KINDS AND DATES 67

William of Malmesbury states definitely that a poem about
Canute's daughter Gunhild, falsely accused before her husband
the Emperor Henry III, and unexpectedly delivered, was 'nostris
adhuc in triviis cantitata' (c. 1140). Brompton (c. 1350) names her
accuser and defender, Roddyngar and Mimicon; Matthew of
Westminster gives us Mimecan. There is no doubt that these
references are to a poem of traditional nature and of content
identical with the ballad of Sir Aldingar. The poem was either the
ballad itself, or some very similar piece in another style which we
gratuitously hypothetize. The early rise of the ballad is assured by
its spread to Denmark and over the whole north. On the other
hand, if we allow the existence of this definitely English ballad
in the mid-twelfth century, we are not bound to go farther and
associate its rise with the reign of Canute in the tenth. The narra-
tive is probably unhistorical. It is an inversion of the Joseph and
Zuleikha story, and had been fitted to St. Cunegunde and other
women, the ordeal being by battle or by fire. In the precise form
taken by the ballad, one notices that very many derivatives con-
sider the credulous king to be a German emperor, and the names
Gunhild, Roddingar, and Mimecan prevail over all the north.
Elsewhere Mimecan gives place to some hero of the ballad-poet's
own choosing, such as, in Catalonia, Count Ramon Berenguer IV.
In Catalonia the injured lady is still stated to be Empress of
Germany.

Apart from this ancient romance about an historical figure, the
dates show a certain priority of English over Scottish ballads,
though the Scottish ones have a more authentic ballad style. To
the twelfth century, in theme, pertain Queen Eleanor's Confession
and Robin Hood. The former ballad was rather literary in style;
those on Robin Hood were gradually accumulated between his
supposed date (1198) and the sixteenth century. The long Geste
arose by the union of four ballads before 1400. The ideal date of
Sir Hugh or the Jew's Daughter Is 1255, but it is a pious legend and
may have been committed to verse considerably later; Judas is also
a pious piece, committed to writing in the thirteenth century. At
the end of that century we find the Scottish Sir Patrick Spens, if it
refers, as opinion generally concedes, to the death of the 'Maid of
Norway' in 1290. The Norse ballad gives a quite different account
of the same affair, since the poet was an adherent of the pretender
Margaret, who was burnt at the stake a few years later. Some of