No More Learning

Chaucer and Gower, each
in his own way, had challenged the French on their own ground;
they had written English verse which might be approved by
French standards; they had given to English verse the peculiar
French qualities of ease and grace and urbanity. A reader to
whom the fifteenth century was unknown would, naturally, look for
some such consequences as followed in the reign of Charles II from


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Matter and Form
283
the work of Dryden and his contemporaries—a disabling of the
older schools, and a complete revolution in taste. But, for what-
ever reason, this was not what actually followed the age of Chaucer.
The fifteenth century, except for the fact that the anarchy of
dialects is reduced to some order, is as far from any literary good
government as the age before Chaucer. It is rather worse, indeed,
on account of the weaker brethren in the Chaucerian school who
only add to the confusion. And the popular romances go on very
much as before, down to the sixteenth century, and even further.
The lay of the last minstrel is described by Sir Walter Scott, in
prose, in a note to Sir Tristrem :
Some traces of this custom remained in Scotland till of late years.
A satire on the Marquis of Argyle, published about the time of his death,
is said to be composed to the tune of Graysteel, a noted romance reprinted
at Aberdeen so late as the beginning of the last century. Within the memory
of man, an old person used to perambulate the streets of Edinburgh, singing,
in a monotonous cadence, the tale of Rosewal and Lilian, which is, in all the
forms, a metrical romance of chivalry.
It is possible to classify the romances according to their sources
and their subjects, though, as has been already remarked, the
difference of scenery does not always make much difference in
the character of the stories. The English varieties depend so
closely on the French that one must go to French literary history
for guidance. The whole subject has been so clearly summarised
and explained in the French Medieval Literature of Gaston Paris'
that it is scarcely necessary here to repeat even the general facts.
But, of course, although the subjects are the same, the English
point of view is different; especially in the following respects.
The “matter of France” includes the subjects of the old French
epics. These, being national, could not bear exportation so well
as some of the other "matters. ” It is only in France that the Song
of Roland can be thoroughly understood and valued. Yet Roland
and Charlemagne were honoured beyond the Alps and beyond the
sea. The Karlamagnus Saga is a large book written in Norway
in the thirteenth century, bringing together in a prose version all
the chief stories of the cycle. One section, Olif and Landres, was
found "in the English tongue in Scotland” by a Norwegian envoy
who went there in 1284 after the death of king Alexander III.
Roland was almost as popular in Italy as in France. He appears
also in English, though not to very great advantage. The favourite
· La Littérature française au moyen âge (with bibliography); also Esquisse his.
torique de la litt. fr. au inoyen âge; English transiation of this latter, Dent, 1903.


## p. 284 (#304) ############################################

284 Metrical Romances, 1200—1500
story from the French epics was that of Oliver and Fierabras, where
the motive is not so much French patriotism as the opposition
between Christian and infidel.
In the “matter of Britain” the English had a better right to
share. They accepted at once the history of Geoffrey of Monmouth
and made king Arthur into an English national hero, the British
counterpart of Charlemagne. The alliterative Morte Arthure,
derived from Geoffrey, is a kind of political epic, with allusions
to contemporary history and the wars of Edward III, as George
Neilson has sufficiently proved'. This touch of allegory, which one
need not be afraid to compare with the purpose of the Aeneid
or of The Faerie Queene, makes it unlike most other medieval
romances; the pretence of solidity and historical truth in Geoffrey
is not suitable for mere romantic purposes. Quite different is the
Arthur who merely sits waiting for adventures, being "somewhat
child-geared,” as the poet of Sir Gawayne says. In most of the
stories, Arthur is very unlike the great imperial monarch and
conqueror as presented by Geoffrey and his followers. He has
nothing particular to do, except to be present at the beginning
and end of the story; the hero is Sir Perceval, Sir Ywain, Sir
Gawain, or the Fair Knight Unknown (Sir Libeaus); unfortu-
nately not Sir Erec (Geraint), in any extant English poem before
Tennyson. In this second order, the proper Arthurian romances
as distinguished from the versions or adaptations of Geoffrey,
England had something to claim even before the English rimers
began their work; for some of the French poems certainly, and
probably many now lost, were written in England. This is a
debatable and difficult part of literary history; but, at any rate,
it is plain that the more elaborate French Arthurian romances
were not the only authorities for the English tales. Chrétien's
Yvain is translated into English ; but the French romance of
The Fair Unknown is probably not the original of the English
story of Sir Libeaus which, like the old Italian version, would
seem to have had a simpler and earlier form to work upon. Like-
wise, the English Sir Perceval must, surely, come from something
older and less complicated than Chrétien's Conte del Graal. It is
at least a fair conjecture that these two romances belong to an
earlier type, such as may have been hawked about in England by
French or French-speaking minstrels; and, without any conjecture
at all, they are different in their plots (not merely in their style)
from the French work of Renaud de Beaujeu in the one case, and
* Huchown of the Awle Ryale, Glasgow, 1902, pp. 59–66.


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Sources and Subjects
285
Chrétien de Troyes in the other. Sir Gawayne and the Grene
Knight, again, cannot be referred to any known French book
for its original; and, in this and other ways, the English
rendering of the “matter of Britain” goes beyond the French, or,
to be more precise, is found to differ from the existing French
documents.
The "matter of Rome the great," that is, classical antiquity, is
well represented in English. There are several poems in rime
and alliterative verse on Alexander and on Troy, some of them
being fragmentary. The tale of Thebes, though often referred
to, does not appear fully told till Lydgate took it up, nor the
romantic version of the Aeneid (Roman d'Enéas) before Caxton's
prose.
The classification under the three “matters” of France, Britain
and Rome is not exhaustive; there are many romances which fall
outside these limits. Some of them are due to French invention ;
for the twelfth century romantic school was not content always to
follow merely traditional fables; they drew largely on older stories,
fairy tales and relics of mythology; but, sometimes, they tried
to be original and at least succeeded in making fresh combinations,
like a modern novelist with his professional machinery. Perhaps
the English poet of Sir Gawayne may have worked in this way,
not founding his poem upon any one particular romance, but taking
incidents from older stories and arranging them to suit his purpose.
In French, the Ipomedon of Hue de Rotelande is an excellent
specimen of what may be called the secondary order of romance,
as cultivated by the best practitioners. The author's method is
not hard to understand. He is competing with the recognised and
successful artists; with Chrétien de Troyes. He does not trouble
himself to find a Breton lay, but (like an Elizabethan dramatist
with no Spanish or Italian novel at hand) sets himself to spin his
own yarn. He has all the proper sentiments, and his rhetoric and
rimes are easy work for him. For theme, he takes the proud young
lady and the devoted lover; the true love beginning “in her absence,"
as the Irish story-tellers expressed it, before he has ever seen
the princess; telling of his faithful service in disguise, his apparent
slackness in chivalry, his real prowess when he “bears the gree” in
three days of tournament, with three several suits of armour, the
white, the red and the black. The incidents are not exactly new;
but it is a good novel of its kind, and successful, as the English
versions prove, for longer than one season. Hue de Rotelande
takes some trouble about his details. He does not (like Chrétien


