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   INFLUENCE  OF  MEDIEVAL  UPON  WELSH

                   LITERATURE.

            THE STORY OP THE CORT  MANTEL.



All who are well acquainted with the general literature

of Western  Europe during the  middle  ages, know how

necessary that  general  knowledge is  to enable  us to

judge correctly the literature of any one of its separate

states or peoples.  This is  the  case, to some degree, at

all periods ;  but it is felt more especially after the  tenth

century.  The establishment of feudalism had formed a

centre of the new society which arose from it;  and that

centre was France, which remained through the medi¬

eval period  the head and grand exemplar of the feudal

system.  France, from  this moment, began to be the

model of social fashions  to the peoples of the West: she

lent them her  language, and with that she communi¬

cated to them  her literature, and that literature soon

began to exercise a very great influence over the litera¬

ture of  every country which  came within  its limits.

Thus,  in England, the  older literature of the Anglo-

Saxons was altogether  either  superseded,  or  greatly

modified, by what we denominate Anglo-Norman—the

literature of northern France, so named from the dialect

in which it was written.  This same French, or,  if we

like to keep the  term,  Anglo-Norman, literature had

equally a powerful influence over that of the Celtic race,

whether in Wales, in Scotland,  or in Ireland;  and it is

extremely important that that influence should be inves¬

tigated with more care, and with  more knowledge of both

sides of the  question, than have hitherto been bestowed

upon  it.  The cause of its influence is easily understood.

Feudalism  had  great attractions  to peoples who still

lived  in a state of clanship; and,  once established, it

drew  constantly from its centre.  The  literature of the

feudal minstrel, which addressed itself directly to feudal

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