions only speak of 'a king,' the later identify that king with Arthur.[93]

If we take these elementary tests, and apply them to those of the poems of Chrétien de Troyes for which a traditional origin may safely be postulated, we shall I think arrive at the conclusion that there is little ground for ascribing inventive genius to the poet, whose superiority over his contemporaries was quantitative rather than qualitative. He differed from them in degree, not in kind; he had a keener sense of artistic composition, a more excellent literary style. Given the same material as his contemporaries he produced a superior result; when the material was deficient, as in the Charrette, the result was proportionately inferior.

There is no necessity to belittle him as 'ein sklavischer Übersetzer'; there is no ground that I can see for crediting him with an inventive genius foreign to his age. The truth lies, as it so often does, midway between the two extremes.

In this connection I may well quote Dr. Schofield's sober and carefully reasoned conclusion to his Study of the Lays of Graalent and Lanval: 'The process of combining separate episodes to make an extended poem, we may well believe, had begun before the time of Marie's contemporary, Chrétien de Troyes. He simply carried it one step farther, and devoted his great literary talent to presenting in more attractive form, with more modern courtly flourishes, the stories already existing. Doubtless[Pg 88] he himself made new combinations, and in so doing was guided by a poet's sense of appropriateness, choosing such general and subordinate episodes as would contribute best to the development of his hero's character.[94] To him we must certainly ascribe the interesting psychological discussions so numerous in his works. But still his power of invention is not great. His art is shown above all in the way in which he combines and arranges separate stories, or embellishes those already told at considerable length.'[95]

These words, I believe, state in generous terms the position which scientific criticism will ultimately assign to Chrétien de Troyes: they represent the very utmost that can reasonably be claimed for him.

[Pg 89]

THE PROSE LANCELOT—THE 'ENFANCES' OF THE HERO

In the preceding chapters we have examined certain romances of the Lancelot cycle lying outside the great prose compilation which represents its final form. The popular 'Lancelot' legend was the legend as told in the prose Lancelot, and the Grail romances therewith incorporated. It is with these romances we must now deal.

The elements composing this vast compilation (which in its completed form appears to have aimed at embracing the entire Arthurian cycle in all its ramifications) are so diverse that it would, under any circumstances, be a matter of great difficulty to decide how best to analyse and examine the composite structure; and this initial difficulty is much increased by the fact that so far the material at our disposal, abundant though it be, is in an inchoate and unorganised condition. There is no critical edition of the prose Lancelot; and as we shall see in the following studies, not merely the MSS., but the numerous printed editions derived from the MSS., differ so widely from each other that until a critical text based on a comparison of all the available versions is in our hands, it will be quite impossible to do more than form a tentative hypothesis, or[Pg 90] advance a guarded suggestion as to the gradual growth and formation of the completed legend.

I would therefore entreat any readers of this and the subsequent chapters to bear in mind that I am not attempting any critical study of the prose Lancelot, as a whole—the time for such a study has not yet come—but rather I am examining (a) certain points of the prose legend which are of capital importance in themselves, or must have existed in some form even in a shorter version of the story, e.g., such as Lancelot's youth, and first appearance at court, his relations with Guinevere, and connection with the Grail story; (b) certain interesting variants in the texts we possess, variants which are of the greatest importance to English scholars as clearing up many of the difficulties connected with the character of the source used by Malory in his compilation.[96] My aim is to prepare the way for a critical examination of the prose Lancelot rather than to myself offer such a critical examination.

In a previous chapter I hazarded the suggestion that the original germ of the whole story might prove to be a lai recounting the theft of a child by a water-fairy, and in spite of the unwieldy dimensions to which the tale has grown, I think this suggestion will be found to hold good.

As I hinted above, the Lancelot legend is not confined to the prose Lancelot, but it has affected romances originally[Pg 91] entirely unconnected with our hero, such as the Merlin and the Tristan. In the earliest forms of the story neither of these tales have anything whatever to do with Lancelot; in the latest versions Tristan has been practically incorporated into the Lancelot, while Merlin forms an elaborate introduction to it.

Though it has undergone a certain amount of modification, the tradition at the base of the Merlin and prose Lancelot appears to be identical with that related by the Lanzelet. The names Ban of Benoic and Pant of Genewîs are quite near enough to represent the same original, probably modified in the Lanzelet by translation into another tongue. The story of the king driven from his kingdom and dying of a broken heart is the same, au fond, though the motif has been varied, and in the prose Lancelot the king's misfortunes are caused by treachery, and not by his own misgovernment. This is a very natural modification, and one likely to be caused by the growing popularity of the son, which would have a tendency to react favourably on the character of the father.[97]

It is clear that both versions of the Merlin story know the Lancelot legend in its completed form. Thus the[Pg 92] Vulgate Merlin knows of his two cousins, Lionel and Bohort, whose introduction into the legend marks that secondary stage, when not merely the hero, but the hero's race in its entirety, is selected for special honour.[98]

In the Ordinary, or Vulgate, Merlin, the enchanter is never brought into direct contact with Lancelot, but is betrayed to his doom before the birth of that hero takes place. In the Suite de Merlin, however, he and his treacherous love visit the castle of King Ban, and see the child, whose future fame Merlin prophesies; while the lady is identified with the fairy who brings up Lancelot.[99]

The Suite also refers in a prophetic manner to certain subsequent feats of Lancelot, and introduces the personages of the Tristan story, such as Morholt (Le Morhout),[100] a clear proof that it is posterior to the incorporation of this legend with the Arthurian cycle.

Of the two Merlin versions, the Suite therefore appears to be the later, but the Vulgate Merlin also refers to the[Pg 93] Grail romances,[101] so that it seems clear that both have been redacted subsequent to the completion of the Lancelot story.

To return to the prose Lancelot. The story of the hero's youth, while agreeing in the main with that told by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, is yet marked by important modifications and additions. The brothers Lionel and Bohort appear on the scene, and become Lancelot's companions, while the whole conception of the kingdom of[Pg 94] the Lady of the Lake is radically modified. It is no longer a Meide-lant; Lancelot has knight-attendants as well as cousin-playfellows, indeed, save for the Mirage, which counterfeits a lake and thus keeps off unwelcome intruders, the country is to all intents and purposes an ordinary earthly kingdom.[102]

When the lad (who is always called by his protectress Fils du roi, and has a more than adequate idea of his own importance) leaves the kingdom, which he does in order to seek knighthood at Arthur's hands, he goes gorgeously equipped, with armour, steed, and retinue of servants.

But his arrival at Arthur's court is most interesting and suggestive. Arthur meets him without the town, and consigns him to the care of Ywain, who, the next day, leads him to the palace through a crowd of spectators eager to look upon his beauty.

In a previous chapter I have commented upon the strong resemblance between the account of Lanzelet's entry into the world, as described by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, and that of Parzival, as related by Wolfram von Eschenbach. Both alike are ignorant of knightly skill and customs; both are unable to control their steeds, they cannot even hold the bridle; both are alike fair to look upon, but apparently foolish (tumbe); both are ignorant of their name and parentage. Different as the account of the prose Lancelot is from this, and no difference could well be wider, yet here again the Lancelot falls into line with the Perceval story, and again in the form peculiar to Wolfram von Eschenbach; for there, too, Parzival makes[Pg 95] his entry on foot, through a crowd eager to behold his beauty, and his guide is the squire Iwanet.[103]

It will be remembered that in Chrétien's version of the story Perceval's entry is made under quite different circumstances. He rides into the hall, and advances so close to the king that his horse's head touches him, and subsequently he refuses to dismount.

The correspondence of the name Ywain=Iwanet is also significant. In the case of Wolfram's poem it has been generally concluded that the name was a diminutive of Iwein or Iwan, and therefore distinct from the name Chrétien gives to Gawain's squire who aids Perceval to disarm his fallen foe—Yonet. Hertz, in his recent translation of the Parzival,[104] takes this view, though he would differentiate the Ywain referred to from King Urien's famous son, and in my translation of the poem I adopted the same view. But further study has led me to doubt this solution. I now think it more probable that the name is in both cases the same, i.e. a form of the Breton Yonec, which we find with the varying spelling, Iwenec and Yonet.[105] Thus both Chrétien and Wolfram refer to the same character; and the compiler of the prose Lancelot probably knew the Perceval story under a form analogous rather to Wolfram than to Chrétien. Whether the form Ywain was adopted through a mistake, or from a desire to substitute a well-known hero for an obscure squire, it is impossible to say, in any case the correspondence, though less striking[Pg 96] than the similar passages of the Lanzelet, is worth noting.[106]

Again we find that Guinevere, failing to obtain an answer from the youth, who is struck dumb by her beauty, makes some contemptuous remarks as to his lack of sense, and leaves the hall. This may be compared with Parzival, Book III. ll. 988-9.[107]

A further indication of contact with the Perceval romances is afforded by the love-trances which overtake the hero at the most inconvenient moment, and are repeated ad nauseam in the most clumsy and inartistic manner. It is noticeable that on the occasion of the first attack (in the case of Lancelot one can only regard these trances as an intermittent malady) the knight is clad in red armour and leans on his spear—as does Perceval when he sees the blood-drops on the snow. In the prose Lancelot it is invariably the sight, and not the memory, of Guinevere which causes the trance, a far less poetical conception than that of the Perceval.

But in face of the passage quoted by M. Paulin Paris, in his translation of the prose Lancelot, probably few will[Pg 97] contend that the story of Perceval was not anterior to, and well-known by the compiler of, the first mentioned romance. Et le grant conte de Lancelot convient repairier en la fin à Perceval qui est chiés et la fin de tos les contes ès autres chevaliers. Et tout sont branches de lui, qu'il acheva la grant queste. Et li contes Perceval meismes est une branche del haut conte del Graal qui est chiés de tos les contes.[108]

We should note here that when this particular passage was written the writer evidently knew nothing of Galahad as the Grail Winner, though he knew the Lancelot story in an advanced stage. We shall have occasion to refer to this later on.

In the account of Lancelot's first appearance at court we find an incident which appears to connect the story with a cycle of poems bearing a curious resemblance to the Perceval cycle—the Bel Inconnu poems. Immediately after the hero has received knighthood, as they sit at meat in the hall, a messenger arrives, sent by the 'Dame de Nohan,'[109] asking for a champion to aid her against the King of Northumberland. Lancelot (whose name we must remember is not yet revealed, and who is referred to by the compiler as Le Beau Varlet) at once requests that the adventure be given to him, and, though Arthur demurs on account of his youth and inexperience, insists that he has a right to it, as the first boon he has claimed since he was knighted.

It is under precisely similar circumstances that the hero of the Bel Inconnu stories undertakes his first adventure.

Others have been struck by this resemblance, and M.[Pg 98] Philipot, in his review of Dr. Schofield's Studies on the Libeaus Desconus,[110] maintains that the Lancelot story (more particularly in the version known to Ulrich von Zatzikhoven) is the elder of the two, and the source of the parallel adventure of the Bel Inconnu group.

With this view I cannot agree. I have elsewhere[111] given reasons for holding the true order of the Enfances to be as follows, Perceval, Le Bel Inconnu, Lancelot, and to this view I adhere. We must remember that the French original of the Lanzelet must in any case be prior to 1194; how much earlier we have no means of deciding, but the Lanzelet has points of contact with both the Perceval (Enfances) and the Bel Inconnu (Fier Baiser) story. Further, the prose Lancelot, though differing very widely from Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's poem, yet, as we see, also offers parallels both to Perceval and Le Bel Inconnu; such parallels being entirely different from those of the Lanzelet. To assert that these stories borrowed from the Lancelot would involve the existence, at an early date, of a fully developed and widely diffused Lancelot legend, a conclusion which the absence of all reference to the hero in the earlier Arthurian romances forbids.

To my mind, when we have three separate cycles of romance closely connected with each other, if we desire to discover which is the oldest of the stories we should ask in the first instance, in which of the stories are the incidents common to all the essence, in which are they the accidents, of the tale. It is quite clear that they are not essential to the Lancelot story. The characteristics of ignorance, simplicity, and headlong impulsiveness attributed to him by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, are entirely foreign to his character as elsewhere represented; even in the Lanzelet they are[Pg 99] promptly discarded: but they are the very essence of Perceval's character, he, and no other, is the schöne tumbe of romance. Again, the adventure of the Fier Baiser has absolutely nothing to do with Lancelot; it is manifestly dragged into the Lanzelet version 'by the head and shoulders,' and has no connection with the context, but it is the crown and completion of the adventures of Gawain's nameless son.[112]

Whatever be the connection between the Perceval and Bel Inconnu stories, I think it is clear that both were well known before the development of the Lancelot legend took place, and that in the process of development this latter borrowed from both. A close examination of the variants of the Lancelot 'Enfances' will, I think, strengthen the hypothesis advanced in a previous chapter, i.e. that the connection of the hero with a water-fairy alone is of the essence of the tale, all the rest is comparatively late in development, and markedly non-original and secondary in character.[113]

[Pg 100]

THE PROSE LANCELOT—THE LOVES OF LANCELOT AND GUINEVERE

In the previous chapter I remarked that the time, and the material, for a really critical study of the prose Lancelot were not yet ripe, and that I should, therefore, confine myself to the discussion of the more striking features of the story, i.e. the Enfances, the liaison with Guinevere, and the connection with the Grail Quest. These form what we may call the persistent element in the completed Lancelot legend; the great mass of adventures filling in the framework, varying (as we shall presently see) so considerably, that till we have some idea of the growth and various redactions of the story it is hopeless to attempt to criticise them.