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286 Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
in his Cligès) attach his invention to the court of Arthur. He
leaves Britain for new ground, and puts his scene in Apulia and
Calabria—which might as well have been Illyria or Bohemia. And
he does not imitate the names of the Round Table; his names are
Greek, his hero is Hippomedon. In the same way Boccaccio, or
his lost French original, took Greek names for his story of
Palamon, and let it grow out of the wars of Thebes. So also
Parthenopex de Blois, who was translated into English (Partonope),
is Parthenopaeus. William of Palerne, without this classical
prestige of name, is another example of the invented love-story,
made by rearranging the favourite commonplaces. Another senti-
mental romance, Amadas and Ydoine, was well known in England,
as is proved by many allusions, though no English version is
extant; the poem was first composed, like Ipomedon, in Anglo-
French? .
Further, there were many sources besides Britain and Rome
for authors in want of a plot. The far east began very early to
tell upon western imaginations, not only through the marvels of
Alexander in India, but in many and various separate stories. One
of the best of these, and one of the first, as it happens, in the list
of English romances, is Flores and Blancheflour. It was ages
before The Arabian Nights were known, but this is just such a
story as may be found there, with likenesses also to the common
form of the Greek romances, the adventures of the two young
lovers cruelly separated. By a curious process it was turned, in
the Filocolo of Boccaccio, to a shape like that of Greek romance,
though without any direct knowledge of Greek authors. The
Seven Sages of Rome may count among the romances; it is an
oriental group of stories in a setting, like The Arabian Nights
-a pattern followed in the Decameron, in Confessio Amantis
and in The Canterbury Tales.
Barlaam and Josaphat is the story of the Buddha, and Robert
of Sicily, the “proud king," has been traced back to a similar
origin. Ypotis (rather oddly placed along with Horn and the
others in Sir Thopas) is Epictetus; the story is hardly a romance,
it is more like a legend. But the difference between romance and
legend is not always very deep; and one is reminded that Greek
and eastern romantic plots and ideas had come into England long
before, in the Old English Saints' Lives.
There is another group, represented, indeed, in French, but not
in the same way as the others. It contains The Gest of King Horn
· Gaston Paris in An English Miscellany, Oxford, 1901, p. 386.


## p. 287 (#307) ############################################

Sources and Subjects
287
and The Lay of Havelok the Dane; both of these appear in French,
but it is improbable that any French version was the origin of the
English. These are northern stories; in the case of Havelok there
is fair historical proof that the foundation of the whole story lies
in the adventures of Anlaf Cuaran, who fought at Brunanburh;
“Havelok," like "Aulay," being a Celtic corruption of the Scan-
dinavian Anlaf or Olaf.
In Horn it is not so easy to find a definite historical beginning;
it has been suggested that the original Horn was Horm, a Danish
viking of the ninth century who fought for the Irish king Cearbhall,
as Horn helped king Thurston in Ireland against the Payns, i. e.
the heathen invaders with their giant champion. Also, it is believed
that Thurston, in the romance, may be derived from the Norwegian
leader Thorstein the Red, who married a grand-daughter of
Cearbhall. But, whatever the obscure truth may be, the general
fact is not doubtful that Horn's wanderings and adventures are
placed in scenery and conditions resembling those of the ninth and
tenth centuries in the relations between Britain and Ireland. Like
Havelok, the story probably comes from the Scandinavian settlers
in England; like Havelok, it passed to the French, but the French
versions are not the sources of the English. There must have been
other such native stories ; there is still an Anglo-Norman poem of
Waldef extant, i. e. Waltheof, and the story of Hereward the Wake
is known, like that of Waltheof also, from a Latin prose tale. The
short tale of Athelston may be mentioned here, and also the
amazing long romance of Richard Coeur de Lion, which is not
greatly troubled with the cares of the historian.
• The varieties of style in the English romances are very great,
under an apparent monotony and poverty of type. Between
Sir Beves of Hamtoun and Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight
there is as wide an interval as between (let us say) “Monk” Lewis
and Scott, or G. P. R. James and Thackeray. There are many
different motives in the French books from which most of the
English tales are borrowed, and there are many different ways of
borrowing.
As regards verse, there are the two great orders, riming and
blank alliterative. Of riming measures the most usual are the
short couplet of octosyllabic lines, and the stanza called rime
couée, rithmus caudatus.
King Horn is singular in its verse, an example of one stage in
the development of modern English metres. It is closely related
in prosody to Layamon's Brut, and might be described as carrying


