In the third decade of the ninth century a writer named Nennius, who lived in South Wales, re-edited and expanded an older Historia Brittonum that dated back to 679, or, perhaps, in part, to an even earlier period in the seventh century. Now, the passage cited above concerning Arthur and his twelve victories belongs to the oldest portion of the work and shows the vigorous development of legend about the hero's name within something like one hundred and fifty years of the time when he must have lived. The section which relates the marvels of Arthur's dog and of Anir's

the British History attributed to Nennius", PMLA, XX, 622 ff. (1905). Both Zimmer and Thurneysen accept the earlier Historia Brittonum (mentioned in the text above) as dating from 679 and as containing still older materials. Thurneysen, Zs. f. d. Ph., XXVIII, 83f., is inclined, still further, to ascribe to a Run (Rum) mab Urbgen (mentioned in Nennius, ch. 63) the compilation of a part of these older materials. Urbgen (a historical character who died between 572 and 579) seems to have been the Urien of the romances; Run would, therefore, be the brother of the Yvain (Ivain) of these romances.

Zimmer neglected the important Chartres MS. (ninth or tenth century) of the Historia Brittonum, which preserves us the work in a pre-Nennian form. L. Duchesne published the text of this MS. in the Revue Celtique, XV, 174ff. (1894), "Nennius Retractatus", together with a discussion of Nennius problems. Thurneysen had the advantage over Zimmer of the use of the Chartres text, and, taken altogether, his conclusions concerning the origin and development of the Historia Brittonum, as stated Zs. f. celt. Ph., I, 166f. (1896), are to be preferred, viz. that in the neighborhood of Builth (in South Wales), in the year 826, Nennius (Nemnius), compiled the work in the full form, known as the Harleian recension. Immediately thereafter, on the advice of his teacher, Beulan (cp. ch. 10), he prepared an abbreviated edition of this Harleian recension. Later on, he entered additions and corrections in this abbreviated recension. Excerpts from the life of St. Germanus by Map Urbgen constitute the oldest elements of the work. For the MSS. of the different recensions, see Mommsen, pp. 119 ff. and Thurneysen, Zs. f. celt. Ph., I, 158f. Windisch, Das keltische Britannien, etc., p. 41, speaks of the Harleian recension as "vornennianisch", which seems, however, an error.

In Romania, XXIII, 432ff. (1894) César Boser, in his article, 'A'propos de Nennius", had already (before Thurneysen) attacked the argument by which Zimmer had attempted to fix the date of Nennius. He suggests, however, no alternative date.

tomb is one of the later additions, as the manuscript tradition proves, but it testifies also to the continued growth of wonderful legends about the British chieftain. It does not surprise us then to find that in the year, 1113, stories concerning Arthur were firmly established both in Brittany and in Cornwall. In that year certain monks of Laon in Brittany were sent to England to beg money for the rebuilding of their cathedral which had recently been destroyed by fire. We have an account of their experiences preserved in a treatise by Hermann of Tournai.20 From this account it appears that a servant of the monks got into a dispute with a Cornishman as to whether Arthur was still alive "exactly in the same way" remarks the chronicler significantly, “as the inhabitants of Brittany dispute with the French over Arthur." The affair drew together a mob and there would have been bloodshed. if a local ecclesiastic had not intervened. The chronicler concludes naively that the man who started this brawl was punished for doing so for he had a withered hand and had come there to be cured by the relics which the visiting monks had brought with them. The Holy Virgin, however, was evidently displeased with him, for the relics would not work a miracle on him that day. Still further, in a life of the Cornish saint, St. Carantoc, also dating from about the beginning of the twelfth century, we find Arthur reigning in Cornwall and hunting a dragon which had devastated his dominions.21

20

21

Cp. Migne's Patrologia Latina, Vol. 156, col. 973.

