ABSTRACT
Two contradictions strike one immediately on considering reactions to the Tale of Gamelyn. The first is that while Gamelyn is by one obvious measure the most popular of all the anonymous Middle English metrical romances it has aroused little if any enthusiasm among modern literary critics. The second contradiction is that in spite of this general lack of interest from literary scholars, historians have continued to find Gamelyn a major source and object of study. Gamelyn expresses the ethos of an unmarried group which may not expect ever to own land and does not see landholding as a precondition for starting a family. One may sum up the contradictions in reader-reaction by saying that, for all its many manuscripts, Gamelyn is felt to be not literary, while, although it is regularly classified as a romance, it is more often treated as a historical document.