Certain remarks, however, we can safely make. The story as we have it at present is marked by a constant repetition of similar incidents. I have already alluded to one, the love-trance. What we may perhaps consider an exaggeration of this motif, the love-madness, also occurs more than once and has affected the Tristan story. This is certainly not an original feature, but I think it is a question whether the source be the Chevalier au Lion or the Prophecies of Merlin; personally I incline to the latter solution, and think the name of Merlin's wife, Guendolen,[Pg 101] may have suggested its introduction into the Lancelot story.[114]

Another incident of frequent repetition is the release of the hero from prison in order that he may attend a tournament. Of this we have at least three instances: the version of the Charrette, where it is the wife of the seneschal, his jailor, who assists him; and two belonging specially to the prose Lancelot. In one instance it is from the prison of the Dame de Malehault that he attends the tournament and returns, as in the Charrette; in the other he is freed from the prison of the three queens by the daughter of the Duc de Rochedon, and does not return. This latter also corresponds with his being freed from the prison of Meleagant by the daughter of King Baudemagus, whom Malory, doubtless under the influence of the Charrette story, substitutes in his translation for the heiress of Rochedon.

Again we find that certain adventures, some of considerable importance, are related in some versions of the story while they are omitted in others, but in the absence of a critical and comparative edition it is impossible to say which of the great mass of adventures now composing the prose Lancelot belonged to the original redaction. Nor can this again be satisfactorily settled till we have determined the mutual relation between the Grand S. Graal, the Queste, and the Lancelot. In short, the Lancelot problem involves a number of minor problems of extreme intricacy, and till these be solved we only stand on the threshold of Arthurian criticism.[115]

[Pg 102]

A point in which it appears to me that we have a suggestion of the original tale, expanded from a source foreign to that tale, is in the account of the expedition undertaken to recover Lancelot's ancestral kingdom from the hands of King Claudas. There is no doubt that the hero should, as a matter of poetical justice, regain his inheritance, and in the Lanzelet we find it summarily recorded that he does so,[116] but under entirely different circumstances from those recorded in the prose Lancelot. The latter account is of extreme length, and apparently a free imitation of the Arthurian expeditions of the Chronicles; the incident of Frollo's defeat before Paris is certainly borrowed from Geoffrey or his translators. As it now stands the incident is lacking in point and practically unnecessary to the story, since Lancelot prefers to continue Arthur's knight rather than become a sovereign in his own right, and therefore bestows the lands on his cousins and bastard half-brother. The retention of a feature which evolution has thus robbed of its significance appears to afford evidence both of the original independence of the tale and also of the priority of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's version.

Leaving on one side then the minor adventures into which the successive redactions have introduced considerable variation, we will turn to that feature of the story which, practically unvarying in form, appears to offer us a fairer prospect of arriving at some real and definite[Pg 103] conclusion—the love of Lancelot for the wife of his liege lord. Setting aside the many minor questions to which the subject gives rise, it seems to me that the main problem of the amours of Lancelot and Guinevere is, Do they represent the latest form of an original feature of the story, or are we to consider them as an addition to the tale, an element imported into it under the influence of the popular Tristan legend?

This much is certain, there is no literary evidence of growth in the story; either it is non-existent, as in the Lanzelet, or complete, fully developed, and decked out in all the artificialities and refinements of Minne-dienst, as in the Charrette. As we noted in our discussion of the latter poem, Chrétien evidently credits his audience with a previous knowledge of the relations between the queen and his hero; he nowhere hints that he is about to tell them something new, nor does he offer any explanation why Lancelot rather than Gawain, who, as the Merlin informs us, was 'the queen's knight,' should achieve the rescue of his liege lady. There can be no doubt that he was dealing with a situation thoroughly familiar to, and understood by, his hearers.

A point which we are much tempted to overlook in the criticism of Arthurian romance is the length of time intervening between the period at which the events recorded are supposed to have happened, and the earliest known literary record of those events. If we estimate this intervening period as five centuries, we are speaking well within the mark. It is obvious that we have here ample time for forgetfulness, dislocation, or rearrangement of the original legend. Yet that that legend survived I hold for certain. Had Arthur been completely forgotten, the immense popu[Pg 104]larity achieved by the romances of his cycle would constitute a literary phenomenon practically unique; the seed that in the twelfth century burst into such glorious flower had been germinating for ages. The question is, what was the nature of that seed—what the relation of the original Arthurian legend to the completed Arthurian romance?

On this point it behoves us to tread warily, and to avoid dogmatising. I have suggested elsewhere that probably the historic germ of the Arthurian legend is to be found in his fights with the Saxons, his betrayal by his wife and nephew, and his death in battle with the latter. Certainly there is a genuine historic element in the account of his wars; and it is significant that the older Arthurian chroniclers—Geoffrey of Monmouth and his translators—all agree in relating at considerable length the story of Guinevere's betrayal of her husband; while the Welsh tradition, which does not know Lancelot, is even more emphatic on the subject of her infidelity.[117]

We must remember that, alike in Geoffrey, Wace, and Layamon, the account of Guinevere's relations with Mordred is totally different to that familiar to us through Malory, and borrowed by him from the Mort Artur. In the latter, the queen is no accomplice in Mordred's treason, but resists his advances vi et armis, barricading herself in the Tower of London, where the traitor vainly besieges her.

In the chronicles the whole position is different: they shall speak for themselves. This is Wace's account:

[Pg 105]

In the corresponding passage, Geoffrey of Monmouth gives as his authorities 'Breton' tradition and the clerk Walter of Oxford (cf. note to above passage). Layamon in his account is even more severe towards the guilty pair:

In the passage corresponding to that quoted above from Wace, Layamon adds the detail, that none knew the manner of the queen's death, whether she had drowned herself:

From these passages it is abundantly clear that Guinevere was no victim of treachery, but a willing sinner; and that the tradition of her infidelity to her husband existed prior to the formation of the Arthurian romantic cycle.

Granting, then, that the feature formed part of the early Arthurian legend, are we to consider that the version given by the chronicles faithfully represents the original tradition, and that it was Mordred who was Guinevere's original[Pg 107] lover? I think not. It is an extremely curious feature of the problem, that though in each of the pseudo-historic versions Guinevere, as we have seen, is genuinely in love with Mordred, and is roundly condemned by the chroniclers for her conduct, in no single one of the Arthurian romances is there any trace of the slightest affection existing between them. Mordred, save as traitor in the final scenes, plays no rôle in the story; he is never represented as a persona grata at court; in one important version, as we shall see, the queen dislikes him because she suspects his true relation to Arthur. Guinevere's moral character is held to be untarnished, even by her liaison with Lancelot.

I suspect that we have here to deal with a lapse of tradition. Mordred is not the original lover, but he represents him; and between that original lover and Lancelot there intervenes a period in which Guinevere's lapse from virtue was smoothed over, and partially forgotten. It is certainly remarkable that in each of the three great prose branches, the Merlin,[120] the Tristan, and the Lancelot, Guinevere's moral character is apparently unaffected by her conduct with Lancelot. The compilers all agree in extolling her as the noblest of queens and best of women. Even so aggressively virtuous and clerical a romance as the prose Perceval li Gallois, though quite aware of the connection, regards Guinevere in a favourable light—indeed, as morally superior to Arthur! Nor can we quote the Queste as representing the opposite view; true, Lancelot is blamed for his relations with the queen, but Guinevere,[Pg 108] when she appears upon the scene, is treated with marked respect, and the reader has an uncomfortable suspicion that the writer objected to her rather as woman than as wife,—he objects to the sex as a whole, only forgiving Perceval's sister on account of her virginity. It seems clear that if the character of Guinevere has, among the Welsh, been handed down to posterity under the unfavourable light in which Professor Rhys tells us she is popularly regarded, this must be due either to a tradition emanating from an earlier and healthier state of society, when conjugal infidelity was not regarded with complacency, or to a later and more enlightened verdict on her relations with Lancelot, but in no case can it be due to the influence of those who told the story of these relations.

The second cause will, I think, account for the nineteenth-century presentment of Guinevere's character; we judge her on the grounds of her relations with Lancelot, which we regard as blameworthy, though not undeserving of sympathy—in fact, we do but emphasise Malory's verdict.

But this does not account for the Welsh tradition, which, as I have before pointed out, knows practically nothing of Lancelot; that must rest upon other grounds, and I believe it rests upon the tradition preserved to us in the Mordred story.

What this original tradition was, we can now only surmise; it belonged to a period of which but few and fragmentary traces survive, but I think that most probably the primitive story ascribed the rôle of lover to Gawain. I made this suggestion some four years ago,[121] and subsequent study has shown me nothing to induce me to alter my[Pg 109] opinion, though it has suggested sundry important modifications.

I think now that Gawain and Mordred really represent the two sides of one original personality; and that a personality very closely connected with early Celtic tradition.

What the exact nature of the relation between Gawain and early Irish mythic tradition may be we cannot yet say: that such a relation exists is practically beyond doubt.[122]

Among the characteristic features of the early Irish heroes with whom Gawain is connected, we find the following: Adventurous hero and nephew on the female side to royal centre of cycle (Cuchulinn and Diarmid[123]); son to that uncle (Cuchulinn); lover of uncle's wife, eloping with her (Diarmid); deadly combat between father and son (Cuchulinn and Conlaoch). This latter incident I believe to be of greater importance in heroic-mythic tradition than has yet been realised. As I interpret it, the father and son combat in heroic tradition really represents the 'slayer who shall himself be slain,' the prehistoric combat of the 'Golden Bough' (to which I have referred in chap. v.) influenced by the doctrine of re-birth, as set forth by Mr. Nutt in vol. ii. of the Voyage of Bran, i.e. it is a conflict of the god with his re-born and re-juvenated self, and as such has a very real place in Celtic tradition.

As we see above, we do not at present possess a version in which all these characteristics are united in one hero,[Pg 110] but they might very well be so united. I think that the earlier Gawain was at once Arthur's nephew and son by his sister,[124] adventurous hero of the court, lover of the queen, and eventually slayer of his father-uncle.[125]

Very probably in the original story there was some such device as the beauty-spot of Diarmid, which aroused involuntary passion in every woman who beheld him; or the love-potion of the Tristan story; a device whereby the earlier tellers of these tales secured sympathy for the lovers, without lowering the character of the husband, so that Gawain, no less than Diarmid and Tristan, would be regarded as a gallant and sympathetic figure.

But the peculiar line of evolution followed by the Arthurian story, the strongly ethical and Christian character which it early assumed (due probably to the heathen belief of the historic Arthur's genuine antagonists, the Saxons), made a change necessary, if Gawain was to preserve his position as leading hero of the legend, and I now think it most probable that that change was effected by divesting Gawain of the characteristics incompatible with his later position, and bestowing them on another personality, created for the purpose, since they could not altogether be dropped out of the story. It is significant that, as I remarked above, the earliest tradition gives Gawain no[Pg 111] brother save Mordred, and Layamon remarks emphatically, 'he never had any other.'

Further, I suspect, that exactly the same process took place with regard to Guinevere, and that we have a survival of it in the person of that mysterious lady, the false Guinevere.

I would therefore modify my original views on the subject, by saying that I now think that though Gawain was Guinevere's original lover, Lancelot did not succeed him in that rôle, in fact that Lancelot does not represent the original lover at all, that that tradition is now represented by the Mordred story, and that there was a period in the evolution of the legend, preceding the introduction of Lancelot into the cycle, during which the tradition of Guinevere's voluntary betrayal of her husband was dropped, and she was regarded in an altogether favourable light.

The invention of the Lancelot love-story, which I think we must regard as in its origin an invention, was probably brought about by two causes, the growth of Minne-dienst, and the popularity of the Tristan story.

To be absolutely accurate, I think we ought to consider it as invented to satisfy the demands of the first, and developed under the influence of the second. That it is, as some writers have held, a mere imitation of the Tristan story, I do not think, rather it is marked by certain complex characteristics which cannot be explained on the hypothesis of other than a dual source. Thus it is impossible not to feel that the relations of the lovers are dictated by the rules of a conventional etiquette rather than by the impulse of an overmastering passion. Even in the scene in which Lancelot first reveals his love to the queen, there is no touch of genuine passion or self-abandonment; the[Pg 112] confession has been foreseen and expected, and you feel that Guinevere has carefully regulated her conduct in accordance with the etiquette prescribed for such an occasion.

In the Charrette, this artificial character is strongly marked; Lancelot's bearing becomes absolutely grovelling in its humility. The fact that he has been guilty of a momentary hesitation before mounting the cart is regarded by his capricious lady as a deadly offence against the rules of love, and resented accordingly, while Lancelot is so overcome by the assumed indifference of the queen that he promptly attempts suicide. Compare this with the story of Gawain and Orgeluse in the Parzival. Gawain is heartily in love with the lady, who treats him, not merely with indifference, but with absolute insolence—insolence to which Gawain opposes the most serene and unruffled courtesy, till the lady comes to her senses, when he reads her a well-deserved lecture on the correct behaviour due to a knight from a well-bred lady. Gawain is quite as well aware of the rules of the game as Lancelot, but understands how to play it with becoming dignity, and remain master of the situation.

There are moments in the Lancelot-Guinevere story when one wonders whether the whole business be not as platonic and artificial as the love-rhapsodies of the would-be poets of mediæval Italy, or of certain of the troubadours; but the night interview in the Charrette, the story of Lancelot's relations with King Pelles's daughter, and Guinevere's frantic jealousy, together with the final scene of discovery, forbid this charitable assumption.

