rival in popularity. This grandiose conception of Arthur
persisted in England, but this conception of the British
chieftain did not interest the French. For Chretien Arthur had
no political significance. He is simply the arbiter of his court
in all affairs of justice and courtesy. Charlemagne's very
realistic entourage of virile and busy barons is replaced by a
court of elegant chevaliers and unemployed ladies. Charlemagne's
setting is historical and geographical; Arthur's setting is ideal
and in the air. In the oldest epic poems we find only God-
fearing men and a few self-effacing women; in the Arthurian
romances we meet gentlemen and ladies, more elegant and seductive
than any one in the epic poems, but less fortified by faith and
sense of duty against vice because breathing an enervating
atmosphere of leisure and decadent morally. Though the Church
made the attempt in "Parzival", it could never lay its hands so
effectively upon this Celtic material, because it contained too
many elements which were root and branch inconsistent with the
essential teachings of Christianity. A fleeting comparison of
the noble end of Charlemagne's Peers fighting for their God and
their King at Ronceval with the futile and dilettante careers of
Arthur's knights in joust and hunt, will show better than mere
words where the difference lies.

The student of the history of social and moral ideals will find
much to interest him in Chretien's romances. Mediaeval
references show that he was held by his immediate successors, as
he is held to-day when fairly viewed, to have been a master of
the art of story-telling. More than any other single narrative
poet, he was taken as a model both in France and abroad.
Professor F. M. Warren has set forth in detail the finer points