The owl, on the other
band, unmistakably represents a poet of the religious type.
band, unmistakably represents a poet of the religious type.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v01
The pious soul
yearning for a closer walk with God now expressed its longings in
the language of earthly passion, just as earlier mystics had tried
to interpret the Divine nature by the use of more commonplace
allegory. And this development was encouraged by the mysticism
of Hugo de St Victor, which influenced both Paris and Oxford;
while elsewhere on the continent a school of nuns was producing
works laden with passion and breathing an intense emotion.
The Virgin cult is represented in the first place by the prose
Lofsong of ure Lefdi, a fairly close translation of the poem Oratio
ad Sanctam Mariam of archbishop Marbod of Rheims (1035—
1138), and by On God Ureisun of ure Lefdi (A Good Orison of
our Lady), a poem in riming couplets, for which no Latin original
has yet been found, though it contains suggestions of the work of
Anselm? . Other examples of the kind are found in The Five Joys
of the Virgin, a poem in eight-line stanzas; A Song to the Virgin,
with Latin insertions; A Prayer to Our Lady, a sinner's repentance
in interesting four-line stanzas; A Prayer to the Virgin, in similar
form. Another side of the Virgin cult is represented by the Middle
English versions of the Compassio Mariae and the Assumptio
Mariae, which appeared about the middle of the century. The
former is a west Midland translation of a Latin hymn, and the
work is artistically interesting as illustrating how metrical innova-
tion was made. The six-line strophe and the riming formula are
taken over from the original, though this identity of form prevents
a literal rendering. The treatment is otherwise not without
originality. Alliterative ornament is added, and use is made of a
popular piece of medieval fancy, namely, the comparison of Christ's
birth to a sunbeam passing through glass and leaving it unstained”.
Assumptio Mariae rests on a venerable legend of the ascension
of Mary; it is of eastern origin, but is found in Latin, German
and French versions. The English version is written in short
couplets, and appears to be of an eclectic kind. The episode of
unbelieving Thomas is taken from a Latin version; otherwise the
poem is strongly reminiscent of Wace’s Vie de la Vierge Marie.
1 Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. eto. , pp. 41 ff.
: A. Napier, E. E. T. S. CIII, pp. 75 ff.
## p. 233 (#253) ############################################
The Luve Ron
233
Erotic mysticism is best represented by the Luve Ron of Thomas
de Hales, a delightful lyric in eight-line stanzas, written in the
earlier portion of the reign of Henry III, and, probably, before 1240
judging from the allusion in ll. 97 ff. The writer was a native of
Hales (Gloucester), who, after a career at Paris and Oxford, attained
considerable distinction as a scholar. The main theme of the work
is the perfect love which abides with Christ and the joy and peace
of mystic union with Him. The poem is full of lofty devotion and
passionate yearning ; its deep seriousness is conveyed through a
medium tender and refined, and it is, in short, one of the most
attractive and impassioned works of the time, as the following
extracts suggest :
Maydė her þu myht biholde,
bis worldes luue nys bute o res,
And is by-set so felė-volde,
Vikel and frakel and wok and les.
beos beines bat her weren bolde
Beoþ aglyden, 80 wyndes bles:
Under molde hi liggep colde,
And falewep so dop medewe gres.
Hwer is Paris and Heleyne
bat weren so bryht and feyre on bleo:
Amadas, Tristram, and Dideyne
Yseudė and alle peo:
Eotor wib his scharpė meyno
And Cesar riche of wor[1]des feo?
Heo beob iglyden ut of þe reyno,
So þe schef is of be cleol.
The three prose prayers, The Wohung of ure Lauerd, On Lofsong
of ure Louerde and On Ureisun of ure Louerde, belong to the
same category as the Luve Ron. They are written in an allitera-
tive prose? , which aimed at obtaining the emphatic movement of
Old English verse, and is most effective in recitation, though the
absence of metrical rules brings about a looser structure. All
three prayers consist of passionate entreaties for closer communion
with Christ, and the personal feeling revealed in them illustrates
the use of the love motive in the service of religion. But
to interpret the love terminology literally and to connect these
prayers solely with the devotions of nuns, as one critic suggests,
seems to involve a misapprehension of their tone, for it infuses
i Ll. 9–16; 65—72. O res, passing, transitory. frakel, base. wok, feeble.
les, false. bles, blast. meyne, might. feo, wealth. schef of þe cleo, corn from the
hill-side.
Cf. Hwa ne mei luue pi luueli leor ?
## p. 234 (#254) ############################################
234
Early Transition English
into their being an earthliness quite out of keeping with their
rarefied sentiment. Further, these works have some points in
common, occasionally literal agreement, with the Ancren Riwle
and Hali Meidenhad, but, in all probability, it is in the works of
Anselm and Hugo de St Victor that the sources must be sought,
in which case all these English works are distinct and separate
borrowings from the same Latin originals”.
We come now to that section of the literature of the period
which represents a revolt against established religious themes.
It has been seen that religious writers occasionally made use of
the motives of legend and love, and from this it might be inferred
that these were the directions into which the general taste was
inclining. At all events, these are the lines along which the
literary revolt began to develope, Layamon, in the first instance,
setting forth in the vernacular legendary material which came to
hand. Layamon's Brut, written early in the thirteenth century,
has come down in two MSS (A text and B text), belonging
respectively to the first and second halves of the thirteenth
century. The later version has numerous scribal alterations:
there are many omissions of words and passages, the spelling is
slightly modernised, riming variants are introduced and foreign
substitutes take the place of obsolescent native words. The author
reveals his identity in the opening lines. He is Layamon, a priest
of Ernley (Arley Regis, Worcester), on the right bank of the
Severn, where he was wont to "read books” (i. e. the services of the
church). Layamon's ambitious purpose was to tell the story of
Britain from the time of the Flood. He is, however, content to
begin with the story of Troy and the arrival of Brutus, and to end
with the death of Cadwalader, 689 A. D. As regards his sources, he
mentions the English book of Bede, the Latin books of St Albin
and St Austin (by which he probably meant the Latin version of
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History) and, thirdly, the Brut of the
French clerk Wace. Of the first two authorities, however, it is
curious to note, he makes not the slightest use. The account of
Gregory and the English captives at Rome (II. 29,445 ff. ), which is
often quoted in support of his indebtedness to Bede, in reality
proves his entire independence, for glaring discrepancies occur
between the respective narratives. Elsewhere in the Brut Bede
is directly contradicted2 and, in fact, Layamon's assertion of in-
debtedness, as far as Bede is concerned, can be nothing more
1 Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. eto. , pp. 41 ff.
2 Cf. Layamon, Brut, 412; Bede, 1, 3, etc.
## p. 235 (#255) ############################################
Layamon's Brut
235
than a conventional recognition of a venerable work which dealt
with a kindred subject. Convention rather than fact also lay
behind his statement that he had consulted works in three different
languages.
His debt to Wace, however, is beyond all doubt'. Innumerable
details are common to both works, and, moreover, it is clear that it
is Wace's work rather than Wace's original (Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History of the Kings of Britain) that has been laid under contribu-
tion? . In the first place, Wace and Layamon have certain details in
common which are lacking in the work of Geoffrey; in the matter
of omissions Wace and Layamon frequently agree as opposed to
Geoffrey; while again they often agree in differing from the Latin
narrative in regard to place and personal names. But if Wace's
Brut forms the groundwork of Layamon's work, in the latter there
are numerous details, not accounted for by the original, which
have generally been attributed to Celtic (i. e. Welsh) influences.
Many of these details, however, have recently been shown to be
non-Welsh. The name of Argante the elf-queen, as well as that of
Modred, for instance, point to other than Welsh territory. The
traits added to the character of Arthur are in direct opposition to
what is known of Welsh tradition. The elements of the Arthurian
saga relating to the Round Table are known to have been treated
as spurious by Welsh writers ; Tysilio, in his Brut, for instance,
passes them over. Therefore the explanation of this additional
matter in Layamon, as compared with Wace, must be sought for in
other than Welsh materials.
Hitherto, when Wace's Brut has been mentioned, it has been
tacitly assumed that the printed version of that work was meant,
rather than one of those numerous versions which either remain
in manuscript or have since disappeared. One MS (Add. 32,125.
Brit. Mus. ), however, will be found to explain certain name-forms,
concerning which Layamon is in conflict with the printed Wace.
And other later works, such as the Anglo-French Brut (thirteenth
or fourteenth century) and the English metrical Mort Arthur, both
of which are based on unprinted versions of Wace, contain material
which is present in Layamon, namely, details connected with the
stories of Lear, Merlin and Arthur. Therefore it seems possible
that Layamon, like the authors of the later works, used one of the
variant texts. Further, the general nature of Layamon's additions
1 Cf. post, Chapter XII, pp. 265 ff.
R. Wülker, P. B. B. III, pp. 530 ff.
* For the main points contained in the discussion of Layamon's sources see
Imelmann, Layamon, Versuch über seine Quellen.
