Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/529

Rh "Many romances were at first little more than legends of devotion, containing the pilgrimage of an old warrior. At length, as chivalry came more into vogue, and the stores of invention were increased, the youthful and active part of the pilgrim's life was also written, and a long series of imaginary martial adventures was added, in which his religious was eclipsed by his heroic character, and the penitent was lost in the knight-errant. That which was the principal subject of the short and simple legend, became only the remote catastrophe of the voluminous romance. And hence, by degrees, it was almost an established rule of every romance, for the knight to end his days in a hermitage. Cervantes has ridiculed this circumstance with great pleasantry, where Don Quixote holds a grave debate with Sancho, whether he shall turn saint or archbishop.

"So reciprocal, or rather so convertible, was the pious and the military character, that even some of the had their romance. In the ninth century, the chivalrous and fabling spirit of the Spaniards transformed Saint James into a knight. They pretended that he appeared and fought with