being barren of literature,
were periods of rich poetical activity both in England and on the
Continent. Eleanor of Aquitaine, formerly Queen of France,--who had
herself gone on a crusade to the Holy Land, and who, on returning,
married in 1152 Henry of Anjou, who became in 1155 Henry II. of
England,--was an ardent patroness of the art of poetry, and personally
aroused the zeal of poets. The famous troubadour Bernard de
Ventadorn--"with whom," says Ten Brink, "the Provencal art-poesy entered
upon the period of its florescence"--followed her to England, and
addressed to her his impassioned verse. Wace, the Norman-French
_trouvere_, dedicated to her his 'Brut.' The ruling classes of England
at this time were truly cosmopolitan, familiar with the poetic material
of many lands. Jusserand, in his 'English Novel in the Time of
Shakespeare,' discussing a poem of the following century written in
French by a Norman monk of Westminster and dedicated to Eleanor of
Provence, wife of Henry III., says:--"Rarely was the like seen in any
literature: here is a poem dedicated to a Frenchwoman by a Norman of
England, which begins with the praise of a Briton, a Saxon, and a Dane."

But the ruling classes of England were not the only cosmopolitans, nor
the only possessors of fresh poetic material. Throughout Europe in
general, the conditions were favorable for poetic production. The
Crusades had brought home a larger knowledge of the world, and the
stimulus of new experiences. Western princes returned with princesses of
the East as their brides, and these were accompanied by splendid trains,
including minstrels and poets. Thus Europe gathered in new poetic
material, which stimulated and developed the poetical activity of the
age. Furthermore, the Crusades had aroused an intense idealism, which,
as always, demanded and found poetic expression. The dominant idea
pervading the earlier forms of the Charlemagne stories, the unswerving
loyalty due from a vassal to his lord,--that is, the feudal view of
life,--no longer found an echo in the hearts of men. The time was
therefore propitious for the development of a new cycle of legend.

Though by the middle of the twelfth century the Arthurian legend had
been long in existence, and King Arthur had of late been glorified by
Geoffrey's book, the legend was not yet supreme in popular interest. It
became so through its association, a few years later, with the legend of
the Holy Grail,--the San Graal, t