Under the head History (Ecclesiastical) will be found an account of the rise and progress of that religious system which, before the sixteenth century, held undisputed sway in what was called the Christian world. Under the head Reformation is given a history of the successful struggles made by several of the states of Europe to deliver themselves from priestly domination; and for a view of the theological tenets of the Roman Catholics, we may refer to the articles Pope, Purgatory, &c. It only remains that we shortly notice the extent to which the Roman Catholic faith prevails in the world at the present day, and the political state of its adherents in our own country.
There is no country where popery is the established religion, in the same sense in which the Churches of England and Scotland are the established religion of Britain. The Catholic clergy everywhere claim independent, if not supreme authority, and never form any political alliance with the state. In some countries, however, popery is not only the religion of the government, but also exclusively, or almost exclusively, of the people; and to that extent it may be called the established religion of the state. In others, the people are divided between the catholic and the protestant faith, and both are recognised by the government. The cruelty and oppression which have been perpetrated by religious zealots, ambitious priests, and crafty rulers, under the sacred name of religion, have given occasion to the infidel and the scoffer to cast on Christianity itself the reproach which is due only to fanaticism and bigotry. To this reproach both Catholic and Protestant are liable; but there can be no doubt, that in the efforts of the Church of Rome to maintain its ancient dominion over the human mind, it has been more unscrupulous in the use of persecution than the Protestant powers. Happily, however, the fierceness of persecution has now greatly abated in catholic countries; and, on the other hand, Catholics are tolerated in every protestant state.
In France the Chartre gives freedom of worship to all religions; but about 14-15ths of the people belong to the Catholic Church, the small remainder being Protestants.
In Switzerland, outer Appenzell, almost the whole of Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen, Vaud, and Neuchatel, the greater part had of Glarus, Grisons, Aargau, Thurgau, and Geneva, and the minority in Friburg, Soleure, and St Gall, profess Calvinism. Catholicism is professed exclusively in Lucerne, Uri, Schwitz, Unterwald, Zug, inner Appenzell, Fessin, and Valais; by the majority in Friburg, Soleure, and St Gall; and by the minority in the other cantons. About 12-20ths of the Swiss are Protestant; the remainder Catholics.
In Belgium all religions are freely professed; but catholicism is the religion of almost the entire nation.
In Holland all religions are professed with equal freedom; Holland, but Calvinism is the religion of the state. The Catholics are comparatively few.
In Germany catholicism and protestantism are so mixed, Germany, that it is scarcely possible to assign them definite limits, or approximate to their relative numbers. Protestantism, however, prevails mostly in the northern and south-western parts of the country; popery in the south-east, south, and west. Their numbers are not far from being equal.
In the Austrian empire popery is the dominant religion, Austrian and professed by the great majority of the inhabitants.
In Prussia protestantism is the government religion; but Prussia, the professors of all religions enjoy freedom of worship, and almost equal rights. Lutheranism is professed by the great majority in East Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Saxony; popery in the Westphalian and Rhenish provinces, and the grand-duchy of Posen. Silesia and West Prussia are Denmark, almost equally divided.
In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, Lutheranism is the Norway. state religion, but all others are tolerated. The Catholics are few in number.
Catholics abound in Russia, but mostly in the Polish provinces, where they are not only freely tolerated, but enjoy every political right in common with other subjects. Their number may amount to about 12,000,000, or 1-5th of the population of the empire.
In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, popery is dominant and exclusive; but other religions, though not legally tolerated, are not now persecuted.
In Turkey and Greece popery is fully tolerated, but professed by few if by any of the natives.
In America popery is the dominant religion of all the late Spanish and Portuguese colonies. In some of them no other religion is tolerated by law, but nobody is persecuted for professing any other. In the United States of North America, there are about 800,000 Catholics. In Lower Canada, they form the majority of the population.
In Great Britain popery is now not merely tolerated, but Roman Catholics are admitted to equal, or nearly equal, political rights with Protestants.
In 1837, the total number of Catholics throughout the world, was reckoned by Adrien Balbi at 139,000,000, out of 737,000,000, which he considers to be the total population of the globe.
Before the passing of the various Roman Catholic Emancipation Acts, the Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland were subjected to a system of stringent penal laws. The laws in force against them, previously to the Act 18 Geo. III. cap. 60; and 31 Geo. III. cap. 32, may be divided into three classes: 1. Those respecting persons professing popery. 2. Those respecting popish recusants convict. 3. Those respecting popish priests.
I. Persons professing popery, besides the penalties for not attending their parish church, were disabled from taking their lands by either descent or purchase, after eighteen years of age, until they renounced their errors; were obliged at twenty-one to register their estates before acquired, and all future conveyances and wills relating to them; were incapable of presenting to any advowson, or granting to any other person any avoidance of the same; might not keep or teach any school under pain of perpetual imprisonment; and if they willingly heard or said mass, they forfeited for the one 100l., and for the other 200 marks, and were to suffer a year's imprisonment. If any evil industry was used to rivet the errors of popery upon those who already professed it; if any person sent another abroad to be educated in popery, or to reside in any religious house for that purpose, or contributed to his maintenance when there, the sent, the sender, and the contributor, were disabled to sue in law or equity, to be executor or administrators to any person, or to bear any office in the realm, and forfeited all their goods and chattels, and likewise all their real estate for life. Where these errors were aggravated by apostacy or perversion, where a person was reconciled to the see of Rome, or procured others to be reconciled, the offence amounted to high treason.