## p. 236 (#256) ############################################
236
Early Transition English
appear to be Breton or Norman. The names Argante and Delgan,
for instance, are derived through Norman media; the fight between
Arthur and Frollo is found in the Roman des Franceis (1204) of
André de Coutances. But Layamon seems to stand in yet closer
relation to Gaimar's Rhyming Chronicle, so far as that book can
be judged from the related Münchner Brut. An explanation of
the Carric-Cinric confusion, for instance, would be obtained by
this assumption. The representation of Cerdic and Cinric in
Layamon as one and the same person' might conceivably be
due, not to the account in the Old English Chronicle, but to
some such foreign version as is found in Gaimar (11. 819 ff. ). To
Gaimar, moreover, may probably be attributed several details of
Layamon's style-his tendency to employ forms of direct speech,
his discursiveness, his appeals to the gods and his protestations
as to the truth of his narrative. It is possible that one of the
later versions of Wace may have embodied details taken from
Gaimar. Waurin's Chroniques et istoires (fifteenth century) seems
a compilation of this kind, and it is not impossible that Layamon's
original may have been a similarly compiled work, with, it should
be added, elements taken from contemporary Tristram and Lancelot
poems. In any case, the English Brut is not based on the printed
Brut of Wace, but on one of the later versions of which certain
MSS remain and of which other traces can be found. This par-
ticular version had probably been supplemented by Breton material
introduced through some Norman medium, and, since this supple-
mentary portion is reminiscent of Gaimar, there is reason for
supposing that the particular version may have been mainly a
compilation of the earlier works of Wace and Gaimar.
This view as to sources must modify, in some degree, the estimate
to be formed of Layamon's artistic merits, and must discount the
value of some of the additions formerly ascribed to his imagination
or research. It will also account for certain matters of style already
mentioned. But, when these items have been removed, there still
remains much that is Layamon's own, sufficient to raise his work
far above the rank of a mere translation. The poet's English
individuality may be said to pervade the whole. It appears in the
reminiscences of English popular legend perceived in Wygar, the
maker of Arthur's corselet, and in the sea of Lumond, the “atteliche
pole,” where “nikeres " bathe. His English temperament appears
in the fondness he betrays for maxims and proverbs, which afford
relief from the mere business of the narrative. The poet is still in
1 Cf. 11. 28,867 fi.
## p. 237 (#257) ############################################
Layamon's Brut
237
possession of the ancient vocabulary, with its hosts of synonyms,
though the earlier parallelisms which retarded the movement are
conspicuously absent. His most resonant lines, like those of his
literary ancestors, deal with the conflict of warriors or with
that of the elements. In such passages as those which describe
the storm that overtook Ursula (11, 74), or the wrestling match
between Corineus and the giant (1, 79), he attains the true epic
note, while his words gather strength from their alliterative setting.
His verse is a compromise between the old and the new. With
the Old English line still ringing in his ears, he attempts to regulate
the rhythm, and occasionally to adorn his verse with rime or
assonance. His device of simile was, no doubt, caught from his
original, for many of the images introduced are coloured by the
Norman love of the chase, as when a fox-hunt is introduced to depict
the hunted condition of Childric (II, 452), or the pursuit of a wild
crane by hawks in the fenland to describe the chase after Colgrim
(II, 422). The poet, in general, handles his borrowings with accuracy,
but he has limitations-perhaps shows impatience—as a scholar.
Apart from a totally uncritical attitude-a venial sin in that age-he
betrays, at times, a certain ignorance on historical and geographical
points. But such anachronisms and irregularities are of little
importance in a work of this kind, and do not detract from its
literary merits. Other verbal errors suggest that the work of o
translation was to Layamon not devoid of difficulty. Where Wace
indulges in technical terminology, as in his nautical description of
Arthur's departure from Southampton, Layamon here and else-
where solves his linguistic difficulties by a process of frank omission.
The interest which the Brut possesses for modern readers
arises in part from the fact that much of its material is closely
bound up with later English literature. Apart from the Arthurian
legend here appear for the first time in English the story of Leir
and Kinbelin, Cloten and Arviragus. But the main interest
centres round the Arthurian section, with its haunting story of
a wondrous birth, heroic deeds and a mysterious end. The grey
king appears in a garment of chivalry. As compared with the
Arthur of Geoffrey's narrative, his figure has grown in knightliness
and splendour. He is endowed with the added traits of noble
generosity and heightened sensibility; he has advanced in courtesy;
he is the defender of Christianity; he is a lover of law and order.
And Layamon's narrative is also interesting historically. It is the
work of the first writer of any magnitude in Middle English, and,
standing at the entrance to that period, he may be said to look
## p. 238 (#258) ############################################
238 Early Transition English
before and after. He retains much of Old English tradition; in
addition, he is the first to make extensive use of French material.
And, lastly, in the place of a fast vanishing native mythology, he
endows his countrymen with a new legendary store in which lay
concealed the seeds of later chivalry.
The Owl and the Nightingale, which represents another line
of literary revolt, has come down in two MSS, one dating from the
first, the other from the second, half of the thirteenth century.
Of the two MSS the earlier (Cotton MS) is the more trustworthy;
the scribe of the other has frequently omitted unimportant mono-
syllabic words, regardless of scansion, besides having altered
inflexional endings and made sundry substitutions in the matter
of diction, such alterations are clearly revealed in riming
positions. The authorship is a matter of conjecture; Nicholas
of Guildford, a cleric of Portisham (Dorset), who is mentioned
thrice in the poem, is supposed by some to have been the writer,
but the objections to this view are that the allusions are all in the
third person, and that lavish praise is showered on his name. On
the other hand, since the poem aims incidentally at urging the
claims of Nicholas to clerical preferment, the end may have
justified the means and may account for the unstinted praise
as well as the anonymous character of the work. But the name
of John of Guildford must also be mentioned. He is known to
have written some verse about this period, and, since the common
appellation implies a connection between the two, it may have
been that he was the advocate of Nicholas's cause. On internal
and external evidence, the poem may, approximately, be dated
1220. The benediction pronounced upon “King Henri" (11. 1091–2)
clearly refers to Henry II; but the borrowings from Neckam
make an earlier date than 1200 impossible. The mention of a
papal mission to Scotland (1. 1095) may refer to the visit of Vivian
in 1174, or to that of cardinal Guala in 1218. The poem was
probably written before the year 1227, for at that date the
regency ceased, and, with Henry III reigning, the benediction
would be ambiguous, not to say ominous. As regards sources, no
direct original has been found; the poem embodies the spirit as
well as the structure of certain Old French models without being
a copy of any one. There are certain details, however, which
appear to have been definitely borrowed, and of these the most
interesting is the nightingale episode (Ul. 1049-62). It is narrated
at length in Marie de France's lai, Laustic (c. 1170), as une
aventure dunt le Bretun firent un lai, and before the close of the
## p. 239 (#259) ############################################
239
The Owl and the Nightingale
century it appeared in a balder form in Neckam’s De Naturis
Rerum. Its subsequent popularity is attested by its frequent
reappearances in both French and English. The episode, as it
appears in The Orol and the Nightingale, is due partly to Marie de
France, partly to Neckam. There are further details in the poem
which are reminiscent of Neckam’s De Naturis Rerum, while the
description of the barbarous north (11. 999 ff. ) is possibly based on a
similar description in Alfred's translation of Orosius. The structure
of the poem is of a composite kind. The main elements are drawn
from the Old French débat, but there is also a proverbial element
as well as Bestiary details, which, though slight in amount, give a
colouring to the whole. Of the various kinds of the Old French
débat, it is the tençon in particular upon which the poem is modelled,
for that poem, unlike the jeu-parti, has no deliberate choice of sides ;
each opponent undertakes the defence of his nature and kind. And,
in addition to the general structure, the poet has borrowed further
ideas from this same genre, namely, the appointment of judge,
suggested by the challenger and commented upon by his opponent;
the absence of the promised verdict; the use of certain conventional
figures of the Old French débat, such as le jaloux (cf. IL. 1075 ff. ), la
mal mariée (cf. 11. 1520 ff. ), and the adoption of love as the theme of
the whole. The proverbial element is derived from the lips of the
people, and, of the sixteen maxims, eleven are connected with the
name of Alfred. In representing his disputants as members of the
bird world, and in interpreting their habits to shadow forth his
truths, the poet has adopted the methods of the Bestiary. His use
of the motive is, however, so far untraditional in that the night-
ingale, unlike the owl, did not appear in the ancient Physiologus.
The main significance of the poem has been subjected to much
misconception. Its ultimate intention, as already stated, seems to
have been to suggest to English readers a new type of poetry.
To the medieval mind the poetic associations of the nightingale
were invariably those of love; according to her own descrip-
tion, her song was one of "skentinge" (amusement), and its aim
was to teach the nobility of faithful love. She is, however, induced
to emphasise (1l. 1347--1450) the didactic side of her singing, in
order to meet more successfully her dour opponent; but the
emphasis is merely a passado in a bout of dialectics, and, further,
no inconsistency is involved with her own statement, “And soth hit
is of luve ich singe,” when mention is made of the ignorance of the
barbarous north concerning those love-songs, or of the wantonness
at times induced by her passionate music. Her dignified defence
i
## p. 240 (#260) ############################################
240
Early Transition English
of love (II. 1378 ff. ), moreover, finds a counterpart in many products
of the contemporary school of love-poetry.
The owl, on the other
band, unmistakably represents a poet of the religious type. Her
doleful notes and the essentially didactic character of her songs,
her special chants at Christmas, and her duties of bestowing com-
fort, are all in keeping with her own description of herself when
she says:
Ich wisse men mid mine songe
That hi ne sunezi nowiht longel,
As to the writer's personal attitude, he inclines rather to the
side of the nightingale. The virtues of the religious school clearly
emerge in the course of the debate ; yet it cannot but be felt
that the poem embodies “a new spirit of opposition to monastic
training ? ”—only, the contending spirit was the erotic theme and
not the secular priest.
From the literary point of view the poem forms an interesting
contrast with works of the earlier period. The Old English em-
broidered diction is replaced by a mode of expression less
redundant, more unpretending, more natural. Words are no
longer artificially arranged, but follow the order of thought. The
similes employed in the place of earlier metaphor are of a col-
loquial character, effective in their unexpectedness; and the dawn
of humour is surely at hand, when the owl in her bitterness ex-
claims to the nightingale
bu chaterest so dob on Irish preost 3;
or when the nightingale hurls back the happy retort
þu singest so dop hen a-snowe,
Moreover the illustrations made use of are no mere reprints of
orthodox scenes; they reflect country life and the life of the people
which, in modern times, Hardy and Barnes were to illuminate.
