Book II. p. 44, are specially interesting as being almost the oldest

specimens of love-letters in German literature.

Page 124, line 675--'_Beau-corps_.' Cf. Book VI. p. 183. From the passage on p. 114 it would seem as if Gawain had other brothers, as in most stories of the cycle he has, but Wolfram mentions none but Beau-corps.

Page 129, line 830 _and seq._--'_Arthur gave maid Itonjé_.' It has been suggested that here Wolfram is indulging in sly mockery at the many weddings which, as a rule, wound up the mediæval romances. In the original tales the whole character of King Arthur and his court was far less stamped with the rigid morality we have learned to associate with them, and the somewhat indiscriminate promotion of love-affairs and marriages (cf. Book XV. p. 157) is quite in keeping with what we elsewhere read of the king. (See note to Book X. p. 204, for Mr. Nutt's remarks on the marriage of Gawain being celebrated at the Château Merveil, instead of at court.)

Page 130, line 869--'_But Parzival, he bethought him_,' _etc._ It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that this presentment of Parzival as a married man, and absolutely faithful to his wife is quite peculiar to Wolfram's version of the story. Whether it is _entirely_ due to the German poet we cannot now tell, but we meet with such constant instances of Wolfram's sense of the sanctity of the marriage vow, and the superiority of lawful, over unlawful, love, it seems most probable that it is to his genius we owe this, the most beautiful feature of the story. There is nothing answering to it either in Chrêtien or his continuators, although in Gerbert the hero's successive failures are declared to be due to his forsaking Blanchefleur.