The Matter of Britain (French: matière de Bretagne) is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. The 12th-century Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), widely popular in its day, is a central component of the Matter of Britain.

It was one of the three great Western story cycles recalled repeatedly in medieval literature, together with the Matter of France, which concerned the legends of Charlemagne, and the Matter of Rome, which included material derived from or inspired by classical mythology and classical history.[1] Its pseudo-chronicle and chivalric romance works, written both in prose and verse, flourished from the 12th to the 16th century.

Name

The three "matters" were first described in the 12th century by French poet Jean Bodel, whose epic Chanson des Saisnes ("Song of the Saxons") contains the lines:

The name distinguishes and relates the Matter of Britain from the mythological themes taken from classical antiquity, the "Matter of Rome", and the tales of the Paladins of Charlemagne and their wars with the Moors and Saracens, which constituted the "Matter of France".

Themes and subjects

King Arthur is the chief subject of the Matter of Britain, along with stories related to the legendary kings of Britain, as well as lesser-known topics related to the history of Great Britain and Brittany, such as the stories of Brutus of Troy, Coel Hen, Leir of Britain (King Lear), and Gogmagog.

Legendary history

The legendary history of Britain was created partly to form a body of patriotic myth for the country. Several agendas thus can be seen in this body of literature. According to John J. Davenport, the question of Britain's identity and significance in the world "was a theme of special importance for writers trying to find unity in the mixture of their land's Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Roman and Norse inheritance."[3]

Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae is a central component of the Matter of Britain. Geoffrey drew on a number of ancient British texts, including the ninth century Historia Brittonum. The Historia Brittonum is the earliest known source of the story of Brutus of Troy. Traditionally attributed to Nennius, its actual compiler is unknown; it exists in several recensions. This tale went on to achieve greater currency because its inventor linked Brutus to the diaspora of heroes that followed the Trojan War.[3] As such, this material could be used for patriotic myth-making just as Virgil linked the founding of Rome to the Trojan War in The Æneid. Geoffrey lists Coel Hen as a King of the Britons,[4] whose daughter, Helena marries Constantius Chlorus and gives birth to a son who becomes the Emperor Constantine the Great, tracing the Roman imperial line to British ancestors.

It has been suggested that Leir of Britain, who later became King Lear, was originally the Welsh sea-god Llŷr, related to the Irish Ler. Various Celtic deities have been identified with characters from Arthurian literature as well: for example Morgan le Fay was often thought to have originally been the Welsh goddess Modron or Irish the Morrígan. Many of these identifications come from the speculative comparative religion of the late 19th century and have been questioned in more recent years.

William Shakespeare was interested in the legendary history of Britain, and was familiar with some of its more obscure byways. Shakespeare's plays contain several tales relating to these legendary kings, such as King Lear and Cymbeline. It has been suggested that Shakespeare's Welsh schoolmaster Thomas Jenkins introduced him to this material. These tales also figure in Raphael Holinshed's The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which also appears in Shakespeare's sources for Macbeth.

Other early authors also drew from the early Arthurian and pseudo-historical sources of the Matter of Britain. The Scots, for instance, formulated a mythical history in the Pictish and the Dál Riata royal lines. While they do eventually become factual lines, unlike those of Geoffrey, their origins are vague and often incorporate both aspects of mythical British history and mythical Irish history. The story of Gabrán mac Domangairt especially incorporates elements of both those histories.

Arthurian cycle

The Arthurian literary cycle is the best-known part of the Matter of Britain. It has succeeded largely because it tells two interlocking stories that have intrigued many later authors. One concerns Camelot, usually envisioned as a doomed utopia of chivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of the heroes like Arthur, Gawain and Lancelot. The other concerns the quests of the various knights to achieve the Holy Grail; some succeed (Galahad, Percival), and others fail.

The Arthurian tales have been changed throughout time, and other characters have been added to add backstory and expand on other Knights of the Round Table. The medieval legend of Arthur and his knights is full of Christian themes; those themes involve the destruction of human plans for virtue by the moral failures of their characters, and the quest for an important Christian relic. Finally, the relationships between the characters invited treatment in the tradition of courtly love, such as Lancelot and Guinevere, or Tristan and Iseult.