Freshness and originality is, however, carried at times to excess in
the vituperations in which the disputants indulge, when crudity
and naked strength seem virtues overdone. Most interesting, on
the other hand, are the signs of an appreciation of the softer side
of nature. It was the wilder aspects of nature which had appealed
to the earlier school. The present poet saw beauty in the gentle
arrival of spring, with its blossoming meadows and flower-decked
woodlands, as well as in mellow autumn with its golden hues and
1 Ll. 927—8. wisse, direct. sunezi, sin.
· Courthope, History of English Poetry, Vol. 1, oh. iv.
3 L. 322.
* L. 412. a-snowe, in the snow.
## p. 241 (#261) ############################################
The Owl and the Nightingale
241
fallow tints. The nightingale paints a couple of dainty word-
pictures when she describes her coming and going. Upon her
arrival, she sings,
þe blostmė ginnep springe and sprede
Bope in treo and ek on mede,
pe lilie mid hire fairė wlito
Wolcumeb me, þat þu wito,
Bit me, mid hire fairė bleo
þat ich shulle to hirė fleo.
be rose also mid hire rude,
þat cumep ut of be bornéwude,
Bit me bat ich shulle singe,
Vor hire luve, onė skentingel.
Her departure takes place amid other scenes :
Hwan is ido vor hwan ich com,
Ich fare azen and do wisdom:
Hwane mon hozep of his sheve,
And falewi cumep on grenė leve,
Ich faré hom and nimė leve
Ne recche ich nozt of winteres rere.
Nor is the poem devoid of appreciation of dramatic situation and
dramatic methods. The debate is brought to a dramatic climax
by the appearance of the wren and his companions, while con-
siderable skill is shown in the characterisation of the two dis-
putants. Brief interludes are introduced for the sake of relief and
variety : they also add slight touches by the way to the character
sketches. Between the lines may be caught, here and there,
glimpses of contemporary life. The festival of Christmas with its
carol-services, the laus perennis of cathedrals and monasteries,
and the daily service of the parish priest, the rampant injustice
in the bestowal of livings, the picture of the gambler and the
tricks of the ape, all help to give a historical setting. The verse
is modelled on French octosyllabics, and the earlier staccato move-
ment gives place to a more composed rhythm. As a rule, the
rimes are wonderfully correct, and it is instructive to note that
the proportion of masculine to feminine rimes is that of 10 : 37.
This fact is interesting in connection with Chaucerian work, where
the fondness for the feminine form, which is less pronounced than
in the present poem, has been ascribed to Italian influences. It
is obvious that no such influence is at work here; nor can Old
French models have suggested the form, the masculine rime
1 Ll. 437–46. wlite, beauty. bit, bids. rude, ruddy colour. skentinge, piece for
amusement.
· Ll. 453–8. hozeb, takes thought. nime leve, take my leave. reve, plunder.
E. LI CH. XI.
## p. 242 (#262) ############################################
242
Early Transition English
being there preferred. It must have arisen from native riming
exigencies. Tambic lines had, necessarily, to end with accented
riming syllables ; but, since the English accent fell on the root
syllable in all cases where the riming word was of two syllables,
the second would become a sort of light ending and go to form a
feminine rime. The poem is, therefore, one of many-sided interest.
Its permanent value lies in its oft-sounded note of freedom, in its
metrical innovations, its discarding of the artificial for the natural,
its grasp of new methods, its new ideals and in the daring sugges-
tion it makes in connection with love. And, finally, it must be con-
fessed, the poet had travelled well. Though full of appreciation
for a foreign literature, he has not changed "his Country Manners
for those of Forraigne Parts”; he has “onely pricked in some of
the Flowers of that he had Learned abroad into the Customes of
his owne Country. " And in this way more than one of our poets
have since that day written.
## p. 243 (#263) ############################################
CHAPTER XII
THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
"A GRAVE there is for March” (or “Mark”)—80 runs a stanza
in one of the oldest extant Welsh poems__"a grave for Gwythur,
a grave for Gwgawn of the Ruddy Sword ; a mystery is the grave
of Arthur. ” “Some men say yet," wrote Sir Thomas Malory,
many centuries later, " that king Arthur is not dead, but had by
the will of our Lord Jesu into another place. ” The mystery of
Arthur's grave still remains unsolved, for
Where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.
Towards the end of the twelfth century, in the very heyday of the
British king's renown as a romantic hero, the monks of St Dunstan's
at Glastonbury-at the original instance, it is said, of Henry II-
professed to have discovered the mortal remains of Arthur in the
cemetery of their abbey church? Some sixty years before, William
of Malmesbury had given an account of the discovery in Wales
of the grave of Arthur's nephew, Gawain, but the grave of Arthur
himself was not, he said, anywhere to be found ; hence, ancient
songs: prophesy his return. It was thought that the illusory
expectations thus cherished by the British Celts could be dispelled
by the Glastonbury exhumation. But so sorry an attempt as this
to poison the wells of romance met with the failure it deserved.
Arthur lived on, inviolate in fabled Avalon. Graven on no known
sepulchre, his name,
a ghost,
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still.
The memory of no other British hero is so extensively preserved
as his in the place-names of these islands; "only the devil is more
often mentioned in local association than Arthur. "
" A poem, in triplet form, entitled The Stanzas of the Graves, preserved in The
Black Book of Carmarthen, a MS of the twelfth century.
2 Giraldus Cambrensis gives the longest account of the affair (De Principis In.
structione, vm, 126–9).
3 Antiquitas naeniarum. Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. III.
• Dickinson, King Arthur in Cornwall (Longmans, 1900), preface, p. vi.
1642
## p. 244 (#264) ############################################
244
The Arthurian Legend
The nomenclature of Arthurian fable, which has a voluminous
critical literature of its own, does not concern us here. No student
of Arthurian origins, however, can fail to be impressed by the
strange disproportion between the abundance of Arthurian place-
names in the British islands and the amount of early British
literature, whether in English or in the insular Celtic tongues,
dealing with the Arthurian legend. The early English Arthurian
literature, in particular, is singularly meagre and undistinguished.
The romantic exploitation of “the matter of Britain” was the
achievement, mainly, of French writers 80 much so that some
modern critics would have us attach little importance to genuine
British influence on the development of the legend of Arthur.
For, when all is told, Arthurian romance owed its immense
popularity in the thirteenth century to its ideal and representative
character, and to its superiority over the other stock romantic
matters as a point de repère for every kind of literary excursion
and adventure. Thus, the “matter of Britain” very quickly
became international property-a vast composite body of romantic
tradition, which European poets and story-tellers of every nationality
drew upon and used for their own purposes. The British king
himself faded more and more into the back-ground, and became,
in time, but the phantom monarch of a featureless “land of faëry,"
which
None that breatheth living aire doth know.
His knights quite overshadow him in the later romances; but they,
in their turn, undergo the same process of denationalisation, and
appear as natives of no known clime or country, moving about
in an iridescent atmosphere of fantasy and illusion. The Arthurian
fairy-land thus became a neutral territory-an enchanted land
where the seemingly incompatible ideals of knight-errantry and
the church were reconciled, and where even east and west brought
their spoils together as to some common sanctuary. “Pilgrimage
and the holy wars” writes Gibbon, “introduced into Europe the
specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants, flying
dragons and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more
simple fictions of the west; and the fate of Britain depended
on the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced
and adorned the popular romance of Arthur and the knights of
the Round Table; their names were celebrated in Greece and
Italy; and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram
were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded
the genuine heroes and heroines of antiquity. ”
## p. 245 (#265) ############################################
Early Welsh Tradition 245
Britain, however, claimed the titular hero of the legend; and
it was on British soil that the full flower of Arthurian romance
in due course made its appearance. Sir Thomas Malory's
marvellous compilation superseded, for all time, each and every
"French book” which went to its making. And, as Caxton takes
occasion to emphasise in his preface to Malory's book, Arthur,
as the "first and chief of the three best Christian kings” of the
world, deserved “most to be remembered amongst us Englishmen. ”
It so happens, however, that, in our own, no less than in
Caxton's, time, “divers men hold opinion that there was no such
Arthur, and that all such books as been made of him be but
feigned and fables. " There is, indeed, much in the history of the
legend to justify the attitude of these sceptics. The first great
outburst of the popularity of the story was due to a writer who, in
the words of one of his earliest critics? , “cloaked fables about Arthur
under the honest name of history”—Geoffrey of Monmouth. The
historical Arthur-assuming that Geoffrey meant all that he wrote
about him to be taken as authentic fact-thus made his first
considerable appearance in literature under very dubious auspices.
The “British book” which Geoffrey professes to have used has
never been discovered, and is not unreasonably supposed by
many to have been a myth. Thus, they who would substantiate
Caxton's assertion that “there was a king of this land called
Arthur” have to produce earlier, and more authentic, evidence
than anything furnished by Geoffrey.
Old English literature, even the Chronicle, knows absolutely
nothing of Arthur. Wales, alone, has preserved any record of his
name and fame from a date earlier than the twelfth century. But
even Welsh writers of an indisputably early date tell us very little
about him, and tell that little in a tantalisingly casual and
perfunctory way. Yet it is in a few obscure Welsh poems, in
one very remarkable but difficult Welsh prose tale and in two
meagre Latin chronicles compiled in Wales, that we discover the
oldest literary records of both the historical and the legendary
Arthur. A few stubborn critics still maintain, against the opinion
of the best Welsh scholars, that the Welsh works in question are
not, in substance, earlier than the twelfth century—that, in other
words, they contain no fragments of Arthurian lore which can be
proved to be older than the date of the MSS in which they are
preserved. None, however, will now dispute the approximate
dates assigned by the best authorities to Nennius and the Annales
1 William of Newburgh.
## p. 246 (#266) ############################################
246 The Arthurian Legend
Cambriae ; and it is in the two Latin documents bearing these
names that we have the earliest extant records of a seemingly
historical Arthur.
