In the 12th and 13th centuries the darker era that followed
the
fall of the Roman empire was left behind as Europeans
awakened
to the spread of knowledge and increased writing
that accompanied
commercial development, the founding of
universities, and stimulus
from the crusades.
This rebirth of cultural development was perhaps
even more
accelerated than the later development of thriving culture
that would be called the renaissance.
Gradually literature was
produced in the vernacular languages
as well as in Latin; French
and German literary works led
this development, though works in
Spanish
and Icelandic were also significant.
The anonymous French epic Song of Roland
(Chanson de Roland)
reached its final written form about
the end of the 11th century
during the Spanish crusades
against the Muslims and as the crusades
to take back Palestine were beginning.
It is based on historical
events surrounding the battle of
August 15, 778 in which the rear-guard
of Charlemagne's
retreating Franks was attacked by Basques;
Duke
Roland of the Brittany Marches and other
prominent knights were
killed in the massacre.
The differences between the likely facts
and the poetic
account reflect current propaganda against the
Muslims that
probably served to motivate the Christians in their
crusades.
Although Charlemagne was only 38 years old at the time,
he
is portrayed as the venerable Emperor with a silver beard
who
has lived more than 200 years.
While Charlemagne and his army
are fighting in Spain,
King Marsilion from Zaragoza sends ten
men
to negotiate with the Frank emperor.
The Saracen Blancandrin
urges Charlemagne to return
home to Aix (Aachen), and Marsilion
will follow
and be baptized as a Christian.
Charlemagne consults
his barons,
but Count Roland argues against trusting Marsilion.
Count Ganelon disagrees, calling Roland a brawler
and noting that
Marsilion is offering to pledge fealty.
Duke Naimon and most barons
support Ganelon.
After Charlemagne refuses to send Naimon or Roland,
the latter recommends his step-father Ganelon.
This makes Ganelon
angry, and he plans a deadly trick.
Ganelon goes alone with Blancandrin to the court of Marsilion.
There Ganelon arrogantly tells the Saracen king that he must
accept
the faith of Christ or be hauled away to his doom.
His pagans
prevent Marsilion from killing Ganelon,
who then says Marsilion
can keep half of Spain
as Charlemagne's vassal; but the rest must
go to Roland.
Marsilion reads a letter from Charlemagne
demanding
his uncle the Caliph as a hostage.
When Marsilion offers Ganelon
friendship, he plans to betray
Roland and the Franks by attacking
their rear-guard.
Marsilion orders 700 camels carrying metals
to be sent as gifts
to Charlemagne, and Ganelon is given
ten mules
laden with gold.
Ganelon goes to Charlemagne and says 400,000
Saracens
refusing to accept Christ drowned in a storm.
Charlemagne
heads back to France, and Ganelon recommends
Roland to head the
rear-guard of 20,000 French soldiers.
Charlemagne sees a vision
of Ganelon's treachery
and fears he will lose Roland.
Saracen
nobles volunteer to kill Roland,
and they lead 100,000 men.
These
numbers are obviously gross exaggerations
of the actual numbers
in the historical incident.
Oliver asks Roland to blow his horn so that Charlemagne
will
hear and bring the main army; but Roland chauvinistically
refuses
to do so, preferring to fight honorably.
Archbishop Turpin preaches
that the Franks should defend
Christendom; he forgives their sins
and promises them paradise for martyrdom.
The first Saracen to
attack is Adelroth, and Roland strikes
first blood by killing
him, claiming right is on his side.
Soon ten of the twelve Saracen
peers have been killed.
When King Marsilion leads his army up
a gorge,
Roland says to Oliver that Ganelon has betrayed them.
Archbishop Turpin leads an attack.
When only sixty Frank knights
remain, Oliver blames Roland
for not blowing his horn for help
because of pride.
Roland now blows Olifant, and Charlemagne hears
the call;
but Ganelon tries to deny it.
Duke Naimon hears it though,
and Charlemagne has Ganelon arrested.
In the battle at Roncevaux
prisoners are not taken,
and the men fight fiercely.
Marsilion
flees, but 50,000 black Africans
fight for the Muslims.
Oliver
is mortally wounded but kills his attacker Marganice.
Roland is
unhorsed and faints.
He gets up, but Turpin dies.
Roland climbs
a hill and lays down under a tree to die.
Charlemagne rallies
his army with trumpets
and heads back toward Zaragoza.
According to this poem Charlemagne has been
fighting in Spain
for seven years.
Marsilion's right hand was cut off by Roland.
Baligant gets Arab pagans from ships.
Charlemagne mourns over
Roland's body.
The many Frank corpses are buried in one great
trench.
To face the forces of Baligant Charlemagne gathers an
army
of 300,000 that includes mostly Frenchman but also Bavarians,
Germans, Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Burgundians.
Of the 50,000
Muslims many are from the East.
As both sides engage, the narrator
declares that the
right is with Charlemagne, but the Emir complains
that Charles killed his son and invaded his lands.
Charlemagne
replies that they can be friends
if Baligant will become a Christian.
The defiant Emir is killed,
and the Muslims flee as the French
triumph.
Queen Bramimond surrenders the towers of Zaragoza.
The synagogues
and mosques are smashed;
those defying Charlemagne's orders are
executed.
More than 100,000 are baptized.
Charlemagne returns
home to Aix,
where Roland's lady Auge dies of grief.
Ganelon in
irons is tried.
He claims he took vengeance not treason,
and Pinabel
defends him, fighting a judicial
combat against Thierry, who kills
him.
Thirty remaining loyal to Ganelon and Pinabel are hanged,
and Ganelon has his limbs pulled off by four horses.
Finally Queen
Bramimond is baptized,
and the Emperor is satisfied.
In actual
fact Charlemagne failed to take Zaragoza
and left Spain after
Roland was killed,
not returning until 801 when he captured Barcelona.
This story was adapted by Konrad of Regensberg as
Rolandslied
about 1170 in one of the first epics in German.
The anonymous Spanish Poem of the Cid (Poema del Cid)
is the oldest of many poems and ballads about
the historic hero
of the late 11th century.
Language indicated it was written about
1140,
but recent scholars believe the language was intentionally
archaic and that it was probably written about 1200.
Cid means
lord and derives from the Arabic title
the Muslims gave Roderigo
Diaz of Bivar.
The beginning of the poem was lost but has been
reconstructed from a Latin chronicle
that had been based on the
original poem.
In the missing part King Alfonso VI sends the Cid
to Moorish king al-Mutamiz of Seville to collect tribute.
The
Cid defends Alfonso's vassal al-Mutamiz from
an attack by the
Castilian count Garcia Ordoñez,
capturing the latter for
three days.
The Cid takes the tribute back to Castile;
but those
envying him cause King Alfonso to banish the Cid.
He has nine
days to leave the kingdom
and sends for his family and vassals.
The extant poem begins with the vassals pleading
to go into
exile with the Cid,
and he goes to Burgos with sixty knights.
There he is shunned by all except a little girl.