## p. 288 (#308) ############################################

288 Metrical Romances, 1200—1500
through consistently the riming couplet, which Layamon inter-
changes with blank lines. The verse is not governed by the
octosyllabic law; it is not of Latin origin; it has a strange
resemblance to the verse of Otfried in Old High German and
to the accidental riming passages in Old English, especially in
the more decrepit Old English verse:
Thanne him spao the godě king:
Wel bruc thu thi nevening;
Horn thu go wel schüllè
Bi dalěs and bi hüllè;
Horn thu ludo sunè
Bi dalès and bi dunè;
So schal thi namẽ springò
Fram kyngò to kyngè,
And thi fairnesse
Abutě Westernessd,
The strengthe of thinð honde
In to evrech londèi
There is no other romance in this antique sort of verse. In the
ordinary couplets just such differences may be found as in modern
usage of the same measure. Havelok and Orfeo, King Alisaunder
and Ywain have not exactly the same effect. Havelok, though
sometimes a little rough, is not unsound; the poem of Ywain and
Gawain is nearly as correct as Chaucer; The Squire of Low Degree
is one of the pleasantest and most fluent examples of this verse in
English. There is a pause at the end of every line, and the effect
is like that of some ballads:
The squyer her hente in armes two,
And kyssed ber an hundreth tymes and mo.
There was myrth and melody,
With harpe, gytron and sautry,
With rote, ribible and clokarde,
With pypes, organs and bombarde,
With other mynstrelles them amonge,
With sytolphe and with santry songe,
With fydle, recorde and dowcemere,
With trompette and with claryon clere,
With dulcet pipes of many cordes,
In chambre revelyng all the lordes,
Unto morne that it was daye 2.
Besides the short couplet, different types of common metre are
used; very vigorously, with full rimes, in Sir Ferumbras-
Now bygynt a strong batayl betwene this knyghtes twayne,
Ayther gan other hard assayle bothe wyth myght and mayne;
They hewe togadre wyth swerdes dent, faste with bothen bondes,
Of helmes and sheldes that fyr outwent, so sparkes doth of brondes 3;
i Ll. 205 sqq.
* LL 1067 sqq.
* LL 602 sqg.


## p. 289 (#309) ############################################

Forms of Verse
289
and without the internal rime, in The Tale of Gamelyn, the verse
of which has been so rightly praised'.
Sir Thopas might be taken as the standard of the rithmus
caudatus, but Sir Thopas itself shows that variations are admitted,
and there are several kinds, besides, which Chaucer does not
introduce.
In later usage this stanza is merely twofold, as in Drayton's
Nymphidia or in The Baby's Début. In early days it was commonly
fourfold, i. e. there are four caudae with the same rime:
And so it fell upon a daye
The palmare went to the wode to playe,
His mirthes for to mene;
The knightes brake up his chamber dore
And fand the gold right in the flore
And bare it unto the quene;
And als sone als scho saw it with sighte,
In swoning than fell that swete wighte
For soho had are it sene!
Scho kissed it and said, “ Allas!
This gold aughte Sir Isambras,
My lord was wont to bene 3. 9
Sometimes there are three lines together before each cauda, as
in Sir Perceval and Sir Degrevant and others:
Lof, lythes to me
Two wordes or thre
Off one that was fair and fre,
And felle in his fighte;
His righte name was Percyvelle,
He was fosterde in the felle,
He dranke water of the welle,
And gitte was he wyghte!
His fadir was a noble mano
Fro the tyme that he begane;
Miche worchippe he wane
When he was made knyghte;
In Kyng Arthures haulle,
Beste by-luffedo of alle
Percyvelle they gane hym calle,
Who so redis ryghte.
While, as this example shows, there are different lengths of line,
they are not all in eights and sixes. Sir Libeaus, particularly,
makes very pretty play with a kind of short metre and a peculiar
sequence of the rimes:
That maide knelde in halle
Before the knightes alle
And seide: My lord Arthour!
A cas ther is befalle,
Worse withinne walle
Was never non of dolour!
1 Saintsbury, English Prosody, 1, p. 195.
Sir Isumbras, 11. 641 sqq.
E. L. I. CH. XIII.
19


## p. 290 (#310) ############################################

290
Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
My lady of Sinadoune
Is brought in strong prisoun
That was of greet valour;
Sche praith the sende her a knight
With harte good and light
To winne her with honour1.
The cauda is usually of six syllables; but there is a variety
with four, found in part of Sir Beves:
That erl is hors began to stride
His scheld he hang upon is side
Gert with swerd;
Moste non armur on him come
Himself was boute the ferthe some
Toward that ferd.
Allas that he nadde be war
Of is fomen that weren thar
Him forte schende;
With tresoun worth he thor islawe
And i-brouht of is lif-daw
Er he hom wende.
The rime couée is a lyrical stanza, and there are other lyrical
forms. One of the romances of Octavian is in the old Provençal and
old French measure which, by roundabout ways, came to Scotland,
and was used in the seventeenth century in honour of Habbie
Simson, the piper of Kilbarchan, and, thereafter, by Allan Ramsay,
Fergusson and Burns, not to speak of later poets.
The knyght was glad to skape so,
As every man is from hys foo;
The mayster lette ten men and moo
That ylke day,
To wende and selle that chyld hem fro
And that palfray .
The riming Mort Arthur is in a favourite eight-line stanna.
Sir Tristrem, in most ways exceptional, uses a lyrical stave, like
one of those in the collection of Laurence Minot, and very unlike
anything that was permissible in the French schools of narrative at
that time. It may be remembered, however, that the Italian
romances of the fourteenth century and later used a form of verse
that, at first, was lyrical, the ottava rima; there are other affinities
in Italian and English popular literature, as compared with the
French, common qualities which it would be interesting to study
further
The French originals of these English romances are almost
universally in short couplets, the ordinary verse for all subjects,
L. 145 sqq. Ll. 199 sqq. LL. 879 sqq. "Gaston Paris, opp. citt.


