name to our peers, of whom we still hear so much, even now, when Roland is almost forgotten.

This comparison between the song and the account written at the time exhibits-to adopt a Hibernicism-a 'dry source' in the brief Latin original; a long silence; and, then, the sudden advent of unmistakable Romance, full of the wonders and legends of many lands. Scenery plays her part in human emotion. The mountains are filled with menace :

Halt sunt li pui e tenebrus e grant

Li val parfunt e les ewes curanz' (1. 1830).

'High are the peaks, and shadow-gloom'd, and vast,
Profound the valleys where the torrents dash.'

We are told the name of each champion's horse and sword, and their marvellous qualities.

The theory that Romance arrived as a result of the events I have enumerated is still further confirmed, if we proceed from the advent to the huge development of Romance which flooded Europe a hundred years later. For that development follows immediately on a renewal and multiplication of the same or similar influences. Literature is transfigured into Romance by the twilight of the West, the mirage of the East, and the uncouth strength of the North, in direct proportion to the commingling of West and East and North in the politics of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

I would even dare to suggest that our first version of the Song of Roland' received some later touches, here and there, during the twelfth century, after those influences had been multiplied, i.e. at a time more nearly approaching the date, 1170, attributed to the handwriting of the MS. (Bodleian, Digby

23). One argument for that view is rather technical. French scholars date the composition of the song before the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, because it nowhere mentions that event. This, however, involves the difficulty of accounting for the mention of a valley in Cappadocia, called Butentrot, through which the Crusaders did actually march. How comes it, we may ask, that the first column of the Saracen's legendary army in the song (1. 3220) is said to have been recruited from that place? May not the positive inclusion of Butentrot outweigh the negative omission of Jerusalem? And the more, since the author, who swears he is telling the truth, might conceivably borrow local colour from Butentrot for an imaginary picture of the eighth century, but would scarcely insert the most resounding event of his own age, 321 years before it happened.

Another argument may be put in this way.

The song in the Qxford MS. contains three catalogues of nations, viz.-the conquests recited by Roland before he dies, the divisions in Charlemagne's avenging army, and the judges summoned to try the traitor, Ganelon. The judges include Bretons, Normans, and Poitevins (1. 3702). The fifth, sixth, and seventh divisions of the avenging army (1. 3027) are recruited from Normans, Bretons, and Poitevins. The conquests (1. 2322) include Brittany, Normandy, Poitou, Maine, Aquitaine, and, you will be surprised to hear, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and England.

6

Jo l'en cunquis Escoce, Guales, Irlande
E Engletere que il teneit sa cambre.'

Looking to literature, excepting the 'Song of Roland,' no other poem about Charlemagne-and

B

there are many-attributes to him any one of these conquests. Looking to history, no king ever led all these nations in war, or accepted homage from their sovereigns, except Henry of Anjou, who became Henry П. of England, and married Eleanor of Poitou and Aquitaine. For further significance, Anjou, his ancestral fief, is added to these conquests in other foreign MSS. and omitted from the Oxford MS. I suggest that the MS. was retouched, in respect of these names, after Henry had, by conquest and marriage, asserted a shadowy over-lordship from the Pyrenees to the Grampians. The singular ascription of such conquests to Charlemagne, and the army-list of his forces, would have lacked all approach to likelihood except to audiences familiar with the short-lived climax of Henry's political career.

Even if this suggestion be scouted, the catalogues of nations in the 'Song of Roland' are relevant to my theme. They illuminate the theory that Romance sprang from a mingling of Western and Eastern influences, at a time when the races of Europe were bracketed together by the conquests and marriages of northern leaders.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROMANCE

That theory is, once more, confirmed by the great romantic development of the twelfth century ; and no illustration of it can, I submit, be more convincing than the facts of Henry's political career. They constitute a renewal and multiplication of the influences which preceded the advent of Romance, and were immediately followed by a development of Romance that, from 1150 onwards, flooded the whole area of medieval literature. If we take the

most important of these renewals, and then the most renowned Romances of the Middle Ages, we can, I believe, establish a direct connection between the two.

The Eastern, Saracenic, influence was renewed by Henry's marriage with Eleanor-Alienor or Enor-a most remarkable woman, to whose memory scant justice is done if we associate it exclusively with Fair Rosamund and Woodstock. Omitting-with regret-most of the sensational adventures in her long life of eighty-two years, we must, for our purpose, recall that she was the granddaughter of William of Poitou, who fought in the First Crusade, and was himself the earliest troubadour, or poet of southern France. He wrote, 'I will make a new song':

'Farai chansonetta nova,'

and so he did. That song is more closely related to modern poetry than any masterpiece in the classics (W. P. Ker, Dark Ages). Its reiterated rhymes thrill down the ages till they wake an echo from the lyre of Robert Burns. Eleanor, the wife of two kings, the mother of two kings and of two daughters, married to great vassals whose songs are still remembered, is responsible for a good deal of romance. Thanks to her, St. George became, in the words of Caxton, 'patrone of' the 'royame of Englond and the crye of men of warre.' For that was the battle-cry of her grandfather before the walls of Jerusalem. It descended to her, together with his love of poetry and his love of crusading. She accompanied her first husband, the king of France, to the Second Crusade, in 1147; was divorced in 1152, and, within two months, married Henry of

Anjou, the king to be of England, bringing with her St. George for England' and the dower of Poitou and Aquitaine. But these were not all that she bestowed. The troubadours of southern France, after attending her to the East, followed in her train; reinforced by trouvères, the poets of northern France. She brought to Great Britain, with signal results in literature, the artists who were to fashion the romantic material of many voyages into the great romances of Europe.

The Western, Celtic, influence was was renewed when Henry became suzerain of Brittany. It was multiplied when his motley array of vassals, drawn from one-half of France, and, accompanied by Eleanor's poets, were brought into contact with the legends of Wales. The historic Henry, as Count of Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Poitou, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, suzerain of Brittany, king of England and overlord of Wales, had received the homage of the king of Scotland in 1157, and connived ten years later at the departure, through Wales, of the pioneers in the conquest of Ireland. He, like the legendary Charlemagne, was the war-lord of many nations who had crossed swords with Saracens and Celts and listened to Norman translations of their strange songs. No sovereign, we may add, except, perhaps, his consort, Eleanor, was better equipped for turning political adventure to political advantage. His earliest tutor, Master Peter of Saintes, was 'learned above all his contemporaries in the science of verse.' Henry himself loved reading only less than hunting.' His hands, it was said, 'were never empty,' always holding a bow or a book.' He spoke French and Latin well, and knew something of every tongue from