In more recent years, the trend has been to attempt to link the tales of King Arthur and his knights with Celtic mythology, usually in highly romanticized, 20th-century reconstructed versions. The work of Jessie Weston, in particular From Ritual to Romance, traced Arthurian imagery through Christianity to roots in early nature worship and vegetation rites, though this interpretation is no longer fashionable.[5] It is also possible to read the Arthurian literature, particularly the Grail tradition, as an allegory of human development and spiritual growth, a theme explored by mythologist Joseph Campbell amongst others.[6]

Noteworthy authors

Medieval

AuthorCentury LanguageŒuvres
Béroul12th Old NormanTristan
Chrétien de Troyes12th Old FrenchErec and Enide, Cligès, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, Perceval, the Story of the Grail
Geoffrey Chaucer14th Middle EnglishThe Canterbury Tales
Thomas Chestre14th Middle EnglishSir Launfal, Libeaus Desconus
Geoffrey of Monmouth12th LatinHistoria Regum Britanniae, Vita Merlini
Gottfried von Strassburg13th Middle High GermanTristan
Hartmann von Aue12th Middle High GermanErec, Iwein
Layamon13th Middle EnglishBrut
Thomas Malory15th Middle EnglishLe Morte d'Arthur
Marie de France12th Anglo-NormanLais of Marie de France: Lai de Yonec, Lai de Frêne, Lai de Lanval (...)
Nennius9th LatinHistoria Brittonum
Robert de Boron12th Old FrenchMerlin
Taliesin6th Middle WelshBook of Taliesin
Thomas of Britain12th Old FrenchTristan
Wace12th Old NormanRoman de Brut, Roman de Rou
Wolfram von Eschenbach12th Middle High GermanParzival
Raoul de Houdenc12th Old FrenchMeraugis de Portlesguez
Païen de Maisières12–13th Old FrenchLa Mule sans frein
Raoul de Houdenc13th Old FrenchLa Vengeance Raguidel
Rustichello da Pisa13th Franco-ItalianRoman de Roi Artus, Guiron le Courtois, Meliodus
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven13th Middle High GermanLanzelet

Anonymous

ŒuvresCentury Language
Alliterative Morte Arthure14th–15th Middle English
The Awntyrs off Arthure14th–15th Middle English
L'âtre périlleux13th Old French
Le Chevalier au papegau14th–15th Middle French
Elucidation13th Old French
Floriant et Florete13th Old French
Folie Tristan d'Oxford12th Anglo-Norman
De Ortu Waluuanii12–13th Latin
Gliglois13th Old French
Hunbaut13th Old French
Jaufre13th Old Occitan
The Knight with the Sword13th Old French
The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain15th Middle Scots
Lancelot-Grail Cycle13th Old French
Life of Caradoc6th
Mabinogion11th-13th Middle Welsh
The Marvels of Rigomer13th Old French
Meliadus13th Old French
Of Arthour and of Merlin13th Middle English
Palamedes13th Old French
Perceforest14th Middle French
Perceval Continuations13th Old French
Perlesvaus13th Old French
Post-Vulgate Cycle13th Old French
Prose Tristan13th Old French
Roman de Fergus13th Old French
Romanz du reis Yder13th Anglo-Norman
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight14th Middle English
Stanzaic Morte Arthur14th Middle English
La Tavola Ritonda15th Tuscan
Vera historia de morte Arthuri12th/13th Latin

Modern

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Evans (2012)
  2. ↑ ‪Bodel, Jean; Stengel, Edmund; Menzel, Fritz (1906). Jean Bodels Saxenlied. Teil I. Unter Zugrundlegung der Turiner Handschrift von neuem herausgegeben von F. Menzel und E. Stengel.‪ (in German). Marburg: Elwert'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.‬
  3. 1 2 3 Davenport (2004)
  4. ↑ Geoffrey of Monmouth (1966)
  5. ↑ Surette (1988)
  6. ↑ Campbell & Moyers (1991)
  7. ↑ Flieger (2000)

Cited works

Further reading

  • Dover, Carol, ed. (2005). A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1843842453.
  • Green, D.H. (2005). The Beginnings of Medieval Romance: Fact and fiction, 1150–1220. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521049566.
  • Pearsall, Derek (2005). Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631233206.
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Arthurian Legend".
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