## p. 291 (#311) ############################################

Forms of Verse
291
after the chansons de geste had grown old-fashioned'. On the
whole, and considering how well understood the short couplet
was in England even in the thirteenth century, e. g. in The Owl and
the Nightingale, it is rather surprising that there should be such
a large discrepancy between the French and the English forms.
There are many anomalies; thus, the fuller version of Ipomedon,
by a man who really dealt fairly and made a brave effort to get the
French spirit into English rime, is in rime couée; while the shorter
Ipomedon, scamped work by some poor hack of a minstrel, is in the
regular French couplet. It should be noted here that rime couée
is later than couplets, though the couplets last better, finally
coming to the front again and winning easily in Confessio Amantis
and in The Romaunt of the Rose. There are many examples of re-
writing: tales in couplets are re-written in stanzas; Sir Beves, in
the earlier part, is one, Sir Launfal is another. Horn Childe is
in the Thopas verse; it is the same story as King Horn, though
with other sources, and different names and incidents.
In later times, the octosyllabic verse recovers its place, and,
though new forms are employed at the close of the Middle Ages,
such as rime royal (e. g. in Generydes) and the heroic couplet
(in Clariodus and Sir Gilbert Hay's Alexander), still, for simple
popular use, the short verse is the most convenient, as is proved by
the chap-book romances, Sir Eger and Roswall and Lilian-also,
one may say, by Sir David Lyndsay's Squire Meldrum. The curious
riming alliterative verse of the Awntyrs of Arthure and Rauf
Coilyear lasts well in Scotland; but it had never been thoroughly
established as a narrative measure, and, though it is one of the
forms recognised and exemplified in king James VI's Art of
Poesie, its "tumbling verse” is there regarded as most fit for
“flytings,” which was, indeed, its usual function in the end of
its days.
Alliterative blank verse came up in the middle of the four-
teenth century and was chiefly used for romance, Piers Plow-
man being the only considerable long poem to be compared in
weight with The Troy Book or The Wars of Alexander, though
there are others of less compass which are still remarkable enough.
Where the verse came from is not known clearly to anyone and
can only be guessed. The facts are that, whereas the old verse
1 There are exceptions; thus the French-or Anglo-Norman-Beves is in an epic
measure; and, of course, some of the English romances are borrowed from French
epics, like Roland, and Sir Ferumbras, and the alliterative poem of the Swan-Knight
(Chevelete Assigne) which, though romantic enough in subject, belongs technically, in
the original French, to the cycle of Godfrey of Bouillon.
19-2


## p. 292 (#312) ############################################

292 Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
begins to show many signs of decay before the Conquest, and
reappears after the Conquest in very battered shapes, in Layamon
and The Bestiary and The Proverbs of Alfred, the new order, of
which William of Palerne is the earliest, has clearly ascertained
some of the main principles of the ancient Teutonic line, and adheres
to them without any excessive difficulty. The verse of these allite-
rative romances and of Langland, and of all the rest down to Dunbar
and the author of Scotish Feilde, is regular, with rules of its own;
not wholly the same as those of Old English epic, but partly so,
and never at all like the helpless medley of Layamon. It must have
been hidden away somewhere underground-continuing in a purer
tradition than happens to have found its way into extant manu-
scriptstill, at last, there is a striking revival in the reign of
Edward III. There are some hints and indications in the meantime.
Giraldus the untiring, the untamed, with his quick wit and his lively
interest in all manner of things, has a note comparing the Welsh and
the English love of alliteration-as he compares the part-singing of
Wales with that of the north country. He gives English examples:
Good is togedere gamen and wisdom,
a regular line, like those of the fourteenth century and unlike the
practice of Layamon. Plainly, many things went on besides what
is recorded in the surviving manuscripts. At any rate, the result in
the fourteenth century alliterative poems is a noble one.
The plots of the romances are, like the style of them, not so
monotonous as at first appears. They are not all incoherent, and
incoherence is not found exclusively in the minstrels' tales; there
are faults of composition in some of Chaucer's stories (eg. The
Man of Law's Tale), as manifest as those which he satirised in
Sir Thopas. A great many of the romances are little better than
hackneyed repetitions, made by an easy kaleidoscopic shufiling of
a few simple elements. Perhaps Sir Beves is the best example of
the ordinary popular tale, the medieval book of chivalry with all
the right things in it. It might have been produced in the same
way as The Knight of the Burning Pestle, by allowing the audience
to prescribe what was required. The hero's father is murdered,
like Hamlet's; the hero is disinherited, like Horn; he is wooed by
a fair Paynim princess; he carries a treacherous letter, like Hamlet
again, "and beareth with him his own death"; he is separated
from his wife and children, like St Eustace or Sir Isumbras; and
exiled, like Huon of Bordeaux, for causing the death of the king's
son. The horse Arundel is like Bayard in The Four Sons of


## p. 293 (#313) ############################################

Traditional Plots
293
Aymon, and the giant Ascapart is won over like Ferumbras”. In
the French original there was one conspicuous defect—no dragon.
But the dragon is supplied, most liberally and with great success,
in the English version. It makes one think of a good puppet-show;
for example, the play of Don Gayferos, which drew Don Quixote
into a passion. “Stay, your worship, and consider that those Moors
which your worship is routing and slaying are not real Moors, but
pasteboard! ” Saracens are cheap in the old romances; King Horn
rode out one day and bagged a hundred to his own sword. Yet
there are differences; in Sir Ferumbras, which is no very ambitious
poem, but a story which has shared with Sir Beves and Sir Guy
the favour of simple audiences for many generations, there is
another kind of fighting, because it comes from the Old French
epic school, which gives full particulars of every combat, on the
same scale as the Iliad. So far, the work is more solid than in
Sir Beves. There are worse things, however, than the puppet-show
of chivalry. The story of Guy of Warwick, for instance, is some-
thing of a trial for the most reckless and most “Gothic" reader;
instead of the brightly coloured figures of Sir Beves or King Horn
and their adversaries, there is a doleful, stale religion in it, a most
trashy mixture of asceticism (like the legend of St Alexius), with
the most hackneyed adventures. Not that commonplace adventures
need be dull; sometimes even an increased acquaintance with
parallels and variants and so forth may heighten the interest; as
when Horn returns in disguise and sits down in the "beggars' row. ”
It is natural to think of the beggars at the foot of the hall in the
Odyssey; there is the same kind of scene in an Irish popular tale
(Blaiman"), where a recognition takes place like that of King Horn.
In comparing them, one seems to get, not, indeed, any clear theory
of the way in which the ideas of stories are carried about the world,
but a pleasant sense of the community of stories, so to speak, and
of the relation between stories and real life, in different ages and
places.
Traditional plots like those of the fairy tales appear in
medieval romances; not often enough, one is inclined to say, and
not always with any distinct superiority of the literary to the
popular oral version.
One example is Sir Amadas, which is the
story of the grateful ghost, the travelling companion, The Old
1 A resemblance has been traced between Sir Beves and some things in Firdasi.
The east had its books of chivalry like the west, and nearly at the same time. Cf.
Deutschbein, Englische Sagengeschichte,
* Curtin, Hero Tales of Ireland.


