tion that the expansions of the English poem were due to Layamon himself and that its author, who was a priest at Arley-Regis (modern Ernley) on the Severn in Worcestershire, not far from the Welsh border, had derived the most remarkable of these expansions from Welsh oral tradition.58 In the light of recent research, however, it is no longer open to doubt that this assumption was mistaken and that Layamon was merely following an cxpanded (French) version of Wace, now lost.59 As long as the

the regular form of the French Arthurian romances; Layamon's in alliterative verse, but in a somewhat disintegrated form and with frequent admixture of rhyme.

58 Such was the view enunciated by Sir Frederick Madden in editing Layamon's poem and it has found especial advocates, also, in R. Wuelcker, "Ueber die Quellen Layamon's", Paul and Braune's Beiträge, III, 524ff. (1876) and in A. C. L. Brown, "Welsh Traditions in Layamon's Brut", MPh., I, 95 ff. (1903).

59 R. Imelmann, in the above-mentioned treatise, was the first scholar to propose this view. See, too, J. D. Bruce, "Some proper names in Layamon's Brut, not represented in Wace or Geoffrey of Monmouth", MLN, XXVI, 65 ff. (1911). According to Imelmann, Layamon's original was an enlargement of Wace by combination with material drawn from Gaimar. He imagines, moreover, that the text which resulted from this combination still further underwent the influence of the Vulgate Mort Artu. But the latter was certainly later than Layamon's source later, indeed, probably than Layamon. It is to be observed that other poems of Wace's underwent expansion in the way that we are here assuming for his Brut, viz. his Conception and Assumption. For a version of the former, expanded by the interpolation of passages from another French poem, L'histoire de Marie et de Jesus, cp. P. Meyer, Romania, XVI, 232 ff. (1887).

According to MS. 749 (fol. 132) of the Bibl. Nat., Robert de Boron in his Merlin, refers to a Brut translated from the Latin by a certain Martin of Rochester, who is otherwise unknown. The passage, which is quoted from this MS. by P. Paris, RTR, II, 36, note, is not found in most MSS. and may be merely a scribal invention. Besides, in the MSS. where it does occur, we do not always find rouecestre (Rochester). Rouain and other names occur, instead. Cp. W. E. Mead's Merlin treatise, E. E. T. S., Original Series, no. 112, (1899), pp. CLI, CLIX, CLXI, CLXXI. Some scholars have accepted this Martin as Robert's chronicle-source, instead of Wace, e. g. Wechssler, Sage vom Heiligen Gral, p. 124 (1898), Brugger, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Lit., XXIX', 60,

forms of certain names in the French poet's Brut were known only through our sole printed edition of that work, which is based on an indifferent MS., it was possible to maintain that the greater similarity of these same names in Layamon to the corresponding Welsh names revealed a direct contact with Welsh Arthurian traditions on the part of the latter. But investigation has proved that the better MSS. of Wace's Brut, which its editor left unused, show no such divergence between the two poets in respect to the forms of these names, and the argument from such alleged differences has consequently collapsed. As a matter of fact, the whole nomenclature of Layamon's poem bears throughout the stamp of French origin and he was so ignorant of Welsh that he did not recognize what are often originally Welsh names in the French forms with which they were clothed in the manuscript that lay before him.60

Now the conclusion to which the unmistakably French character of the nomenclature points is borne out by other evidence. Above all, the circumstance that certain features which the English poem has in common with the Old French prose romance, the Mort Artu, are entirely absent from the Wace of our MSS., puts beyond dispute the fact that these two works, which were nearly contemporary 61 and quite independent of each other, had a common source, not identical with Wace's Brut in its original form.62 The features here in question are: 1. Arthur learns from a messenger of Mordred's treason in usurping the throne, whilst the former is engaged in a war against Lancelot on the continent, and sees in

including note 8 (1905), XXX', 182 ff. (1906), XLIV, 13ff. (1916), and elsewhere. If Martin's chronicle really existed, it may very well have been the expanded Wace.

Sommer, Introduction to his Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, pp. XXff., cites a number of passages in the prose Lancelot (to be found III, 3, 46, V, 130, 117, 144, respectively, in his series) as allusions to a lost Brut, which Brugger, op. cit. XLIV, 14, identifies with Martin's. None of these supposed allusions, however, are convincing. They are much more likely to be mere inventions for the nonce. Cp. Bruce, op. cit., pp. 67 ff.

60

61

62

For the date of the Mort Artu, cp. Part III.
Bruce, RR, IV, 451ff. (1913).

this intelligence the realization of a prophetic dream.63 2. At the end of the final battle between Arthur and Mordred only the former and two of his knights are said to be left alive.64 3. Arthur is translated to Avalon by Morgan and her fairy ladies. 65. 4. One of Mordred's sons who seized the kingdom after Arthur's death is given a definite name.66

Many other names and details which distinguish Layamon from Wace are found scattered through different French works or works of French origin.67 From these various circumstances the conclusion, then, is unescapable that the version of Wace which constitutes the basis of the English poem had received here and there additions of considerable significance. Some of these additions, perhaps, should be accredited ultimately to Celtic - most likely Armorican sources, but, in any event, Layamon was not responsible for them.