Again, as I remarked above, the problem is complicated by the high character ascribed to Guinevere, and the[Pg 113] absolute lack of any real condemnation of her relations with Lancelot. This is carried so far that even after the final discovery the kingdom of Britain is threatened by the Pope with an interdict unless Arthur will consent to take back his faithless wife; while throughout the war with Lancelot the sympathies of the reader are asked for the knight, not for the king. Nothing could well be lower than the morality of the Lancelot story as it now stands: the cynical indifference of what we may call the 'secular' sections, on the one hand, coupled with the false and wholly sickly pseudo-morality of the Grail sections on the other, cannot but be utterly distasteful to any healthy mind. For my own part, I must needs think the immense popularity of the Lancelot-Grail romances wholly undeserved.

Another point which is often overlooked is the discrepancy of age between Lancelot and the queen; the hero's birth takes place some considerable time after the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere. In the final war with Arthur we are told that Lancelot is twenty-one years Gawain's junior, this latter being seventy,[126] while Arthur is ninety years old! It is quite clear that we have here no tale of the genuine spontaneous love of youth and maiden such as we find in Tristan and Iseult, but rather the account of the liaison between a young knight and a lady, his superior in years and station.

All these discrepancies and difficulties in the Lancelot story can, I believe, be best explained on the lines above suggested. The original story of Guinevere's infidelity had been dropped out of the legend, a reminiscence only surviving in the account of Mordred's treachery. Shortly after the middle of the twelfth century the tone given to[Pg 114] courtly society by certain influential princesses, among them Eleanor of Aquitaine and England, and her daughter, Marie de Champagne, demanded the introduction into the popular Arthurian story of a love element, conceived after the conventions of the day. Doubtless the popularity of the older Tristan story was an element in the matter, but we must, I think, guard carefully against regarding the one as an imitation of the other; in colouring and characteristics the tales are, as I said above, diametrically opposed.[127]

Why Lancelot was selected as the queen's lover is a question which it is extremely difficult to answer with any certainty. When I treated the subject in my Legend of Sir Gawain, I suggested that he simply took the place of Gawain here, as elsewhere. That may have been the case, but the fact that, as I now think, we have distinct evidence of an intervening period, or rather of intervening stages, between the stories, somewhat militates against this idea.[Pg 115] The choice may have been determined by quite simple considerations. It is noticeable that in each of the poems in which Chrétien mentions Lancelot previous to the Charrette he places him third in the list of Arthur's knights; in Erec the two first are Gawain and Erec; in Cligés they are Gawain and Perceval. None of the three here named would be available: Gawain from his relationship alike to Arthur and to Mordred, besides the fact that the character he early acquired as 'the Maidens' Knight' rather militated against the exclusive fidelity requisite for the post; Erec was already provided with a lady-love; Perceval was impracticable, not so much from the ascetic character ascribed to him, which was probably[128] a later accretion, as from his essentially uncourtly manners, and very slight connection with Arthur's household. It may very well be that at the 'psychological moment' Lancelot, by his new-won position in the cycle, was the one hero who approved himself fitted for the rôle, and thus reached in the character of the queen's lover his final evolution as an Arthurian knight.

Again, as I suggested in discussing the Lanzelet, it may be that some peculiarity in his relations with his mysterious protectress gave the required suggestion. With the knowledge at our disposal the question cannot be definitely answered.

But the central idea once conceived, the process of evolution proceeded merrily: doubts, hesitation, despondency, on the part of the hero, gracious advances on that of[Pg 116] the queen; advances on the part of other ladies, jealousy on the part of Guinevere; despair and madness of Lancelot; reconciliation, suspicion, detection, danger, deliverance, all the well-known formulæ of such a love-tale are employed, well interspersed with the knightly adventures of Lancelot and other companions of the Round Table. Such a story could be expanded, ad infinitum, and there is no doubt that it was expanded to an inordinate length, as we shall find when the day comes for a critical edition of the various redactions of the prose Lancelot.

Meanwhile, what of the romance which had given the initial impulse to the formation of the Lancelot story, the Tristan? As a matter of fact the Tristan was in the unenviable position of a Frankenstein. It had created, or rather helped to create, a monster which was its eventual destruction. So far as incidents go, the Lancelot has borrowed but little from the Tristan; the episode of the blood-drops, which betray the nocturnal meeting of Guinevere and Lancelot in the Charrette, is generally admitted to be borrowed from the similar episode in the Tristan poems, while the version given by Hartmann von Aue of the abduction of Guinevere shows points of contact with that of Iseult by Gandîn, but the incidental parallels between the stories are in reality very slight. Turn, however, to the prose Tristan, and you find the influence of the Lancelot absolutely dominant. Following the example of Lancelot, Tristan believes himself to have lost the favour of his adored queen, flies to the woodland, where he goes mad; attempts suicide; Iseult pours out her woes in letters to Guinevere, who is regarded as the noblest of queens, and a recognised authority on love! Guinevere invites the lovers to Arthur's court; Lancelot[Pg 117] places his castle of Joyous Garde at their disposal. The details of the beautiful old love poem, the poignant tragedy of Tristan and Iseult, are lost sight of. In a fragmentary form they still exist, but are buried out of sight underneath the great mass of Arthurian accretion. It is no longer the love of Tristan for Iseult which is the central interest of the story, but the rivalry between Tristan and Lancelot, which of the two shall be reckoned 'the best knight in the world.'

Dr. Wechssler, in his study on the various redactions of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, points out the manner in which the two versions of the Tristan have been worked over and modified so as to bring them more into harmony with the Lancelot.[129] But how thoroughgoing was this modification, and how disastrous to the older story, can only be understood by a first-hand study of the texts. An interesting point for future criticism to determine will be whether there was ever an earlier, and independent, prose Tristan, or whether the prose versions of this tale are not all posterior to and dependent upon the Lancelot. I do not think that any question can here arise as to the priority of the poetical relative to the prose form.

To sum up the conclusions arrived at in these pages, I would suggest that the order of Guinevere's lovers, so far as can be determined from the surviving Arthurian tradition, was as follows:

1. Gawain.—This being indicated by Gawain's close connection with kindred Celtic legends; traces of the relation surviving in the accounts given in the Merlin of Gawain as the 'queen's knight,' and in passages of[Pg 118] Chrétien's Perceval, Wolfram's Parzival, and early English romances.[130]

2. Mordred.—Representing a period when such a relationship was held incompatible with Gawain's character as chivalrous hero, and the more unamiable features of the primitive conception were transferred to another character who was regarded as Gawain's only brother. The later stages of this period are preserved in the Chronicles.

3. Intervening period wherein Guinevere undergoes same process as Gawain, and false Guinevere is evolved. The queen's character is regarded as irreproachable and Mordred as an unwelcome suitor. Strong traces of this period remain, both in the earlier metrical and prose romances, and complicate the subsequent presentment.

4. Lancelot.—His introduction in this character being due (a) to social conditions in courtly circles, (b) to desire to create within the Arthurian cycle a love-tale which should rival in popularity the well-known and independent Tristan story. Mordred, however, remains in the story, and he, rather than Lancelot, should be considered as representing the original 'infidelity-motif.'[131]

[Pg 119]

THE PROSE LANCELOT—LANCELOT AND THE GRAIL

We now approach the most difficult and complicated part of an exceptionally difficult and complicated question; rather, to be more accurate, we are now confronted with the union of two questions, each of them, in a high degree, intricate and obscure. We have not yet succeeded in solving the problems connected with the evolution of the Grail romances; we can scarcely be said to have begun the examination of the Lancelot legend; the union of the two might well appear to present such insuperable difficulties that the critic might shrink from grappling at close quarters with so formidable a task. And yet it may well be that this union of the two legends, which at the first glance appears so seriously to increase our difficulties, is precisely that factor which shall play the most important part in their final solution; that inasmuch as the Lancelot legend was the dominant factor in the later cyclic development of Arthurian romances, the disentangling of this particular thread will be the clue which sets free the other members of the cycle, and enables them to fall once more into their original and relative positions.

The elements composing the Grail problem are so well known that here I need do no more than briefly recapitulate[Pg 120] them. The Grail romances are practically divided into two families: that dealing with the history of the relic—the Early History romances as they are very generally called; and that dealing with the search for the relic, the Queste, which latter family is again sharply divided into two sections differentiated from each other by the personality of the hero—the Perceval and Galahad Questes. I am not sure whether we ought not to go a step further and recognise a third clearly defined family, that of the Gawain Queste. Mr. Nutt in his Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail[132] partly recognises this, but does not, I think, attribute sufficient importance to the matter, regarding Gawain as an understudy of Perceval. I incline to think that before the question is finally solved we shall require to study very closely the variants which regard Gawain as Grail hero, and compare them with the Perceval versions. I am not sure that we shall find the result quite what we expect!

So far criticism has confined itself to the question of the relation existing between the Early History and Queste versions, and that between the two main families of the Queste. In this latter case the general consensus of opinion is to regard Perceval, whose story is marked by certain definite and widely spread folk-lore features, as an earlier Grail hero than Galahad, whose Queste is strongly allegorising and mystical in character.

It is this latter Queste which here mainly concerns us, but we shall find that before we are in a position to examine it closely we must deal with certain features both of the Gawain and Perceval variants.

The Gawain versions will not detain us long. There is,[Pg 121] correctly speaking, no definite Gawain-Grail romance, but we find records of Gawain's visits to the Grail castle scattered throughout the latter part of the Conte del Graal, Diu Krône (where he is really the Grail hero), prose Lancelot, and Dutch Lancelot (this latter, as we shall see, differing in very important particulars from the prose Lancelot). In each case these adventures are marked by peculiarly wild and fantastic features, sometimes apparently borrowed from the hero's feats at the Château Merveil, as recorded by Chrétien and Wolfram, sometimes entirely independent of those feats, but strongly reminiscent of Perceval's experiences in the Grail castle. In the distinctively Lancelot romances, where Gawain, Lancelot, and Bohort all attempt the adventures of Corbenic, Gawain is the first to do so, and his experiences are repeated, with a more fortunate result, in the case of the other two. The Grand S. Graal, which gives an account of the founding of Corbenic, and the establishment of its marvels, states that none are to escape with their lives till Gawain shall come, and he shall receive shame and dishonour.[133] This same romance makes Gawain a descendant of Joseph of Arimathea.

I think it is quite clear that the Grail castle as depicted in the later romances is really a combination of the features of two originally distinct accounts, the Grail castle of the earlier Perceval story, and the Château Merveil of Gawain legend. The marvellous features which the Galahad-Lancelot Queste emphasises have clearly been borrowed from the Gawain romances, and are therefore to be considered as younger than these.

Dr. Wechssler's study, Über die verschiedenen Redaktionen[Pg 122] des Robert von Borron zugeschriebenen Graal-Lancelot-Cyklus, to which I have previously referred, is of value in helping us to the next stage of our investigation. The writer points out that the redactors of the prose romances we possess were familiar with two compilations, practically covering the entire ground of Arthurian romance, one of which, the earlier, was ascribed to Robert de Borron, the other, the later, to Walter Map; or rather, as the author is careful to write throughout, pseudo-Borron and pseudo-Map.[134] The original cycle, which the writer designates A., consisted of Livre del Graal,[135] Merlin, Suite Merlin, Lancelot, Queste, and Mort Artur, but only traces of the Borron cycle remain, the romances as we have them belonging to the pseudo-Map redaction.[136]

Further, Dr. Wechssler claims to have detected clear traces of two subsidiary cycles formed by selections from the original; redaction B. consisting of the Livre del Graal, the Merlin, and Suite Merlin, and the Queste and Mort Artur. The redaction B. he considers the earlier shortened version of the pseudo-Borron cycle.[137]

A still later and shortened redaction was composed of the Merlin and Suite Merlin, Queste and Mort Artur; this also being attributed to the pseudo-Borron.[138]

According to Dr. Wechssler the distinguishing mark which separates the pseudo-Borron from the pseudo-Map cycle is the introduction into the former of the personages of the Tristan legend absent from the Map cycle.

[Pg 123]

This is very clear, and very interesting, but let us wait a minute before we examine it, and see how, in the hands of its own author, the theory works out. The study to which I have just referred was published in 1895; in 1898 another study appeared from the same pen, this time dealing exclusively with the Grail romances,[139] in which Dr. Wechssler practically adopted the standpoint of Professor Birch-Hirschfeld, that the Grail is ab initio a Christian symbol, but at the same time endeavoured to harmonise this view with that which regards the Grail as originally a heathen talisman, while, in the same way, he claimed to discover a viâ media between the conflicting variants of the Queste, presenting us, as the result, with a curious composite hero, who was named Galahad, but whose story was the story of Perceval.

I do not know if the author was himself really satisfied with the result of his ingenuity; I am convinced no other student of the Grail romances was; but the interest of the study for us lies in this, how did a scholar who three years before had published a really sound, solid, and valuable piece of criticism, such as that on the Grail-Lancelot cycle, come to wander so far astray in the quagmire of pure hypothesis and unfounded assumption? Simply and solely, I believe, because it had never occurred to Dr. Wechssler that the Lancelot romances could be associated with any Queste other than the Galahad Queste. He saw, and saw rightly, that the Lancelot story played a very important rôle in the cyclic evolution of the Arthurian romance; he saw that it was closely connected with a Grail Queste, and never suspecting that the hero of that[Pg 124] Queste could be other than Galahad, while at the same time he recognised the priority of certain elements of the Perceval story, he endeavoured, with a fatal result, to combine the two, and evolve such a Queste as would suit the earlier redaction of the Lancelot story.