## p. 294 (#314) ############################################

294 Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
Wives' Tale. This story, one of the best known in all languages,
has a strange power to keep its elements free of contamination.
It is found in many mixed forms, it is true, but some of the latest
folklore versions are distinct and coherent. There is an Irish
version (Beauty of the World, given by Larminie in Gaelic and
English) which, when compared with Sir Amadas, seems to prove
that the authors of the metrical romances might possibly have done
better if they had attended to the narrative, like the simple tellers
of fairy tales, without troubling themselves as to the rhetoric of the
French school. Another example of the same sort can be obtained
by comparing Sir Perceval with some of the folklore analogues.
Sir Perceval is one of the simplest of the old romances : it seems
at first almost like a rude burlesque of the Conte del Graal. It is
now commonly thought to be taken from an earlier lost French
version of the same subject. However that may be, it shows the
common roughness of the English as compared with the French
tales ; it is full of spirit, but it is not gentle. Percival in this
romance is not like the Percival of Wolfram or of Malory; he is a
rollicking popular hero who blunders into great exploits. The
style, even for this sort of motive, is rather too boisterous. Again,
in this case, as with Sir Amadas, there may be found a traditional
oral rendering of some of the same matters which, in point of
style, is better than the English metrical romance. The scene
of the discourteous knight breaking in and insulting the king is
found in the west Highland tale of The Knight of the Red Shield,
in Campbell's collection, and it is told there with greater command
of language and better effect.
“Breton lays" have been mentioned; the name meant for
the English a short story in rime, like those of Marie de France,
taken from Celtic sources. Some of these were more complex than
others, but they were never spun out like the romances of Beves
and Guy, and the best of them are very good in the way they
manage their plot. Moreover, there is something in them of that
romantic mystery which is less common in medieval literature than
modern readers generally suppose ; it is not often to be found in
the professional fiction of the Middle Ages. But the Breton lays
are nearer than other romances to the popular beliefs out of
which romantic marvels are drawn, and they retain something
of their freshness. The best in English are Sir Orfeo and Sir
Launfal. The first of these, which is the story of Orpheus, is a
proof of what can be done by mere form, the classical fable is
completely taken over, and turned into a fairy tale; hardly any-


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295
Fairy Tales
thing is left to it except what it owes to the Breton form
(of thought and expression). It is a story like that of young
Tamlane in the ballad, a rescue from the fairy, for Pluto has
become the fairy king, and everything ends happily; Eurydice is
brought back in safety. There is nothing wrong in the description
of it as a “Breton lay,” for it is wholly such a tale as the Bretons,
and many other people, might have told without any suggestion
from Greek or Latin. The English poem (no original is extant
in French) is an utterly different thing from the rambling tales
of chivalry. It has much of the quality that is found in some
of the ballads; and, in time, through some strange fortune, it
became itself a ballad, and was found in Shetland, not very long
ago, with a Norse refrain to it?
The different versions of Launfal-Landavall in couplets,
Launfal Miles of Thomas Chestre, in rime couée, and the de-
generate Sir Lambewell of the Percy M8—have been carefully
studied and made to exhibit some of the ordinary processes of
translation and adaptation. They come from Marie de France-
Thomas Chestre took something from the lay of Graelent besides
the main plot of Lanval. The story is one of the best known; the
fairy bride
The kingo's daughter of Avalon,
That is an isle of the fairie
In ocean full fair to see-
and the loss of her, through the breaking of her command. The
Wedding of Sir Gawain, which, in another form, is The Wife of
Bath's Tale, is from the same mythical region, and has some of
the same merits.
The romance of Sir Libeaus," the fair unknown," the son of
Sir Gawain, is of different proportions, less simple and direct than
Orfeo or Launfal. But it keeps some of the virtues of the fairy
tale, and is one of the most pleasing of all the company of Sir
Thopas. Adventures are too easily multiplied in it, but it is not a
mere jumble of stock incidents. It is very like the story of Gareth
in Malory, and, along with Gareth, may have suggested some things
to Spenser, for the story of the Red Cross Knight. Also, the
breaking of the enchantment in the castle of Busirane may owe
something to Sir Libeaus: there seems to have been an old
printed edition of Libius Disconius, though no printed copy is
extant. The plot is a good one, the expedition of a young and
untried knight to rescue a lady from enchantment; it is a pure
* Child, Ballads, No. 19.


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296
Metrical Romances, 1200—1500
romance of knight errantry, very fit to be taken as an example of
that order, and, possibly, the best of all the riming tales that keep
simply to the familiar adventures of books of chivalry. Sir Libeaus
takes a long time to reach the palace of the two enchanters
“clerkes of nigremauncie"-who keep the lady of Sinaudon under
their spells in the shape of a loathly worm. But the excursions
and digressions have some spirit in them, and no confusion.
The elements of the plot in Sir Gawayne and the Grene
Knight are as ancient and unreasonable as are to be found in any
mythology. No precise original has been found in French; but
the chief adventure, the beheading game proposed by the Green
Knight to the reluctant courtiers of king Arthur, occurs often in
other stories. It comes in one of the stories of Cuchulinn in Irish”;
it comes, more than once, in the French romances; e. g. in La Mule
sans Frein, one of the best of the shorter stories, a strange old-
fashioned chivalrous pilgrim's progress; and this, too, sets out
from king Arthur's court, and the hero is Gawain. The beheading
"jeopardy" is a most successful piece of unreason; "you may cut
off my head, if only I may have a stroke at you some other day. "
Sir Gawain cuts off the Green Knight's head; the Green Knight
picks it up; he summons Gawain to travel and find him by an
appointed day, and submit his neck to the return-stroke. This is
good enough, one would imagine, for a grotesque romance; one
hears the reader quoting aegri somnia and reaffirming his con-
tempt for the Middle Ages. Yet this romance of Sir Gawayne is
very different from the ordinary books of chivalry; it is one of the
most singular works of the fourteenth century, and it is one of the
strongest, both in imagination and in literary art. The author
loses nothing of the fantastic value of his plot; on the contrary, he
does everything possible to heighten the effect of it, to a grotesque
sublimity; while, at the same time, he is concerned, as Shakespeare
often is, to transform the folklore with which he is working, and
make it play into his moral scheme. He is a great moralist and
he can use allegory; but, in his treatment of this story, his
imagination is generally too strong for abstract methods. He
succeeds (a very remarkable feat) in making his readers accept
strange adventures as part of a reasonable man's life; not
smoothing away or suppressing absurdities, but getting out of
them everything possible in the way of terror and wonder; and
i See also Chapter xv, where this romance is further considered as part of the
work of the author of Pearl.
2 Cf. Bricriu's Feast, edited by G. Henderson for the Irish Texts Society.