To raise money
the Cid fills coffers with sand
and gets two Jews to give him
600 marks.
His wife Ximena and daughters are put in an abbey
with
a hundred marks as he promises to contribute four
for each mark
the abbey spends for their provisions.
At Cardeña a hundred
Castilians join the Cid as his vassals.
By the time he reaches
the Moorish tributary kingdom
of Toledo the Cid has 300 knights.
The Cid takes Castejon with a surprise attack.
The Cid gets one-fifth
of the booty but sells his prisoners
for a ransom of only 3,000
silver marks.
The Cid heads for Zaragoza, which is
under the Moorish
king of Valencia.
The Cid declares he does not want to fight Alfonso
and conquers Alcocer by using
a strategic retreat before attacking.
Valencia king Tamin sends his army led by kings
Fariz and Galve
against the Cid.
In a pitched battle the forces of the Cid defeat
the more
numerous Moors, who have 1300 men killed,
as the Cid
wounds King Fariz.
Martin Antolinez wounds King Galve,
and 510
horses are captured;
but only 15 Christians are missing.
The Cid
sends Minaya Alvar Fañez with thirty horses for
King Alfonso,
and he pays for a thousand masses
at the cathedral of Santa Maria
in Burgos.
The Cid sells Alcocer back to the Moors
for 3,000 silver
marks.
Alfonso pardons Minaya but says nothing about the Cid,
though he lets Castilians go to him.
The Cid raids the countryside
of Alcañiz and the territory
of Barcelona, where he captures
its count Ramon,
who refuses to eat until the Cid frees him and
two knights.
The Cid admits that he and his men live by raiding
from them
as the first cantar called "The Exile"
comes to an end.
The second cantar is entitled "The Wedding."
Surrounded by the Moors of Valencia,
the Cid speaks to his men.
His forces win another pitched battle, and the Cid spends
three
years conquering the lands of the Moors.
They besiege Valencia
for nine months
before the city surrenders.
The Cid's fifth of
the spoils amounts to 30,000 marks.
The king of Seville tries
to retake Valencia
with 30,000 soldiers but fails.
Don Jerome
arrives and is ordained bishop.
Minaya is sent to Carrion with
a gift of a hundred horses,
and King Alfonso pardons the Cid's
family and all his vassals.
Minaya brings the Cid's wife Ximena
and his two daughters
from Cardeña to Valencia,
where they
are welcomed by a procession.
King Yusuf arrives from Morocco
with 50,000 armed men
and invades the farmlands of Valencia.
The
Christians attack and kill 500 on the first day.
The Cid lets
Bishop Jerome strike the first blow,
and the army of Yusuf is
routed by only 3,970 Christian
warriors; only 104 Moors escape.
Once again the spoils are rich, and Minaya takes 200 horses
to
Alfonso at Valladolid.
Diego and Fernando, the royal heirs of
Carrion,
persuade the king to marry them to the
Cid's daughters
Elvira and Sol.
The Cid meets Alfonso on the banks of the Tagus
and agrees to the marriages,
leaving gifts to all who want them.
The wedding is celebrated with two weeks of festivities.
The third cantar is called "The Outrage of Corpes."
Fernando and Diego are shamed by their cowardice when
the Cid's
lion gets loose; but the Cid calmly
escorts his lion back to its
cage.
King Bucar of Morocco attacks Valencia with 50,000 men.
In the battle Fernando flees, but Pedro Bermudez kills his
adversary
and lets Fernando brag that he did it.
Again the bishop begins
the battle,
and the Cid attacks the Moors' camp.
The Cid kills
Bucar and captures his sword Tizon.
All his vassals receive 600
marks each from the spoils,
but the heirs of Carrion are given
5,000 marks.
The Cid adds another 3,000 for his daughters' betrothal.
Ashamed of the lion incident, the heirs punish their wives
on
the way to Carrion by stripping them to their silk
underwear and
whipping them,
leaving them to die in the oak grove of Corpes.
The Moor Albengalbon has warned their cousin Felix Muñoz,
who rescues Elvira and Sol
and takes his cousins to San Esteban.
The Cid learns of the outrage and sends Muño Gustioz
to King Alfonso at Sahagun.
The king convokes a court at Toledo.
First the Cid reclaims the swords he gave Fernando and Diego,
giving them to Pedro Bermudez and Martin Antolinez.
Then he demands
his daughters' dowry be returned;
but the heirs have spent it
and offer to pay with property.
Count Ramon judges they must pay
in kind,
and the Cid accepts this.
After the goods are paid, the
Cid challenges them.
Pedro Bermudez challenges Fernando for his
lying,
and Diego is challenged by Martin Antolinez.
When Azur
enters and insults the Cid,
he is challenged by Muño Gustioz.
Messengers from Navarre and Aragon arrive,
and King Alfonso agrees
to let
the Cid's daughters marry those two kings.
Three weeks
later the three champions of the Cid
defeat the two heirs and
Azur.
The heirs are disgraced for having beaten
and abandoned
good women.
Doña Elvira and Doña Sol marry the kings
of Navarre
and Aragon, and so the future kings
of Spain will be
the kinsmen of the Cid.
Scholars doubt that the outrage by the heirs of Carrion
is
historical, but the chivalrous message
to defend women is clear.
The lopsided numbers in the Cid's victories over the Moors
are
likely exaggerated to suggest that
Christians win because their
cause is more just.
The Cid is admired for his generosity and
loyalty to the king.
Although the vestige of judicial combat remains,
the main
lawsuit is rationally decided by a judge
rather than
by the combat or the king.
Epic poems about Charlemagne were popular
in France in the
12th century.
In the Pelerinage de Charlemagne this king
travels to
Jerusalem to gather relics and to Constantinople to
prove
to his queen that he is superior
to Emperor Hugh the Strong.
In Fierabras Oliver accepts the challenge of the giant,
defeating him, and Fierabras is baptized;
but Oliver and several
other Franks are captured.
Floripas, sister of Fierabras, falls
in love with
Guy of Burgundy and helps them escape.
Spain is divided
between Guy and Fierabras.
In Aquin that Saracen rules
Brittany,
but Charlemagne helps the Bretons drive him out.
Aspremont
is the name of a Christian camp,
from which Roland leads the victory
over the Saracen king Agolant.
This poem may have been composed
to support the third crusade in 1188.
In the Chanson de Saisnes
by Jean Bodel,
Charlemagne defeats the Saxons led by Guiteclin.
Feudal epics of rebelling vassals are typified by the epic
of
Doon de Mayence, which survives only
in a later 13th
century version.
In the early epic Gormont et Isembart,
the latter takes refuge in England with the pagan Gormont,
who
is a Saracen and converts Isembart.
King Louis kills Gormont and
defeats Isembart,
who returns to Christian faith before he dies.
In Girart de Rossillon Charlemagne grants Girart
independence
in order to marry Elissent.
When the king demands his allegiance,
a big battle is fought, resulting in an intermittent feud.
