The first translators were Geoffrey Gaisnar or Gaimar, in 1154 (the original history had been published only seven years previously), who turned the story into Norman-French verse, and Wace, a native of Jersey, who obtained the favour of the Norman kings, and was the author of two long romances in Norman-French--the famed _Brut_, or _Geste des Bretons_, and the almost equally famous _Roman de Rou_. The former work was a free metrical rendering, published in Henry II.’s reign, of Geoffrey’s _Chronicle_, with some new matter. Wace, according to Hallam the historian, was a prolific versifier who has a “claim to indulgence, and even to esteem, as having far excelled his contemporaries without any superior advantages of knowledge.” It was in emulation of him that several Norman writers composed metrical histories.
Then came Layamon, a Midland priest living at a noble church at Emly, or Arley, who at the close of the twelfth century produced the first long poem written in the English language. He did not go to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work direct, but wrote an amplified imitation of Wace’s version of the _Chronicle_. Layamon’s paraphrase contained just over double the number of lines in Wace’s poem, the additions consisting chiefly of interpolated dramatic speeches. There were already Cymric, Armoric, Saxon, and Norman ingredients in the medley of history and romance, and to these Layamon added a slight Teutonic element, for the chansons of the Trouvères had carried the fame of Arthur into Germany, and already new legends with new meanings were germinating from the loosely-scattered seed. With Artus for the central figure and with courtly chivalry for the theme, these variations and expansions of the story of the British chief exercised as powerful and enduring an influence upon the people of France and Germany as they had done, and continued to do, upon the people of Britain. The good priest seems to have had no other object in writing in good plain Saxon the story of King Arthur than to make widely known among his countrymen the noble deeds in which he evidently had an abounding faith. In fact, his purpose was purely patriotic. The only guile he employed was in supplying the names of many persons and places, in addition to the speeches, all of which circumstances served to magnify the literary imposture. Walter Map, or Mapes, a man of the Welsh Marches, with a reputation for exceeding frankness and honour, followed Layamon and introduced other and more striking details of permanent value. Map was the friend of Becket, and is believed to have been for some time the king’s chaplain. For the love of the king his work was done. His Latin satirical poems display his chief characteristics, and it is as a wit rather than a writer that he was famous at the Court. Yet it was this man who is held to have conceived the character of the pure and stainless knight Sir Galahad, assigning to him what is in some respects the chief, or at all events the worthiest, position in the Arthurian list of knights. If Sir Galahad, stainless, chivalrous, alone capable of achieving the Quest of the Grail, were the creation of Walter Map, to him we owe that spiritual and religious element which refines and enriches King Arthur’s history. Map wrote the story of the Grail, a Christianised rendering of Celtic myth, and to him probably we owe the moving and impressive _Mort_, with those notable outbursts which rank among the treasures of our literature. He, however, had the originals to work upon. The Welsh had taken their legends to Brittany, the troubadours were singing them, and the German and the French chroniclers were at work. And though there is no doubt that Map contributed in a considerable degree to the romances, it must be faithfully recorded that questions have arisen whether he was really capable of doing all that has been attributed to him, and whether, if he had the capacity, he would also have had the inclination. “Spotless spirituality,” such as he is supposed to have infused into the story, is scarcely consistent with the character of the man whose Anacreontics are often lacking in refinement.[3]