q^.ljl/j

LAJAMON

AN ATTEMPT AT VINDICATION

G. J. VISSER

aiBLIOTHEEK DER
RIJKSUHrVÇRSiTEiT
UT R ECHT.

^ V-Ci.*;

vS- ■ V-

wmm^

■m

«isàs?

« •

lÄ®
Älil^

fV'^ i 'j

mmmmm:

f^mmm^mërnm.

gt;Ägt;

mm?;

LA3AMON
AN ATTEMPT AT VINDICATION

b-v

r/

LAJAMON

AN ATTEMPT AT VINDICATION

ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT

TER VERKRIJGING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN
DOCTOR IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE
AAN DE RIJKS-UNIVERSITEIT TE UTRECHT,
OP GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR-MAGNIFICUS
Dr. H. BOLKESTEIN, HOOGLEERAAR IN DE
FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN EN WIJSBE-
GEERTE, VOLGENS BESLUIT VAN DEN SENAAT
DER UNIVERSITEIT TEGEN DE BEDENKINGEN
VAN DE FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN EN
WIJSBEGEERTE TE VERDEDIGEN OP VRIJDAG
12 JULI 1935, TE 1 UUR

DOOR

GERARD JOHANNES VISSER

GEBOREN TE UTRECHT

VAN GORCUM amp; COMP. N.V.
ASSEN

BIBLIOTHEEK DER
RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT
UTRECHT.

TO MY DEAR PARENTS

VOORREDE.

Bij de voltooiing van dit proefschrift is het nxij een voorrecht
mijn dank te mogen betuigen aan allen die op enigerlei wijze
aan de tot stand koming ervan hebben medegewerkt.

Mijn gevoelens van grote dank en bewondering gaan in de
eerste plaats uit naar U, Hooggeleerde van Hamel, Geachte
Promotor, wiens bezielende colleges in Keltisch, Oud-Noors,
Oud-Engels, Gotisch en Vergelijkende Taalwetenschap steeds
een bron van genot vormden, en wiens brede wetenschappelijke
kennis en immer vriendelijke hulpvaardigheid mij tot lichtend
voorbeeld zullen strekken.

Ook U, Hooggeleerde Fijn van Draat, ben ik meer dank
verschuldigd dan ik hier wens uit te spreken. Gij hebt mij
ten allen tijde met raad en daad willen bijstaan en geen
moeite was U ooit te groot. Uw leerzame colleges en Uw
belangstelling in mijn werk zal ik niet licht vergeten.

Aan U, Hooggeleerde Swaen, breng ik gaarne dank
voor de lessen in de Engelse Litteratuur die ik van U mocht
ontvangen, terwijl ik niet wil nalaten te vermelden dat de
Heer M. G. van Neck mijn eerste wankele schreden op het
pad der Engelse studie geleid heeft.

Hefyd y mae yn wir bleser gennyf dalu diolch cynnes i'r
Athro David Evans, Coleg Aberystwyth, am ei wersau
mewn Gymraeg, ein sgwrsus clyd a phob caredigrwydd
a gefais oddiwrtho a'i deulu ef, pan aroswn dan ei do. Bydded
i'r heniaith flodeuo a chynhyddu!

Tenslotte nog een woord van oprechte erkentelijkheid
aan Mej. Dr. E. J. Gras en het personeel van de Utrechtse
Universiteitsbibliotheek voor hun hoffelijke medewerking.

mm-

CONTENTS.

Biz.

Voorrede.

Introduction......................................1

Ch. I The Date of Composition..................7

Ch. II Lasamon's Latin Sources..................11

Ch. Ill Lasamon and his Welsh Sources (With an

excursion on some of the proper names) ...nbsp;24

Ch. IV Lasamon and his Norman Sources..........47

Ch. V Conclusions..............................92

Bibliography......................................95

List of Abbreviations ..............100

^ «

' Kl

INTRODUCTION.

Among the first writers in Enghsh to give us the early
history of the Britons and their great leader, King Arthur,
was a simple English country-priest, named La3amon,
about whose life and occupations posterity knows no more
than he chose to tell us in his poem. Every reader will be
acquainted with these scanty facts. More important than
his private life, however, is the problem how he came by
his sources and what these sources were. Lasamon himself
professes to have used the following three works:

a) 'The English book that Saint Bede made.'

h) A Latin book 'that Saint Albin made and the fair
Austin who brought baptism in hither.'

c) A French book by a clerk named Wace.

In the allegation of his sources, however, Lasamon seems
merely to have followed the common medieval custom,
which in these cases aimed at impressiveness rather than
veracity. In fact, it is generally assumed that practically
the only use he made of these pretended sources was that of
Wace. It is however equally certain, that the English version
cannot be a hteral translation of the Wace-text as edited
by M. Le Roux de Lincy (Rouen 1836-'38). For this there
are too many deviations and elaborations. It is this very
fact that has led some scholars to look for outside (in casu
Welsh) influence in the work of our poet, whereas others
have strongly opposed this view.

The first recorded opinion on Lasamon's sources and the
date at which he composed his work, is to be found in the
Preface to Sir Frederic Madden's excellent edition of the

Brut (1847) i). He is firmly convinced of Welsh influence,
observing that the Wace-text 'is enlarged throughout'
in such a manner that Lasamon may justly be considered
•not as a mere translator, but as an original writer', after
which he gives an enumeration of the more remarkable of
Lasamon's additions. The date of the poem was fixed by
him at 1205.

The next scholar who occupied himself with the question
is Richard Wülcker «), who tried to found Madden's suggestion
that Lasamon had Welsh sources, and who demonstrated
the fallacy of the pretended Latin sources. Moreover, he
endeavoured to establish Lasamon's indebtedness to the
Old English Beowulf, however, without much show of
probability. Suggestive as the work is, it presents a deplorable
confusion in the use of the terms Celtic and Welsh, for which
the author was afterwards taken to task by his compatriot
Imelmann.

A subsequent investigator was A. C. L. Brown who
produced various arguments to corroborate Wülcker's view,
in which he was, however, not very successful.

The most profound and detailed study on the subject
was written by Rudolf Imelmann «). This scholar strongly
repudiated all Welsh influence and made a hypothetical
Wace-Gaimar compilation Lasamon's one and only source,
thus denying him all independent elaboration except in a
very few minor instances. His opinion has become largely
accepted and may be found again in such authors as J. D.
Bruce and E. K. Chambers «). In the eyes of the present
writer, however, Imelmann is too dogmatic in precluding

1)nbsp;Lasamon's Brut, a Poetical Semi-Saxon Paraphrase of the Brut
of Wace, by Sir Frederic Madden, London 1847.

2)nbsp;In Paul und Braune's Beiträge, III, 524-555.

ä) In an article: Welsh Traditions in Las.'s Brut (M. Ph. I, 95-10^.

♦) In his book: Lasamon, Versuch über seine Quellen. Berlm 1906.

«) Evolution of Arthurian Romance I, 31.

») Arthur of Britain, p. 105.

the possibihty of hterary contact between the Welsh and
the English in the Middle Ages, and besides in laying too
much stress on trifling and often only superficial similarities
between Lasamon and certain French Bruts. Lastly, his
work suffers from inconsistency, now ascribing an elaboration
to Lasamon's source, now to Lasamon's invention, according
as it fits in with his theory. On the other hand Imelmann's
treatment of the Lasamon problem is so thorough and
circumstantial, that our own study could not but become in
large part a criticism of Imelmann's theories. This may bring
down upon us the reproach of one-sidedness. However, we
shall feel justified in repudiating any such blame, as, for one
thing, very little of the necessary sources has been made
accessible by pubhcation, and for another, future Lasamon
scholars will find a more objective basis by our application of
a more severe test to Imelmann's doctrine.

A study of a quite different nature is Miss Frances Lytle
Gillespy's Layamon's Brut: A Comparative Study in
Narrative Art whose aim is best explained by the following
quotation: 'Dr. Imelmann's theory makes all the more
necessary a discussion and comparison of the narrative
technique of Layamon and Wace. Source-hunting or
determining per se has no part in the present discussion.
But if the Germanic elements in Layamon's work are found
to be considerable, if certain consistent differences in spirit
and narrative workmanship are shown to be probably
responsible for a large proportion of the greater bulk of the
English poem, if the differences between the two works
appears to be due to artistic selection and elaboration and
not to any mere dovetailing of two accounts, and finally,
if it is shown that Layamon's work contains occasional 'purple
patches', to which there is nothing even remotely comparable
in the French work, it may help to disprove an attempt
to find all the elements of the English Brut in a Wace-version,

1) Univ. of Cal. Publ. in M. Ph. Ill, 361 ff. (1916).

or in a Wace-version plus something of the same general
texture as the versions we have' i). This attractively planned
and executed study is in our opinion most convincing.

The articles by J. W. Hales H. L. D. Ward and
H. C. Wyld contribute nothing new to the question, the
first two being in agreement with Madden, the third stressing
Lasamon's English character and his superiority over Wace
in diction.

J. D. Bruce, besides commenting on the three names
Argante, Meleon and Oriene which he reduces to French
sources, devotes some pages to the discussion of Lasamon's
Brut, in his invaluable work The Evolution of Arthurian
Romance «). He accepts Imelmann's hypothesis: 'In the light
of recent research, it is no longer open to doubt that this
assumption (i.e. of Welsh influence) was mistaken and that
Layamon was merely following an expanded (French)

version of Wace, now lost'').

R. H. Fletcher also devotes two articles to the Middle-
English poet, the one «) treating the question if Lasamon
made any use of Geoffrey's Historia, to which Fletcher
gives a negative answer, saying that Wülcker's conclusion
(i.e. G. not used) 'must stUl be admitted to be very likely
correct'. The other treatise is contained in his extensive
study Arthurian Material in the Chronicles. ®) in which he
comes to the following conclusion: Tt (i.e. L.'s Brut) is for
the most part a paraphrase of Wace's Brut, with possibly

1)nbsp;Opus cit. 372 f.

2)nbsp;Diet, of Nat. Biogr. under Lasamon.
8) Cat. of B. M. Romances I, 268.

4)nbsp;Rev. of Engl. Stud. VI, nquot;. 21, 1-31.

5)nbsp;M. L. N. XXVI, 65.
«) Ev. of A. R. I, 27 ff.
') idem I, 29.

8)nbsp;P. M. L. A. XVIII, 91 ff.

9)nbsp;Harvard Studies and Notes X, 147-166.

a few insignificant touches from Geoffrey. But Lasamon
treated his original with the greatest freedom. He doubled
its bulk by additions, mostly literary and original with
himself. These rarely consist of entire episodes; they are
almost always details. In his whole treatment he shows that
he was a real poet of vivid imagination, and a thorough
medieval Saxon. For the courtly French tone of Wace's
poem he substitutes the less elegant but more sturdy Saxon
tone. To this general atmosphere corresponds his conception
of Arthur and his warriors, from which is altogether eliminated
the romantic knight-errant idea of Wace. Yet Layamon's
Merlin is really more supernatural than Wace's, and he
shows some other signs of slight influence from current
romance or Welsh stories, besides certainly taking from
them his important accounts of the institution of the Round
Table and of Arthur's disappearance. From the general stock
of Teutonic saga he adds the connection of Arthur and his
arms with the elves.'

H. B. Hinckley's article i) is more especially concerned
with the date at which La3amon's Brut was written. Hinckley
namely tries, on insufficient grounds however, to establish
a new and much earlier date for the Brut than the generally
accepted year 1205. He says 'From data already given,
one may assign the completion of Lasamon's Brut to almost
any date between 1157 and 1165. The comment on the Peter's
Pence points, very indecisively, to the latter date. The
language and textual tradition may, with greater probability,
be held to favor 1160 or even an earlier date. There is nothing
that definitely points to the period from 1166 till 1172
(inclusive); and a later date than 1172 is not worth
considering.'

Finally there are a number of text-criticisms, viz. those by

AngUa LVI, 43-58.
p. 55.

Zessac i), Trautmann^), Luhmann and Rudolf Seyger
of whom the last-mentioned proves that the A-text is older
in style and language than the B-text. His conclusion is
that A and B have a common source X, which cannot be
the oldest text, but in its turn goes back to the original.
The compiler of the B-text was a man with a sense for order
and reform. He tried to convert the epic poem of the A-text
into something more compact and matter-of-fact, in the

style of Wace.

For further literature see Bibliography.

1)nbsp;Die beiden Handschriften von Lasamon's Brat und ihr Verhält-
nis zu einander, Breslau Dissertation, 1887.

2)nbsp;Angha II, 153 ff.

8) Die Uberlieferung von Lasamon's Brat, 1905.
*) Beiträge zu Lasamon's Brut, Halle Dissertation, 1912.

CHAPTER I.

THE DATE OF COMPOSITION.

As the author himself was not so obliging as Wace, who
tells us exactly in what year his poem was written, we are
left to infer the date by other methods. Madden observes
that we can only go by some scant internal evidence, such
as the ruined state of the city of Leicester, the change of
pronunciation from Eoferwic to York, which is stated to have
taken place 'not long before', a passage on the Rome-feoh
or Peter-Pence and a reference to Queen Eleanor. Let us
first consider what La3amon has to say about the city of
Leicester. In I, 123 and 124 we read that Bladud's son Leir
made a noble burgh named Kaer Leir.

Kaer Leir hehte Jje burh
leof heo wes {Dan kinge.
fgt;a we an ure leod-quide
Leirchestre clepiat).
3eare a Jjan holde dawen
'nbsp;heo wes swijje a{Del burh.

amp; seo53en Jjer seh toward
swiSe muchel seorwe
Jjat heo wes al for-faren
J)urh }Dere leodene uael.

Madden is of opinion that these lines no doubt refer to
the destruction of Leicester by the forces of Henry II under
the Justiciary Richard de Lucy in the year 1173, whereas
Hinckley objects that La3amon would never have spoken
of a condition immediately preceding 1173 as '^eare a pan
holde dawen'. But we have only to think of people just after

the Great War yearning back for 'those good old times
before the war', to realise that this argument is not conclusive.
If in the latter case a space of some ten years was apparently
sufficient to justify the expression, why not then in Lasamon's
case where the distance is one of circa 30 years, if we suppose
the work to have been written about 1205? Besides, the
English text is clearly but a florid translation of Wace's
jadis, just as purh pere leodene u^l is an imaginative
expansion of the French grant destruison. In the question
of the Rome-feoh Madden undoubtedly made a mistake.
The lines in question read as follows:

Ije king his fet custe
and faire hine igrette.
amp; eft lgt;at ilke feoh sete
Jjat Inne king dude a;re.
amp; swa hit hafeô istonde
œuer seoôôe a Jjisse londe
drihtê wat hu longe

Jjeo lajen scullen ilaeste.nbsp;HI. 286.

From this last exclamation Madden infers that Lasamon
wanted to express a doubt as to the continuance of the
payment. Imelmann, however, rightly pointed out i), that
we are entitled to no such conclusion, that the lines could
only mean that at the time when Lasamon wrote his Brut,
the Rome-feoh was still being paid without any prospect
of a near abolition. The lines in fact are nothing but an
exclamation of impatience that could have been uttered
at any time, and is completely neutral with regard to duration.
Consequently the Brut must have been written either m
or before 1205, at which time King John and his nobles

resisted the payment.

Lastly there is the reference to Queen Eleanor, in his

introduction Lasamon says of the copy of Wace:

1) op. cit. p. 9 ff.

amp; he (= Wace) hoe 3ef Jjare aeSelen

Aelienor {je wes Henries quene

Jjes heses kinges.nbsp;I, 3.

Madden says of this i): Tt would appear quite certain,
that such an expression could not have been used, had
Henry then been living, and this will bring us to the year 1189.
But we may perhaps advance a step further and fairly
presume that Eleanor herself was then dead; and as her
decease took place at an advanced age in 1204, the date wiU
correspond very accurately with the time when the Rome-feoh
was forbidden.'

Hinckley combats Madden's interpretation of the verb
'wes' on the ground of the sequence of tenses, and maintains
that 'in reality the verb quot;wasquot; is perfectly ambiguous on
this point.' Even granting that 'wes' might have been a
result of the Consecutio Temporum, the passage seems
to admit of only one construction, viz. that Eleanor was
already dead at the time.

Moreover, we venture to differ from Hinckley when he
says that Lasamon must have written before 1173, when
Queen Eleanor joined a political rebelhon against her
husband, and was consequently imprisoned. He suggests
that La3amon would not have called her the noble Eleanor
after this intermezzo, and adduces Gaston Paris' judgement
of an apparently similar case (Wace's Geste des Normands),
but overlooks, as a matter of fact, that in reality the circum-
stances are entirely different. Gaston Paris tried to
demonstrate that Wace could not have written his eulogy
on Henry and Eleanor in 1174, immediately after the Queen's
disgrace. But La3amon, as Madden supposed, wrote in 1205
under King John's reign, which makes all the difference.
At that time there was nothing to keep him from describing
the Queen as noble. Besides, we must not lay too much
stress on the word noble. It is probably httle more than an

») Preface XIX.

epitheton ornans. Weighing the evidence, it seems fairly
certain that Lasamon wrote his Brut early in the year 1205
or very shortly before.

1) Imelmann quotes a sentence from a letter from King John to
Reginald of Comhill (29 April 1205): 'Mittas etiam nobis statim visis
litteris Romantium de Historia Angliae.' Imelmann refers these words
to La3amon's work, in opposition to the Abbé de la Rue and Le Roux
de Lincy who refer them to Wace. But considering the hurry of the
king to get the book and the fact that Wace's Brut was fifty years
old at the time, it is much more likely that King John asked for the
newly finished work of La3amon.

CHAPTER IL
LA3AM0N'S LATIN SOURCES.

Lasamon himself tells us that he employed an English
book by Bede and another in Latin made by Saint Albin and
the 'fair Austin'. This must necessarily arouse suspicion,
as Bede always wrote in Latin and Austin, who died in 604,
and Albinus, Abbot of St. Austins at Canterbury who died in
732, can hardly have collaborated, so that Madden suggests
as a plausible solution, that Lasamon wrongly ascribed the
Anglo-Saxon version to Bede and the Latin text of the
Ecclesiastical History to Albin and Austin. Wülcker agrees
with Madden and justly observes that Lasamon's attribution
of the A.-S. translation to Bede is not so surprising as it
may appear at first, for the translator mentions himself
nowhere, and the text begins with: Ic Beda Cristes deow
and mxssepreost sende gretan done leofastan cynin^ .... etc.
Further Wülcker endeavours to prove, that La3amon ascribed
the Latin text to Austin and Albin. However, we need not
discuss the plausibility of this, as Wülcker concludes further
on that La3amon made no use of the Latin text at all, not
even for the story of the Anglo-Saxons at Rome, which,
as he shows, differs in a good many details from that given
in Bede. Far from being based on Bede, La3amon actually
contradicts him in a number of episodes which Lasamon
did not take from Wace. As for the story of the Anglo-Saxon
slaves, it must have reached Lasamon orally. Wülcker is
undoubtedly right in his conclusion, which has remained
unimpugned to the present day.

Another question that we have to face in this connection is:
Did Lasamon make any use of Geoffrey's Historia? A priori

there seems no reason why Lasamon should not have been
acquainted with this epoch-making work that has left its
traces on so many medieval poems and chronicles. To
attribute the L.-G. agreements to the hypothetical French
Brut-version is merely shifting the difficulty without much
warrant. Why should that which seems quite natural in a
French poet be deemed impossible in the English priest?
Here as elsewhere, investigation suffers from the fact that
only one Wace-text has been published so far, so that the
possibility always remains that another Wace-text may
give the necessary information and show that Lasamon was
merely following Wace. Variances, however, will be restricted
to occasional proper names and single lines, but not affect
entire episodes, for in that case we should have to assume
an improbably large disparity between the various W.-texts.
Wiilcker denies Geoffrey's influence and is like Fletcher of
opinion, that the prophecies of Merlin that we find in L. and G.
while missing in W., may have reached Lasamon through
the separately circulating book of the Historia, while
Fletcher suggests as an additional probability that the
prophecies passed from G. into general lore and thence
to Lasamon. Imelmann does not believe in this sort of
agreement between L. and G., but supposes that La3amon's
hypothetical Norman source was responsible for these
Geoffrey reminiscences. He is of opinion that all L.-G.
parallels occurring also in other Bruts, are ipso facto invalid
to prove an L.-G. connection. For those however who do not
beheve in his theory, this doctrine does not carry much
weight. As we proceed, we shall accordingly consider the
agreements without feeling bound by Imelmann's premise.

