LADY PLAYING HARP.
Add. MS. 38117, Brit. Mus.
To face page 32.
Whether Marie was connected with the Court of Henry the Second and his brilliant and artistic queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, where learned men and poets congregated, we do not know, but it seems a very fair conjecture that she was. Not only does she dedicate her principal work to the king and his son, Count William, but her stories are coloured with the courtly life and ideas of her time, notwithstanding the simplicity of the fundamental theme. It is doubtful whether any one unacquainted with the teaching of the Courts of Love, such as they were in the twelfth century, would have made the compulsory quest of love the keynote of a story, as, for instance, Marie does in the “Lay of Guigemar.” These Courts of Love, though not so elaborate, yet seemingly as imperious, as those of the fourteenth century, formed one of the semi-serious pastimes of the Middle Ages, and although it may be that they were often mere forms of entertainment, no self-respecting person could afford to disregard their rules or decisions. The cardinal doctrine was that love was necessary to a man’s moral, social, and æsthetic training. Hence if it did not arise of itself, it must be sought for, and, like its counterpart in the spiritual world, come at, if needs be, through much tribulation.
Owing to Henry’s possessions in France through inheritance, marriage, and the many ties of relationship which united the royal families of both countries, England and France were never more closely allied than they were at that time. French was established by them as the speech of the cultured and the high-born. The Norman Conquest had made us more cosmopolitan in both manners and ideas. May we not look on the victory at Hastings as a symbol as well as a reality? Did it not mean for us a spiritual as well as a material conquest, since, mingled with the clashing of battle-axes, was to be heard the chanting of the Chanson de Roland? Moreover, through a desire to bring about uniformity of sentiment and service, the Church, though perhaps unconsciously, aided this good work of general enlargement of outlook by appointing outsiders to control our abbeys and religious foundations. Thus, in the latter half of the twelfth century, the romantic movement which characterised late mediæval literature stirred in England and France alike, and Marie was one of its truest and daintiest exponents. Although what she relates may be fiction intermingled with myth and magic, she all the same pictures on her somewhat small canvases the ideas of her time, and so helps to make history.
Photo. Macbeth.
Add. MS. 10293, Brit. Mus.
To face page 34.