The chief heroes of the medieval Arthurian romances are the following.
We parallel it with the Arthurian story, and hold that, just as there was probably a real Arthur, however different from the hero of the trouveres, so there was a real Hood, however now enlarged and disguised by the accretions of legend.
The special interest of Map lies in the perplexing question of his relation to the Arthurian legend and literature.
It seems difficult also to believe that Map's name should be so constantly connected with our Arthurian tradition without any ground whatever; though it must be admitted that he himself never makes any such claim - the references in the romances are all couched in the third person, and bear no sign of being other than the record by the copyist of a traditional attribution.
It is of course possible that Map's rise at court may have been due to his having hit the literary taste of the monarch, who, we know, was interested in the Arthurian tradition, but it must be admitted that direct evidence on the subject is practically nil, and that in the present condition of our knowledge we can only advance possible hypotheses.