1) L. I, 27 mid Grickisce fure == G. I, 7 graeco igne.
W. 1. 327 grans fus. There are of course two possibilities:
either the printed W.-text is here corrupt, or else Lasamon
has consulted Geoffrey. Considering everything it would
not surprise us if the first were the case, although the passage
is of course not conclusive in itself.

2)nbsp;L. II, 509 and G. IX, 9 mention Lot's two sons —
Gawain and Modred —, W. II, 69 knows only the first.
Imelmann (p. 87) says: 'Hier kann eine Wace-hs. leicht einen

Zusatz erhalten haben'.....'Im übrigen wäre es wohl Lasamon

zuzutrauen, dasz er von selbst auf jenen Zusatz kam.'
The most logical conclusion is that here we come across a
Geoffrey-reminiscence.

3)nbsp;Likewise in the following instance, where G. VI, 17
and L. II, 227 agree against W. I, 352 in representing the
men sent after Merlin as arriving tired before Carmarthen.
For comparison we subjoin the three texts:

G. VI, 17: Fatigati autem itinere sederunt in circo. exploraturi
quod querehant.

L. II, 227

jjas cnihtes weoren weri
amp; an heorte swiöe saeri.nbsp;,

amp; seten adun bi Jjan pla3e
amp; bi-heolden Jjas cnauen.

W. I, 352

Devant la cité, à l'entrée,
Avoit d'enfans grant aûnée;
Là erent venu por joer.
Cil les prisent à esgarder.

Imelmann's remark 'Hier kann L.'s Vorlage G. näher
gestanden haben' is hardly satisfactory, resting as it does
on mere hypothesis. On the contrary, the conclusion seems
inevitable that L. here drew on G.

4)nbsp;G. VI, 18 and L. II, 233 represent Merhn's mother as
speaking of the maidens in her chamber and of the beauty
of the youth who came to her. Imelmann observes: 'Dem
entspricht R. f. lia.' i) Even so, it is much more likely,
in view of the other L.-G. agreements, that L. is here indebted
to G.

5)nbsp;L. II, 288 like G. VIII, 10 implies decidedly that
Aurelius did not know of Merhn until Tremorien mentioned
him, while Wace's language does not convey that impression.

Imelmann suggests the following W.-lines as a possible source:
W. I, 383 Li rois voloit Merlin veoir ■— Et oir volt de son
savoir. But as these lines merely express the king's
determination to summon the wizard and profit by his great
knowledge, G.'s influence is patent.

6) L. II, 289 and G. VIII, 10 say that Aurelius sent
messengers for Merlin all over the kingdom, whereas
according to Wace he sent at once to the right place; and
L. and G. agree that Merlin often visited or bathed in his
favourite fountain, while Wace professes not to know where
it is. Imelmann draws attention to R. f. 74a:

Sil feit quere par le pais ....

Icist ont ia tant erre

Ke dan Merlin ont troue.

and what is said there about Galabes. So much may
be observed here, that L. differs so entirely from W., R.,
and G. on this point, that he must have given full rein to his
imagination or have used a Welsh tale. Not only is the L.-text
much more digressive, but it also gives some facts not found
in any of the other three manuscripts. For instance, when
the knights find Merlin sitting by the brim, they tell him
they are the agents of King Aurelius. So far L. may be based
on G., but what follows then is found nowhere else. The
knights promise Merlin silver and gold if he will come with
them to the king, but Merlin answers that he does not care
for gold; he has enough himself. Hereupon follows his silence
and when he speaks for the second time, it is to say that he
knew of the knights' coming, and that he was also acquainted
with Aurelius and Uther. He prophesies the king's early death,
after which he is ready to accompany the knights. It is clear
that neither W. nor G. nor R. are sufficiently elaborate here
to justify the assumption that they formed the basis for

1) R. = MS. Regius, 13 A XXI (Brit. Mus.).

14

La3amon's translation. Personally we have no doubt that
Lasamon in this episode is expanding Wace in his usual
vivid and imaginative manner, besides consulting Geoffrey
(VIII, 10: Galabes quern solitus fuit frequentare).

7) Both G. and L. state that when Gorlois was killed,
he had sallied out of the castle, while W. implies the contrary.
Imelmann remarks 'Wace unterscheidet sich in dieser
Episode auch sonst stark von G.; so in den worten womit
der vermeintliche Gorlois seine Anwesenheit in Tintagel
erklärt (II, 27 f):

Del castel sans congid tornai
Si que k home n'em parlai
Ne dis mie que fors ississe ....

Vielleicht glaubte ein Bearbeiter, der G. kannte, diese
Begründung plausibler zu machen, wenn er den echten Gorlois
einen Ausfall machen liess. — L. II, 381 lässt Uther - Gorlois
sagen:

Ich and })as tweie cnihtes
leopen ut of J^an fihte.

Davon hat weder G. noch W. etwas; und ebenso steht L.
allein mit Uther - Gorlois' Drohung, sich zu rächen, wenn
Uther nichts von Versöhnung wissen wolle. Da also L.
innerhalb desselben kurzen Abschnittes einmal mit G. gegen
W., einmal mit W. gegen G., und ein drittes mal gegen
beide geht, so deutet dies nicht auf drei von ihm vereinigte
Quellen, sondern auf eine einzige; und Benutzung G.'s ist
somit auch durch dieses Argument nicht erwiesen.' That
in some lines L. goes against G. and W. is not surprising,
as this is often the case where L. sees his chance to digress
and vivify. Imelmann's conclusion is but evading the question
and shifting the difficulty to a French Brut in which we
should have to take for granted a combination of sources

1) p. 89.

which Imelmann deems impossible in L. Apart from the
fact that the present writer fails to see where (as Imelmann
avers) L. should go with W. against G. in this episode, it is
clear that L. borrowed here from G.

8)nbsp;G. says that in ascending the hill at the battle of
Badon, Arthur lost many of his men. L. states that he lost
five hundred, while Wace does not speak of any loss at all.
Here also G.'s influence is apparent, and not invahdated
by Imelmann's objection that L. often mentions a definite
number in contrast to Wace, because G. and L. both mention
a fact that is absent in Wace.

9)nbsp;Fletcher is of opinion that the following passage in L.
is based on G. VII, 3: Timebit Romulea domus ipsius saevitiam.

L. Ill, 79 f.

t)a wses mid soöe ifunde
Jjat Maerlin saeide whilen
{Dat sculden for Aröure
Rome ifullen afure
and {)a wal of stanen
quakien and fallen.

This is repeated L. Ill, 116 f.:

J)a wes hit itimed ^ere
Jjat Merlin saide while
J)at Rom walles sculden
asein Aröure to-uallen.

Imelmann objects: 'Dass G. hier nicht direkt benutzt
wurde — schon der Umfang der verglichenen Stücke spricht
dagegen — lässt sich vielleicht so beweisen: L. III, 112 f.
berichtet von Arthur's höhnischer Botschaft an die Römer;
er würde alsbald nach Rom reiten,

and Rome walles rihten
Jje 3are weoren to-fallen.

Diese Botschaft steht, auch dem Wortlaute nach, m
deutlicher Beziehung zu jener Prophezeiung. W. II, 218 hat

nichts davon. Aber L. stimmt in dieser Episode zu M. A.
Nun hat M. A. auch eine Mitteilung an die Römer; sie soUen
ihre Mauern gut verstopfen. M. A. und L. können hier nicht
unmittelbar zusammenhängen; Zufall kann die Aehnlichkeit
nicht erklären. Also geht M. A. hier auf L.'s Quelle zurück,
d. h. L. hat G. nicht zum Vorbild* (p. 90). It is noteworthy
that Imelmann contradicts himself here to a certain extent,
because on p. 55 of his work, where he discusses a possible
L.-M. A. relation, he asserts: '„Die Ueberbringer der Leich-
name raten den Römern, ihre Mauern gut zu verstopfen.quot;
Davon ist bei L. mit keinem Worte die
Rede. L. spricht von den Mauern die Arthur wieder auf-
richten wolle; besteht hier Zusammenhang zwischen L. und
M. A. so wird er durch die Quelle zu erklären sein.' Apparently
he realises himself that the two texts have nothing in common
and that the supposed connection is extremely dubious.
In fact, there is no reason why the hypothetical source
should be brought up again. Finally, even if there were an
agreement L.-M. A. here, it would prove nothing for the
later passage. It cannot be doubtful that Fletcher has proved
his point.

10) L. Ill, 137.

{ja wes hit itimed {sere
Jjat Merlin seide while:
Aerm wuröest {ju Winchaestre,
Jjae eoröe J)e seal forswalse;
swa Merlin saeide
Jje witeje wes maere.

G. VII, 4. die Guyntoniae, absorbebit te tellus. Imelmann
objects that even if L. is based on G. here, the connection
L.-G. would only be proved for the book, 'und dann
könnte viel eher ein Wace-Bearbeiter darauf verfallen sein,
daraus zu schöpfen.' As there seems to be no coercive reason
for this last hj^pothesis, this example also tends to cement
the theory of a L.-G. relation.

Imelmann adduces one instance that must serve to show-
that we need not assume a separate source for every prophecy
of Merlin not occurring in Wace.
L. Ill, 145 f.

Bute while wes an witi3e
MerUn ihate;
he bodede mid worde,
his quiöes weoren soöe,
{jat Aröur sculde 3ete
cum Bruttes to fulste.

Imelmann refers to W. II, 230: De la vendra, encor puet
vivre. It would have been desirable for him to have shown
this understanding of Lasamon's method of elaboration
consistently. At any rate there is a great measure of
probability in his suggestion. But we must not forget that
the belief in Arthur's return was wide-spread at the time,
so that La3amon had almost certainly heard of it in the
place where he lived. We are consequently inclined to assume
oral tradition in this case.

Here follow a few L.-G. parallels collected by Imelmann
for the purpose of showing that L. is not based on G., but
on the hypothetical French Brut.

1)nbsp;L. I, 82 Geomagoges lupe.

G. I, 16 Lamgoemagot, i.e. saltus G.

Imelmann says: 'W. I, 57 kennt den Namen des Hügels
nicht, wohl aber R. und M. B., die beide Beziehungen zu L.
haben.' If Lasamon has not gathered the name from W. 1.
1177 f.: La faloise ot le nom et a — Del gaiant qui la trebuga
(i.e. of Goemagot, whom W. mentions before), it is very likely,
considering the other L.-G. agreements, that La3amon here
also speaks on the authority of G. His lupe is sufficiently
explained as a translation of G.'s saltus.

2)nbsp;'L. I, 181, G. II, 17 haben in der Erzählung von
Dunwallo Molmutius eine Berufung auf Bücher, die von diesen
Fürsten handeln. Wace I, 110 vacat, aber Tysilio 497 bietet
sie. Da jedoch dieser Text wohl nicht direkt auf G. basiert

ist, vielmehr normannisch vermittelt, so erklärt sich das
Zusammengehn von L.-T. und daher G.-L. unschwer.' As
far as the present writer knows, Imelmann is the first to
come out with the bold conjecture that Tys. is based on a
Norman Brut. On the contrary, the Welsh Brut is evidently
a translation of G., apart from certain additions and omissions
of its own. Brut Gr. ab A. has the same allusion and yet
has never been suspected of French influence. Imelmann's
reasoning is far-fetched and unconvincing and G.'s direct
influence is obvious, just as in the next example that Imel-
mann gives.

3)nbsp;The following two parallels alleged by Imelmann may
be reduced to paraphrases of the W.-text, L. I, 205 being
based on W. I, 126 ff. and L. I, 425 ff. on W. I, 246.

4)nbsp;L. Ill, 295 states that Cadwaladr was at Rome for
a period of four and a half years, whereas G. and W. mention
no time. Imelmann's explanation that Lasamon calculated
the time of his sojourn from B. A.'s exact statements on
Cadwaladr's government and the duration of the dearth,
must be left for what it is: an improbable hypothesis. La3amon
makes quite a number of definite statements of his own
which are found nowhere else. Unlike Wace, who is always
ready with his characteristic ne sai, Lasamon is continually
colouring his narrative, adding bits of information and
inserting definite numbers wherever they make for greater
reality. From a historical point of view Lasamon is probably
not so conscientious as Wace, but he possesses undoubtedly
a greater and more vivid poetic talent. In view then of this
Lasamon idiosyncrasy, we feel justified in ascribing the
number under discussion also to its influence. At any rate,
Imelmann is completely and curiously mistaken, when he
wants to back up his opinion by establishing a close agreement
between L. and B. A. in the following lines about Cadwaladr's
death:

1) L. I, 183, G III, 1, Br. Tys., p. 497.

L. III, 295:

elleoue dases biforen Maise
he ferde of Jjisse liue.

B. A.: he .... died the 12 kalend of May.

with which Imelmann strangely compares only:

W. II, 297:

Al disetisme jor d'avril
Issi del terien escil.

We wonder why he did not insert the preceding line in W.
•onze jors devant mai mourut', which is obviously L.'s source.

Another Latin work that Imelmann compares with L.,
is the Historia Britonum ascribed to Nennius. Imelmann
is of opinion, that no use has been made of Nennius and that
La3amon 'neben seinem normannischen Vorbild keinem
lateinischen Texte gefolgt ist und auch nichts erfunden hat.'

L. II, 63, speaking of Maximian setting out for Armorica,
has:

forö he gon liöen
ut of Jjissen leoden,
he makede him seluen muchel clond,
ne isaeh he naeuere eft JdIs lond.

Nennius (ed. San-Marte, 44): Hi sunt Brittones Armorici,
et nunquam reversi sunt hue usque in hodiernum diem.

Imelmann gives a rather fanciful explanation. He quotes
a Welsh triad i) and the Welsh tale of Macsen Wledig

1)nbsp;Red Book I, 298: Pann aeth llu y lychlyn .... A'r eil a aeth gan
Elen luydawc a maxen wledic hyt yn llychlyn, ac ni doethant byth y'r
ynys honn. (Imelmann erroneously quotes II, 298).

2)nbsp;Red Book I, 89: Seith mlyned y bu yr amherawdyr yn yr ynys honn.
Sef oed deiiawt gwyr rumin yn yr amser hwnnw. Pa amherawdyr bynnac
a drickyei yg gwladoed ereill yn kynnydu seith mlyned, trickyei ar y
orescyn, ac ni chaffei dyuoi y ruvein dracheuyn.

and says: 'Da nun aber dieser kymrische Text nach nor-
mannischer Quelle bearbeitet sein dürfte, so wird der Anklang
an L. ebendaher rühren, d.h. L. keinen Zusammenhang
mit Nennius haben.' That L. is not based here on Nennius
could be proved in a shorter and less devious manner: L. is
namely speaking of Maximian, whereas Neimius refers to the
Armorican Bretons. The last two lines of the L.-quotation
are probably nothing but a dramatic addition, the very last line
presumably being added for the sake of rhyme. The connection
between L. and the two Welsh texts is extremely questionable;
especially the second quotation has little or no bearing
on the L.-text, as it speaks of a Roman custom of no longer
accepting an emperor who had stayed for more than seven
years abroad, which, if anything, is the opposite of what we
read in L.

Next comes L.'s interesting account of Oswald's death at
the hands of the treacherous Penda, of which G. and W.
know nothing. Nennius has: Sanctum Oswaldum Regem
occidit per dolum .... ipse victor fuit per diabolicam artem.
Imelmann rightly observes that L. caimot be based on
Nennius, as the latter does not offer the details of the
treachery. But Nennius shows that there existed a tradition
of Penda's treason, with which Lasamon was evidently
acquainted. It would seem to have been of a hagiographical
nature, although we have not traced it in any of the trans-
mitted Vitae Oswaldi. S5mneon of Durham's Vita has indeed:
Sancto igitur Oswaldo ibi securius residente, et nil adversitaiis
ingruendum metuente, ex improviso cum exercitu pagano
Penda supervenit, et sanctum regem belli funere praeuenire

saiegit.......... Penda igitur aggregata paganorum manu

non modica, subito prodiit ad certaminis aream et una cum
sancto Christianissimoque rege gentem trucidavit Christianae
fidei copiosam, which shows, it is true, some resemblance
to L., but is not nearly elaborate enough to be looked upon
as L.'s source.

Lastly Imelmann brings up the Brutus Abbreviatus,

written by a nxonk of Battle Abbey, who (according to
Imelmann's conjecture) did not use L., but a Norman Brut.
However, the evidence in favour of a L.-Br. Abbr. connection
must be deemed inadequate, as all the parallels submitted
can be explained by W. and G.

First Imelmann wants to connect L.'s description of
Argallo's wandering in exile with the line in Br. Abbr.
Argallo autem in magna miser ia vitam duxit. We cannot
understand why Imelmann looked so far from home, when
he could have found every necessary basis in 11. 3559-3570
of the Wace-text, which lines, considering La3amon's usual
tendency towards elaboration, agree remarkably closely
with the English text. As to the fact that both L. and Br.
Abbr. mention the meeting of Argallo and Elidur as taking
place at a hunt, so does G. Ill, 17. Besides, it is clear that L.
in this episode once more lets his imagination revel. For
instance, he is the only one to make Argallo put on a disguise
and inquire of a kinsman where the king is. Therefore it is
by no means unlikely, that he inferred from Wace's Dedens
le bois'de Galatere - Agar Elidur encontra the fact that Elidur
was hunting. What other use had the ancient kings for a
forest? We are therefore inclined to assume independent
activity on the part of Lasamon or borrowing from G. Ill, 17.

In the next instance we are again surprised by the fact
that Imelmann resorts to a Welsh text (Tys. 522) to explain
a L.-statement that obviously finds its source in W. It is
about the sending of Maximian to England. Br. Abbr. f. ^b
has: Dioclecianus im-perator misit in britanniam Maximianum
herculem. Imelmann says^): 'Dasselbe berichtet L. II, 28;
aus G. V, 5 und W. I, 264 konnte er das nicht schlieszen.'
But W. I, 264 says quite clearly: Ce fu par Dyocletian - Qui
envoia Maximian - Par crualte et par anjuire - Por toz les
crestiens destruire.

Lastly, in the question of Vortimer being poisoned by

1) p. 96.
22

Rowena, Imelmann cites Br. Abbr. f. 10a to prove that this
text also seems to assume that Rowena poisoned Vortimer
personally, but what Br. Abbr. gives is no more than can
be found in G. VI, 12 and W. I, 239, and can certainly not
have served as La3amon's source for the poison-episode,
without crediting him with an equal amount of independence
and imagination, as when we suppose him to have elaborated
Wace.

Summarizing, we find that Lasamon made no use of any
Latin works, except to some extent of Geoffrey's Historia,
a book so famous in its day that this need hardly surprise us.
Furthermore, it has been shown in the preceding section,
that certain apparent L.-Nennius and L.-Br. Abbr. parallels
do not point to a Norman source, but are either fictitious
or reducible to G. or W.

CHAPTER HI.

LA3AM0N AND HIS WELSH SOURCES.

with an excursion on some of the proper

names.

Fortunately for the La3amon-controversy, there is at
leastonepoint on which all can agree, viz. that Wace's Roman
de Brut is not, like the other sources mentioned by La3amon,
a faked source, but the real source of the English Brut,
i.e. the real principal source. There is much additional
matter that must be otherwise explained, and here it is, that
La3amon's imagination and his possible Welsh sources come in.
We have already mentioned the fact that scholars like
Madden, Wiilcker, Brown and Gillespy were inclined to
assume, that La3amon was not a mere slavish translator,
but a man of some artistic antiquarian interest and inde-
pendence, who, to a certain extent, drew on Welsh tradition.
This is a priori not an unlikely contention, considering
Lasamon's residence on the Welsh border. We have also
seen, that later investigators like Imelmann, and on his
authority J. D. Bruce and E. K. Chambers, assumed a
more sceptical attitude, (probably the outcome of their
dislike of the once prevalent Celtomania), and denied any
Welsh influence at all. Now it will perhaps not be imfit,
to discuss at the outset this vital question: Can Welsh
influence at all have been operative in an English author,
in view of the hatred between the Welsh and the English
nation? Imelmann follows Zimmer's lead i) in supposing

1) In Gott. Gel. Anz. 1890, p. 791 and Preuss. Jahrb. vol. 92, p. 431
and 433.

the two peoples to have been implacable enemies without
any intercourse, which would necessarily imply the absence
of Welsh influence. This uncompromising attitude needs
some modification. First of all, it must be clear, that the
Saxon invaders did not cross the North Sea in the troublesome
company of wives and children, which, in order to ensure,
the perpetuation of the race, made it necessary for them to
marry British women These intermarriages, of which for
instance the one between Rowena and Vortigern is a famous
example, probably account for some Welsh-sounding names
of the Saxon kings 2). In this connection, we also find valuable
support in a source as old as the Beowulf, where the name of
Hro5gar's Queen, Wealhpeow (Beowulf 612 etc.) obviously
means 'British captive or servant', so that the inference
suggests itself, that she was of British race. Apart from these
arguments there are others, alleged by J. Loth, E. Windisch
and Major P. T. Godsal. In the latter's book The Conquest
of Ceawlin we find on p. 197: It is evident that as long as
the invaders were heathens, and worshippers of Woden,
they drove out the Welsh, and would have nothing to do
with them or their place-names; whereas we know that after
they had become Christians, they mingled readily with the
Welsh, and used their place-names to a very great extent.

