FOOTNOTES:
[4] "Beowulf, a heroic poem," ed. T. Arnold, London, 1876, 8vo. The unique MS. of this poem, discovered in the last century, is preserved at the British Museum; it has been reproduced in fac-simile by the Early English Text Society (Ed. J. Zupitza, 1882, 8vo). We give in fac-simile the first few lines of the MS.
[5] "Vivat qui Francos diligit Christus!" ("Prologue of the Salic Law," Pardessus, 1843, p. 345.)
[6] "Nouvelles Françaises en prose," ed. Moland and d'Héricault, Paris, 1856. Four English versions of the story of Floire and Blanchefleur are extant. The story of Amis and Amile was also very popular. "Amis and Amiloun," ed. Kölbing (Heilbronn, 1884). The cantefable of Aucassin is of the twelfth century (G. Paris, "Littérature française au moyen âge," 1888, § 51).
[7] Mr. Andrew Lang's translation, "Aucassin and Nicolete" (London, 1887, 16mo.).
[8] "The Story of England," a.d. 1338, ed. F. J. Furnivall, London, 1887, two vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 1.
[9] "Layamon's Brut," ed. Madden, London, 1847, three vols. 8vo.
[10] See, among others, the publications of the Early English Text Society, the Camden Society, the Percy Society, the Roxburghe Club, the Bannatyne Club, the Altenglische Bibliothek of E. Kölbing (Heilbronn); the "Metrical Romances of the XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth Centuries," of H. W. Weber (Edinburgh, 1810, three vols. 8vo); the "Catalogue of MS. Romances in the British Museum," by H. L. D. Ward (London, 1887); "Bishop Percy's Folio MS.; Ballads and Romances," ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1867, &c.
The publications of the Early English Text Society include, among others, the romances of "Ferumbras," "Otuel," "Huon of Burdeux," "Charles the Grete," "Four Sons of Aymon," "Sir Bevis of Hanston," "King Horn," with fragments of "Floriz and Blauncheflur," "Havelok the Dane," "Guy of Warwick," "William of Palerne," "Generides," "Morte Arthure," Lonelich's "History of the Holy Grail," "Joseph of Arimathie," "Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight," &c. Others are in preparation.
[11] The adoption by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the twelfth century, of Brutus the Trojan as father of the British race, as Nennius had done two centuries earlier, did much for the spreading of this belief; the popularity and authority of Geoffrey's fabulous history was so great that for several centuries the gravest English historians accepted his statements concerning Brutus without hesitation. Matthew Paris, the most accurate and trustworthy historian of the thirteenth century, gives an account of his coming to the island of Albion, "that was then inhabited by nobody but a few giants": "Erat tunc nomen insulæ Albion, quæ a nemine, exceptis paucis gigantibus habitabatur." Brutus proceeds to the banks of the Thames, and there founds his capital, which he calls the New Troy, Trojam novam, "quæ postea, per corruptionem vocabuli Trinovantum dicta fuerit" ("Chronica Majora," Rolls Series, I. pp. 21-22). In the fourteenth century Ralph, in his famous "Polychronicon," gives exactly the same account of the deeds of the Trojan prince, and they continued in the time of Shakespeare to be history. Here is the learned account Holinshed gives of these events in his "Chronicles":