Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/132

106 kinsman. Hélie has been placed under Henry III, who has been assumed to be the Henry to whom he dedicates his work; if so can he be the friend of Robert, who wrote some fifty years earlier? Hélie should, however, be placed really under Henry II. Robert wrote originally in prose; the poem contains later etymological and grammatical forms, though it has occasionally preserved older ones; besides in v. 2,817 etc. (supra, p. 8388 [sic]) it refers to the deliverance of Moys by the Promised Knight, and thus implies knowledge of the Grand St. Graal; this passage is omitted by most of the prose versions, thus obviously older. Then the poem is silent as to the Christianising of Britain mentioned by one prose version (C.). We may accept Borron's statement as to his having dealt later with the histories of Moys and Petrus, and as to his drawing his information from a Latin original. Merlin is the pivot of Borron's conception. In comparing the third part of his trilogy (Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, Perceval) with Chrestien it must be born in mind that Chrestien reproduces rather the English (Joseph—Galahad), than the French (Brons—Perceval) form of the Quest, and this, although the framework of Chrestien and Robert's Perceval is substantially the same. Chrestien's work was probably preceded by one in which the Peredur story as found in the Mabinogi was already adapted to the Christianised Grail legend. There are frequent verbal resemblances between Robert and Chrestien (i.e., Gautier, Hucher never distinguishing between Chrestien and his continuators) which show a common original for both. It is remarkable that Chrestien should never mention Brons, and that there should be such a difference in the stories of the Ford Perillous and the Ford Amorous. It is also remarkable that Robert, in his Perceval, should complain that the trouvères had not spoken of the Good Friday incident which is to be found in Chrestien.

M. Hucher failed in many cases to see the full significance of the facts he brought to light, owing to his incorrect conception of the development of the cycle as a whole, and of the relation of its component parts one to the other. He made, however, an accurate survey of the cycle possible. The merit of first essaying such a survey belongs to Zarncke in his admittedly rough sketch, "Zur Geschichte