by Mike Ashley
It is impossible to tell if Bledri or his counterparts were those who polished and refined Culhwch and Olwen, Peredur, Geraint ab Erbin, Preideu Annwvyn and Le Livre de Caradoc, all of which show that many independent Celtic Arthurian romances were circulating before Geoffrey compiled his Historia. Whilst Geoffrey was certainly aware of them, as a few of the elements found their way into his story of Arthur, he was not significantly influenced by them. However, with the mushrooming of interest in Arthur in the Anglo-Norman world, Geoffrey’s successors looked to the old tales for ideas and inspiration, and the Arthurian legend began to grow.
2. The Alanic dimension
One of the less considered contributions to the Arthurian story, but one currently championed by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor in From Scythia to Camelot, is the legends and stories of the Alans. The Alans were a Sarmatian tribe that rose to dominance in the latter years of the Roman Empire, whom we have already met in connection with Lucius Artorius Castus. They had steadily migrated from central Asia to settle in the Caucasus and around the northern shores of the Black Sea, with other groups settling in Persia. They gradually infiltrated eastern Europe, but were overwhelmed by the Huns and moved west, settling in France and Spain, whilst another group joined forces with the Vandals in North Africa.
The Alans that had remained in the Caucasus became the peoples now called the Ossetians. One of the most significant links between the Alans and the Arthurian legend comes from the Ossetian legend of Batraz’s sword. Batraz, belonging to the group of warriors called the Nartamongae (Narts), has wreaked revenge upon those who killed his father, and, now satisfied, is prepared for his own death. He commands that his sword be thrown back into the sea. The sword is so heavy that his men hide it instead, but when Batraz asks them what they saw and they say nothing, he knows they have deceived him. He commands them again and this time they drag the sword to the sea and cast it in. At that point the sea bubbles blood red. They tell Batraz what they saw, and he dies fulfilled. The link with Arthur’s final command for Excalibur is only too obvious. Whilst it is common in Celtic funeral tradition to cast swords and precious artefacts into lakes as offerings to the Otherworld, the eastern parallels with Bedivere’s reluctance to throw Excalibur into the lake are pertinent.
There are other compelling parallels between the Sarmatian tales and the Arthurian romances. Lancelot has much in common with Batraz; both are raised by a fey-like female guardian associated with water, and are described as the best of all knights. Perceval, too, has parallels with the story of Kai Kosrau, as later told by the Persian poet Firdausi. Both are regarded as fools, both have lost their father and live in the forest, and both are encouraged to become warriors by their encounters with knights. Perceval later learns that many of his ancestors bear the name Alan. There is also much similarity between the Tristan and Iseult story, and the Persian tale Vîs u Râmîn by Fakhr Ud-Din Gurgâni (see Chapter 13). Finally, the Cup of the Narts may be seen as a prototype Grail: it refills itself when empty; it can tell if anyone drinking from it is telling lies; and it can only be awarded to one amongst them who is without flaw.
The Alans established themselves across north-central France in those very territories that later developed the Arthurian romances, particularly Champagne, Normandy and Brittany. Through marriage, Alanic rulers claimed part of the kingdom of Brittany, the earliest ruling in the early 600s, and thus a contemporary of Athrwys of Gwent. Alain the Great established himself as king of Brittany in 888, and it was under his grandson Alain Barbetorte (“Twisted Beard”) that Brittany became a duchy. The last of Barbetorte’s descendants was Conan IV, whose daughter Constance married Geoffrey, son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Their son, who became duke of Brittany in 1187, was called Arthur.
Littleton and Malcor present a strong case for the Arthurian stories being a blend of Alanic and Celtic tales, each overlaying the other until their origins have become blurred. It is also probable that the original legends brought west by the Alans later found affinity with stories brought back by the Crusaders, and that these gave a greater depth and resonance to the growing Arthurian mythos.
Geoffrey may not have been aware of any of this when he completed his Historia, and it was for his successors to create the stories that we now know so well. His successors took two forms. There were those who translated and developed his Historia, and those who ignored history and went straight to the popular tales. It was the latter who developed the cycle of adventures, but not without some input from the former.
