In any study which involves the consideration of a network of stories, it is chiefly necessary to regard the skeleton upon which the tales in question are built up. Although it is impossible to decide upon the relationship of the various members of a cycle without some consideration of individual incidents and even turns of thought or phrase, it is constantly necessary to check and control the information thus gained by the larger matters of motive and purpose. Individual incidents and all the flesh and blood of a narrative are so easily changed that the skeleton appears stable in comparison. With due regard to the kaleidoscopic changes which are familiar to every student of this field of comparative literature, it furnishes the clue by which the labyrinth of plots must be threaded, if at all.

It is a well known fact that the ground-work of the story of Saint George as told by Richard Johnson in his Seven Champions of Christendom is represented by the Old French, or better the Early English, story of Sir Beves of Hamtoun. The object of this article is to determine the history of the fusion of the two traditions.

When Saint George had become the champion of the English knights during the third crusade, the official sanction being given at Oxford in 1222, it is not difficult to understand why the story of his life should have passed into a new phase of its development. Before the crusades only the legend of his martyrdom was known in Western Europe. There, however, he had always been represented as a warrior, ‘miles egregius,’ and now during these expeditions he became the battle saint, whose timely aid brings victory to the Christian armies.