CHAPTER IV ANGLO-NORMAN POETRY AND ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH VERSE THE genius of the Normans stood in bold and striking contrast to that of the Saxons. When the latter, leaving their ancient seats on the shores of the German Ocean, had parted company from their Continental kinsmen, and converted themselves into British islanders, a marked change was produced in their character. Firmly rooted in the conquered soil they abandoned their roving habits; their fixed attachment to their national customs in time developed a settled state of law and order; the softening influence of Christianity promoted the refinement of their manners. Under these circumstances, as we have seen, the scôp's inspiration sank, while the more dreamy and meditative elements in the Teutonic nature were nourished in the congenial climate of monasticism, and submitted to the schooling of the Latin Church. On the other hand the Northmen, in whatever new abodes they might fix themselves, carried with them the spirit of adventure which first drove them forth from the shores of Norway and Denmark. Their temper was alike braced by the air, and impelled by the restlessness, of the element on which so large a part of their life was spent. In the tenth century they had pushed their way up the Seine as far as Paris, and had won for themselves a great portion of the most fertile territory of France. From Normandy, in the following century, a cadet of one of the less powerful families, with no resources but his valour, had gone forth to establish a kingdom in the very centre of the civilisation of the ancient world. Not content with this great achievement, Robert Guiscard had encountered and overthrown the armies of the Emperor of the East, and, as the champion of the Pope, had forced the Emperor of the West to retire from the gates of Rome. Later in the same century, William the Bastard effected a more enduring conquest, and, displacing the Saxon dynasty, founded the line of sovereigns which has continued to occupy the throne of England. Dauntless in the face of danger, fertile in resource, swift in resolve, the Norman genius was always prompt to understand, to accept, and to turn to its own account, the circumstances with which it had to deal for the moment. Norman builders, stimulated by their contact with the great monuments of the Romans, the Lombards, and the Arabs, brought to the North of Europe those new principles of construction which formed the starting point for the Gothic style of architecture. Anglo-Norman trouvères gave the first impulse to modern poetry, by blending with the older chansons de geste the element of romantic love. When Rollo and his followers conquered Normandy, they brought with them their scalds, who would of course have celebrated the exploits of their leaders in their native language and the Scandinavian style. But it is characteristic of the race, that within a few generations, they had so completely adopted the common speech, as well as the principles of poetical art of the people whom they had subdued, that there was no noticeable difference between their dialect and that of the other provinces of France which used the langue d'oïl. The conquest of England brought fresh modifications, and the poetry of the Anglo-Normans exhibits three welldefined stages. In the earliest stage is still to be found something of the spirit of the old scald, joined to the literary taste of the ecclesiastic trained in the learning of the schools. The chief representative of this school is Robert VOL. I I Wace,1 a native of Guernsey, born about the beginning of the twelfth century, who died in England in 1184. Wace worked in two different veins, one of which is illustrated in his Roman de Rou, and the other in his Brut. The former (composed between 1160-1170 A.D.) is a poem of over 16,000 lines, consisting of four main divisions in the first of which is related the Conquest of Normandy by Rollo; in the second the history of Rollo's reign; in the third the history of William Longsword and of Richard his son; and in the fourth the history of Richard I. down to the sixth year of Henry I. In dealing with these matters, the prime motive of the poet, as of the scald, is to recite the exploits and the genealogy of his chief; but he is also animated by the spirit of the historian, and, though writing in verse, observes a scrupulous accuracy in his record of recent events. Hence his poem, poor in point of art, is valuable as history, and his account of the battle of Hastings has been justly relied on by modern scholars, as furnishing life-like details of the fortunes of the fight. The Brut, on the contrary, worthless as history, is more immediately connected with the development of modern poetry, since it presents the first faint indications. of that influence exercised by Celtic imagination on the Teutonic or Scandinavian genius, afterwards so brilliantly illustrated by the cycle of Arthurian romance. Wace's poem is indeed no more than a metrical expansion of the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth; but the touches which he has added, recording the institution by Arthur of the Round Table, and of feasts and tourneys, introduce into the growing myth the first glimpse of the spirit of chivalry. He is, however, far from yielding to the wild and romantic impulse of Celtic superstition, and, whether from the scepticism of the scholar, or from a 2 1 His name is variously given as Wace, Vaice, Gace, Gasse. 