fountain, and Erec and the '_Schoie de la kurt_' adventure, neither of which were undertaken for the sake of love (why Garel slew the lion and fetched the knife, we do not know), but among the lovers he and Guinevere are not mentioned. Taking into consideration the fact that the story is, by its very nature, far older than any literary form we possess; that there was certainly in existence one version at least other than Chrétien's (proved by the _Lanzelet_); and that Chrétien's source was avowedly an _informal_ one, I do not think it impossible that in the poems of Hartmann and Wolfram we have references to the original form of the story of which Chrétien had only an incomplete knowledge. Hartmann's version is certainly not drawn from the _Charrette_; in Wolfram's case we can only give the verdict '_not proven_.' In the whole investigation I think we can only consider two points as satisfactorily settled: the original character of the story, and the fact that Lancelot was not at first the hero of the adventure. CHAPTER V THE POSITION OF CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES IN THE ARTHURIAN CYCLE At the stage which we have now reached in our examination of the _Lancelot_ legend, it is, I think, imperative to form a clear idea of the position which, in the great body of Arthurian literature, shall be assigned to the author of the romance we have last studied. On the question of the literary excellence of Chrétien's handling of his material all are more or less agreed, but the problem of his relation to his sources, the question whence he drew the stories he told with such inimitable grace and felicity, is one which has long provoked a lively interchange of argument. The romances of Chrétien de Troyes form one of the chosen battlegrounds of widely differing schools of Arthurian criticism. Inasmuch as during the varying fortunes of a long-continued conflict the elementary principles underlying the views respectively advocated have a tendency to become obscured, and gradually misunderstood, it is well that from time to time they should be clearly and formally re-stated, in the light of such knowledge as recent investigation may have cast upon them. We are then in a better position to judge whether they retain, unimpaired, the force and cogency their adherents have ascribed to them. Professor Foerster has apparently felt this necessity, and, impelled by it, has, in the introduction to his edition of the _Charrette_, given to the world what he evidently intends us to regard as his matured and final conclusion on the question of the source of Arthurian dramatic tradition.