The Historia Brittonum, commonly ascribed to Nennius, is
a curious compilation, which was put into its present form not
later than the first half of the ninth century? About the year
800 a Welshman named Nennius–or, to use the native form,
Nynniaw—who calls himself a disciple of Elfođ, bishop of Bangor
in North Wales”, copied and freely edited a collection of brief
notes, gathered from various sources, on early British history and
geography. Nennius claims, in his preface, after the manner of
his kind, to be an original compiler. “I have,” he says, "gathered
together all I could find not only in the Roman annals, but also in
the chronicles of holy fathers,. . . and in the annals of the Irish and
English, and in our native traditions. ” Elsewhere he avows
himself a mere copyist, and tells us that he wrote “the 'Cities'
and the ‘Marvels' of Britain, as other scribes had done before
him. " Arthur appears in both the quasi-historical and the purely
legendary parts of Nennius's compilation. In what purports to be
the strictly historical part of his narrative Nennius relates how,
some time after the death of Hengist, Arthur fought against the
English along with the kings of the Britons and “was himself
their war-leader”-ipse dux erat bellorum-in twelve battles
In the eighth of these encounters, at the castle of Guinnion,
“Arthur bore the image of the holy Virgin Mary on his shoulders“,
and the pagans were put to flight with great slaughter. ” The
ninth battle was fought at the City of Legions"; the twelfth, and
the last, on Mount Badon, where “nine hundred and sixty men
fell before Arthur's single onsetde uno impetu Arthur. ” The
prominence given, even in these brief notices, to Arthur's individual
prowess shows that legend was already busy with his name. The
“Marvels of Britain " gives us nothing but legend ; here Arthur
* Zimmer contends (Nennius Vindicatus) that the History was completed in 796.
Thurneysen would fix the year 826 as the date of its completion (Zeitschrift für
Deutsche Philologie, Halle, 1897). Cf. the present volume, ante, Chapter v, pp. 70 ff.
? As a disciple of Elfod (Elbodugus), Nennius must have lived about 800. His
History, it may be further noted, was known under bis name to the Irish scholar,
Cormac (831—903).
| 3 Hist. Brit. ch. Lu.
* Of. Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 1, 10:
“ Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The Virgin sculptured on his Christian shield. ”
o Caerleon, or Caerlleon, upon Usk-a city to which Geoffrey of Monmouth,
probably from interested motives, gives great prominence.
## p. 247 (#267) ############################################
Nennius and Gildas
247
is translated altogether into the realm of myth. In the Welsh
district of Buelt', we are told, there is a mound of stones, on the
top of which rests a stone bearing the print of a dog's foot. “It
was when he was hunting the boar Troit that Cabal, the dog of
Arthur the warrior, left this mark upon the stone; and Arthur
afterwards gathered together the heap of stones under that which
bore his dog's footprint, and called it Carn Cabal. ” Here we
discover an early association of Arthurian fable with the topo-
graphy of Britain. Another “Marvel" tells of a certain stream
called “the source of the Amir," which was so named after “Amir,
the son of Arthur the warrior," who was buried near it. The
allusion to the hunting of the boar links Nennius's narrative with
what is probably the most primitive of all the Welsh Arthurian
tales, the story of Kulhwch and Olwen? In that fantastic fairy-
tale the hunting of the Twrch Trwyth, which is Nennius's porcus
Troit, forms one of the chief incidents, and the hound Cabal there
appears under his Welsh name of Cavall.
The Welsh monk and historian, Gildas, mentions the battle of
Mount Badon in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. That
battle, according to Gildas, was signalised by “the last, almost,
though not the least, slaughter of our cruel foes, and that was
(I am sure) forty-four years and one month after the landing of
the Saxons, and also the time of my own nativity. ” But Gildas
makes no allusion at all to Arthur's feats in the battle. Neither
does he once mention his name in connection with the general
struggle which he describes as being carried on, with varying
fortune, against the English. The only leader of the British in
that warfare, whom Gildas deems worthy of notice, is Ambrosius
Aurelianus, the last of the Romans, “a modest man, who alone of
all his race chanced to survive the shock of so great a storm”
as then broke over Britain. The silence of Gildas, who was,
presumably, a contemporary of the historical Arthur, would be
significant, were it not that he is equally reticent about the
achievements of every other native British chieftain. Gildas
belonged to the Roman party in the Britain of his time, and
1 Builth (modern Welsh, Buallt).
9 Included in Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion.
3 Ambrosius, transformed by Geoffrey into Aurelius Ambrosius (cf. Tennyson,
Coming of Arthur, "For first Aurelius lived, and fought and died "), is known in Welsh
literature as Emrys Wledig. He appears in Nennius as Embreis Guletic. Guletic, or
Guledig, means "over-lord,” or “king,” and Arthur himself would seem to bear this
title in a Welsh poem in The Book of Taliesin (No. xv). See Skene, Four Ancient
Books of Wales, Vol. 1, p. 227.
## p. 248 (#268) ############################################
248
The Arthurian Legend
to exalt the prowess of any British prince would ill assort with
his pious lamentations over the absolute degeneracy of his race.
The battle of Mount Badon, together with another which was
destined to overshadow it completely in the later developments
of Arthurian story, is recorded, and dated, in Annales Cambriae
-the oldest extant MS of which was compiled, probably, in
the second half of the tenth century? There, under the year
516, we read: “Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders, and the Britons were
victors. " The reference to the carrying of the cross is, of course,
an obvious echo of the tradition recorded by Nennius about the
image of the Virgin Mary-either, or both, being doubtless the
device borne by Arthur on his shield? Of greater interest is
the second entry in the Annals. In the year 537 was fought "the
battle of Camlan, in which Arthur and Medraut fell. ” Medraut is
the Modred, or Mordred, of romance. The Annals tell nothing
more about him; but in this bare record lies the germ of the first
of the tragic motives of subsequent Arthurian story. Camlan is
"the dim, weird battle of the west,” where Arthur met "the traitor
of his house," and
at one blow,
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur,
Slew him, and, all but slain himself, he fell.
From these meagre notices of the early Latin annalists of
Wales we pass to such Arthurian traditions as are found embodied
in the songs of the oldest Welsh bards. This, indeed, is a perilous
quest, for it is beset with difficult problems of historical and
textual criticism upon which scholarship is still far from saying
its last word. It may, however, be premised with some confidence
that there lived in Wales, in the sixth and seventh centuries,
several bards of note, of whom the best known by name are
Llywarch Hên, Taliesin and Aneirin. The compositions attributed
to these, and other bards of this early period, are found in MSS
the dates of which range from the twelfth to the end of the
fourteenth centuries. The oldest of all the MSS is that known
1 The most likely date is 954 or 955. See Phillimore's edition in Y Cymmrodor,
Vol. ix, p. 144.
? It is worth noting, as bearing upon the Welsh origin of this tradition, that the
old Welsh word for “shield,” iscuit, would be spelt in exactly the same way as
the word for “shoulder. " Both Nennius, and the writer of the Annals, appear to
have misread it. Geoffrey of Monmouth attempts to put the matter right (Hist. 11,
ch. IV) in describing Arthur as having "on his shoulders a shield" bearing the Virgin's
image; but he, also, confuses Welsh tradition in giving to the shield the name of
Arthur's ship, Priwen or Pridwen.
## p. 249 (#269) ############################################
Early Welsh Poetry
249
as The Black Book of Carmarthen, compiled during the latter
part of the twelfth century, the period to which also belongs the
oldest known MS of Welsh prose, that of the Venedotian code
of the laws of Wales. The Book of Aneirin, which contains
the famous Gododin, is the next oldest MS, and is probably to
be assigned to the thirteenth century. To the thirteenth century,
also, belongs The Book of Taliesin, while another famous MS, The
Red Book of Hergest, dates from the end of the fourteenth century.
These “four ancient books”i constitute, together, our chief
available repertory of the early poetry of the Kymry.
Amid much that is undeniably late and spurious, these collections
of Welsh poetry contain a good deal that is, in substance, of obviously
archaic origin. In many of these poems there is, in words applied
by Matthew Arnold to the prose Mabinogion, "a detritus, as the
geologists would say, of something far older"; and their secret
is not to be “truly reached until this detritus, instead of being
called recent because it is found in contact with what is recent,
is disengaged, and is made to tell its own story? " Nowhere,
however, is this detritus more difficult to disengage than in the
few poems in which Arthur's name appears. The most celebrated
of these early Welsh bards know nothing of Arthur. Llywarch Hên
and Taliesin never mention him; to them Urien, lord of Rheged,
is by far the most imposing figure among all the native warriors
who fought against the English. It is Urien with whom “all the
bards of the world find favour,” and to whom they ever sing after
his desire 8. ” Neither is Arthur known to Aneirin, who sang in his
Gododin the elegy of the Kymric chieftains who met their doom
at Cattraeth. “There are only five poems” writes Skene", "which
mention Arthur at all, and then it is the historical Arthur, the
Gwledig, to whom the defence of the wall is entrusted, and who
fights the twelve battles in the north and finally perishes at
Camlan. ” This is not a quite accurate summary of the facts; for
these poems, while pointing to the existence of a historical Arthur,
embody also a detritus of pure myth.
yearning for a closer walk with God now expressed its longings in
the language of earthly passion, just as earlier mystics had tried
to interpret the Divine nature by the use of more commonplace
allegory. And this development was encouraged by the mysticism
of Hugo de St Victor, which influenced both Paris and Oxford;
while elsewhere on the continent a school of nuns was producing
works laden with passion and breathing an intense emotion.
