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The mutual relations of Perceval and Lancelot stories of primary importance in evolution of Arthurian romantic cycle—Necessity for critical editions of these texts 212-214 APPENDIX The Lancelot section of D.L. 215-247 Index 248

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THE LEGEND OF
SIR LANCELOT DU LAC

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

To the great majority of English readers, those who are familiar with the Arthurian legend through the pages of Malory and Tennyson, the name which occurs most readily to their minds in connection with the court and Table of King Arthur is that of Lancelot du Lac, at once the most gallant servant of the king, and the secret lover of the queen. To many the story of Lancelot and Guinevere is the most famous of all stories of unlawful love.

True, of late years the popularity of Wagner's music has made their ears, at least, familiar with the names of Tristan and Iseult. Still, that Tristan and Iseult were ever as famous as Lancelot and Guinevere, few outside the ranks of professed students of mediæval literature would believe; still fewer admit that the loves of Arthur's queen and Arthur's knight were suggested by, if not imitated from, the older, more poetic, and infinitely more convincing, Celtic love-tale; that Lancelot, as Arthur's knight and Guinevere's lover, is a comparatively late addition to the Arthurian legend.

Yet so it is. I doubt if any scholar of standing would now argue that Lancelot and his relation to the queen formed an integral portion of the early tradition; if any, conversant with the literature of the cycle, would reckon Lancelot among the original band of heroes who gathered round the British king.

In the introduction to my studies on the Gawain legend, I remarked that, if we desired to arrive at an elucidation of the Arthurian problem as a whole, we must first begin with the elucidation of its component parts—we must severally disentangle the legends connected with the leading knights of the cycle before we can hope to understand the growth and development of that cycle. When we have arrived at some clear idea concerning the stories originally told of the Arthurian heroes, and their relation to each other and to the king, we shall then be in a better position to judge of the nature of the original legend—whether it be mainly the product of literary invention, or in its more important features, the work of mythical tradition. It is not a matter of slight importance to ascertain to which of these two categories the leading heroes of Arthurian romance belong.

In the case of Sir Gawain we were able to detect certain features which, by their persistent recurrence in the great mass of tradition connected with this knight, seemed to indicate a general recognition on the part of the romance writers that they belonged to an early form of his story, and as such were to be preserved even when but incompletely understood. Further I pointed out the parallels existing between certain of his most famous adventures and those recorded in early Irish tradition, parallels which went far to prove, not merely the antiquity of the feats ascribed to him, but their source in Celtic myth.

In the following studies I shall endeavour, in the same way, to trace to its origin the legend of Lancelot du Lac, to discover what was the tale originally connected with him, and, if possible, follow the steps which led to the immense development of his popularity. I do not for a moment suggest, any more than in the case of Gawain, the finality of the results arrived at; but I hope at least to present the reader with a sorely needed summary of the Lancelot legend, and to clear the ground for further researches into his story.

In some ways the task before us is less difficult than that involved in the examination of the Gawain legend; the literature connected with Lancelot, if extensive, is not diffuse; by far the greater portion is covered by the prose Lancelot and the Grail Romances. On the other hand the story, as compared with that of Gawain, is extraordinarily deficient in characteristic features. The adventures ascribed to Lancelot might just as well be placed to the credit of any other knight: they are the ordinary stock-in-trade of the mediæval romancer. Guinevere's lover he is, but the love-story is of the most conventional character: the more it is studied the more clearly do the records in which it is shrined appear the offspring of conscious literary invention, and that invention of by no means a high order. He is certainly no hero of prehistoric myth, solar or otherwise, as Gawain or Perceval may well be; nor does he by force of sheer humanity lay hold on our imagination, as does Tristan.

How then did Lancelot come into the Arthurian cycle? In the earliest records of Arthurian legend he holds no place. Wace's Brut, the French metrical version of the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth, written about the middle of the twelfth century, gives the names of certain of Arthur's knights, Gawain, Kay, Bedivere, Iwein, but never mentions Lancelot. We have an account of Arthur's expedition to France, in the course of which he slew Frollo outside the walls of Paris, an adventure which the compiler of the Prose Lancelot places during the war against Claudas to recover Lancelot's patrimony, but in the Brut this expedition takes place at an early stage in Arthur's reign, and knows nothing of Lancelot or Claudas.[1]

Dating apparently from the same period, the middle of the twelfth century, is a bas-relief of the cathedral of Modena, representing a female figure standing on the summit of a tower, towards which several armed knights are approaching. Each knight is named, and we find represented Arthur himself, Gawain, Kay, Ider, Carados, and a certain Galuariun, who has not been identified. Lancelot is not among them.[2]

The Welsh Arthurian stories again know nothing of Lancelot, though certain of them contain long lists of heroes of Arthur's court.[3]

So far as we can at present tell, the earliest mention of the knight is that contained in the Erec of Chrétien de