1)nbsp;Cf. Lappenberg: England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings I, 158:
•From the circumstance that the Anglo-Saxons had to pass over in
ships to the country destined for their future home, it follows that
they brought with them but few women and children; and as Vortigern
had no repugnance to an union with the daughter of Hengest, it is
probable that the German warriors with the exception perhaps of a
few of noble race, would not disdain to unite themselves with the
British women. If thereby the natives soon became intermingled with
the strangers, still the latter, in virtue of the almost exclusive advantage
of the male line with respect to inheritances, would not find such
marriages prejudicial to their political independence.quot;

2)nbsp;e.g. the well-known Cerdic, whose very existence has been questioned
on account of his Welsh name, and Ceadwalla, who was even for some
time in league with the Anglian king Penda.

For instance, the whole of Flintshire and part of Denbighshire,
up to Wat's Dyke, was conquered and occupied by the
English, during, or shortly before, the time of Offa, and we
find numbers of old Welsh place-names remaining in these
districts, though interspersed with English ones.'

And again (p. 219): 'The value of willing Welsh labour must
have been increasing every year, as the conquest extended,
and the overworked colonists were less and less able to get
any assistance in tilling their lands and tending their cattle.
We cannot doubt that as the conquest extended towards
Wales, more and more Welshmen were employed by the
Angles. The Welsh are good servants and almost always
loyal to good masters, and owing to their numerous tribal
divisions, had learned quickly to transfer their allegiance
to the strongest side. The chief division in the Welsh border
has always been the Men of the Hills versus the Men of the
Plains. Thus a Welshman who had settled down peaceably
in the service of an Angle settler, would be likely to give
him warning if he knew that a raid was to be expected from
the moimtains; he did not want the home that fed him,
broken up, or the cattle he tended taken away. In these
ways a large admixture of Welsh blood must have come
about near the borders of Wales.'

J. Loth makes the following statement i):

'II faut remarquer que les traditions brittoniques devaient
s'être conservées chez des populations du Wessex entièrement
saxonisées au point de vue de la langue, mais où la fusion
des éléments celtiques et saxons s'était faite pacifiquement,
par exemple en Somerset, où le brittonique était encore
parlé couramment au VII-VIII® siècle. J'ai eu occasion
d'ailleurs de montrer à plusieurs reprises que les rapports
entre les Anglo-Saxons et les Brittons n'avaient pas eu le
caractère d'implacable hostilité qu'on leur a trop souvent
attribué' 2).

1)nbsp;In the Introduction to: Les Mabinogion, Paris 1913.

2)nbsp;cf. Rev. Celt. XIII, 485-488.

E. Windisch i) says: 'Zimmer's Theorie dasz der Sachse
nichts vom Britannier und der Brittannier nichts vom
Sachsen annahm, gilt höchstens bis ins 10 Jahrhundert.
Selbst auf kirchlichem Gebiete beobachten wir Annäherung:
nur im C3marischen finden wir für Pfingsten sachlich dieselbe
Bezeichnung wie im Angelsächsischen: Sulgwjm, d.i. quot;weiszer
Sonntagquot; wie EngHsch whitsuntide.'

Again (p. 60): 'Ihm (= Caduallo) folgte sein Sohn Cad-

walladrus ..... dessen Mutter eine Halbschwester des Penda

von Mercia war. Dieses Verhältnis veranschaulicht wie
Britanni imd Saxones doch im Laufe der Zeit verschmolzen
sind.'

Lappenberg I, 151: 'The districts called by the Saxons
those of the Sumorsaetas, of the Dornsaetas (Dorsetshire)
and the Wilsaetas were lost to the kings of Djmiaint at an
early period; though for centuries afterwards a large British
population maiatained itself in those parts among the
Saxon settlers, as well as among the Defnsaetas, long after
the Saxon conquest of D5Aniaint, who for a considerable
time preserved to the natives of that shire the appellation
of the quot;Welsh kindquot;.'

A. H. Krappe in Angha LVI, 1 Heft p. 101-104, A Welsh
Animal Tale in England, discusses the origin of an English
song about the owl and traces it to a Welsh origin. He says
in conclusion: 'It would seem then, that we are dealing with
a Celtic, i.e. Brythonic tradition, current no doubt, not
only in the Principality proper, but in the adjoining countries
of England in which, down to Shakespeare's time, the Welsh
language was still commonly spoken and in which Welsh
traditions were no doubt still a living force.'

J. H. G. Grattan, in Rev. of Engl. Stud. VI, no. 21, p. 88 f.
reviewing R. E. Zachrisson's Romans, Kelts and Saxons
in Ancient Britain, says: 'There appears to be no doubt

Das Kaiserliche Britannien in: Abh. der Kön. Sächs. Geselsch.
der Wissensch. Bd. XXIX N». VI, p. 244.

that the linguistic evidence set forth in this useful little
treatise, supports the historical and archaeological evidence
in favour of the view that some fusion of the British and
Saxon races took place between the battle of Mount Badon
and the onslaught of Ceawlin. In the author's own words:
in the western areas quot;the number of British survivors must
have been much larger than in the East. In point of fact,
the only theory that reconciles all the clashing evidence
is that the Britons were not exterminated but absorbed
by the Saxon conquerors. Their civilisation vanished, but
the race remainedquot;.'

This may suffice to show that a priori Welsh influence
cannot be considered impossible or even improbable.
In fact, Madden is rather definite i): 'That La3amon was
indebted for some of these legends to Welsh traditions
not recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth or Wace, is scarcely
to be questioned and they supply an additional argument
in favour of the theory that the former was not a mere
inventor.'

The following three arguments are used by the advocates
of Welsh influence:

a)nbsp;Lasamon corrects not only some Anglo-Saxon names
in Wace, but in Celtic names too he often gives a better
form than Wace.

b)nbsp;Lasamon gives some episodes and names in connection
with Wales that are not found in G. or W.

c)nbsp;Lasamon sometimes changes the aspect of the story
in favour of the Britons and against the Saxons.

In the first case we are on slippery ground, as Imelmann
has demonstrated, for the Wace-text edited by Le Roux
de Lincy is only one out of a number of texts, some of which
often prove to have better readings than the published one,
not to mention the fact that Le Roux's editorship was far
from satisfactory, because he not infrequently misread

1) Preface to Lasamon's Brut, XVI.
28

the names. Wiilcker, who strongly advocates Welsh influence,
bases himself in this case upon a few names like L. (A-text)
Wenhauer, L. (B-text) Gwenayfer, W. Genievre, G. Ganhumara,
Brut Tys. Gwenhwyfar; L. Howel, W. Roel, G. Hoelus, Brut
Tys. Howel) L. Modred, W. Mordred, G. Modredus, Brut Tys.
Medrod, in the last case unfortunately proving the very
opposite of what he intended, for Modred cannot be a Welsh
name, as Zimmer has pointed out In spite of this slip
however, there can be no doubt that in some names L. keeps
very close to the Welsh forms, e.g. in Gwenayfer and Kai
(W. Genievre, Kex] Welsh Gwenhwyfar, Kai), but it is note-
worthy that this remains practically confined to a few
well-known names like the ones just mentioned. In the
majority of cases L. agrees with Wace against the Welsh
Bruts. For instance in the enumeration of the children
of Efroc (L. I, 114; W. I, 76; G. II, 8) L. agrees closely with
W, and has not a single Welsh name among them. As no
W.-MS. has as yet provided us with perfect equivalents
of the first-mentioned Welsh names, it would appear most
likely that Lasamon was acquainted with the Welsh names
of the principal characters figuring in the Arthurian
stories, because he had probably heard tales about them.
Not knowing Welsh, he would only remember the names
of those characters that stood out conspicuously, while he
forgot or never heard the names of the rest, and so followed
W. meekly there.

But not only is Wiilcker convinced that Lasamon
consciously rectified Welsh proper names, he also shows
himself convinced that La3amon worked up tales of Welsh
origin into his poem. 'Es kaim wohl kaum ein Zweifel sein,
dasz Lasamon viele derselben mündlicher Uberheferung
verdankt.' With this we touch upon the mootest point in
the question of L.'s sources. Let us consider the following
'Celtic' (i.e. Welsh) traits advanced by Wülcker:

1) Z. f. frz. Spr. u. Litt. XII, 254 ff.

1)nbsp;The satirical songs on the Welsh king Carrie by his
own subjects (L. Ill, 155).

2)nbsp;The satirical songs on Octa and Ebissa by the soldiers
of Uther Pendragon (L. II, 397).

3)nbsp;The many additions to the story of Arthur: his birth
attended by elves, the story of the Round Table, his weapons,
and the story of his death and translation to Avalon.

In illustration of the first point we subjoin the respective
passages in L. and W.
L. Ill, 155.

îgt;a com an of his cunne

Carrie wes ihaten.

And nom J)isne kinedom:

and mid seorjen wunede Jjer on.

Snel cniht wes Carrie:

ah he nes noht iseli.

îgt;at wes for unleoden:

spilden al his J)eoden.

îgt;eos king wes aöel Bruttisc mon:

hux and hoker me warp him on.

heo for-laette Carriches

amp; Kinric hine cleopede.

And 3et on feole boeken:

his nome me swa writeö.

Foie hine gunnen haenen:

folc hine gune hatien.

and hoker loö sungen:

bi laöen J)an kingen.

W. II, 235.

Quant oil fu mors et enfuis
Si fu après lui rois Caris.
Puis fu Ceris rois de la tere.
Mais tote la perdi par guere;
Dolans fu et maléuros.
Et à tole gent anuios.

As may be expected, Imelmann's views on this point
differ widely from Wülcker's. First of all, he rightly rejects

a hypothesis forwarded by Brown, that Kinric should be an
English corruption of the Welsh word Cymraeg i). Apart
from the fact that Cymraeg indicates only the Welsh language,
while Cymro is used for Welshman, the stress in Cymraeg,
originally a trisyllable^), falls on the last syllable in modern
Welsh and there would be no reason for the stressed ae (at
Lasamon's time probably only the a was stressed) to pass
into i, so that corruption as advocated by Brown is out of
the question Imelmann contends that Cinric (Carrie) is
not a Welsh king at all, and assumes on the authority of
Stephens and Zenker that Geoffrey's prototype of Carrie viz.
Careticus is none but the first West-Saxon king Cerdic,
who had a son called Cinric. The couple Carric-Kinric has,
according to Imelmann, been taken from Gaimar, or at least
a work based on Gaimar, and has been misunderstood by
Lajamon. We read in the former's Estorie des Engles
1. 819 ff.:

.... Certiz od son navire
( Ariva a Certesore
Un moncel ki pert uncore )
La ariva il e son fiz;
Engleis lapelerent Chenriz.

And again 1. 873 ff.:

Quinz anz regna li reis Certiz;
Apres sa mort regna Chenriz
( Fiz fu Certiz, mult guereia
E grant peis a sei tuma )
E les Bretons mult le haeient
E sovent rancone U fesaient.

1) Probably Brown meant to suggest: Cymreig = pertaining to the
Welsh.

quot;) According to J. Morris Jones (A Welsh Grammar, p. 35) the
Cym/rdjeg as a trisyllable persisted in the 15th century:
Cymro da i Gym|ra|eg,
Cjntnered air C5anru deg.

(Guto'r Glyn, flourished 1450-80)
®) See on this: G. J. Williams ac E. J. Jones, Gramadegau'rPenceirdd-
iaid (Caerdydd, 1934), pp. 34, 95.

Imelmann says (p. 100 f.): 'Es ist nun noch denkbar, ein
flüchtiger Leser habe die erstgenannte Stelle so gedeutet,
als sei Chenriz nur ein andrer Name für Certiz gewesen;
wurde nun Certiz mit Galfrid's Careticus zusammengebracht,
so konnte auch Chenriz in einen Brut hereinkommen ... Ein
solches Versehen könnte auch Lasamon begegnet sein; aber
da die ganze Episode nach Ausweis der darin vorkommenden
Namen auf eine normannische Vorlage weist, so wird man
auf jene Möglichkeit nicht allzuviel Gewicht legen dürfen.
Indirekt gewinnen wir damit eine Stütze für die Annahme,
La3amon habe auch seine Quellenangaben nicht direkt aus
Gaimar, mithin dessen Werk selbständig nicht benutzt.'

There are a few serious objections to this theory. First one
fails to see what there is particularly Norman in the names
Carrie and Cinric, especially in the latter. Further, L. has
Carrie, W. Carris and Charic, Gaimar on the contrary
Certiz. Again, Gaimar tells quite a different story from L.,
and in 11. 873 f., clearly shows Certiz and Chenriz to be two
different persons. Accordingly, it is impossible that a hypo-
thetical W.-Gaimar compiler should have made such a
blunder as to tjike the two for one and the same person,
notwithstanding the explicit lines just mentioned. Lastly,
if Imelmann were right, we should expect to find the same
story in works such as Brut d'Angleterre, Robert of Brunne,
Pierre Langtoft, Waurin. It will be seen from the texts printed
above, that L. cannot be based on Gaimar or Wace, nor on
a compilation of the two, as there would be no reason for
a French compiler to commit a mistake of identity. There
remain only two possibilities: either La3amon must have
invented the whole, or he must draw upon Welsh tradition,
and as invention seems out of the question, Welsh influence
remains. In spite of Stephen's assertion i) that Welsh history
knew no such king as Caredig, it is noteworthy that the name

1) Literature of the Kymry, p. 308.

Ceredic {Ceretic) occurs frequently just as the name
Caradog while in one of the triads a certain Kerrie y
Gwyddyl (Kerrie the Irishman) is mentioned The Annales
Cambriae give under the year 616 the following entry:
Ceretic obiit. There can be no doubt that this is the same
king that is meant by Geoffrey's Careticus, who was in his
turn the prototype of Wace's Charic. As this Careticus was
a lover of civil war and therefore hateful to God and the
Britons ®), it is by no means impossible that there existed
mocking songs about him, and even a nick-name, probably
the Welsh word cynnhrig meaning 'aboriginal', may have
been applied to him derisively by the Saxon part of the
population. This appellation does not offer the difficulties
of the change Cymraeg-Cinric, as it is practically identical
in pronunciation with the name Cinric In this episode we
find consequently a clue for oral Welsh tradition.

Concerning the jeering song of Uther's soldiers on Octa
and Ebissa, Imelmann makes a most remarkable mistake.
He says ®): 'Auf s. 546 kommt Wülcker auf keltische Sagen
die La3. aus mündlicher Überlieferung herangezogen haben
soll. Dasz er kymrisch konnte, wird zu Unrecht vorausgesetzt;
und wer sollte ihm die Lieder „die doch nur Kelten überliefern
konntenquot; übersetzen? Zwei Stellen sollen Wülcker's Ansicht
stützen: die Cinric-Episode (III, 155) und das Spottlied der
Sachsen auf Uther {II, 397). Dieses aber ist im Keime schon
bei G. W. vorhanden, La3. hat nur ausführlicher, und in
direkter Rede, was G. in indirekter berichtet.' We cannot but
suppose that Imelmann, like Homer, was nodding when he
wrote this, for Wülcker as well as Lasamon are not referring
to a taunting song sung by the Saxons, (which occurs earlier

in the story), but to a satire by the British soldiers on the
Saxon chiefs. Imelmann's argument may therefore summarily
be dismissed. Neither W. {II, 33 ff.), nor G. (VIII, 23), nor
again the Welsh Bruts Tysilio and Gruffydd ab Arthur
mention any satirical songs on the part of Uther's soldiers.
The conclusion is unavoidable that Lasamon here shows
himself an independent adapter of his source, with an eye for
dramatic effect.

Speaking about the additions to the story of Arthur,
Imelmann avers 'Dasz ... diese Züge in Widerspruch
zu aller bekannten welschen Tradition stehen, hat Zimmer
unzweifelbar gemacht.' We shall see in how far this can be
considered right. The elves at Arthur's birth bestowing
several gifts upon him, occur nowhere else. Ten Brink
wants to ascribe them to Germanic, Imelmann to Breton
tradition. However, the imaginative Welsh are not and have
never been without fairy-tales either, so that the probability
is that Lasamon draws here upon oral Welsh tradition, as he
also does in the story of the Round Table ®).

Likewise, La3amon is the first Germanic author in whose
work we find mention made of Argante, the Queen of Fairy-
land, to whom Arthur is conveyed to recover from his deadly
wounds. This story is found neither in G. nor in W., but it
does occur in G.'s Vita Merlini, where the Fay's name is
Morgen This name is undoubtedly the origin of the form
Argant(e) and not, as Imelmann suggests, the Celtic stem
argento-, arganto- ®). Welsh provenance of the name at least
is therefore certain, and not only of the name, as may be
concluded from the following passage in Giraldus Cambrensis'
Speculum Ecclesiae (c. 1216), which affords proof that the

1)nbsp;p. 19.

2)nbsp;Gesch. der Engl. Litt. I, p. 223.
cf. p. 38 f.

For an explanation of the name Morgen, see J. Loth, Rev. Celt.
XIII, 496 f. and F. Lot, Romania XXVIII, 321 ff.
6) cf. Bruce's article in M.L.N. XXVI, 65 ff.

Welsh had a tradition of their own about Arthur's death,
with which La3amon may very well have been acquainted:

Arthuro ibi mortaliter vulnerato, corpus eiusdem in
insulam Avaloniam, quae nunc Glastonia dicitur, a nobili
matrona quadam eiusque cognata et Morgani vocata, est delatum,
quod postea defunctum in dicto coemeterio sacro, eadem
procurante, sepultum fuit. Propter hoc enim fabulosi Britones
et eorum cantores fingere solebant, quod dea quaedam phantastica,
scilicet et Morganis dicta, corpus Arthuri in insulam detulit
Avalloniam ad eius vulnera sanandum. Quae cum sanata
fuerint, redibit rex fortis et potens ad Britones regendum,
ut ducunt, sicut solet (ch. TX).

Britones is used twice in the same context. We are therefore
entitled to assume that it has the same meaning in both
sentences, and as ad Britones regendum can only mean
'to govern the British, i.e. the Welsh', the first Britones must
have the same meaning, which justifies our above-mentioned
conclusion. Besides, the above quotation makes the impression
of being first-hand knowledge, which would imply at least
one visit to the country in question. Now Gerald was a born
Welshman, author of an Itinerary and a Description of
Wales, whereas, though we know that he studied in Paris
for some time, there is no direct evidence that he ever visited
Brittany. This strengthens us in our conviction that his
reference to fabulosi Britones et eorum cantaiores must be
aimed at his Welsh countrymen.

Returning to the name'Argant (e), it remains to be determined
whether it can be a Welsh (or English) corruption of Morgant,
or must needs be French. If we consider how the name
became Urganda in Spanish and Organic in the Dutch
Merlin, it is hard to see why such a corruption could not
have occurred in Welsh or English. The e of Argante is not
such a decisive proof of French origin as is sometimes supposed.
It ought to be borne in mind that the two extant Lasamon-
texts are not to be equated with the archetype, but represent

a copy of it i). In this respect it is significant that L. gives
three forms: Argant, Argante and Argane, so that there is
a possibility of a copyist changing an original e-less form
into a more normal-looking form with -e. This hypothesis
gains in probability through the fact that in all other
accounts of Arthur's death and translation besides La3amon,
except where she is nameless, the fay is called Morgan,
or some such form with M, whereas it is only in the Roman
de Troie that we find the name without the initial M, e.g. as
Orua, Orna, Oua, Grains, Ornains, Oruain, Ornais etc.,
forms which could never have produced La3amon's Argant (e).

Bruce believes that the passage in L. concerning
Arthur's translation to Avalon, may have been suggested
to the author of the expanded Wace by the Vita Merlini, but
thinks it was more probably drawn directly from Celtic
tradition. In view of the fact, however, that immediately
after Geoffrey's work became known, the Welsh literary
activity increased tremendously, we maintain that it is all
but certain, that Welsh tales reached the English priest in
Worcestershire which he was not slow to turn to account

Another interesting point is La3amon's narrative of the
institution of the Round Table According to L., at a great
feast on Yule-day, there arose a fierce quarrel among the
guests because Aelc hafede an heorte — leches he^e — and
lette pat he weore — betere pan his iuere. Feeling ran high,
it came to a fight, loaves and bowls filled with wine were
thrown about, and a hand-to-hand fight began. At this

1)nbsp;cf. R. Seyger op. cit. p. 70.