II. Popish recusants convicted in a court of law of not attending the service of the Church of England, were subject to the following disabilities, penalties, and forfeitures, over and above those before mentioned. They were considered as persons excommunicated; they could hold no office or employment; if they kept arms in their houses, the same might be seized by the Justices of the Peace; they might not come within ten miles of London, under the penalty of 100l.; could bring no action at law or suit in equity; were not allowed to travel above five miles from home, unless by licence, upon pain of forfeiting all their goods; and they might not come to court under the penalty of 100l. No marriage or burial of such recusant, or baptism of his child, should be had otherwise than by the ministers of the Church of England, under other severe penalties. A married woman, when recusant, forfeited two-thirds of her dower or jointure, and might not be executrix, or administratrix to her husband, or have any part of his goods; and during the coverture might be kept in prison, unless her husband redeemed her at the rate of 10l. a month, or the third part of all his lands. And, lastly, as a femme couverte (married woman) recusant might be imprisoned, so all others must, within three months after conviction, either submit, and renounce their errors, or, if required so to do by four justices, abjure and renounce the realm; and if they did not depart, or if they returned without the king's licence, they should be guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy. There was also an inferior kind of recusancy, (refusing to make the declaration against popery enjoined by Act 30 Car. II. cap. 2, when tendered by the proper magistrate,) which, if the party resided within ten miles of London, made him an absolut recusant convict; or, if at a greater distance, suspended him from having any seat in Parliament, keeping arms in his house, or any horse above the value of 5l.
III. Popish priests were placed in a still more slavery situation. For, by statute 11 and 12 Wil. III. c. 4, popish priests or bishops celebrating mass, and exercising any part of their functions in England, except in the houses of ambassadors, were liable to perpetual imprisonment. And by the statute 27 Eliz. c. 2, any popish priest born in the dominions of the crown of England, who should come hither from beyond sea, or should be in England without conforming, and taking the oaths, was guilty of high treason; and all persons harbouring him were guilty of felony without benefit of clergy.
The first amendment of these inhuman laws, which affix an everlasting stain on the British name, was effected by the statute 18 Geo. III. c. 60. With regard to such papists as should duly take the oath therein prescribed, of allegiance to his Majesty, abjuration of the Pretender, renunciation of the Pope's civil power, and abhorrence of the doctrines of destroying and not keeping faith with heretics, and deposing or murdering princes excommunicated by authority of the see of Rome, the statute 11 and 12 W. III. was repealed, so far as it disabled them from purchasing or inheriting, or authorized the apprehending or prosecuting of the popish clergy, or subjected them or any teachers of youth to perpetual imprisonment. By the statute 31 Geo. III. c. 32, all the restrictions and penalties above enumerated, were removed from those Catholics who were willing to comply with the requisitions of that statute, which were, that they must appear at some of the courts of Westminster, or at the quarter sessions held for the county, city, or place where they might reside, and make and subscribe a declaration that they professed the Roman Catholic religion, and also an oath exactly similar to that required by 18 Geo. III. c. 60. On this declaration and oath being duly made by any Roman Catholic, the officer of the court was authorised to grant him a certificate; and such officer was required yearly to transmit to the Privy Council lists of all persons who had thus qualified themselves within the year in his court. Roman Catholics thus qualified were not to be prosecuted under any statute for not repairing to a parish church, nor for attending or performing mass or other ceremonies of the Church of Rome. But no Roman Catholic minister was to officiate in any place of worship having a steeple and bell, or at any funeral in a churchyard, or was to wear the habits of his order, except in a place allowed by the statute, or in a private house where there should not be more than five persons besides the family. No person who had qualified was to be prosecuted for instructing youth, except in an endowed school, or in one of the English universities; or in the case of receiving into his school the child of any Protestant father; and no Roman Catholic was to keep a school until his or her name should be recorded as a teacher at the sessions. But no religious order was to be established; and every endowment of a school or college by a Roman Catholic should still be superstitious and unlawful. And no person should thenceforth be summoned to take the oath of supremacy, and the declaration against transubstantiation. Nor should Roman Catholics who had qualified, be removable from London and Westminster; neither should any peer who had qualified be punishable for coming into the presence or palace of the king or queen. No papist whatever should be any longer obliged to register their names and estates, or to enrol their deeds and wills; and every Roman Catholic who had qualified, might be permitted to act as a barrister, attorney, or notary. Still, however, Roman Catholics could not sit in parliament, because every member of parliament was required to take the oath of supremacy, and repeat and subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation. Nor could they vote at elections for members of the House of Commons in Great Britain, because, before voting, they must have taken the oath of supremacy. But Roman Catholics in Ireland were permitted to vote at elections, though they could not sit in parliament.
