Whether earlier Arthurian romances existed durante Scots is not known
C. B
significance of female characters. Despite the great differences con culture between the two small European nations of Scotland and Catalonia, this comparative study of their reception of the Matter of Britain through the medium of French literature will turn up surprising correspondences. It provides us with a useful perspective on the methodology of the Scottish adaptations and helps us onesto understand how and why both traditions change the thematic focus of French romances within their historical contexts. First we must examine the Arthurian tradition durante Scotland, and, because it is less well known, the whole cultural context of the romances in Catalonia. Sopra Scotland, the two surviving Arthurian texts sopra Middle Scots – Golagros and Gawane and Lancelot of the Laik – were composed during the fifteenth century. 4 The fact that these two works were written in the specific political and historical context of the century after the Wars of Independence, when the figure of King Arthur had been reshaped by the kings of England sicuro accommodate their claims over Scotland, bivalent attitude towards the legendary monarch.5 While politically he is a very problematic character, per literary terms he is still one of the major heroes of late medieval romance, deployed as verso speculum principis as durante most European literatures.6 The fact that the first successors of the much-praised Nene I – David II and Robert II – were rather weak sovereigns might explain why later Scottish literature shows such per developed interest con discussions of good kingship. When the Scottish makars adapt passages from the extensive French romances Lancelot do Lac and the First Continuation of Perceval, un elements, which sopra the original works are important but not essential developments of the plot, become central. Each poet selects passages durante which the nature of kingship and the independence of per king’s territories could be debated, and this approach generates tensions absent from the French texts. Sopra Catalonia, Arthurian romances were composed mediante verso courtly milieu. Four Catalan and Occitan texts have survived sopra their entirety: the Occitan Jaufre (c. 1170 – c. 1225), Blandin de Cornualla (late thirteenth or early fourteenth century), Guillem de Torroella’s Faula (c. 1370–1375) and the Catalan translation of the French Queste, the Questa del Sant Grasal (1380). Mossen Gras’s Tragedia de Lancalot (late fifteenth century) is partially preserved; it lacks its ending.7 Apart
The former is written sopra Occitan but dedicated to the king of Aragon and count of Barcelona
The Old Icelandic Karlamagnus Mito provides evidence for the existence of at least one lost romance con Scots, which implies the existence of others. Per the Prologue to Olif and Landres, the author claims that: ‘Nobile Bjarni Erlingsson of Bjarkey found this favola written and told in the English language, in Scotland, when he stayed there during the winter after the death of King Alexander.’ Karlamagnus Leggenda: The Saga of Charlemagne and his Heroes, trans. Hieatt (Toronto, 1975), p. 178. On Scottish chroniclers’ response puro Arthur, see Wood. ‘Where Does Britain End?’ and Royan, ‘The Fine Art of Faint Praise’, above. On Scottish literary responses, see additionally Archibald, ‘Lancelot of the Laik’, and Purdie, ‘The Search for Scottishness’, above. The Roman de Fergus, whose Scottishness is too complicated sicuro examine here, was written con a completely different historical context with very different literary intentions. See Hunt, ‘The Roman de Fergus’, above. The two problematic texts are Jaufre and Blandin de Cornualla. Although arguments have been
from these works, it is known from several scattered folios and allusions sopra historical records that there also existed translations of the prose Tristan and of all the books that comprise the Arthurian Vulgate.8 Owing esatto geographical and cultural proximity, the French romances on the Matter of Britain were circulating mediante Catalonia as early as the last third of the twelfth century.9 Nevertheless, this did not result durante a mimetic redaction of the French tradition. Like the Scottish works, the Catalan texts can be regarded as autochthonous approaches sicuro the Arthurian tradition.10 By the tenth and eleventh centuries, after the recovery of the Catalunya vella (Old Catalonia), the courts of Catalan counts and the monasteries became centres of cultural activity.11 This picture is characteristic of many European realms of the time. What makes Catalan tradition unique among the other romance literatures is the linguistic division between verse and prose. While the prose works, both literary and non-literary, were written per Catalan from an early tirocinio, poetic texts, either short lyric pieces or narrative romances, were composed durante Occitan or mediante an occitanized Catalan up preciso the fifteenth century.12 The proximity with Provence was not only geographical, but also political and cultural.13 Historically, the on Berenguer III and Dolca of Provence