ROMANCE, a fictitious narrative in prose or verse, the interest of which turns upon inci dents either marvelous or uncommon. The name is derived from the class of languages in which such narratives in modern times were first widely known and circulated: these were the French, Italian and Spanish, called the Romance Languages (q.v.). The treatment here given must omit any extended mention of cer tain isolated romances in the later Greek. A well-known example of such is 'Apollonius of Tyre,) at one time widely read in the west of Europe; transmitted to England, first probably in a Latin version, it was soon translated, and was employed by Shakespeare for the plot of 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre.) Nor can the limits of the subject admit of discussion of some few Latin works sometimes classed as romances, such as the (Golden Ass) of Apuleius, of which use was made in 'Don Quixote) and (Gil Blas.) For such, see articles on individual titles and authors, and the general articles on the Greek and Latin literatures. For general considera tion the subject may be restricted to the Middle Ages. The finest of these romances still extant are of the 12th and 13th centuries. They may be divided into two classes — the popular epics (chansons de geste) chanted by the jonglenrs and other strolling minstrels; and the more elaborate and artificial poems composed by tron veres and recited before aristocratic audiences.
The materials of both classes were more an cient lays of celebrated heroes, mingled fre quently, especially in the German romances, with pagan myths, together with long connecting pas sages composed by the minstrels themselves. Hence originated a series of epics grouped around some renowned hero, and forming a cycle of romance. To the first class belong the German heroic poems and the Carlovingian chansons; to the second the Arthurian legends.
Of the collection of the ancient German lays made by Charlemagne, nothing remains except perhaps the fragment of the alliterative Lay of Hildebrand, now in the Cassel Library. It is supposed to have been written in the 9th cen tury or even earlier. All the other manuscripts of German heroic poems are of much later date; none of them are earlier than the 13th and most of them belong to the 14th or 15th centuries. Of the 'Nibelungenlied) (q, v.) there are three copies belonging to the 13th century. In this epic Dietrich plays an important part; but the poems devoted to the simple Dietrich legend are only found in late transcripts or early printed editions, probably little later than the date of their actual composition. They repre sent, however, older lays, and these again still older, of equal or even greater antiquity by two centuries or more than the Cassel fragment The language changed considerably in the course of these centuries, and the poems must have been entirely recast, rhyme being substi tuted for alliteration; but the change in the legend itself is immaterial. It can be traced in the Latin chronicles of the 10th and 11th centuries, and also by means of the 'Vilkina Saga,) an Icelandic prose work of the 13th century. These poems, as well as others on similar subjects, range from a few hundred to several thousand lines in length. Some of them were modernized by Caspar von der Rahn, and inserted in his 'Heldenbuch.> The completest collection is that in Heinrich von der Hagen's 'Altdeutsche Heldenlieder> (1855). Another poem closely connected with the Nibelungenlied is the Latin epic of Walter of Aquitaine, attrib uted to Ekkehard I, abbot of Saint Gall, who died in 973, and is said to have written it as an exercise in his youth. It is obviously a transla tion from a German poem, and is found in several manuscripts, none of them perhaps older than the 12th century. The ((La said by W. Grimm and others to be a poem of the 12th century, forms a sort of conclusion to the great German epic; and an other poem, (Biterolf,> is ascribed to the same unknown author. It extends to 13,000 lines, and contains a great number of daring adventures, in the course of which Dietrich encounters and vanquishes Siegfried. 'Gudrun) is a fine epic of nearly 7,000 lines, and is of not much later date than the 'Nibelungenlied.)
We can only mention the names of the poems which make up what has been called the Lom bard sub-cycle, namely, 'Kenig Ruther,) dietrich) (including and (Ot nit) which latter furnishes the materials for the French poem (Huon de Bordeaux.) Frederick Barbarossa was a great admirer of Charle magne, and collected all the accredited records of that monarch. He patronized the minne singers as the German representatives of the troubadours. At his great Mainz tournament were assembled not only the knights of Ger many and France, but the poets also. Among those present was Heinrich von Veldeke, who imitated the 'Roman d'Eneas' in his (Eneit,) an example quickly followed by the chief lead ing epic poets of Germany. Heinrich completed his poem at the Wartburg, the residence of Her mann, Landgrave of Thuringia; and many other translations, among others that of the (Roman de Troie,) were executed there shortly after ward. Another guest of the landgrave's was Wolfram von Eschenbach, author of (Parzival.) The chansons de geste form an interesting body of literature. The oldest of them are of grmt length, consisting generally of 20,000, 30,000, or even as many as 56,000 lines, grouped in sets (tirades) of from 20 to 200 lines, all ending with the same assonantal rhyme. Up till the middle of the 12th century the lines were of 10 syllables, but lines of 12 syllables, ending in consonantal rhymes, were gradually substi tuted. The romances were sung to the sound of a kind of violin (vielle),playeil with a regu lar bow. Many of the minstrels (jongletirs) were poor, wandering on foot from village to village, singing in the alehouses, or at the public fairs and games; some were soldiers, such as Taillefer, who struck his first blow at Hastings. Later they became mere mounte banks. A number of them wrote their own chansons, while others bought them from their original authors, and adapted them to the taste of their audience. When a jongleur had thus procured a copy he took care to conceal it from his rivals. A few of such copies, little weather-beaten volumes, are still preserved, a noted example being the Oxford manuscript of the (Chanson de It was to the poets of northern and central France rather than to the troubadours of Provence that these poems were due. The chansons de geste are divided into three cycles — that relating to Charlemagne and his peers, the Arthurian and the classical. The more antique the Charlemagne romances are the more they are devoted to the emperor, who is represented more as a majestic king and valiant knight than as the statesman we recog nize him in history to be; at times he is de picted as being easily duped, avaricious and capricious. Among such works are 'Girard de Viane> (Ferabras) or (Fierabras) ; and the 'Chanson de Roland.) The centre of the entire structure is the Cycle.) In the lays of the Welsh bards, supposed to be as old as the 6th and 7th centuries, although no manu script extant is of earlier date than the 12th century, Arthur and his companions are cele brated, but temperately, the element of the miraculous being absent. It is in the (His toria Britonum) of Abbot Nennius (apparently written in Welsh in the 8th century, and trans lated into Latin afterward) that the legendary additions begin to develop. Of three or four centuries later date are the so-called (Armoric Collections) of Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, from whom Geoffrey of Monmouth professes to translate, and in which the supernatural and marvelous elements largely prevail. The 'His 'tory' of Geoffrey was versified in French (1155-58) by Wace, a son of one of the Con queror's followers. The as this Met rical setting is called, contains about 15,300 eight-syllable lines, and adds a few details to the story of Arthur which do not seem, how ever, to have been Wace's own invention. The work was translated into English, and further amplified, by Layamon, about 1204. The 'Brut' of Layamon is composed of nearly 32,250 allit erative lines, or rather half lines. One of the most prolific of the Arthurian poets is Chretien de Troyes (born about 1140).