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Gawain and Tristram
97
using mockery also, like that of the northern myths of Thor and the
giants. Allegory comes in, but accidentally, in the description of
Gawain's shield and its device, the “pentangle,” with its religious
motive-Gawain as the servant of Our Lady; thus adding some-
thing more to the complexity of the work. It is a different thing
from the simple beauty of the fairy tales; and, on the other
hand, the common futilities of the minstrels are kept at a
safe distance by this author. His landscape is not that of the
ordinary books; Sir Gawain is not sent wandering in the con-
ventional romantic scenery, but in the highlands of Wales in
winter, all well known and understood by the poet, with thorough
enjoyment of the season, “the flaky shower and whirling drift. "
This is not quite exceptional, for, though the winter passages of
the Scottish Chaucerians are later, the alliterative poets generally
were good at stormy weather, but there is none equal to the poet
of Sir Gawayne in this kind of description. The three hunting
scenes of the hart, the boar and the fox-serve to bring out his
talent further, while the way they are placed in contrast with the
Christmas revels in the castle, show, at any rate, the writer's care
for composition; symmetry of this sort may not be very difficult,
but it is not too common at this time. The temptation of Sir
Gawain and the blandishments of the lady may have been suggested
by the French romance of Ider; but, as in the case of the other
ordeal—the beheading game-the English poet has given his own
rendering.
Sir Tristrem is a great contrast to Sir Gawayne, though both
works are ambitious and carefully studied. The author of Sir
Gawayne took some old wives' fables and made them into a mag-
nificent piece of Gothic art; the other writer had one of the
noblest stories in the world to deal with, and translated it into
thin tinkling rimes.
Ysonde of heighe priis,
The maiden bright of howe,
That wored fow and griis
And scarlet that was newe,
In warld was non so wiis
Of crafto that men knewe,
Withouten Sir Tramtris
That al games of growe
On grounde.
Hom longeth Tramtris the trewe.
For heled was his wounde.
The author is so pleased with his command of verse that he loses


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298
Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
all proper sense of his tragic theme. Tristram and Iseult had to
wait long for their poet, in England.
The Tale of Gamelyn may count for something on the native
English side against the many borrowed French romances. It is a
story of the youngest son cruelly treated by his tyrannical elder
brother, and coming to his own again with the help of the king of
outlaws. Thomas Lodge made a novel out of it, and kept a
number of incidents—the defeat of the wrestler (the “champioun"
as he is called), the loyalty of Adam Spencer and the meeting with
the outlaws-and so these found their way to Shakespeare, and,
along with them, the spirit of the greenwood and its freedom. The
Tale of Gamelyn is As You Like It, without Rosalind or Celia ;
the motive is, naturally, much simpler than in the novel or the
play: merely the poetical justice of the young man's adventures
and restoration, with the humorous popular flouting of respecta-
bility in the opposition of the liberal outlaws to the dishonest
elder brother and the stupid abbots and priors.
"Ow! ” seyde Gamelyn, “so brouke I my bon
Now I have aspyed that freendes have I non;
Cursed mot be worthe, bothe fleisch and blood
That ever do priour or abbot any good! ”
The verse is, more or less, the same as that of Robert of Gloucester,
and of the southern Legends of Saints; nowhere is it used with
more freedom and spirit than in Gamelyn:
Then seide the maister, kyng of outlawes
“What seeke ye, yonge men, under woode-schawes ? "
Gamelyn answerde the king with his croune,
“He moste needes walke in woode that may not walke in towne:
Sir, we walke not heer non harm for to do,
But if we meete with a deer to schute therto,
As men that ben hungry and mow no mete fynde,
And ben harde bystad under woode-lynde. ”
Gamelyn is found only in MSS of The Canterbury Tales ; Skeat's
conjecture is a fair one, that it was kept by Chaucer among
his papers, to be worked up, some day, into The Yeoman's Tale.
Another romance, less closely attached to Chaucer's work, the
Tale of Beryn (called The Merchants Second Tale) is also, like
Gamelyn, rather exceptional in its plot. It is a comic story, and
comes from the east : how Beryn with his merchandise was driven
by a storm at sea to a strange harbour, a city of practical jokers;
and how he was treated by the burgesses there, and hard put to it
to escape from their knavery; and how he was helped against the
sharpers by a valiant cripple, Geoffrey, and shown the way to
defeat them by tricks more impudent than their own.


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Gamelyn and Beryn 299
The verse of Beryn is of the same sort as in Gamelyn, but more
uneven ; often very brisk, but sometimes falling into the tune of
the early Elizabethan doggerel drama :
After these two brethren, Romulus and Romus,
Julius Cesar was Emperour, that rightful was of domus.
But, on the other hand, there are good verses like these :
For after misty cloudes ther cometh a cler sonno
So after bale cometh bote, whoso bide conne.
There are, obviously, certain types and classes among the
romances; medieval literature generally ran in conventional
moulds, and its clients accepted readily the well-known turns of a
story and the favourite characters. But, at the same time, in
reading the romances one has a continual sense of change and of
experiment; there is no romantic school so definite and assured as
to make any one type into a standard ; not even Chaucer succeeded
in doing what Chrétien had done two centuries earlier in France.
The English romancers have generally too little ambition, and the
ambitious and original writers are too individual and peculiar to
found any proper school, or to establish in England a medieval
pattern of narrative that might be compared with the modern novel.
Sir Thopas he bereth the flour,
and the companions of Sir Thopas, who are the largest group,
never think of competing seriously with the great French authors
of the twelfth century, the masters, as they must be reckoned, of
medieval romantic poetry. The English, like the Italians, were too
late; they missed the twelfth century and its influences and ideals,
or only took them up when other and still stronger forces were
declaring themselves. They failed to give shape in English to the
great medieval romantic themes ; they failed in Sir Tristrem; and
the Middle Ages were at an end before Sir Thomas Malory brought
out the noblest of all purely medieval English romances, translated
from “the French book” that was then nearly three centuries old.
The relation of the romances to popular ballads is not easy
to understand. The romances and their plots go through many
transformations ; Horn and Launfal are proof of this. Horn
turns into a ballad, and so do many others; the ballad of Orfeo
has been mentioned. But it will not do to take the ballads in a
lump as degenerate forms of earlier narrative poetry, for the ballad
is essentially a lyrical form, and has its own laws, independent of
all forms of narrative poetry in extant medieval English; and, again,


