No. 12

THE LEGEND OF SIR LANCELOT DU LAC

I. GEORGIAN FOLK-TALES. Translated by Marjory Wardrop. Cr. 8vo, pp. xii+175. 5s. net.

II., III., V. THE LEGEND OF PERSEUS. By Edwin Sidney Hartland, F.S.A. 3 vols. £1, 7s. 6d. net.

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IV., VI. THE VOYAGE OF BRAN, SON OF FEBAL. An Eighth-century Irish Saga, now first edited and translated by Kuno Meyer.

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VII. THE LEGEND OF SIR GAWAIN. Studies upon its Original Scope and Significance. By Jessie L. Weston, translator of Wolfram von Eschenbach's 'Parzival.' Cr. 8vo, pp. xiv+111. 4s. net.

VIII. THE CUCHULLIN SAGA IN IRISH LITERATURE. Being a Collection of Stories relating to the Hero Cuchullin, translated from the Irish by various Scholars. Compiled and Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Eleanor Hull. Cr. 8vo, pp. lxxix+316. 7s. 6d. net.

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XI. THE HOME OF THE EDDIC POEMS. With Especial Reference to the 'Helgi Lays,' by Sophus Bugge, Professor in the University of Christiania. Revised Edition, with a new Introduction concerning Old Norse Mythology, by the Author, translated from the Norwegian by William Henry Schofield, Instructor in Harvard University. Cr. 8vo, pp. lxxix+408. 12s. net.

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The Legend of
Sir Lancelot du Lac

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

PREFACE

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, 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.

CONTENTS

THE LEGEND OF
SIR LANCELOT DU LAC

CHAPTER I

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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.

CHAPTER II

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 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 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.

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, 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 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 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, 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 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 transgressing 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 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 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 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 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, 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:

'er hât daz vil rehte erspeht,
daz iz di gotinne
verkurt an ir minne,
diu iu zôch in dem sê.'—ll. 24517-20.

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 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 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 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 connection 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:

'engegen der vespereide
riten über jene heide,
dort zwêne, dâ her drî.'—ll. 2855-7.

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

'von Póytóuwe Schyolarz
und Gurnemanz de Grâhárz,
die tjostierten ûf dem plân.
Sich huop diu vesperîe sân,
hie riten sehse, dort wol drî.'—ll. 295-9.

In connection with which we may note that both 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.

'den dûhte er als ein got getân:
er'n het ê 'so lichtes niht erkant.
úfem tówe, der wâpenroc erwant.
mit guldîn schellen kleine.'—Parzival, iii. 175 et seq.

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 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 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.

CHAPTER III

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 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 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 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 confirmation 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 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, 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 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 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 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.

CHAPTER IV

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 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 meanwhile 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.

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 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 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

'Iseut ma drue, Iseut m'amie,
En vous ma mort, en vous ma vie!'

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 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]

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; 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 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.

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. 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 constructing 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; 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.

CHAPTER V

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 specimens 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 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,

'de l'Isle d'Avalon fu sire.
De cestui avons oï dire
Qu'il fu amis Morgain la fee,
Et ce fu veritez provee.'—Erec, ll. 1955-8.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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] 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.

Veanz touz les barons se done
La dame a mon seignor 'Y.'
Par la main de son chapelain
Einsint la dame de lenduc
La dame qui fu fille au duc
Lan

donez dont len note ·|· lai.[78]

Professor Foerster's critical edition.

Veant toz ses barons se done
La dame a mon seignor Yvain.
Par la main d'un suen chapelain
Prise a Laudine de Landuc
La dame qui fu fille au duc
Laudunet don an note un lai.

—Yvain, ed. 1891, ll. 2148-53.

(Translation.)

All the barons beholding, gives herself
The lady to my lord Yvain.
By the hand of her chaplain
Thus the lady of lenduc,
The lady who was daughter to the duke,
They have given to him of which (whom) one notes a lay.

All her barons beholding, gives herself
The lady to my lord Yvain.
By the hand of one her chaplain
He has taken Laudine de Landuc,
The lady who was daughter to the duke,
Laudunet of whom (which) one notes a lay.

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 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 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]

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 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:

Del ranc devers Ossenefort
Part uns vassaus de grant renon,
Percevaus li Galois ot non.
Lués que Cligés le vit movoir
Et de son non oï le voir,
Que Perceval l'oï nomer,
Mout desirre a lui asanbler.'—Cligés, 4826-32.

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 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.

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?

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Herr Brugger's article, referred to on p. 66, did not come into my hands until these studies were in proof. Inasmuch as the theory regarding the Arthurisation of the lais stated in this chapter and in chapter ii. might lead some readers to the conclusion that my views are identical with those set forth in the article in question, I think it well to state (a) that I only postulate of certain early metrical romances an origin which Herr Brugger apparently attributes to all Arthurian romances, prose or verse; (b) that when Herr Brugger speaks of origin he uses the word loosely, and in a secondary sense, whereas I use it in a primary; e.g. to say that a story which reached French writers through a Breton source may therefore be accurately described as of Breton origin is, in my opinion, both inaccurate and misleading, especially in the face of Professor Foerster's strongly reiterated denials of an insular Arthurian romantic tradition. The immediate source of the French writers does not solve for us the problem of the origins of Arthurian tradition; it is a mistake to employ an argument, or use terminology, confounding two distinct questions.

CHAPTER VI

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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]

CHAPTER VII

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, 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]

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 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 popularity 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.