And yet the key to the truth was in his hand all the time, had he but known it. He knew M. Paulin Paris's 'Romans de la Table Ronde'; on p. 87 of vol. iv. the writer quotes a passage from a MS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, to which I have previously referred, but which is of such paramount importance for the question before us that I make no apology for repeating it here: 'Et le grant conte de Lancelot convient repairier en la fin à Perceval qui est chiés et la fin de tos les contes ès autres chevaliers. Et tout sont branches de lui (c'est-à-dire se rapportent à Perceval[140]) qu'il acheva li grant queste. Et li contes Perceval meismes est une branche del haut conte del Graal qui est chiés de tos les contes' (MS. 751, fol. 144-48).

To this quotation M. Paulin Paris added the remark, 'Mais dans la Quête du Saint Graal, Perceval n'est plus le héros qui découvre le Graal et accomplit les dernières aventures. Galaad, le chevalier vierge, fils naturel de Lancelot, est substitué au Perceval des dernières laisses de Lancelot. La manie des prolongements aura conduit à ces modifications des premières conceptions. Et c'est la difficulté de distinguer ces retouches successives qui a donné à la critique tant de fils à retordre.'

The position could scarcely be more clearly stated to-day; one can only regret that this luminous hint of the great French scholar should have remained so long unfruitful. When the passage first attracted my attention, which it did[Pg 125] some years ago, I made a note of it as important for the theory of the early evolution of the Perceval story, but not till I had read Dr. Wechssler's study of the Grail-Lancelot cycles did its immense importance as evidence for the evolution of the Arthurian cycle, as a whole, dawn upon me. Yet here we have a piece of evidence of the very highest value, a direct and categorical statement that at one period, and that an advanced one (otherwise it would not be termed 'le grant conte'), of its evolution, the Lancelot legend was connected with and subordinate to the Perceval story, and that in its full and complete Grail-Queste form.

In other words, the distinction between the cycles respectively attributed to Borron and to Map is not only the presence or absence of the personages of the Tristan story (as Dr. Wechssler supposes), but the much more important and radical distinction that, in the first the Queste was originally a Perceval, in the second always a Galahad Queste. It is surprising that this distinction had not occurred to the original framer of the thesis, any one familiar with the genuine Borron romances must be aware that the Queste they presuppose is a Perceval Queste. Probably the disinclination, to which I have referred above, to connect Lancelot with any Grail hero save his own son had very much to do with the matter; further, I do not think that Dr. Wechssler had formed a clear idea of the process of evolution of the cycle he postulated, which he represents as progressing by contraction, i.e. the earliest form being the fullest, or why that cycle should have been connected with the name of Robert de Borron. In fact, he reserves the discussion of the questions concerning original formation for another study.

[Pg 126]

Now I would submit that the rational progress of evolution is by expansion, not by contraction, and that the name of Robert de Borron became associated with a cycle representing the ensemble of Arthurian romance because there was a smaller cycle which was really the work of the genuine Robert de Borron, which smaller cycle formed the germ of the later and more extended body of romance.[141]

Scholars have long ago recognised that the three works attributed to Robert de Borron, and which, as we possess them, probably represent prose versions of that writer's original poems, are closely connected with each other, and have every appearance of having been intended to form one consecutive work. These three are the Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, and Perceval, which latter is only represented by one MS. and is what we generally call the 'Didot' Perceval.[142]

Now if we examine the Didot Perceval, as printed by Mr. Hucher in vol. i. of Le Saint Graal, we shall find that the last twenty pages, succeeding Perceval's achievement of the Grail Quest, are devoted to Arthur's expedition to France, his conquest of Frollo and war with Rome, succeeded by Mordred's treachery, the final battle and Arthur's departure for Avalon—in fact, precisely the contents of the Mort Artur, which, as we know, generally follows the[Pg 127] Queste, only related in a more concise and summary manner;[143] and one more in accordance with the Chronicles than is the case with the other prose romances.

I think it is quite clear that the Perceval, whether in the original form in which Borron wrote it or not, as we possess it, shows distinct traces of having formed the concluding portion of a cycle.

It is quite obvious that a genuine Borron cycle, such as suggested above, would contain the germ of later expansion. Thus the Joseph of Arimathea certainly appears to represent what we may perhaps call the first draft of the Grand S. Graal. Merlin was certainly expanded into the Merlin Vulgate and Suite. Perceval represents Queste and Mort Artur. Only the Lancelot is unrepresented, and with that I do not think the original 'Borron' cycle had anything to do.

The introduction of the Lancelot probably belongs, as Dr. Wechssler suggests, to a subsequent writer, who borrowed the more famous name, to the pseudo-Borron; and from the quotation given by M. Paulin Paris, I should think it likely that, at first, the juxtaposition of the Lancelot and Perceval-Grail stories was purely external, and that they did not affect each other by contamination. The Didot Perceval may well have been the Queste of the earliest pseudo-Borron, whether or not it represents the Queste of the genuine Borron cycle.[144]

[Pg 128]

But the growing popularity of the Lancelot story would render such a contamination inevitable, and I am strongly tempted to believe that in that perplexing romance, the prose Perceval li Gallois, we have the Queste of a later pseudo-Borron cyclic redaction. The perplexing features of this version are well known: the whole tone is highly ecclesiastic, there are numerous references to an earlier Perceval story, Lancelot plays an important rôle, yet Galahad is unknown, and there are certain mysterious folk-lore features not met with elsewhere. Hitherto no one has succeeded in satisfactorily placing this romance. I would suggest that it represents the Queste of a late pseudo-Borron Lancelot-Perceval-Grail cycle; and I am encouraged in this supposition by the fact that this romance knows the Questing-Beast, a mysterious creation only found in the Suite Merlin and the Tristan Palamedes romances. Now the Suite Merlin claims to be by Robert de Borron, and the introduction of the Tristan figures into the Arthurian story is, as we saw above, held by Dr. Wechssler to be the distinctive 'note' of the Borron-cycle.[145]

This conclusion is further strengthened when we examine the rôle assigned to Lancelot in these two romances. In each case he is one of the most distinguished knights at Arthur's court, but he is much less en évidence in the Didot[Pg 129] Perceval than in the Perceval li Gallois. In the first-named romance he is represented as overthrowing all the knights of the Round Table, till the appearance of Perceval, by whom he is himself overthrown. He would thus appear to rank next to the hero of the tale and to be the superior of Gawain. So far as we can gather, the order of superiority runs thus: Perceval, Lancelot, Gawain, Yvain. But he is, apparently, not of those who start on the Grail quest; nor is there any indication of his liaison with Guinevere. But the author mentions among the knights 'le fiz à la fille à la femme de Malehot.'[146] We do not know the lady of Malehault save through the medium of the prose Lancelot.

In the Perceval li Gallois (Perlesvaus Professor Heinzel prefers to call it), Lancelot is one of the three best knights in the world, the other two being Perceval and Gawain; he takes part in the Grail quest, but on account of his sinful relations with Guinevere is not worthy to behold the sacred talisman, which does not appear, even in a veiled form, during his stay at the Fisher King's castle, whereas it appears clearly to Gawain. The position, so far as Lancelot is concerned, is thus nearer to the presentment of the Galahad Queste than is the Didot Perceval. This last-named, we have seen above, shows clear indications of betraying a cyclic redaction; these indications, though differing in form, are not less clear in the Perceval li Gallois. The concluding passage runs thus: 'Après iceste estoire commence li contes si comme Brians des Illes guerpi le roi Artus por Lancelot que il n'aimoit mie et comme il aséura le roi Claudas qui le roi Ban de Bénoic toli sa terre. Si parole cis contes comment il le conquist et par quel manière, et si com[Pg 130] Galobrus de la Vermeille lande vint à la cort le roi Artus por aidier Lancelot, quas il estoit de son lignage cist contes est mout lons et mout aventreus et poisanz.'[147]

In quoting this passage, Professor Heinzel remarks: 'Auch der Perlesvaus ist einem grösseren Romanwerk einverleibt, aus dem die Handschrift von Mons den Perlesvaus ausgeschrieben hat. Was ihm folgte muss eine Art Lancelot gewesen sein.'[148]

There is a further and interesting possibility before us. The compilers may—in one instance, I think, we can show reason to believe that they did—have incorporated the Chrétien Perceval (or a version closely akin to it) into their cycles as representing the Queste.

In the work of preparing these studies I felt that I ought to leave no available version of the Lancelot unexplored, and therefore undertook to read carefully the immense compilation generally known as the Dutch Lancelot. Well was it for me that I did not shrink from the task! I had not read far before I began to suspect that the text repre[Pg 131]sented by this translation was, in every respect, a fuller and a better text than that used by Dr. Sommer in his Malory collation; in the Queste section in particular was this the case. In the succeeding chapters I intend to go fully into what is, I believe, in the interests of Arthurian criticism, a very important discovery. Here I will only say that I eventually found that the text of the Dutch Lancelot, of the printed version of the prose Lancelot Lenoire, 1533 (which, as I have remarked before, Dr. Sommer does not chronicle), and Malory's Lancelot and Queste sections all stand together as representing a much fuller and more accurate text than that of the prose Lancelot 1513, or the Queste MSS. consulted by Dr. Furnivall for his edition of that romance. Whether we have not here an important part of the unshortened pseudo-Borron-Lancelot into which the Map Queste has been introduced is a matter for careful investigation. The point to which at the present moment I would draw attention is, that the Dutch Lancelot incorporates a very considerable section of a Perceval romance, which bears a very close resemblance to Chrétien's poem, with this curious difference, that it gives an account of the achieving of the adventures named by the Grail messenger, which, so far as I know, is found nowhere else. This section, which occupies over two thousand lines, demands a special study, but for us its significance lies in this that it seems to point to the conclusion that in the evolution of a Lancelot-Perceval cycle (the existence of which I think we may hold for proven) the compilers allowed themselves considerable latitude in the Queste section. There were several Perceval Questes to select from, and they took which they preferred, even pressing the original, manifestly independent, Perceval romances into[Pg 132] their service. I suspect that this variation in the Perceval Queste helped towards its suppression in favour of the Galahad variant, which had the advantage of existing only in one form, though the cause mainly operating was an entirely different one.[149]

So far then we have traced the evolution of the Lancelot story, and found that at one period of its development, and that an advanced period, it was connected with a Grail story, which regarded Perceval as its hero and knew nothing of Lancelot's son, Galahad. How then did the latter appear upon the scene, and in what light are we to regard the romances dealing with him?

I have studied the Galahad Queste closely, and have compared versions gathered from widely different sources, French originals, and translations, and I am distinctly of the opinion that we possess the romance practically in its original form. It is a homogeneous composition, it is not a compilation from different sources and by different hands. There is no trace of an earlier and later redaction, save only in the directly edifying passages, which in some cases appear to have undergone amplification. The difference between the versions is not that of incident or sequence, scarcely even of detail, but rather of the superior clearness and coherence with which the incidents are related in some of the versions as compared with others. I am strongly inclined to think that there is no peculiarity in any of the Queste MSS. which cannot quite well be ascribed[Pg 133] to the greater or less accuracy of the copyist, or his greater or less taste for discourses of edification.

Nor is the Queste by the same hand as was responsible for the final moulding of the Lancelot story; though so closely connected with, indeed dependent upon, that story, it yet in many points stands in flagrant contradiction with it, and there is little doubt that the Lancelot would gain greatly in coherence if the Queste were omitted, and the passages preparatory to it eliminated from the original romance. These remarks apply also to the Grand S. Graal in its present form, though, as we shall see, this last named romance does not stand on precisely the same footing as the Queste with which it is now closely connected.

The following facts seem to stand out clearly. Both these Grail romances, the Queste especially, depend entirely for their interest on Lancelot. They are the glorification of his race as that from which the Grail Winner is predestined to spring. The genealogies, however they may vary (as they do in the different versions), are all devoted to this object. They are most closely connected with, and practically presuppose each other; yet admitting, as I think we must admit, that they do not represent the original form of the Grail story, they do not produce the impression of romances which have been worked over with the view of substituting a new hero for the one in whose honour the tale was originally constructed.

Nevertheless in the case of the Grand S. Graal we must, I think, admit imitation; even as in the original Borron cycle the Joseph of Arimathea was designed as an introduction to the life and deeds of the Grail Winner, Perceval, so in this, the latest form of the cycle, the introduction[Pg 134] to the Queste is built upon and expanded from the Joseph. The introduction is based upon and follows the lines of the old introduction, but the Queste is a new Queste.

Let us be quite clear on this point. Galahad may have in a measure supplanted Perceval, but he has neither dispossessed nor robbed him. He has taken over no one of his characteristics, no one of his feats. Such traces of the Perceval story as remain are found in connection with Perceval himself; he, too, achieves the Grail Queste. He has undergone a change, and a change for the worse, but that was quite as much due to the evolution of the Grail as a Christian talisman as to the invention of Galahad. The hero of the Didot Perceval and Perceval li Gallois is as inferior to the hero of Chrétien and Wolfram as is the Perceval of the Galahad Queste. The truth is that Perceval is still the Grail hero, but he shares that character with another whose invention is due to special and easily discernible causes.[150]

The point of view of the writer of the Queste is not that of the compilers of the Lancelot. As I remarked in the previous chapter, the view taken by the Lancelot of the relations between the hero and the queen is frankly unmoral. Neither is blamed for his or her action, neither is apparently conscious of wrong-doing. In the Queste[Pg 135] Lancelot's conscience is sorely vexed, and his sin insisted upon. The compilers of the Lancelot have a very courtly respect for women—the author of the Queste despises them utterly. The interest of the Lancelot lies in the relation between the sexes—the respective duties of knight and lady—the theme which inspires the Queste is their abiding separation.