Most of the remaining restrictions upon Roman Catholics were removed by the Act 10 Geo. IV. cap. 7, entitled, "An Act for the relief of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects," and passed 13th April 1829. By this act it was provided that all the preceding enactments (except as hereinafter excepted) should be repealed; and that from and after the commencement of the act, it should be lawful for any person professing the Roman Catholic religion, being a peer, or a member of the House of Commons, to sit and vote in either House, upon taking and subscribing the following oath, instead of the oath of supremacy, allegiance, and abjuration:
"I, A, B, do sincerely promise and swear, that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to his Majesty, King , and will defend him to the utmost of my power, against all conspiracies and attempts whatever, which shall be made against his person, crown, or dignity; and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him or them; and I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and defend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of the crown, which succession, by an Act entitled, 'An Act for the further limitation of the Crown, and better securing the rights and liberties of the subject,' is, and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants; hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or allegiance unto any other person claiming or pretending a right to the crown of this realm: and I do further declare, that it is not an article of my faith, and that I do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the pope, or any other authority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or by any person whatsoever; and I do declare that I do not believe that the pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, person, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm. I do swear that I will defend to the utmost of my power, the settlement of property within this realm, as established by the laws; and I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present church establishment, as settled by law within this realm; and I do solemnly swear that I will never exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the United Kingdom; and I do solemnly, in the presence of Catholics, God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever. So help me God."
The other principal provisions of the Act are in substance as follows.
Roman Catholics, upon taking the oath above recited, shall be entitled to vote at elections for members of the House of Commons.
Roman Catholics may hold civil and military offices under his Majesty, except the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and Ireland, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Roman Catholics to be eligible to become members of lay corporations, upon taking the oath hereby appointed, and such other oaths as may now by law be required of persons becoming members of such corporations; but such members are not to vote or join in the presentation or appointments to any ecclesiastical benefice.
No oath to be required from any Roman Catholic to enable him to hold any real or personal property, other than such as may be tendered to any other subjects; and the oath to be taken by Roman Catholic naval and military officers, to be taken at the same time, and in the same manner as the oaths now required by law from other subjects.
The Roman Catholic faith in Ireland is professed by more than four-fifths of the people, or, as ascertained in 1834, 6,427,712, out of a total population of 7,943,940; and in Great Britain, though the numbers are not precisely known, they are believed, according to the most moderate calculation, to fall little short of 1,000,000; by some they are even estimated at little short of 2,000,000; and according to the Catholic Directory, the number of Roman Catholic chapels in England and Wales, in 1839, amounted to 453; in Scotland, to 79; or, altogether in Great Britain, to 532. Of that number no less than 90 are in Lancashire alone, and 29 in Yorkshire; while Rutland and Huntingdon are the only counties of England where there is none. Besides numerous smaller seminaries, they possess ten colleges; viz. St. Edmund's, Old Hall Green, Ware, in Hertfordshire; Ushaw, Durham; St. Mary's, Birmingham; St. Peter's and St. Paul's, both at Prior Park, Bath; Stonyhurst, Lancashire; Ampleforth, York; St. Gregory's, Downside, Bath; German College, Broadway, Worcestershire; St. Mary's, at Blairs, on Deeside, Aberdeenshire; and a new college has been nearly finished at Sutton Coldfield, Lancashire. They already number eighteen nunneries and convents: Mecklegate bar, York; Hammersmith, Middlesex; Bishop's House, Winchester; Taunton Lodge, Somerset; New Hall, Chelmsford, Essex; Spettisbury House, Blandfordshire; Stanbrook Hall, Worcester; Caverswall Castle, Staffordshire; Clare Lodge, Yorkshire; St. Mary's Priory, Leamington, Warwickshire; Ashton Hall, Staffordshire; Llanberne, South Cornwall; Carmel House, Darlington, Durham; Court House, Bridgewater, Somerset; Saleshouse, Westbury, Wiltshire; Hartbury Court, Gloucester; Presentation, Manchester; St. Margaret's, Edinburgh.
In Ireland the Roman Catholics have a regular hierarchy of archbishops, bishops, deans, &c., and have under them an establishment of upwards of 2000 parochial clergy. England is divided into four, and Scotland into three districts, each under the superintendence of a vicar apostolic, bearing the title of a bishop in partibus infidelium. Dr. Johnson has defined Romance, in its primary sense, to be "a military fable of the middle ages; a tale of wild adventures in love and chivalry." But although this definition expresses correctly the ordinary idea of the word, it is not sufficiently comprehensive to answer our present purpose. A composition may be a legitimate romance, yet neither refer to love nor chivalry—to war nor to the middle ages. The "wild adventures" are almost the only absolutely essential ingredient in Johnson's definition. We would be rather inclined to describe a Romance as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents;" being thus opposed to the kindred term Novel, which Johnson has described as "a smooth tale, generally of love;" but which we would rather define as "a fictitious narrative, differing from the romance, because the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events, and the modern state of society." Assuming these definitions, it is evident, from the nature of the distinction adopted, that there may exist compositions which it is difficult to assign precisely or exclusively to the one class or other; and which, in fact, partake of the nature of both. But the distinction will be found broad enough to answer all general and useful purposes.
