ROMANCES.
Another form of narrative literature in the Middle Ages is that of Romances, and the great products of it are the Arthurian Romances and the Romances of Antiquity. THE ARTHURIAN CYCLE OF ROMANCES is a set of romantic stories founded on the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, with which was early fused the legend of the Holy Graal. The legend has sources as far back as the ninth century, but expanded into definite shape in France and England in the twelfth. It had its first and highest popular development in France. Here they were collected and thrown into verse by Chrestien de Troyes. It became at once a general European possession and expanded to vast proportions. In England the Arthur stories flourished both independently and as translations from French. Sir Thomas Malory collected in the latter part of the fifteenth century a great number of these sources, translated, edited, abridged, and rewrote the whole into that charming book "Morte D'Arthur". It is accepted that this book, though so late, gives a true impression of the characteristics of the older romances. We select from this rather than from other translations of French originals, to give a mediaeval flavor to the selection and have the advantage of quoting a classic.
Alongside the Arthurian Romances, flourished many romances of antiquity. The more important of these cycles are the ROMANCE OF ALEXANDER and the ROMANCE OF TROY, while others worth mentioning are the ROMANCE OF THEBES and the ROMANCE OF AENEAS. They are all very long poems, consisting of series of stories partly derived from classic sources, partly invented by trouveres. They are important (1) as connecting, however loosely, mediaeval with classical literature, and (2) as showing some scholarship on the part of their authors and interest in general culture.