But there is another claimant in the field, and one whose right to be
considered the original hero of the adventure it would, according to
Professor Foerster’s opinion, be sheer impiety to doubt!—the _Cligés_ of
Chrétien de Troyes. In the poem of that name the hero makes his first
appearance at Arthur’s court at a tournament lasting for _four_
successive days: he wears successively _black_, _green_, _red_, and
_white_ armour; and overthrows, on the three first days, Segramor,
Lancelot, and Perceval; fighting on the fourth day an undecided combat
with Gawain.[24] Professor Foerster, commenting on the _Lanzelet_,[25]
remarks of the tournament episode ‘_das Wechseln der Rüstung stammt aus
Cligés_; and further on[26] affirms that Chrétien ‘_sich—im Cligés
sicher als ganz selbständig gezeigt hat_,’ a statement he repeats on p.
cxxviii, and in another place[27] with even more emphasis, ‘_Dieser
selbe Kristian ist in einem Roman wie_ Niemand _ableugnen kann_ GANZ
SELBSTÄNDIG _vorgegangen, im Cligés_.’ That is, Professor Foerster
asserts, and as emphatically as print will allow him, that Chrétien was
entirely independent in _Cligés_; that the episode of the change of
armour is the same in the two poems, and was borrowed by the author of
the _Lanzelet_ from Chrétien, and therefore, if words mean anything,
that Chrétien invented the story, and that Cligés is the real and
original hero of the tale.
Well, if assertion were argument, and a liberal display of large type
could settle intricate questions of literary criticism, we might hold
the dependence of _Lanzelet_ upon _Cligés_ to be—not proven, no—but
determined. But there are some few heretics who suspect that Professor
Foerster’s _ipse dixit_, though imposed with all the weight of a Papal
_imprimatur_, is not really more competent to decide a problem of
sources than is that notoriously fallacious engine for the suppression
of free investigation, and therefore, _more heretico_, we will be
presumptuous enough to examine the question for ourselves.
So far as the dates of the _existing_ versions are concerned, be it said
at once that the _Cligés_ is the older; _i.e._ it is older than the
_Ipomedon_, the _Lanzelet_, or the _Prose Lancelot_; but how it stands
with regard to the lost French source of the _Lanzelet_ is not so easily
determined. The exact date of the _Cligés_ is not known. It was written
after _Erec_, the translations from Ovid, and the lost _Tristan_; but
before the _Charrette_ and the _Yvain_, which fall between the years
1164-73. Professor Foerster, in his Introduction to the _Charrette_,[28]
has expressed himself in favour of as late a date as possible for that
poem—towards 1170; and since the _Perceval_, Chrétien’s last work, was
written about 1182, we can scarcely place the beginning of his literary
career earlier than 1150. If we place the _Cligés_ before 1160, we
shall, I think, be ascribing too great an activity to the decade
1150-60, in comparison with 1160-70. It seems more suitable to place the
_Cligés_ about 1160; but, as we shall see, the argument is not affected
by a few years one way or the other.
The most important factor in the problem, the French source of the
_Lanzelet_, no longer exists,[29] yet it appears certain that the whole
question hinges upon the possibility of this, or an analogous French
_Lancelot_ story, having been in existence previous to the work of
Chrétien de Troyes. It therefore becomes necessary, not only to
carefully compare the two versions, that of the _Cligés_ and that of the
_Lanzelet_, but also to inquire as to the source from which the story
was originally derived. As we shall see, these two parts of our
investigation mutually supplement each other, and in the sum-total
present us with a compact and striking body of evidence.
As a first step in the inquiry we will take the _Cligés_, the
_Lanzelet_, and the _Ipomedon_ (as being anterior to the _Lanzelet_ in
its present form), and see if we can discover any traces of a knowledge
of Chrétien’s work on the part of the two later writers. The answer will
be unhesitatingly in the negative. In neither work is there any
reminiscence (with the exception of the episode in question) either in
name or incident of the _Cligés_. As a matter of fact, allusions to this
poem are exceptionally rare. Professor Foerster states that there were
two German translations, one by Ulrich von Türheim and another by Konrad
Fleck, but of these only fragments remain. The _Parzival_ once mentions
a Clîas, a knight of the Round Table, and in another place refers to the
story of Alexander and Soredamors, but in each case it is doubtful
whether the allusion is to Chrétien’s poem.[30] The English ‘_Sir
Cleges_’[31] has no connection whatever with the earlier hero, and
Malory’s allusions to a _Sir Clegis_ do not go beyond the mere name, and
cannot be identified with either. In my _Lancelot_ studies I have
commented upon the indifference with which _Cligés_ appears to have been
received as being somewhat curious considering the undoubted literary
value of the poem.[32]
On the other hand, the _Cligés_ knows Lancelot as one of Arthur’s most
valiant knights, the third in order of merit, a position he certainly
could not have held before his story had reached a fairly advanced stage
of development. Indeed, Chrétien’s references to this hero deserve
particular attention.[33] He is first mentioned in _Erec_ as a knight of
the Round Table, third in rank, the two first being Gawain and Erec, but
is only a name, taking no part in the action of the poem. In _Cligés_ he
occupies the same position, but here Perceval, and not Erec, ranks
second. Lancelot appears upon the scene once, and once only, when he is
overthrown by _Cligés_ at the tournament in question. In the _Charrette_
he is the hero of the poem, the first of Arthur’s knights, the lover of
the queen, and her rescuer from the prison of Meleagant. In the
_Chevalier au Lion_ which followed, his name is mentioned but once, and
that in connection with an allusion to the _Charrette_. In the
_Perceval_ his name never appears at all. It seems extraordinary that
the significance of these allusions, taken as a group, should so long
have escaped detection. As a matter of fact I failed to grasp their
importance myself when commenting upon them in my _Lancelot_ studies.