2 Cp. Roman de Brut, 9998-10,042 :-- Fist rois Artur la Ronde Table Ne tot mensonge, ne tot voir, Ne tot folor, ne tot savoir, Tant ont li conteor conté certain Northern robustness of mind, he seeks to test the marvels reported to him by the experience of his senses.1 1 The foundations of another cycle of romance were laid about the same time by the Anglo-Norman trouvère, Benoît de Ste. More, who had himself been employed by Henry Beauclerc to write the history of Normandy, but who now turned his infant historical genius in a different direction. His imagination was attracted by the history of the fate of Troy, written by Dares the Phrygian. The minute details in which this work abounds, and which to a more critical sense would have shown it to be a pretentious literary forgery, were to Benoît proofs of the author's accuracy; he accordingly set himself, in the joyous spirit of a trouvère, to convert into the language of poetry the text of what he conceived to be a veracious history. In his hands the Trojan romance swelled into about 30,000 lines, and was followed by the Roman de Thèbes, containing the story of Eteocles and Polynices, as told by Statius, and transmuted in the alembic of Scandinavian fancy. The second, and most important period of AngloNorman poetry extends from the close of the reign of Henry II. to the reign of Henry III., and is characterised by the full development of the principle of romance. This class of poem may be described as being the old chanson de geste, modified by the assimilation of (1) the machinery of Celtic mythology; (2) the love-plots of the Greek novels; (3) the religious and chivalrous spirit of the Crusades-various, and sometimes opposite, influences, each of which deserves to be separately considered. 1. After the conquest of Normandy the Northmen, with their wonted intellectual activity, inquired with 1 He was exceedingly anxious to see the wonders of which he heard in the forest Broceliande, where was the tomb of Merlin, and went thither with great expectations which, however, were grievously disappointed— La allai jo merveilles querre, Vu la forest, et vis la terre, Merveilles quis, mais nes trovai, Fol m'en revins, fol i'allai, Fol i'allai, fol m'en revins, Folie quis, por fol me tins.-Roman de Rou, 11,534. 2 interest about the mythology and poetry of the country. From very early times the testimony of numerous poets and historians, Latin and Greek, shows that the interpreters and preservers of Celtic tradition were the bards.1 We have equally good reason for believing that the bards' vehicle of poetical expression was the lay. As to the functions of these poets, the subject matter of their lays seems, in respect of warlike exploits and tribal genealogy, to have strongly resembled the art of the Teutonic races ; though, from their close association with the Druids, it is probable that their references to religion were more refined and metaphysical. Of their old superstitions few traces remain, but one invaluable passage in ancient literature attests the vitality of Celtic folk lore. Pomponius Mela thus describes certain marvellous maidens in the isle of Seine, reverenced by the ancient Celts :— Sena, an island in the British sea opposite to the coasts of the Orismici, is remarkable for an oracle, whose priests, sanctified by perpetual virginity, are reported to be nine in number; they call them Gallizenæ, and believe them to be endowed with singular powers, which enable them to raise the winds and seas by their enchantment, to transform themselves into any animals they please, to cure wounds which in the hands of others are beyond the power of healing, to foresee and predict future events; but to be devoted exclusively to the service of sailors, and to those who come expressly for the purpose of consulting them." 3 From this we may conclude with something like certainty that the Fées, or Fays, or Fairies, who play so prominent a part in the Arthurian romances, in Partheno 1 See authorities cited by the Abbé de la Rue in his Essais Historiques sur les Bardes, etc., p. 45 (edition of 1834). 2 Hos tibi versiculos, dent barbara carmina Leudos, Venantius Fortunatus, Lib. 7, Epistola ad Lupum. 3 Pomponius Mela, iii. 6 (48). Compare with this the very curious passage in the Vita Merlini, attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth, describing the Insula Pomorum, or Fortunate Island, where, he says, dwell nine sisters who possess the same powers as those described by Pomponius Mela. The eldest is named Morgen, and by her King Arthur is, in time, to be healed of his wound. Galfridi de Monemuta Vita Merlini (F. Michel and Thomas Wright, 1837), v. 916. This is the germ of the legend of Avalon. |