Again, compare the treatment of the various characters of the story in the two respective sections. Next to Galahad and Perceval, the hero of the Queste is Bohort (Bors). But for a single youthful lapse he yields in nothing to those doughty champions of celibacy: his purity, alike of body and soul, is emphatically insisted upon; his confession fills the priest who receives it with a fervour of admiration; yet it is precisely this saintly youth who, in the section preceding and following the Queste (the Lancelot and the Mort Artur), is the confidant and go-between of Lancelot and Guinevere. It is Bohort who seeks Lancelot at the secret bidding of the queen, Bohort who carries love-tokens between them, who arranges meetings. It is he and Lionel who consult the queen as to the delicate question of Lancelot's future relations with the lady who has cured him from the illness caused by drinking the poisoned spring; he who is the confidant of Guinevere's indignation at the supposed love-affair between Lancelot and the maiden of Escarloet; and if he tries to prevent the last fatal meeting between them it is with no view of hindering a wrong to his lord Arthur, but solely because he has reason to suspect the trap laid for the lovers. The two presentments not simply fail to agree, but stand in flat contradiction with each other.

Lionel, again, is throughout the Lancelot a valiant[Pg 136] knight, warmly attached alike to his brother and to his cousin. Like Bohort he takes Lancelot's part on every occasion, with him he quits the court when the queen, in an access of jealousy, banishes Lancelot. When he is finally slain both Bohort and Lancelot are overcome with grief. But the Queste paints him in the most repulsive colours: violent, brutal, and unreasoning to a degree. He is so indignant with his brother for going to the rescue of a maiden rather than of himself (when both are equally in danger) that he does his best to kill him in revenge. He does kill an unoffending hermit, and a fellow knight of the Round Table who would intervene, and finally it needs a special interposition of Providence to part the two brothers before a fatal issue to the conflict forced on by Lionel has taken place.

Hector, Lancelot's half-brother, who in the later Lancelot story is one of the bravest and most distinguished knights of the court, is in the Queste held up to scorn and rebuke; while the author of this romance has no colours too black in which to paint the character of Gawain, who, though deposed from his position of chief hero, is, throughout the Lancelot proper, treated with the greatest respect. He is entirely loved and trusted by king and queen, and if his valour is in the long-run surpassed by that of Lancelot, the compiler is careful to preserve his honour intact by pointing out, first, that he never recovered from the severe wounds received in the war with Galehault, second, that he was over twenty years Lancelot's senior. The final conflict between them, the most deadly in which Lancelot was ever engaged, was fought when Gawain was seventy-two and Arthur ninety-two years of age; further, as we shall see presently, in some versions the conclusion is more of[Pg 137] the character of a drawn battle than of a defeat for Gawain.[151]

It is, I think, quite clear that the Galahad-Grail romances are the work of another hand than that responsible for the main body of the Lancelot cycle; and the work of one who was at small pains to harmonise his story with the branches already existing. It is indeed doubtful whether the writer had any thorough acquaintance with the legend as a whole. It is noteworthy that the points of contact with what we may perhaps call the 'secular' section are all restricted to the later part of the story, that commencing with what M. Paulin Paris called the Agravain section. Between the Grand S. Graal, the Galahad Queste, and the later part of the Lancelot there are a number of what we may call cross-references, the precise value of which will be very difficult to determine. But they do not stray outside a certain limit—they are restricted to Lancelot,[Pg 138] the Knight of the Round Table, the queen's lover, and father of the Grail Winner—they do not appear to know Lancelot the protégé of the Lady of the Lake. In this character the Grail romances ignore him, nor do they appear to know anything of his most famous adventure, the freeing of Guinevere from Meleagant.[152]

It is the later and not the earlier Lancelot story which is known to the writer of the Queste; and the more we study the romance the plainer this becomes. The Lancelot romance may really be divided into two great divisions, the Enfances, Charrette, and Galehault section, which is practically unaffected by the Grail tradition, though it shows evident signs of contact with the Perceval story; and the latter portion which (saving the Mort Artur, unaffected except by the addition of the concluding Queste paragraph, easily removed) has been redacted under the influence of the Galahad-Grail accretion.

Till the versions concerned have been critically examined we cannot determine the value or gauge the evidence of the matter common to the Lancelot, Grand S. Graal, and Queste. The most noticeable instances are the following: the keeping of the Grail at Castle Corbenic, the founding of which is related in the Grand S. Graal; the characters of King Pelles and his father, with regard to whom the evidence varies,—as a rule, the character of the Fisher King appears to be confined to the former, that of the Maimed King to the latter (the author of the Queste[Pg 139] appears to have no idea that the two characters are one and the same);—the daughter of King Pelles, and his son Eliezer. This latter is, I think, peculiar to the Lancelot-Galahad story, the Perceval versions do not know him. The adventure of the broken sword borne by Eliezer, told both in Lancelot and Grand S. Graal, and achieved, though without satisfactory explanation, in Queste.[153] The Boiling Fountain and Bleeding Tomb adventures, also told in the two first, partly achieved in the Lancelot, and achievement summarily announced in Queste. The Perilous Cemetery, origin stated in Grand S. Graal, vainly attempted by Gawain and Hector in Lancelot, final achievement barely recorded in Queste.

In these last instances the story may well have been in the Lancelot, and taken over by the compiler of Grand S. Graal; the Queste makes very little of them; they only serve to keep up the connection between the 'secular' and 'religious' sections.

With regard to the Corbenic-Grail adventures, I am inclined, as I said before, to look upon them as due to the influence of the Gawain story, and as already existing, in a purely adventurous form, in the Lancelot, before it was formally united to the Grail Quest.

On the whole, I decidedly lean to the opinion that Grand S. Graal and Queste are by one and the same hand—the one based upon and expanded from an older poem, the other a practically new invention, the two being designed to replace the Joseph of Arimathea and Perceval[Pg 140] of the earlier Grail cycle. As I said above, the author was very little concerned about the harmony of his work. So long as by a superficial rearrangement and interpolation of incidental adventures he could produce an appearance of harmony, he cared nothing at all about the more important questions of continuity of treatment, and preservation of tone and character. The result is that his work, which stands practically as he left it, is in flagrant contradiction with the story it is designed to complete.

But what was the motive which led to the setting aside of the earlier Perceval Queste, and what the causes which determined the particular form assumed by its successor?

I do not think they are difficult to detect.

During the later years of the twelfth and earlier years of the thirteenth century we see two stories in process of gradual evolution—the Perceval-Grail story and the Lancelot legend. One early took a decidedly mystical and ecclesiastical bent, the other became more and more worldly and secular. The two appear to have had an equal hold on popular imagination, they early came into touch with each other, but they never really blended. The Lancelot, as the younger, borrowed at the outset certain features from the Perceval, but it retained its own distinctive character; while the elder story slowly changed, the Grail, at first a subordinate element in the story, gradually but surely dominating the tale, which became more and more ecclesiastical, while the hero became more and more conventional.[154]

[Pg 141]

But at a certain point it became evident that these lines of tradition could no longer remain parallel, they must coalesce, or the one must yield to the other. The Grail quest had become the most popular adventure of Arthur's court, one after another the knights were being drawn into the mystic circle; how could the most popular and most valiant of the knights of the Round Table, for this Lancelot had now become, remain outside the chosen group? It was plain that Lancelot must take part in the Grail quest; it was equally plain that the first knight of the court could not be allowed to come out of the ordeal with any detriment to his prestige; yet the Grail demanded purity of life, and Lancelot was the queen's lover. More, the queen's lover he must remain or forfeit his hold on popular sympathy.

How was it possible to preserve intact at once Lancelot's superiority and the purity of the Christian talisman? Only in one way: by giving him a son who should achieve the quest and then vanish, leaving Lancelot still facile princeps among the knights of the Round Table, with the added glory of having been the father of the Grail Winner.

But this son could not be the child of Guinevere. The offspring of a guilty liaison could not be the winner of the sacrosanct talisman; yet Lancelot must be faithful to his queen—how solve this problem? The story in its primitive form gave the hint for the required development. Who more fitted to become the mother of the Grail Winner than the fair maiden who filled the office of Grail-bearer?[155][Pg 142] The obvious propriety of such a relationship was bound sooner or later to strike the imagination of some redactor. The Arthurian story already possessed the machinery by which Lancelot could become father of the elect child, while remaining Guinevere's lover; Brisane had but to do for Elaine what Merlin did for Uther, and the difficulty was overcome. Moreover, Helaine was, in the old story, the name of the Grail Winner's father, nothing more easy than to bestow the same name on the new hero's mother. All this was only a question of clever adjustment of already existing factors.

Perceval, of course, was in possession, but the later development of his story, which had converted him from a genuine, faulty, but loving and lovable human being, true man and faithful husband, into an aggressively proselytising and persecuting celibate, had made it possible for him still to retain a place in the romance; he could act as second to Galahad, and, like him, disappear, the quest once achieved. But having thus disposed in Lancelot's interest of the two who might have seriously challenged his fame as a knight, Perceval, the real, Galahad, the vicarious (for I think we can only regard him as his father's representative), achiever of the quest, it became necessary to add a third, who should bring back to court the tidings of their success. It is quite obvious, from the point of view of the Lancelot story, that Perceval and Galahad could not be permitted to return. The third was easily found[Pg 143] in the person of Lancelot's nearest relative, the knight who, his shield unstained by the bar-sinister which marked that of Hector, had been gradually rising in popular favour; Bohort owes his position in the Queste to his position in the Lancelot proper.

The evolution of this character has not, I believe, attracted much attention hitherto, but it is one of the most remarkable features of the Lancelot story. In the earliest versions, represented by the Lanzelet, etc., he is not known at all.[156] When he first appears he plays but a small part, gradually his rôle becomes more and more prominent, till in the later portion of the prose Lancelot he has become a very efficient understudy to the hero, even surpassing in valour Gawain himself. Thus, on the return of the knights from one of their numerous quests in search of Lancelot, when they are called upon to rehearse their adventures, in order that a record of them may be made, it is decided that their rank, in order of merit, is Bohort, Gawain, Hector, Gaheriet, Lionel, and Baudemagus. Gawain and his brother, the representatives of the older stratum of Arthurian tradition, are the only two who can compete with the all-conquering race of Ban, and the bosom friend of that race, Baudemagus.

Finally he is represented as the father of a son who bids fair to rival his ancestors in valour. When a critical study of the Lancelot mss. is seriously undertaken, I think we[Pg 144] shall find that the position occupied by Bohort in the story will afford a valuable indication of the relative age of the redaction.

I am quite prepared to find that among the objections which will doubtless be advanced against the theory here advocated one will be that it is too complete in detail, too 'cut and dried,' if I may use the term, to be free from suspicion. To this I would answer that I believe in examining the later stages of Arthurian romance we must follow a somewhat different process from that which we employ for the earlier. The Arthurian poems, being in a large measure independent, and never having formed part of a 'cyclic' whole, may well be studied separately, in, and for, themselves, though of course we would not leave out of sight variants of the same story. But the later prose romances, those which have avowedly formed parts of a cycle, must be studied, not separately, but in conjunction with the other romances with which they were connected. They are in the position of the parts of a dissected puzzle, the study of one part by itself will never really help us to understand the whole, it is only by studying collective sections, and trying continually new combinations, that we can hope to find the original disposition of the parts.

It is no use to study the Queste romance by itself. If we wish to know how it stands with regard to the Lancelot, we must study it with the Lancelot, and if we do this certain points become absolutely clear. The Queste pre-supposes a very advanced stage of the Lancelot story; one at which the family of the hero, quite as much as the hero himself, is the subject of glorification.[157]

[Pg 145]

The Galahad Queste is absolutely unthinkable without a previous knowledge of the Lancelot romances; as a matter of fact, it stands in closer relation to these than it does to any earlier Grail quest. The Lancelot romances, on the contrary, would be quite complete and far more coherent without the Queste. I have commented already on the striking discrepancies between the sections, but I have not so far dwelt at any length on the extraordinary lack of Grail references in the Mort Artur, the section immediately following the Queste. If we set on one side the introductory passage, which I have no shadow of doubt does not belong to the Mort Artur at all, but is the concluding passage of the Queste, there is no evidence of the influence of the latter throughout the whole of this last section of the cycle. Galahad is never mentioned; he was—and is not—as completely as if he had never been. Lancelot never thinks of, never refers to, his valiant son; his whole thought and care is for the queen, whom we were previously told he had renounced. I do not think it possible for any one to read the Mort Artur and believe that the Queste forms an integral part of the Lancelot story. On the other hand, cut out the Queste, suppress the few passages in the immediately preceding section of the Lancelot story which relate to it, and you have a tale as complete and coherent as is possible for any legend which has been the fruit of long growth and evolution, and has not possessed from the outset a clear and definite purpose and outline.

Admit, as I think we must needs admit, that the Lancelot and the Grail stories form two independent streams of tradition; recognise, as we must recognise, their diverse character,—one strongly secular, the other strongly ecclesiastical,—and I think we must own that if in their completed[Pg 146] form they were to coalesce, that coalition could only be carried out under the conditions suggested above, which conditions we find fulfilled in the Galahad Queste. For me this romance is the last word of the Lancelot evolution, the final blending of two separate and important streams of tradition, the grant conte of Lancelot and the grant conte of Perceval and the Grail, the which is chiés et fin de tous les contes.

