new language used in its stead was a mixture of bad Latin and the language of the Franks.  As their speech was a medley, so was their poetry.  As the songs of chivalry were the most popular compositions in the new or Romance language, they were called Romans, or Romants.  They appeared about the eleventh century.  The stories of Arthur and his round table are doubtless of British origin.  It is evident that the Northmen had the elements of chivalry in them long before that institution became famous, as is shown by the story of Regner Lodbrog, the celebrated warrior and sea king, who landed in Denmark about the year 800.  A Swedish Prince had intrusted his beautiful daughter to the care of one of his nobles who cruelly detained her in his castle under pretence of making her his wife.  The King made proclamation that whoever would rescue her should have her in marriage.  Regner alone achieved her rescue.  The name of the traitorous man was Orme, which in the Islandic tongue means a serpent, hence the story that the maiden was guarded by a dragon, which her bold deliverer slew.  The history of Richard I. is full of such romantic adventures.  Shakespeare, in his play of King John, alludes to an exploit of Richard in slaying a lion, whence the epithet “Coeur de Lion,” which is given in no history.  He says: 

  “Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose
  Against whose furie and unmatched force,
  The aweless lion could not wage the fight
  Nor keep his princely heart from Richard’s hand: 
  He that perforce robs lions of their hearts
  May easily winne a woman’s.”

This allusion is fully explained in the old romance of Richard Coeur de Lion.  The King travelling as “a palmer in Almaye,” from the Holy Land, was seized as a spy and imprisoned.  Being challenged to a trial of pugilism by the King’s son, he slew him.  The King to avenge his son’s death let in a hungry lion upon the royal prisoner.  The King’s daughter, who loved the captive, sent him forty ells of white silk “kerchers” to bind about him as a defence against the lion’s teeth and claws.  The romance thus proceeds: 

  The kever-chefes he toke on hand,
  And aboute his arme he wonde;
  And thought in that ylke while
  To slee the lyon with some gyle
  And syngle in a kyrtyle he strode
  And abode the lyon fyers and wode,
  With that came the jaylere,
  And other men that with him were
  And the lyon them amonge;
  His pawes were stiffe and stronge. 
  His chamber dore they undone
  And the lyon to them is gone
  Rycharde aayd Helpe Lord Jesu! 
  The lyon made to him venu,
  And wolde him have alle to rente: 
  Kynge Rycharde beside hym glente
  The lyon on the breste hym spurned
  That about he turned,
  The lyon was hongry and megre,
  And bette his tail to be egre;
  He loked about as he were madde,
  He cryd lowde and yaned wyde. 
  Kynge Richarde bethought him that tyde
  What hym was beste, and to him sterte
  In at the thide his hand he gerte,
  And rente out the beste with his hond
  Lounge and all that he there fonde. 
  The lyon fell deed on the grounde
  Rycharde felt no wem ne wounde.