II. KNIGHTLY LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD

The Metrical Romance.-A large proportion of the literature of this century and a half of preparation (1200-1350) consists of efforts in a new and fascinating poetic form introduced into England by the Norman-French, the metrical romance. The typical romance was a rambling tale of adventure, in which evil knights, robbers, giants, and Saracens were overthrown by a wandering chevalier, in the interest of some distressed damsel or of holy church. It dealt in a rather unreal, but highly entertaining way, with the three great interests of the Middle Ages-battle, love, and religion.

Sources of the Metrical Romances.-The trouvères, as the poets who composed and recited these romances were called, borrowed the material of their richly variegated tales wherever they could find it. A part of it came from Italy and the East, and out of this they made the Troy cycle and the cycle of Alexander the Great. A part of it they found near at hand, in the adventures of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. But the richest storehouse of romance which they had to draw upon, was in the Celtic parts of England and Brittany, where for centuries there had been growing up a mass of legend connected with King Arthur.* A number of these Arthurian legends were gathered up, before the middle of the twelfth century, in a great Latin work called the Historia Bretonum, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh writer, who also added stories of his own invention. This chronicle of Geoffrey's was translated into French verse by Wace of Jersey, and through this channel came, about the year 1200, into the hands of Layamon, the first writer of romance. in the crude English speech, which was just then awakening from its century and a half of silence. It is a curious fact that the first attempt made by the English in the knightly romance should have come from the hand, not of a worldly singer, but of a monk. It is true that Layamon's work is in the form of a chronicle, and pretends to be history; but the material of which it is made up is legendary, and its tone is that of a pure romance.

* See page 12.

Layamon's "Brut."- All that we know of Layamon, and of how he came to write his Brut, he tells himself in the quaint and touching words which prelude the poem:

"There was a priest in the land was named Layamon. He dwelt at Ernley, at a noble church upon Severn bank. It came to him in mind and in his chief thought that he would tell the noble deeds of the English; what the men were named, and whence they came, who first had the English land after the flood. Layamon began to journey wide over this land, and procured the noble books which he took for authority. Layamon laid these books before him and turned over the leaves; lovingly he beheld them-may the Lord be merciful to him! Pen he took with fingers, and wrote on book-skin, and compressed the three books into

one."

The poem opens with an account of how Æneas's greatgrandson, Brutus, who gives his name to the poem, sets out from Italy with all his people to find a new land in the west. They pass the Pillars of Hercules, "tall posts of strong marble stone," where they find the mermaidens, "beasts of great deceit, and so sweet that many men are not able to quit them." After further adventures in Spain and France, they come at length to the shores of England, and land "at Dartmouth in Totnes." The remainder of the poem recounts the legendary history of Britain. In treating the Arthur legends, Layamon is not content merely to transcribe his predecessors. His home was near the borders of Wales, where these legends were native; and he either gathered up or freely invented several additions of the utmost importance. The most notable of these are his story of the founding of the Round Table, and his account of the fays who are present at Arthur's birth and who carry him after his last battle to the mystic isle of Avalon.

English Imitations of Norman-French Romances.-After Layamon had shown the way to romance writing in the native tongue, other poets in rapidly increasing numbers followed in his footsteps. Rude at first, their efforts gradually approached, in ease and grace, those of their NormanFrench teachers. Almost all the English romances of the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are free renderings from French originals. But of all the romances in English of this period, such as King Horn, Havelock the Dane, Sir Tristrem, and Morte d'Arthure, the one which is of most genuine native English workmanship is the best of all, and is one of the most charming romances of the world. This is Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. Its date is about 1320-1330. The summary which follows will serve to convey some idea of the charm of the work, and through a single instance to give some insight into the nature of the metrical romances as a whole.

"Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight."-When the poem opens, King Arthur and his court are gathered in the hall at Camelot to celebrate the feast of the New Year. Suddenly there rushes in at the hall door a gigantic knight, clothed entirely in green, mounted on a green foal, and bearing in his hand a great axe. He rides to the dais, and challenges any knight to give him a blow with his axe, and to abide one in turn. Gawayne, the king's nephew, smites off the head of the Green Knight, who quietly picks it up by the hair, and holds it out toward Gawayne, until the lips speak, commanding him to appear at the Green Chapel on the next New Year's day.

