Stories of King Arthur and His Knights | Page 2

to recognise and love the beautiful everywhere."

Quoted from Wieland by Goethe in his Autobiography

Introduction
Among the best liked stories of five or six hundred years ago were
those which told of chivalrous deeds--of joust and tourney and knightly
adventure. To be sure, these stories were not set forth in printed books,
for there were no printed books as early as the times of the first three
King Edwards, and few people could have read them if there had been
any. But children and grown people alike were eager to hear these
old-time tales read or recited by the minstrels, and the interest in them
has continued in some measure through all the changing years and
tastes. We now, in the times of the seventh King Edward, still find
them far more worth our while than many modern stories. For us they
have a special interest, because of home setting and Christian basis, and
they may well share in our attention with the legends of Greece and
Rome.
In these early romances of chivalry, Arthur and his knights of the
Round Table are by far the most popular heroes, and the finding of the
Holy Grail is the highest achievement of knightly valour. The material
for the Arthur stories came from many countries and from many
different periods of history. Much of it is wholly fanciful, but the
writers connected all the incidents directly or indirectly with the old
Briton king of the fifth century, who was the model of knighthood,
"without fear and without reproach."
Perhaps there was a real King Arthur, who led the Britons against the
Saxon invaders of their land, who was killed by his traitor nephew, and
who was buried at Glastonbury,--the valley of Avilion of the legends;
perhaps there was a slight historical nucleus around which all the
romantic material was crystallising through the centuries, but the
Arthur of romance came largely from the imagination of the early
writers.
And yet, though our "own ideal knight" may never have trod the soil of

Britain or Roman or Saxon England, his chivalrous character and the
knightly deeds of his followers are real to us, if we read them rightly,
for "the poet's ideal was the truest truth." Though the sacred vessel--the
Holy Grail--of the Christ's last supper with His disciples has not been
borne about the earth in material form, to be seen only by those of
stainless life and character, it is eternally true that the "pure in heart"
are "blessed," "for they shall see God." This is what the Quest of the
Holy Grail means, and there is still many a true Sir Galahad, who can
say, as he did,
"My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure,"
and who attains the highest glory of knighthood, as before his clear
vision
"down dark tides the glory glides, And starlike mingles with the stars."
We call these beautiful stories of long ago Stories of Chivalry, for, in
the Middle Ages, chivalry influenced all that people did and said and
thought. It began in the times of Charlemagne, a hundred years before
our own King Alfred, and only very gradually it made its way through
all the social order. Charlemagne was really a very great man, and
because he was so, he left Western Europe a far better place to live in
than he found it. Into the social life of his time he brought something
like order and justice and peace, and so he greatly helped the Christian
Church to do its work of teaching the rough and warlike Franks and
Saxons and Normans the gentle ways of thrift and helpfulness.
Charlemagne's "heerban," or call to arms, required that certain of his
men should attend him on horseback, and this mounted service was the
beginning of what is known as chivalry. The lesser nobles of each
feudal chief served their overlords on horseback, à cheval, in times of
war; they were called knights, which originally meant
servants,--German knechte; and the system of knighthood, its rules,
customs, and duties, was called chivalry,--French chevalerie.
Chivalry belongs chiefly to the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries,--to about the time between King Richard of the Lion Heart

and Prince Hal. There is no trace of ideas peculiar to it in the writings
of the old Anglo-Saxons or in the Nibelungen Lied of Germany.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, who died, it is said, in the year 1154, is about
the earliest writer who mentions customs that belong especially to
chivalry. The Crusades, of Geoffrey's century and of the one following,
gave much opportunity for its growth and practice; but in the fifteenth
century chivalrous fashions and fancies began to seem absurd, and later,
perhaps partly through the ridicule of that old-time book "Don
Quixote," chivalry was finally