Chapter I.

Beginnings of the Prose-Romances.

As we have seen above, the production of the metrical romances was proceeding vigorously in the closing years of the twelfth century and the opening years of the thirteenth, but it was just in this period that the new genre of the prose romance began the genre which long before the end of the Middle Ages was destined to eclipse the metrical romances completely in popular favor. The composition of romances in prose is simply one feature of the general rise of French prose in the latter part of the twelfth century, which, in turn, was favored, no doubt, by the more general knowledge of reading that was characteristic of the time. The author of the Old French prose romance, the Mort Artu, thought it worth while recording of Arthur that he knew enough of letters to understand a writing. We see, therefore, that even royal personages were not very learned in the period under consideration. According to Wauchier de Denain, Perceval was still worse off, for he could not read at all. As long as facility in reading was confined to a few and even members of the higher classes were mainly dependent on being read aloud to, the traditional form

1

.

Bruce's Mort Artu, p. 50.

Cp. his continuation to Chrétien's Perceval, 1. 33957, "Mais Pierchevaus ne savoit lire" (Potvin's edition). The line occurs in the description of Perceval's adventure at Mont Dolerous. On top of the mountain there was a pillar with an inscription on it, declaring that the achievement of the adventure was reserved for the best knight in the world, but Perceval was unable to read it. In the prose Lancelot (Sommer, III, 154) we are told that Lancelot could read, but Gawain could not.

3

In the Lancelot (Sommer, III, 106) it is said that Lancelot's mother used to make her chaplain read saints' lives aloud to her. This, to be sure, does not necessarily imply that she could not read herself. Even in antiquity reading aloud and in company was much commoner than nowadays. In his Confessions, Book VI, ch. 3, St. Augustine speaks of St. Ambrose's habit of silent reading, as if it were unusual.

of narrative namely, verse was not likely to yield ground; but as soon as a knowledge of reading became more general and people were no longer dependent on professional reciters, the superior attraction of prose for many who were interested in these stories of love and adventure would be sure to make itself felt. What is here said applies, of course, especially to women, who must have constituted the majority of the romance-writer's clientèle.

Owing to the causes just indicated, the production of the Arthurian prose-romances began about the end of the twelfth century, and, to judge merely by the bulk of what has survived, it must have been truly prodigious in the course of the next forty to fifty years, to say nothing of the later period.

Probably, the earliest prose-romance was the prose-rendering of Robert de Boron's Joseph which, doubtless, owed this distinction to its quasi-religious character. Down to this time virtually the only French prose consisted of brief saints' lives, and a work of the nature of the Joseph, so closely akin to that species of composition, would furnish a suitable transition from what was substantially religious fiction to purely secular romance. The Merlin which comes immediately after the Joseph in Robert's scheme, would naturally be the next of the romances to receive a prose dress + not unlikely, from the same hand and after

1

This prose-rendering of Robert's Merlin begins, of course, the Merlin branches in the so-called Walter Map and Robert de Boron cycles of the prose romances. Cp. Sommer, II, 3-88 and HuthMerlin, I, 1-146, respectively. In each of these cycles there are continuations far longer than the prose-Robert, itself.

Brugger, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Litt., XXIX', 75 f. (1905), thinks, too, that the prose-renderings of Robert's Joseph and Merlin were the earliest prose-romances, and suggests that their author adopted this form, in order to accentuate the historical character of Robert's narratives the better. The reason for this adoption given above, however, seems more satisfactory.

On the other hand. G. Paris, Mélanges de littérature française du moyen age, I, 50, expresses the opinion that the Lancelot (in an earlier form than that which we possess) was the first prose romance.

these would follow the longer prose romances which have come down to us, also, in cyclic form and which, as we may safely assert, were composed in prose from the start."

Having already dealt with the brief prose-renderings of Robert's Joseph and Merlin, we shall begin our consideration of the prose romances in this place with the great cyclic romances in prose, which, as has just been said, never existed in metrical form.

He supports this opinion, however. with no evidence. The comparative brevity of the prose Joseph and Merlin, also, makes their priority more likely.

5

It is possible that there existed, earlier than our cyclic romances, prose-renderings of metrical romances other than Robert's, but there is no evidence to that effect. Gröber, Grundriss, II, I, 1004, assumes that the adaptation of Chrétien's Lancelot, which we find in the prose Lancelot, was originally a separate work. Brugger, too, conjectures, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Litt., XXXI, 276, that our prose Lancelot is simply an adaptation of an earlier poem. Neither conjecture, however, is supported by any evidence.

Chapter II.

The Prose Cycles.

There are two great cycles of Arthurian romances in prose: (1) That which is known as the Vulgate or Walter Map Cycle. (2) That which is known as the Pseudo-Robert-de-Boron Cycle. The former is not only infinitely more important than the latter, in every respect, but it is earlier in date, and it will, therefore, first claim our attention.

The Vulgate Cycle is so called, because it became the most popular redaction of the romances in the Middle Ages, almost completely displacing all other versions. It is made up of the five great romances, L'Estoire del Saint Graal (or Grand St. Graal, as scholars have often called it, although this title is not found in the MSS.), L'Estoire de Merlin (prose rendering of Robert's Merlin plus a continuation), Li Livres (L'Estoire) de Lancelot, La Queste del Saint Graal and La Mort Artu, and it exists either complete or in part in a large number of MSS. probably not far from a hundred. The name of Map is, also, given to this cycle, because the MSS. regularly ascribe to him the composition of the last three members of the cycle. This attribution, how

1

The contrary opinion which has been entertained by some scholars will be considered below.

2

The facts are correctly stated by Brugger, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Litt., XXIX ', 90, note 47, only, as regards the Queste and Mort Artu, he should have expressed himself more strongly; for the ascription occurs regularly in the MSS. at the end of the former and at both the beginning and the end of the latter. The few exceptions are evidently due to an effort at condensation on the part of individual scribes. At the end of the Mort Artu, as Brugger observes, the language implies that Map wrote, also, the Lancelot, e. g. Add. 10294: "Si se taist ore maistre gautiers map de lestoire de lancelot." The ascription occurs, also, sometimes at the conclusion of the Lan