2)nbsp;Ev. of A.R. I, 33 note 73.

Imelmann's statement is debatable when he says on p. 26: 'Morgan
spielt im Kjmirischen Volksglauben keine RoUe,' for this is based on
Zimmer's limitation of Britones to Bretons in the passage quoted on
p. 35. This limitation, however, is by no means generally
accepted and in our opinion erroneous, as we have already endeavoured
to prove.

♦) L. II, U. 22736 ff.

juncture, the son of Rumaret, king of Winet, who was a
hostage at the court of Arthur, begged the King and Queen
to retire, as he would bring these uncude kempen to heel.
When he had killed seven men, and the fight had become
general, the king and a hundred noble knights appeared
again in full armour to quell the disturbance, and Arthur
inflicted a terrible punishment on the man that started the
fight. His next of kin, too, were put to death and Arthur
proclaimed that any of his folk that should ever again
disturb the peace, should be drawn to pieces by horses.
After that, all present swore an oath never to break the
peace again; the dead were buried, and the guests sat down
to the board again:

Birles l5er {jurgen
gleome Jjer sungen
harpen gune dremen
du3ede wes on sele.

And this state of bliss went on for fully seven nights.
Seodden hit seid in pere tale — pe king ferde to Cornwale,
and there came to him a crafty workman, who offered
to make a table that could seat 1600 men and more, and yet
Arthur could carry it with him. At this table all would be
of equal rank. In four weeks' time the work was completed
and a banquet was held in honour of it.

Igt;is wes t)at ilke bord

Jjat Bruttes of 3elpe6.

And suged feole cunne lesinge

bi ArSure Jjan kinge.

Swa de5 auer ale mon

jDe oSer luuien ne con.

3 if be is him to leof

^nne wule he li3en

and suggen on him wurSscipe

mare Jjenne he beon wurde.

Ne beo he no swa lu3er mon

Jjat his freond him wel ne on.nbsp;L. II, 541.

Madden in his note (III, 383) says: 'This tradition respecting
the Round Table wholly rests with Wace, for Geoffrey is
perfectly silent respecting it, which is the more extraordinary,
since there is no reason to doubt the assertion of the former,
that the Britons had many marvellous stories about its
institution .... It is by no means improbable that in the
narrative of the English poet one of these popular traditions
on the foundation of the Round Table may have been preserved,
since it would appear hardly credible that the whole should
be a mere invention of the writer.'

In J. D. Bruce's opinion 'This passage has nothing to
correspond to it in the extant text of Wace's Brut, but, in
view of the Irish paraUels, must be accepted as undoubtedly
derived ultimately from Celtic tradition' In accordance
with his general conception of the provenance of the Arthur-
legends and on the authority of Imelmann's work he inclines
to the opinion that the story is of Armorican origin. However,
as we hope to expose below, this is extremely improbable.

In our opinion Madden's view can be proved to be correct.
The fact is that nobody except Fletcher seems as yet to
have observed that Lasamon himself avers openly in this
episode that he is following a tale. That this was an oraUy
delivered story is established beyond doubt by other passages
where Lasamon refers to his sources as summe bokes 2),
beod on beoken »), pere Aenglisce boc «), feole bocken ®),
so that if he had followed a book here, he would have had
no reason to change his expression. His words seodden hit
seid in pere tale are capable of only one construction, viz.
that he was recording one of the many fabulous tales current
about the Round Table in his time. That this was not a
French but a Welsh or anghcized Welsh tale is evident from

1)nbsp;Ev. of A.R. I, 84.

2)nbsp;II, 597.
I, 181.

«) II, 27.
6) III, 155.

the rough-and-tumble spirit in which it is written. The
courteous manners of a later age are absent in this vulgar
brawl in which loaves and winecups are thrown about and
in which the relentless, cruel punishments suggest an earlier
and more barbarous age than that of the medieval French
Bruts or court-romances. Our conclusion is consequently that
Lasamon presents us here with a Welsh tale in Enghsh garb.

The next problem to confront us is the names occurring
in Lasamon's description of Arthur's armour i). For instance
L. calls Arthur's helm Goswhit, a name which occurs nowhere
else. Madden, Wiilcker and Brown conceive this to be the
translation of a Welsh name corresponding to Goose-white,
because so many Welsh names connected with Arthur are
composed with -white (Welsh: gwyn, fem.: gwen), e.g.
Prydwen. Arthur's ship, Gwenhwyfar, his wife, Carnwenhan,
his dagger. But when Brown places Wynebgwrthucher,
Arthur's shield, also among this group, he is slightly mistaken,
the name meaning face (wyneb) of evening (gwrthucher).
Imelmann rejects their thesis that the name Goswhit occurs
nowhere else, as 'unbewiesen imd nie beweisbar'. It is
characteristic of Imelmann's attitude that he applies tests to
the work of others that he never dreams of applying to his
own. Because Imelmann is forced to make everything fit into
his Norman theory, he supposes in this case also that the
name was introduced by a Norman elaborator of Wace,
and suggests as its origin the Cymric word gospeith =
glittering, polished (Mod. W. gosbaith) This last supposition
is indeed extremely probable, in fact, much more so than
the theory of a translation from the Welsh, as the name
Goswhit would then be a unicum among all the others
which have remained untranslated. Accepting therefore

1) L. II, 463 f.

Imelmann's other hypothesis 'blosse Verderbnis läge näher, wenn
man von der bretonischen Form für gwydd ausginge: goaz, gwaz
(gt; gos-) founders of course on the fact that the Breton for white
(= gownn) could never have been corrupted into whit.

Imelmann's theory of corruption, we differ however in
opinion as to how this corrupted form reached Lasamon.
The transition p gt; w in gospeith gt; goswiht points to a
written tradition in insular handwriting. So the cause of
corruption was undoubtedly one of manuscript and not of
oral tradition, but the name probably came to La3amon's
knowledge by means of the latter. In any case, however,
we are bound to recognize an independent Welsh trait in
this name.

Another crux offered us by L. is the name of the smith of
Carmarthen who made Arthur's spear His name was
Griffin. Brown's assumption that this must be a corruption of
Gofan (older Goban), the Celtic magic smith, by way of an
intermediate phase Gaban can hardly be maintained, for as
Imelmann rightly observes 'In Gaban eine Form des
Brittischen namens zu sehn hindert der Umstand, dass
dieser das im Irischen bewahrte b längst zu / {v) erweicht
hatte, als der Zauberschmied den Brown Gobban, Gofan and
Govan nennt, den Übergang, quot;intogeneralArthuriantraditionquot;
hätte erleben können' ®). Imelmann thinks that like other
details which Lasamon took from the Wace-Gaimar version,
he must have found this name also in his Norman source.
But even supposing this for a moment to be true, on the
strength of some similarities in treatment of the source
between L. and some Anglo-Norman Bruts, the inference
would be unwarranted that a 11 deviations in L. must needs

1) L. II, 576.
p. 32.

8) In the following passage from the Polistorie del EgHse de Christ
de Caunterb5rre adduced by Brown as cited by Fletcher (P.M.L.A.
XVIII, 90), gaban is evidently a corruption of the French Galand
(O.N. Völundr):

leo su forte trenchaunte e dure,
gaban me fist per mult grant cure,
XIII anns auoyt ihesu crist
Kaunt galan metrempa e fist,
(inscription on Gawain's sword.)

have been present in his source. The name Griffin is best
explained as a Latin or Anglo-Saxon corruption of the Welsh
name Gruffydd (Engl. Griffith). In the Descriptio Kambriae
for instance we find: Griphinus {Gryffydd) filius Resi et
Resus filius Griphini qui hodie praeest, while the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle also mentions the name Griffin a number
of times It is at all events very well possible, that Lasamon
is here indebted to an oral Welsh tradition about the maker
of Arthur's sword, whose name he anglicized in the same
way as his Old English forebears.

But not only does La3amon add proper-names in the parts
connected with Arthur, we also find names unexpectedly
cropping up in other places, where Wace either fails to give
a name or gives a different one. Among these the following
present themselves: Adionard, Anster, Delgan, Galarne,
Gerion, Lador, Meleon and Oriene. As to the name Adionard,
(G. Dinoot-, Brut Tys. Dynawd-, W. Dyonos). We consider
Imelmann's explanation of it undoubtedly correct but in
the case of Anster Gormund's father, who is nameless in
G. and W., it seems to us a somewhat hazardous supposition
to identify him with Gormund himself, who, on his conversion
in 879, received the name of Aethelstan. Imelmann points
out that this name in French writers was sometimes corrupted
into Alstagnus, Alstemus, Alestang, but recognizes himself
that there is an imdeniable distance between these forms
and Lasamon's reading, 'doch dürfte er noch gerade gering
genug sein, um eine Identifikation, und damit die Anerkennung
der über die Herkunft von Anster aufgestellten Behauptung
zu empfehlen. Eine Schwierigkeit ist der Umstand, dasz
Anster bei La3. nicht Gormund selbst bezeichnet. Aber da

Anglo-Saxon Chron. ed. B. Thorpe, I, 302 has: Griffin se Norperna
cyng; id. I, 316: Griffin se Wylisce cing.
2) Imelmann p. 24 f.
») L. III, 156.

der Dichter die ganze Episode in der Normannischen Vorlage
gefunden haben musz, so gehört auch jene Schwierigkeit,
wenn sie wirklich eine ist, dieser Vorlage an' Is it not
stretching credulity a little too far, to accept the change of
AeSelstan into Anster? Moreover, is it likely that a French
compiler of Wace-Gaimar should be so well versed in Anglo-
Saxon history that he knew of Gormund's other name,
and at the same time so muddle-headed as to apply this
name to Gormund's father? It seems hardly possible. Anster
rather seems to stand for Anscar{ius), a viking-name like
Gormund {O.^.Asgeirr, Osgar etc) La3amon perhaps
borrowed the name from a Geoffrey MS. that had it, or
else may be held himself responsible for the introduction.

Another curious name in this episode is that of Gormund's
brother Gerion, whom G. does not mention at all and who
in W. has no name L. speaking of Anster has ¹):

he hafde sonen tweien,
snelle cnihtes beien:
Gurmund hehte }5e eldere
and Gerion hehte J^e 3eongere.

Imelmann wants to connect this Gerion with Gurim,
younger brother of Rollo in Dudo, while Rollo is a near relative
of Guthorm's (= Gormund) in Hugo de Fleury. As, according
to Zenker, there was a popular tradition which linked up
Gormund and Rollo, Imelmann deems the conclusion
'perhaps' justified, that Gerion and Gurim are variants of
one and the same name which should have passed from
Norman tradition into L.'s source. However, the connecting
thread of popular tradition seems rather slender in this case.

and though we will not disguise the fact that a theory of
corruption also has its assailable points, we venture to submit
that Gerion may be a corruption of jonéor (see p. 42, note 3.).

For the name Lador Imelmann offers two explanations:
a) L.'s source had the name already, b) L. misread the
W.-text: Uns sien niés ot après I'onor Imelmann's suppositon
that Lasamon may have corrupted I'onor into Lador is
untenable, as Lasamon translated similar expressions quite
regularly in other places A mistake like this, improbable
in an English priest, must be deemed wholly impossible
in a Norman writer. Yet we find Imelmann writing: 'Der-
gleichen aber kann auch schon einem normannischen
Schreiber passiert sein; und so kommen wir auch auf diesem
Wege zu der Annahme, Las. folge hier wie sonst, nur einer
Wace-version und keiner andern Quelle.' Now it is a curious
fact, that L. is not the only text to confer a name on Gor-
bonianus' son, e.g. MS. Cotton Vesp. D. IV, f. 132Ö gives
Regin, Matthew Paris' Chronica Majora I, 170: Regnavit
Regin, Gorboniani filius, as the editor remarks: 'apparently
for Regni diadema suscepit.' Br. Gr. ab A.: Ac gwedy marw
Elydyr War y deuth Rys vap Gorvynyawn yn vrenyn (p. 495).
Brut Tys.: Ac yn y ol ynte y gwnaythhwyt Gorviniaw y vab
ynte yn vrenin (p. 448). It is evident from these various
names, that the confusion with regard to Gorbonian's son
was fairly wide-spread, and this can only be explained by
a general desire to fill up the lacuna in G.: Defuncto itaque
Eliduro suscepit Gorboniani filius regni diadema. The
mistakes in the Welsh Bruts are probably due to misreading
of the Latin text, while Lador is presumably a corruption
of the name Elidurus, either by Lasamon or by a French
writer. Perhaps the W.-M S. employed by Lasamon, had a
note in the margin giving the name as an afterthought.

The son of Modred that fled to Winchester is mentioned
in L. 1) as Meleon, whereas he has no name in G. and W.
According to Imelmann this Meleon is a Norman corruption
of the Welsh Maelgwn ( lt; Maglocunus), who appears in L. Ill,
153, as Malgus (W. II, 235 and G. XI, 7 Malgo). Phonetically
this is possible, but the similarity in fate between the two
is extremely slight. Maelgwn, according to Brut Tysilio,
dies in the church of a convent after he has seen the yellow
plague through a hole in the church-door, whatever that may
mean, and Meleon dies at Winchester. Moreover, as Bruce
has pointed out the name Meleon occurs also in the Mort
Artu 3) as Malehaus or (in ms. Royal 19 C. XIII) as Melehan,
so that there can be no doubt that L. took this name at
least from a French Brut, probably a younger W.-text

Imelmann observes on the name Oriene ®) (Octaves'
daughter given in marriage to Maximian), that it cannot
be said with certainty if the name is due to a corruption
of roine in

Et oir le face de son règne.

Si sera sa fille roine.nbsp;W I, 275.

but that the name does not agree with Welsh tradition at
any rate, as the Welsh Bruts etc. give the name as Helen.
A more plausible interpretation may be found in Bruce's
article «), where Oriene is explained as a French corruption

of the Welsh name Orwen which occurs in the Latin Romance
Vita Meriadoci

L. I, 191 gives the name Delgan to Aelfing's daughter,
unnamed in G., W., and the Welsh Bruts. Imelmann identifies
these two persons with a certain king Elsung and his daughter
Odilia, who appear in the Wilkina-saga. Imelmann assumes
that G. knew this saga, and had the name in an original
version now lost. 'La3. wird aber unabhängig von seiner
normannischen Vorlage seine Delgan (schon die Form deutet
darauf) nicht habben gewinnen können; kymrische Vermitt-
lung ist jedenfalls ausgeschlossen, und Galfrid hat der
Dichter nicht herangezogen' 2). We venture to suggest
that Delgan does not look specially French and has not
even the feminine ending -ne to support the claim of its
French descent. Considering that in chapter II it has been
shown that La3amon drew straight from Geoffrey in places,
the possibility is that La3amon found the name in a Geoffrey-
MS. unknown to us, rather than that a French MS. should
have furnished the name.

Lastly, Imelmann may be right in his explanation of the
name Galarne Brian's sister, as a Frenched form of Kymric
galar (sorrow), on account of the ending -ne. But this does
not justify his conclusion that therefore the whole episode
with Pelluz and the recognition of the would-be pilgrim is
based on a French text. Imelmann's assumption would be
better founded, if W. did not mention Pelluz and Brian's
sister at all, but the frame of the episode, in which the two
just mentioned characters figure, is found in W. II, 273
upon which Lasamon embroidered to his heart's content,
and to which he also added the name Galarne.

A few more names, like Cadal Gille Callaet ®), Gille

1) p. 352.
p. 28.
») L. Ill, 237.
«) L. II, 116.
») L. II, 142 f.

Caor 1), occurring in L., are ascribed by Imelmann wholesale
to the Norman source, because 'Jüngere Brut-versionen lieben
Aufzählungen exotischer Namen', and 'Als La.5. schrieb
wurden gerade irische Verhältnisse durch französische
Darstellungen bekannt' 2). But L. has more names than only
exotic ones3), and furthermore it is a little obscure why
Imelmann reckons only Normans capable of introducing
new names into the story. As a matter of fact, on the next
page Imelmann admits, that it would not do to assume that
Lasamon should have hmited his reading to Wace's Brut
and never have heard of other similar works. 'Deshalb soll
die Möglichkeit nicht bestritten werden, dasz hier und da eine
Einzelheit in seiner Dichtung, besonders Namen, anders-
woher übernommen ist' It cannot be said that Imelmann
has disproved Lasamon's independence in introducing new
names.

1)nbsp;L. I, 429.

2)nbsp;p. 36.

») cf. Malgod, AldoK, Aelcus, Escol, Ethelbald, Aelfwald, Joram,
Anster.
P- 37.

CHAPTER IV.
LA3AMON AND HIS NORMAN SOURCES.

If L. can be shown to have many points in common with
other French chronicles derived from Wace or Gaimar,
while differing on these points from Wace, the odds are
that L. as well as these Chronicles go back to a common
source, viz. a Wace-Gaimar compilation. This induced Imel-
mann to collaterate La3amon's Brut with the so-called
Brut d'Angleterre, an 'in England verfasste Prosaauflösung
einer verlorenen, aber dem überlieferten Wace unverkennbar
nahestehenden normannischen Reimchronik. In seinen
„brittischenquot; Partien kann daher B. A. als eine jüngere
Wace-version bezeichnet werden' As this chronicle has
not been published, we can base our judgment of its signifi-
cance for the L.-problem only on the passages quoted by
Imelmann. Nor was Caxton's translation accessible to us,
though we did lay hands on The Brut or the Chronicles of
England, vol I, E. E. T. S. no. 131, which is also a Middle
English translation of the Brut d'Angleterre. We found
it disagreeing from L. on so many essential points, that
the two works cannot possibly be referred to a common source.
As it is our aim to test possible agreements and not to
establish the existence of differences (which would moreover
fill a separate volume), we shall abstain from giving the
latter here. Incidentally it may be remarked, that B. A.
belongs to the 15th century and is consequently two centuries
later than La3amon's Brut.

The first comparison given by Imelmann is that of the

1) p. 37.

Leir-episode which affords a typical instance of the way
in which he forces the facts into the strait-jacket of his theory.
For instance: 'Dem Aganippus erwidert Lear auf seine
Werbung:

Ac 3ef jju heo wult habben —
for maeide heo is hende —
ich heo wulle Jje biwiten
and senden heo Jje in ane scipe
mid seoluen hire claöen;
of me nafö heo na more.

Zwar sagt W. I. 88:

Et Leir la Ii otroia
Oltre la mer Ii envoia
Ses fille et ses dras solement
N'i ot altre apparellement.

Aber bei L. ist der Zug von den Kleidern geschickter als eine
Bedingung Lear's verwendet. Eine solche Bedingung setzt
die Antwort des Aganippus in B. A. voraus: „qu'il ne demanda
ren for son cors soulement et sa vesturequot;.' But even a cursory
glance at the Wace text (I, 88) will show that the condition
was actually there.

Leir n'avoit mie oblié
Coment sa fille Tot amé;
Ains l'ot bien sovent ramenbré
Et al roi de France a mandé
Que tot son raine a devisé
Et à ses deus filles doné;
La moitié à la primeraine
Et l'autre après à la moiaine.
Mais se sa fille li plaisait
Il li donroit, plus n'i prandroit.

1) L. I, 133 ff; W. I, 88.

48

It is obvious that the last two lines contain in germ Leir's
condition on which Imelmann based his assumption. Again
compare:
W. I, 88:

A1 roi Léir de recief mande
Que nul avoir ne li demande,
Mais seul sa fille li otroit
CordéiEe, si li en voit.

ne bidde ich nanne maômes:
me seolf ich habben ino3e.
bute Ijat mœiden Cordoille:
Jjêne hœbbe ich mine wille.

B.A. qu'il ne demanda ren for son cors soulement et sa
vesture.

and it appears very clearly that L. is in closer agreement
with W. than with B. A.

In the next example, it is evident that L. and B. A. are
two entirely independent elaborations of the W.-text. Leir
has gone from Goneril to Ragau, but here he meets with an
even worse treatment, which makes him lament:
W. I, 92:

Caitif moi, dist-il, mar i vino.
Se vix sui là, plus vils sui ça.

L. I. 144:

Ich wes at Gomoille....

mid t)ritti cnihtes

J)e 3et ich mihte libben

ah lienne igonne liöen

ich wende swiöe wel to don

ac wurse ich habbe underfon.