[Pg 147]

THE DUTCH LANCELOT

In the previous chapters we have examined, so far as the material at our disposal permitted, the Lancelot legend in its gradual evolution from a collection of scattered tales, or lais, to the vast body of cyclic romance which was its final form. In this task we have restricted ourselves to those features which more intimately concern the personal character and fortunes of our hero; a choice which leaves untouched a large section of his adventures, such as his friendship with Galehault, and his winning of the Dolorous Garde. These are features which, affecting no romance or chronicle outside the Lancelot proper, cannot well be examined till more versions of this latter are available. In this, the concluding section of these studies, I propose, leaving the question of the nature and origin of the legend, to discuss the relation subsisting between those different versions of the text, on an examination of which I have based the three preceding chapters dealing with the prose Lancelot.

The texts in question are (1) the so-called Dutch Lancelot; (2) the printed edition of 1533 (Lenoire, Paris); (3) Dr. Sommer's summary of the prose Lancelot, based upon the printed edition of 1513, and compared by him with[Pg 148] Malory's text; (4) Dr. Furnivall's edition of the Queste; and (5) Malory's Morte Arthur.[158] This gives us practically four different texts for each section (Dr. Sommer having also used the Queste), two of which, the Dutch Lancelot and the 1533 edition, appear to me to be of far greater importance than has hitherto been suspected.

I propose to publish in an Appendix a detailed summary of the contents of the distinctively Lancelot portion of the D. L., but the compilation covers such an extent of ground, and contains texts of such value to the student of Arthurian literature, that I think it will not be superfluous to give here a brief outline of its general character.

A noticeable peculiarity of the version is, that, contrary to all other known versions of the Lancelot-Galahad-Grail story, it is in verse and not in prose. The ms. containing it appears to be of the beginning of the fourteenth century;[159] but Dr. Jonckbloet gives reason to think that the version[Pg 149] contained in it was decidedly older than this date, and there are certainly references to the Lancelot story in much earlier Dutch MSS. Probably it is a compilation similar to that of Sir Thomas Malory, intended to combine the various romances of the Arthurian cycle with which the compiler was familiar, or of which MSS. were at his disposal. In the first instance it was a translation, and I think we must hold a very faithful translation, from the French. Even as we have it we shall find that it agrees closely with parallel French versions. In its original form it consisted of four books, the first of which has unfortunately been lost.

Book II. begins with what M. Paulin Paris called the Agravain section of the prose Lancelot, i.e. the Enfances, Galehault, and Charrette portions are not included.[160] The first 36,000 lines follow the course of the Lancelot; at line 36,947 it takes up the Perceval at the point of the arrival of the Grail messenger, and for about two thousand lines goes on to give an account of the achieving of the adventures mentioned by her. In some points the compiler agrees closely with Chrétien and seems to have followed his version, in others he departs entirely from any known version of the Perceval. Sometimes his names agree rather with Wolfram than with Chrétien; e.g. the lady is Orgeloise simply, not L'Orguelleuse de Logres; and Gawain's challenger is Ginganbrisil, a form which Professor Yorke Powell pointed out some years ago as the probable source of Wolfram's Kingrimursel.

[Pg 150]

L. 41,420, we have a visit of Gawain to the Grail castle, agreeing closely with that found in the Montpelier Perceval, and also, Dr. Jonckbloet informs us, with that contained in a German version of the Perceval preserved at Rome (cf. Jonckbloet, vol. i. p. xxiv.), adventures of Gariette and Griflette, and the fight between Gawain and Ginganbrisil, which ends in the victory of the former, and the king of Scavalon becoming Arthur's 'man.' This again is not recounted elsewhere.[161]

Ll. 42,540-47,262 contain the romance of Morien, son of Agloval, the hero of which bears a curious resemblance to Wolfram's Feirefis. In this romance occurs the episode of Lancelot's conflict with a monster, which I have examined in chap. iii. This concludes Book II.

Book III. opens with the Queste, the text of which I shall examine in detail further on; it extends to over 11,000 ll. The remainder of the book is occupied by a group of important episodic romances, some of which are found nowhere else. They are as follows:

[Pg 151]

Book IV. Mort Artur, 13,054 ll. The united three books thus comprising a total of over 87,000 lines.

It will be seen from the above brief summary that the D. L. presents many features of great interest for the student of the Arthurian story, but so far, with the exception of the studies published by M. Gaston Paris, to which I have just referred, it does not appear to have attracted much attention from scholars. It is especially to be regretted that Dr. Sommer did not use it for the purpose of his 'Malory' collation; had he done so, he would certainly have come, on many points, to a very different conclusion from that at which he ultimately arrived.

In the following comparison I shall confine my remarks chiefly to such decided variants as cannot possibly be ascribed to the mistakes or emendations of copyists; nor shall I include those minor verbal differences which, however important for a critical edition of the text, do not in themselves definitely prove a divergence of sources. The point I desire to prove is that the versions D. L. and 1533 represent a text radically different from that consulted by Dr. Sommer; and that, in conjunction with Malory, they may be held to represent a family of mss. hitherto unregarded, or unsuspected.

[Pg 152]

As readers of Malory are aware, he gives no account of the birth or early adventures of Lancelot; the section dealing with that hero begins with Book VI., and takes up his adventures at a point well advanced in what, following M. Paulin Paris, I have called the Agravain section (l. 13,351 in D. L.). That Malory had before him any version of the earlier section of the Lancelot I very much doubt. It must be apparent to any careful reader that, in his view, the Lady of the Lake is connected rather with Arthur than with Lancelot; whenever she intervenes in the story it is to aid the former, rather than the latter. I incline to the belief that Malory's ms. only began at an advanced point of the story, and that he knew little, or nothing, of what had preceded it.

At the commencement of the Terriquen (D. L. gives the name as Tarquijn) adventure, D. L., 1533, and M. all represent Lancelot and Lionel as sleeping under the shadow of a 'pomier' instead of a perron as in S.[164]

When Hector comes to the fountain he finds D. L. LX. shields and helmets, and XL. swords (the first letters have evidently been transposed and should read XL.). 1533. Forty-five helmets, forty-five swords, and 'more than' forty-five shields. S. Forty swords, forty-five shields, and five spears: helmets are not mentioned. Here S. appears to have a confused version of the two preceding accounts.

In the account of the queens who carry off Lancelot D. L. and 1533 agree with S. in naming the ladies (the queen in D. L. is of Foreestan, not Sorestan); otherwise the accounts seem to vary. D. L. and 1533 do not say, as does S., that the first-named is on her way[Pg 153] to Norgales through 'Sorelois,' but that her land 'borders on' these kingdoms. It is not the three but only the two last-named, Morgain le Fay and Sibile (Cybele) l'enchanteresse, who are learned in enchantments; and neither D. L. nor 1533 give any indication of their being the 'queen's ladies' as S. represents; they are simply travelling with her.[165]

The lands of the heiress of Rochedon were not seized by the King of Sorestan, as S. states, but by the queen who had been left her guardian (D. L. and 1533). This is much more in accordance with the rest of the story. Otherwise these three versions agree against M.

Later on both D. L. and 1533 agree in speaking of Galehodyn as the neveu, not the filz of Gallehault, as in S. They are of course right.

In the account of the tournament there are a number of small variants. Judging from S., who gives a very condensed summary, D. L. and 1533 are again more correct in details.

On p. 186 of S. the summary departs widely from D. L. and 1533. Thus, according to S., Lancelot, seeking for Hector and Lionel, has met with Bohort, Yvain, and four other knights at the 'Chastel du Trespas.' Lancelot[Pg 154] proposes that each of the six knights (sic) (there were of course seven) shall each ride forth separately and return to the castle 'a la feste de toussainz.' In D. L. and 1533 Lancelot has started accompanied by Bohort, Baudemagus, and Gaheret. En route they meet Mordred, naked, and being thrashed with thorns by 'Mathœus die felle' (Marchant li felon), rescue him, and ride to Chastel du Trespas, where Yvain is imprisoned, whom they also free. It is Yvain, not Lancelot, who suggests the separation and quest.

Again, in the fight between Lancelot and 'Terriquen,' both D. L. and 1533 agree against S. and M. in failing to mention Gaheret's (they have the correct spelling) horse, and saying that Lancelot rides off on his own. Whereas, later on, S. and 1533 agree in giving 'three varlets and three sommiers' and D. L. and M. agree in a 'foster' with four horses.

In the question of the final disposal of the castle D. L. and 1533 again fall into line against S. The latter says that the knights exchange Terriquen's castle for horses, though not very good ones. I suspect this of being a hasty summary which does not represent the text; D. L. and 1533 are so much more detailed. D. L. says that 'Die grave van den Pale (later on Parke, which is I think the correct reading) is rejoiced at the event as his 'neve' was one of the prisoners. He gives all Arthur's knights very good horses. That he receives the castle is not told, though he afterwards appears as the owner. 1533 says that 'Keux[166] du Parc' has a 'brother' prisoner: delighted at his safety he gives them all horses, very good to Arthur's[Pg 155] knights, not so good to the others. Out of gratitude they offer him the castle. If S. correctly represents the text of 1513, it is clear, I think, that 1533 gives the original reading, which has been condensed, but rightly understood, by D. L., and confused in S.

In the account of the adventures at the castle D. L., agreeing in the main with S. and 1533, as against M., yet in one point falls into line with this latter against the other two. Both S. and 1533 agree in saying that Lancelot ties his horse to a tree, M. says 'to a ringe on the walle'; in D. L. he ties his horse, when he comes to the 'meester torre, vor die porte al te hant,' which seems to imply M.'s 'ringe.'[167]

I now come to a most extraordinary oversight on the part of Dr. Sommer. On p. 191 and again on p. 274 of his Sources of Malory he commits himself to the statement that M. is the only known source for certain adventures of Lancelot, his rescue of Kay, his riding off in Kay's armour, etc., and proceeds from this supposed peculiarity to postulate a lost 'Suite de Lancelot,' of which this is a precious fragment. Now, not only are these adventures recorded both in D. L. and 1533, but they are found in the summary given by M. Paulin Paris on p. 323 of vol. v. of the Romans de la Table Ronde.[168]

[Pg 156]

The adventure with Kay does not, in the original, occur at this point, but follows after Lancelot's long imprisonment by Morgain; his freeing Lionel from the dungeon of the King of Estrangeloet; winning the hill guarded by Bohort; and discovering the tomb of his grandfather;—a sequence of incident in which D. L. and 1533 agree perfectly.

Of the following adventures contained in Book VI. S. consequently gives no summary. Throughout M. very closely agrees with D. L. and 1533, but he omits to state, as do both these versions, that Lancelot's arraying himself in Kay's armour was due to the dim light of early morning. He believed himself to be donning his own, and was unaware of the error till his host detected it, when he refused to change, foreseeing the amusing complications which would result. This, having no bearing on the story, which is concerned with the fact, not with the motive, was probably omitted by M. Another slight variation in M.'s version is that he gives three knights and three pavilions, whereas the other two agree in giving two knights and four pavilions. Nor are the knights named as in M., but this is most probably due to the English writer, who hardly ever fails to name his characters.

The four knights of the Round Table are the same in all three cases, and M. and D. L. agree in the order, while 1533 makes Yvain the last to joust. The two first are probably correct, as Gawain, being the most noted of the four, would probably be the last to try his fate. Both D. L. and 1533 agree in a feature omitted by M., that Mordred was originally in the company of these four, but being severely wounded on a previous occasion cannot joust (D. L.); has been left at a castle[Pg 157] that morning (1533). M. also omits to say that Segramore reveals their names to Lancelot, who, overcome with grief at having so ill-treated his friends, throws away his shield, and rides off weeping. This causes the four knights to suspect his identity, and they take the shield and carry it with them to court. I suspect that this was in M.'s original, as he makes Gawain say 'whan we come to the courte than ſhal we wete,' which is the reason they give in the other versions for taking the shield; accordingly, they hang it on a pillar in the middle of the hall until it is recognised.

Immediately after this adventure D. L. and 1533 record one of which M. gives no hint, but which is important in view of a remark made by Dr. Sommer on p. 204 of his study. Lancelot, having overthrown these four knights, comes to two pavilions, in one of which is the lady who cured him from his illness at the Poisoned Spring;[169] as they talk a party of knights and ladies ride up, with them a fair child three years old (D. L.); two years old (1533). This is Bohort's son, Hélie le Blank, whom Lancelot is delighted to see. Now, Dr. Sommer tells us that, saving in the record of this infant's birth, the allusion to it in the Queste, and the mention of Hélie being at Arthur's court when Lancelot, Hector, and Perceval return from l'Île de Joie, there is no mention of him in the prose Lancelot. It seems clear that a large section of the Agravain must have been omitted in the versions consulted by Dr. Sommer.

Of the three subsequent adventures in Book VI., the final one, that of the knight who smites off his lady's head, and[Pg 158] is compelled by Lancelot to do penance for his crime by carrying the dead body from one court to another, is also in our two versions, but occurs at an earlier point in the story. In both he is to go first to Arthur's court, then to that of Baudemagus, and lastly to the King of Norgales. If all spare his life he may live. M. departs from this by only directing him in the first instance to go to Arthur's court: it is Guinevere who sends him on to the Pope. The variant is probably Malory's own.

The other two adventures are not in either D. L. or 1533. The Perilous Chapel, I suspect, was taken over from a Perceval section. Meliot de Logres, and the fetching of a piece of cloth from the chapel of a 'Perilous Cemetery' are both in Perceval li Gallois though not connected with each other. It is noticeable that M. never refers to the 'Perilous Cemetery' of the Lancelot proper, that of the upright swords, but drops out the reference to Galahad's achieving of it, which must certainly have been in his copy of the Queste. I think there may have been two Perilous Cemeteries, one of the Borron Lancelot-Perceval, the other of the Map Lancelot-Galahad cycles, and that this is the first and older.

