Chapter I

Introductory

Ever since the days when Geoffrey of Monmouth gave to the world that fascinating combination of fact and fiction which he dignified by the title of ‘History’, the fame of King Arthur and his knights has been one of the most precious heritages of the English people – one of the most fruitful sources of inspiration to writers other than English. For if we alone may claim King Arthur as ours by right of birth, he has become, as it were, the property of the whole world by right of literary inspiration.

Indeed, if to have been the first to enshrine the story of a hero in undying literary form were to constitute a prior right to that hero, then France and Germany, rather than England, might claim King Arthur as their own; for though he was to English minds a tradition, an ideal (dare we say, a memory?), the English tongue was, at the time of King Arthur’s highest glory, but in its childhood – too halting, too unformed, to give full expression to England’s pride in her national hero.

It was a curious fate that befell us, one surely unique in the literary experience of any nation, that of being compelled, by lack of means of expression, to have recourse to a foreign tongue in order to preserve the record of the king we delighted to honour. The poems that formed the basis of the extant Arthurian Romances were, doubtless, many of them, composed in England, but their writers were Anglo-Norman, and their language French. It was not till the end of the fifteenth century that England clothed in fitting words, and in her own tongue, the records of Arthur’s deed. The majority of the Arthurian Romances are French, some of the very finest of the entire cycle German.

Previous to Malory’s immortal composition, English Arthurian literature consisted of scattered ballads and metrical romances, the majority of which own Gawain, rather than Arthur, as their hero. In the form in which we possess them, these are rarely older than the fourteenth or fifteenth century, though the subject-matter doubtless is of much earlier date. But, though English literature generally abounded with Arthurian allusions, the feats of the hero King and his knight were at no time, earlier or later, woven into an epic poem. We have nothing in our literature to set over-against the works of such writers as Chrétien de Troyes, Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Strassbourg, or Wolfram von Eschenbach.

Malory’s prose epic, which, fine as it is, is an example rather of excellence of style than a faithful representation of the original legend, was till this nineteenth century the sole great monument which English literature had dedicated to the memory of Arthur. Tennyson’s collection of Arthurian poems and Idylls has freed us from a well-deserved reproach, though, from a critical point of view, it must be admitted that his work is open to much the same objection as is Malory’s – it is admirable considered as literature, as legend it does even less justice to the original characters of the story.

This feature of the question, viz., that the great mass of Arthurian romance is in a foreign tongue, ought to be borne in mind; it goes far to explain the fact – for it is a fact – that the labours of English scholars in this field have hitherto been productive of less solid results than have been achieved either in France or in Germany. It must be admitted that it strikes an English student disagreeably to find that, in taking up the study of a subject so essentially national in spirit, the English books which can be relied upon for information are so few in number, and, with some honourable exceptions, of so little value in comparison with the foreign literature.

It has long been a matter of discussion whether there ever were an historical Arthur or not. Our minds are not so easily satisfied as was Caxton’s – who tells us, in his preface to Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, how he hesitated whether to print the romance or not, doubting whether Arthur had ever lived; but was reassured by those who had seen the King’s tomb at Glastonbury, and Gawain’s skull at Dover Castle. Such evidence as this would scarcely satisfy us nowadays, though for the sake of English literature we may well rejoice that it satisfied Caxton.

But without committing ourselves to a faith in these interesting relics, or in Arthur’s victories far afield, we may, so scholars tell us, believe that he really lived, and was a valiant warrior and successful general. Both Professor Rhys and Mr. Alfred Nutt adhere to the view that the historic Arthur occupied a position equivalent to that of the Comes Britannia, who under the Romans held a roving commission to defend the province wherever attacked. It is quite in keeping with this identification that we find Arthur warring in all parts of the island: now in Northumberland – crossing the border into Scotland to take counsel with the allied princes for an attack on the Saxons; now journeying southward to give the invaders battle on Salisbury Plain.

That mythical elements also entered largely into the popular conception of Arthur is doubtless true, as the curious story of his birth and election to the crown seem to testify, but whether he really represents a Celtic God or Culture Hero, or is a representative of a widespread Aryan myth, we have but scanty data to determine.

Dr. Oskar Sommer predicts that when all the leading MSS. of the cycle have been carefully edited, and all the romances dissected and compared, we shall find that the original Arthur saga is very simple in form – it is the stories connected with the other heroes who gathered round the British king, which have crossed and complicated the primitive legend. One, and that an important step in the great work of elucidating this confused tangle of romance, would therefore be the careful sifting of the stories connected with the individual knights; the attempt to discover what was the original form of each legend; to find out, if we can, how much they have borrowed – in the case of the leading knights, how much they have lent; and thus by separating, as far as may be, the threads of the fabric, to discover the nature of the ground-work. But this is a task which is only practicable, and indeed only serviceable, in the case of the leading figures of the legend – such characters as Gawain, Perceval, Kay, Tristan, Lancelot, and Galahad. The great crowd of minor characters who cross and recross the stage are in many instances only understudies of the principal heroes; their adventures but reflections of deeds originally attributed to other and more important actors in the drama. Many of these characters would well repay study of the details of their story, but in the case of those above named the work is not merely desirable, but absolutely essential, if we are ever to arrive at a clear idea of the growth of this great legend.

Something has already been done in this direction. Mr. Nutt’s Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail have gone far towards the elucidation of the original données of the Perceval story. Professor Zimmer’s study on the Tristan saga has thrown light upon the genesis of that legend; but there is still a vast field to be explored. The most perplexing, and in many ways the most important, of all the knights surrounding King Arthur, Gawain, has hitherto failed to meet with the favour accorded to his companions; true, the materials for an examination of his legend have in a great measure been prepared by Sir Frederick Madden in his collection of English metrical romances, and by M. Gaston Paris, in his study of the episodic romances connected with the hero; but the varying legends have not hitherto been examined and compared with a view to determining what was the original form of the Gawain Legend.

The more one studies the Arthurian cycle, the more one becomes convinced of the importance of this character, and of the necessity of discovering his original role. The materials at our disposal grow with every year, and we are now far better furnished for the task than was the case when Sir Frederick Madden undertook to collect the romances connected with Sir Gawain. These Studies therefore have been undertaken with the view of leading to a truer appreciation of one of the most puzzling, and at the same time most fascinating, characters of the Arthurian cycle, a character which later developments of the legend have greatly obscured, and most unjustly vilified. If in the course of these Studies certain points are established which may impel those better qualified than the present writer to pursue the investigation yet further, they will have amply fulfilled their object.