ond enough of literature to obtain
the surname of Beauclerc; Henry II. was more indisputably an encourager
of poetry; and Richard I. has left compositions of his own in one or
other (for the point is doubtful) of the two dialects spoken in
France.[866]

[Sidenote: Norman romances and tales.]

If the poets of Normandy had never gone beyond historical and religious
subjects, they would probably have had less claim to our attention than
their brethren of Provence. But a different and far more interesting
species of composition began to be cultivated in the latter part of the
twelfth century. Without entering upon the controverted question as to
the origin of romantic fictions, referred by one party to the
Scandinavians, by a second to the Arabs, by others to the natives of
Britany, it is manifest that the actual stories upon which one early and
numerous class of romances was founded are related to the traditions of
the last people. These are such as turn upon the fable of Arthur; for
though we are not entitled to deny the existence of such a personage,
his story seems chiefly the creation of Celtic vanity. Traditions
current in Britany, though probably derived from this island, became the
basis of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin prose, which, as has been seen,
was transfused into French metre by Wace.[867] The vicinity of Normandy
enabled its poets to enrich their narratives with other Armorican
fictions, all relating to the heroes who had surrounded the table of the
son of Uther.[868] An equally imaginary history of Charlemagne gave
rise to a new family of romances. The authors of these fictions were
called Trouveurs, a name obviously identical with that of Troubadours.
But except in name there was no resemblance between the minstrels of the
northern and southern dialects. The invention of one class was turned to
description, that of the other to sentiment; the first were epic in
their form and style, the latter almost always lyric. We cannot perhaps
give a better notion of their dissimilitude, than by saying that one
school produced Chaucer, and the other Petrarch. Besides these romances
of chivalry, the trouveurs displayed their powers of lively narration in
comic tales or fabliaux, (a name sometimes extended to the higher
romance,) which have aided the imagination of Boccace and La Fontaine.
These compositions are certainly more entertaining than those of the
troubadours; but, contrary to what I have said of the latter,