Romance & Legend of Chivalry [antikvár]

PREFACEThis volume deals with the prose or verse tales styled Romances, as told in one of the Romance languages, being mainly indeed of French origin. Some of them based upon poetic legends that often seem a distortion of historical events, others more consciously woven to pattern from mingled strains of fact and fancythey all come under a general definition as stories which, with knights for their heroes, illustrate the manners and ideas of mediaeval chivalry.The book is divided into two parts, the first giving an account of the character and development of Romance, which in the second and larger division is represented by typical tales from its various schools. The choice of these has been no easy task, not through any want of material. Among a bewildering abundance of stories, and versions of the same story, it seems best to select such as are at once representative and not without appeal to the sympathy of our generation, with an eye, also, to more variety of interest than much concerned older readers. In some cases it is necessary to pick out a complete episode from a tangled history long enough to fill more than one volume like the present. With certain