wrote his famous work
while holding the see of Canterbury.

Footnote 47: During the Roman occupancy of Britain occurred a curious
mingling of Celtic and Roman traditions. The Welsh began to associate their
national hero Arthur with Roman ancestors; hence the story of Brutus,
great-grandson of Aeneas, the first king of Britain, as related by Geoffrey
and Layamon.

Footnote 48: Probably a Latin copy of Bede.

Footnote 49: Wace's translation of Geoffrey.

Footnote 50: Only one word in about three hundred and fifty is of French
origin. A century later Robert Mannyng uses one French word in eighty,
while Chaucer has one in six or seven. This includes repetitions, and is a
fair estimate rather than an exact computation.

Footnote 51: The matter of Britain refers strictly to the Arthurian, i.e.
the Welsh romances; and so another division, the matter of England, may be
noted. This includes tales of popular English heroes, like Bevis of
Hampton, Guy of Warwick, Horn Child, etc.

Footnote 52: According to mediaeval literary custom these songs were
rarely signed. Later, when many songs were made over into a long poem, the
author signed his name to the entire work, without indicating what he had
borrowed

Footnote 53: An English book in which such romances were written was
called a Gest or Jest Book. So also at the beginning of _Cursor Mundi_
(_c_. 1320) we read:

Men yernen jestis for to here
And romaunce rede in diverse manere,

and then follows a summary of the great cycles of romance, which we are
considering.

Footnote 54: Tennyson goes farther than Malory in making Gawain false and
irreverent. That seems to be a mistake; for in all the earliest romances
Gawain is, next to Arthur, the noblest of knights, the most loved and
honored of all the heroes of the Round Table.

Footnote 55: There were various French versions of the story; but it came
originally from the Irish, where the hero was called Cuchulinn.

Footnote 56: It is often alleged that in this romance we have a very
poetical foundation for the Order of the Garter, which was instituted by
Edward III, in 1349; but the history of the order makes this extremely
doubtful. The reader will be chiefly interested in comparing this romance
with _Beowulf_, for instance, to see what new ideals have taken root in
England.

Footnote 57: Originally Cockaygne (variously spelled) was intended to
ridicule the mythical country of Avalon, som