Chapter XXI

.

[686] The founder of the College of the Sorbonne.

[687] _Chroniques de J. Froissart_, ed. S. Luce (Société de l’Histoire de France). The opening of the Prologue. It seemed desirable to render this sentence literally. The rest of my extracts are from Thomas Johnes’s translation, for which I plead a boyhood’s affection. For a brief account of Froissart’s chief source (Jean le Bel), with excellent criticism, see W. P. Ker, “Froissart” (_Essays on Medieval Literature_, Macmillan and Co., 1905).

[688] Froissart, i. 210.

[689] Froissart, i. 220.

[690] Froissart, i. 290.

[691] Yet the matter was fit for legend and romance; and a late impotent _chanson de geste_ was formed out of the career of du Guesclin.

[692] On the _chansons de geste_ see Gaston Paris, _Littérature française au moyen âge_; Leon Gautier in Petit de Julleville’s _Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_, vol. i.; more at length Gautier, _Épopées nationales_, and Paulin Paris in vol. 22 of _L’Histoire littéraire de France_; also Nyrop, _Storia dell’ epopea francese nel medio evo_. Ample bibliographies will be found in these works.

[693] On the field of Roncesvalles, Roland folds the hands of the dead Archbishop Turpin, and grieves over him, beginning:

“E! gentilz hum chevaliers de bon aire, ...” (_Roland_, line 2252).

[694] Leon Gautier, in his _Chevalerie_, makes the _chansons de geste_ his chief source.

[695] 1006-1016.

[696] 1051 _sqq._ and 1700 _sqq._

[697] 1851-1868.

[698] 1940-2023.

[699] 2164 _sqq._

[700] _Raoul de Cambrai_, cited by Gautier, _Chevalerie_, p. 75.

[701] Unless indeed Oberon, the fairy king, be a romantic form of the Alberich of the _Nibelungen_ (Gaston Paris).

[702] See Gaston Paris, _Lit. française, etc._, chaps. iii. and v.; and Émile Littré in vol. 22 of the _Histoire littéraire de la France_. For examples of these _romans_, see Langlois, _La Société française au XIII{e} siècle d’après dix romans d’aventure_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1904).

[703] Chrétien, _Cligés_, line 201 _sqq._

[704] The Old French from vol. ii. of P. Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, p. 96. One sees that the coronation is a larger knighting, and kingship a larger knighthood.

[705] _Romans de la Table Ronde_, iii. 96. This scene closely parallels that between Bernier and Raoul de Cambrai, instanced above.

[706] See the first part of vol. iii. of _Romans de la Table Ronde_, especially pp. 113-117.

[707] It would be easy to go on drawing illustrations of the actual and imaginative elements in chivalry, until this chapter should grow into an encyclopedia. They could so easily be taken from many kinds of mediaeval literature in all the mediaeval tongues. The French has barely been touched upon. It affords an exhaustless store. Then in the German we might draw upon the courtly epics, Gottfried of Strassburg’s _Tristan_ or the _Parzival_ of Wolfram von Eschenbach; or on the _Nibelungenlied_, wherein Siegfried is a very knight. Or we might draw upon the knightly precepts (the Ritterlehre) of the Winsbeke and the Winsbekin (printed in Hildebrand’s _Didaktik aus der Zeit der Kreuzzüge_, Deutsche Nat. Litt.). And we might delve in the great store of Latin Chronicles which relate the mediaeval history of German kings and nobles. In Spanish, there would be the _Cid_, and how much more besides. In Italian we should have latter-day romantic chivalry; Pulci’s _Rotta di Roncisvalle_; Boiardo’s _Orlando innamorato_; Ariosto’s _Orlando furioso_; still later, Tasso’s _Gerusalemme liberata_, which takes us well out of the Middle Ages. And in English there is much Arthurian romance; there is _Chevy Chace_; and we may come down through Chaucer’s _Knight’s Tale_, to the sunset beauty of Spenser’s _Fairie Queen_. This glorious poem should serve to fix in our minds the principle that chivalry, knighthood, was not merely a material fact, a ceremony and an institution; but that it also was that ultra-reality, a spirit. And this spirit’s ideal creations--the ideal creations of the many phases of this spirit--accorded with actual deeds which may be read of in the old Chronicles. For final exemplification of the actual and the ideally real in chivalry, the reader may look within himself, and observe the inextricable mingling of the imaginative and the real. He will recognize that what at one time seems part of his imagination, at another will prove itself the veriest reality of his life. Even such wavering verity of spirit was chivalry.

[708] See Gaston Paris in _Journal des savants_, 1892, pp. 161-163. Of course the English reader cannot but think of the brief secret marriage between Romeo and Juliet.

