dividual contributed to it, or where in his poetical
recitation memory ceased and creative impulse began! In any
case the work of the individual lived on only as the ideal
possession of the aggregate body of the people, and it soon
lost the stamp of originality."

When Geoffrey wrote, this period of national poetry was drawing to a
close; but it was not yet closed. Alfred Nutt, in his 'Studies in the
Legend of the Holy Grail,' speaking of Wolfram von Eschenbach, who wrote
his 'Parzival' about the time that the 'Nibelungenlied' was given its
present form (_i.e.,_ about a half-century after Geoffrey),
says:--"Compared with the unknown poets who gave their present shape to
the 'Nibelungenlied' or to the 'Chanson de Roland,' he is an individual
writer; but he is far from deserving this epithet even in the sense that
Chaucer deserves it." Professor Rhys says, in his 'Studies in the
Arthurian Legend':--"Leaving aside for a while the man Arthur, and
assuming the existence of a god of that name, let us see what could be
made of him. Mythologically speaking, he would probably have to be
regarded as a Culture Hero," etc.

To summarize this discussion of the difficulties of the theme, there are
now existing, scattered throughout the libraries and the monasteries of
Europe, unnumbered versions of the Arthurian legends. Some of these are
early versions, some are late, and some are intermediate. What is the
relation of all these versions to one another? Which are the oldest, and
which are copies, and of what versions are they copies? What is the land
of their origin, and what is the significance of their symbolism? These
problems, weighty in tracing the growth of mediaeval ideals,--_i.e.,_ in
tracing the development of the realities of the present from the ideals
of the past,--are still under investigation by the specialists. The
study of the Arthurian legends is in itself a distinct branch of
learning, which demands the lifelong labors of scholarly devotees.

There now remains to consider the extraordinary spread of the legend in
the closing decades of the twelfth century and in the century following.
Though Tennyson has worthily celebrated as the morning star of
English song--

"Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still."

yet the centuries before Chaucer, far from