by French natives of the English provinces in France, and the English ones
which have been preserved are mostly translations or imitations of French
originals. The romances are extreme representatives of the whole class of
literature of all times to which they have given the name. Frankly
abandoning in the main the world of reality, they carry into that of
idealized and glamorous fancy the chief interests of the medieval lords and
ladies, namely, knightly exploits in war, and lovemaking. Love in the
romances, also, retains all its courtly affectations, together with that
worship of woman by man which in the twelfth century was exalted into a
sentimental art by the poets of wealthy and luxurious Provence in Southern
France. Side by side, again, with war and love, appears in the romances
medieval religion, likewise conventionalized and childishly superstitious,
but in some inadequate degree a mitigator of cruelty and a restrainer of
lawless passion. Artistically, in some respects or all, the greater part of
the romances are crude and immature. Their usual main or only purpose is to
hold attention by successions of marvellous adventures, natural or
supernatural; of structure, therefore, they are often destitute; the
characters are ordinarily mere types; and motivation is little considered.
There were, however, exceptional authors, genuine artists, masters of meter
and narrative, possessed by a true feeling for beauty; and in some of the
romances the psychological analysis of love, in particular, is subtile and
powerful, the direct precursor of one of the main developments in modern
fiction.

The romances may very roughly be grouped into four great classes. First in
time, perhaps, come those which are derived from the earlier French epics
and in which love, if it appears at all, is subordinated to the military
exploits of Charlemagne and his twelve peers in their wars against the
Saracens. Second are the romances which, battered salvage from a greater
past, retell in strangely altered romantic fashion the great stories of