Lancelot by Chrétien de Troyes

First published:Lancelot: Ou, Le Chevalier à la charrette, c. 1168 (English translation, 1913)

Type of work: Poetry

Type of plot: Romance

Time of plot: c. sixth century

Locale: Logres and Gorre, Great Britain

Principal characters

• Arthur, the king of Britain
• Lancelot, King Arthur’s greatest knight
• Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur
• Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur
• Meleagant, a treacherous knight
• Bademagu, the king of Gorre and the father of Meleagant

The Poem:

Chrétien begins his romance by declaring that he writes at the command of his patroness, Marie, the countess of Champagne, who has provided him with the basic elements of the story. On Ascension Day, a strange knight appears before King Arthur’s court and challenges him to send Queen Guinevere into the forest with a champion to defend her against him. If the queen’s defender wins, the knight will return the many subjects of Arthur whom he holds captive. Sir Kay, having persuaded the king in advance to grant a request, demands that he be named as the queen’s escort. Gawain, critical of the king’s rash promise and skeptical of Kay’s ability, leads a group of knights after them into the woods, where he finds Kay’s riderless horse. He sees another, unknown knight in pursuit of the queen on a broken-down horse and lends him a fresh horse.

When Gawain catches up to the knight again, the horse has died, and the knight must continue his quest in a cart driven by a dwarf who claims knowledge of the queen’s whereabouts. The cart is of a type that is reserved for transporting convicted criminals to their places of execution, and the knight hesitates briefly, until love conquers reason and he shames himself by entering the cart. Gawain rides along beside the cart to a castle where a damsel welcomes them to spend the night. Their host abuses the knight for riding in a cart, and warns him against sleeping in a perilous enchanted bed. He insists on accepting the risk, and survives a mysterious assault from a flaming lance. The next morning, having glimpsed the queen and her abductor pass by in a procession, they encounter a damsel who will help them find the evil knight, whom she identifies as Meleagant of Gorre, a land from which no visitor has ever returned.

The land of Gorre may only be reached by two approaches, the dangerous Underwater Bridge and the even more dangerous Sword Bridge. Gawain chooses the former, and the other knight chooses the latter. On the way, the unnamed knight has a series of adventures that establish his exceptional chivalric prowess and also his great love for the queen. Lost in meditation on his beloved as his horse drinks at a ford, he does not even notice the knight defending the ford, who knocks him into the water before he regains his senses and quickly defeats the guardian. The heroic knight then has a second encounter with a host and a castle; in this case, the damsel makes him rescue her from a feigned attack and extracts a promise that he will sleep with her, a promise he upholds without touching her. Along his route, the knight discovers a comb with Guinevere’s blond hairs in it and nearly faints. His final adventure on the way to the Sword Bridge takes place in a cemetery containing the future resting places of Arthur’s knights. He raises a massive stone lid from his own tomb, revealing inscriptions that confirm his role as the queen’s rescuer and the liberator of the prisoners of Gorre.

The knight finally reaches the Sword Bridge, which is literally a giant sword. He removes the armor from his hands and feet to better grip the sword’s blade, and he is seriously wounded as he crawls across it. The knight challenges Meleagant; Meleagant’s father, King Bagdemagu, advises his son to simply return the queen. Meleagant, however, accepts the anonymous knight’s challenge, agreeing to meet him in combat the next morning. Because of his injuries, the knight initially gets the worst of the fight.

Observing the combat from a tower, the queen reveals to one of her damsels that the unknown knight is Lancelot. When the damsel calls out to Lancelot that Guinevere is watching, his strength is increased and he easily gains the advantage, but the fight is ended when Bademagu and then Guinevere ask Lacelot to spare Meleagant’s life. Meleagant nevertheless remains unrepentant and refuses to surrender his captives, so the two combatants agree to fight again in a year’s time at Arthur’s court.

Lancelot finally comes to the queen, but he is coldly rebuffed. After he leaves to find Gawain, rumors of the queen’s death and Lancelot’s suicide circulate, causing Guinevere to regret her treatment of Lancelot. When they are reunited, she explains her initial scorn as a response to his brief hesitation before entering the cart, and they arrange to meet that night at the window to her bedroom. Lancelot breaks the iron bars on the queen’s window and spends the night with her, unaware that he has cut his hands on the bars and left bloodstains on her sheets. Meleagant takes the blood as evidence that the injured Kay, who was sleeping in a chamber nearby, has been in the queen’s bed. He charges Kay with committing treason against Arthur and charges Guinevere with adultery. Lancelot defends them against the accusations in a trial by combat, again defeating Meleagant and again being stopped short of complete victory by Bagdemagu’s pleas.

Meleagant arranges for Lancelot to be ambushed and imprisoned, and Gawain, who has been narrowly rescued from drowning at the Underwater Bridge, escorts Guinevere back to Camelot. The woman guarding Lancelot lends him a horse and armor and allows him to leave his captivity temporarily to participate in a tournament at Noauz. As an anonymous knight in red armor, Lancelot demonstrates his ability to the extent that Guinevere guesses his identity, and she tests her suspicion by sending him orders to fight alternately with cowardice or with valor. He wins the tournament and returns to his imprisonment.

Meleagant’s sister, whom Lancelot aided earlier, finds and releases him in time for the champion to confront Meleagant for a third and final battle, and the poem ends with the celebration of Meleagant’s death. A final note reveals that the ending of the romance was written by a clerk named Godefroy, who completed it according to Chrétien’s instructions from the point at which Lancelot returned to the tower after the tournament.

Bibliography

Brewer, Derek. “The Presentation of the Character of Lancelot: Chrétien to Malory.” In Arthurian Literature, edited by Richard Barber. Vol. 4. Totowa, N.J.: D. S. Brewer, 1984. A classic discussion, frequently reprinted, of the character of Lancelot in Chrétien’s romance in relation to his portrayal in other medieval works.

Duggan, Joseph J. The Romances of Chrétien de Troyes. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Focuses on the common characteristics of Chrétien’s romances, such as the importance of kinship and genealogy, his art of narration, and his depiction of knighthood.

Frappier, Jean. “Chrétien de Troyes.” In Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, edited by R. S. Loomis. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1959. A brief and reliable general overview by one of the leading scholars of Chrétien’s works.

Kelly, Douglas. Sens and Conjointure in the “Chevalier de la Charrette.” The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton, 1966. One of the key documents in the modern rehabilitation of Chrétien’s artistic reputation. Analyzes the romance’s style and structure in close detail, dispelling the earlier negative critical consensus about its aesthetic merit.

Lacy, Norris J., and Joan Tasker Grimbert, eds. A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes. New York: D. S. Brewer, 2005. Collection of essays that provide useful general discussions of Chrétien’s sources, historical contexts, and the reception and influence of his work. Includes an essay on Lancelot, “Le Chevalier de la Charrette: That Obscure Object of Desire, Lancelot” by Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner.

Lupack, Alan, ed. The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. A very good background resource for exploring Chrétien’s sources and successors; contains brief chapters on each of his works.

Maddox, Donald. The Arthurian Romances of Chrétien de Troyes: Once and Future Fictions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Includes a detailed study of the key functions played by the customs of Logres and Gorre in Lancelot.

Topsfield, L. T. Chrétien de Troyes: A Study of the Arthurian Romances. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. An accessible and thorough discussion of all of the romances.

Walters, Lori J., ed. Lancelot and Guinevere: A Casebook. New York: Routledge, 2002. Contains four essays devoted entirely to Chrétien’s version of the two characters (including Brewer, cited above), and several others of related interest.