measure to the poets of the northern part of the kingdom, called
Trouveurs.

At a time when chivalry excited universal admiration, and when all
the efforts of that chivalry were directed against the enemies of
religion, it was natural that literature should receive the same
impulse, and that history and fable should be ransacked to furnish
examples of courage and piety that might excite increased
emulation. Arthur and Charlemagne were the two heroes selected for
this purpose. Arthur's pretensions were that he was a brave,
though not always a successful warrior; he had withstood with
great resolution the arms of the infidels, that is to say of the
Saxons, and his memory was held in the highest estimation by his
countrymen, the Britons, who carried with them into Wales, and
into the kindred country of Armorica, or Brittany, the memory of
his exploits, which their national vanity insensibly exaggerated,
till the little prince of the Silures (South Wales) was magnified
into the conqueror of England, of Gaul, and of the greater part of
Europe. His genealogy was gradually carried up to an imaginary
Brutus, and to the period of the Trojan war, and a sort of
chronicle was composed in the Welsh, or Armorican language, which,
under the pompous title of the "History of the Kings of Britain,"
was translated into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, about the year
1150. The Welsh critics consider the material of the work to have
been an older history, written by St. Talian, Bishop of St. Asaph,
in the seventh century.

As to Charlemagne, though his real merits were sufficient to
secure his immortality, it was impossible that his HOLY WARS
against the Saracens should not become a favorite topic for