Arthurian Romances

W
RITING
in the second half of the twelfth century, Chrétien de Troyes was the inventor of Arthurian literature as we know it. Drawing from material circulated by itinerant Breton minstrels and legitimized by Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical
Historia Regum Britanniœ
(History of the Kings of Britain,
c.
1136–37), Chrétien fashioned a new form known today as courtly romance. To Geoffrey's bellicose tales of Arthur's conquests, Chrétien added multiple love adventures and a courtly veneer of polished manners. He was the first to speak of Queen Guinevere's affair with Lancelot of the Lake, the first to mention Camelot, and the first to write of the adventures of the Grail – with Perceval, the mysterious procession, and the Fisher King. He may even have been the first to sing of the tragic love of Tristan and Isolde. All of these themes have become staples in the romance of King Arthur, and no treatment of the legend seems complete without some allusion to them.

Yet we know virtually nothing about this incomparable genius, the author of the five earliest Arthurian romances:
Erec and Enide, Cligés, The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot), The Knight with the Lion (Yvain
), and
The Story of the Grail (Perceval
). The few references to a ‘Crestien' or ‘Christianus' unearthed in archival documents cannot with any certainty be related to our author, so we can know him only through his own writings. And even here we are at some remove from Chrétien himself, for the manuscripts that preserve his works all date from at least a generation after the time he composed them.

The most important manuscripts containing Chrétien's romances date from the thirteenth century. All five of his Arthurian romances are found in MS Bibliothèque Nationale f. fr. 794, known as the Guiot Manuscript after the scribe who copied it in the mid-thirteenth century. The romances appear there in conjunction with four other works, all set in Classical times:
Athis et Profilas, Le Roman de Troie
, Wace's
Roman de Brut
, and
Les Empereurs de Rome
. Chrétien's five poems are also found together in Bibl. Nat. f. fr. 1450, where they are inserted into the middle of Wace's
Roman de Brut
– the French adaptation of Geoffrey's
Historia Regum Britanniœ
– evidently with the purpose of fleshing out the legend of Arthur recounted therein. Another key manuscript that once probably contained all of Chrétien's romances, and which would have been the earliest and best copy of them, is the so-called Annonay Manuscript. Unfortunately it was cut apart to be used as filler for book-bindings in the eighteenth century, and only fragments of
Erec, Cligés, The Knight with the Lion
, and
The Story of the Grail
have been recovered. Also fragmentary is the MS Garrett 125 (Princeton Library), one of the rare illuminated texts of Chrétien's poems, which has preserved extensive fragments of
The Knight of the Cart
and
The Knight with the Lion
. Three other manuscripts containing two or more of Chrétien's romances can be found today in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris: Bibl. Nat. f. fr. 375
(Cligés, Erec
), Bibl. Nat. f. fr. 1420
(Erec, Cligés
), and Bibl. Nat. f. fr. 12560
(The Knight with the Lion, The Knight of the Cart, Cligés
). In addition, Rome Vat. 1725 contains both
The Knight with the Lion
and
The Knight of the Cart
, and Chantilly 472 has
Erec, The Knight with the Lion
and
The Knight of the Cart
. Both Bibl. Nat. 375 and Chantilly 472 contain many other romances contemporary to and sometimes inspired by those of Chrétien. Twenty-three other manuscripts contain just one of Chrétien's romances, usually accompanied by one work by some other author.
Erec, Cligés, The Knight of the Cart
and
The Knight with the Lion
exist more or less complete in seven manuscripts each, while
The Story of the Grail
is preserved by no less than fifteen.

The number of manuscripts of Chrétien's works that have come down to us from the medieval period is eloquent testimony to his popularity and importance, although from numerous fragments we can suspect that even more manuscripts were destroyed than have been saved. His romances are most often found in manuscript collections, like Bibl. Nat. 794 and 1450, that contain pseudo-historical accounts of ancient history, to which the Arthurian material was purportedly linked, or in manuscripts containing a wide variety of other courtly romances. His unfinished
The Story of the Grail
is found most frequently with its verse continuations (see Appendix).

From manuscript evidence we know that both
The Story of the Grail
and
The Knight of the Cart
were left unfinished by Chrétien. Many believe that he abandoned
The Knight of the Cart
because he was dissatisfied with the subject matter, which may have been imposed on him by his patroness,
Marie de Champagne; and most critics accept that
The Story of the Grail
was interrupted by Chrétien's death, or by that of his patron, Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders. The other romances –
Erec and Enide, Cligés
, and
The Knight with the Lion
were completed by Chrétien. Three additional narrative poems have been ascribed to him, with varying degrees of success. Despite the doubts of its most recent editor (A. J. Holden 1988), many believe that the hagiographical romance
William of England
, whose author names himself Crestéens in its first line, is by our poet; on the other hand, attempted attributions to Chrétien of
Le Chevalier à l'épée
(The Knight with the Sword) and
La Mule sans frein
(The Unbridled Mule), two romances found with
The Story of the Grail
in MS Berne 354, have not met with widespread acceptance. In addition to these narrative works, Chrétien has left us two lyric poems in the courtly manner, which make him the first identifiable practitioner in northern France of the courtly lyric style begun by the troubadours in the South in the early years of the twelfth century.