Edward of England, at the time when that
prince went beyond seas to recover the Holy Sepulchre. Now Prince Edward
started for the Holy Land in 1270, spent the winter of that year in
Sicily, and arrived in Palestine in May 1271. He quitted it again in
August, 1272, and passed again by Sicily, where in January, 1273, he heard
of his father's death and his own consequent accession. Paulin Paris
supposes that Rustician was attached to the Sicilian Court of Charles of
Anjou, and that Edward "may have deposited with that king the Romances of
the Round Table, of which all the world was talking, but the manuscripts
of which were still very rare, especially those of the work of Helye de
Borron[7] ... whether by order, or only with permission of the King of
Sicily, our Rustician made haste to read, abridge, and re-arrange the
whole, and when Edward returned to Sicily he recovered possession of the
book from which the indefatigable Pisan had extracted the contents."
But this I believe is, in so far as it passes the facts stated in
Rustician's own preamble, pure hypothesis, for nothing is cited that
connects Rustician with the King of Sicily. And if there be not some such
confusion of personality as we have alluded to, in another of the
preambles, which is quoted by Dunlop as an utterance of Rustician's, that
personage would seem to claim to have been a comrade in arms of the two de
Borrons. We might, therefore, conjecture that Rustician himself had
accompanied Prince Edward to Syria.[8]
[Sidenote: Character of Rustician's Romance compilations.]
40. Rustician's literary work appears from the extracts and remarks of
Paulin Paris to be that of an industrious simple man, without method or
much judgment. "The haste with which he worked is too perceptible; the
adventures are told without connection; you find long stories of Tristan
followed by adventures of his father Meliadus." For the latter derangement
of historical sequence we find a quaint and ingenuous apology offered in
Rustician's epilogue to Giron le Courtois: -
"Cy fine le Maistre Rusticien de Pise son conte en louant et regraciant
le Pere le Filz et le Saint Esperit, et ung mesme Dieu, Filz de la
Benoiste Vierge Marie, de ce qu'il m'a done grace, sens, force, et
memoire, temps et lieu, de me mener a fin de si haulte et si noble
matiere come ceste-cy dont j'ay traicte les faiz et proesses recitez et
recordez a mon livre. Et se aucun me demandoit pour quoy j'ay parle de
Tristan avant que de son pere le Roy Meliadus, le respons que ma matiere
n'estoist pas congneue. Car je ne puis pas scavoir tout, ne mettre
toutes mes paroles par ordre. Et ainsi fine mon conte.