3. Wace and Layamon
Geoffrey’s Historia Regum Britanniae had been a roaring success, and in his day there must have been several thousand copies circulating. Most were in Latin, but translations also started to appear. The earliest was by Geffrei Gaimar, who translated it into Anglo-Norman during the 1140s for Ralph Fitz Gilbert, in Lincolnshire. Gaimar brought the history up to the time of William II, titling it Lestoire des Engles. Unfortunately, his translation of Geoffrey’s original Historia is now lost. It was soon superseded by a more significant version by Robert Wace, known as the Roman de Brut.
Wace was born in the first decade of the twelfth century, and was a Norman teacher and cleric who ended his days as a canon at the abbey of Bayeux in the late 1170s. He tells us that he was born on the island of Jersey and was educated at Caen, and also in the Ile de France before returning to Caen. We know from his surviving writings that he undertook independent research, mostly in Brittany, but also in parts of southern Britain, most likely the West Country. As a result, he brought his own thoughts to his translation. He did not simply invent material; rather, he stated his sources and at times questioned Geoffrey. He even refrained from translating the Prophecies of Merlin because he did not know how to interpret them.
Wace completed his work in 1155, and presented a copy to Eleanor of Aquitaine. With this royal audience in mind, Wace represented Arthur in a courtly style. This was not the full-blown courtliness of the later French romances, but one that removed Arthur from the sedateness of Geoffrey and the baseness of the Celtic tales. Arthur was portrayed as a king who was the equal, and in the mould of, the Anglo-Norman rulers. Most significantly, Wace introduced the Round Table:
Arthur held high state in a very splendid fashion. He ordained the courtesies of courts and bore himself with so rich and noble a bearing that neither the emperor’s court at Rome nor any other bragged of by man was accounted as aught besides that of the king. Arthur never heard speak of a knight in praise, but he caused him to be numbered of his household. [. . .] Because of these noble lords about his hall, of whom each pained himself to be the hardiest champion, and none would count himself the least praiseworthy, Arthur made the Round Table, of which the Bretons tell many fables. This Round Table was ordained of Arthur so that when his fair fellowship sat to meat their chairs should be high alike, their service equal, and none before or after his comrade. [. . .] From all the lands there voyaged to his court such knights as were in quest either of gain or worship. Of these lords some drew near to hear tell of Arthur’s courtesies; others to marvel at the pride of his state; these to have speech with the knights of his chivalry; and some to receive of his largeness costly gifts.
(Adapted from the translation by Eugene Mason, Wace and Layamon, Dent, 1912)
He was very likely describing Henry’s court. Geoffrey’s slightly more sober description is an interesting comparison:
Arthur then began to increase his personal entourage by inviting very distinguished men from far-distant kingdoms to join it. In this way he developed such a code of courtliness in his household that he inspired peoples living far away to imitate him. The result was that even the man of noblest birth, once he was roused to rivalry, thought nothing at all of himself unless he wore his arms and dressed in the same way as Arthur’s knights. [ix.11]
Geoffrey’s account may have presented the “facts”, but Wace’s created the image. Although later romancers developed Wace’s description, such as the ide
a that Arthur would not start one of his Holy Day meals before he had heard an account of some adventure, no one added anything of significance to change the basic impression. It was Wace who clothed Geoffrey’s basic concept in pageantry for the romancers to embellish.
Wace also mentions the “marvellous gestes and errant deeds” attributed to Arthur. He goes so far as to say that, “They have been noised about this mighty realm for so great a space that the truth has turned to fable and an idle song.” But, he also remarks, “the truth stands hid in the trappings of a tale.” Wace understood that although it was no longer possible to separate fact from fiction, nevertheless deep down there was a basic truth. But this understanding does not stop him telling a good tale. He gives a rousing description of Arthur’s battle against the giant of Mont-St.-Michel, and of the fight against the Romans. He brings to life Arthur’s final battle against Mordred, and develops the idea that Arthur will return. Whereas Geoffrey closes the life of Arthur with the noncommittal “[he] . . . was carried off to the isle of Avalon so that his wounds might be attended to”, Wace adds that “He is yet in Avalon, awaited of the Britons; for as they say and deem he will return from whence he went and live again.” Wace ends cautiously, saying “but nevertheless Arthur came never again.” Henry II did not want to give the Welsh more fuel for rebellion.
