aint and Enid, derived from the Welsh _Mabinogion_), _Cliges_,
_Le Chevalier de la Charrette_, _Le Chevalier au Lion_, and _Perceval_.
In _Cliges_ the maidenhood of his beloved Fenice, wedded in form to
the Emperor of Constantinople, is guarded by a magic potion; like
Romeo's Juliet, she sleeps in apparent death, but, happier than Juliet,
she recovers from her trance to fly with her lover to the court of
Arthur. The _Chevalier de la Charrette_, at first unknown by name,
is discovered to be Lancelot, who, losing his horse, has condescended,
in order that he may obtain sight of Queen Guenievre, and in passionate
disregard of the conventions of knighthood, to seat himself in a cart
which a dwarf is leading. After gallant adventures on the Queen's
behalf, her indignant resentment of his unknightly conduct,
estrangement, and rumours of death, he is at length restored to her
favour.[6] While _Perceval_ was still unfinished, Chretien de Troyes
died. It was continued by other poets, and through this romance the
quest of the holy graal became a portion of the Arthurian cycle. A
_Perceval_ by ROBERT DE BORON, who wrote in the early part of the
thirteenth century, has been lost; but a prose redaction of the
romance exists, which closes with the death of King Arthur. The great
_Lancelot_ in prose--a vast compilation--(about 1220) reduces the
various adventures of its hero and of other knights of the King to
their definitive form; and here the achievement of the graal is
assigned, not to Perceval, but to the saintly knight Sir Galaad;
Arthur is slain in combat with the revolter Mordret; and Lancelot
and the Queen enter into the life of religion. Passion and piety are
alike celebrated; the rude Celtic legends have been sanctified. The
earlier history of the sacred vase was traced by Robert de Boron in
his _Joseph d'Arimathie_ (or the _Saint-Graal_), soon to be rehandled
and developed in prose; and he it was who, in his _Merlin_--also
presently converted into prose--on suggestions derived from Geoffrey
of Monmouth, brought the great enchanter into Arthurian romance. By
the middle of the thirteenth century the cycle had received its full
development. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, in
_Perceforest_, an attempt was made to connect the legend of Alexander
the Great with that of King Arthur.

[Footnote 6: Chretien de Troyes is the first poet to tell of the love
of Lancelot for the Queen.]

Beside the so-called Breton roman