The adventure of the Lady and the Hawk in chap. xvi. I have not been able to trace.

The events of M., Book VII., are not recorded in either D. L. or 1533, with this possible exception, that when the knights return to court after the adventures recorded above, and are called upon for an account of their doings, Gawain relates how he fought with Gariette, not knowing that he was his brother; which looks as if the story (not related in detail) might represent a version of the similar encounter in Book VII. It seems clear that, full as is the[Pg 159] account given in both these versions, the compilers still knew a great deal more than they included.[170]

Books VIII., IX., and X. of M. follow the prose Tristan, and not till Book XI. do we return to the Lancelot. This book opens with the adventures at Corbenic (D. L., Cambenoyc, Cambenoyt, or Cabenoyt). D. L. fails to[Pg 160] mention that the lady of the bath is naked, and consistently calls the serpent of the tomb a serpent, never a dragon, in this differing from the other versions. 1533, at this point, after relating the achievement of their adventures, has a curious remark: 'Ainsi prend fin le premier volume des vertus et glorieulx fais et gestes du noble et puissant chevalier Lancelot du Lac et des compaignons de la Table Ronde,' and then continues, without any break of chapter, to relate the succeeding adventure with the Grail and King Pelles' daughter. So far from this passage occurring at the end of vol. i., the Agravain section does not begin till fol. xxxix. of the second volume of this edition. It is possible that when a critical edition of the Lancelot is prepared the above remark may be a guide to an earlier redaction, in which Lancelot was not the father of the Grail Winner. D. L. has nothing corresponding to this.

In the account given by D. L. of Bohort's visit to Corbenic, the fight with the knight who keeps the bridge for love of Elaine is omitted, but it was evidently in the source, as later on the knight arrives at court as vanquished, and his name is then given as Brimol van Pleiche, thus agreeing with M., Bromel la Pleche, against the Brunet du Plaissis or Plessis of 1533 and S. 1533 records the combat.

On page 195 of the Studies we read that Dr. Sommer's source contained no passage to the effect of M., p. 576, 30-32: 'Mervelle not said sir bors / for this half yere he (Lancelot) hath ben in pryson with Morgan le fay, kyng Arthurs syster /.' But 1533 gives it: 'il a este en la prison ou il y a une dame plus dung an entier,' which is nearer the real duration of Lancelot's imprisonment.[Pg 161] This seems to indicate that M. had a fairly full Ms. source, from which he selected at pleasure.

Dr. Sommer gives no summary of Bohort's Grail adventures, so I cannot tell if there be any interesting variants between the French versions, but both 1533 and D. L. contain two features, not reproduced in M., which seem to indicate a knowledge of an older Grail tradition. In both the old man tells Bohort that he has seen 'la lance Vengeresse' the 'wrake spere,' he who sits in the Siege Perilous shall know the truth of adventure.'[171] (This, of course, might be Perceval equally as well as Galahad.) Galahad and Lancelot are not mentioned throughout.[172] The Maimed King and the Fisher King are one and the same person. All these points confirm my suspicion that the Corbenic adventure was originally taken over from an earlier, probably a Gawain, Queste.

In the events relating Elayne's visit to the court and Lancelot's madness, 1533 and D. L. in the main agree with S., but with small variants. In both Elayne leaves the court of her own free will, but Arthur does not escort her; she speaks to Bohort before leaving. The knight encountered by Bohort is alone in D. L., thus agreeing with M.; while in 1533 he does not meet him till after he has rejoined Lionel and Hector. The knights who go in search of Lancelot are in D. L. thirty-two in number, and[Pg 162] as later on we are told that twenty-five have returned, this does not seem to be a mistake for twenty-three, as we might otherwise think. 1533 does not give the original number as thirty-two, but agrees with D. L. as to those who return, which confirms this supposition.

In all that relates to Perceval and his first appearance at court, D. L. and 1533 agree on the whole with S. rather than with M., but neither of them give any names of Perceval's brothers (save Agloval, who fetches him from his home), nor say how many there were. Lamorak is never mentioned (I believe this character belongs to quite a late redaction). In this and in the reference to Gawain's having slain Perceval's father, I think we have the influence of the Tristan.

In the account of Perceval's being driven from court by the mockery of Kay and Mordred, D. L. has a remark which again shows the influence of an earlier tradition: Perceval is described as 'Eene harde jonge creature, ende die wel simpel sceen te dien.' Nowhere else is there any sign of the simplicity which is a primitive trait of Perceval's character. Later on, after the 'Patrides' adventure (which appears to be differently related from S. as it is from M., Patrides and the lady having fled together, been overtaken, and imprisoned), both 1533 and D. L. agree in the words spoken by Patrides (D. L.) or the king (1533), i.e. that Kay and Mordred have driven from court one who should be a better knight than all save Gawain.

(1533 says 'When he is grown to manhood' he shall[Pg 163] be as good, etc.) This certainly points to an earlier stage of tradition, when Perceval and Gawain are the leading knights and Lancelot subordinate to both.

In view of what we now know, I think it is not an unreasonable hypothesis that these two versions, which agree so closely, represent an earlier pseudo-Borron Lancelot-Perceval redaction, which has been worked over in the interest of the later pseudo-Map Galahad version.[173]

Book XII. M. gives the account of Lancelot's frenzy and subsequent cure. Here D. L. agrees with M. in saying that Lancelot strikes the shield as if X. knights did it, whereas both S. and 1533 give XII. Later on D. L. is alone against the other three in saying that Lancelot has only his ankles fettered, whereas the other three versions give ankles and wrists. Nevertheless here I think D. L. is right, as when Lancelot rushes after the boar both S. and 1533 agree in saying that he breaks the rings on his ankles, and make no mention of those on the wrist. Again D. L. makes no mention of hunters, the horse Lancelot takes he finds tied at the castle gate. As later on, when he comes up with the quarry no hunters are mentioned in any version, I think it probable that they were not in the original, but introduced later by some copyist to account for the boar.

At this point D. L. departs abruptly from the other versions, taking up the Perceval story. It is impossible to say whether this be due to a lacuna in the source, which[Pg 164] the compiler filled up as he pleased, or whether this really represents an important (and apparently lost) Lancelot redaction. In the remainder of the incidents represented by this book 1533 agrees on the whole with S., with this important difference, that it makes it quite clear throughout that there is a period of some years involved. The reader quite understands all the details of Galahad's arrival at the abbey, his age, etc. Very probably the compiler of 1513 (Dr. Sommer's source) condensed here, as elsewhere, thus causing the confusion noted on p. 205 of the Studies.

[Pg 165]

THE QUESTE VERSIONS

We now reach a very important point in our investigation. The Lancelot section of Malory is not only so much condensed, but also so fragmentary in character, and, apparently, so capricious in choice of incident that a critical comparison between the version there offered and other forms of the Lancelot story can never be productive of a completely satisfactory result. It is one of those cases in which we must be content with probability, and renounce the hope of arriving at certainty. We have evidence enough to enable us to form an hypothesis as to the original character of the MS. used by Malory; of its actual condition, whether complete or incomplete, and, if the former, of the reasons which determined the compiler in his choice of incident, we cannot yet speak positively. I doubt if we shall ever be able to do so.

But with the Queste section it is different. As I remarked before, this part of the Lancelot cycle is far more homogeneous in structure than the sections preceding or following it: it is a romance within a romance, complete and rounded off in itself. Malory appears to have felt this; he condenses still, it is true, but it is condensation, not omission; he follows the sequence of incident accurately, begins with[Pg 166] the beginning, ends with the end, consequently we are in a far better position for comparing his version with that of the other texts, and can hope to arrive at a really satisfactory result.

The first noticeable variant is in the passage 'for of a more worthyer mans hande may he not receive the order of knyghthode,' words spoken by the abbess to Lancelot. These are not in Q. but are in D. L.:

Also in 1533: 'car de plus preudhomme que de vous ne pourrait il recevoir l'ordre de chevalerie sicomme il nous est advis,' vol. iii. fo. 67. Here then M., D. L. and 1533 agree together against Q. W. has 'for we think that a better than he could not receive that dignity,' thus referring the phrase to Galahad—a probable misreading of the original French.

In the account of the arming of Galahad, omitted in M., Q. and D. L. agree in saying that Lancelot buckles on one spur, Bohort the other, whereas 1533 gives Lionel and Bohort. This latter is, I think, the right version, otherwise Lionel, though present, would have no share in the ceremony. W. also omits Lionel, and makes Bohort only bestow a kiss on the youth, Lancelot buckling on the spur, in this case one only.

In the adventure of the sword in the stone we again find M., D. L. and 1533 in accord against Q. All three relate that Gawain attempts to draw the sword and fails. This must be correct, as Q., though not saying that[Pg 167] he makes the attempt, represents Arthur as telling him to laissies ester the moment he touches the hilt, words which both D. L. and 1533 place in Arthur's mouth after the attempt:

This latter phrase is evidently represented by M.: 'I thanke yow ſaid the kynge to ſyre Gawayne /' W. records Gawain's (Gwalchmei's) attempt, but not the king's speech.

According to 1533 no other knight makes the attempt. D. L. records Perceval's failure, and says that after that none would essay the venture.

I suspect that M., 'Thenne were there moo that durſte be ſoo hardy to ſette theire handes thereto /,' should be corrected by the substitution or insertion of a negative (no before moo or none), it would read more coherently. W. relates no attempt after Perceval, but does not say definitely that no one essays the feat.

The result here is clearly, M., D. L., 1533 against Q., with special agreement of M. and D. L., 1533 and W.[174]

In the case of Galahad's message to his relations at Corbenic, every one of the versions gives a different rendering.

M. My graunt sir Kynge Pelles / and my lord Petchere / (a manifest error).

[Pg 168]

Q. Mon oncle le roi Pelles / mon aioul le riche pescheoure.

D. L. Min here den Coninc Pelles—enten Coninc Vischere min ouder vader.

1533. Mon oncle le roy pescheur—et mon aieul le roi Pelles.

The greeting is omitted in W.

It is difficult to know what to make of such confusion, but of the four variants I prefer the last as possessing a certain raison d'être. The Fisher King was certainly the uncle of the original Grail Winner, and King Pelles is as certainly the grandfather of Galahad. It looks to me as if the compiler of this version had made an effort to combine the Perceval and Galahad stories, though his version as it stands is in contradiction to his text.[175]

D. L. text should be noted as compared with the[Pg 169] statement of the earlier section, that the Maimed King and Fisher King are one, and that the personage thus named is not King Pelles but his father. The manifest uncertainty of the Galahad Queste as to the identity of this personage, and his relationship to the Grail Winner, as compared with the much clearer statements of the early Perceval story appear to me a proof of the lateness of the former. As to which of the four versions given represents the real view of the author of the Queste, I should not like to hazard an opinion—probably copyists altered according to their own particular view of the matter!

After the appearance of the Grail there is an interesting passage, omitted in M., where Gawain remarks that each has been served with whatever food or drink he desired, which had never happened before save in the court of the roi mehaignet (Q.); roi Perles (1533, which generally adopts this spelling), coninc Vischer (D. L.). Here Q. stops, but D. L. and 1533 continue Gawain's speech, nom-pourtant ils ne peuvent onques veoir le sainct vaisseau ainsi comme nous l'avons veu, ainsi leur a este la semblance couverte (vol. iii. fo. 69). Maer si waren bedrogen in dien, Dat sijt niet oppenbare mochten sien (687-8). Nevertheless, since he has not seen it as clearly as he might, he will go in quest till it be wholly revealed to him. I think the above passage is the source of M. '/ one thynge begyled vs we myght not ſee the holy Grayle / it was ſoo precyouſly couered /.' The compiler omits, as I said above, Gawain's reference to the previous appearance, but adapts the latter part of his speech to the circumstances he is narrating. W. gives the passage practically in its entirety, but so freely rendered that we cannot use it for textual comparison. The king is called King Peleur.

[Pg 170]

Here again I think we may postulate an agreement between M., D. L., 1533 and W. in a feature omitted by Q.[176]

D. L. is alone against the other three in not giving the owner of the castle 'Vagan' the same name as his castle, but simply says: 'Nu was een goet man te Vagan' (l. 1146), which I suspect is the right version. W., on the contrary, does not name the castle, but says it belonged to Bagan, 'a good and religious man.'

In the account of the adventure with the shield, both D. L. and 1533 give Galahad's remarks to his companions more fully than do Q. or M., though the general bearing of the passage is well represented in this latter. In both the first Galahad tells his companions that if they fail in the adventure then he will attempt it; 1533, 'et se vous ne le pouez emporter ie l'emporteray, aussi n'ay ie point d'escu'; they then offer to leave him the adventure, but he tells them they must essay it first. D. L.:

With this W. agrees.

Here, again, D. L., 1533, and W. give a much clearer text than Q.; and M., though condensing, agrees closely in substance with the two first.[177]

[Pg 171]

In the adventure with Melians de Lile, D. L. and 1533 again all agree against Q. in stating that he is son to the King of Denmark (W. King of Mars), thus motiving Galahad's lecture on the duties of his high station. It was certainly in Q.'s original, as he says: 'Puis ke vous estes—de si haute lignie comme de roy,' though Melians has not told him his parentage.

M., D. L., 1533, and W. are here superior to Q.

In avenging Melians on the knight who has overthrown him, M. and D. L. agree in saying that Galahad smites off the whole left arm, as against the 'poing senestre' of Q. and 1533. W. says he cuts off his nose!

