The Romanticism of Arthur
Arthur as Chivalric Knight
Chrétien de Troyes was a late-12th-century French poet and trouvère known for his work on Arthurian subjects, and for originating the character Lancelot.
His work, written at the Court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, is among the first to create the image of Arthur as a Knight, plate armour shining, crown on his head, armies at his command, instead of the Briton warrior of the earlier Welsh language historians.
They're also clearly spiritually edifying stories, designed to inspire values such as courtoisie (courtesy and "courtliness") and fin'amor, as well as honorable chevalerie and its counterpart, learned clergie in the aristocracy, first with the French-speaking English nobility, then the noblesse of continental France and later, that of the Germanic states.
It was incumbent upon the clerc to celebrate these values and to analyse them in works of narrative (and at times even in lyric song). To this end old stories of Celtic origin - Tristan and Iseut, the Arthurian tales - offered a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of material, and romance narrative.
This allowed writers such as de Troyes, the chance of exploring the "ideals of these values" against what actually happened in these great Medieval courts (rife with adultery and other vices).
His work, written at the Court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, is among the first to create the image of Arthur as a Knight, plate armour shining, crown on his head, armies at his command, instead of the Briton warrior of the earlier Welsh language historians.
They're also clearly spiritually edifying stories, designed to inspire values such as courtoisie (courtesy and "courtliness") and fin'amor, as well as honorable chevalerie and its counterpart, learned clergie in the aristocracy, first with the French-speaking English nobility, then the noblesse of continental France and later, that of the Germanic states.
It was incumbent upon the clerc to celebrate these values and to analyse them in works of narrative (and at times even in lyric song). To this end old stories of Celtic origin - Tristan and Iseut, the Arthurian tales - offered a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of material, and romance narrative.
This allowed writers such as de Troyes, the chance of exploring the "ideals of these values" against what actually happened in these great Medieval courts (rife with adultery and other vices).