Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/456

 4 o6 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE singers, however, was found perhaps the greatest of all medieval lyric poets, Walther von der Vogelweide (Walter of Bird-Meadow). From the south we turn back again to the north of France to consider other varieties of literature which developed The courtly there a little later than the chansons de geste. By e P ic the latter part of the twelfth century the south- ern court life and higher regard for woman began to affect the northern epics, especially since actual social conditions in the north also were growing more settled and refined. Consequently the courtly epic of the thirteenth century, with its glorification of love and ladies, became quite dif- ferent from the twelfth-century chansons de geste. The poets also began to seek new themes for their lays. Arthurian A French trouvere of the thirteenth century wrote romances Q f t h e e pics of his time: — "Ne sont que trois matieres a nul homme entendant, De France, de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant." This division of the medieval romantic epic into three great cycles has been generally accepted by modern historians of literature. The chansons de geste dealt with "the matter of France." By the thirteenth century, if not before, poets were also telling stories of King Arthur and the knights of his Round Table, of the wizard Merlin and a world of fairies and enchantment, and of the search for the Holy Grail. This was the cycle "de Bretaigne," a word meaning either Britain or Brittany. Arthur seems to have been a king of Britain who struggled against the Anglo-Saxon invaders and whose memory was cherished and made the basis of legends by the fugitive Celts either in Brittany or Wales or both. The French writers then took over the theme either by direct contact with Bretons on the Continent or through the medium of the French-speaking Normans in England and Normandy. The French poets doubtless embellished the legends with additions of their own and from other sources, but we may nevertheless see in the Arthurian romances a considerable Celtic contribution to the main