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300 Metrical Romances, 1200—1500
a great number of ballads have plots which not only do not occur in
any known romances (which, of itself, would prove little or nothing)
but they are plainly not fitted for narrative of any length (e. g. Lord
Randal, Sir Patrick Spens, The Wife of Usher's Well). On the
whole, it seems best to suppose that the two forms of lyrical ballad
and narrative romance were independent, though not in antagonism,
through all the Middle Ages. They seem to have drawn their
ideas from different sources, for the most part. Though almost
anything may be made the subject of a ballad, there are certain
kinds of plot that seem to be specially fitted for the ballad and
much less for the long story; fairy adventures, like that of Tam-
lane, heroic defences against odds, like that of Parcy Reed and,
before all, tragic stories, like Annie of Lochryan or the Douglas
tragedy. The romances, as a rule, end happily, but there is no
such law in ballads. It will be found, too, that the romances
which have most likeness to ballads are generally among those
of the shorter and simpler kind, like Orfeo and the Lai le Freine.
The question is made more complicated by the use of ballad
measure for some of the later romances, like The Knight of
Curtesy, a strange version of The Chevalier de Coucy. Of Robin
Hood and Adam Bell and many more, it is hard to say whether
they are to be ranked with ballads or with romances. But all
this is matter for another enquiry.


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CHAPTER XIV
METRICAL ROMANCES, 1200—1500
II
The metrical romances which form during three centuries a
distinctive feature of our literature must in no sense be regarded as
an isolated phenomenon. They begin under the auspices of the
twelfth century renascence. They supply a want while feudalism
lasts. And they begin to vanish when feudalism crumbles in the wars
of the Roses. It has been already said that legend and love were
the two main themes of the twelfth century literary revolt against
earlier religious traditions, and it is not without significance that
they were precisely the themes of this new creation, the romance.
It is true that the crusading zeal, and occasional Christianising
tendencies, which characterise some of the romances, still point to
militant religious forces, but religion ceases to supply the initial
impulse, or to give direction. The raison d'être of the romances
is of a secular kind. It was felt to be good to indulge the fancy and
to hear of love, and so legendary and historical narratives and
cheerful love-stories were, from time to time, related with no
other motive than the telling of a good tale. The romance, then,
obviously forms part of, or is, perhaps, the sequel to, that general
emancipatory movement in literature which marked the twelfth
century.
But the form and tone of the English romance were determined
by more than one consideration. Political and social connections
with France and Britanny rendered available a store of French
material, and Welsh traditions, through the medium of Britanny,
were found to increase that store. The movements of the crusaders
brought the west into closer touch with the east. And, amidst all
these alien influences, something of what was native still persisted.
Nor must internal considerations be entirely forgotten. Neither
social nor intellectual development failed to leave its mark upon
this branch of literature. Woman had come to be regarded as of
more importance than ever in the community. The literary tenden-
cies which made for love-tales found their counterpart in the striving


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302 Metrical Romances, 1200—1500
towards higher ideals of conduct in relation to woman. Manners
became more refined and a code of chivalry was evolved.
Heightened sensibility was, moreover, revealed in the increased
appreciation of the beautiful—the beauty of womanhood, the
beauty of nature, the beauty of noble conduct. And the refine-
ment of fancy made fairyland seem possible.
Jean Bodel's classification of the romances has already been
mentioned. Regarding them, however, from the point of view
of the motives and influences they embody, it is seen that they
fall into certain groups: Carolingian or Old French, Old English,
classical, oriental and Celtic.
The Carolingian element is represented in medieval English
romance by Sir Otuel, Roland and Vernagu and Sir Ferumbras.
The first is an account of a Saracen attack upon France. Sir Otuel
is the Saracen emissary who insultingly defies Charlemagne in his
own hall and is, in consequence, challenged by Roland. A stiff
fight follows; but, in answer to Charlemagne's prayers, a white
dove alights upon the shoulders of the Saracen; whereupon he
capitulates and undertakes to embrace the Christian faith. Roland
and Vernagu deals with Charlemagne's exploits in Spain. Its
main incident consists of a combat, spread over two days, between
Roland and Vernagu, the gigantic black champion of the sultan of
Babylon. At one point of the protracted duel the giant is over-
come with sleep; and this leads to an exhibition of knightly
courtesy. So far from taking advantage of his slumbering rival,
Roland seeks to make those slumbers easy by improvising a
rough pillow beneath his head. Sir Ferumbras relates the capture
of Rome by the Saracen hosts and its relief by Charlemagne. The
usual combat takes place, this time between Olivier and Ferumbras,
son of the sultan of Babylon. The Saracen is, as usual, overcome
and accepts Christianity. His sister Floripas, who is in love with
the French Sir Guy, afterwards her husband, assists the Christians,
and both brother and sister are subsequently rewarded with
territory in Spain.
In these works there is obviously embalmed the fierce heroic
temper of the Carolingian era. The animating spirit is that of the
crusades. Saracen champions are consistently worsted and forcibly
persuaded, after sanguinary combat, of the beauties of Christian
doctrine. The chivalrous ideal is still in the making, and
the self-restraint and courtesy of Christian heroes are shown
to contrast favourably with the brutal manners of Saracen


