[487] The editor's MS. contains a multitude of poems of this latter kind. It was probably from this custom of the minstrels that some of our first historians wrote their chronicles in verse, as Rob. of Gloucester, Harding, &c.
[488] See a specimen in 2d vol. of Northern Antiquities, &c., p. 248, &c.
[489] Eccardi Hist. Stud. Etym. 1711, p. 179, &c. Hickes's Thesaur. vol. ii. p. 314.
[490] i.e. Northern men, being chiefly emigrants from Norway, Denmark, &c.
[491] See the account of Taillefer in vol. i. Essay, and Note.
[492] "Ipsa Carmina memoriæ mandabant, & prælia inituri decantabant; qua memoriâ tam fortium gestorum a majoribus patratorum ad imitationem animus adderetur."—Jornandes de Gothis.
[493] Eginhartus de Carolo magno. "Item barbara, & antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus & bella canebantur, scripsit."—c. 29.
Asserius de Ælfredo magno. "Rex inter bella, &c.... Saxonicos libros recitare, & maxime carmina Saxonica memoriter discere, aliis imperare, & solus assidue pro viribus, studiosissime non desinebat."—Ed. 1722, 8vo. p. 43.
[494] See above, pp. [340], 347.
[495] The romances on the subject of Perceval, San Graal, Lancelot du Lac, Tristan, &c., were among the first that appeared in the French language in prose, yet these were originally composed in metre: the editor has in his possession a very old French MS. in verse, containing L'ancien Roman de Perceval, and metrical copies of the others may be found in the libraries of the curious. See a note of Wanley's in Harl. Catalog. Num. 2252, p. 49, &c. Nicholson's Eng. Hist. Library, 3rd ed. p. 91, &c. See also a curious collection of old French romances, with Mr. Wanley's account of this sort of pieces, in Harl. MSS. Catal. 978, 106.