Cp. F. Lot, Romania, XXX, pp. 2ff. (1901). St. Carantoc, however, did not allow any one to kill the serpent. He led the monster about like a lamb. Lot identifies Dindraithov, where, according to the legend, Arthur was reigning, with the modern Castle an Dinas (about ten miles east of Crantock). He points out, moreover, that Arthur is represented in Kulhwch and Olwen (Loth's Mabinogion, I, 344) as chasing the marvellous boar, Twrch Trwyth, in Cornwall (Kernyw) and as having (Loth, op. cit., I, 38, 331, 334 et passim) a royal residence at Kelliwic (Bodmin) in Cornwall. He commands troops from Cornwall and Devon in the Vita Gildae, ch. 10, and has among his retinue Gwynnhyvar (Loth, op. cit., I. 277), who is a high officer in those kingdoms a man who was, also, among the persons responsible for the battle of Camlan. Cornwall figures, furthermore. in the tale of Arthur's fight with the Cath Paluc; for the mother (the sow, Henwen)

We need not linger over the meagre borrowings from Nennius which are incorporated in certain chronicles of the two centuries or slightly upwards that followed the compilation of that work in its final form,22 for they have no independent value. In these chronicles of the succeeding centuries, only one entry is of importance, namely, that which in the Annales Cambriae, under the year 537, records for the first time in the barest possible

of this monster was, according to a triad (Loth, op. cit., II, 271), in a drove of swine kept at Glynn Dallwyr, in Cornwall. On Arthur's combat with the Cath Paluc, cp. E. Freymond's monograph, Artus' Kampf mit dem Katzenungestüm in the Festgabe für Gustav Gröber (Halle, 1899). The discussion of Arthurian localities in Cornwall by W. H. Dickinson in his Arthur in Cornwall (London, 1900) has been superseded by that of J. Loth, in his Contributions à l'étude des Romans de la Table Ronde (Paris, 1912).

It should be remembered, too, that according to the Welsh tradition, Arthur's last battle took place at Camlan doubtless, Camelford in Cornwall, with which it is still locally identified. Cp. F. Lot, Romania, XXX, pp. 16 ff. (1901) and my edition of the Mort Artu, pp. 291 ff. This Welsh tradition would naturally be of Cornish origin. On the improbable identification of Camelon in Scotland as the scene of Arthur's final battle, cp. the works named, p. 73, note 72, below.

22 There are four such chronicles: 1. Annales Cambriae, compiled in Wales in the second half of the tenth century. 2. A brief Chronicle of Mount St. Michael, apparently, of Breton origin, and probably of the eleventh century. 3. Aethelweard's Chronicle, written by an Englishman, probably early in the eleventh century. 4. Henry of Huntingdon's Historia Anglorum, English, of course, and probably not long before 1133. For these chroniclers and their relations to Nennius, the various editions of their works, etc., cp. Fletcher, op. cit., pp. 31ff. The best editions of the four chronicles, respectively, are by, 1. E. Phillimore, Y Cymmrodor, IX, 141 ff. (1888), reprinted by J. Loth, Mabinogion, II, 370 ff. This gives the oldest (uninterpolated) version, which is the only one we need consider. 2. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 202, cols. 1323 ff. Cp. first entry. 3. H. Petrie and J. Sharpe's Monumenta Historica Britannica, I, 499 ff. Aethelward uses Nennius, it seems, but does not mention Arthur. 4. Thomas Arnold in Rolls

Series, vol. 74 (London, 1879). Cp. p. 48.

There is no need of conjecturing with Fletcher that nos. 3 and may owe something, also, to popular tradition.

23

way 29 the final battle (here called of Camlann) between Arthur and Mordred (Medraut).