In
the long Renaus de Montauban Doon de Mayence
and Girart
de Rossillon join the rebellion of
Bueves of Aigremont, but all
three submit.
After Beuves is treacherously killed,
his brother
Aymes brings his four sons
Renaut, Aalars, Guichars, and Richart
to Charlemagne.
Renaut kills a cousin of Charles in a quarrel
over a chess game, and all four brothers are outlawed.
The feud
lasts several years until Renaut promises
to make a pilgrimage;
but he is murdered
by jealous comrades and is worshipped as a
saint.
Also in the 12th century a series of epics about the knight
Guillaume were composed. In the Couronnement de Louis
the
strong Guillaume kills the baron Arneis of Orléans
with
his fist when he is about to be crowned by Charlemagne
instead
of the reluctant Louis, whom Guillaume crowns.
Guillaume goes
to Rome on a pilgrimage
and attacks Saracens with the Pope's army.
Guillaume wins a single combat against the giant Corsolt
and captures
their king Galafre, who is converted.
Guillaume frees imprisoned
Louis and then goes back
to threatened Rome and wins another single
combat.
In the Charroi de Nimes Louis gives Guillaume land
occupied by the Saracens; it has comic elements
as Guillaume is
disguised as a peasant
before he takes Nimes from the Muslims.
In the Prise d'Orange Guillaume considers importing
maidens but goes in a Turkish disguise to free
the beautiful Queen Orable
in Orange.
He with Guielin and Guillebert are recognized
and slay
fourteen Turks but are imprisoned.
The Queen releases them, and
Guillebert goes for help;
but Guillaume and Guielin are recaptured
and put in a dungeon.
They escape again as Guillebert brings Bertran
and his men.
Orable marries Guillaume and is baptized Guibourc.
The manuscript of the Chanson de Guillaume
was not discovered
until 1901.
In this epic Guillaume and his nephew Vivian
help
Tedbald fight Saracens.
An army of 30,000 is all destroyed except
for Guillaume;
but Guibourc raises another Christian army of 30,000,
and with them Guillaume defeats the Saracens.
In the 13th century
Wolfram von Eschenbach
would also write an epic poem about Guillaume.
Geoffrey of Monmouth completed his
History of the Kings
of Britain in 1136.
Though he claimed that it is a translation
of a Breton book
shown him by Oxford provost Walter, the work
is now
considered more literature than history.
Geoffrey lived
at Oxford from 1129 to 1151, when he was
elected bishop of North
Wales; he was ordained a priest
the following year but apparently
never occupied the see in Wales.
The Welsh chronicles recorded
his death in 1155.
Geoffrey dedicated his major work to
Henry
I's son Robert, Earl of Gloucester.
The first part of Geoffrey's
Latin Historia tells the story
of the Trojan Brutus, defeating
Greeks and fighting Gauls
in France before settling on the island
named Britain after himself.
According to Geoffrey's account the
only previous
inhabitants were giants,
who were exterminated by
the Trojans;
he gave Brutus credit for establishing a code of
laws.
Geoffrey wrote that Britons occupied the land;
but because
of their arrogance,
they had to submit to invasions by the Picts
and Saxons.
King Leir rules ancient Britain for sixty years, and Geoffrey
told how he divides his kingdom
between his flattering daughters Goneril and Regan,
giving nothing to the honest Cordelia,
who
marries the Frank king Aganippus.
Duke Maglaurus of Albany allows
Leir 140 retainers
until Goneril persuades her husband
to cut
him back to thirty soldiers.
So Leir goes to Duke Henwinus of
Cornwall,
but Regan dismisses all Leir's attendants except five.
Leir then goes back to Goneril,
who will only allow him one soldier.
The begging Leir crosses the channel to go to Cordelia,
who generously
provides him with forty fully equipped knights
before he is presented
at court.
Together they invade Britain and defeat his sons-in-law.
After Leir and Aganippus die, Cordelia rules Britain
for five
years until her nephews Marganus and Cunedagius
rebel against
rule by a woman.
Cordelia is captured and kills herself in prison.
Marganus rules beyond the Humber River,
and Cunedagius governs
the south.
Marganus makes trouble and is killed,
leaving Cunedagius
to rule alone.
Geoffrey reported many civil wars over the kingship,
but he
credited Dunvallo with establishing
Molmutine Laws to prevent
violence.
Brennius is corrupted by ambition
and marries a Norwegian
princess.
His brother Belinus reacts by invading Northumbria.
The Danish king Ginchtalacus loves the woman
Brennius married
and so attacks him.
Belinus defeats the Norwegians,
but Brennius
escapes to France.
Ginchtalacus is captured, but Belinus lets
him
go back to Denmark with the woman.
Belinus proclaims justice
and orders roads
constructed of stones and mortar.
In France Brennius
marries a princess
and becomes leader of the Allobroges.
They
support his attack on his brother Belinus;
but their mother Tonuuenna
bares her breasts
and reconciles her sons.
A year later the brothers
invade the Gallic tribes.
According to Geoffrey's patriotic fantasy,
they even conquer Rome, though Brennius governs savagely.
Geoffrey of Monmouth gave Cassivelaunus and the Britons
credit
for defeating the Roman army of Julius Caesar twice;
but after
they are betrayed by Androgeus, the Britons and
Cassivelaunus
agree to pay tribute
to the greatest empire in the world.
The
Romans continue to rule Britain, which is converted
to Christianity
under their king Lucius.
The Roman Bassianus is the son of Severus
by a British
woman and is chosen king; but he is killed by Carausius,
who is overthrown by the Roman legate Allectus.
Then the Britons
led by Asclepiodotus defeat and kill Allectus.
Geoffrey wrote
that he ruled justly for ten years during the
persecution under
Emperor Diocletian.
Duke Coel rebels and kills Asclepiodotus to
become
"Old King Cole;" but he submits to Senator Constantius.
The famous Emperor Constantine is the son of Constantius
and Coel's
daughter Helen and rises to power
after being king of Britain.
Octavius revolts and becomes king of Britain;
but Emperor Constantine
sends an army led by Trahern,
and Octavius flees to Norway.
Octavius
regains the throne and makes the ambitious
Maximianus his son-in-law
and heir.
Maximianus and Conanus fight twice
but become friends
and invade Gaul.
While British soldiers are away from home,
the Picts and Huns
invade the island.
Hearing news that Maximianus was killed,
Gracianus
becomes a tyrant in Britain
until the people assassinate him.
For the last time the Romans send their legions to help Britain.
Constantine II is chosen king of Britain,
and his sons are Constans,
Aurelius Ambrosius, and Uther.
Constantine is assassinated by
a Pict, and the Gewissel leader
Vortigern manages to get Constans
crowned king under his influence.
Vortigern manipulates Picts
into killing Constans and then
has them executed as he becomes
king.
Saxon brothers Hengist and Horsa help
Vortigern attack and
defeat the Picts.
Vortigern marries Hengist's daughter Renwein
and gives
Hengist Kent without consulting its earl.
When the Britons
realize that Vortigern has turned
to the pagan Saxons, they depose
him
and make his son Vortimer king.