The Virgin cult is represented in the first place by the prose
Lofsong of ure Lefdi, a fairly close translation of the poem Oratio
ad Sanctam Mariam of archbishop Marbod of Rheims (1035—
1138), and by On God Ureisun of ure Lefdi (A Good Orison of
our Lady), a poem in riming couplets, for which no Latin original
has yet been found, though it contains suggestions of the work of
Anselm? . Other examples of the kind are found in The Five Joys
of the Virgin, a poem in eight-line stanzas; A Song to the Virgin,
with Latin insertions; A Prayer to Our Lady, a sinner's repentance
in interesting four-line stanzas; A Prayer to the Virgin, in similar
form. Another side of the Virgin cult is represented by the Middle
English versions of the Compassio Mariae and the Assumptio
Mariae, which appeared about the middle of the century. The
former is a west Midland translation of a Latin hymn, and the
work is artistically interesting as illustrating how metrical innova-
tion was made. The six-line strophe and the riming formula are
taken over from the original, though this identity of form prevents
a literal rendering. The treatment is otherwise not without
originality. Alliterative ornament is added, and use is made of a
popular piece of medieval fancy, namely, the comparison of Christ's
birth to a sunbeam passing through glass and leaving it unstained”.
Assumptio Mariae rests on a venerable legend of the ascension
of Mary; it is of eastern origin, but is found in Latin, German
and French versions. The English version is written in short
couplets, and appears to be of an eclectic kind. The episode of
unbelieving Thomas is taken from a Latin version; otherwise the
poem is strongly reminiscent of Wace’s Vie de la Vierge Marie.
1 Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. eto. , pp. 41 ff.
: A. Napier, E. E. T. S. CIII, pp. 75 ff.
## p. 233 (#253) ############################################
The Luve Ron
233
Erotic mysticism is best represented by the Luve Ron of Thomas
de Hales, a delightful lyric in eight-line stanzas, written in the
earlier portion of the reign of Henry III, and, probably, before 1240
judging from the allusion in ll. 97 ff. The writer was a native of
Hales (Gloucester), who, after a career at Paris and Oxford, attained
considerable distinction as a scholar. The main theme of the work
is the perfect love which abides with Christ and the joy and peace
of mystic union with Him. The poem is full of lofty devotion and
passionate yearning ; its deep seriousness is conveyed through a
medium tender and refined, and it is, in short, one of the most
attractive and impassioned works of the time, as the following
extracts suggest :
Maydė her þu myht biholde,
bis worldes luue nys bute o res,
And is by-set so felė-volde,
Vikel and frakel and wok and les.
beos beines bat her weren bolde
Beoþ aglyden, 80 wyndes bles:
Under molde hi liggep colde,
And falewep so dop medewe gres.
Hwer is Paris and Heleyne
bat weren so bryht and feyre on bleo:
Amadas, Tristram, and Dideyne
Yseudė and alle peo:
Eotor wib his scharpė meyno
And Cesar riche of wor[1]des feo?
Heo beob iglyden ut of þe reyno,
So þe schef is of be cleol.
The three prose prayers, The Wohung of ure Lauerd, On Lofsong
of ure Louerde and On Ureisun of ure Louerde, belong to the
same category as the Luve Ron. They are written in an allitera-
tive prose? , which aimed at obtaining the emphatic movement of
Old English verse, and is most effective in recitation, though the
absence of metrical rules brings about a looser structure. All
three prayers consist of passionate entreaties for closer communion
with Christ, and the personal feeling revealed in them illustrates
the use of the love motive in the service of religion. But
to interpret the love terminology literally and to connect these
prayers solely with the devotions of nuns, as one critic suggests,
seems to involve a misapprehension of their tone, for it infuses
i Ll. 9–16; 65—72. O res, passing, transitory. frakel, base. wok, feeble.
les, false. bles, blast. meyne, might. feo, wealth. schef of þe cleo, corn from the
hill-side.
Cf. Hwa ne mei luue pi luueli leor ?
## p. 234 (#254) ############################################
234
Early Transition English
into their being an earthliness quite out of keeping with their
rarefied sentiment. Further, these works have some points in
common, occasionally literal agreement, with the Ancren Riwle
and Hali Meidenhad, but, in all probability, it is in the works of
Anselm and Hugo de St Victor that the sources must be sought,
in which case all these English works are distinct and separate
borrowings from the same Latin originals”.
We come now to that section of the literature of the period
which represents a revolt against established religious themes.
It has been seen that religious writers occasionally made use of
the motives of legend and love, and from this it might be inferred
that these were the directions into which the general taste was
inclining. At all events, these are the lines along which the
literary revolt began to develope, Layamon, in the first instance,
setting forth in the vernacular legendary material which came to
hand. Layamon's Brut, written early in the thirteenth century,
has come down in two MSS (A text and B text), belonging
respectively to the first and second halves of the thirteenth
century. The later version has numerous scribal alterations:
there are many omissions of words and passages, the spelling is
slightly modernised, riming variants are introduced and foreign
substitutes take the place of obsolescent native words. The author
reveals his identity in the opening lines. He is Layamon, a priest
of Ernley (Arley Regis, Worcester), on the right bank of the
Severn, where he was wont to "read books” (i. e. the services of the
church). Layamon's ambitious purpose was to tell the story of
Britain from the time of the Flood. He is, however, content to
begin with the story of Troy and the arrival of Brutus, and to end
with the death of Cadwalader, 689 A. D. As regards his sources, he
mentions the English book of Bede, the Latin books of St Albin
and St Austin (by which he probably meant the Latin version of
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History) and, thirdly, the Brut of the
French clerk Wace. Of the first two authorities, however, it is
curious to note, he makes not the slightest use. The account of
Gregory and the English captives at Rome (II. 29,445 ff. ), which is
often quoted in support of his indebtedness to Bede, in reality
proves his entire independence, for glaring discrepancies occur
between the respective narratives. Elsewhere in the Brut Bede
is directly contradicted2 and, in fact, Layamon's assertion of in-
debtedness, as far as Bede is concerned, can be nothing more
1 Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. eto. , pp. 41 ff.
2 Cf. Layamon, Brut, 412; Bede, 1, 3, etc.
## p. 235 (#255) ############################################
Layamon's Brut
235
than a conventional recognition of a venerable work which dealt
with a kindred subject. Convention rather than fact also lay
behind his statement that he had consulted works in three different
languages.
His debt to Wace, however, is beyond all doubt'. Innumerable
details are common to both works, and, moreover, it is clear that it
is Wace's work rather than Wace's original (Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History of the Kings of Britain) that has been laid under contribu-
tion? . In the first place, Wace and Layamon have certain details in
common which are lacking in the work of Geoffrey; in the matter
of omissions Wace and Layamon frequently agree as opposed to
Geoffrey; while again they often agree in differing from the Latin
narrative in regard to place and personal names. But if Wace's
Brut forms the groundwork of Layamon's work, in the latter there
are numerous details, not accounted for by the original, which
have generally been attributed to Celtic (i. e. Welsh) influences.
Many of these details, however, have recently been shown to be
non-Welsh. The name of Argante the elf-queen, as well as that of
Modred, for instance, point to other than Welsh territory. The
traits added to the character of Arthur are in direct opposition to
what is known of Welsh tradition. The elements of the Arthurian
saga relating to the Round Table are known to have been treated
as spurious by Welsh writers ; Tysilio, in his Brut, for instance,
passes them over. Therefore the explanation of this additional
matter in Layamon, as compared with Wace, must be sought for in
other than Welsh materials.
Hitherto, when Wace's Brut has been mentioned, it has been
tacitly assumed that the printed version of that work was meant,
rather than one of those numerous versions which either remain
in manuscript or have since disappeared. One MS (Add. 32,125.
Brit. Mus. ), however, will be found to explain certain name-forms,
concerning which Layamon is in conflict with the printed Wace.
And other later works, such as the Anglo-French Brut (thirteenth
or fourteenth century) and the English metrical Mort Arthur, both
of which are based on unprinted versions of Wace, contain material
which is present in Layamon, namely, details connected with the
stories of Lear, Merlin and Arthur. Therefore it seems possible
that Layamon, like the authors of the later works, used one of the
variant texts. Further, the general nature of Layamon's additions
1 Cf. post, Chapter XII, pp. 265 ff.
R. Wülker, P. B. B. III, pp. 530 ff.
* For the main points contained in the discussion of Layamon's sources see
Imelmann, Layamon, Versuch über seine Quellen.
## p. 236 (#256) ############################################
236
Early Transition English
appear to be Breton or Norman. The names Argante and Delgan,
for instance, are derived through Norman media; the fight between
Arthur and Frollo is found in the Roman des Franceis (1204) of
André de Coutances. But Layamon seems to stand in yet closer
relation to Gaimar's Rhyming Chronicle, so far as that book can
be judged from the related Münchner Brut. An explanation of
the Carric-Cinric confusion, for instance, would be obtained by
this assumption. The representation of Cerdic and Cinric in
Layamon as one and the same person' might conceivably be
due, not to the account in the Old English Chronicle, but to
some such foreign version as is found in Gaimar (11. 819 ff. ). To
Gaimar, moreover, may probably be attributed several details of
Layamon's style-his tendency to employ forms of direct speech,
his discursiveness, his appeals to the gods and his protestations
as to the truth of his narrative. It is possible that one of the
later versions of Wace may have embodied details taken from
Gaimar. Waurin's Chroniques et istoires (fifteenth century) seems
a compilation of this kind, and it is not impossible that Layamon's
original may have been a similarly compiled work, with, it should
be added, elements taken from contemporary Tristram and Lancelot
poems. In any case, the English Brut is not based on the printed
Brut of Wace, but on one of the later versions of which certain
MSS remain and of which other traces can be found. This par-
ticular version had probably been supplemented by Breton material
introduced through some Norman medium, and, since this supple-
mentary portion is reminiscent of Gaimar, there is reason for
supposing that the particular version may have been mainly a
compilation of the earlier works of Wace and Gaimar.