The first indisputable indication that the fame which Arthur enjoyed among the Celts had spread to other peoples is supplied by the Gesta Regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury, which was completed in 1125. Besides the information concerning the British chieftain which he derived from the above-mentioned passages in Nennius, this writer condemns (I-8) the idle tales which the Britons circulate about their hero as detracting from, rather than adding to, his real glory, and explains (III, 287) the belief that this hero will return from the fact that no one has seen his tomb, adding at the same time an account of the death and supposed tomb of his nephew, Gawain, in Wales. The same writer's work on the antiquities of Glastonbury - De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae contains more Arthurian material, but the passages are, no doubt, late interpolations and will be dealt with elsewhere.24

If we could accept the contention of some scholars, much the most interesting evidence in regard to the diffusion of Arthurian stories before Geoffrey of Monmouth, would be that which was brought to light in the year, 1888, by the Italian scholar, Pio Rajna.25 In the articles referred to Rajna colle ted numerous examples of the names, Artusius and Galvanus (Walwanus, Walquanus, etc.) that is, Arthur and Gawain, as he interpreted

them 26 from the historical records of Northern Italy, including Tuscany and the Marches in the twelfth century. Artusius is found as early as 1114 and Galvanus as early as 1136 — and, in both cases, as the names of grown men so that these names must have been given many years earlier to the persons that bore

28 Gueith Camlann (battle of Camlann) in qua Arthur et Medraut corruerunt; et mortalitas in Britania et in Hibernia fuit. Cp. Loth's Mabinogion', II, 372. The Annales, in their earliest form, belong to the latter part of the tenth century. Cp. op. cit., p. 370.

24

Cp. Part II.

25 See his articles entitled "Gli eroi Brettoni nell' onomastica Italiana", Romania, XVII, 161 ff., 355 ff. (1888).

26

Even Foerster accepted Rajna's interpretations without question. Cp. Zs. f. rom. Ph., XX, 247.

them in the case of Artusius not later than 1090. Here, then, in the closing years of the eleventh century the tales concerning Arthur, if we accept Rajna's interpretation, were so widespread and popular as to affect the nomenclature of Northern Italy. Moreover, the forms of these names would appear to make it evident that the stories in question reached Italy in French versions, for Artusius seems, at first sight, plainly a Latinization of Artus, the Old French nominative of Arthur, and Galvanus similarly the Latinization of Old French Gauvain.27 It is to be observed, however, that even if Rajna's identifications of those names are correct, it does not follow necessarily that his inferences are equally so, for Arthur was a Breton name and may have been brought to Italy by actual Bretons or inhabitants of French districts contiguous to Brittany, independently of any specifically Arthurian traditions.28 The correctness of the identifications in question, however, is not entirely assured, and the forms, Artusius and Galvanus, respectively, may be variants of other names than those proposed by the Italian scholar.29

27

In Geoffrey of Monmouth, Arthur's name is Latinized as Arthurus, Gawain's as Walgannus, Walgainus probably from French Gauvain. Cf. Lot, Romania, XXVff. (1896).

28

This objection was already, raised by Suchier in Suchier and Birch-Hirschfeld's, Geschichte der Französischen Literatur', p. 141 (Leipzig, 1900).

H. Zimmer, Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen for Oct. 1, 1890, p.831, note, suggests that the names may have been brought to Northern Italy by Norman mercenaries, who are known to have been in the service of states in that part of the peninsula as early as the eleventh". century. He recalls, too, the Norman conquest of Sicily by Robert Guiscard and his followers in the same century.

29

In his Recherches sur les sources latines des contes et romans courtois du moyen age, pp. 396f. (Paris, 1913), Edmond Faral has suggested that Artusius may really be identical with Germanic Hartewic and Galvanus (Galgano, Gualguano, Walwanus, Walquano, Valvanus) with either Galganus (name of an Italian saint) or Galbanus (the Roman cognomen). Faral refers, p. 397, note 1, to studies of the question of these names undertaken by a student of F. Lot's and by Professor Bédier. As far as I am aware, however, these studies have not yet got into print.

Faral's criticism (pp. 393 ff.) of Rajna's articles strikes me as the