Wace refers to the Round Table on three occasions. Twice he means specifically an item of furniture, but the third time, at the final battle, he refers to the deaths of “the knights of his Table Round, whose praise was bruited about the whole world,” suggesting a knightly order of fellowship. This was an idea that would catch on throughout the kingdoms of the Middle Ages. When Edward III instigated the Order of the Garter in 1348, he was originally going to call it the Order of the Round Table. The concept of a “Round Table” as a gathering of knights for a tournament or pageant was also widely used. Its earliest such spectacle, as reported by Philippe de Navarre, was in 1223 when Jean d’Ibelin, Lord of Beirut, held a pageant in Cyprus for the knighting of his sons. Jean was related to the influential de Lusignan family amongst whom were the kings of Jerusalem, and had been Constable of Jerusalem from 1194. It is possible that Jean had seen what was supposed to be the Table of the Last Supper in the Holy Land. This was reputed to be round, and it features heavily in the Grail legend.
We do not know where Wace got the idea of a Round Table. He could well have heard of it in discussion at court from crusaders returning from the Holy Land, or amongst the fables of the Bretons. According to Peter Berresford Ellis, in Celt and Greek, it had become an established pattern at large gatherings for everyone to sit in an open circle with the most important individuals, usually the chieftain and the host, sitting at the centre. It was an obvious model to adopt, and if it also happened to fit in with the stories coming back from the Holy Land, so much the better.
Wace’s work was every bit as popular as Geoffrey’s, and likewise had its translators, including Layamon, a parish priest at Arley in Worcestershire, near Kidderminster, within sight of the Wrekin. Layamon was a Saxon, though his name indicates Scandinavian blood. Layamon embarked upon his translation, known simply as Brut, with great gusto. His final version, written in the 1190s, is, despite telling no additional story, a third longer than Wace’s. It is simply full of rousing embellishments and flair that bring the story alive in the manner of such great Saxon and Danish stories as Beowulf. Layamon turns a history into a full story, complete with reported speech and detailed observation. He certainly doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good tale. At his birth, the elves place Arthur under magical protection, and when he is wounded in the final battle it is the Elf Queen Argante who takes him to Avalon to be healed.
Layamon also greatly elaborates the reference to the Round Table. A fight breaks out in Arthur’s hall over who should have precedence in dining, just as in Bricriu’s Feast. A Cornish craftsman tells Arthur that he can make him a table that will seat 1600 men “all turn about”, yet a table that could be taken with him and set up wherever needed. It doesn’t take much to see that if all those men were seated around the outside of a circle, the table would be at least a hundred feet in diameter. However, Layamon also describes the seating as “without and within”, suggesting that this may be an open circle with seating inside and out. Since it was portable it would consist of a series of interlocking trestle tables, which were the norm at most Saxon courts. Even so, it would require a significant number of tables (perhaps sixty or seventy), hardly ideal for transporting across country. But if Layamon was happy with elves magicking Arthur away, a table of such proportions clearly would present no problem.
Layamon completed his Brut sometime during the 1190s, by which time the Arthurian romances had taken a hold on the Anglo-Norman world. Others would continue to develop and adapt Geoffrey’s Historia, mostly notably Robert Mannyng who incorporated his translation of Wace’s Brut into the first part of Story of England (1328), and John Hardyng who used the Arthurian tales as a symbolic forerunner of the Lancastrian and Yorkist struggles in his Chronicle (1461). The intervening two hundred years, however, saw the historical Arthur eclipsed by the hero of legend.
4. Chrétien de Troyes
Wace tells us that at the time he was writing, in the early 1150s, tales of Arthur too numerous to mention were circulating throughout the Breton and Anglo-Norman world. Geoffrey and Wace were capitalising on an existing fascination amongst the general populace and re-presenting the legend in a form that related to the royalty and nobility of Europe.
Of particular significance was Wace’s royal patronage, because it was the court of Henry II and Henry’s network of relatives throughout Europe that would encourage the development of the Arthurian romance, partly for the sheer pleasure of the stories, but mostly because of what these stories signified for the Anglo-Norman world.
For the ladies, there were short pieces of courtly romance composed by Robert Biket and Marie de France. We don’t know anything about Biket, but Marie de France clearly moved in royal circles. Her lais were dedicated to Henry II, whilst her collection of Aesopian fables, Ysopet, was dedicated to a Count William. William is usually identified as Henry’s illegitimate son William Longespée, although if the fables were translated early enough he could be Henry’s first-born, William, Count of Poitiers, a title inherited through his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine. William died in 1156, not three years old. Marie de France has never been properly identified, but one suggestion is that she was Henry’s illegitimate half-sister, who was Abbess of Shaftesbury from 1181 to her death around 1216.