In the symbolic interpretation of Melians' adventure, 1533 gives the fullest and clearest version. The right-hand road represents the Way of Our Lord, wherein His knights 'cheminent de iour et de nuyt la nuyt selon l'arme et le iour selon le corps,' 1533 (vol. iii. fo. 74), which is intelligible. Q. exactly reverses this: 'entrent de jours selon l'arme, et de nuis selon le corps.' M. gives, 'For the way on the ryƺt hand betokeneth the hyghe way of our lord Jheſu Cryſte / and the way of a true good lyver /'; W., 'On that road go the souls of the innocent,' thus evading the difficulty. D. L. is here very confused, and does not seem to have understood the passage.

In the adventure of the Castle of Maidens, M., D. L., and 1533 again agree in saying that Galahad meets seven maidens, against one in Q. M.'s '/ Soo moche peple in the stretes that he myghte not nombre them /' is evidently a rendering of 1533: 'tant de gens que il estoit impossible de les scavoir nombrer.' D. L. has exactly the same phrase, but gives 'joncfrouwen' instead of 'gens,' thus for once agreeing with Q., which gives puceles, against the[Pg 172] other two. W. here gives 'maidens,' but in the first instance has 'a youth.'

A little later, 1533 and D. L. throw light upon an apparent contradiction between M. and Q., noted by Dr. Sommer.[178] The old man of whom Galahad inquires the meaning of the adventure is, as Dr. Sommer remarks, the same who has given him the keys; but M. says he asks a 'preest.' Both 1533 and D. L. agree in saying that Galahad asks the old man who brought him the keys, when he comes to him the second time, if he be a priest, and is answered in the affirmative. Again, the three agree in giving seven years as the time the customs have been established, against the two in Q. W. here agrees in both points with 1533 and D. L.

It is plain that we must reckon this entire adventure among the agreements of M., D. L., 1533, and W., though in one particular D. L. and W. agree with Q.

In the account of the fight of Gawayne, Gareth, and Uwayne, with the seven brethren, both D. L. and 1533 give Gariët (Gaheriet) as the equivalent of Gareth.[179]

When Lancelot is sleeping before the Grail chapel, 1533 clearly states that the servant of the knight who has been healed takes Lancelot's sword and helmet, as well as his horse, whereas Q. only mentions the horse; but says later that Lancelot finds himself 'tot desgarnis de ses armes et de son cheval.' D. L. also only mentions the horse at the moment, but a little later on states that Lancelot is 'sonder scilt ende helm ende part,' thus practically agreeing with 1533. M. differs from both in[Pg 173] saying that it is sword, helm, and horse of which the squire deprives him. W. here agrees with M.

M. and D. L. agree in omitting the parallel between Lancelot and the bad servant, in the Parable of the Talents, which is given by 1533 and W. But it is a noticeable feature of both D. L. and 1533 that though they give as a rule a fuller account than M., both of them shorten very considerably the improving and 'sermonising' sections which are such a feature of Q. On the other hand, both give the adventurous sections in a more accurate and detailed manner.

Perceval's interview with the recluse, in Book XIV., is clearer in D. L. than in either of the French versions, and has some special features of interest.[180] Thus in Q. Perceval asks, who was the knight who overthrew him. He does not know 'ne se ch'est chil qui vint en armes vermeilles a court' (when he does not say); the recluse answers, 'Yes,' and she will tell him the 'senefianche.' In D. L. the passage runs thus: Perceval asks,

This seems to me a preferable rendering.

W. here hovers between the two versions. The aunt[Pg 174] tells Perceval who Galahad is in answer to his question, as in D. L., but volunteers the explanation as in 1533.

Later on Perceval tells her:

There is no parallel to this in the other versions, but it agrees with what we find in Morien; and I think it probable that the Dutch compiler, who seems to have been very familiar with the Perceval story, may have introduced it.[181]

The castle at which Perceval is to seek a kinsman is not named in D. L., but M. Goothe, W. Goth, and 1533 Got, agree against Q. there.

In Perceval's adventure with the Fiend Horse, the text of 1533 is again preferable, being clear and detailed throughout, e.g. whereas when the lady asks Perceval what he does under the tree, Q. makes him answer, 'Qu'il ne sent ni bien ne mal mais s'il eust cheval il se leva d'illuec.' 1533 gives 'qu'il ne faisoit ne bien ne mal' mais si j'avoye ung cheval ie m'en iroye d'icy.' W. here agrees with 1533.

After the fight with the dragon, M. tells us that Perceval 'caſte donne his ſheld / whiche was broken /.' Q., agreeing in the first part, omits this feature; but both D. L. and 1533 say the shield was not broken, but burnt: 'Der[Pg 175] verbernt was wech ende wede' (3886); 'Qui estoit tout brulé' (III. fo. 83). As we have previously been told that the dragon was breathing forth flame, this is manifestly correct. W., describing the fight, says, 'his shield and breastplate were burnt all in front of him,' and that he 'threw the shield from him burning.' M., who is condensing here, omits the fiery breath, hence, I suspect, the broken instead of burnt shield.

I think we may take this again as agreement of M., D. L., W., and 1533 against Q.

The 'drois enchanteres vns multeplieres de paroles' of the French versions, with which M. closely agrees, is in D. L.:

An amplification probably due to the exigencies of rhyme;[182] though as W. gives, 'He was a necromancer, who of one word would make twelve without ever saying a word of truth,' the original source may have had something similar.

M., D. L., and W. again agree against Q. and 1533 in giving a shorter version of Perceval's prayer, and omitting all New Testament references.

The adventure of the dead hermit, in Book XV., is, again, better told in D. L. and 1533 than in M. or Q.[Pg 176] Thus Q. omits to state the nature of the supposed transgression, which is clearly set forth in the other three:

This is evidently the source of M.'s 'this man that is dede oughte not to be in suche clothynge as ye see hym in / for in that he brake the othe of his ordre /.' W. gives the same reason at greater length.

Later on M. seems to have had before him a reading nearer to Q.: in the morning, 'il trouuerent sans faille le preudhomme de vie,' which M. understood as alive, since he says, 'he laye all that nygt tyl hit was daye in that fyre and was not dede /,' though immediately afterwards he says that the Hermit came and found him dead. D. L. and 1533 say, 'Ende alse dat vier utginc si vonden Den goeden man doet tien stonden,' ll. 4915-16; 'ilz trouverent sans nulle faulte le preudhomme mort.' The miracle consisting in the fact that his garments (e.g. the linen shirt) were untouched by fire, so that he evidently had died from the previous ill-usage, not from the burning—a result which he had predicted. W., on the contrary, says that 'when the fire was extinguished the man was as lively as he was before. And then he prayed Jesus Christ to take his soul to Him, and He received him, without injury to the shirt or himself.' The whole adventure should be carefully compared, and the superiority of these three versions will be clearly seen. The two first are,[Pg 177] I think, the correct version of the incident, but W., though rendering freely, gives a fuller account than is often the case.

The list of Celidoine's descendants agrees in D. L. and 1533, while M., though varying from the other three, leans rather to these two than to Q.:

I think here the second name is certainly Nasciens, and that the mysterious Cham of D. L. and 1533 (a personage whom we do not know) ought probably to be Alain. Such a mistake might easily be made by a copyist, if the MS. before him were not clear and he was unfamiliar with Grail traditions. I think it very likely that M.'s source was much the same as that of D. L. and 1533, and that he dropped out Cham, but the comparison of the four versions is interesting. The list is omitted in W.

The black and white knights are treated by D. L. as purely visionary and symbolic, and no names are given.

The incident of the black knight, who issues from the lake and kills Lancelot's horse, differs in 1533 from the other four versions. Instead of striking the horse at once he rides past Lancelot without touching him, then returns, striking the horse en route and disappearing in the lake. I suspect that this is the right version; the knight is evidently a water-demon, and having his dwelling in the lake should return there.

[Pg 178]

At the commencement of Book XVI., when Gawain and Hector meet, they ask if any tidings have been heard of the principal questers. Here there are some interesting variants: Q. mentions Lancelot, Galahad, and Bohort, but says these four are the best of the questers; D. L. only mentions these, but says rightly these three; 1533 first mentions Lancelot alone, then Galahad, Perceval, and Bohort, and reckoning all together, says these four, and with this M. and W. agree.

There are but few interesting variants in the account of Bohort's adventures; the symbolic interpretations are, as usual, much less insisted upon, indeed 1533 gives no such explanation either of the disinherited lady, or of the 'lily and dry wood' vision, though Bohort is assured of Lionel's safety. The fight between the two brothers is also more briefly told: we do not hear that they lie long unconscious after the flame descends, but Bohort is told at once to join Perceval. Here W. agrees with D. L. and 1533.

D. L. differs from all the other versions in naming the damsel who warns Bohort of her mistress' suicidal intention. She is called Pallada.

In Book XVII., in all concerning the mysterious ship, the text of D. L. and 1533 is far superior to that of Q. The inscription in D. L. runs thus:

1533 says the inscription is in 'langaige dit Caldeu,'[Pg 179] and says 'si tost q tu guerpiras ta creance ie te guerpiray en telle maniere que tu ne auras de moi ne conseil ne ayde,' and proceeds to explain (which no other text I have consulted does) that if he who enters fail in faith he will fall into the water. This should be compared with the passage in Hucher,[183] where the inscription on the ship agrees closely and is also said to be in Caldiu. The warning as to the nature of the penalty is omitted here, but the penalty is incurred exactly as 1533 foretells.

M. evidently had the warning of D. L. and 1533 before him when he wrote 'for and thou faile I shal not helpe the /.' W. gives the warning in more general terms, due perhaps to the translator.

Perceval's speech on entering the ship is again best given by 1533. Here, he says, he will enter 'pour ce que se ie suis desloyal que ie y perisse comme desloyal, et se ie suis plain de foy et tel comme bon chevalier doit estre que ie soye sauvé,' i.e. he submits to the test in all humility. Q. says: 'Car iou sui plain de foi et teus comme chivalers doit estre,' thus omitting the qualifying phrases, and giving the speech quite a different meaning. W. closely agrees with Q. D. L. also, though less abrupt, practically agrees with Q.; while M. must have had the version of 1533 before him: 'for yf I be a nys creature or an untrue knyghte there shalle I perysshe'—a reading he could not possibly have derived from either of the other two.

In the account of the scabbard of the sword we have a most interesting variety of readings, but, comparing one with the other, it appears certain that here again 1533 is in the right.

One side of the scabbard is said by D. L., 1533 and[Pg 180] M. to be red as blood, with an inscription in letters black as a coal; while Q. says the scabbard is 'black as pitch'—an evident confusion with the inscription. W. says the sheath is 'rose-red,' with letters of gold and silver.

The name is given differently in each instance: Q., memoire de sens; D. L., Gedinkenesse van sinne; M., meuer of blood; 1533, memoire de sang. D. L. and 1533 go on to say that 'none shall look upon that part of the scabbard which is made of the Tree of Life but they shall be reminded of the blood of Abel.' M. omits the latter part of this sentence, thus making great confusion.

Now, comparing these versions together, the right reading becomes perfectly clear. The scabbard is red, for it was made (at least one half of it was) of the wood of the Tree of Life, which, as we are distinctly told, turned red at the death of Abel; and the inscription 'memoire de sang' was intended to keep this event in mind. The confusion, in the case of Q. and D. L., clearly arose from the MS. at the root of the first having had the reading sans for sanc or sang (a reading often met with); a careless copyist, heedless of the sense of his transcription, wrote sens and this was correctly translated by the compiler of D. L. as sinne; a reading which, however unintelligible in itself, would probably not strike the compiler (who was certainly an intelligent writer with a very good knowledge of French) as absolute nonsense, inasmuch as it was connected with the 'calling to mind' of the death of Abel. Q., who omits this qualifying passage, does make nonsense of it. In M.'s case the mistake was in the first word, and probably arose from a confusion between m and uv, which may very well be due to Caxton; otherwise M. appears to have had the same version as 1533, which, alone, has[Pg 181] preserved it free from error. W. omits the inscription altogether.

The 'erle Hernox' in M., Ernous in Q., is in D. L. and 1533 Arnout and Arnoul. Ernoulf in W.

Both D. L. and 1533 state that the maiden who shall cure the lady by her blood must be not only a virgin and a king's daughter but Perceval's sister. This is neither in Q. nor in M., and may perhaps indicate that, as I have suggested, these two versions belonged to an original Perceval-Lancelot redaction, from which they introduced occasional additions to Perceval's share of the Queste, as in the previous allusion to his having recovered his kingdom in D. L.[184]

In the account of Lancelot's visit to Corbenic, after being struck down at the sight of the Grail, Q. says he is discovered seated (seant) before the door, while the other three all represent him as lying (lyinge—licgende—gisant), which is certainly more in harmony with the general situation. D. L. says that when Lancelot recovers and knows he has lain unconscious fourteen days he bethinks him:

Whereas Q. only says 'qu'il avoit servi l'anemi.' A meaningless phrase, as it stands. M. agrees with D. L.[Pg 182] with the exception that he says twenty-four instead of fourteen, in which he is certainly correct, as Lancelot's liaison with Guinevere had begun long before the birth of Galahad. The number may have been altered by the compiler of D. L. for the exigencies of the rhyme, which would not admit the original form. 1533 omits the passage altogether, condensing considerably at this point.[185] W. does not specify whether he were lying or seated, but agrees with D. L. in giving fourteen years, which rather looks as if that number may have been in the source of this latter.