which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance found to
tell us of the two great heroes of Carolingian poetry. And the
explanation of how it came to pass, that for the Roland of the song of
Roncevaux was substituted the Orlando of Ariosto, and for the Renaud of
"The Quatre Fils Aymon" the Rinaldo of Matteo Boiardo--means simply that
which I desire here to study: the metamorphoses of mediaeval romance
stuffs, and, more especially, the vicissitudes of the cycle of
Charlemagne.

II.

We are apt to think of the Middle Ages as if they were the
companion-piece to Antiquity; but no such ideal correspondence exists
between the two periods. Antiquity is all of a piece, and the Middle
Ages, on the contrary, are heterogeneous and chaotic. For Antiquity is
the steady and uniform development of civilization in one direction and
with one meaning; there are great differences between its various
epochs, but they are as the differences between the budding, the
blossoming, and the fading stages of one plant: life varies, but is one.
The Middle Ages, on the other hand, are a series of false starts, of
interruptions and of new departures; a perpetual confusion. For, if we
think over them, we shall see that these centuries called mediaeval are
occupied by the effort of one people, or one generation, to put to
rights and settle down among as much as it can save of the civilization
of Antiquity. And the sudden overwhelming of this people or this
generation by another, which puts all the elaborate arrangements into
disarray, adds to the ruins of Antiquity the ruins of more recent times;
and then this destroying generation tries to put things straight, to
settle down, and is in its turn interrupted by the advent of some new
comer who begins the game afresh.

As it is with peoples, so also is it with ideas; scarcely has a scheme
of life or of philosophy or of art taken shape and consistence before,
from out of the inexhaustible chaos of mediaeval thought and feeling,
there issue new necessities, new aspirations, which put into confusion
all previous ones. The Middle Ages were like some financial crisis: a
little time, a little credit, money will fructify, wealth will reappear,
the difficult moment will be tided over; and so with civilization. But
unfortunately the wealth of ideas began to accumulate in the storehouse
only just long enough to bring down a rout of creditors, people who
rifled the bank, and went home to consume or invest the