ousing the nation to its later
struggle with the Crown.

[Sidenote: Romance]

A tone of distinct hostility to the Church developed itself almost from
the first among the singers of romance. Romance had long before taken
root in the court of Henry the First, where under the patronage of Queen
Maud the dreams of Arthur, so long cherished by the Celts of Britanny,
and which had travelled to Wales in the train of the exile Rhys ap
Tewdor, took shape in the History of the Britons by Geoffry of Monmouth.
Myth, legend, tradition, the classical pedantry of the day, Welsh hopes
of future triumph over the Saxon, the memories of the Crusades and of the
world-wide dominion of Charles the Great, were mingled together by this
daring fabulist in a work whose popularity became at once immense. Alfred
of Beverley transferred Geoffry's inventions into the region of sober
history, while two Norman _trouveurs_, Gaimar and Wace, translated them
into French verse. So complete was the credence they obtained that
Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury was visited by Henry the Second, while the
child of his son Geoffry and of Constance of Britanny received the name
of the Celtic hero. Out of Geoffry's creation grew little by little the
poem of the Table Round. Britanny, which had mingled with the story of
Arthur the older and more mysterious legend of the Enchanter Merlin, lent
that of Lancelot to the wandering minstrels of the day, who moulded it as
they wandered from hall to hall into the familiar tale of knighthood
wrested from its loyalty by the love of woman. The stories of Tristram
and Gawayne, at first as independent as that of Lancelot, were drawn with
it into the whirlpool of Arthurian romance; and when the Church, jealous
of the popularity of the legends of chivalry, invented as a counteracting
influence the poem of the Sacred Dish, the San Graal which held the blood
of the Cross invisible to all eyes but those of the pure in heart, the
genius of a Court poet, Walter de Map, wove the rival legends together,
sent Arthur and his knights wandering over sea and land in quest of the
San Graal, and crowned the work by the figure of Sir Galahad, the type of
ideal knighthood, without fear and without reproach.

[Sidenote: Walter de Map]

Walter stands before us as the representative of a sudden outburst of
literary, social, and religious criticism which followed this growth of
romance and the appearance of a freer historical tone in the court of the