Only a very small number (not perhaps including a single one of importance) remain unprinted, though no doubt a few are out of print or difficult to obtain.

The quality and variety of the stories told in them are both very considerable, even without making allowance for what has been called the stock character of mediaeval composition.

That almost all are directly imitated from the French is probable enough, that most are is certain: but this matters, for our purpose, nothing at all.

That the imitation was not haphazard or indiscriminate is obvious.

Thus, though we have some, we have not very many representatives of the class which was the most numerous of all in France--the _chansons de geste_ or stories of French legendary history, national or family.