This view as to sources must modify, in some degree, the estimate
to be formed of Layamon's artistic merits, and must discount the
value of some of the additions formerly ascribed to his imagination
or research. It will also account for certain matters of style already
mentioned. But, when these items have been removed, there still
remains much that is Layamon's own, sufficient to raise his work
far above the rank of a mere translation. The poet's English
individuality may be said to pervade the whole. It appears in the
reminiscences of English popular legend perceived in Wygar, the
maker of Arthur's corselet, and in the sea of Lumond, the “atteliche
pole,” where “nikeres " bathe. His English temperament appears
in the fondness he betrays for maxims and proverbs, which afford
relief from the mere business of the narrative. The poet is still in
1 Cf. 11. 28,867 fi.
## p. 237 (#257) ############################################
Layamon's Brut
237
possession of the ancient vocabulary, with its hosts of synonyms,
though the earlier parallelisms which retarded the movement are
conspicuously absent. His most resonant lines, like those of his
literary ancestors, deal with the conflict of warriors or with
that of the elements. In such passages as those which describe
the storm that overtook Ursula (11, 74), or the wrestling match
between Corineus and the giant (1, 79), he attains the true epic
note, while his words gather strength from their alliterative setting.
His verse is a compromise between the old and the new. With
the Old English line still ringing in his ears, he attempts to regulate
the rhythm, and occasionally to adorn his verse with rime or
assonance. His device of simile was, no doubt, caught from his
original, for many of the images introduced are coloured by the
Norman love of the chase, as when a fox-hunt is introduced to depict
the hunted condition of Childric (II, 452), or the pursuit of a wild
crane by hawks in the fenland to describe the chase after Colgrim
(II, 422). The poet, in general, handles his borrowings with accuracy,
but he has limitations-perhaps shows impatience—as a scholar.
Apart from a totally uncritical attitude-a venial sin in that age-he
betrays, at times, a certain ignorance on historical and geographical
points. But such anachronisms and irregularities are of little
importance in a work of this kind, and do not detract from its
literary merits. Other verbal errors suggest that the work of o
translation was to Layamon not devoid of difficulty. Where Wace
indulges in technical terminology, as in his nautical description of
Arthur's departure from Southampton, Layamon here and else-
where solves his linguistic difficulties by a process of frank omission.
The interest which the Brut possesses for modern readers
arises in part from the fact that much of its material is closely
bound up with later English literature. Apart from the Arthurian
legend here appear for the first time in English the story of Leir
and Kinbelin, Cloten and Arviragus. But the main interest
centres round the Arthurian section, with its haunting story of
a wondrous birth, heroic deeds and a mysterious end. The grey
king appears in a garment of chivalry. As compared with the
Arthur of Geoffrey's narrative, his figure has grown in knightliness
and splendour. He is endowed with the added traits of noble
generosity and heightened sensibility; he has advanced in courtesy;
he is the defender of Christianity; he is a lover of law and order.
And Layamon's narrative is also interesting historically. It is the
work of the first writer of any magnitude in Middle English, and,
standing at the entrance to that period, he may be said to look
## p. 238 (#258) ############################################
238 Early Transition English
before and after. He retains much of Old English tradition; in
addition, he is the first to make extensive use of French material.
And, lastly, in the place of a fast vanishing native mythology, he
endows his countrymen with a new legendary store in which lay
concealed the seeds of later chivalry.
The Owl and the Nightingale, which represents another line
of literary revolt, has come down in two MSS, one dating from the
first, the other from the second, half of the thirteenth century.
Of the two MSS the earlier (Cotton MS) is the more trustworthy;
the scribe of the other has frequently omitted unimportant mono-
syllabic words, regardless of scansion, besides having altered
inflexional endings and made sundry substitutions in the matter
of diction, such alterations are clearly revealed in riming
positions. The authorship is a matter of conjecture; Nicholas
of Guildford, a cleric of Portisham (Dorset), who is mentioned
thrice in the poem, is supposed by some to have been the writer,
but the objections to this view are that the allusions are all in the
third person, and that lavish praise is showered on his name. On
the other hand, since the poem aims incidentally at urging the
claims of Nicholas to clerical preferment, the end may have
justified the means and may account for the unstinted praise
as well as the anonymous character of the work. But the name
of John of Guildford must also be mentioned. He is known to
have written some verse about this period, and, since the common
appellation implies a connection between the two, it may have
been that he was the advocate of Nicholas's cause. On internal
and external evidence, the poem may, approximately, be dated
1220. The benediction pronounced upon “King Henri" (11. 1091–2)
clearly refers to Henry II; but the borrowings from Neckam
make an earlier date than 1200 impossible. The mention of a
papal mission to Scotland (1. 1095) may refer to the visit of Vivian
in 1174, or to that of cardinal Guala in 1218. The poem was
probably written before the year 1227, for at that date the
regency ceased, and, with Henry III reigning, the benediction
would be ambiguous, not to say ominous. As regards sources, no
direct original has been found; the poem embodies the spirit as
well as the structure of certain Old French models without being
a copy of any one. There are certain details, however, which
appear to have been definitely borrowed, and of these the most
interesting is the nightingale episode (Ul. 1049-62). It is narrated
at length in Marie de France's lai, Laustic (c. 1170), as une
aventure dunt le Bretun firent un lai, and before the close of the
## p. 239 (#259) ############################################
239
The Owl and the Nightingale
century it appeared in a balder form in Neckam’s De Naturis
Rerum. Its subsequent popularity is attested by its frequent
reappearances in both French and English. The episode, as it
appears in The Orol and the Nightingale, is due partly to Marie de
France, partly to Neckam. There are further details in the poem
which are reminiscent of Neckam’s De Naturis Rerum, while the
description of the barbarous north (11. 999 ff. ) is possibly based on a
similar description in Alfred's translation of Orosius. The structure
of the poem is of a composite kind. The main elements are drawn
from the Old French débat, but there is also a proverbial element
as well as Bestiary details, which, though slight in amount, give a
colouring to the whole. Of the various kinds of the Old French
débat, it is the tençon in particular upon which the poem is modelled,
for that poem, unlike the jeu-parti, has no deliberate choice of sides ;
each opponent undertakes the defence of his nature and kind. And,
in addition to the general structure, the poet has borrowed further
ideas from this same genre, namely, the appointment of judge,
suggested by the challenger and commented upon by his opponent;
the absence of the promised verdict; the use of certain conventional
figures of the Old French débat, such as le jaloux (cf. IL. 1075 ff. ), la
mal mariée (cf. 11. 1520 ff. ), and the adoption of love as the theme of
the whole. The proverbial element is derived from the lips of the
people, and, of the sixteen maxims, eleven are connected with the
name of Alfred. In representing his disputants as members of the
bird world, and in interpreting their habits to shadow forth his
truths, the poet has adopted the methods of the Bestiary. His use
of the motive is, however, so far untraditional in that the night-
ingale, unlike the owl, did not appear in the ancient Physiologus.
The main significance of the poem has been subjected to much
misconception. Its ultimate intention, as already stated, seems to
have been to suggest to English readers a new type of poetry.
To the medieval mind the poetic associations of the nightingale
were invariably those of love; according to her own descrip-
tion, her song was one of "skentinge" (amusement), and its aim
was to teach the nobility of faithful love. She is, however, induced
to emphasise (1l. 1347--1450) the didactic side of her singing, in
order to meet more successfully her dour opponent; but the
emphasis is merely a passado in a bout of dialectics, and, further,
no inconsistency is involved with her own statement, “And soth hit
is of luve ich singe,” when mention is made of the ignorance of the
barbarous north concerning those love-songs, or of the wantonness
at times induced by her passionate music. Her dignified defence
i
## p. 240 (#260) ############################################
240
Early Transition English
of love (II. 1378 ff. ), moreover, finds a counterpart in many products
of the contemporary school of love-poetry.
The owl, on the other
band, unmistakably represents a poet of the religious type. Her
doleful notes and the essentially didactic character of her songs,
her special chants at Christmas, and her duties of bestowing com-
fort, are all in keeping with her own description of herself when
she says:
Ich wisse men mid mine songe
That hi ne sunezi nowiht longel,
As to the writer's personal attitude, he inclines rather to the
side of the nightingale. The virtues of the religious school clearly
emerge in the course of the debate ; yet it cannot but be felt
that the poem embodies “a new spirit of opposition to monastic
training ? ”—only, the contending spirit was the erotic theme and
not the secular priest.
From the literary point of view the poem forms an interesting
contrast with works of the earlier period. The Old English em-
broidered diction is replaced by a mode of expression less
redundant, more unpretending, more natural. Words are no
longer artificially arranged, but follow the order of thought. The
similes employed in the place of earlier metaphor are of a col-
loquial character, effective in their unexpectedness; and the dawn
of humour is surely at hand, when the owl in her bitterness ex-
claims to the nightingale
bu chaterest so dob on Irish preost 3;
or when the nightingale hurls back the happy retort
þu singest so dop hen a-snowe,
Moreover the illustrations made use of are no mere reprints of
orthodox scenes; they reflect country life and the life of the people
which, in modern times, Hardy and Barnes were to illuminate.