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Havelok
303
warriors. But chivalry, as such, is still a battle-field grace; its
softening virtues have yet to be developed in other spheres of
activity. The glory of womanhood lies in ferocity and daring, in
a strong initiative, if needs be, in affairs of love. Floripas, in
Sir Ferumbras, for the sake of her love, deceives her father,
overpowers her governess and brains a jailor: and other Caro-
lingian heroines like Blancheflour and Guiboux are similarly
formidable.
The romances which spring directly from English soil are
animated by essentially different motives and reflect a different
society from that of the French group. In Havelok and Horn,
in Guy of Warwick and Beves of Hamtoun there exists
primarily the viking atmosphere of tenth century England,
though the sagas, in their actual form, have acquired, through alien
handling, a certain crusade colouring. In Horn, for instance,
Saracens are substituted for vikings in plain disregard of historical
verisimilitude; and again, in Guy of Warwick, the English
legend has been invested with fresh motives and relentlessly
expanded with adventures in Paynim. After removing such
excrescences, however, we shall find something of earlier English
conditions. Such situations as they depict, arising out of usurpa-
tion on the part of faithless guardians of royal children, spring, in
a great measure, out of pre-Conquest unsettlement. They were
situations not uncommon in the day of small kingdoms and restless
viking hordes. Havelok is a tale of how a Danish prince and an
English princess came to their own again. The hero, son of the
Danish king Birkabeyn, is handed over by his wicked guardian
Godard, to a fisherman Grim, to be drowned. A mystic light,
however, reveals Havelok's royal birth to the simple Grim, who
saves the situation by crossing to England. They land at Grimsby,
a town that still cherishes the name of Havelok and the characters
of the tale, in its streets and its seal; and the hero, by a happy
coincidence, drifts, as a kitchen-boy, into the household of Godrich,
guardian of Goldburgh. This guardian, however, is no better than
Godard, for he has likewise deprived the daughter of the English
Aethelwold of her inheritance. Havelok is a strong, handsome
youth, who soon becomes famous for feats of strength; whereupon
Godrich, who had promised Aethelwold that he would marry
Goldburgh to the "best man" in the country, maliciously keeps
his promise by forcing her to marry bis “cook's knave," a
popular hero by reason of his athletic deeds. By degrading


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304
Metrical Romances, 1200-1500
Goldburgh into a churl's wife, Godrich hopes to make his hold
upon her inheritance secure. The princess naturally bewails her
lot when led away by Havelok, but she becomes reconciled when
mysterious signs assure her, as they had previously assured Grim,
of her husband's royal origin. Meanwhile, the faithful Ubbe, who
has set matters right in Denmark, appears in England, when all
wrongs are righted and the united futures of hero and heroine
are straightway assured.
Horn is a viking story plainly adapted to romantic ends.
The hero is the youthful son of the king of Suddene (Isle of
Man), who, after the death of his father, at the hands of raiding
Saracens (vikings), is turned adrift in a rudderless boat. Wind
and tide bring the boat with its living freight to the land of
Westernesse (Wirral? ), where the princess Rymenhild, falling
in love with the stranded hero, endeavours, with womanly art, to
win his love in return. Horn is knighted through Rymen-
hild's good offices; but, before he can surrender himself to the
pleasant bondage of love, he longs to accomplish knightly deeds.
He therefore departs in quest of adventure, but leaves behind
him a traitorous companion, Fikenhild, who reveals to the king the
secret of the lovers. Horn is banished and only returns on learn-
ing that Rymenhild is about to wed. He appears in pilgrim garb,
is forgiven and rescues the princess from a distasteful suitor. But,
after marriage, the old knightly instincts again assert themselves;
and he crosses to Suddene, which he rids of invaders. The
treacherous Fikenhild had, however, in the meantime carried off
Rymenhild, and Horn, after avenging this deed, returns once more
to his homeland, this time not alone.
In the ponderous but popular Guy of Warwick we recog-
nise a tedious expansion of a stirring English legend. Sir Guy
was regarded as a national hero, who, by his victory over
Colbrand the Dane, had rescued England from the grip of the
invader. In the romance this appears—but in company with
other episodes which destroy the simplicity of the earlier narrative,
confuse its motive and change its colouring. When he first
comes on the scene, Guy is madly in love with Felice the
beautiful daughter of the earl of Warwick; but his suit is denied
on account of his inferiority of standing, for he is but the son of
the earl's steward. He, therefore, ventures abroad, and returns in
a few years, laden with honours: but only to be repulsed once
more by his too scrupulous mistress, who now fears that wedded
life may transform her hero into a slothful and turgid knight.


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Guy of Warwick
305
Once more he goes abroad; and, after brisk campaigning, he is
welcomed on his return by Aethelstan, at whose request he rids
Northumbria of an insatiable dragon. After this, Felice can hold
out no longer, The lovers are united; but now Guy begins to
entertain scruples. The rest of his life is to be spent in hardship
and penance, and he leaves again for uncouth lands. He returns
in due course to find king Aethelstan hard pressed by the Danish
Anlaf; but Guy's overthrow of Colbrand saves the kingdom and he
sets out forthwith on his way to Warwick. Disguised as a palmer,
he finds his wife engaged in works of charity; but, without revealing
his identity, he stoically retires to a neighbouring hermitage, where
the much-tried couple are finally united before he breathes his last.
Beves of Hamtoun, like Horn, springs from English soil,
but the transforming process traced in the one is completed
in the other. Beves presents almost entirely crusading tendencies,
but few traces remain of the earlier form. Beves, who has been
despatched as a slave to heathen parts by a treacherous mother,
ultimately arrives at the court of the Saracen king Ermyn.
Here he is the recipient of handsome favours, and is offered
the hand of the princess Josian, on condition that he for-
sakes the Christian faith. This he refuses to do, but the valour
he displays in staggering exploits still keeps him in favour, and
Josian, for his love, is prepared to renounce her native gods. The
king hears of this, and Beves is committed to a neighbouring
potentate, by whom he is kept in a horrible dungeon for some
seven years. After a marvellous escape from his terrible sur-
roundings, Beves seeks out Josian, and both flee to Cologne,
where they are duly wedded. The hero's career continues to be as
eventful as ever; but he is finally induced to turn towards home,
where he succeeds in regaining his inheritance, and is recognised
as a worthy knight by the reigning king Edgar.
In attempting to estimate the contribution made by these four
works to Middle English romance, it must be remembered that,
although they originate ultimately from the England of the
vikings, of Aethelstan and Edgar, they have all been touched
with later foreign influences. In them may be perceived, how-
ever, an undeveloped chivalry, as well as reminiscences of Old
English life and thought. The code of chivalry is as yet unfor-
mulated.