The matters which have just been cited prove beyond reasonable doubt that Layamon in many instances drew from an expanded Wace. In the light of these instances, it is a pretty safe inference that all other additions to the story of the English poem of any considerable extent come from this same source. There are, for example, long passages in the former where, over against the concise and matter-of-fact account of Wace, we have a full and circumstantial narrative with free introduction of speeches

63 Bruce's edition of MA (the Mort Artu), p. 202 and Madden's edition of Layamon, III, 117ff. There are some differences between the two, for a discussion of which cp. Bruce, RR, IV, 4511.

64

MA, p. 244, and Layamon, III, 143.

65 MA, pp. 250 ff., and Layamon, III, 144.

66

67

MA, p. 254, and Layamon, III, 150.

Cp. Imelmann, pp. 24ff. The chief works which he cites are, 1. The prose Brut d'Angleterre (unpublished), apparently of the fifteenth century. According to Imelmann, it is the prose rendering of a lost Norman verse-chronicle, closely connected with Wace. 2. The Middle English alliterative Morte Arthure. 3. An unprinted French versechronicle preserved in the British Museum MS., Royal 13, A. XXI. This MS. is of the early fourteenth century. 4. The Munich Brut, which may well be a fragment of Gaimar's lost chronicle of the Britons. It was from such works, no doubt, that Layamon really derived the details noted by Fletcher in his article "Did Layamon make any use of Geoffrey's Historia?", PMLA, XVIII, 91ff. (1903).

-

and dialogues in fine, a leisurely breadth of narrative art that approaches that of the French Arthurian romances. To say that an English writer of about the year 1200 was capable of this genial amplification is contrary to all the evidence. Not only is there no other example in this early time of such amplification of his originals on the part of any English author, but one may extend the assertion to the entire Middle English period. There is nothing like this, for instance, in the relations of the whole body of the Middle English romances to their French sources, for here compression, not expansion, is the rule.

The amplified passages in question occur in all parts of the English poem, 68 but those pertaining to Arthur possess naturally the greatest interest. Thus it is the English poem which first tells us 69 of how the elves (fairies) conferred on the king their best gifts at his birth: "They enchanted the child with magic most strong; they gave him might to be the best of all knights; they gave him another thing, that he should be a rich king; they gave him the third that he should live long; they gave to him that royal child virtues very good, so that he was the most generous of all men alive." Still further, we have here among other novelties, detailed descriptions of Arthur's armor,70 an account which we shall return to later on, in another connection, of how the Round Table was founded,"1 and an allegorical dream in which the monarch is warned of his impending destruction through Mordred. In this dream Arthur finds himself on top of a great hall from which he looks out over his dominions. Mordred comes and hews down the posts that hold up the hall and Guinevere aids the traitor in pulling down the building, so that Arthur and Gawain

68

69

For a list of them cp. Sir F. Madden's Preface, pp. XIV ff. Madden, II, 384f. Layamon here shows a serious discrepancy as compared with Wace which seems to prove that the MS. of the expanded version of that author which he was using was defective in this place; for when Arthur is next mentioned (after Uther's death), he is in some unexplained manner in Britanny. See on the passage, Bruce, MLN, XXVI, 69f., note. Other examples of discrepancies like this in Arthurian literature, due to defective MSS., are

there given.

70

Ibid., 463, 576.

71 Ibid., 531 ff.

had their arms broken in its fall. He rises, however, and slays Mordred and Guinevere. His followers had all fled and he wanders alone until a lion takes him into the sea, where he is rescued by a fish but at this point he awakes.

with

Most justly celebrated of all the amplified passages, however, is the one which gives us the first vernacular description of Arthur's translation to Avalon (the Celtic Elysium).72 Wace merely remarks (11. 13683 ff.) of this translation that Arthur caused himself to be carried to Avalon to have his wounds cured. He is still there and the Britons expect his return, as they say, a few more words in the same vein. Instead of these bald statements, however, we have in the English poem the following highly poetical lines, which open with Arthur's speech to his successor Constantine, after he (Arthur) has been grievously wounded in his final battle with Mordred: "I give thee here my kingdom, and defend thou my Britons ever in thy life, and maintain them all the laws that have stood in my days, and all the good laws that in Uther's days stood. And I will fare to Avalun, to the fairest of all maidens, to Argante the queen,73 an elf most fair, and she shall make my wounds all sound, make me all whole with healing draughts. And afterwards I will come again to my kingdom and dwell among the Britons with great joy.' Even with these words there approached from the sea a little boat, floating with the waves; and two women therein wondrously formed; and they

72

III, 144f. The one in Geoffrey's Latin poem, Vita Merlini, discussed below, is about 50 years earlier than Layamon.

78

Miss Paton, Fairy Mythology, pp. 26 f. has tried to show that Argante was a Celtic divinity, but we have here indisputably merely a corruption of Morgan (Morgant), name of the famous fairy queen of Arthurian romance Arthur's sister whom Malory calls Morgan le Fay. Cp. on the subject, Bruce, MLN, XXVI, 65 ff. and RR, III, 190f. In these places examples are given of corruptions of the character's name that involve the loss of initial M and change of o to a especially, in Roman de Troie, 1. 8024 (most MSS.), and in the Spanish romances, where the name becomes Urganda.

This passage may have been suggested to the author of the expanded Wace by Geoffrey's poem Vita Merlini for there, too, Morgan (Morgen) figures as the healer of Arthur's wounds but, in my opinion, it was more probably drawn directly from Celtic tradition. Hesperia, Ergänzungsreihe: 8.

3