ARTHURIAN LOCALITIES; THEIR HISTORICAL ORIGIN, CHIEF COUNTRY, AND FINGALIAN RELATIONS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION--THE OLD ARTHUR-LAND. ONE of the many indications of that synthetic, and reconstructive, rather than analytic, and destructive, tendency which marks this second half of the nineteenth century is the fact that historical scholars are beginning to look on popular legends and romances, not certainly with the uncritical credulity of the days before Niebuhr, but with the belief of finding in them such records of historical events as will well repay the trouble of investigating them.' It seems desirable, therefore, in this introductory chapter, in order at once to indicate the point of view of this Essay, to set-forth, in the first place, the general relation which it seeks to establish between. Medieval Romance and Pre-medieval History. I shall, then, in the second section, bring before the reader the chief traditional Arthurian Localities of Southern Scotland, Western England, and 1 See, for instance, DYER, History of the City of Rome. Introduction. T North-Western France. After such a survey of the Old Arthurland, I shall, in the third section, state the question which I propose in this Essay more particularly to consider, point-out its interest, and explain the method by which I hope to attain a definitive answer. And, in conclusion, I shall state the general subjects of the succeeding chapters. SECTION (1). The Relation of Medieval Romance to Pre-mediaval History. The age of the Arthurian, and other great Cycles of Romance, is that which, in the opinion of both the great thinkers who have chiefly influenced the intellectual development of Modern Europe,— in the opinion both of Hegel and of Comte,2-began in the eleventh, and culminated in the thirteenth century. For, about that century, it is, as has been conclusively shown by the researches of later scholars verifying and confirming philosophical speculation,3—that the distinctively Christian, or Catholico-Feudal organization of society attains its highest perfection; that the Crusades afford their brightest examples of heroism, and chivalric magnanimity; that Art achieves its most original, most variedly beautiful, and majestic triumphs; and that Literature presents, in the Romances, at once the highest, and most popular Ideals of the Age. And thus culminating in the thirteenth century, the Medieval Age may, as a great historic period, be defined as the five centuries from the eleventh to the fifteenth, inclusive. With the sixteenth century begins our 2 "J'aime surtout qu'il (Hegel) ait vu que le monde n'a été vraiment chrétien qu'au onzième siècle." Lettre d'A. Comte à M. d'Eichthal in LITTRÉ, Auguste Comte et la Philosophie Positive, p. 157. See, for instance, LE CLERC et RENAN, Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. XXIV. Quatorzième Siècle (1862)—" Le XIe siècle avait été témoin, en philosophie, en poésie, en architecture, d'une renaissance comme l'humanité en compte peu dans ses longs souvenirs. Le XIle et le XIIIe siècle avaient développé ce germe fécond, le XIVe et le XVe siècle en avaient vu la décadence." RENAN, L'Art du Moyen Age et les Causes de sa Decadence, in Revue des Deux Mondes, t. XL. p. 203 (1862). present Modern or Transition Age; a period marked, not as was the Medieval Age, by the general acceptance of an established system of thought, and of government; but a period distinguished by the manifestly progressing destruction of all the political forms, and intellectual foundations of the social system of the Age preceding it, and a no less certain, though perhaps less manifest preparation of a new and higher system of social organization. But for a thousand years before the opening of the Medieval Age, Christianity had been working in the European world, completing the destruction of the antique system of thought and of society, and laying the foundations of a new world-system. The first half of this millenium I would distinguish as the Imperial Age. For it is the age of the Roman Empire of the East and West. It is the age also of the Apostles, the Fathers, and the Martyrs of Christianity. And the latter five hundred years of this first millenium of the Christian era I would distinguish as the Barbarian, or Pre-medieval Age. The Roman Empire no longer extends its sway over Northern and Western Europe; and the various tribes of barbarians,— Celtic and Teutonic,—are engaged in perpetual conflicts,-miserable and disheartening when looked at in their details, but, regarded as a whole, found to be in their great issues conflicts that laid the foundations of the nationalities of a New Europe. For, by the end of this age, there has been constituted in France the first of the Romanic or Neo-Latin nationalities; in England, a preponderatingly Teutonic; and, in Scotland, a predominantly Celtic nationality." And 4 Compare OZANAM, Civilization au Cinquième Siècle t. II. p. 315 et seq. 5 As a writer of such authority as Mommsen has said "Solche Eigenschaften guter Soldaten und schlechter Bürger erklären die geschichtliche Thatsache, dass die Kelten alle Staaten erschüttert und keinen gegründet haben," (Römische Geschichte B. IJ., K. IV., b. I., s. 329, English Translation, v. I., p. 359), one would not be justified in thus speaking of the consolidation of the tribes of North Britain into a predominantly Celtic nationality without, at least, briefly referring to one's proofs. These are to be found in the unquestionable facts, firstly, that, both in number, and in extent of territory occupied, Celts,--Cymry, Picts and Scots, or Gael,—were the chief basis of the Scotish nationality; secondly, that it was by one of the |