Vortigern gets permission
for the Saxons to depart;
but Renwein poisons her stepson Vortimer
so that her husband can regain the throne.
At a peace conference
Hengist treacherously
has the Saxons massacre 460 British nobles.
Young Merlin shows that he has more awareness than
Vortigern's
magicians as he predicts that
stone dragons will be found under
a pool.
The White Dragon represents the invading Saxons
and the
Red Dragon the British.
Geoffrey of Monmouth included a separate
document
of Merlin's detailed prophecies using symbolic animals.
Merlin predicts that Hengist will be killed,
and Aurelius Ambrosius
will become king.
The British enthrone the latter, and Vortigern
dies in a fire.
The Saxons retreat north of the Humber.
After
the British victory, Eldol beheads Hengist.
Aurelius besieges
Hengist's son Octa at York.
Octa and his kinsman Eosa surrender,
and the Saxons are allowed to live in the north.
Uther leads an
invasion of Ireland,
forcing their king Gillomanius to flee.
Merlin
engineers a burial place in Salisbury
using large stones from
Ireland.
Vortigern's son Paschent calls on Saxons from Germany,
but they are defeated.
The Saxon Eopa, disguised as a monk and
posing
as a physician, poisons the ailing Aurelius.
An attempted
invasion led by Paschent and Gillomanius
fails when both are killed
by Uther's forces.
Uther is elected king, and he is named Pendragon
when he has
Merlin's two dragons fashioned in gold.
Octa and Eosa lead a Saxon
revolt in the north and
defeat Utherpendragon's army at York;
but at Mount Damien they are captured.
The king falls in love
with Ygerna,
wife of Duke Gorlois of Cornwall.
According to Geoffrey's
account, Merlin makes
Utherpendragon looks like Gorlois so that
he can seduce
her and conceive Arthur; soon after that the King
captures
her castle so that the lovers can marry.
Octa and Eosa
escape from London and go to Germany
to organize an invasion of
Albany; but their army is defeate
by Utherpendragon even though
he is carried on a litter.
A well is polluted to kill the King,
and many others die too.
After Utherpendragon dies, Arthur is crowned king
at the age
of fifteen.
Arthur claims the whole island and marches on York.
Arthur gains an ally in King Hoel of Brittany, and together
they
defeat the Saxons at Lincoln, Caledon Wood, and Bath.
When the
Saxons break their truce,
Arthur has their hostages hanged.
At
Bath Arthur goes berserk, and Geoffrey wrote that
he kills 470
men with his sword Caliburn.
Then Arthur's army defeats the Scots,
Picts, and Irish
at Moray and Loch Lomond.
Arthur restores the
nobility to their hereditary rights
and has the destroyed churches
rebuilt.
Arthur marries the beautiful Guinevere.
During twelve
peaceful years Arthur invites worthy knights
to his distinguished
court.
Geoffrey even wrote that all of Norway
and Denmark accepted
his rule.
Arthur's armies invade Gaul, defeat and besiege
the tribune
Frollo, who challenges him to single combat.
Arthur kills Frollo
with his sword Caliburn
and holds court at Paris.
After feasting
and revelry with many kings and leaders,
a message from the Roman
Senate demands tribute.
The kings support Arthur, and he answers
Rome
that they should pay tribute to him.
Arthur leaves his nephew
Mordred and his queen Guinevere
to defend Britain and launches
an immense campaign.
Arthur personally kills monsters,
and his
cousin Gawain skirmishes with Roman troops.
After being ambushed
by the Roman army,
Arthur's forces defeat the Romans in the battle
of Saussy.
Meanwhile Mordred claims the crown himself
and is living
adulterously with Guinevere.
Mordred sends the Saxon Cheltic to
gather forces in
Germany and recruits Scots, Picts, and Irish
who hate Arthur.
The army of Arthur lands at Richborough,
and
in the battle
King Auguselus of Albany and Gawain are killed.
Ywain, the nephew of Auguselus, becomes king of Albany
and helps
Arthur's forces drive Mordred back to Winchester.
Queen Guinevere
chooses to become a nun.
Mordred is defeated and finally killed
at Camblam,
but Arthur is also mortally wounded.
On the Isle of Avalon Arthur passes the crown to his cousin
Constantine III, son of Duke Cador of Cornwall.
Saxons and Mordred's
two sons try to overthrow Constantine
as the civil war continues.
Constantine kills both of Mordred's sons by church altars,
is
struck down by God, and is buried next to Utherpendragon
within
the circle of stones at Stonehenge near Salisbury.
Geoffrey lamented
the civil war between the divided house
of British and Saxons
as much of the land was burned,
and he wrote that thousands invaded
from Africa
with the tyrant Gormund.
Cadvan is elected king of
Britain and divides the country
at the Humber with Northumbrian
king Ethelfrid,
whose abandoned wife flees to King Cadvan.
Ethelfrid
takes a new queen, who bears him Cadwallo
at the same time his
abandoned queen bears Edwin.
Cadwallo and Edwin are brought up
by King Salomon
in Brittainy but fight each other.
Cadwallo kills
Edwin, Northumbrian king Offric,
Scot king Eadan, and Northumbrian
king Oswald
before he dies of old age.
Cadwallo is succeeded by
his son Cadwallader,
but Britain again suffers civil war and famine.
The Britons survive mostly in Wales as the Angle
begin to reign
while the Saxons govern the north.
The Welsh tales written down in the 12th and 13th centuries
were given the title Mabinogion when they were translated
into English by Charlotte Guest in 1849.
The first four tales
are the branches of the Mabinogi
and are legends, folklore, and
myths of early Welsh rulers.
In "Pwyll Lord of Dyved"
that prince steals a deer
that King Arawn of Annwvyn had hunted.
Pwyll offers to trade places for a year,
and Arawn magically makes
them look like each other.
At the end of the year Pwyll kills
Arawn's enemy,
and Arawn learns that his wife
has been chaste
for the past year.
The beautiful Rhiannon has been avoiding
a
marriage against her will but marries Pwyll.
Their son Pryderi
is stolen by women, who accuse
Rhiannon of killing her child;
but the boy is found
in the house where a colt is born.
Pryderi
becomes the prince of Annwvyn,
which some believe represents the
underworld.
In "Branwen Daughter of Llyr" her brother Bran is
king
in London and gives her to wed Mallolwych,
the king of Ireland;
but Branwen is badly treated,
and Bran invades Ireland, almost
completely
depopulating it as he is killed by a poisoned spear.
In "Manawydan Son of Llyr" he and Pryderi
are two
of the few left alive in Ireland.
Manawydan marries Pryderi's
mother
but discovers his crops are being destroyed by mice.
He
intends to hang a mouse but learns of a curse
from a churchman,
who promises to restore his farm
in exchange for the release of
the mouse,
who turns out to be the churchman's wife.
The story "Math Son of Mathonwy" tells how Pryderi
foolishly trades his pigs for twelve horses, greyhounds,
and gold
shields that are phantoms created by Gwydyon.
