But the interesting problems connected with this episode are not all
solved when we have determined the ultimate source of the story, and the
position to be assigned to Chrétien’s version. As we have seen, there is
strong ground for believing that the French poet knew two versions of
the _Lancelot_ story; is it not possible that one of these versions may
have been the lost French source of the _Lanzelet_? The ‘setting’ of the
_Cligés_ tournament, in which the hero makes his first appearance at
Arthur’s court, corresponds with that of the _Lanzelet_; and, as we have
remarked above, in the _Erec_ we find not only the name of Lancelot, but
also that of the enchanter Mauduiz, who appears nowhere save in U. von
Zatzikhoven’s poem. Professor Foerster’s opinion is that we must
consider the German _Lanzelet_ as ‘_die möglichst getreue Wiedergabe
eines französischen Originals_’; and on this point at least, I, for one,
am quite prepared to agree with him. Whether, after a real study of that
poem (with which I strongly suspect he had only a superficial
familiarity), the learned professor will desire to maintain his opinion
is another question! But, granting that the German version correctly
reproduces the French original, the nature of the work—a loosely
connected collection of independent tales, of marked folk-lore
character—points to a period of evolution anterior to Chrétien’s
well-knit and elaborately polished literary productions.
Then, again, there arises the question, Granting the existence of a
_Lancelot_ romance previous to Chrétien, could Walter Map have been the
author? On this point it is not easy, with the material at our disposal,
to express a decided opinion. Map and Chrétien were certainly
contemporaries, but in neither case do we know the date of birth. Map
died in 1209, therefore we may suppose he was not born long before 1140;
a later date is scarcely probable, as he was a student at Paris in 1154,
and at the court of Henry II. before 1162.[59] We do not know when
Chrétien wrote the _Erec_, but it was almost certainly some time in the
decade 1150-60. That Map should have been the author of a _Lancelot_
poem earlier than the _Erec_ is quite possible, but, perhaps, not very
probable; but there would have been ample time for him to write one
before the _Cligés_. Thus, while I think it highly probable that
Chrétien borrowed from Map in the latter poem, I would reserve my
opinion as to the former. Of the probable character of such a work we
can gather some idea from Map’s undoubted literary remains; _De Nugis
Curialium_ offers abundant proof of the writer’s taste for popular tales
and traditions. Had he lived in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries,
instead of the twelfth-thirteenth, Map would undoubtedly have been a
prominent member of the Folk-Lore Society.[60] His _Lancelot_ poem might
have been a short episodic romance of folk-tale character, a Three Days’
Tournament story, or it might have been a collection of such episodes,
like the _Lanzelet_, _i.e._ its character would probably be _popular_
rather than _literary_. I should myself have felt inclined to decide for
the _Lanzelet_ source, were it not for the evidence of the _Ipomedon_,
which appears to presuppose a version closer to the original folk-tale.
Another point to be borne in mind in connection with the _Cligés_, and
one to which I have already drawn attention,[61] is the peculiar
geography of the poem, which is distinctly Anglo-Norman rather than
Arthurian; the tale is obviously composed of originally independent
themes; and whatever may have been contained in the book of the Beauvais
Library, I think it is at the least possible that part of Chretien’s
material came to him from insular sources.
As regards the _Lanzelet_, we know that the source of that poem came
from England, and elsewhere[62] I have pointed out that a curious
allusion to England (_not_ as is more usual to _Britain_) seems to make
it probable that the French original was written in this island. If we
couple with this the authorship and evidence of the _Ipomedon_, and the
persistent attribution of a _Lancelot_ romance to Walter Map, we have, I
think, a strong presumption in favour of an early _insular_ version of
that story.
While this study was in the printer’s hands I came across the following
allusion to the slaying of a dragon by Lancelot; it occurs in the
Auchinleck Manuscript version of _Sir Bevis of Hampton_ (_Cxxx_):—
‘_After Josianis cristing_
_Beves dede a gret fighting—_
_Swich bataile ded never non_
_Cristene man of flesch and bon—_
_Of a dragoun thar beside,_
_That Beves slough ther in that tide;_
_Save Sire Lancelet de Lake_
_He faught with a furdrake_ [fiery dragon],
_And Wade dede also_
_And never knightes boute thai to._’[63]
This allusion is the more interesting as, saving in the case of
_Morien_, to which I have already referred, I have nowhere found this
special feat attributed to Lancelot; certainly it does not occur in the
whole extent of the _Prose Lancelot_, nor is it ever alluded to in that
romance. Yet, if my theory of the evolution of the Lancelot legend be
correct, such a combat ought certainly, at one time, to have formed part
of his story. The evidence of this Anglo-Norman romance, supported as it
is by the independent testimony of _Morien_, is therefore especially
welcome; I am inclined to think that it strongly increases the
probability of a definitely _insular_ version of the story, differing in
some respects from the _continental_, having existed at the time the
‘_Sir Bevis_’ was written.