Thus, the tournament episode in _Cligés_ is so close a parallel to that
of the _Lanzelet_ that, as we have seen, Professor Foerster declares the
one to be the source of the other. The rescue of Guinevere from
Meleagant, the theme of the _Charrette_, parallels her rescue from
Falerîn, also in the _Lanzelet_. In both the queen is abducted against
her will; in both the prison is of an otherworld character: in the one
Lancelot is of the party of rescuers, but takes no prominent share in
the enterprise; in the other he is the sole agent of her deliverance. In
commenting upon the poem in my _Lancelot_ studies,[34] I pointed out
that the story was, in its essence, of so primitive a character, that it
must certainly be, in its origin, of an earlier date than any extant
literary version; and that, of the two before us, the _Lanzelet_, by its
unlocalised character, the details it gives of Falerîn’s stronghold, and
the comparatively unimportant position assigned to Lancelot, must be
considered the older.
Further, in the roll of knights named in _Erec_, following such
well-known names as Gawain, Erec, Lancelot, Gornemanz, le Biaus Coarz
(Bel Couart), Le lez Hardis (le Laid Hardi), and Melianz de Liz, we have
_Mauduiz li Sages_, who, as I have elsewhere pointed out (_Lancelot_, p.
80), can hardly be other than the enchanter of the _Lanzelet_, Malduz
der Wîse. Taking all these facts into consideration, the position
Chrétien assigns to Lancelot, and the two adventures (they are really
only two, the incidents of the _Charrette_ are all subsidiary to the
freeing of Guinevere) he records, is it not perfectly clear that
Chrétien knew, and followed, an early version of the _Lancelot_ story,
akin to, if not identical with, the lost French source of Ulrich von
Zatzikhoven? Is it not far more probable that in the _Cligés_ he
borrowed from the _Lancelot_ than that an adventure so persistently, and
so early, attributed to that well-known hero should have been borrowed
from the obscure _Cligés_?
If it be objected, as of course those who hold Professor Foerster’s
views will object, that Chrétien’s position in the literary world of the
day was such that it is infinitely more likely that he should be the
lender rather than the borrower, I would ask, but how if the story from
which he borrowed was held, rightly or wrongly, to be the work of Walter
Map? Map was a much more important personage than Chrétien. Chrétien was
a poet, and a good poet, but at the best to the world in general he
would be no more than the favoured servant and dependant of a minor
French princess. Map was a man of political importance, the trusted
companion and emissary of the most prominent monarch of the day. What
was the position held by Map in the eyes of that same public to whom
Chrétien appealed may be gathered by the anxiety which the
romance-writers showed to shelter themselves under his name. We have one
or two Arthurian poems, such as _e.g._, _Diu Krône_, which purport to be
by Chrétien; we have a whole mass of prose romance, practically the main
body of Arthurian legend in its later form, which professes to be the
work of Walter Map. Could testimony as to the relative status of the two
men in the eyes of their contemporaries be more eloquent? Is it likely
that Chrétien, even if he had held as exalted an idea of his own work as
his latter-day admirers would credit him with—and he did _not_—would
have thought it derogatory to his dignity to borrow from Map? I think
not; and if we had not a jot or a tittle of further evidence on the
subject, I should contend that, on the evidence of the poems alone, we
have strong grounds for maintaining the priority over _Cligés_ of a lost
_Lancelot_ version.
But as it happens, our case does not rest upon this evidence alone. We
have at hand an important witness; a witness to whose evidence Professor
Foerster and his followers shut their eyes and stop their ears, but who
nevertheless is slowly, but surely, winning recognition as an important
factor in the determination of such problems as those we are discussing.
Let us turn to folk-lore, and find if from the lips of popular tradition
we can gather evidence that may help to decide the question. We shall
find an answer startling in its point and clearness.