Amis and Amil were the David and Jonathan, the Orestes and Pylades, of
the mediæval world. Dr. Hofmann, who has edited the earliest French
verse account of the Legend, enumerates nearly thirty other versions of
it in almost all the tongues of Western and Northern Europe, not to
mention various versions which have crept into different collections of
the Lives of the Saints. For their peerless friendship raised them to
the ranks of the martyrs, at any rate, at Mortara and Novara, where,
according to the Legend, they died. The earliest of all these forms is a
set of Latin Hexameters by one Radulfus Tortarius, born at Fleury, 1063,
lived in Normandy, and died some time after 1122. It was, therefore,
possible that the story had come back with the first crusaders, and the
Grimms attribute to it a Greek original. But in its earliest as well as
in its present form, it is definitely located on Romance soil, while the
names of the heroes are clearly Latin (Amicus and Æmilius). It was,
however, only at a later stage that the story was affiliated to the Epic
Cycle of Charlemagne. On the face of it there is clearly stamped the
impress of popular tradition. Heads are not so easily replaced, except
by a freak of the Folk imagination. It is probably for this reason that
M. Gaston Paris attributes an Oriental origin to the latter part of the
tale, and for the same reason the Benedictine Fathers have had serious
doubts about admitting it into the _Acta Sanctorum_. On the other hand,
the editors of the French text, the translation of which we have before
us, go so far as to conjecture that there is a historic germ for the
whole Legend in certain incidents of the War of Charlemagne against
Didier. But as the whole connection of the Legend with the Charlemagne
Cycle is late, we need not attribute much importance to, indeed, we may
at once dismiss their conjecture.
These disputes of the pundits cannot destroy the charm of the Legend.
Never, even in antiquity, have the claims of friendship been urged with
such a passionate emphasis. The very resemblance of the two heroes is
symbolic of their similarity of character; the very name of one of them
is Friend pure and simple. The world is well lost for friendship’s sake
on the one side, on the other nearest and dearest are willingly and
literally sacrificed on the altar of friendship. One of the most
charming of the _Fioretti_ tells how St. Francis overcame in himself the
mediæval dread at the touch of a leper, and washed and tended one of the
poor unfortunates. He was but following the example of Amil, who was not
deterred by the dreaded sound of the “tartavelle”—the clapper or rattle
which announced the approach of the leper {4}—from tending his friend.
Here again romance has points of contact with the folk tale. The end of
the Grimms’ tale of _Faithful John_ is clearly the same as that of _Amis
and Amile_. {5} Once more we are led to believe in some dependence of
the Folk-Tale on Romance, or, _vice versa_, since an incident like that
of resuscitation by the sacrifice of a child is not likely to occur
independently to two different tellers of tales. The tale also contains
the curious incident of the unsheathed sword in bed, which, both in
romances and folk-tales, is regarded as a complete bar to any divorce
court proceedings. It is probable that the sword was considered as a
living person, so that the principle _publico_ was applied, and the sword
was regarded as a kind of chaperon. {6} It is noteworthy that the
incident occurs in _Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp_, which is a late
interpolation into the _Arabian Nights_, and may be due there to European
influence. But another incident in the romance suggests that it was
derived from a folk-tale rather than the reverse. The two bowls of wood
given to the heroes at baptism are clearly a modification of that
familiar incident in folk-tales, where one of a pair leaves with the
other a “Lifetoken” {7} which will sympathetically indicate his state of
health. As this has been considerably attenuated in our romance, we are
led to the conclusion that it is itself an adaptation of a folk-tale.