Freshness and originality is, however, carried at times to excess in
the vituperations in which the disputants indulge, when crudity
and naked strength seem virtues overdone. Most interesting, on
the other hand, are the signs of an appreciation of the softer side
of nature. It was the wilder aspects of nature which had appealed
to the earlier school. The present poet saw beauty in the gentle
arrival of spring, with its blossoming meadows and flower-decked
woodlands, as well as in mellow autumn with its golden hues and
1 Ll. 927—8. wisse, direct. sunezi, sin.
· Courthope, History of English Poetry, Vol. 1, oh. iv.
3 L. 322.
* L. 412. a-snowe, in the snow.
## p. 241 (#261) ############################################
The Owl and the Nightingale
241
fallow tints. The nightingale paints a couple of dainty word-
pictures when she describes her coming and going. Upon her
arrival, she sings,
þe blostmė ginnep springe and sprede
Bope in treo and ek on mede,
pe lilie mid hire fairė wlito
Wolcumeb me, þat þu wito,
Bit me, mid hire fairė bleo
þat ich shulle to hirė fleo.
be rose also mid hire rude,
þat cumep ut of be bornéwude,
Bit me bat ich shulle singe,
Vor hire luve, onė skentingel.
Her departure takes place amid other scenes :
Hwan is ido vor hwan ich com,
Ich fare azen and do wisdom:
Hwane mon hozep of his sheve,
And falewi cumep on grenė leve,
Ich faré hom and nimė leve
Ne recche ich nozt of winteres rere.
Nor is the poem devoid of appreciation of dramatic situation and
dramatic methods. The debate is brought to a dramatic climax
by the appearance of the wren and his companions, while con-
siderable skill is shown in the characterisation of the two dis-
putants. Brief interludes are introduced for the sake of relief and
variety : they also add slight touches by the way to the character
sketches. Between the lines may be caught, here and there,
glimpses of contemporary life. The festival of Christmas with its
carol-services, the laus perennis of cathedrals and monasteries,
and the daily service of the parish priest, the rampant injustice
in the bestowal of livings, the picture of the gambler and the
tricks of the ape, all help to give a historical setting. The verse
is modelled on French octosyllabics, and the earlier staccato move-
ment gives place to a more composed rhythm. As a rule, the
rimes are wonderfully correct, and it is instructive to note that
the proportion of masculine to feminine rimes is that of 10 : 37.
This fact is interesting in connection with Chaucerian work, where
the fondness for the feminine form, which is less pronounced than
in the present poem, has been ascribed to Italian influences. It
is obvious that no such influence is at work here; nor can Old
French models have suggested the form, the masculine rime
1 Ll. 437–46. wlite, beauty. bit, bids. rude, ruddy colour. skentinge, piece for
amusement.
· Ll. 453–8. hozeb, takes thought. nime leve, take my leave. reve, plunder.
E. LI CH. XI.
## p. 242 (#262) ############################################
242
Early Transition English
being there preferred. It must have arisen from native riming
exigencies. Tambic lines had, necessarily, to end with accented
riming syllables ; but, since the English accent fell on the root
syllable in all cases where the riming word was of two syllables,
the second would become a sort of light ending and go to form a
feminine rime. The poem is, therefore, one of many-sided interest.
Its permanent value lies in its oft-sounded note of freedom, in its
metrical innovations, its discarding of the artificial for the natural,
its grasp of new methods, its new ideals and in the daring sugges-
tion it makes in connection with love. And, finally, it must be con-
fessed, the poet had travelled well. Though full of appreciation
for a foreign literature, he has not changed "his Country Manners
for those of Forraigne Parts”; he has “onely pricked in some of
the Flowers of that he had Learned abroad into the Customes of
his owne Country. " And in this way more than one of our poets
have since that day written.
## p. 243 (#263) ############################################
CHAPTER XII
THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
"A GRAVE there is for March” (or “Mark”)—80 runs a stanza
in one of the oldest extant Welsh poems__"a grave for Gwythur,
a grave for Gwgawn of the Ruddy Sword ; a mystery is the grave
of Arthur. ” “Some men say yet," wrote Sir Thomas Malory,
many centuries later, " that king Arthur is not dead, but had by
the will of our Lord Jesu into another place. ” The mystery of
Arthur's grave still remains unsolved, for
Where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.
Towards the end of the twelfth century, in the very heyday of the
British king's renown as a romantic hero, the monks of St Dunstan's
at Glastonbury-at the original instance, it is said, of Henry II-
professed to have discovered the mortal remains of Arthur in the
cemetery of their abbey church? Some sixty years before, William
of Malmesbury had given an account of the discovery in Wales
of the grave of Arthur's nephew, Gawain, but the grave of Arthur
himself was not, he said, anywhere to be found ; hence, ancient
songs: prophesy his return. It was thought that the illusory
expectations thus cherished by the British Celts could be dispelled
by the Glastonbury exhumation. But so sorry an attempt as this
to poison the wells of romance met with the failure it deserved.
Arthur lived on, inviolate in fabled Avalon. Graven on no known
sepulchre, his name,
a ghost,
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still.
The memory of no other British hero is so extensively preserved
as his in the place-names of these islands; "only the devil is more
often mentioned in local association than Arthur. "
" A poem, in triplet form, entitled The Stanzas of the Graves, preserved in The
Black Book of Carmarthen, a MS of the twelfth century.
2 Giraldus Cambrensis gives the longest account of the affair (De Principis In.
structione, vm, 126–9).
3 Antiquitas naeniarum. Gesta Regum Anglorum, Bk. III.
• Dickinson, King Arthur in Cornwall (Longmans, 1900), preface, p. vi.
1642
## p. 244 (#264) ############################################
244
The Arthurian Legend
The nomenclature of Arthurian fable, which has a voluminous
critical literature of its own, does not concern us here. No student
of Arthurian origins, however, can fail to be impressed by the
strange disproportion between the abundance of Arthurian place-
names in the British islands and the amount of early British
literature, whether in English or in the insular Celtic tongues,
dealing with the Arthurian legend. The early English Arthurian
literature, in particular, is singularly meagre and undistinguished.
The romantic exploitation of “the matter of Britain” was the
achievement, mainly, of French writers 80 much so that some
modern critics would have us attach little importance to genuine
British influence on the development of the legend of Arthur.
For, when all is told, Arthurian romance owed its immense
popularity in the thirteenth century to its ideal and representative
character, and to its superiority over the other stock romantic
matters as a point de repère for every kind of literary excursion
and adventure. Thus, the “matter of Britain” very quickly
became international property-a vast composite body of romantic
tradition, which European poets and story-tellers of every nationality
drew upon and used for their own purposes. The British king
himself faded more and more into the back-ground, and became,
in time, but the phantom monarch of a featureless “land of faëry,"
which
None that breatheth living aire doth know.
His knights quite overshadow him in the later romances; but they,
in their turn, undergo the same process of denationalisation, and
appear as natives of no known clime or country, moving about
in an iridescent atmosphere of fantasy and illusion. The Arthurian
fairy-land thus became a neutral territory-an enchanted land
where the seemingly incompatible ideals of knight-errantry and
the church were reconciled, and where even east and west brought
their spoils together as to some common sanctuary. “Pilgrimage
and the holy wars” writes Gibbon, “introduced into Europe the
specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants, flying
dragons and enchanted palaces, were blended with the more
simple fictions of the west; and the fate of Britain depended
on the art, or the predictions, of Merlin. Every nation embraced
and adorned the popular romance of Arthur and the knights of
the Round Table; their names were celebrated in Greece and
Italy; and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram
were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded
the genuine heroes and heroines of antiquity. ”
## p. 245 (#265) ############################################
Early Welsh Tradition 245
Britain, however, claimed the titular hero of the legend; and
it was on British soil that the full flower of Arthurian romance
in due course made its appearance. Sir Thomas Malory's
marvellous compilation superseded, for all time, each and every
"French book” which went to its making. And, as Caxton takes
occasion to emphasise in his preface to Malory's book, Arthur,
as the "first and chief of the three best Christian kings” of the
world, deserved “most to be remembered amongst us Englishmen. ”
It so happens, however, that, in our own, no less than in
Caxton's, time, “divers men hold opinion that there was no such
Arthur, and that all such books as been made of him be but
feigned and fables. " There is, indeed, much in the history of the
legend to justify the attitude of these sceptics. The first great
outburst of the popularity of the story was due to a writer who, in
the words of one of his earliest critics? , “cloaked fables about Arthur
under the honest name of history”—Geoffrey of Monmouth. The
historical Arthur-assuming that Geoffrey meant all that he wrote
about him to be taken as authentic fact-thus made his first
considerable appearance in literature under very dubious auspices.
The “British book” which Geoffrey professes to have used has
never been discovered, and is not unreasonably supposed by
many to have been a myth. Thus, they who would substantiate
Caxton's assertion that “there was a king of this land called
Arthur” have to produce earlier, and more authentic, evidence
than anything furnished by Geoffrey.
Old English literature, even the Chronicle, knows absolutely
nothing of Arthur. Wales, alone, has preserved any record of his
name and fame from a date earlier than the twelfth century. But
even Welsh writers of an indisputably early date tell us very little
about him, and tell that little in a tantalisingly casual and
perfunctory way. Yet it is in a few obscure Welsh poems, in
one very remarkable but difficult Welsh prose tale and in two
meagre Latin chronicles compiled in Wales, that we discover the
oldest literary records of both the historical and the legendary
Arthur. A few stubborn critics still maintain, against the opinion
of the best Welsh scholars, that the Welsh works in question are
not, in substance, earlier than the twelfth century—that, in other
words, they contain no fragments of Arthurian lore which can be
proved to be older than the date of the MSS in which they are
preserved. None, however, will now dispute the approximate
dates assigned by the best authorities to Nennius and the Annales
1 William of Newburgh.
## p. 246 (#266) ############################################
246 The Arthurian Legend
Cambriae ; and it is in the two Latin documents bearing these
names that we have the earliest extant records of a seemingly
historical Arthur.