The word Romance, in its original meaning, was far from corresponding with the definition now assigned. On the contrary, it signified merely one or other of the popular dialects of Europe, founded, as almost all these dialects were, upon the Roman tongue, that is, upon the Latin. The name of romance was indiscriminately given to the Italian, to the Spanish, even, in one remarkable instance at least,1 to the English language. But it was especially applied to the compound language of France; in which the Gothic dialect of the Franks, the Celtic of the ancient Gauls, and the classical Latin, formed the ingredients. Thus Robert De Brunne:
"All is calde geste Inglis, That en this language spoken is— Francis speech is called Romance. So sayis clerkis and men of France."
At a period so early as 1150, it plainly appears that the Romance language was distinguished from the Latin, and that translations were made from the one into the other; for an ancient romance on the subject of Alexander, quoted by Fauchet, says it was written by a learned clerk,
"Qui de Latyn la trest, et en Romas la mit."
The most noted romances of the middle ages were usually composed in the romance or French language, which was, in a peculiar degree, the speech of love and chivalry; and those which are written in English always affect to refer to some French original, which usually, at least, if not in all instances, must be supposed to have a real existence. Hence, the frequent recurrence of the phrase,
"As in romance we read;"
Or,
"Right as the romansit us tells;"
and equivalent phrases, well known to all who have at any time perused such compositions. Thus, very naturally, though, undoubtedly by slow degrees, the very name of romance, or romance, came to be transferred from the language itself to that peculiar style of composition in which it was so much employed, and which so commonly referred to it. How early a transference so natural took place, we have no exact means of knowing; but the best authority assures us, that the word was used in its modern sense so early as the reign of Edward III. Chaucer, unable to sleep during the night, informs us, that, in order to pass the time,
"Upon my bed I sate upright; And bade one reclin me a boke, A Romaunce, and it me took To read and drive the night away."
The book described as a romance contained, as we are informed,
"Fables That clerkis had, in old time, And other poets, put in rhyme."
And the author tells us a little lower,
"This book ne spake but of such things, Of Queens' lives and of Kings."
The volume proves to be no other than Ovid's Metamorphoses; and Chaucer, by applying to it the name of romance, sufficiently establishes that the word was, in his time, correctly employed under the modern acceptation.
Having thus accounted for the derivation of the word, our investigation divides itself into three principal branches, though of unequal extent. In the first of these we propose to inquire into the general history and origin of this peculiar species of composition, and particularly of romances relating to European chivalry, which necessarily form the most interesting object of our inquiry. In the second, we shall give some brief account of the history of the romance of chivalry in the different states of Europe. Thirdly, we propose to notice cursorily the various kinds of romantic composition by which the ancient romances of chivalry were followed and superseded, and with these notices to conclude the article.
I. In the views taken by Hurd, Percy, and other older authorities, of the origin and history of romantic fiction, their attentions were so exclusively fixed upon the romance of chivalry alone, that they appear to have forgotten that, however interesting and peculiar, it formed only one species of a very numerous and extensive genus. The progress of romance, in fact, keeps pace with that of society, which cannot long exist, even in the simplest state, without exhibiting some specimens of this attractive style of composition. It is not meant by this assertion, that in early ages such narratives were invented, in the character of mere fictions, devised to beguile the leisure of those who had time enough to read and attend to them. On the contrary, romance and real history have the same common origin. It is the aim of the former to maintain as long as possible the mask of veracity; and indeed the traditional memorials of all earlier ages partake in such a varied and doubtful degree of the qualities essential to those opposite lines of composition, that they form a mixed class between them; and may be termed either romantic histories, or historical romances.
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1 This curious passage was detected by the industry of Ritson in Giraldus Cambrensis, "Ab aqua illa optima, qua Scottiae vocatur est Froth; Brittonice, Wyrad; Romane vero Scoote-Watte." Here the various names assigned to the Frith of Forth are given in the Gaelic or Earse, the British or Welsh; and the phrase Romans is applied to the ordinary language of England. But it would be difficult to shew another instance of the English language being termed Roman or Romance. A moment's glance at the origin of society will satisfy the reader why this can hardly be otherwise. The father of an isolated family, destined one day to rise into a tribe, and in further progress of time to expand into a nation, may, indeed, narrate to his descendants the circumstances which detached him from the society of his brethren, and drove him to form a solitary settlement in the wilderness, with no other deviation from truth, on the part of the narrator, than arises from the infidelity of memory, or the exaggerations of vanity. But when the tale of the patriarch is related by his children, and again by his descendants of the third and fourth generation, the facts it contains are apt to assume a very different aspect. The vanity of the tribe augments the simple annals from one cause; the love of the marvellous, so natural to the human mind, contributes its means of sophistication from another; while, sometimes, the king and the priest find their interest in casting a holy and sacred gloom and mystery over the early period in which their power arose. And thus altered and sophisticated from so many different motives, the real adventures of the founder of the tribe bear as little proportion to the legend recited among his children, as the famous hut of Loretto bears to the highly ornamented church with which superstition has surrounded and enchanced it. Thus the definition which we have given of Romance as a fictitious narrative turning upon the marvellous or the supernatural, might, in a large sense, be said to embrace
\[ \text{quicquid Graecis mendax} \]
\[ \text{Ausus in historia,} \]
or, in fine, the mythological and fabulous history of all early nations.