When the phantoms
disappear, Pryderi invades Gwynedd;
but the army of Math fights
well.
Pryderi challenges Gwydyon to single combat,
but magic helps
Gwydyon kill Pryderi.
After raping a footmaiden, Gwydyon and his
brother
are turned into animals for three years.
Gwydyon's son
Lleu gets the curse of not having a human wife.
His elf-wife Blodeuedd
and her lover Goronwy try to kill Lleu;
but he is turned into
an eagle
and is rehumanized by his father Gwydyon.
Then these
two kill Blodeuedd's lover
and turn her into an owl.
"The Dream of Maxen" is fictionalized history in
which the
Roman emperor Maxen marries a beautiful maiden in Britain,
spends seven years there, and then with the help
of the British
reconquers Rome.
In "Lludd and Llevelys" Britain is suffering from
three problems:
a demon race of Coranians, a dragon that screams
annually
at midnight before May Day causing barrenness,
and food
disappearing from the royal court.
British king Lludd asks help
from his brother Llevelys,
king of France, who tells him to use
poisonous insects
that kill the Coranians but not the British,
to entice the dragon
with mead into a sack and bury it,
and to
challenge and defeat the wizard who was robbing him.
In "How Culhwch Won Olwen" King Arthur and his knights
help Culhwch gain the bride Olwen from her giant father
Ysbaddaden,
who insists that Culhwch
accomplish forty nearly impossible tasks.
With his strength, skill, and some magic Culhwch does so;
then
he kills Ysbaddaden and marries Olwen.
In "The Dream of Rhonabwy" this soldier dreams
he
is in the camp of King Arthur.
Iddawg tells him how he worsened
the conflict between
Arthur and Medrawd by making their messages
to each other
seem more hostile; Iddawg had to do penance
for
seven years in Scotland to gain forgiveness.
Rhonabwy also dreams
of a board game played by Arthur
and Owein during which their
men
kill each other until they agree on peace.
The last three tales of the Mabinogion are romances
very similar to those by Chrétien de Troyes.
"Owein,
or the Countess of the Fountain" is like
Yvain, The Knight
with the Lion.
"Peredur Son of Evrawg" is about
the Welsh Perceval
and is similar to The Story of the Grail
though it does not include the stories of Gawain.
Finally "Gereint
and Enid" is like Chrétien's Erec and Enide.
Count Guillaume IX of Poitiers (1071-1127) was also
duke of
Aquitane and is considered the first troubadour,
because he developed
the technique
of singing before an audience.
He led a failed crusade
to Palestine in 1101 and helped
Aragon king Alfonso I defeat the
Moors in 1120.
Guillaume's poetry shows that what later would
become
refined courtly romance began with bawdy sexuality.
In
1137 Cercamon wrote about the death of Guillaume
and the marriage
of Eleanor of Aquitane to Louis VII;
his poems introduced the
theme of unrequited love.
The Gascon Marcabru criticized the effeminate
and depraved conventions of courtly love.
He contrasted the true
love of intense joy and concern
for the good of all with the false
love that is dissolute,
selfish, and destructive, bringing in
religious themes.
Jaufré Rudel participated in the second
crusade (1147),
and he wrote about love from afar.
Later poets
would recount how he loved
the Countess of Tripoli before he ever
saw her.
Rudel wrote that no one is worth anything without love
and that he could not live without loving
because he was engendered
through love.
Bertran de Born represented the lower nobility, who aimed
to
improve their social positions at court with love lyrics.
His
political poetry supported the revolt of young Henry
against his
father Henry II and his brother
Richard Coeur de Lion which failed
when young Henry died in 1183.
Bertran's castle at Hautefort was
besieged and burned;
he was imprisoned by Richard, who pardoned
the poet
and gained his loyalty. Bertran celebrated the chivalry
of war.
A razo (commentary) on one of Bertran's songs
by
Uc de Saint Circ noted that Henry II's sons
were battling over
the carriage trade in Aquitane.
The clergy tried to make peace,
but the battle
was avoided because Richard's men paid off the
Champenois
forces with silver. Bertran made much money on these
wars,
because both kings feared his songs.
According to the razos
of Uc de Saint Circ, the love between
the poet and his lady often
had other motives besides love
as both the ladies and the poets
used the
famous songs to improve their positions in society.
The troubadour Peire Cardenal was patronized by the counts
of Toulouse and criticized religious hypocrisy during the
Albigensian
crusade in moral and
political poems called sirventes.
He wrote that clerics pretend to be shepherds but are killers;
they have taken power from the kings, dukes, counts,
and knights
by using stealing, betrayal,
hypocrisy, violence, and sermons.
The greater they are, the greater their folly and lying.
Arab
sultans no longer fear attack from them,
because that would be
too hard.
In another song he wrote how preachers smell out the
rich
as fast as vultures find stinking flesh.
The few God has
preserved seem mad in relation to the
madness of the world.
Conon
de Béthune was a leader in the crusade against
Constantinople
and died in the East about 1220.
He wrote poetry to the lady he
left behind,
and he regretted how love can change and fade.
Romances in French literature based on classical stories
began
appearing about 1150 with Roman de Thebes
and Piramus
et Tisbé, followed by the Roman d'Eneas
about
1160, Roman de Troie about 1165,
and Narcisus about
1170.
Ovid was a strong influence and popular source,
and Vergil's
Aeneas is greatly romanticized.
Various questions about romantic love were discussed by
Andreas
Capellanus in his book On Love (De Amore),
which
was written about 1185.
Andreas was a court chaplain and
knew
Countess Marie of Champagne.
His dialogs seem to have been set
in 1174, the year Marie
asked Chrétien de Troyes to write
The Knight of the Cart.
Andreas introduced his work with
a letter to a friend offering
to instruct him in how love can
be maintained and in the
means by which love can be shifted from
being unrequited.
He defined love as a suffering naturally caused
by the desire
for the beauty of the other sex.
Lovers also suffer
from fear of losing their love to another,
and so they fear offending
their lover.
Andreas believed that only love between the opposite
sexes
was natural and confined his discussion to that.
Poverty
can deter love.
He believed that excessive indulgence in pleasure
has such
strong desire that it cannot be contained in the nets
of love,
because such men indulge their lust in any woman they
see.
The five means of winning love are beauty, honest character,
wisdom and eloquent speech, wealth, and readiness to grant
what
the other wants, though Andreas discounted the last two.
Even
in choosing a woman,
he valued honesty of character over beauty.
In the dialogs of the first book a man courts a woman,
attempting
to persuade her to give her love to him while
she finds reasons
of doubt and questions for him to answer.
Each is defined only
by social class.
A commoner addressing a common woman describes
the four stages of love as
1) allowing the suitor hope,
2) granting
a kiss,
3) enjoying an embrace, and
4) consummation in the yielding
of the whole person.
A commoner tells a noble woman that a lover
should not make any class distinctions
as long as he has a virtuous
character.