[709] Marriage or no marriage depends on the plot; but occasionally a certain respect for marriage is shown, as in the _Eliduc_ of Marie de France, and of course far more strongly in Wolfram’s _Parzival_. In Chrétien’s _Ivain_ the hero marries early in the story; and thereafter his wife acts towards him with the haughty caprice of an _amie_; Ivain, at her displeasure, goes mad, like an _ami_. The _romans d’aventure_ afford other instances of this courtly love, sometimes illicit, sometimes looking to marriage. See Langlois, _La Société française au XIII{e} siècle d’après dix romans d’aventure_.

[710] On Provençal poetry see Diez, _Poesie der Troubadours_ (2nd ed. by Bartsch, Leipzig, 1883); _id._, _Leben und Werke der Troubadours_; Justin H. Smith, _The Troubadours at Home_ (New York and London, 1899); Ida Farnell, _Lives of the Troubadours_ (London).

[711] Cf. Gaston Paris, t. 30, pp. 1-18, _Hist. lit. de la France_; Paul Meyer, _Romania_, v. 257-268; xix. 1-62. “Trouvère” is the Old French word corresponding to Provençal “Troubadour.”

[712] On this work see Gaston Paris, _Romania_, xii. 524 _sqq._ (1883); _id._ in _Journal des savants_, 1888, pp. 664 _sqq._ and 727 _sqq._; also (for extracts) Raynouard, _Choix des poésies des Troubadours_, ii. lxxx. sqq.

[713] On origins and sources see, generally, Gaston Paris, _Tristan and Iseult_ (Paris, 1894), reprinted from _Revue de Paris_ of April 15, 1894; W. Golther, _Die Sage von Tristan und Isolde_ (Munich, 1887).

[714] Cf. generally, J. L. Weston, _The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac_ (London, 1901, David Nutt).

[715] See Gaston Paris, _Romania_, xii. 459-534.

[716] Paulin Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, iv. 280 _sqq._

[717] See Paulin Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, iv. Guinevere’s woman-mind is shown in the following scene. On an occasion the lovers’ sophisticated friend, the Dame de Malehaut, laughs tauntingly at Lancelot:

“‘Ah! Lancelot, Lancelot, dit-elle, je vois que le roi n’a plus d’autre avantage sur vous que la couronne de Logres!’

“Et comme il ne trouvait rien à répondre de convenable, ‘Ma chère Malehaut, dit la reine, si je suis fille de roi, il est fils de roi; si je suis belle, il est beau; de plus, il est le plus preux des preux. Je n’ai donc pas à rougir de l’avoir choisi pour mon chevalier’” (Paulin Paris, _ibid._ iv. 58).

[718] Galahad’s mother was Helene, daughter of King Pelles (_roi pêcheur_), the custodian of the Holy Grail. A love-philter makes Lancelot mistake her for Guinevere; and so the knight’s loyalty to his mistress is saved. The damsel herself was without passion, beyond the wish to bear a son begotten by the best of knights (_Romans, etc._, v. 308 _sqq._).

[719] “For what is he that may yeve a lawe to lovers? Love is a gretter lawe and a strengere to himself than any lawe that men may yeven” (Chaucer, _Boece_, book iii. metre 12).

[720] As in Chrétien’s _Cligés_, 6751 _sqq._, when Cligés is crowned emperor and Fenice becomes his queen, then: _De s’amie a feite sa fame_--but he still calls her _amie et dame_, that he may not cease to love her as one should an _amie_. Cf. also Chrétien’s _Erec_, 4689.

[721] See also Gawain’s words to _Ivain_ when the latter is married--in Chrétien’s _Ivain_, 2484 _sqq._

[722] As a matter of fact, in those parts of Wolfram’s poem which are covered by Chrétien’s unfinished _Perceval le Gallois_, the incidents are nearly identical with Chrétien’s. For the question of the relationship of the two poems, and for other versions of the Grail legend, see A. Nutt, _Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail_ (Folk-Lore Society Publications, London, 1888); Birch-Hirshfeld, _Die Graal Sage_; _Einleitung_ to Piper’s edition of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Stuttgart, Deutsche Nat. Litteratur; _Einleitung_ to Bartch’s edition in Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1875). These two editions of the poem are furnished with modern German glossaries. There is a modern German version by Zimmrock, and an English translation by Jessie L. Weston (London, D. Nutt, 1894).

[723] In other versions of the Grail legend there is much about the virgin or celibate state, and also plenty of unchastity and no especial esteem for marriage.

[724] The Fisher King (_roi pêcheur_) was the regular title of the Grail kings. See _e.g._ Pauline Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, t. i. p. 306.

[725] _E.g._ the love-potion in the tale of Tristan.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

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