It is also important to remark, that poetry, or rather verse, rhythm at least of some sort or other, is originally selected as the best vehicle for these traditional histories. Its principal recommendation is probably the greater facility with which metrical narratives are retained in the memory, a point of the last consequence, until the art of writing is generally introduced; since the construction of the verse itself forms an artificial association with the sense, the one of which seldom fails to recall the other to recollection. But the medium of verse, at first adopted merely to aid the memory, becomes soon valuable on account of its other qualities. The march or measure of the stanza is gratifying to the ear, and, like a natural strain of melody, can be restrained or accelerated, so as to correspond with the tone of feeling which the words convey; while the recurrence of the necessary measure, rhythm or rhyme, is perpetually gratifying the hearer by a sense of difficulty overcome. Verse being thus adopted as the vehicle of traditional history, there needs but the existence of a single man of genius, in order to carry the composition a step higher in the scale of literature than that of which we are treating. In proportion to the skill which he attains in his art, the fancy and ingenuity of the artist himself are excited; the simple narrative transmitted to him by ruder rhymers is increased in length; is decorated with the graces of language, amplified in detail, and rendered interesting by description; until the brief and barren original bears as little resemblance to the finished piece, as the Iliad of Homer to the evanescent traditions, out of which the blind bard wove his tale of Troy Divine. Hence, the opinion expressed by the ingenious Percy, and assented to by Ritson himself. When about to present to his readers an excellent analysis of the old romance of Lybius Discounus, and making several remarks on the artificial management of the story, the Bishop observes, that "if an epic poem may be defined a fable related by a poet to excite admiration and inspire virtue, by representing the action of some one hero favoured by Heaven, who executes a great design in spite of all the obstacles that oppose him, I know not why we should withhold the name of epic poem from the piece which I am about to analyse."
Yet although this levelling proposition has been laid down by Percy, and assented to by Ritson (writers who have few opinions in common,) and although, upon so general a view of the subject, the Iliad, or even the Odyssey of Homer, might be degraded into the class of romances, as Le Beau Decoum is elevated into that of epic poems, there lies in ordinary speech, and in common sense, as wide a distinction between these two classes of composition, as there is betwixt the rude mystery or morality of the middle ages, and the regular drama by which these were succeeded. Where the art and the ornaments of the poet chiefly attract our attention; where each part of the narrative bears a due proportion to the others, and the whole draws gradually towards a final and satisfactory conclusion; where the characters are sketched with force, and sustained with precision; where the narrative is enlivened and adorned with so much, and no more, of poetical ornament and description, as may adorn, without impeding its progress; where this art and taste are displayed, supported, at the same time, by a sufficient tone of genius, and art of composition, the work produced must be termed an epic poem, and the author may claim his seat upon the high and honoured throne occupied by Homer, Virgil, and Milton. On the other hand, when a story languishes in tedious and minute details, and relics for the interest which it proposes to excite, rather upon the wild excursions of an unbridled fancy, than upon the skill of the poet; when the supernatural and the extraordinary are relied upon exclusively as the supports of the interest, the author, though his production may be distinguished by occasional flashes of genius, and though it may be interesting to the historian, as containing some minute fragments of real events, and still more so to the antiquary, from the light which it throws upon ancient manners, is still no more than a humble romancer, and his work must rank amongst those rude ornaments of a dark age, which are at present the subject of our consideration. Betwixt the extremes of the two classes of composition, there must, no doubt, exist many works, which partake in some degree of the character of both; and after having assigned most of them, each to their proper class, according as they are distinguished by regularity of composition and poetical talent, or, on the contrary, by extravagance of imagination, and irregularity of detail, there may still remain some, in which these properties are so equally balanced, that it may be difficult to say to which class they belong. But although this may be the case in a very few instances, our taste and habits readily acknowledge as complete and absolute a difference betwixt the epopeia and romance, as can exist betwixt two distinct species of the same generic class.
We have said of romance, that it first appears in the form of metrical history, professes to be a narrative of real facts, and is, indeed, nearly allied to such history as an early state of society affords; which is always exaggerated by the prejudices and partialities of the tribe to which it belongs, as well as deeply marked by their idolatry and superstition. These it becomes the trade of the romancers still more to exaggerate, until the thread of truth can scarce be discerned in the web of fable which involves it; and we are compelled to renounce all hope of deriving serious or authentic information from the materials upon which the compounders of fiction have been so long at work, from one generation to another, that they have at length obliterated the very shadow of reality or even probability.