A noble addressing a common woman mentions
Queen Eleanor
of England, mother of Countess Marie,
and her view that a commoner
can be chosen if worthy.
A nobleman courting a noblewoman lists
the following twelve precepts of love:
1. Avoid miserliness as a harmful disease,
and embrace its opposite.
2. You must maintain chastity for your lover.
3. When a woman is appropriately joined to
another in love, do not knowingly try to seduce her.
4. Be sure not to choose the love of a woman
if natural modesty forbids you to join marriage with her.
5. Remember to avoid lying completely.
6. Do not have too many privy to your love.
7. Be obedient to mistresses' commands in all things,
and always be eager to join the service of Love.
8. In the granting and receiving of love's consolations
there should be the utmost modesty and decent restraint.
9. You must not be foul-tongued.
10. You must not expose lovers.
11. Show yourself civilized and chivalrous in all things.
12. When practicing the consolations of love
do not go beyond the wish of your lover.1
A man of higher nobility tells a noble woman that a husband
and wife can be friends but cannot claim love,
because they already
possess each other.
If there is no obstacle to the desire, there
is no need for love.
Nor can jealousy occur between husband and
wife
although it is constant between lovers.
The woman asks the
Countess of Champagne to decide,
and her letter states unambiguously
that love cannot have
sway over a married couple,
because it has
compulsion, and love is free.
The cleric Andreas argued that God is not angered by love,
and the act can be erased by atonement.
Thus the higher noble
courting a similar lady believes he is right
in demanding love
outside of marriage.
He approves both chaste love with virgins
and compounded
love that culminates in every pleasure of the flesh.
Even clerics should be allowed to love, and he argues that
he
is to be preferred to a layman.
Yet the law should punish most
severely loving nuns.
Love should be granted from generosity and
pure kindness.
Thus accepting money or a gift is harlotry and
not real love.
Also a woman who grants her favors too readily
has too much sexual appetite for the bonds of love.
Andreas recommended
avoiding intercourse with harlots.
The second book advises how
to preserve and deepen love,
but also describes how love diminishes
and ends.
Then various dilemmas are posed, and they are settled
by judgments from Countess Marie and Queen Eleanor.
The points
about love are then summarized in a list of 31 rules,
which begins
with the proposition that
marriage is not a proper excuse for
not loving.
Then in the third book of De Amore Andreas stunningly
reversed course by arguing many reasons why this sensual
love
should be condemned in order to win
an eternal reward with God.
Not only does it reduce the love of God
but also of one's neighbors
and friends.
The sin of love pollutes body and soul and enslaves
one,
causing poverty, suffering, illness, and crimes.
This sinful
love was in fact created by the devil and can
cause wars and the
break-up of marriages.
Thus Andreas urged his reader to overcome
the pleasures
of the flesh with the virtues of the mind
so that
wisdom will not be dislodged.
The sexism of Andreas came out when
he argued that
no woman could equal the love of a man,
and then
he described the vices of women as avarice,
backbiting, envy,
slander, greed, gluttony, fickleness,
deceit, disobedience, pride,
vanity, lying, drunkenness,
talkativeness, exposing secrets, lechery,
and superstition.
Thus Andreas concluded that one should instead
seek
the King of heaven in order to be successful
in life and
blessed after death.
Twelve romantic stories in French verse called Lais
are
attributed to Marie de France and may
have been written by
about 1170.
In the prolog Marie acknowledged her duty to share
the gift of knowledge, and in the beginning of Guigemar
she recognized the rights of critics.
She wrote these Lais
from Breton stories she had heard.
The handsome knight Guigemar
shows no interest in love
until he is wounded while hunting a
stag
as his arrow rebounds against him.
The hind communicates
that he will only be cured
by a woman who will suffer pain for
his love,
and he will suffer from love too.
A ship takes him to
a harbor, where he is sheltered
and healed by a lady imprisoned
by her jealous husband.
Guigemar falls in love with her, and to
get relief he reveals
his feelings to her.
She loves him too,
and they lay together.
After a year and a half, she ties a knot
in his shirt tail
and
forbids him to love any woman but the one
who can untie it.
Likewise she pledges to him no one else will
unbuckle
a belt he places around her waist.
Guigemar escapes and
refuses to take a wife.
The lady is punished by her jealous husband
until she too escapes.
Guigemar fights for Meriaduc and meets
his beloved lady.
She unties his shirt; but Meriaduc refuses to
give her up
until Guigemar attacks his castle and kills him.
In the moral tale Equitan the lovers are not so fortunate.
Equitan is the king of Nantes and falls in love
with the seneschal's
wife.
She fears lack of equality will not allow love,
but he assures
her that he will obey her.
For a long time their love is undetected,
but courtiers want him to marry.
So if he will promise not to
abandon her for another woman,
she will help him murder her husband.
They plan to throw the seneschal in a boiling bath;
but when the
seneschal discovers them in the bath together,
the king leaps
into the wrong tub and is scalded.
Then her husband tosses her
into that bath too,
and they die together.
The moral conclusion
is that evil can easily rebound
on anyone who seeks another's
misfortune.
The lay of Le Fresne begins with a similar
moral lesson.
A woman accusing another of adultery for bearing
twins,
has twins herself and has one left in an ash tree by a
nunnery.
The abandoned girl later runs away to become the
mistress
of a knight, who plans to marry her sister;
but the lost child
is identified by a ring
and a brocade and marries the knight.
In the Bisclavret lay a wife learns that her husband
is a
werewolf when absent. One day she prevents his return
by
sending her lover to steal his clothes.
She marries the knight,
but a year later
the king captures the werewolf.
At court the
werewolf is tame except that he is hostile
to that knight, and
he bites off his wife's nose.
The werewolf is given his clothes
and returns to normal.
The wife and the knight are banished,
and
all their children lack noses.
Here the werewolf symbolizes the
violence of knighthood,
and the loss of a nose implies the social
disgrace
that results from adultery.
The lay of Lanval is about a handsome knight who is
given
no land by Arthur.
Lanval meets a beautiful fairy, who loves
him
on condition he not reveal her.
At court the queen offers
Lanval her love; when he refuses,
she accuses him of being homosexual.
He replies defiantly that he loves a lady, whose handmaidens
even
surpass the queen in beauty.
The irate queen tells the king that
Lanval insulted her for refusing his love.
His slip causes Lanval
to lose contact with the fairy,
and he is put on trial by the
king.
However, the fairy appears to show that she is more beautiful
than the queen and testifies that the queen lied.
Then Lanval
and the fairy ride off to go to the island of Avalon.
The longest lay by Marie de France is Eliduc.
The knight
Eliduc is married but leaves his wife
when he is banished by the
king.
Eliduc helps another king fight his enemies, and the king's
daughter Guilliadun falls in love with him.
Eliduc returns her
love but does not tell her that he is married.
When Guilliadun
learns that he has a wife,
she faints dead away.
Eliduc's wife
finds the princess and tells her
that she is going into a nunnery.
Eliduc then weds Guilliadun, and his first wife treats her
as
a sister and urges her to serve God too.
