SOURCE: “Arthur and Charlemagne,” Englische Studien, No. 36, 1906, pp. 337-69.

In the following essay Webster compares and contrasts certain aspects of the ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall with the Pilgrimage of Charlemagne.

In the following sketch¹, after a few suggestions toward the reconstruction of the fascinating and puzzling ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall, I shall attempt to explain the relation of Queen Guinevere, not only to King Cornwall, but also to several other still more important personages. These are certain of those remarkable characters in Old French and Middle High German romance who dispute Arthur’s right to his queen. The claimant, as a rule, makes the apparently preposterous statement that he is an accepted suitor, or even the rightful husband of Guinevere, and finally he carries her off. This person’s claims, I hope to show, are much better founded than they appear to...