The view we have given of the origin of romance will be
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1 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, III. xxvii. The Prelate is citing a discourse on epic poetry, prefixed to Telemachus. Romance found to agree with the facts which the researches of so many active investigators of this curious subject have been able to ascertain. It is found, for example, and we will produce instances in viewing the progress of romance in particular countries, that the earliest productions of this sort, known to exist, are short narrations or ballads, which were probably sung on solemn or festive occasions, recording the deeds and praises of some famed champion of the tribe and country, or perhaps the history of some remarkable victory or signal defeat, calculated to interest the audience by the associations which the song awakens. These poems, of which very few can now be supposed to exist, are not without flashes of genius, but brief, rude, and often obscure, from real antiquity or affected sublimity of diction. The song on the battle of Brunanburgh, preserved in the Saxon Chronicle, is a genuine and curious example of this aboriginal style of poetry.
Even at this early period, there may be observed a distinction betwixt what may be called the Temporal and Spiritual romances; the first destined to the celebration of worldly glory; the second to recording the deaths of martyrs and the miracles of saints; both which themes unquestionably met with an almost equally favourable reception from their hearers. But although most nations possess, in their early species of literature, specimens of both kinds of romance, the proportion of each, as was naturally to have been expected, differs according as the genius of the people amongst whom they occur leaned towards devotion or military enterprise. Thus, of the Saxon specimens of poetry, which manuscripts still afford us, a very large proportion is devotional, amongst which are several examples of the spiritual romance, but very few, indeed, of those respecting warfare or chivalry. On the other hand, the Norman language, though rich in examples of both kinds of romances, is particularly abundant in that which relates to battle and warlike adventure. The Christian Saxons had become comparatively pacific, while the Normans were certainly accounted the most martial people in Europe.
However different the spiritual romance may be from the temporal in scope and tendency, the nature of the two compositions did not otherwise greatly differ. The structure of verse and style of composition was the same; and the induction, even when the most serious subject was undertaken, exactly resembled that with which minstrels introduced their idle tales, and often contained allusions to them. Warton quotes a poem on the Passions, which begins,
I hereth one lute tale, that Ich eu wille telle, As wi vyndeth hit write in the godspelle, Naz hit nouht of Carlemayne ne of the Duspere, Ac of Criste's thuryngye, &c.
The temporal romances, on the other hand, often commenced by such invocations of the Deity, as would only have been in place when a much more solemn subject was to be agitated. The exordium of the Romance of Feriunbras may serve as an example of a custom almost universal;
God in glorie of mightis moost That all things made in sapience, By virtue of Word and Holy Goose, Giving to men great excellence, &c.
The distresses and dangers which the knight endured for the sake of obtaining earthly fame and his mistress's favour, the saint or martyr was exposed to for the purpose of securing his rank in heaven, and the favour of some beloved and peculiar patron saint. If the earthly champion is in peril from monsters, dragons, and enchantments, the spiritual hero is represented as liable to the constant assaults of the whole invisible world, headed by the ancient dragon himself. If the knight is succoured at need by some favouring fairy or protecting genius, the saint is under the protection not only of the whole heavenly host, but of some one divine patron or patroness who is his especial auxiliary. Lastly, the conclusion of the romance, which usually assigns to the champion a fair realm, an abundant succession, and a train of happy years, consigns to the martyr his fame and altar upon earth, and in heaven his seat among saints and angels, and his share in a blessed eternity. It remains but to say, that the style and language of these two classes do not greatly differ, and that the composers of both employ the same structure of rhythm and of language, and draw their ideas and their incidents from similar sources; so that, having noticed the existence of the spiritual romance, it is unnecessary for the present to prosecute this subject farther.
Another early and natural division of these works of fiction seems to have arranged them into Serious and Comic. The former were by far the most numerous, and examples of the latter are in most countries comparatively rare. Such a class, however, existed, as proper romances, even if we hold the comic romance distinct from the Contes and Fabliaux of the French, and from such jocular English narratives as the Wife Lapt in Morals Skin, The Friar and the Boy, and similar humorous tales; of which the reader will find many examples in Ritson's Ancient English Poetry, and in other collections. The scene of these gestes being laid in low, or at least in ordinary life, they approach in their nature more nearly to the class of novels, and may perhaps be considered as the earliest specimens of that kind of composition. But the proper comic romance was that in which the high terms and knightly adventures of chivalry were burlesqued, by ascribing them to clowns or others of a low and mean degree. Such compositions formed, as it were, a parody on the serious romance, to which they bore the same proportion as the antimasque, studiously filled with grotesque, absurd, and extravagant characters, "entering," as the stage direction usually informs us, "to a confused music," bore to the masque itself, where all was dignified, noble, stately, and harmonious.