Nor would the existence of such a version be, as Professor Foerster
asserts, incompatible with the continental _origin_ of the
character;[64] to assert as much is really to stultify his own
arguments. Does not the whole system of Professor Foerster rest upon the
hypothesis that the character of Arthur, indisputably of insular
_origin_, underwent development upon continental ground? The fact that
what he roundly denies of Arthur he asserts emphatically as natural for
Lancelot throws a flood of light upon the _ex parte_ character of this
distinguished scholar’s methods!
If we take into consideration the character of the elements composing
the early _Lancelot_ story, a character which, be it remembered, is not
a question of suggestion but a matter of proof, we shall become clearly
aware that the material for development existed on both sides of the
Channel. I believe myself that Lancelot was of continental origin, but I
recognise clearly that if the source and development of his story were
such as I suppose them to have been, that continental origin was a
matter of accident, not of necessity; and if some other scholar should
bring forward arguments to prove that the story had its rise on insular
rather than on continental ground, I shall be quite prepared to
reconsider the question.
So far as the evidence I have now collected is concerned, it looks as if
the development of the early _Lancelot_ story might thus be sketched:—
_a._ _Lai_ (presumably Breton), relating theft of king’s son by
water-fairy, amplified by
_b._ Bringing up of youth in Otherworld kingdom, peopled by women only
(source, general Celtic tradition, possibly _Gawain_ legend).
_c._ His entry into the world (_Perceval_ legend).
_d._ Introduction of adventures of _Sea Maiden_ story, _a_ being the
point of contact, and suggesting the development, which may have been
as follows:—
_d^a._ Winning of magic steeds and armour.
_d^b._ { Rescue of princess from monster, and _False Claimant_ story;
or
_d^c._ { Rescue of princess from Otherworld. As we have seen (p. 25),
it would be quite possible for these to be combined.
_d^d._ Appearance at Three Days’ Tournament.
It would seem not improbable that it was the independent existence of
incident _d^c_ in the popular tale that led to its coalescing with the
Arthurian legend. As I have elsewhere pointed out,[65] the character of
the Guinevere abduction story is in itself so primitive that it may well
have formed part of the earliest stratum of Arthurian tradition. The
variants are of such a nature as to indicate that they arose at a period
when the real meaning of the story was still understood, and carefully
retained. The tale must therefore be far older than any extant
_literary_ version.
If we admit the suggested hypothesis—that the hero of the Lancelot _lai_
became through the ‘mermaid’ incident identified with the hero of the
_Sea Maiden_ story—the character of that story, and the immense
popularity to which its wide diffusion testifies, would give us a solid
working hypothesis to account for the choice of Lancelot as Guinevere’s
lover. The similarity of the stories led to his identification with her
rescuer, and that step once taken the recognition of him as her lover
was—given the social conditions of the time and the popularity of the
_Tristan_ story—a foregone conclusion.[66]
But this evolution, so far as we can tell, took place on _both_ sides of
the Channel. Thus, while I have found no single _insular_ version which
gives the Tournament episode, I have equally found no _continental_
variant which contains the mermaid. Yet it is the latter (mermaid) which
appears to form the point of contact between the folk-tale and the
_lai_, while it is the persistent recurrence of the former (the
Tournament) which has given us the key to disentangle the complicated
evolution of the story.
Here is a point on which I should wish to make my position perfectly
clear. I do not think that Lancelot was _ab origine_ the hero of a
variant of this popular and widely-spread folk-tale. The persistent
element in the _Lancelot_ story is, as I have elsewhere shown, his
connection with the beneficent Lady of the Lake. Now the maiden of the
folk-tale is a sea, not a lake, maiden, and is, further, consistently
represented as of a malicious, rather than a kindly, character. True,
she aids the fisher in the first instance, but she belongs to that order
of beings whose gifts, apparently desirable, are saddled with conditions
which turn to the undoing, rather than to the profit of the receiver.
Also, her presence in the story is restricted to a small and well-marked
group of variants, which apparently preserve a primitive type of the
story, and are never combined with the Tournament, which recurs so
frequently in the _Lancelot_ romances.
Again this folk-tale, _quâ_ folk-tale, does not belong to the same group
as that which offers parallels to the _Perceval_ story; yet the
_Lancelot_ story was certainly affected, and that at an early stage of
development, by the _Perceval_. Folk-lore students are well aware of the
facility with which one story-type can become contaminated by another
originally distinct from it; and while I see in the common ‘folk-tale’
origin of the two legends a satisfactory explanation of the undeniable
influence traceable through all the earlier stages of the _Lancelot_
evolution, I would yet distinguish sharply between the two heroes.
Perceval is a British (insular) Celt; Lancelot a continental (Breton)
Celt, the development of whose story is posterior to that of the insular
hero. For all these reasons I think it most probable that Lancelot was
the hero of an independent, and originally short, tale, which by an
accidental similarity of incident became connected with one of the most
popular of known folk-tales, from which it freely borrowed adventures,
and which, through the medium of one of these adventures, became later
incorporated with the Arthurian tradition and developed upon romantic
lines.