Whether earlier Arthurian romances existed in 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 preciso understand how and why both traditions change the thematic focus of French romances within their historical contexts. First we must examine the Arthurian tradition mediante Scotland, and, because it is less well known, the whole cultural context of the romances sopra Catalonia. Con 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 mediante 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, con 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 Sein I – David II and Robert II – were rather weak sovereigns might explain why later Scottish literature shows such verso developed interest per discussions of good kingship. When the Scottish makars adapt passages from the extensive French romances Lancelot do Lac and the First Continuation of Perceval, insecable elements, which per the original works are important but not essential developments of the plot, become central. Each poet selects passages con which the nature of kingship and the independence of a king’s territories could be debated, and this approach generates tensions absent from the French texts. Durante Catalonia, Arthurian romances were composed con per courtly milieu. Four Catalan and Occitan texts have survived in their entirety: the Occitan Jaufre (c. 1170 – c. 1225), Blandin de Cornualla (late thirteenth or early fourteenth century), Guillem de Torroella’s Faula (c. 1370–۱۳۷۵) 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 con Occitan but dedicated preciso 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. Durante the Prologue esatto Olif and Landres, the author claims that: ‘Raffinato Bjarni Erlingsson of Bjarkey found this favola written and told con the English language, durante Scotland, when he stayed there during the winter after the death of King Alexander.’ Karlamagnus Utopia: The Mito of Charlemagne and his Heroes, trans. Hieatt (Toronto, 1975), p. 178. On Scottish chroniclers’ response to Arthur, see Wood. ‘Where Does Britain End?’ and Royan, ‘The Alt 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 sopra verso 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 per historical records that there also existed translations of the prose Tristan and of all the books that comprise the Arthurian Vulgate.8 Owing onesto geographical and cultural proximity, the French romances on the Matter of Britain were circulating sopra Catalonia as early as the last third of the twelfth century.9 Nevertheless, this did not result sopra per mimetic redaction of the French tradition. Like the Scottish works, the Catalan texts can be regarded as autochthonous approaches onesto 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 stage, poetic texts, either short lyric pieces or narrative romances, were composed con Occitan or durante an occitanized Catalan up puro the fifteenth century.12 The proximity myladyboydate with Provence was not only geographical, but also political and cultural.13 Historically, the on Berenguer III and Dolca of Provence

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