An excellent example of the comic romance is the Tournament of Tottenham, printed in Percy's Reliques, in which a number of clowns are introduced practising one of these warlike games, which were the exclusive prerogative of the warlike and noble. They are represented making vows to the swan, the peacock, and the ladies; riding a tilt on their clumsy cart horses, and encountering each other with ploughshares and flails; whilst their defensive armour consisted of great wooden bowls and troughs, by way of helmets and cuirasses. The learned editor seems to have thought this singular composition was like Don Quixote, with which he compares it, a premeditated effort of satire, written to expose the grave and fantastic manners of the serious romance. This is considering the matter too deeply, and ascribing to the author a more critical purpose than he was probably capable of conceiving. It is more natural to suppose that his only ambition was to raise a laugh, by ascribing to the vulgar the manners and exercises of the noble and valiant; as in the well-known farce of High Life Below Stairs, the ridicule is not directed against the manners described, but against the menials who affect those that are only befitting their superiors. The Hunting of the Hare, published in the collection formed by the late industrious and accurate Mr. Weber, is a comic romance of the same order. A yeoman informs the inhabitants of a country hamlet that he has found a hare sitting, and invites them to come to course her. They attend, accordingly, with all the curs and mastiffs of their village, and the unsportsman-like manner in which the inexperienced huntsmen and their irregular pack conduct themselves, forms the interest of the piece. It can hardly be supposed the satire is directed against the sport of hunt-
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1 The religious romances of Barlaam and Josaphat were composed by John of Damascus in the eighth century. But the simple tale of tradition has not passed through Romance. Many mouths, ere some one, to indulge his own propensity for the wonderful, or to secure by novelty the attention of his audience, augment the meagre chronicle with his own apocryphal inventions. Skirmishes are magnified into great battles; the champion of a remote age is exaggerated into a sort of demi-god; and the enemies whom he encountered and subdued are multiplied in number, and magnified in strength, in order to add dignity to his successes against them. Chanted to rhythmical numbers, the songs which celebrate the early valour of the fathers of the tribe become its war-cry in battle, and men march to conflict hymning the praises and the deeds of some real or supposed precursor who had marshalled their fathers in the path of victory.
No reader can have forgotten that when the decisive battle of Hastings commenced, a Norman minstrel, Taillefer, advanced on horseback before the invading host, and gave the signal for onset, by singing the Song of Roland, that renowned nephew of Charlemagne, of whom romance speaks so much, and history so little; and whose fall, with the chivalry of Charles the great in the pass of Roncevalles, has given rise to such clouds of romantic fiction, that its very name has been for ever associated with it. The remarkable passage has been often quoted from the Brut of Wace, an Anglo-Norman metrical chronicle.
Taillefer, qui mout bien chantent Ser un cheval qui tout about, Devant le Duc about chanter, De Karlemagne et de Rollant, Et d'Olivier et des vassals, Qui moururent en Roncevalles.
Which may be thus rendered:
Taillefer, who sung both well and loud, Came mounted on a coursier proud; Before the Duke the minstrel sung, And loud of Charles and Roland sung, Of Oliver and champions too, Who died at fatal Roncevaux.
This champion possessed the sleight-of-hand of the juggler, as well as the art of the minstrel. He tossed up his sword in the air, and caught it again as he galloped to the charge, and showed other feats of dexterity. Taillefer slew two Saxon warriors of distinction, and was himself killed by a third. Ritson, with less than his usual severe accuracy, supposed that Taillefer sung some part of a long metrical romance upon Roland and his history; but the words chanson, cantilena, and song, by which the composition is usually described, seems rather to apply to a brief ballad or national song; which is also more consonant with our ideas of the time and place where it was chanted.
But neither with these romantic and metrical chronicles did the mind-long remain satisfied; more details were demanded, and were liberally added by the invention of those who undertook to cater for the public taste in such matters. The same names of kings and champions, which had first caught the national ear, were still retained, in order to secure attention, and the same assertions of authenticity, and of reference to real history, were stoutly made both in the commencement and in the course of the narrative. Each nation, as will presently be seen, came at length to adopt itself a cycle of heroes like those of the Iliad; a sort of common property to all minstrels who chose to make use of them, under the condition always, that the general character assigned to each individual hero was preserved with some degree of consistency. Thus, in the romances of The Round Table, Gawain is usually represented as courteous; Kay as rude and boastful; Mordred as treacherous; and Sir Lancelot as a true though a sinful lover, and in all other respects a model of chivalry. Amid the Paladins of Charlemagne, whose cycle may be considered as peculiarly the property of French in opposition to Anglo-Norman ro- Romance, Gau, or Ganelon of Mayence, is always represented as a faithless traitor engaged in intrigues for the destruction of Christianity; Roland as brave, unsuspicious, devotedly loyal, and somewhat simple in his disposition; Renaud, or Rinaldo, is painted with all the properties of a borderer, valiant, alert, ingenious, rapacious and unscrupulous. The same conventional distinctions may be traced in the history of the Nibelung, a composition of Scandinavian origin, which has supplied matter for so many Teutonic adventurers. Meister Hildebrand, Etzel, Theodoric, and the champion Hogan, as well as Chrismelda and the females introduced, have the same individuality of character, which is ascribed, in Homer's immortal writings, to the wise Ulysses, the brave but relentless Achilles, his more gentle friend Patroclus, Sarpedon, the favourite of the gods, and Hector, the protector of mankind. It was not permitted to the invention of a Greek poet to make Ajax a dwarf, or Teucer a giant, Thersites a hero, or Diomedes a coward; and it seems to have been under similar restrictions respecting consistency that the ancient romancers exercised their ingenuity upon the materials supplied them by their predecessors. But, in other respects, the whole store of romantic history and tradition was free to all as a joint stock in trade, on which each had a right to draw as suited his particular purposes. He was at liberty not only to select a hero out of known and established names which had been the theme of others, but to imagine a new personage of his own pure fancy, and combine him with the heroes of Arthur's Table or Charlemagne's Court, in the way which best suited his fancy. He was permitted to excite new wars against those bulwarks of Christendom, invade them with fresh and innumerable hosts of Saracens, reduce them to the last extremity, drive them from their thrones, and lead them into captivity, and again to relieve their persons, and restore their sovereignty, by events and agents totally unknown in their former story.
