Such fictions, under ruder or more settled forms, had already existed in Normandy, and perhaps in the centre of France, above two centuries before they were known in the Spanish peninsula. The story of Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table had come thither from Brittany through Geoffrey of Monmouth, as early as the beginning of the twelfth century.[353] The story of Charlemagne and his Peers, as it is found in the Chronicle of the fabulous Turpin, had followed from the South of France soon afterwards.[354] Both were, at first, in Latin, but both were almost immediately transferred to the French, then spoken at the courts of Normandy and England, and at once gained a wide popularity. Robert Wace, born in the island of Jersey, gave in 1158 a metrical history founded on the work of Geoffrey, which, besides the story of Arthur, contains a series of traditions concerning the Breton kings, tracing them up to a fabulous Brutus, the grandson of Æneas.[355] A century later, or about 1270-1280, after less successful attempts by others, the same service was rendered to the story of Charlemagne by Adenés in his metrical romance of “Ogier le Danois,” the chief scenes of which are laid either in Spain or in Fairy Land.[356] These, and similar poetical inventions, constructed out of them by the Trouveurs of the North, became, in the next age, materials for the famous romances of chivalry in prose, which, during three centuries, constituted no mean part of the vernacular literature of France, and, down to our own times, have been the great mine of wild fables for Ariosto, Spenser, Wieland, and the other poets of chivalry, whose fictions are connected either with the stories of Arthur and his Round Table, or with those of Charlemagne and his Peers.[357] [353] Warton’s Hist. of English Poetry, first Dissertation, with the notes of Price, London, 1824, 4 vols. 8vo. Ellis’s Specimens of Early English Metrical Romance, London, 1811, 8vo, Vol. I. Turner’s Vindication of Ancient British Poems, London, 1803, 8vo. [354] Turpin, J., De Vitâ Caroli Magni et Rolandi, ed. S. Ciampi, Florentiæ, 1822, 8vo. [355] Preface to the “Roman de Rou,” by Robert Wace, ed. F. Pluquet, Paris, 1827, 8vo, Vol. I. [356] Letter to M. de Monmerqué, by Paulin Paris, prefixed to “Li Romans de Berte aux Grans Piés,” Paris, 1836, 8vo. [357] See, on the whole subject, the Essays of F. W. Valentine Schmidt; Jahrbücher der Literatur, Vienna, 1824-26, Bände XXVI. p. 20, XXIX. p. 71, XXXI. p. 99, and XXXIII. p. 16. I shall have occasion to use the last of these discussions, when speaking of the Spanish romances belonging to the family of Amadis.