B. A. Cott. f. 86amp;: Donq se dementa leyr trop malement et
dist en plorant allas, fest il, qe onqs ving
en ceste terre; enqore me vausist il meux
auer demore od ma premere fille.

The same holds good of L. I, 158, W. I, 98 and B. A.
Cott. f. 87a.

L. I, 149:

Leir ferde to Jjere sae
mid ane alpie swein.

Forö wende {je king Leir
nauede he bute êne swein.

B. A.: et enuea son esquier a la reyne.

W. 1. 2029: Un escuier a envoie.

On this flimsy evidence Imelmann wants to connect L.
and B. A., though it is clear that L. is much more emphatic
than B. A. Probably G. II, 12 was responsible: Quo indicato
commota est cordeilla lt;§• fleuit amare. quesiuitque quot milites
secum haberet Qui resfondit neminem habere excepto quodam
armigero qui foris cum eo expectabat.

On p. 44 Imelmann says: 'L. I, 294 Iwallo regiert 7 Jahre;
bei Caxton 8 (Hss. vacant). Stimmen diese Angaben auch
nicht genau überein, so zeigen sie doch eine der L. und B. A.
gemeinsamen Eigentümlichkeiten, nämlich die Einfügung
bestimmter Zeitangaben.' It is interesting to compare with
this what the same writer says on p. 89: ' quot;G. says that in
ascending the hiU at the battle of Badon, Arthur lost many
of his men, and L. that he lost five hundred, while Wace does
not speak of any loss at allquot;. Eine solche — nicht einmal
genaue — Übereinstimmung ist schwerlich beweiskräftig.'
But then, we wonder, why should it be 'beweiskräftig' in the
case of L. and B. A.? Not to mention that L., in relating the
battle of Badon, gives not only a number, but also a fact
that is passed over by Wace.

The agreement between L. I, 350 pat me Euerlin fordo,
no per slas ne na aho and B. A. et iura qe Euelin serroit
pendu is purely fortuitous, and due to a cliché of the English
poet, coupled with a more or less conscious desire for rhyme.
Other passages may be pointed out in the Enghsh Brut where

the same phrase occtxrs without a corresponding phrase
in W. 1).

The omission of the isolated fact that Nennius killed
Labienus (W. I, 198) in L. and B. A. may be an independent
trait of good taste in story-telhng. The episode is wholly
undramatic and practically irrelevant.

L. I, 425 ff. tells us about the Picts in search of wives and
the introduction of Irish speech into Scotland:

L. I, 425

}gt;urh }psL ilke wifmen

J)a [jer wuneden longe

{sat folc gan to spelien

Irlondes speche,

and auer seoööen Jja la3en

wunieö a {san londe.

W I, 247

De Bretaigne feme requisent
Et li Breton lor escondisent.
Et cil en Irlande passèrent
Et de là femes amenèrent.

Imelmann quotes B. A. as a source: Mes il ne auoient nule
femmes entre eus ne les britons ne voleint doner lur filles a les
estrange genz et pur ceo alerent outre en Irlaund et amenerent
femmes oueq eus de cele terre et les espu{s)erent. Mes les hommes
ne sauoient entendre le langage des femmes, ne les femmes ne
sauoient entendre le langage des hommes) et pur ceo parlèrent
ensemble com s{c)otz) par out il furent apele primes (scois?),
mais p{ui)s par variance et changes de langes furent il apele
scottes, escoz en franceis. Et tuz iours serront il issi apelez les
hommes de cele terre. Imelmann himself admits that L. and
B. A. differ, in that according to L. the language spoken in
Scotland is originally Irish, and besides, L. is much shorter.
'Trotzdem wird man nicht daran zweifeln, dasz er seinem
normannischen Brut hier folgte.' We do not see the cogency of

1) cf. L. II, 527: and ^if he mihte afon — he wolde hine sl?enoderan-hon;
L. Ill, 266: ijî/ he wolde Oswy don — oder slsn oder a-hon.

this reasoning. Can La3anion not have been familiar with
this fact because of his general culture? In the saga of the
foundation of Gloucester he also shows a certain knowledge
of the history of his country.

L. II, 40 tells us that Constantin's three uncles and his
mother were at Rome. B. A. Cott. f. 966 relates that Con-
stantin took his uncles and his mother to Rome. W. I, 269 f.
says of him:

D'aler à Rome s'apresta,
Archiers et chevaliers mena.
Trois oncles que sa mère avoit.
Que il amoit mult et creoit
Mena à Rome por chierté.

Dont fu Costantins emperère.
Et Hélaine sa bonne mère
En Jherusalem trespassa.

The conjecture presents itself that que in 1. 5830 of our
published W.-text (the third line of our quotation) is a
mistake for et. By this assumption all difficulties are remov-
ed. In the alternative case Lajamon was probably at a loss
what to do with the good lady when her son and his uncles
had gone to Rome, so he made her follow them. Besides,
the three last quoted W.-lines may have put him on the
track. Constantin was Emperor of Rome, so it would be
quite natural to infer that Helena tresfassa from Rome to
Jerusalem.

The next passage treats of Constantin's succession to
the throne of Britain. Imelmann (p. 47) says: 'L. II, 109.
Aldroein verspricht Guencelin Hilfe durch seinen Bruder
Constantin; er empfiehlt ihn und sagt:

makieö hine lauerd
ouer al Brutlondes serd.

G. W. haben von solcher Aufforderung nichts. Aber
B. A. macht Constantin's Wahl zum König zur Bedingung
für die Gewährung der Hilfe.' Imelmann probably overlooked

G. VI, 4: trado tibi constantinum fratrem meum amp; duo milia
militum ut, si deus concesserit ut patriam a barbarica irruptione

liberet, sese diademate illius insigniat...... Illum tibi cum

prefato numero committere non diffugiam si placet ut recipiatur

{i.e. as king).....grates egit archiepiscopus uocatoque Constantino

ei in hec uerba arrisit. Christus vindt ..... Ecce rex britannie

deserte. This passage explains both L. and B. A., and forms
an additional argument in favour of the theory that Lasamon
consulted the Historia.

On the subject of Constantin's death by traitor-hands
L. II, 116 f. says:

})e swike set adun
alse he wolde holden run
amp; he bah to l)an kinge
alse mon daeö of runinge.
He igrap aenne cnif swiöe long
amp; {jene king {jermid ofstong.

B. A. Cott. f. 100« has: qe fist semblant de parler od le Roy
en sa oraille et le occist tant tost de un long cotel. According to
Imelmann 'G. W. haben weder vom Flüstern, noch vom langen
Messer etwas.' It is clear however that holden run is the
translation of W. 1. 6610 Come s'il volsist consellier, and as
to the long knife, that is a mere elaboration for the sake
of rhyme of W.'s Un cotel avoit.

A similar case we meet in Imelmann's next example (p. 47):
'L. II, 228 läszt Dinabuz sagen. Merlin's Mutter sei quot;an horequot;
gewesen. W. I, 353 vacat. Aber Cott. f. 104Ô: tut sache hom
qui est vostre mere. But in W.'s lines 7560-7570 we find
every intimation necessary to suggest to Lasamon his rather
blunt way of putting the situation

1) L. II, 228: pi ntoder wes an hore — for nuste heo nxuere pene mon —
pat pe streonde hire on.

W. I, 353: Jà ton père ne nomeras — Ne tu nel'sés, ne ne saras] —
Aine ton père ne connéus — Ne tu aine père n'en éus.

The episode of the murder of Aurehus by the Saxon Appas
(L. II, 315 ff.) offers an unconvincing parallel between L.
and B. A. L. makes Appas say that he will go to his inn
and speak with his men, and that at midnight he will return
with other healing medecine. In. B A. the traitor says that
he would go out into the field till the king should wake up.
W. II, 6 says merely: Ensi fu mors, ensi fini — Et li traitres
s'anfui. G. VIII, 14 has: Interea nefandus proditor ille inter
unum S- cdium elapsus in curia nusquam comparuit. Here
was an excellent opportunity for a later Brut to elaborate
G. or W. Consequently the motivation of the traitor's dis-
appearance is in itself nothing surprising, and only if the
two accounts are entirely identical are we entitled to the
assumption that they have the same source, in other words
L. is here obviously unrelated to B. A.

Imelmann (p. 48): 'L. II, 334 f. Uther erschlägt Pascent
persönlich. G. W. sagen nichts davon. B. A.: quot;it memes de sa
main demeyne occist pascent le fiz vortigerquot;.'

This is a mere detail of a long passage (L. 11. 18022-18121)
that La3amon enlarged from about fifteen lines in W. (II, 8f.).
Madden III, 366 says of this passage: ' ... the amusing details
of Lasamon as well as the dramatic structure of the narrative,
are entirely wanting (i.e. in Wace)', and he refers especially
to La3amon's description of Irish warriors being fully
corroborated by the testimony of contemporary writers.
In such a leisurely elaboration, where everything is drama-
tized, it is only natural that La3amon should glorify Uther
by making him kiU Pascent in person. If L. agreed throughout
this long passage closely with B. A., we should be entitled
to claim a connection, which is, however, impossible under
the present circumstances.

In the next example also, Imelmann commits the funda-
mental error of basing a connection on almost a single word
(i.e. horses), which procedure, we must repeat, is especially
to be condemned in judging a poet of La3amon's type.
Here are the passages. Arthur says after his defeat of Childric:

3isles ich wulle habbë
of hsexten his monnen.
hors amp; heore wepnen
aer heo heône wenden,
and swa heo scullen wraecchen
to heoren scipen liöen.

Soon after, Childric and 24 of his noble knights come to
Arthur:

heo bi-tahten heore hors
and heore bumen.
scaftes amp; sceldes.
amp; longe heore sweordes.
al heo bi-laefden
J)at heo {jer haefden.

B. A. Cott. f. 1116 has: et se rendirent à Arthur en ceste
furme qil preist lur cheuaus , armes et quanque il eussent,
et qil purreient aler tut a pe senglement a lur neefs.
W. II, 48 f.

Consel prisent quel plait feroient,
Lor robe et lor armes lairoient;
Lor nés solement retanroient,
Et al roi ostage donroient.

Arthur accepts the covenant:

Lor nés lor a totes rendues
Et lor armes a retenues;
Et cil s'en sont mis a l'aler (i.e. en la mer).
Sans robe et sans armes porter.

Obviously, L. is a coloured translation of W., and the

55

coincidence of the horses proves absolutely nothing in this
context.

L. Ill, 87 ff. Arthur exhorts his host before the battle
against the emperor Luces. He says:

And J)is beoö tsa for-cuöeste men.

of alle quite monnen.

haeöene leode.

godd heo seondeö laöe.

ure drihten heo bi-lasueö

and to Mahune heo tuhteö.

amp; Luces Jje kasisere

of godd seolf naueö nane care.

Ijat hafueö to iueren

haöene hundes

goddes wiöer-iwinen.

Imelmann remarks: 'Dazu stellt sich B.A.: quot;Alloms,
si Us requeroms asprement en le nom de deu et occirons paens
et chrestiens aussi que se sunt done a eux pur destruire Chretiens,
et deus nos eydera qar nostre est le droit. Eoms en deu hon
esperance et fesom issi que les enemis de la christianiti, seient
morz et confunduz a Ihonnur de deu et que home puisse dire
grant bien de nostre chevaleriequot; (Cott. f. 117«). Diese Stelle
aber ist aus W. II, 206 geflossen; es ist wohl nicht anzunehmen,
L. und B. A. haben unabhängig die Verschiebung in einem
andern Zusammenhang vorgenommen.'

Although it cannot be denied that both L. and B. A. go
back to W. II, 206, it will be seen on comparison, that the
respective passages are independent elaborations of W.
B. A. for instance makes no mention of Mahun. Both L. and
B. A. probably used a W.-MS. that had transferred Hiresgas'
speech (II, 206) to Arthur (II, 193) for greater impressiveness.
This theory is supported by the fact that L. in this episode
substitutes the name RiwabUan {Beduerres suster sune —
of he^e Bruttes he wes icume) for Wace's Hiresgas, so that he
is evidently following another W.-text than the printed one,
i.e. if he is not inserting knowledge of his own.

In the anecdote of Pope Gregory and the Anglo-Saxon
prisoners at Rome, L. Ill, 180 ff, according to Wülcker and
Imelmann, differs from Bede's account (II, 1) on the following
points:

1)nbsp;In L. Gregory is already Pope; Augustin is sent to
England immediately after the meeting between Gregory
and the Anglo-Saxons.

2)nbsp;In L. the meeting is not at the forum; the prisoners
are not questioned themselves (this is an error, because
they are).

3)nbsp;Bede does not mention their number; in L. there are
three.

4)nbsp;In L. Gregory inquires only after their native country
and makes therefore only one pun.

Imelmann (p. 49): 'Diese Züge finden sich im wesentlichen
auch in B. A. : quot;Et issi demorerent longement qil ne auoient
roy corone ne christianté ne tindrent, mes demorerent -paens
longe (men)tens. Tant que saint Gregorius estait apostoille
de Rome et oit farler de Engleterre et auoit veu enfanz de la
nacion en la cite de Rome qe furent durement heaus de face
et de cors; et il se délita en eus regarder et demanda donq il
estaient et de queu naciaw, et home li dist qe de Engleterre, et
engleis furent appelez, mes paens furent et tote la terre de
Engleterre si fu paene, donq dist saint Gregorius: : 'Allas,
fest il, genz engleis qe ont mult de angle, hen deussent estre
Chretiens' Et enuea seint Austin en engleterre ad quarante
compaignansquot;.' (Cott. f. 121a).

Though it is quite clear that there are too many differences
for L. to be based directly on Bede II, 1, yet it must be
equally apparent, that the same difficulty obtains in the
case of L. and B. A. First, B. A. like Bede says nowhere
that there are only three Anglo-Saxons. Second, in B. A.
as in Bede, Gregory does not question the slaves themselves,
but home lidist. Third, the Anglo-Saxons' statement that they
will accept baptism, if they are freed, is found in L. only.
Fourth, in L. the pope inquires not only after their law

and land, but also of pissere leodene kinge, which is of
course a reminiscence of the pun on King Aella. Fifth,
L. is the only one to tell us that Gregory set the Anglo-Saxons
free and baptized them. It will need no further argument,
that the disparity between L. and B. A. is hardly less
important than that between L. and Bede, so that we cannot
agree with Imelmann's supposition that L. and B. A. have
a common source. Now it is to be observed, that L.'s account
strongly bears the stamp of oral tradition: the story has
been simphfied, the subtle points have dropped out, and
the frame-work has been nicely padded up. That the story
enjoyed great popularity is neither doubtful nor surprising,
and is even testified by Bede II, 1. We believe therefore,
that Lasamon took the story from oral tradition, while
B. A., which is in somewhat closer agreement with Bede,
may or may not be based on popular tradition.

In his next chapter, Imelmann discusses the Mort Arthur,
a 14th century English poem usually ascribed to the Scot
Huchown, and its relation to W. and L. Imelmann observes
that Arthur's dream of Modred's treason occurs in: 1) L. Ill,
117 ff., 2) Malory ed. Sommer III, 383 f., 3) Le Morte Arthur!
E. E. T. S. LXXXVIII, 96, stanzas 398-400., 4) Vulgate
Lancelot, Sommer III, 266 f. He remarks that nos. 2 and 3
are based, according to J. D. Bruce, on the Vulgate Lancelot,
resp. its source, and proceeds to give as his opinion, that L.
must be based on a Wace-version influenced by the Lancelot.
This theory he supports by the following points:

1)nbsp;'Zufall in der Aehnlichkeit ist ausgeschlossen.' At the
same time Lajamon's account of the dream is so different
from the other three, so simple and archaic and so little
romantic, that he must have found it in a Brut, not in a
Romance.

2)nbsp;An essential trait of the dream in L. cannot hail from
the Lancelot, but only from the 7th book of the Historia.
This is a reference to L. 11. 28064-28080, where Arthur is
seized by a lion, taken into the sea and brought to land again

by a fish, which hnes may be based on G. VII, 3 Catuli
leonis in aequoreos pisces transformabuntur and G. VII, 4
Orietur in illis leo humano cruore turgidus. Fiet deinde
piscis in aequore.

Now if we compare the contents of the dream and the time
at which it occurs, we shall at once realize that borrowing
is out of the question i).

La3amon then, tells us that Arthur is still in Burgundy
when having the dream. He knows nothing yet
of Modred's treason, when a Knight comes to
him with tidings about it. Throughout the night Arthur lies
talking to this messenger, but the latter will not tell him
the situation. In the morning Arthur looks exceedingly
ill and on being asked the cause by his knights, explains
that he has had a foreboding dream (which is rather contrary
to the previous statement that he has been talking all night).
He dreamt that men raised him upon a hall, which he bestrode
as if he were on horseback, while Walwain sat before him,
sword in hand. Then approached Modred with a great host
and began to hew down the posts of the hall, while Wenhaver,
his queen, drew down the hall with her hand. The hall fell
to the ground and so did the two occupants. Arthur broke
his right arm, Walwain both his. Nothing daunted, however,
Arthur took his sword in his left hand and smote off Modred's
head, after which he proceeded to cut the queen to pieces
and put her in a black pit. His people fled and Arthur all
at once found himself wandering over the moors. Suddenly
a golden lion approached over the downs, seized him and

1) To quote Madden III, 406: 'This long passage affords us one of the
most striking instances of amplification that occurs throughout the
poem. The narrative of the dream, and the dramatic character given to
the subsequent conversation between Arthur and the messenger, as
well as the address of Arthur to his nobles, and the indignant speech
of Walwain, are all due to the imagination of the English paraphrast,
and fairly support his claim, in this and other instances, to the rank of
an original writer.'

dragged him into the sea, where the waves separated them.
Finally Arthur was brought to land by a fish, at which he
awakes, trembling as if on fire. Then, after some discussion,
the messenger tells him that his dream was true, and that
Modred has taken Wenhaver to be his queen.

The dream, as it is found in Malory and Le Morte Arthur,
happens under quite different circumstances and is of an
entirely different nature. Arthur has heard of
Modred's treason and crosses to England. On his
way to Wales he stops at Salisbury, where a great
many knights join him and his cause. There is to be a battle
after the Trinity feast. Upon Trinity Sunday at night the
King dreams that he sits in a chair fastened to a wheel
above a hideous deep black water, wherein are all manner
of serpents, worms and wild beasts. Then the wheel turns,
Arthur falls into the water and every beast takes him by a
limb. At this juncture he cries for help and is awakened
by his knights.

We see from this, that time and place as well as conditions
differ materially in the two versions, in fact, so much so
that any attempt to prove a connection must appear unsafe.
The dream as related by Lasamon clearly falls into two parts:

1)nbsp;Arthur sits on the ridge of the hall, is pulled down by
Modred and Wenhaver, and takes a barbarous revenge.

2)nbsp;Arthur's wanderings and meeting with the lion and
the fish.

The first is an intelligible allegory and was probably invented
by Lasamon himself, the second is obscure and possibly
based on G. VII. Though the reason for this curious com-
bination is hard to find out, it would be just as strange in a
French as in the English work. The clearly archaic and rude
flavour of the story, added to the fact that it is found
nowhere else, favours the hypothesis that Lasamon is the
inventor of it. Influence of the Prose-Lancelot on La3amon's
French Brut-version is hardly probable, in view of the fact
that 'no one has ever claimed for the Lancelot an earlier

date than the last decade of the twelfth century — generally
it is dated later —' i), so that, under the most favourable
circumstances, Lasamon's French version ought to have
been influenced and written between 1200 and 1205, and then
passed straight to England. Finally, should there be any
connection in the fact that L., as well as two or three other
works, make mention of a dream, this would entail similarity
of contents. As, however, the English priest's work is far
superior (by its introduction of dramatic premonition and
the finer use of allegory), there can exist no two opinions as
to Lasamon's vindication.

Concerning the two knights surviving with Arthur after
the battle of Camlan, it may be observed that the tradition
that others beside Arthur survived, is not only to be found
in the prose-Lancelot, but also in the Welsh triads so that
there is no need to assume for certain, that this item reached
Lasamon through French channels. This seems to be corrobo-
rated by the fact that L. does not name the knights, whereas
the French version calls them Lucans li boutelliers and
Gyfles. Undoubtedly Lasamon would never have omitted
an opportunity to insert a couple of names. It seems to us
that Lasamon is following an oral tradition, the same
tradition probably that underlies Walter Map's statement
in the prose-Lancelot. For Map, as the name already indicates,
(Welsh: map = son) was of Welsh descent. He speaks about
the Welsh as: Compatriote nostri Walenses ®) and of himself
as living on the marches of Wales (marchio sum Walensibus ).
Therefore it is quite conceivable that Lasamon and Map,
who were contemporaries and were both living on the Welsh
marches, introduced the same tradition independent of each
other.

