Jessie Weston - The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac

Wolfram von Eschenbach's references to the Charrette adventure are curious; at first sight it seems certain that he is referring to Chrétien's poem, but on closer examination the matter is not so clear. Thus he says that Lancelot crossed the sword-bridge, fought with Meljakanz (Meleagant), and freed Guinevere—all of which agree with Chrétien. 49 49 Cf. Parzival , Book VII. 1472. But, on the other hand, he mentions Kay's suspension on the tree (Hartmann's version), and does not know that Meleagant was slain by Lancelot, or that the captive Bretons were freed by his coming—both Meleagant and the Breton knights are fighting at the tournament of Beaurösch. 50 50 Cf. Parzival , Book VII., as above; also 590 et seq. and 1355 et seq. Indeed, Wolfram appears to know far more of these latter than can be gathered from Chrétien's poem. Of course, we cannot here say whether these references are due to Wolfram or to his source, which, as recent research has clearly shown, was certainly the work of a man of varied and extensive learning. 51 51 Cf. Der Gral , P. Hagen: Strassburg, 1900. I am unable to accept the author's contention that the Bætylus -Grail represents the original form of the talisman; but he certainly proves the correctness of the many curious references to Oriental literature which are peculiar to Wolfram's version of the story, and cannot possibly have been within that writer's own knowledge. Nor is it at all clear that Wolfram knew Lancelot as Guinevere's lover; he simply says that her imprisonment grieved him ' im was gevancnisse leit, die frou Ginòvêr dolte ,' which might be postulated of any loyal servant of Arthur's. Again when, at the beginning of Book xii., the poet recites Gawain's love-sorrows, he compares his pains first to those suffered by various heroes in the achievement of knightly deeds in general, and then rehearses the parallel cases of sundry lovers. In the first list Lancelot and the sword-bridge appear in company with Iwein and the fountain, and Erec and the ' Schoie de la kurt ' adventure, neither of which were undertaken for the sake of love (why Garel slew the lion and fetched the knife, we do not know), but among the lovers he and Guinevere are not mentioned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So much for theory, what now are the facts?

Without in any way minimising the popularity and influence of Geoffrey's work, either in its original form or in the translation of Wace, it is quite clear ( a ) that it did not represent all the historic tradition current concerning Arthur; ( b ) that his popularity was of considerably earlier date. A comparison with the Brut of Layamon 52 52 In this connection, cf. Dr. Brown's study on The Round Table before Wace , vol. vii. of Harvard Studies : Boston, 1900; and the incidental demonstration that Layamon had access to Welsh traditions unknown to Wace. will prove the first point; for the second, we have already noted Professor Rajna's discovery of Arthurian names in Italian documents as proving that such names must have been popular in Italy at the end of the eleventh century. Further, from the testimony of the bas-relief at Modena we see that the traditions associated with the British king were not purely historic, but that he and his knights were already the heroes of tales which have not descended to us. We cannot, therefore, fix with any approach to certainty the date at which Arthur became a romantic hero, but evidence points to a period anterior to that generally admitted.

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