length how Arthur conquered almost all of Western Europe, and adds to the
earlier story the figures of Merlin, Guenevere, Modred, Gawain, Kay, and
Bedivere. What is not least important, he gives to Arthur's reign much of
the atmosphere of feudal chivalry which was that of the ruling class of his
own age.

Geoffrey may or may not have intended his astonishing story to be seriously
accepted, but in fact it was received with almost universal credence. For
centuries it was incorporated in outline or in excerpts into almost all the
sober chronicles, and what is of much more importance for literature, it
was taken up and rehandled in various fashions by very numerous romancers.
About twenty years after Geoffrey wrote, the French poet Wace, an English
subject, paraphrased his entire 'History' in vivid, fluent, and diffuse
verse. Wace imparts to the whole, in a thorough-going way, the manners of
chivalry, and adds, among other things, a mention of the Round Table, which
Geoffrey, somewhat chary of the supernatural, had chosen to omit, though it
was one of the early elements of the Welsh tradition. Other poets followed,
chief among them the delightful Chretien of Troyes, all writing mostly of
the exploits of single knights at Arthur's court, which they made over,
probably, from scattering tales of Welsh and Breton mythology. To declare
that most romantic heroes had been knights of Arthur's circle now became
almost a matter of course. Prose romances also appeared, vast formless
compilations, which gathered up into themselves story after story,
according to the fancy of each successive editor. Greatest of the additions
to the substance of the cycle was the story of the Holy Grail, originally
an altogether independent legend. Important changes necessarily developed.
Arthur himself, in many of the romances, was degraded from his position of
the bravest knight to be the inactive figurehead of a brilliant court; and
the only really historical element in the story, his struggle against the
Saxons, was thrust far into the background, while all the emphasis was laid