1)nbsp;Ev. of A. R. I, 369.

2)nbsp;cf. Madden III, 409.

») Walter Map: De Nugis Curialium II, 20.
*) ib. II, 23.

Imelmann, p. 58, cites the episode of Gawain's death in
L. Ill, 131 and M. A., as pointing to a common French
source, i.e. for M. A. the Lancelot, for L. a Wace-version
influenced by the Lancelot. L. tells us that Arthur lands in
Romney, where he is awaited by Modred; some fight on shore,
some launch their spears from the ships, (thus far L. agrees
with W.). Walwain goes before and clears the way. He slays
eleven thanes, among whom Childric's son, and is subsequently
killed himself. In M. A. Gawain jumps into the water and
makes an attack in which he is killed by Modred. W. 11.
13495-13507 tells us about a sally from the boats and says:
Ocis i fu Gavains ses niés. Is it too fantastic to suggest
that L. and M. A. are mutually independent elaborations of W. ?

Lastly, we are prepared to assume with Imelmann that
some names of pagan deities, as e. g. Apollin and Tervagant
(L. II, 157), may have crept into a W.-MS., but this need
not have been a Wace-Gaimar version i). For the rest, it
would be nothing strange if Lasamon, being a priest, had
heard or read of these heathen gods and introduced them of
his own accord. In this he would concur with Robert
Mannyng

In his next chapter Imelmann discusses the Middle English
romance of Arthur and Merlin (E), which according to him
goes back to a French version, representing an intermediate
stage between Wace and Robert de Boron. However, as
Biilbring has shown ®), E. cannot lay claim to representing

1) It may be observed here, that Imelmann is inconsistent, when he
says at the end of this chapter about the contents of the younger Wace-
version: 'Dasz dieser Inhalt aber aus mehr als einer litterarischen Quelle
geflossen ist und schon deshalb die Arbeit der Redaktion einem ein-
zelnen Manne — der Normannisch schrieb — zuzuschreiben ist, wird
in den nächsten Abschnitten darzulegen sein.' This is clearly in conflict
with his previously expressed opinion that medieval writers (i.e. La3a-
mon) used only one source,
cf. p. 90.

Engl. Stud. XVI, 251 ff.

such a stage, and the L.-E. parallels, impugnable already,
lose consequently all value.

Neither do we think has Imelmann succeeded in providing
a convincing proof of a common source for Jean de Waurin's
Chroniques et istoires and La3amon's Brut (ch. VIII).

Wn. 174 Adjonet.Ajonet—-L. II, 67 ff. Adionard can prove
nothing except that both committed the error of attracting
the preposition à to the name.

Wn. 177 in relating Gratian's death has: sy sassamblerent
une foiz une grant tourbe de villains lesquelz lespierent a un
passage, ou ilz le misrent tout par pieces et par morseaux.
L., on the other hand, has a long story of 75 lines to tell about
the rising of the churls of East-Anglia under their leaders
Eôelbald and Aelfwald. They ask the nobles where the king
is and are told he is hunting. Then all except two hide
themselves. These two lure the king towards them by
promising to show him a wonderful boar, and when he comes,
they kill him: pus Gracien pe king — ut wende an hontinge.

G. VI, 1 has: Catervis factis irruerunt in eum plebani et
interfecerunt, which W. I, 290 renders as:

Et li vilain s'acompagnièrent
A grant torbes, si s'en vengièrent.
Tot l'ont par pièces detrancié.
Comme mastin leu esragié.

It must be clear, that neither Wn., nor G. nor W. can have
been the type of L.'s highly dramatic passage. Accordingly
we suggest that La3amon was here inserting an old English
tradition, which would account for the anachronism of the
two Anglo-Saxon names.

That 'L. und Wn. bisweilen Namen einschallen, wo G. und
W. schweigen' does not prove much as long as the names
are not identical. It is merely a trait which they have in
common with most of the later Arthurian works. Imelmann's
example: 'Wn. 425 Manussa, roy de Babillonie; L. Ill, 104

nennt Gecron Sohn des Admirals von Babylonien. G. W.
haben hier überhaupt keinen Namen' carries no weight
whatever. The only point of agreement between the two
works that remains, is a detail from the Hirelgas and Evelin
episode: L. and Wn. both intimate that Hirelgas was
intentionally killed. This one concurrence in two
such large works can, however, hardly vindicate Imelmann's
theory.

Chapter IX of Imelmann's work discusses MS.Reg.
13 A. XXI (British Museum) = R., which contains Wace's
poem. Some 7000 lines however, from 1. 52 to Arthur's birth
are wholly different from W., and it is this part of the
manuscript that Imelmann compares with L. Before discussing
it, we wish to emphasize the fact, that this MS., which breaks
off at Arthur's birth, offers no points of comparison for the
subsequent period, which deprives it of a great deal of its
value, since the additions in L. are especially then numerous
and important for our purpose. The paralells given by
Imelmann are in some cases of slight significance, whilst in
others the quotations do not convey the right impression i)

R. 44i.

Idunc venent a gades,
U sunt les postes hercules.
Trestut i durent periller
Tant i trouent sereine de mer.
Quant il ne poent suffrir la guere
Hastiuement traent a tere.

L. 1,56 f.

1) In the first example (p. 66 f.) given by Imelmann without comment,
it is difficult to see where exactly the L.-R. agreement must be sought. On
the contrary, as the present writer sees it, L. is in clear agreement with
W. (cf. for example: W. Grant merveille li a sambU = L. seolcud him
puhte).

{ja comen heo to Jsan bunnen
{ja Hercules makede....
{)at weoren post(l)es stronge....
heo drowen toward hauene,
to |Dan londe heo ferden.

From these two passages Imelmann infers an 'Anklang
L.-R.', however, on flimsy grounds. The fact is that Imelmann,
by leaving out a great many lines, gives an entirely wrong
impression of the L.-text, which agrees virtually much more
closely with W. than with R. It is clear that the first three
lines of the L.-quotation are a free translation of W. 11.
727-733:

Siglé ont et passé mult près
Des bornes que fist Herculès,
Une colombe qu'il fiça;
Ce fu uns signes qu'il mostra
Que de si là avoit conquis
Où il avoit ces piler mis.

After this, L. like W. narrates the story of the Sirens.
The seafarers effect a hazardous escape and proceed on their
way. After a while, the man at the helm sights Spain, and
then only follow the lines which in Imelmann's quotation
have such a deceptive effect (11. 1352-1355):

Heo drowen toward hauene
haleôes weoren bliôe.
To J)an londe heo ferden.
l)er heo leof folc funden
feouwer Jjrum ferden.

It vdll be obvious, that these lines form a free translation
of Wace's:

Et joste Espagne trespassèrent.
Là trouvèrent, à un rivage,
Des Troyens de lor hgnage
Quatre grans générations.

The point to be observed is that this landing, made after
the escape from the Sirens, differs essentially from the one
in R., where it takes place under the compulsion of the
Sirens, in other words L. is based on W. here.

The following five parallels are wholly unconvincing and
due to a purely accidental similarity in the choice of words
between L. and R., while it is evident that in every case L.
is a more or less free translation of W.

R. 566.

Kar euelins lui tolt Iesp6e

Si len donat mortel colee.

This agrees in so far with L., that it represents Hirelgas as
purposely killed and not accidentally as in W. But in L.
Euelin does not snatch the sword from his opponent, but
from a man who just passes, which agrees fairly well with
G. IV, 8. Imelmann himself observed this also, but because
in his opinion L. had made no use of Geoffrey's Historia,
he attributed this trait to L.'s Norman source.

On p. 70 Imelmann says: ' L. II, 61 erzählt die Gründung
von Coningsburh durch Conan Meriadoc, wovon Wace
schweigt. Die Stadt wird später (II, 264) wiedergenannt, als
Hengest dahin flieht. Bei dieser Gelegenheit macht R. 12b
die Notiz, die aus dem früheren Zusammenhang hierher geraten
zu sein scheint:

(A son chastel done sen tumat)

Ke kair conan apelat;

Conengesburc nous lapelom.

The supposition that this remark should be based on an
earlier passage is untenable. Firstly, R. does not mention the
building of Coningsburg any more than W., and secondly,
the above-quoted lines are but an expanded translation of
W. 1. 7971: A Cimigesbur vint fognant (other MSS. -.Comanger-
burc, Coninghebort). The line in R. Ke Kair conan apelat
was probably taken from G. VIII, 5 oppidum Kaerconan

quod nunc Cunungeborg afpellatur. There is nothing that
points to this R.-passage having been transferred from
an earher place. La3amon probably threw in this item from
his own knowledge, just as he did in the case of the foundation
of Gloucester.

Imelmann continues 'L. II, 72 f. antwortet Adionard in
direkter Rede auf Conan's Gesuch, W. I, 284 gar nicht.
R. 64è hat das Gesuch selbst in direkter Rede:

Li reis coneins mariodoc
Salue son ami dionot.
Ore te prie io par amur
Ta fille me dune a uxor
E si menveiez muillers
A mes barons (e) a mes terres.

Das Gesuch ist bei L. gleich kurz. Eine Antwort darauf
fehlt auch in R. Aber es heiszt hier:

Sachez que mult en fut lez
Dionetes cum vit le bref.
Sa fille lui ad apreste
Ke vrselete fust apele.

Damit vergleiche, was L. unmittelbar auf die Antwort
folgen läszt: pa ^arkede Adionard .... his dohter Ursaele.

Though this sounds rather plausible, it will be seen on
closer scrutiny, that there can be no question of L.-R.
agreement here.

1)nbsp;In L. Conan merely sues for Athionard's daughter,
and does not ask for a great number of maidens to give in
marriage to his soldiers, as in G., W. and R.

2)nbsp;In L. Athionard gives a fairly long answer to Conan's
suit, and promises to send his daughter and all the women
that Maximian gave him.

{jider heo scullen liöen

3if heo wuUeö libben.

oöer ich heom wuUen alle for-don

amp; bi {jan tittê an-hon.

R. and W. agree against L. in having no response to Conan's
appHcation, nor does it seem likely that Lasamon fomid
this answer in any French Brut. The stark language makes
us suspect that he is elaborating in his own Germanic way.

3)nbsp;L. differs from R. in having the suit (like W.) in
indirect speech

4)nbsp;L. does not say in so many words that Adionard was
glad at the request, while the lines about the equipment of
his daughter need not be traced to R., but may find their
origin in W. I. 6162 f.: Cil li a sa fille envoii — Et a grant
riquece otroiS. Besides, it is perfectly natural that Adionard
should prepare his daughter for the voyage, so that a peri-
phrastic poet, as L. undoubtedly was, might even have
inserted it without any clue in the W.-text to lead him on.

Here follows the last example of this chapter 2):

L. 1.11922 ff.: Conan sende to pis serd — to pan eorle Adionard.

amp;• bed pat he him ^eue — his dohter to quene.
W. 1.6150 ff.: Ains a fait Clionos requerre,
Qui en garde avoit Engleterre,
Que il sa fille li donast.
Imelmann's last example but one need not be discussed, as it must
be obvious to anyone who approaches the question without bias, that
there is absolutely no need to look for a source outside Wace.

Une semaine i avoit mis
Que il ne pot le castel prendre

Ut iurs i sunt plenerement.

Fülle seouen nihte
Jje king mid his cnihten
bitei Ijene castel.

Suchlike petty verbal resemblances can never afford any reasonable
clue. If Imelmann had discovered a parallel to the description of the
love-scene just mentioned, the Argante-episode, the description of the
storm befalling Ursele and her maidens, it would have carried conviction,
which trifles like these do not.

w. II, 26:

En Tyntaeol le soir entrèrent.
Cil qui connoistre le quidèrent
Les ont receus et servis
Et la nuit durement jois.
Mult par estoient bien venu
Et a lor seignour l'ont tenu.

R. 776:

Al chastel si sunt venut
Un poi devant qu'anuté fut.
Li porters vit li duc venir,
Mult tost li veit la porte ouerir
Bien quidat que co fust li sire.
Si n'el osât contre dire.

L. II, 373:

heo comen to {jas castles 33ete
amp; cuôliche cleopeden:
Undo Jjis 3aEt essel.
Jje eorl is icumen here
Gorlois J5e laeuerd:
amp; Britael his stiwaxd
and Jurdan {je burcniht:
we habbeoô ifaren al niht.
{je 3aeteward hit cudde ouer al:
amp; cnihtes umen uppen wal:
and speken wiô Gorlois:
and hine icneowen mid iwis.
jja cnihtes weoren swide whaete
and wefden up {ja castles 3aete.

On comparing these passages we see that the only fact
L. and R. have in common, is the appearance of a gateward.
The differences between L. and R. are:

1)nbsp;R. has no request to open the gate, L. has.

2)nbsp;In R. the porter opens the gate, in L. he calls the

knights, by whom the gate is opened. In W. Uther and his
company are received by Cil qui connoistre le quidèrent.

Further it is to be observed, that L. has greatly elaborated
the love-episode between Uther-Gorlois and Ygerne. W.
is very concise;

Li rois à Ygeme se jut
Et Ygeme la nuit conçut
Le bon roi, le fort, le séur
Que vous oês nomer Artur.

But L. 1) spends more than 50 lines in giving us a charming
picture of Ygerne's graceful innocence, by insisting several
times that she did not know of Uther's deceit. Again, in L.
Uther-Gorlois explains his presence by saying:

and ich aem bi nihte
bi-stole from J)an fihte.
for sefter Jje ic wes of-longed,
wifmonne })u aert me leofuest.

If we now compare G. VIII, 19, we shaU see that L. is in
substantial agreement with it: Commansit itaque rex ea
nocte cum ygerna. amp; sese desiderata uenere refecit. Deceperat
namque illam falsa specie quam assumpserai. Deceperat
etiam ficticiis sermonibus quos ornate componebai. Dicebai
enim se egressum esse furtim ab obsesso oppido ut sibi tam
dilecte rei atque oppido suo disponeret. Unde ipsa credula
nichil quod poscebatur abnegauit. Here we have another
instance to corroborate the view that Lajamon did make
use of the Historia.

In his tenth chapter Imelmann considers the so-called
Münchener Brut ( M. B.), which is a French Brut-fragment
ending with the Leir-episode, and supposed by Gröber to
represent the lost part of Gaimar's Brut, the so-caUed

u. 19015—19068.

Gaimar I. Imelmann's aim is twofold: first he wants to
prove a connection between M. B. and R. as well as between
M. B. and L.; secondly, he is out to prove that R. is based
on Gaimar, and L. on a compilation of Wace-Gaimar. His
opening statement defeats its own purpose: 'Da Lä3. zu R.
resp. dessen Vorlage in Beziehung steht, zo musz diese noch
dem 12. Jahrhundert angehören. Nach 1155 hatte eine dem
Brut des Wace Konkurrenz machende Reimchronik nach
Galfrid wenig Aussicht auf Erfolg. So ist von vornherein
wahrscheinlich, dasz der durch R. repräsentierte Brut
schon vor 1155 unabhängig von Wace gedichtet wurde.'
Obviously the same argument would apply to Wace's Brut,
if before it a similar work had been composed, and in
consequence Imelmann's argument becomes futile.

Let us now consider the parallels given by Imelmann in
proof of an M.B.-R. connection.

M. B. 441:

VII mil estoient bacheleir
Ki pooient armes porteir
Estre femes et estre enfanz
Dunt il n'estoit encor nus granz.

R. 41amp;:

VII mil furent combatanz
Estre femmes e enfanz.

Imelmann observes: 'Hier scheint R. aus M. B. verkürzt.'
However, it may be argued with equal probability, that R.
gives here an abridged version of W. I, 10:

Entr'ax avoit bien six milliers
De bons et de prous chevalliers
Estre geudes, estre sergans.
Et estre famés, et enfans.

M. B. 3556:

Puis que Leir fut enteixeiz
N'est il mie lonstens passeiz
Qu'Aganippus est devieiz
Ki rois de France estoit clameiz.

R. 49i:

Entre itant morut Aganippus
Reis de France qui tant fud pruz
Puis quant Leir fust deuiez
En leycestre est enterrez.

This example proves, if anything, that R. and M. B. have
no common source. M. B. gives first Leir's death and a long
description of the funeral preparations, after which follows
Aganippus' death as related in the lines quoted. R. however,
inverts the order of events i).

Next we come to the M.B.-L. parallels. Imelmann aUeges
M. B. 91 ff.:

Si cum I'ystorie nos devise.
Quant Menelaus out Troie prise....
Fui s'en sunt de Troie fors....
P)TTUs mena Helain en Grecie.

and says: 'Wace nennt Menelaus nicht, obwohl er an
M. B. anklingt ... Aber Las. I. 4 spricht von Menelaus quene.'
If we compare the full texts of W. and L., we shall again
come to the conclusion, that there is no need to assume
a source different from W.

W. I, 1 ff.:

Si com li livres le devise
Quant Griu orent Troie conquise
Et escilUé tot le pais
Por la venjance de Paris
Qui de Gresse ravi Hélaine,
etc.

») The other two examples belong to the categoiy of insignificant
verbal resemblances without any conclusive force.

L. I, 4 ff.:

{ja Grickes hefdë Troye
mid teone bi-wone.
amp; pat lond iwest
amp; {)a leoden of-slawen
amp; for t)e wrake-dome
of Menelaus qene
and Elene was ihoten
alöeodisc wif.
|)a Paris Alixandre
mid pret wrenche bi-won.

It appears that L. mentions Menelaus only accidentally
as Helena's husband, as everyone (even an English country-
priest) who is at all acquainted with the legend of Troy,
may be supposed to know. However, the essential point is,
that L. and W. agree against M. B. in mentioning the Greeks
as the ravagers of Troy.

M. B. 533 ff:

Quant Pandras ot lit I'escrit
Forment s'est iriez, puis a dit:
Mult me desturbe en mun corage
Dunt est venue iceste rage
Qu'il aine orent cel hardement
De moi mandeir teil mandement.

L. I, 21 ff:

Jje king nom Jjat writ on hond,
amp; he hit wroöliche biheold ....
Jja he alles spac,
mid {jraete he spUede ....

Obviously the only agreement is between iriez and wrodliche
which is nothing wonderful. The W.-text is here as follows:

W. I, 13:

Li rois a le brief escoté;
Grant merveiUe U a samblé
Que li Troyen se révelent
Et que de francise l'apelent.
Fol hardiment, ce dit, ont pris;
Et en foie oevre se sont mis.

The hnes left out in Imelmann's quotation of L. happen to
agree very well with W. After biheold we read:

seolcuS him Jjuhte
swulcere speche.
Jja he alles spac
mid Jjraete he spUede
To wroljer heore hele
habbeS heo such were idon.

In other words, an M.B.-L. connection is not proved by this
example. Nor is such the case in the following lines, describing
how much trouble the Sirens caused to the voyagers:

M. B. 1280 ff:

(les Seraines) Ki mult lur funt ahans et paines

Mais nonporquant par grant labor
Sunt eschapei d'icel estor.

Jja mereminnen heom to swommen
on alchare sidan;
swide heo heom leiten
mid luöere heora craften.
Nedelas Brutus at-braec ....
his scipen runden swiöe ....

Not M. B. but W. 11. 734, 750, 751, 769, 770 form the basis
for swide heo heom leiten i). As for the word nedelas, it fits
so obviously into the course of the story, it is so perfectly
natural here, that we need not be surprised to find it in the
French as well as in the English text. We daresay one could

W. 1. 734.

(Seraines) Qui lor nés ont mult destorbées
1. 750, 751.

Par mainte fois as nés s'aerdent
Et tant les tiènent et demarent....

1. 769, 770.

A lor nés entor s'aeerdoient
A bien près noier nés feisoient.

find more of these verbal similarities, but should not our
common sense warn us not to attach any importance to
them in cases where they are so self-evident as in the present?

M. B. 2768 ff.:

D'une rien fut en desturbier
Quax il n'out heir de sa muilier
Forsque trois files honoreies
De sens et de beautei loeies.

L. I, 124:

l)e king hefde J)reo dohtren
bi his drihliehe quen;
nefde he nenne sune
— Jjerfore he warö sari —
J)a manscipe to halden
buten t)a Ijreo dohtren.

Trois files ot, n'ot nul aJtre oir
ne plus ne pot enfant avoir.

