Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

293doubt they were largely Breton. Troyes is in Champagne, whichhad been united to Blois in 1019 by Eudes, Count of Blois,and reunited again after a period of dispossession by CountTheobald de Blois in 1128. Marie, Countess of Champagne,was Chrestien's patroness. And there were close connexionsbetween the ruling princes of Blois and of Brittany. Alain II., aDuke of Brittany, had in the tenth century married a sister of theCount de Blois, and in the first quarter of the thirteenth centuryJean I. of Brittany married Blanche de Champagne, while theirdaughter Alix married Jean de Chastillon, Count of Blois, in1254. It is highly probable, therefore, that through minstrelswho attended their Breton lords at the court of Blois, from themiddle of the tenth century onward, a great many Breton “Lais”and legends found their way into French literature during theeleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. But it is also certainthat the Breton legends themselves had been strongly affected byFrench influences, and that to the Matière de France, as it wascalled by mediæval writers 209 —i.e., the legends of Charlemagneand his Paladins—we owe the Table Round and the chivalricinstitutions ascribed to Arthur's court at Caerleon-on-Usk.BleherisIt must not be forgotten that (as Miss Jessie L. Weston hasemphasised in her invaluable studies on the Arthurian saga)Gautier de Denain, the earliest of the continuators or re-workersof Chrestien de Troyes, mentions as his authority for stories [342]of Gawain one Bleheris, a poet “born and bred in Wales.”This forgotten bard is believed to be identical with famosus illefabulator, Bledhericus, mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis, andwith the Bréris quoted by Thomas of Brittany as an authority forthe Tristan story.Conclusion as to the Origin of the Arthurian Saga209 Distinguished by these from the other great storehouse of poetic legend,the Matière de Bretagne—i.e., the Arthurian saga.