On All-hallow's day, Gawayne sets out upon his horse Gringolet, and journeys through the wilderness until at last on Christmas-eve he comes to a fair castle standing on a hill. Asking shelter, he is courteously received by the lord of the castle and his fair young wife, and is assured that the Green Chapel is near at hand.

After the Christmas festivities are over, his host prepares for a great hunt, to last three days; and a jesting compact is made between them that at the end of each day they shall give each other whatever good thing they have won. While her lord is absent on the hunt, the lady of the castle tries in vain to induce Gawayne to make love to her, and bestows upon him a kiss. Anxious to fulfil his compact, he in turn gives the kiss to her lord each night when the hunt is over, and receives as a counter-gift the spoils of the chase. At their last meeting the lady persuades Gawayne to take as a

gift a green lace belt which will protect him from mortal harm.

On New Year's morning he sets out through a storm of snow to find the Green Chapel. It proves to be a grasscovered hollow mound, in a desert valley. The Green Knight appears, and deals a blow with his axe upon Gawayne's bent neck. But he only pierces the skin, and Gawayne, seeing the blood fall on the snow, claps on his helmet, draws his sword, and declares the compact fulfilled. The Green Knight then discloses the fact that he is the lord. of the castle where Gawayne has just been entertained, that with him dwells the fairy-temptress Morgain, who, because of her hatred of Guenevere, had sent him to Camelot to frighten the queen with the sight of a severed head talking, and who has been trying to lead Gawayne into bad faith, in order that her husband's axe might have power upon him. By his purity and truth Gawayne has been saved, except for the slight wound as punishment for concealing the gift of the girdle. Gawayne swears to wear the "lovelace" in remembrance of his weakness; and ever afterward each knight of the Round Table, and every lady of Arthur's court, wears a bright green belt for Gawayne's sake.

The picturesque language of the poem, its bright humor and fancy, and the vivid beauty of its descriptions, combine with its moral sweetness to make this the most delightful blossom of all pre-Chaucerian romance. Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight contains fair promise not only of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, but even of Spenser's Faerie Queene.

III. RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD

The "Cursor Mundi."--While the shimmering tapestry and cloth of gold of these bright romances was being woven to beguile the tedium of castle halls, a more sombre literary fabric grew under the patient hands of monks and religious enthusiasts. The Cursor Mundi, the author of which is unknown, is among the most notable of these. The author, in beginning, laments the absorption of the readers of his day in frivolous romance, and proposes to give them in place

of these vain tales of earthly love, a tale of divine love which shall be equally thrilling. He then proceeds to tell in flowing verse the story of God's dealings with man, from the Creation to the final redemption, following in general the biblical narrative, but adorning it with popular legends, both sacred and secular, and with all manner of quaint digressions.

Richard of Hampole: the "Prick of Conscience."--Of another religious writer whose work rises to the dignity of literature, the name and story have fortunately been preserved. This is Richard Rolle, the hermit of Hampole in southern Yorkshire, who was born about 1300 and died in 1349. In his youth he went to Oxford, then at the height of its fame as a centre of scholastic learning; but he soon revolted against the dry scholastic teaching. He left college, made him a hermit's shroud out of two of his sister's gowns and his father's hood, and began the life of a religious solitary and mystic. His cell at Hampole, near a Cistercian nunnery, was after his death visited as a miracle-working shrine, and cared for by the nuns. He wrote many canticles of divine love, some of which are of great intensity. His longest work is the Prick of Conscience, which deals with the life of man, and the terrors of the Last Judgment.

The "Love-Rune" of Thomas de Hales.- Of all the religious lyrical writings of this period, the most beautiful is the famous "Love Rune" of Thomas de Hales, a monk of the Minor Friars. He tells us in the first stanza that he was besought by a maid of Christ to make her a love-song, in order that she might learn therefrom how to choose a worthy and faithful lover. The monkish poet consents, but goes on to tell her how false and fleeting is all worldly love; how all earthly lovers vanish and are forgotten. "But there is another lover," the poet continues, who is "richer than Henry our King, and whose dwelling is fairer than Solomon's house of jasper and sapphire. Choose Him, and may God bring thee to His bride-chamber in Heaven.'

"The Pearl."-Another religious poem, which deserves to be classed with this by reason of its beauty and humanity, is much longer. It is called The Pearl. The poet represents himself as falling asleep on the grave of his lost daughter,