Humorous tales written in French verse that were often
sexually explicit and scatological called fabliaux
were popular
in the 12th and 13th centuries.
They indicate that the eroticism
that appeared with the
troubadours continued to flourish among
all social classes
even after many romances developed
the courtesy
of courtly love.
"Aloul" portrays a lewd priest, and
"The Lay of the Lecher"
frankly admits that despite
all their ideals and genteel
language the goal knights really
desire is that
found between a woman's legs.
Some of these stories
would be adapted
by Boccaccio and Chaucer.
Probably the most popular fabliaux were those symbolized
by animal characters centered
around Reynard the fox.
In the second half of the 12th century outlaw stories about
the
trickster Reynard the fox were developed into many branches.
In "Reynard's Trial" at the court of King Noble (the
lion) the
wolf Isengrin accuses Reynard of
committing adultery
with his wife Hersent.
Bruin is sent to bring in Reynard,
but
the fox distracts the bear with Lanfroi's honey.
Tibert the cat
is bringing in Reynard
but gets caught eating mice and rats.
The
fox's cousin Grimbert the badger manages to bring
Reynard to the
trial; but the fox offers
to take up the cross and go on crusade.
King lion notes that they go away good and come back bad;
but
nonetheless he lets Reynard go.
The fox gives the Queen a ring
and quickly renounces
the cross and uses it to wipe his behind.
In another story Noble besieges Reynard at Maupertuis,
but the
fox escapes being hanged by raising a large ransom.
In another
branch Reynard falls into a tub of yellow dye
and disguises himself
as a minstrel using a foreign dialect.
The wolf Isengrin gets
into a fight with a dog and is castrated.
His wife Hersent soon
rejects her hapless husband,
while a rumor of Reynard's death
causes his wife
Hermeline to marry; but Reynard appears
on her
wedding night and punishes her as a slut.
The fables of Reynard
and other animals gave people
baser stories of sex, violence,
and clever
cunning in the animalistic struggle for life.
The romantic lay Aucassin and Nicolette was written
in
northern France by an anonymous jongleur in the first
half of the 13th century, and it was probably
presented as a dramatic
monolog or dialog.
Aucassin is the only heir of old Count Garin
of Beaucaire
and is so absorbed with love for Nicolette
that he
will not be a knight nor take up arms.
Count Garin says that Nicolette
is a captive from the
Saracens and gets her godfather to confine
her.
So Aucassin agrees to fight if he can see Nicolette.
When
his father fails to keep the bargain,
Aucassin makes his captured
count pledge to harm his father.
Nicolette ties the bed linens
together and escapes.
Count Garin gets his son Aucassin released
from prison
and sends him into the forest.
Aucassin helps a farmer
buy his ox
by giving him twenty shillings.
Aucassin finds Nicolette,
and she heals his dislocated shoulder.
They take a ship to a peculiar
country called Topsy-Turvy
in which the king lays in childbed,
and the queen runs the country.
They fight a battle with crab-apples,
eggs, and cheeses,
and Aucassin is reprimanded for killing with
his sword.
Aucassin and Nicolette enjoy themselves there for three
years until they are captured by Saracen ships.
Aucassin's ship
founders near his home,
and he governs the land he inherited from
his father.
Nicolette is taken to Carthage,
where it is learned
her real father is king.
She is going to be wed to a pagan king;
but she disguises herself as a minstrel, finds her way to
Aucassin
and is reunited with her true love.
This romance clearly contains
pacifist themes.
Geoffrey of Monmouth's book on British kings was adapted
into
French in 1155 by the Anglo-Norman poet Wace in his
Roman de
Brut, which was dedicated to Queen Eleanor
of Aquitane; but
the emphasis was still
on Arthur's military victories.
Probably
the first romance focusing on Arthur's knights as
individuals
was Erec and Enide by Chrétien de Troyes,
which
may have been completed by 1170.
Chrétien dedicated his
final and unfinished work,
The Story of the Grail, to Count
Philip of Flanders in 1190
before Philip departed for the crusade,
on which he died the following year.
Chrétien's second
romance Cliges has been dated at 1176,
and its prolog mentions Erec and Enide, his translation
of Ovid's Commandments
and Art of Love,
and refers to other poems Chrétien
wrote.
His romances were written in French
with rhymed octosyllabic
couplets.
Chrétien hoped that his Erec and Enide would
demonstrate
that people do not act wisely if they do not make
full use
of the knowledge that God gives them.
Arthur revives
the custom of hunting a white stag with the
reward that whoever
kills it will be allowed to kiss
the most beautiful maiden at
court.
Erec and Queen Guinevere are insulted when a dwarf,
attending
a knight with his lady, uses a whip
on the Queen's maiden and
on Erec.
Arthur kills the white stag; but the kiss is postponed
three days while Erec pursues the armed knight.
Erec is given
hospitality by a vavasor, impoverished by war,
with a wife and
most beautiful daughter.
Yet this vassal is able to supply Erec
with his daughter
and the weapons necessary to challenge the knight
when he claims his lady is most beautiful and tries to take
the
sparrow-hawk for the third time.
They duel in combat for a long
time before Erec gains
the advantage and spares the life of Yder,
whom he sends to Arthur's court.
The beautiful daughter Enide
is given a dress by
Queen Guinevere and wins the kiss of
King
Arthur for the white stag.
Erec and Enide are promised two castles
by his father,
King Lac, and they are wed at court in celebrations
that last two weeks.
In the tournament that follows Erec excels
in combat.
Erec and Enide love each other deeply; but their honeymoon
ends when she is told that others believe
Erec is neglecting his
chivalry because of her.
So they venture forth together, and Erec
orders Enide
not to speak to him unless he speaks to her.
On several
occasions she sees danger before he does
and has to decide to
speak against his will to warn him.
Each time he forgives her
but commands her silence again.
First three knights chivalrously
attack
Erec one at a time, and he defeats them.
Then five knights
wanting to rob are also overcome
by Erec so that Enide now leads
eight horses.
A count is smitten by Enide and wants to marry her,
threatening to kill Erec.
This time to protect her lord, she lies
to the count that
he can abduct her; but she wakes Erec
so that
they can depart earlier.
After Erec defeats him, the count realizes
his conduct was disgraceful and repents.
Erec realizes that Enide
truly loves him
and re-affirms his love for her.
Erec fights a
knight for six hours but then learns he is
Guivret the Small,
and they become good friends.
Erec meets a lady, whose lord has
been captured
by two giants; Erec kills the giants
and sends Cadoc
of Carlisle to Arthur.
The exhausted Erec collapses when he returns to Enide.
Believing
him dead, she is stopped from committing suicide
by the count
of Limors, who intends to marry her
and offers half his land as
dowry.
Enide refuses to do so or even eat;
but the count strikes
her twice.
Erec regains consciousness and kills the count;
he
and Enide escape on a horse.
Guivret is looking for Erec but jousts
with him
before he realizes who he is.