The superficial similarity between M. B.'s first and L.'s
fourth line forms too slight evidence on which to base a
relation. The hypothetical source that Imelmann is con-
structing here from W., M. B. and R., has about as much
value as Schleicher's translation of Aesop's fables into
Indo-Germanic.

M. B. 2784 ff.:

Mais cele avra meilor partie
Ki d'eles trois plus est s'amie,
Entresait vult primes savoir
U puet greinnor fiance avoir,
Et la quele plus I'amera,
En quele mains s'afiera.

L. 1,125:

Ac aerst ic wille fondien
whulchere beo mi beste freond
and heo seal habbe fat beste del
of mine drihlichen lon{d).

w. I, 82:

Mais primes voloit essaier
La quel d'eles l'avoit plus chier.
Le mius del siens doner volroit.
A cele qui plus l'ameroit.

It must strike the reader at once that L. certainly does not
make the impression of a cross between W. and M. B. The
entire first line in W. and L. is equivalent, while the remaining
lines in L. are a free translation of W. Imelmann calls
attention to M. B. meilor partie — L. pat beste del, which,
as nobody can deny, agrees exactly; but after all is not there
a greater resemblance between W. le mius del siens and L.
pat heste del of mine drihlichen londl

W. I, 82:

Gonorille li a juré

Du ciel tote la déité

Mult par fu plaine de boisdie —

Qu'ele l'aime mius que sa vie.

M. B. 2804 ff.:

Sire, fait ele, a moi entent,
N'i mentirai a essient.
Droiz est que tu aies m'amor.
Mes cuer t'aime par grant dulchor.
Si n'i a puint de fausetei;
Del ciel t'en jur la deïtei:
Assez plus aim lo cors de toi
Que je ne fac ra(r)me de moi.

L. I, 126:

Leofe faeder dure,
swa bide ich godes are,
swa helpe me Apollin,
for min ilaefe is al on him
Jjat leuere Jjeo aert me aene
Jjane {)is world al clane;
Jjeou aert leouere Jjene mi lif; = W.
amp; Jjis ich suege ^e to seoôe,
Iju mith me wel ileue.

Imelmann observes (p. 80): 'L. hat mit M. B. die direkte
Rede, die Weitschweifigkeit, die Anrufung der Götter, die
Beteurung der Wahrheit gemeinsam; dasz gleichzeitig
Anklänge an W. und R. vorhegen, legt die Annahme nahe,
auch hier beruhe L. auf einem Texte, der aus W. und einem
andern Brut zusammengeschweiszt war.' As may be seen
from the preceding as well as from numerous other examples,
Lasamon uses direct speech wherever he can; the first
argument consequently collapses. Nor does the fullness
of detail furnish any proof. W. often stands in the same
relation to G. without ever having been suspected of following
a different source. That M. B. and L. are independent
elaborations is shown by the fact that not one line in the
two passages is identical. As to the invocation of the gods,
M. B. and W. agree and it is only L. who elaborates.

W. I, 83 Ragau says:

.... chertainement
Jo t'aim sor tote criature.

L. I, 127 f.:

AI l)at is on liue
nis me swa dure
swa me is Jjin an Ume
foröe min ah3ene lif.

'L. kann hier nicht aus W. geworden sein.' (Im. p. 80).

Imelmann's conception on this point seems capable of
considerable adjustment, if we remember what he says on
p. 2 regarding the Kimbelin-Taliesin episode. At any rate,
a comparison of the two texts informs us, that L. agrees
with W. up to the words pin an lime etc., which are evidently
an expansion of t'aim. Imelmann's supposition that Ragau's
answer was taken from Gonorilla's in M. B., is both illogical
and unnecessary

1) Imelmann's next example (condition for Cordeilla's marriage) we
shaU not here discuss, as this has been done on p. 48 f. L. of alle mine
londe is not based on M.B. 2973. N'i avra terre ne avoir as Imehnann
suggests, but on W. tot son raine.

Here follow Imelmann's next parallels; for the reader's
convenience we add his marginalia:

W. I, 88:

Al roi Léir de recief mande
Que nul avoir ne li demande.
Mais seul sa fille li otroit,
Cordéille, si li envoit.

M. B. 2994:

Lo roi Leïr par els remande
Qu'od sa fille rien ne demande.
Mais la pucele seulement,
Quar asseiz a or et argent,
Possessiuns et grant poissance.
Sue est la tierce parz de France,
Ne li quiert eil que la meschine.
De li voldra faire roine ....

L. 1,136.11. 3205 and 3209-3217:

Ich eam riche mon inohnbsp;= M.B.

t)at na mare ich ne recche; ....

ac ich heo wulle habben

to ♦ haesere are quene.nbsp;= M.B.

Habbe heore fader al is lond,

al his seoluer and is gold,nbsp;= M.B.

ne bidde ich nanne maâmes,nbsp;- M.B.

me seolf ich habbe ino3e,nbsp;= M.B.

but t)at maeiden Cordoille;nbsp;= M.B.

Jjenne haebbe ich mine wille.

We must first draw attention to the fact that M. B. is here
in close agreement with G. II, 11: Cumque id aganippo
nuntiaium fuisset amore uirginis inflammatus, remisit iterum
ad leirem Tegetn. dicens se satis auri et aygenti. aliaruinque
possessionem habere, quia terciam partem galliae possidebat.
Se uero tantum modo puellam captare ut heredes ex ilia haberet,
and as we know that Lasamon occasionally referred to G.
Imelmann's argument is much invahdated i).

1) Moreover, L. 3210 may have been suggested by W. 1875 f.; L. 3212
refers to Leir, M.B. 2997 however to Aganippus himself; L. 3213 and
3217 occur also in W. and are consequently of no value for Imelmann's
argument.

Imelmann draws attention to M. B. 3005 f.:

Li message furent creable
Riche baruns, haut et raisnable.

and says: 'Bei Wace findet sich davon nichts.' Nor, as a
matter of fact, do we find anything of the kind in L., who,
if we may judge by his line he sende eft to pisse londe was
translating W. Al rot de recief mande, and is thus much

shorter than M. B.

Finally Imelmann sees a confirmation of his views in the

following:

W. I, 98:

Puis a cing ans tenu I'onor,
Mais ja ert veuve, sans signor.

M. B. 3555 ff.:

Puis que Leïr fu enterreiz.
N'est il mie luns tens passeiz
Qu'Aganippes est devieiz,
Ki rois de France estoit clameiz.
Granz dois en vint a sa muillier
Ki Bretanie ot a justisier.
CordeïUe fu en se honor.
Cine ans la tint par grant vigor.
Garda la terre dulcement
Et si regna paisiublement.

L. 1, 158 f.:

And Cordoille heold l)is lond

mid hae3ere strenôe

fülle fif 3ere

quene heo wes here.

t)a while Francene Mng

faeisiöe makede;

and Cordoille com {jat wourd

Jjat heo was iworöen widewe.

Against the assumption of an L.-M.B. agreement points
the fact that in M. B. Aganippus' death precedes CordeiUe's
reign in point of time, whereas both W. and L. relate the
events in reversed order. Besides, the word widewe {= W.

veuve) does not occur at all in M. B. In view of other
elaborations, it is not at aU doubtful that L. is based here
on W.

We hope to have shown in the preceding, that Imelmann's
theory rests on insecure foundations, and can therefore not
claim to be acceptable. The unequivocal result of our
criticism relieves us of the necessity of further collating
the sources mentioned in this chapter, with Lasamon. We
have seen that Imehnann's instances sometimes consist of
petty verbal similarities of an entirely accidental kind,
while at other times they are based on an imperfect represen-
tation of the W.-text, and at all times show a neglect of
Lasamon's own creative imagination and his use of Geoffrey's
Historia. It is highly significant that Imelmann has been
practically unable to furnish a single French parallel for the
more important deviations and elaborations in the English
work, such as the Kimbelin-Taliesin episode, the foundation
of Gloucester, the voyage of Oriene and her eleven thousand
companions, the rebellion of the churls of East-Anglia,
Arthur's birth and his translation to Avalon, the account of
Arthur's weapons, and numerous others. Accordingly we
deem it rather bold to say (Im. p. 84): 'wir wissen woher die
grösseren Einschaltungen des Englischen Dichters stammen,
die besonders für die zentralen Partien seines Werkes
charakteristisch sind,' implying that they hail from a twice
elaborated Wace. Rather than trying to find perforce one
single but unproved source for the English Brut, we should
be content to return to the older opinions in a slightly
modified form. For there is one more objection to the above-
mentioned theory, viz. one of time. If we accept the view
that first of all Wace and Gaimar were amalgamated and that
this work was subsequently influenced by the French
Tristan poem and the Prose Lancelot, the time meted out
for this process is rather inadequate i). The composition

1) cf. p. 60 f.

R = MS. Regius 13 A XXI (Br. Mus) containing Wace's Brut.
80

of such a compilation would certainly have occupied a very
considerable time, and it does not look very plausible, on
the face of it, that two such voluminous works as the hypo-
thetical Wace-Gaimar and La3amon's Brut should have been
produced in a span of say five years. This argument is of
essential value and must therefore not be underrated.

In his Nachprüfung, Imelmann tests his theory on a few
points. It will appear, however, that a consistent application
of this test proves fatal to it.

1)nbsp;The Wace-Gaimar compilation must have had approxi-
mately the same bulk as L., e.g. in the Leir-episode W. has
403 hues, M. B. 817 and L. 831, and because much that W.
and M. B. had in common, dropped out, the compilation
need not have exceeded M. B., according to Imelmann.
It will not be necessary to insist that this sort of argument
is wholly futile. What, for instance, is the standard by which
we are to judge the length? And, more important, if the
number of lines accidentally agrees according to this vague
standard, L. may very well prove to have inserted speeches,
motives etc. that do not occur either in W. or M. B. In fact,
this is actually the case in the Leir-episode as we shall see.

2)nbsp;'Pecuharities of the English Brut not to be explained
by W. must find their origin in Gaimar.' Among these
Imelmann reckons Lasamon's predilection for direct speech,
which he shares with M. B. But this would appear so natural
in any paraphrast of Wace's rather dry chronicle, that
Lasamon certainly needs no French work to authorize him
for doing so. Even the slightest importance we should be
inclined to attach to it, is eliminated by the fact that M. B.
and L. very often disagree in the use of direct speech i).
The only reasonable conclusion is that L., though sharing
a common tendency with other Bruts, is far from dependent
on them.

1) In the W.- L.- M.B. parallels given by Imelmann there are two in
which L. and M.B. have direct speech against W. indirect speech, but
three where L. is the only text to give direct speech.

3) Traits in L. that are absent in W. and reducible to
Gaimar, must reappear in representatives of the younger
W.-version, e. g. Leir's condition, his rage over GonerU's
treatment, etc.

W. I, 91.

Et li pères se desdaigna
Grant avillance li sambla
Qu'ensi I'avait-on fait desœndre.

B. A. Quant ceo fust fest leyr deuint si dolent qe sa condicion
fu issi empeire et qom li tint si vil, qu'il ne sauoit qe dire.
(Cott. f. 86a).

M. B. 3090 ff.

Puis I'unt al roi Leïr mostrei
Ne li est pas venu en grei;
A poi que il de duel n'esrage
Trestoz tresmue en sun corage.

L. I, 142 f.

Jms iherde Leir Mng

Jjar fore he wes swujje wrah

tgt;ai 3edede Jje king

mid 3emeliche worden.

and l)us seide Jje kinge

sorhful on mode:

Wa worôe {jan monne

{je lond haueôe mid menske

and bi-tachet hit is childe

jje while fe he mai hit walden

for ofte hit ilimpô

Jjat eft hit him of-JjincheÔ.

From these parallel passages we infer:

1)nbsp;None of the French texts has direct speech, in fact
B. A. observes that Leir does not know what to say.

2)nbsp;M. B., no more than W., can be the text from which
Lasamon took the contents of Leir's speech. This is one of
the many instances that go to refute Imelmann's thesis,

that M. B. (= Gaimar) is responsible for L.'s specimens of
direct speech.

Again, Leir's anger with Ragau:

W. I, 92.

Caitif moi, dist-il, mar i vine
Se vix sui li, plus vils sui 9a.

B. A. Donq se dementa leyr trop malement et dist en
plorant: alias fest-il, qe onqs ving en ceste terre; enqore me
vausist il mieux auer demore od ma premere fille (Cott. f. 86J).

M. B. 3112 f.

Ot le li rois, mult fu huntous
Et corociez et anguissous.

L. I, 144 f.

t)is iseh Ije Leir king
wa wes him on liue
his mod him gon menge
he mor3nede swi3e
and Isas worde seide
mid sorhfuUe laichen ....

Then follows a speech of 30 lines, an elaboration of the
speech in W., in which Leir bewails his fate, and in which
occur the lines: ich wende swide wel to don — ac wurse ich
hahhe under-fon (= W.). Leir's words in B. A. are likewise a
paraphrase of W. Obviously the L. text cannot be compounded
of W. and M. B. The two French texts together constitute
4 lines, whereas the English work is eleven times that length.

A few other points on which L. and M. B. differ in the
Leir episode are here subjoined:

1)nbsp;In L. Ragau is asked by Leir to speak out before the

people; not so in M. B.

2)nbsp;In L. Cordeille, after her father's harsh words, goes to
her bower, where she sits sighing and shuns her father's
presence; not so in M. B.

3)nbsp;In L. we are first acquainted with Aganippus' suit
for Cordeilla, after which we hear of the marriage of Cordeilla's
sisters; in M. B. the order is the reverse.

4)nbsp;In L. Aganippus' message to Leir says that he had
heard from traveUing men of Cordeilla's beauty and patience;
in M. B. this is communicated to us before the suit.

5)nbsp;In L. Leir's answer to the suit is in writing; not in
M. B. In M. B. Leir says merely, that Cordeilla shall get
no land or possessions, since her elder sisters are already in
possession of them; in L. Leir justifies his harshness by
giving an exposition of Cordeilla's conduct.

6)nbsp;Gonorille's long speech to her husband about the
trouble caused her by Leir and his retinue, is not in M. B.
(nor in W.). Maglaun's answering speech to Gonorille, con-
taining a reproof and an adhortation to let the old man
enjoy the last years of his hfe in peace, has no equivalent
in M. B., where we read on the contrary:

Et quant li dus Maglaus I'entent
A1 sun conseil del tot s'asent.

7)nbsp;In L. Leir makes a short speech on leaving Gonorille;
not in M. B.

8)nbsp;The conversation between Ragau and her husband
Hemeri, in which this time L. makes the man more cruel
towards Leir, is not to be found in M. B., nor do we meet there
with Leir's complaint about his treatment at the hands
of Ragau.

9)nbsp;The apostrophe to Fortune, present in W. as well as in
M. B., is omitted in L.

Imelmann's subsequent hypothesis that Lasamon owed to
Gaimar the information that Wace dedicated his Brut to
Queen Eleanor, because this dedication occurs in none of
the W.-MSS., must be left for what it is. We fail to see why L.
could not be indebted to private information; he may have had
friends at court, the man who procured him the copy of
Wace may have been a courtier and communicated it to

him. Against Imelmann's theory also speaks the fact, that
neither any extant work by Gaimar nor any of the French
versions derived from the hypothetical W.-Gaimar compi-
lation mention the dedication, whereas they would have
had no reason to omit it, if it had been in the source.

Lastly, Imelmann wishes to find an independent witness
to show that La3amon describes traditions varying from
W. which could only have reached him through Norman
channels, because they were only alive among Normans.
For this purpose he turns to Helena, the victim of the
Spanish monster that was defeated by Arthur. W. and G.
call her Howel's niece, L. on the contrary Howel's daughter.
Imelmann cites Paer's Chronique de Mont-St.-Michel (12th C.),
where we read:

Fille Hoel esteit le conte ....

Auquanz dient que niece esteit

Le roi Artur ....

Whether the young lady is regarded as Howel's niece
or as his daughter, a certain relationship to Arthur must
be implied, Howel being Arthur's nephew. A chronicler
would not need to rely on any source in order to calculate
this bit of information. Of course it is not precluded that the
W.-MS. used by La3amon made Helena into Howel's daughter.
In so far Imelmann may be right that Lasamon's Brut shows
independent Norman influence, but this need not imply a
W.-Gaimar combination. Another possibility which we must
always consider with a poet of La3amon's style, is that he
simply changed the relationship on his own account, thinking
that Arthur's fight would be better justified for Howel's
daughter than for his niece. It must be remembered that
the feeling of kinship was strong in Lasamon. To quote
Miss Gillespy: 'Wace probably had almost or quite as strong
a feeling of the obligations imposed by family feeling as did
Lasamon, but one does not get the same impression of the
extreme importance of kinship from his work. The difference
is probably largely due to the vividly dramatic method of

presentation used by the latter,' after which Miss Gillespy
illustrates her point by a few examples. An additional reason
may be that Lasamon probably had a dislike for long and
complicated appellations, and as the Anglo-Saxon word
nift (niece) does not occur in his vocabulary, he would
probably have had to speak of Howel's sister's or brother's
daughter which he may well have disliked.

A similar example is Arthur's contest with FroUo, about
whom G. IX, 11 says: Erat tunc gallia prouincia rome froUoni
tribuno commissa quia earn sub leone imperatore regebat,
which W. II, 82 renders in the following terms:

Gaulle avoit nom France, eel jor.
Si n'i avoit roi, ne signor;
Romain en demaine I'avoient,
Et en demaine la tenoient.
En garde ert à Frolle livrée.
Et il l'avoit lone tans gardée.

La3amon found this probably much too complicated and
simplified matters by calling Frollo shortly King of France
For the rest he agrees with W. in stating that France was
called Gualle at the time, that FroUo was of Roman extraction
and that each year he sent a tribute of money to Rome.
This makes it clear that he was not following another source.

In order to prove that a French Brut of Lasamon's type
indeed existed at the time when Lagamon wrote, Imelmann
adduces André de Coutances' satirical Roman des Franceis
(A), written, according to Gröber, before 1204, and drawing
upon a Brut for the battle between Arthur and Frollo.
Imelmann observes the following points which L. and A.
have in common:

1)nbsp;Both call Frollo king of France. The reason for this
change has just been discussed.

2)nbsp;Frollo is a coward; not so in Wace. In our opinion
La3amon does not represent Frollo as a coward, but rather uses

cf. also the story of the Anglo-Saxon slaves at Rome, where
Lajamon makes Gregory into Pope.

his awe of Arthur in order to shed additional lustre upon the
figure of the king. The L.-text makes it sufficiently clear
to the reader that Frollo was strong and brave:
Strong mon wes Frolle

and sterc mon on mode.nbsp;(II, 572)

NeoSeles wes Frolle
to fihte swide kene
muche cniht amp; strög mon

and modi on heortê.nbsp;(II, 573)

for beiê heo weoren cnihtes kene

ohte men and wihte.nbsp;(II, 582)

This will suffice to show that La3amon had no intention
to picture Frollo as a coward, but that the passage
for 3if hit wnste Frolle
{jat Aröur him 3ettê wolde
Jjat he i3imd hafde
don he hit nolde
for a scip ful of 3olde

must be considered as a glorification of Arthur rather
than as a depreciation of Frollo i).

3)nbsp;Arthur accepts the challenge in direct speech and fixes
the next day for the duel. W. vacat. As has often been re-
peated, direct speech in younger versions proves nothing, unless
the speeches are identical. That Arthur chooses the next day
for the fight is self-evident and conditioned by the rules
of vivid narration. We could hardly expect an elaborator
to fix on the following week or the next day but one for
such an important and urgent event.

4)nbsp;L. and A. describe how Arthur and Frollo repair to
the lists. L. II, 580 says that the men who brought each
champion to the island

1) cf. also W. II, 84 w. 10216—10220, G. IX, 11 and L. II, 547
where Arthur begs his men to:

.... bidden ure drihtê ....
{jat he me iscilde
wiö Frolle t)ene wilde
and mid his riht höde
wite3e me wiö sconde.

7nbsp;87

alse Jje king hehte
lette Ijene bat fusen
forö mid {jan vöen.

A. 8:

Franceis qui devant lui estèrent
D'aler en I'isle le hasterent
A quelque paine I'i menèrent
Laissièrent le, si retomerent.

W. does not mention this. It cannot be denied that there is
a certain resemblance here (apart from the fact that in L.
both Kings command their helpers to leave), but it is merely a
smaU item in a large passage (L. 11. 23649-23880) which
Lasamon elaborated from eight lines in W. For instance,
in A. nothing is said about the preparatory prayers, Arthur's
equipment (in which the smith Griffin appears) and people
climbing halls, walls and towers to get a better view of the
fight. This makes us suspect that the agreement referred to
by Imelmann is of a purely accidental kind.