On a grander scale were the verse romances of Chrétien de Troyes, the man who effectively invented the genre. Geoffrey and Wace may have built the beacon, even added the fuel, but it was Chrétien who ignited it and its flames still shine nearly nine hundred years later. It was Chrétien who gave us Camelot and Lancelot and the Grail, along with dramatic adventures, mystical conundrums and the whole world of Arthurian chivalry and romance.
Chrétien’s early work was all to do with romance, including translations of the love poems of Ovid. Not for him the harsh reality of a Dark Age Briton fighting for survival against the Saxons. In fact, Chrétien was not that interested in Arthur. He was more interested in stories of romance and peril that reflected the world around him, and how these stories might win the hearts of the ladies at court. What better means than the adventures of Arthur’s knights? In this way Chrétien shifted the entire focus from warfare to romance.
Chrétien’s initial inspiration may not have been the story of Arthur, but the parallel story of Tristan and Iseult. The ménage à trois between Mark, king of Cornwall, his young wife Iseult and his nephew Tristan was ripe for intrigue. At the start of Cligés, Chrétien tells us that he has written a romance about King Mark and the fair-haired Iseult. We can see here an obvious parallel with the other romantic threesome of Arthur, Lancelot and Guenevere. There had been no hint of this in any of the previous legends or histories, though there was a story
of Guenevere’s abduction by Melwas in Caradog’s Life of Gildas, whilst Geoffrey and Wace refer to her abduction by Mordred. When Chrétien came to write about Lancelot and Guenevere in Le Chevalier de la charrete, which starts with her abduction by Meleagaunt (Caradog’s Melwas), he grafted on to this the basic Mark/Tristan/Iseult formula and reworked it in an Arthurian milieu.
Before Chrétien gave this impetus to the Arthurian legend it had been the Tristan story that was gathering pace. Versions of the story were produced by Marie de France, Thomas d’Angleterre (a French poet at the court in London), Eilhart von Oberge (possibly from Brunswick) and Béroul (possibly from Normandy), from the 1160s to the 1190s, all drawing upon a now lost ur-Tristan, which may have been the original inspiration for all courtly romances. The best known of the versions of Tristan was that by Gottfried von Strassburg, written but not completed soon after the year 1200.
Chrétien’s earliest surviving romances cleverly play around with the basic concept of love versus valour. Erec et Enide, begun in the late 1160s, is about a knight who wins a bride because of his daring and bravery, and settles down to married life. After his friends begin to believe that he has become a coward, he sets out again to prove himself. Cligés, from the early 1170s, tells of a knight who is in love with a woman who is promised to another. To forget about her, he goes to Arthur’s court but is later reunited with his love, using a twist on the Tristan theme. In Yvain: Le Chevalier au lion (late 1170s), Yvain falls in love with the widow of a lord he has just killed. She agrees to marry him if he will stay with her and guard the castle and its spring. He does so, but soon yearns for adventure and risks losing his love in order to return to Arthur’s court.
Chrétien’s influence cannot be underestimated. Both Erec et Enide and Yvain reappeared in Welsh literature, and were grouped into the Mabinogion, renamed Geraint ab Erbin and Owain (also known as The Lady of the Fountain). Arguments have raged over whether the Welsh versions were based on Chrétien’s stories, or if both drew their inspiration from a common Celtic story. My own view is that there must have been a Celtic original, either Welsh or Breton, because we find that Chrétien borrows so many of his names from the earlier tales. This must be the case for Erec et Enide, because at the end of Chrétien’s story, when Erec sets out again on his quests, he takes Enide with him but behaves very strangely towards her. He will not let her speak and rebukes her if she does, even though she is trying to save Erec from danger. For a courtly romance, Erec is exceedingly uncourtly. The Welsh version makes more sense. In it, Geraint is led to believe that his wife has been unfaithful and so takes her with him on his adventures in order to keep an eye on her. It is probable that the original Celtic story was along these lines, and Chrétien adapted it for his own purpose, and that the Welsh version remained more faithful to the original. The Welsh versions are also notable for their lack of courtly intrigue. These are basic stories, clearly with no desire for all that romantic nonsense.