THE .MIDDLE AGES IN EUROPE. Among the new peoples after the fall of Rome, just, as among the Greeks, the epic flourished long before ro mance. But by the end of the twelfth century the epic impulse AN hieh had created Reoten/j and the CIranswi (le Roland had spent its force, and the age of romance had begun. Around char acters and events, historical in truth or believed to be historical, the trouveres were weaving strange and marvelous incidents. Inexhaustible themes they found in Charlemagne, Arthur, Alex ander, and the siege of Troy. Out of 'the Celtic matter' especially, they created I)ermanent char acter types—Arthur. Lancelot. Percival. ("nin evere, and Iseult. These verse tales began to yield in the thirteenth century to the romances of adventure, which frequently laid no claim to historical truth. The choicest extant specimen of them is the Aucassin ct. Nieuktte, in prose and assonance(' verse, meant to be sung. By the side of romance were cultivated the fa bliaux (q.v.), which depicted the intrigues and the humorous side of life. The leading types of fiction received their highest finish from the hand of Chaucer. The Canterbury
Tales and Troylus and Cryseyde mark important steps from romance to the novel. There were already signs of the age of prose, soon to demand a printing press. The Arthurian romances were turned into prose in the thirteenth century. The Oesta Romanorum, a Latin collection of stories, first got into print in 1472, but these stories are doubtless of a much earlier origin. By 1353 Boccaccio had published the Decameron. About two centuries later the Decameran furnished the plan of the Heptamerou of Margaret of Navarre. Through the Greeks in Southern Italy and the Crusaders. Greek fiction reached Western Europe in the twelfth century and earlier. The boy and girl separated by pirates or some chance, and brought together in a pretty recognition scene, became a common type in the romances of ad venture. Eastern tales, coming likewise through Italy and also through the Moors in Spain, were mingled with native incident in the Gestic Ro manornm, the French fabliaux. and the Italian novelle, and from these sources they spread still more widely.