enteenth-century pastoral romance in France, it is truer to say that
literature suggested to society its ideals. Be that as it may, it is
proper to observe that the French romances of adventure portray
late mediaeval aristocracy as it fain would be. For the glaring
inconsistencies between the reality and the ideal, one may turn to the
chronicles of the period. Yet, even history tells of many an ugly sin
rebuked and of many a gallant deed performed because of the courteous
ideals of chivalry. The debt of our own social code to this literature
of courtesy and frequent self-sacrifice is perfectly manifest.

What Chretien's immediate and specific source was for his romances is of
deep interest to the student. Unfortunately, he has left us in doubt. He
speaks in the vaguest way of the materials he used. There is no evidence
that he had any Celtic written source. We are thus thrown back upon
Latin or French literary originals which are lost, or upon current
continental lore going back to a Celtic source. This very difficult
problem is as yet unsolved in the case of Chretien, as it is in the
case of the Anglo-Norman Beroul, who wrote of Tristan about 1150. The
material evidently was at hand and Chretien appropriated it, without
much understanding of its primitive spirit, but appreciating it as a
setting for the ideal society dreamed of but not realised in his own
day. Add to this literary perspicacity, a good foundation in classic
fable, a modicum of ecclesiastical doctrine, a remarkable facility in
phrase, figure, and rhyme and we have the foundations for Chretien's art
as we shall find it upon closer examination.

A French narrative poet of the twelfth century had three categories of
subject-matter from which to choose: legends connected with the history
of France ("matiere de France"), legends connected with Arthur and
other Celtic heroes ("matiere de Bretagne"), and stories culled from
the history or mythology of Greece and Rome, current in Latin and French
translations ("matiere de Rome la grant"). Chretien tells us in "Cliges"
that his first essays as a poet were the translations into French of
certain parts of Ovid's most popular works: the "Metamorphoses", the
"Ars Amatoria", and perhaps the "Remedia Amoris". But he appears early
to have chosen as his special field the stories of Celtic origin dealing
with Arthur, the Round Table, and other features of Celtic folk-lore.
Not only was he alive to the literary interest of