In the characters thus assigned to the individual personages of romantic fiction, it is possible there might be some slight foundation in remote tradition, as there were also probably some real grounds for the existence of such persons, and perhaps for a very few of the leading circumstances attributed to them. But these realities only exist as the few grains of wheat in the bushel of chaff, incapable of being winnowed out, or cleared from the mass of fiction with which each new romancer had in his turn overwhelmed them. So that romance, though certainly deriving its first original from the pure fount of history, is supplied, during the course of a very few generations, with so many tributes from the imagination, that at length the very name comes to be used to distinguish works of pure fiction.
When so popular a department of poetry has attained this decided character, it becomes time to inquire who were the composers of these numerous, lengthened, and once admired narratives which are called metrical romances, and from whence they drew their authority. Both these subjects of discussion have been the source of great controversy among antiquaries; a class of men who, be it said with their forgiveness, are apt to be both positive and polemical upon the very points which are least susceptible of proof, and which are least valuable if the truth could be ascertained; and which, therefore, we would gladly have seen handled with more diffidence, and better temper, in proportion to their uncertainty.
The late venerable Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, led the way unwarily to this dire controversy, by ascribing the composition of our ancient heroic songs and metrical legends, in rather too liberal language, to the minstrels, that class of men by whom they were generally recited. This excellent person, to whose memory the lovers of our ancient lyre must always remain so deeply indebted, did not, on publishing his work nearly fifty years ago, see the rigid necessity of observing the utmost and most accurate precision either in his transcripts or his definitions. The study which he wished to introduce was a new one; it was his object to place it before the public in an engaging and interesting form; and, in consideration of his having obtained this important point, we ought to make every allowance not only for slight inaccuracies, but for some hasty conclusions, and even exaggerations, with which he was induced to garnish his labour of love. He defined the minstrels, to whose labours he chiefly ascribed the metrical compositions on which he desired to fix the attention of the public, as "an order of men in the middle ages, who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sung to the harp verses composed by themselves or others." In a very learned and elegant essay upon the text thus announced, the reverend Prelate in a great measure supported the definition which he had laid down; although it may be thought that, in the first editions at least, he has been anxious to view the profession of the minstrels on their fairest and most brilliant side; and to assign to them a higher station in society than a general review of all the passages connected with them will permit us to give to a class of persons who either lived a vagrant life, dependent on the precarious taste of the public for a hard-earned maintenance, or, at best, were retained as a part of the menial retinue of some haughty baron, and in a great measure identified with his musical band.
The late acute, industrious, and ingenious Mr. Joseph Ritson, whose severe accuracy was connected with an unhappy eagerness and irritability of temper, took advantage of the exaggerations occasionally to be found in the Bishop's Account of Ancient Minstrelsy, and assailed him with terms which may be termed any thing but courteous. Without finding an excuse either in the novelty of the studies in which Percy had led the way, or in the vivacity of imagination which he did not himself share, he proceeded to arraign each trivial inaccuracy as a gross fraud, and every deduction which he considered to be erroneous as a wilful untruth, fit to be stigmatised with the broadest appellation by which falsehood can be distinguished. Yet there is so little room for this extreme loss of temper, that, upon a recent perusal of both these ingenious essays, we were surprised to find that the reverend editor of the Reliques, and the accurate antiquary, have differed so very little as, in essential facts, they appear to have done. Quotations are, indeed, made by both with no sparing hand, and hot arguments; and, on one side at least, hard words are unsparingly employed; while, as is said to happen in theological polemics, the contest grows warmer in proportion as the ground concerning which it is carried on is narrower and more insignificant. Their systems, in reality, do not essentially differ.
Ritson is chiefly offended at the sweeping conclusion in which Percy states the minstrels as subsisting by the art of poetry and music, and reciting to the harp verses composed by themselves and others. He shows very successfully that this definition is considerably too extensive, and that the term minstrel comprehended, of old, not merely those who recited to the harp or other instrument romances and ballads, but others who were distinguished by their skill in instrumental music only; and, moreover, that jugglers, sleight-of-hand performers, dancers, tumblers, and such like subordinate artists, who were introduced to help away the tedious hours in an ancient feudal castle, were also comprehended under the general term of minstrel. But although he distinctly proves that Percy's definition applied only to one class of the persons termed minstrels, those, namely, who sung or recited verses, and in many cases of their own composition; the bishop's position remains unassailable, in so far as relates to one general class, and these the most dis-
1 Essay on Ancient Minstrels in England prefixed to the first volume of Bishop Percy's Reliques.