The Historia Brittonum, commonly ascribed to Nennius, is
a curious compilation, which was put into its present form not
later than the first half of the ninth century? About the year
800 a Welshman named Nennius–or, to use the native form,
Nynniaw—who calls himself a disciple of Elfođ, bishop of Bangor
in North Wales”, copied and freely edited a collection of brief
notes, gathered from various sources, on early British history and
geography. Nennius claims, in his preface, after the manner of
his kind, to be an original compiler. “I have,” he says, "gathered
together all I could find not only in the Roman annals, but also in
the chronicles of holy fathers,. . . and in the annals of the Irish and
English, and in our native traditions. ” Elsewhere he avows
himself a mere copyist, and tells us that he wrote “the 'Cities'
and the ‘Marvels' of Britain, as other scribes had done before
him. " Arthur appears in both the quasi-historical and the purely
legendary parts of Nennius's compilation. In what purports to be
the strictly historical part of his narrative Nennius relates how,
some time after the death of Hengist, Arthur fought against the
English along with the kings of the Britons and “was himself
their war-leader”-ipse dux erat bellorum-in twelve battles
In the eighth of these encounters, at the castle of Guinnion,
“Arthur bore the image of the holy Virgin Mary on his shoulders“,
and the pagans were put to flight with great slaughter. ” The
ninth battle was fought at the City of Legions"; the twelfth, and
the last, on Mount Badon, where “nine hundred and sixty men
fell before Arthur's single onsetde uno impetu Arthur. ” The
prominence given, even in these brief notices, to Arthur's individual
prowess shows that legend was already busy with his name. The
“Marvels of Britain " gives us nothing but legend ; here Arthur
* Zimmer contends (Nennius Vindicatus) that the History was completed in 796.
Thurneysen would fix the year 826 as the date of its completion (Zeitschrift für
Deutsche Philologie, Halle, 1897). Cf. the present volume, ante, Chapter v, pp. 70 ff.
? As a disciple of Elfod (Elbodugus), Nennius must have lived about 800. His
History, it may be further noted, was known under bis name to the Irish scholar,
Cormac (831—903).
| 3 Hist. Brit. ch. Lu.
* Of. Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 1, 10:
“ Amazement runs before the towering casque
Of Arthur, bearing through the stormy field
The Virgin sculptured on his Christian shield. ”
o Caerleon, or Caerlleon, upon Usk-a city to which Geoffrey of Monmouth,
probably from interested motives, gives great prominence.
## p. 247 (#267) ############################################
Nennius and Gildas
247
is translated altogether into the realm of myth. In the Welsh
district of Buelt', we are told, there is a mound of stones, on the
top of which rests a stone bearing the print of a dog's foot. “It
was when he was hunting the boar Troit that Cabal, the dog of
Arthur the warrior, left this mark upon the stone; and Arthur
afterwards gathered together the heap of stones under that which
bore his dog's footprint, and called it Carn Cabal. ” Here we
discover an early association of Arthurian fable with the topo-
graphy of Britain. Another “Marvel" tells of a certain stream
called “the source of the Amir," which was so named after “Amir,
the son of Arthur the warrior," who was buried near it. The
allusion to the hunting of the boar links Nennius's narrative with
what is probably the most primitive of all the Welsh Arthurian
tales, the story of Kulhwch and Olwen? In that fantastic fairy-
tale the hunting of the Twrch Trwyth, which is Nennius's porcus
Troit, forms one of the chief incidents, and the hound Cabal there
appears under his Welsh name of Cavall.
The Welsh monk and historian, Gildas, mentions the battle of
Mount Badon in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. That
battle, according to Gildas, was signalised by “the last, almost,
though not the least, slaughter of our cruel foes, and that was
(I am sure) forty-four years and one month after the landing of
the Saxons, and also the time of my own nativity. ” But Gildas
makes no allusion at all to Arthur's feats in the battle. Neither
does he once mention his name in connection with the general
struggle which he describes as being carried on, with varying
fortune, against the English. The only leader of the British in
that warfare, whom Gildas deems worthy of notice, is Ambrosius
Aurelianus, the last of the Romans, “a modest man, who alone of
all his race chanced to survive the shock of so great a storm”
as then broke over Britain. The silence of Gildas, who was,
presumably, a contemporary of the historical Arthur, would be
significant, were it not that he is equally reticent about the
achievements of every other native British chieftain. Gildas
belonged to the Roman party in the Britain of his time, and
1 Builth (modern Welsh, Buallt).
9 Included in Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion.
3 Ambrosius, transformed by Geoffrey into Aurelius Ambrosius (cf. Tennyson,
Coming of Arthur, "For first Aurelius lived, and fought and died "), is known in Welsh
literature as Emrys Wledig. He appears in Nennius as Embreis Guletic. Guletic, or
Guledig, means "over-lord,” or “king,” and Arthur himself would seem to bear this
title in a Welsh poem in The Book of Taliesin (No. xv). See Skene, Four Ancient
Books of Wales, Vol. 1, p. 227.
## p. 248 (#268) ############################################
248
The Arthurian Legend
to exalt the prowess of any British prince would ill assort with
his pious lamentations over the absolute degeneracy of his race.
The battle of Mount Badon, together with another which was
destined to overshadow it completely in the later developments
of Arthurian story, is recorded, and dated, in Annales Cambriae
-the oldest extant MS of which was compiled, probably, in
the second half of the tenth century? There, under the year
516, we read: “Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders, and the Britons were
victors. " The reference to the carrying of the cross is, of course,
an obvious echo of the tradition recorded by Nennius about the
image of the Virgin Mary-either, or both, being doubtless the
device borne by Arthur on his shield? Of greater interest is
the second entry in the Annals. In the year 537 was fought "the
battle of Camlan, in which Arthur and Medraut fell. ” Medraut is
the Modred, or Mordred, of romance. The Annals tell nothing
more about him; but in this bare record lies the germ of the first
of the tragic motives of subsequent Arthurian story. Camlan is
"the dim, weird battle of the west,” where Arthur met "the traitor
of his house," and
at one blow,
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur,
Slew him, and, all but slain himself, he fell.
From these meagre notices of the early Latin annalists of
Wales we pass to such Arthurian traditions as are found embodied
in the songs of the oldest Welsh bards. This, indeed, is a perilous
quest, for it is beset with difficult problems of historical and
textual criticism upon which scholarship is still far from saying
its last word. It may, however, be premised with some confidence
that there lived in Wales, in the sixth and seventh centuries,
several bards of note, of whom the best known by name are
Llywarch Hên, Taliesin and Aneirin. The compositions attributed
to these, and other bards of this early period, are found in MSS
the dates of which range from the twelfth to the end of the
fourteenth centuries. The oldest of all the MSS is that known
1 The most likely date is 954 or 955. See Phillimore's edition in Y Cymmrodor,
Vol. ix, p. 144.
? It is worth noting, as bearing upon the Welsh origin of this tradition, that the
old Welsh word for “shield,” iscuit, would be spelt in exactly the same way as
the word for “shoulder. " Both Nennius, and the writer of the Annals, appear to
have misread it. Geoffrey of Monmouth attempts to put the matter right (Hist. 11,
ch. IV) in describing Arthur as having "on his shoulders a shield" bearing the Virgin's
image; but he, also, confuses Welsh tradition in giving to the shield the name of
Arthur's ship, Priwen or Pridwen.
## p. 249 (#269) ############################################
Early Welsh Poetry
249
as The Black Book of Carmarthen, compiled during the latter
part of the twelfth century, the period to which also belongs the
oldest known MS of Welsh prose, that of the Venedotian code
of the laws of Wales. The Book of Aneirin, which contains
the famous Gododin, is the next oldest MS, and is probably to
be assigned to the thirteenth century. To the thirteenth century,
also, belongs The Book of Taliesin, while another famous MS, The
Red Book of Hergest, dates from the end of the fourteenth century.
These “four ancient books”i constitute, together, our chief
available repertory of the early poetry of the Kymry.
Amid much that is undeniably late and spurious, these collections
of Welsh poetry contain a good deal that is, in substance, of obviously
archaic origin. In many of these poems there is, in words applied
by Matthew Arnold to the prose Mabinogion, "a detritus, as the
geologists would say, of something far older"; and their secret
is not to be “truly reached until this detritus, instead of being
called recent because it is found in contact with what is recent,
is disengaged, and is made to tell its own story? " Nowhere,
however, is this detritus more difficult to disengage than in the
few poems in which Arthur's name appears. The most celebrated
of these early Welsh bards know nothing of Arthur. Llywarch Hên
and Taliesin never mention him; to them Urien, lord of Rheged,
is by far the most imposing figure among all the native warriors
who fought against the English. It is Urien with whom “all the
bards of the world find favour,” and to whom they ever sing after
his desire 8. ” Neither is Arthur known to Aneirin, who sang in his
Gododin the elegy of the Kymric chieftains who met their doom
at Cattraeth. “There are only five poems” writes Skene", "which
mention Arthur at all, and then it is the historical Arthur, the
Gwledig, to whom the defence of the wall is entrusted, and who
fights the twelve battles in the north and finally perishes at
Camlan. ” This is not a quite accurate summary of the facts; for
these poems, while pointing to the existence of a historical Arthur,
embody also a detritus of pure myth.
