pe, been said to clear the scheme itself from the
objection of uselessness or of impracticability. In one sense, no
doubt, far more room than this volume, or a much larger, could
provide, may seem to be required for the discussion and arrangement of
so great and interesting a matter as the Literature of the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries. But to say this, is only saying that no such
account in such a space could be exhaustive: and it so happens that an
exhaustive account is for the purpose not required--would indeed go
pretty far towards the defeat of that purpose. What is wanted is to
secure that the reader, whether he pursues his studies in more detail
with regard to any of these literatures or not, shall at any rate have
in his head a fair general notion of what they were simultaneously or
in succession, of the relation in which they stood to each other, of
the division of literary labour between them.

If, on the other hand, it be said, "You propose to give, according to
your scheme, a volume apiece to the fourteenth and even the fifteenth
centuries, the work of which was far less original and interesting
than the work of these two! Why do you couple these?" the answer is
not difficult. In the first place, the work of these two
centuries--which is mainly though not wholly the work of the hundred
years that form their centre period--is curiously inseparable. In only
a few cases do we know precise dates, and in many the _circa_ is of
such a circuitous character that we can hardly tell whether the
twelfth or the thirteenth century deserves the credit. In almost all
the adoption of any intermediate date of severance would leave an
awkward, raw, unreal division. We should leave off while the best of
the _chansons de geste_ were still being produced, in the very middle
of the development of the Arthurian legend, with half the _fabliaux_
yet to come and half the sagas unwritten, with the Minnesingers in
full voice, with the tale of the Rose half told, with the Fox not yet
broken up.

And, in the second place, the singular combination of anonymity and
school-character in the most characteristic mediaeval literature makes
it easier, vast as is its mass and in some cases conspicuous as is its
merit, to handle in small space than later work. Only by a wild
indulgence in guessing or a tedious minuteness of attention to
_Lautlehre_ and rhyme-lists is it possible to make a treatment of even
a named person like Chrestien de Tr