The Gathering of Matter.—Proceeding a little further in the cautious quest—not for the definite origins which are usually delusive, but for the tendencies which avail themselves of oppor tunities and the opportunities which lend themselves to tendencies —we may notice two things very important to the subject. The one is that as Graeco-Roman civilization began to spread north and east it met, to appearance which approaches certainty, mat ter which lent itself gladly to "romantic" treatment. That such matter was abundant in the literature and folk-lore of the East we know : that it was even more abundant in the literatures and folk-lore of the North, if we cannot strictly be said to know, we may be reasonably sure. On the other hand, as the various bar barian nations (using the word in the wide Greek sense), at least those of the North, became educated to literature, to "grammar," by classical examples, they found not a few passages in these examples which were either almost romances already or which lent themselves, with readiness that was almost insistence, to ro mantic treatment. Apollonius Rhodius had made almost a com plete romance of the story of Jason and Medea. Virgil had imitated him by making almost a complete romance of the story of Aeneas and Dido : and Ovid, who for that very reason was to become the most popular author of the middle ages early and late, had gone some way towards romancing a great body of mythology. We do not know exactly who first applied to the legendary tale of Troy the methods which the pseudo-Callisthenes and "Julius Valerius" applied to the historical wars of Alexander, but there is every reason to believe that it was done fairly early. In short, during the late classical or semi-classical times and the whole of the dark ages, things were making for romance in al most every direction.
It would and did follow from this that the thing evolved itself in so many different places and in so many different forms that only a person of extraordinary temerity would put his finger on any given work and say, "This is the first romance," even putting aside the extreme chronological uncertainty of most of the docu ments that could be selected for such a position. Except by the most meteoric flights of "higher" criticism we cannot attain to any opinion as to the age and first developed form of such a story as that of Weland and Beadohild (referred to in the Complaint of Deor), which has strong romantic possibilities and must be al most of the oldest. The much more complicated Volsung and Nibelung story, though we may explore to some extent the ex istence backwards of its Norse and German forms, baffles us be yond certain points in each case; yet this, with the exception of the religious element, is romance almost achieved. And the origin of the great type of the romance that is achieved—that has all elements present and brings them to absolute perfection—the Arthurian legend, despite the immense labours that have been spent upon it and the valuable additions to particular knowledge which have resulted from some of them, is, still more than its own Grail, a quest unachieved, probably a thing unachievable.
The longest and the widest inquiries, provided only that they be conducted in any spirit save that which determines to attain cer tainty and therefore concludes that certainty has been attained, will probably acquiesce most resignedly in the dictum that ro mance "grew"—that its birthplace is as unknown as the grave of its greatest representative figure.
But when it has "grown" to a certain stage we can find it, and in a way localize it, and more definitely still analyse and compre hend its characteristics from their concrete expressions.
Approaching these concrete expressions, then, without at first putting forward excessively hard and fast requirements in regard to the validation of the claims, we find existing in Europe about the th century (the time is designedly left loose) divers classes of what we should now call imaginative or fictitious literature, nearly all (the exceptions are Scandinavian and Old English) in verse.
These are: (i.) The saints' lives; (ii.) the Norse sagas, roughly so-called; (iii.) the French chansons de geste; (iv.) the Old Eng lish and Old German stories of various kinds; (v.) perhaps the beginning of the Arthurian cycle; (vi.) various stories more or less based on classical legend or history from the tales of Alex ander and of Troy down to things like Apollonius of Tyre, which have no classical authority of either kind, but strongly resemble the Greek romances, and which were, as in the case named, pretty certainly derived from members of the class; (vii.) certain f rag ments of Eastern story making their way first, it may be, through Spain by pilgrimages, latterly by the crusades.
Now, without attempting to fence off too rigidly the classical from the romantic, it may be laid down that these various classes possess that romantic character, to which we are, by a process of netting and tracking, slowly making our way, in rather differ ent degrees, and a short examination of the difference will forward us not a little in the hunt.
With i. (the saints' lives) we have least to do: because by the time that romance in the full sense comes largely and clearly into view, it has for the most part separated itself off—the legend of St. Eustace has become the romance of Sir Isumbras, and so forth. But the influence which it may, as has been said, have originally given must have been continually re-exerted ; the ro mantic-dynamic suggestion of such stories as those of St. Mary of Egypt, of St. Margaret and the Dragon, of St. Dorothea, and of scores of others, is quite unmistakable. Still, in actual result, it works rather more on drama than on narrative romance, and produces the miracle plays.