5) Imelmann p. 102: „L. II, 571 f. sagt Arthur, wer
'kneift' soll allenthalben als 'sconde' (recreant) gelten.
Bei A. 9 fleht FroUo: Merci Artur beau sire — Je suis recreant,
ne m'ocire.quot; This example is beside the point, as the word
'recreant' is used in totally different places. In L. it is used
with respect to the covenant, i.e. before the fight, in A. it
occurs when Frollo asks for mercy, i.e. at the end of the fight.
L. differs moreover in that Frollo is killed outright without
making any speech at aU.

We cannot say that Imelmann has succeeded, on the
strength of these five points, to prove that A. presupposes
a Brut-version that stood in very close relation to L.'s source
and that determined it also in point of time.

In his chapter Anhänge, Imelmann discusses Robert
Mannyng of Brunne's English translation of Wace, which was
written after Lasamon's Brut. That Robert Mannyng was
acquainted with the latter work has been defended by

Zetsche but is summarily rejected by Imelmann. The
Dictionary of National Biography says: 'In the earlier part
Mannyng follows Wace with occasional insertions from Bede,
Geoffrey and Langtoft,' to which should be added Dares
Phrygius, as Mannyng himself admits (U. 145 ff.). Imelmann
is of opinion that Mannyng's work was based on the same
compilatory source as La3amon, but fails to adduce sufficient
proof for this thesis. For instance:

Manning 11. 5756 ff. (I. 202):

Eight amp; twenty flamins men tolde

îgt;e Latjm caUetj temple flamins —

Somme of Mahoun amp; somme of Apollins,

Somme of Dyane, somme amp; of Berit. —

Two arche flaminus were {jer 3it;

At Londone was {jer chef flamee

amp; atnbsp;bat ojjer se.

îgt;e o^jere flamins in londe ware

Als Jje bischopes sees now are.

Igt;yse temples of Maumetries

ïgt;ey turned (Jjem) allé fro eresyes

amp; halewode tgt;em to Cristes werk.

W. I, 248 f. says that King Luces sent to the pope for
preachers; he and his people were christened by Diuvan and
his companion Matan, after which

Li dui evesque prééçoient
Et par les contrées aloient.

Firent estabhr envesquies
Et desor ce arcevesquies.
Les envesquies ont compassées
Et les parosces devisées;
Les temples où h Deu estoient
Que li home paien croient
Ont saintefiés et mondés
Et à Deu servir consacrés.

1) Leipzig Dissertation, 1887, p. 6—23.

G. IV, 19: Fuerunt tunc in brittannia XXVIII flamines set
6quot; III archiflamines quorum potestati ceteri iudices morum
atque phanatici submittebantur. Hos etiam ex precepto apostolici
ydolatriae eripuerunt 6quot; ubi erant flamines episcopos ubi
archiflamines archiepiscopos posuerunt. Sedes autem archifla-
minum in tribus nobilibus ciuitatibus fuerant. Lundoniis
uidelicet atque eboraci S- in urbe legionum.

Imelmann contends that Mannyng's work cannot be based
on W. and G., because the form flamee as well as the names
of the heathen gods point to another Norman source, and as
it is unlikely that Mannyng should have employed three
sources for these few lines, Imelmann is back again at the
hypothetical compilation. However, if we take into account
that Mann5mg also translated the Manuel des Pechiez,
in which heathen gods also occur i), it becomes at once
intelligible where he took the names from. Finally it cannot
be surprising that Mannyng knew the nominative flamee.
After all, it would be strange indeed, if his vocabulary was
strictly confined to the words used by Wace, a point which
Imelmann seems to lose sight of.

In corroboration of his view Imelmann quotes MS. Reg.
13 A. XXI, which, like Mannyng, has clearly drawn on
Geoffrey, but does not give the names of the heathen gods,
nor the information about the archbishops' sees at London
and York, and so cannot possibly be alleged as representative
of Mannyng's source. Nor are Imelmann's next parallels
conclusive, as in each case Wace, and not R., was Mannyng's
source. In the first instance, the line He was large S- curteys
should be added to Imelmann's quotation from Mannyng
to make the connection with Wace obvious, and in the
fourth:

e.g. Handlyng Synne, E. E. T. S. no. 119, pp. 145, 155 where
Termagaunt (Fr. Tervagant) occurs, and ib. 164:

Pese Phylystyens Jjat hadde Jje maystry
Beleued on Dagoun, a maumettry.

R. 77a: D(e) ki bealte fust mult grant fame

M. 9286: Of whas fairhede was speche ryf

we have only to turn to W. II, 19 to be satisfied:

Cortoise estoit et bele et sage
Et mult estoit de halt parage.
Li rois en ot oi parier
Et mult I'ot oie loer.

In addition to these examples Imelmann submits the
following two points:

1)nbsp;Gaimar wrote of Jason and Troy, like Mannyng.
This argument is disposed of by the fact that Mannyng
knew Dares Phrygius, who mentions Jason.

2)nbsp;M. and M. B., when speaking of the destruction of
Troy, say that the Trojans fled from the field. W. says merely
that Eneas ä quelque paine — De la grant ocise escapa.
Imelmann himself admits: 'Nun kann Manning die Vor-
geschichte allerdings einem selbständigen Werke entnommen
haben,' and as we have seen that this is actually the case,
we shall be content to point out that even if this were not so,
the parallel would have extremely little conclusive force.
Summing up we may say that this chapter, no more than any
of the preceding, succeeds in furnishing convincing proof
of the existence of a Wace-Gaimar compilation.

CHAPTER V.

CONCLUSIONS.

In a summary of this investigation, the first conclusion
we wish to submit to the reader and to emphasize strongly,
is that Lasamon does not belong to that class of translators
(perhaps we had better say paraphrasers) that are content to
render a foreign poem with the least amount of self-expression
and deviation from their authorities. This humble English
priest must on the contrary be considered as the most
original, imaginative and artistic poet of his period, always
on the alert for any opportunity to make his subject more
lively and interesting. He is a man of broad sympathies,
as is already shown by the very choice of his subject. We are
perhaps not wholly justified in saying that his attitude is
pro-British and anti-Saxon, but when the Britons are clearly
wronged or when Christianity is at stake, his countrymen
are not spared criticism of a frequently scathing kind.
Obviously, he was guided by his religious faith, his sense
of justice and charity rather than by the dictates of kinship.

Lasamon made no use of Latin works except Geoffrey's
Historia, which is not at aU surprising, as there was perhaps
no more popular and widely read book in England during
the 12th and 13th centuries. He seems to have used the
Historia as a book of reference by which to correct and
amplify Wace, his principal Norman source (if we say:
„principalquot; Norman source, we mean that Lasamon must
of course also have perused other Norman works, which,
for instance, are responsible for the names of such heathen
gods as Tervagant, Dagon and ApoUin i)). Wace's Roman de

1) cf. Madden III, 326 and 352.

Brut was elaborated by Lasamon in a fashion entirely his
own, while here and there introducing on his own account
bits of information based on either English or British history.
This, if nothing else, shows him to have been a man of wide
antiquarian interests, whose intellectual level was certainly
not so low as is commonly asserted of the priesthood of his
time. We may imagine that he listened eagerly to any
traditional tales of a more or less popular character that he
heard in his neighbourhood, and they must have been
plentiful. Some of these he wove into his story (e.g. Round
Table fight, East-Anglian rebellion). Though probably
unacquainted with the Welsh language, he must have collected
stray bits and names of Welsh tradition from bi-lingual
natives (e.g. about Arthur, his voyage to Avalon and his
expected return), the reflection of which we find in his
elaborations. Dependence on written Welsh tradition may
be deemed out of the question in La3amon's case. It is
a priori little probable that we should find in a Welsh Brut
any of the purely romantic descriptions and digressions
which La3amon excels in. The great majority of these, which,
incidentally, have never been found again in any French
work, we ascribe consequently to our poet's imagination
and the rest to oral tradition.

To the Germanic side of La3amon's character we may
attribute the whole spirit of the poem, which is thoroughly
Anglo-Saxon and prone toemphasis,reiterationandparallelism,
and for this very reason was the main cause that swelled
Wace's 15000 lines to more than double their bulk. It is certain
that La3amon was well-read in Anglo-Saxon poetry, as the
many reminiscences of that style of poetry in his work
betray. Whether or no he consciously imitated the Beowulf
must remain an open question; at any rate it has not been
settled by Wülcker's article. Personally we are inclined to
agree with Miss Gillespy, who considers the points of resem-
blance of too vague and general a character to justify a
conclusion being drawn from them. According to this

conception, those resemblances there are may safely be put
down to reminiscences from La3amon's general reading in
the hterature of his forefathers. Lastly, as the Anglo-Saxon
translation of Bede was not employed by La3amon, no
definite written Germanic source for his work can be
demonstrated.

Though the author is fully aware that the outcome of
the present thesis is largely negative, he would beg his
readers to remember as some sort of palliating circumstance,
that negative work of this kind may sometimes be necessary,
if seldom gratifying. In the present case, however, he did
derive a certain amount of satisfaction from having been
perhaps instrumental in re-establishing and re-asserting the
hterary merits of an obscure medieval English priest, who,
had he lived about six centures afterwards, would have
awoke one morning to find himself famous.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

André de Coutances, Roman des Franceis. Nouveau
recueil de contes, dits, fabliaux et autres pièces inédites

des Xllle, XlVe et XVe siècles..... mis au jour.....par

A. Jubinal, Paris 1839^2.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ed. by B. Thorpe, 2 vols.,

ed. by Ch. Plummer, Oxford 1892—99.
Annales Cambriae ed. by E. Phillimore in Y Cymmrodor

IX, 141 and J. Loth, Les Mabinogion II, 370.
A. Anscombe: The Name of Cerdic. Y Cymmrodor XXIX,
151—203.

L. Bartels: Handschriften von Lasamon's Brut, 1913.
Beda: Historia Ecclesiastica ed. C. Plummer 1896.
The same work in A. S. translation ed. by E. E. T. S. 2 vols.,
London 1890.

Robert de Boron: Le Roman de l'estoire dou graal ed.
by W. A. Nitze, Paris 1927.

A.nbsp;Brandl: Paul's Grundrisz II, 620—622.

P. Branscheid: Anglia VIII, Anzeiger 179—236.

B.nbsp;ten Brink: Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur, 2 vols.,

Strassburg 1899.
A. C. L. Brown: Welsh Traditions in Lasamon's Brut,

M. Ph. I, 95 ff.
J. D. Bruce: Evolution of Arthurian Romance, 2 vols.

Hesperia, Ergänzungsreihe VIII, IX, 1928.
J. D. Bruce: Some proper names in Layamon's Brut not
represented in Wace or Geoffrey of Monmouth, M. L. N.
XXVI, 65 ff.

Brut d' Angleterre: English translation printed by Caxton.

Also anonjmious English transi, in E. E. T. S.
E. K. Chambers: Arthur of Britain, London 1927.

Th. M. Chotzen: Gormont d' Irlande et Iseult in Rev. Celt.
XLV, 272 ff.

Dares Phrygius: Historia de excidio Troiae, ed. Ferd. Meister,
Leipzig 1873.

R. H. Fletcher: Arthurian Material in the Chronicles,
Harvard Studies and Notes X, 147 ff.

Idem, Did Lasamon make any use of Geoffrey's Historia,
P. M. L. A. XVIII, 91 ff.

Geffrei Gaimar: L' Estorie des Engles ed. by T. D. Hardy
and C. T. Martin for the Rolls Series, 2 vols., London
1889.

Miss F. L. Gillespy: Layamon's Brut, A Comparative Study
in Narrative Art, Cal. Univ. Publ. Ill, 361 ff.

Giraldus Cambrensis: Speculum Ecclesiae in Opera, ed.
J. S. Brewer and J. F. Dimock.

Major P. T. Godsall: The Conquest of Ceawhn, London 1924.

J. H. G. Grattan: Review of English Studies VI, no. 21,88 f.

J. W. Hales: Lasamon, in Nat. Diet, of Biogr.

H. B. Hinckley: Anglia LVI, 43 ff.

Hugo Floriacensis (Hugo de Fleury) Chronicon, ed. B.
Rottendorf, Münster 1638.

R. Imelmann: La3amon. Versuch über seine Quellen, Berlin
1906.

J. Morris Jones: A Welsh Grammar, Phonology and Acci-
dence, Oxford 1913.

A. H. Krappe: A Welsh Animal Tale in England, Anglia
vol. 56, 1 Heft, p. 101—104.

Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain; a Poetical
Semi-Saxon Paraphrase of The Brut of Wace, now
first published from the Cottonian Manuscripts in the
British Museum, accompanied by a Literal Translation,
Notes and a Grammatical Glossary by Sir Frederic
Madden. 3 vols., London 1847.

J. M. Lappenberg: A History of England under the Anglo-
Saxon Kings, transl. from the German by B. Thorpe,
2 vols., London 1881.

F. Lot: Morgue la fée et Morgan Tud, Romania XXVIII,
321 ff.

J. Loth: Les Mabinogion, 2 vols., Paris 1913.
Idem, Revue Celtique, XIII, 496 f.

Idem, Contributions a 1' Etude des Romans de la Table Ronde,
Paris 1912.

A.nbsp;Luhmann: Die Überlieferung von Lasamon's Brut, 1905.

The same work 'nebst einer Darstellung der betonten
Vokale und Diphthongequot;, 1906.
Robert Mannyng of Brunne's English Brut, E. E. T. S.
Idem, Handlyng Synne, E. E. T. S.

Walter Map: De Nugis Curialium ed. M. R. James in
Anecdota Oxoniensia, Medieval and Modem Series,
Part XIV, Oxford 1914.

B.nbsp;S. Monroe: French Words in Lasamon, M.Ph. IV, 559 ff.
Idem, J. E. Gc. Ph. VII, no. 1, 136 ff. (with bibliography

up to 1907).

Thomas Malory: Le Morte Darthur, ed. H. O. Sommer,

3 vols., London 1889—91.
Matthew of Paris Chronica Majora ed. H. R. Luard.

7 vols., London 1872—83.
The Middle English Stanzaic Le Morte Arthur (Har-
leian MS. 2252) ed. by J. D. Bruce in E. E. T. S., Extra
Series.

The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, collected out of

ancient manuscripts, 3 vols., Denbigh 1870.
Nennius Historia Britonum ed. by T. Mommsen in Chronica

minora saeculorum IV—^VII.
John Jay Parry: The Vita Merlini, Univ. of Illinois Studies X
no. 3, 1—137.

Peter of Langtoft: The Chronicle of — in french verse,
from the earliest period to the death of King Edward I.
ed. Th. Wright, London 1866—68.
K. Regel: Alliteration in Lajamon, Germanistische Studien I,
171 ff.

Idem, Spruch und Bild im Lasamon, Anglia I, 197 ff.

R. Seyger: Beiträge zu Lasamon's Brut. Halle Diss., 1912.

Th. Stephens: The Literature of the Kymry, ed., London
1876.

The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth,
with contributions to the study of its place in Early
British History, by Acton Griscom, London 1929.

The Texts of the Bruts from the Red Book of Hergest,
by Sir John Rhys and J. Gwen. Evans, Oxford 1890.

Trautmann: Über den Vers Lasamon's, Anglia II, 153 ff.

Les Vies des Saints de la Bretagne armorique, par Fr.

Albert Legrand, de Morlaix, avec des notes.....par Daniel-

Louis Miorcec de Kerdanet, revues par M. Graveran,
Brest 1837.

Vita Sancti Oswaldi, by Symeon of Durham in Historia
Dunelmensis Ecclesiae, Rolls Series.

Vulgate Lancelot in H. O. Sommer's Vulgate Version of
the Arthurian Romances, vols. Ill, IV, V.

Wace: Li Romans de Brut ed. by Le Roux de Lincy, 2 vols.,
Rouen 1836.

H. L. D. Ward: Discussion of Lasamon's poem and its sources
in Cat. of B. M. Romances I, 268 ff.

Jehan de Waurin: Recueil des croniques et anchiennes
istories de la Grant Bretaigne ed. by W. Hardy, London
1864—91.

wilkina Saga = ïgt;iôriks saga af Bern. Udg. ved Henrik
Bertelsen, Kcpbenhavn 1905—11.

G.nbsp;J. Williams ac E. J. Jones: Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid,

Caerdydd 1934.

E. Windisch: Das Keltische Britannien bis zu Kaiser Arthur,
Abh. der Philol.-Hist. Klasse der Kön. Sächs. Geselsch.
der Wissensch, vol. 29, no. VI.

T. Wright: Lasamon in Biographia Britannica Literaria,
Anglo-Norman period, pp. 439—442, 1846.

R. P. Wülcker: Über die Quellen Lasamon's, Paul und
Braune's Beiträge III, 524 ff.

H.nbsp;C. Wyld: Rev. of Engl. Stud. VI, no. 21, 1—31.

Idem, Studies in the diction of Lasamon's Brut, Language
vols. VI, IX, X.

A. Zessack: Die beiden Handschriften von Lasamon's Brut
und ihr Verhältnis zu einander, Breslau Diss. 1888.

A. W. Zetsche: Über den I Teil der Bearbeitung des „Roman
de Brutquot; des Wace durch Robert Mannyng of Brunne,
1887.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.

A.nbsp;= André de Coutance's Roman des Franceis.

B.nbsp;A. = Brut d'Angleterre.
Br. Abbr. = Brutus Abbreviatus.

Br. Gr. abA. = Brut Gruffydd ab Arthur, (in Myvyrian
Archaiology).

Br. Tys. = Brut Tysiho, (idem).nbsp;^

Cat.ofB.M.= Catalogue of British Museum Romances.
Romances

E.nbsp;= Arthur and Merhn (M. E. Romance).

E. E. T. S. = Early English Texts Society.
Engl. Stud. = Englische Studien.
Ev. of A. R. = Evolution of Arthurian Romance.
G.nbsp;= Geoffrey's Historia Britonum, ed. Acton

Griscom.

J.E.Gc. Ph. = Journal of English and Germanic Philology.

L.nbsp;= Lasamon's Brut.

M.nbsp;= Robert Mannyng's English Brut.

M. A.nbsp;= Mort Arthur (M. E. Romance).

Mab.nbsp;= Les Mabinogion, transl. by J. Loth.

M. B. = Münchener Brut.

M. L. N. = Modem Language Notes.

M. Ph. = Modem Philology.

P. M. L. A. = Pubhcations of the Modem Language Asso-
ciation.

R:nbsp;= MS. Regius 13 A XXI (British Museum).

W.nbsp;= Wace's Roman de Brut.

Wn.nbsp;= Waurin's Chroniques et Istoires.

hß^i-

STELLINGEN.

I.

Aan de middeleeuwse Kymrische poëzie zijn argumenten
te ontlenen voor vreedzame aanrakingen in de vroegste tijd
tussen K3miry en Angelsaksen.

11.

De Kymrische naam van Brittannië (Ynys Pry dein)
bewaart de oorspronkelijke vorm; het Latijnse Britannia
berust op klanksubstitutie door Caesar.

III.

De invloed van het Keltisch op de sjmtaxis en het idioom
van de Engelse taal is duidelijk merkbaar.

IV.

De Engelse Progressive Form-constructie is van Keltische
oorsprong.

V.

J. D. Bruce's stelling quot;When Marie de France and her
contemporaries refer to lais Bretons as their sources, they
have Brittany in mind, and their own lays are accordingly
based on Breton stories, as far as they are of Celtic origin
at allquot; is onjuist.

Ten onrechte zoekt R. A. Wilhams (The Finn Episode in
Beowulf) verband tussen de Finn-episode en de Nibelungen-
sage.

VII.

In Beowulf 1142 verandert Kemp Malone (Literary
History of Hamlet I, 22) terecht worold-rxdenne in worold-
r^dende.

VIII.

In Beowulf 1143 is Hunlafing de naam van een zwaard
(Axel Olrik, Heroic Legends of Denmark, p. 145 f.).

XI.

Hymiskviöa 1,8 moet met Bugge gelezen worden:
0rkost hverjan.

X.

De mededeling in The New Oxford Dictionary dat Hoodoo
een woord van Amerikaanse oorsprong is, kan niet als juist
beschouwd worden.

\

y'v^-wvr'.''v v -.s,

- S ' .

- 1'

Ui

Î

V » A ;

m.

mmAM^M

f -K V

' »

Al - ^

m. ....

i r tiiinbsp;y

- - • •

..y.'''

. s.quot; -•■ ■

m^msmgÊàsm'rn^':::-

msmmrn^^^
imNsmBsm^:^