In the climactic episode
Erec undertakes the challenge
called the Joy of the Court arranged
by King Evrain.
In a beautiful garden Erec finds a lady and has
to fight
a very tall knight, Maboagrain, who is defeated and
explains that his lady made him promise to fight
challengers there so that
he would not leave her.
Erec's victory releases the knight from
his promise
that had resulted in the death of several knights,
and thus there are great expressions of joy.
Erec joins the knights of the Round Table.
When his father
dies, he inherits his kingdom in Outer Wales,
and the poem concludes
with Erec's coronation
on Christmas Day in Arthur's court.
The
romantic love of knights for their ladies
has greatly deepened
these feelings.
In this romance the danger of knights becoming
too
absorbed with their ladies is explored along with the
danger of being enslaved by a promise to a lady.
Thus Erec tests Enide
to make sure she recognizes his
authority; yet he recognizes that
her love is deep enough
to disobey his word to protect his life.
Cliges by Chrétien de Troyes is a fictional romance
that
begins in Constantinople, where Alexander, oldest son
of
the Roman Emperor, gets his father's permission
to travel to King
Arthur's court.
There he falls in love with Soredamor,
sister
of Gawain, and she with him.
Chrétien described their inner
feelings and thoughts
as each pines for the other without telling.
When the traitor Count Angres of Windsor seizes London
with many
men, Alexander captures four knights,
prompting Arthur to promise
him a kingdom in Wales.
Queen Guinevere gives Alexander a golden
shirt that
contains strands Soredamor added from her hair.
Alexander
leads 26 men dressed like the traitors into
Windsor castle and
captures Angres,
though 13 of his own men are killed.
Queen Guinevere
arranges the wedding of Alexander
and Soredamor, and they have
a son named Cliges.
When Alexander's father dies, his younger
brother Alis
becomes Emperor, believing Alexander is dead.
When
Alexander returns, Alis lets him rule but maintains
the ceremonial
position, promising
not to marry as long as Cliges is alive.
Alexander sends his son Cliges to Arthur's court for testing.
In Germany Alis breaks his promise by marrying Fenice,
the betrothed
of the Duke of Saxony.
However, she falls in love with the handsome
Cliges.
Once again the lovers pine for each other
without declaring
their love.
Fenice's nurse Thessala realizes that Fenice is sick
with love
and devises a potion so that Alis will only dream he
is having
pleasure with her so that the wed Fenice will remain
a virgin.
In combat Cliges slays the Saxon duke's nephew.
The
Saxon duke captures Fenice
and agrees to a truce with the Greeks.
Cliges rescues her as they hide their mutual desires.
Cliges fights
the Saxon duke in single combat,
and they make peace.
Cliges gains
the reluctant permission of Alis to go to Britain,
and there he
defeats Sagremor
and several other knights in a tournament.
King
Arthur stops Cliges from fighting his uncle Gawain.
Cliges returns to Constantinople and is greeted by the
blushing
Fenice, who arranges to have her nurse Thessala
give her a potion
to imitate death.
Cliges promises freedom to his slave John and
his family
if he will construct a tomb for her.
However, three
physicians from Salerno detect that Fenice
is alive and torture
her but fail to make her speak.
Ladies rush in and throw the doctors
out the window
as Thessala covers the naked Fenice with the shroud.
Fenice is put in John's tomb;
she revives and Thessala treats
her with ointments.
For fifteen months she recovers and lives
in a garden with a grafted pear tree.
Then Bertrand sees Fenice
and Cliges
sleeping together naked and tells Alis.
John blames
Emperor Alis for marrying against his promise
but refuses to inform
him where they are.
Cliges and Fenice escape to Arthur's court,
and he prepares a massive invasion; but they learn that
Alis died
from lack of eating during his search.
Cliges and Fenice are wed
and crowned Emperor
and Empress at Constantinople.
Chrétien
concluded his poem by explaining that
this episode caused future
Byzantine emperors
to confine their wives with eunuchs.
In this poem Chrétien wanted to show that by remaining
virginal though married to the wrong man,
Fenice and Cliges demonstrated
a more pure love
than the adulterous relations of Tristan and
Ysolt.
In Chrétien's romance love is voluntary and not
compelled
by a love philter, as the potions are used
to preserve
Fenice for her true love.
Chrétien also criticized physicians
for torturing the dying.
At the beginning of The Knight of the Cart
Chrétien
de Troyes mentioned that the material and theme
of this poem was
given to him by Champagne countess Marie.
Someone has taken knights
captive, and King Arthur's
seneschal Kay is given permission to
take Queen Guinevere
with him to try to get them back by facing
a knight's challenge;
but he loses, and both are captured.
Gawain
sets out and meets up with a knight,
who rides two horses to exhaustion.
Offered a ride in a cart with a dwarf, the knight hesitates
before
accepting the disgrace of riding like a criminal;
but he agrees
in order to rescue his beloved Guinevere.
When the knight sees
the captive queen pass by,
he nearly falls from a window.
A maiden
informs them that she was taken by Meleagant,
son of King Baudemagus,
to a kingdom
that does not allow foreigners to leave.
The knight
lets Gawain choose the water-bridge.
The unnamed knight wins a
single combat, refuses the charms
of a seductive hostess, keeps
Guinevere's hair from a comb
he found, lifts the slab only that
country's liberator can lift,
beheads the enemy of a maiden for
her,
and with his bare hands and feet crosses the sword bridge.
To win back Guinevere the knight challenges Meleagant,
who
ignores his father's advice to surrender her peacefully.
During
the single combat Guinevere identifies the knight as
Lancelot;
after he sees her, he fights with more love and
hatred until the
king asks her to plead with Lancelot to stop.
Since the king has
protected her, she does so.
The losing Meleagant refuses to admit
defeat and challenges
Lancelot to combat in one year at Arthur's
court.
Guinevere says she does not want to see Lancelot.
Granted
safe conduct, Lancelot goes looking for Gawain;
but he is captured
by knights.
Guinevere fears he died and stops eating and drinking.
Believing she is dead,
Lancelot nearly hangs himself but is rescued.
In his lament Lancelot indicates
his devotion to Love as follows:
There is no doubt that he who obeys
Love's commands grows in stature.
Whatever he does is forgivable.
The man is a failure who dares
not perform Love's will."2
King Baudemagus reprimands his knights who captured
Lancelot
and releases him.
Lancelot makes peace among them.
Guinevere explains
that she was upset that he had
hesitated entering the cart for
her sake.
If he can get by the bars,
she is willing for him to
visit her bed.
Lancelot cuts his fingers removing the bars and
spends
the night with her as she shows him every possible pleasure.
The next day Meleagant sees the blood on her sheets
and assumes
it was bleeding from the wounded Kay,
who sleeps in her cell.
Guinevere denies it.
To protect her honor and Kay's, Lancelot
challenges
Meleagant, and again Baudemagus and Guinevere
keep
Lancelot from killing him.
Lancelot is captured again.
Gawain is saved from drowning at the water-bridge and leads
Guinevere, Kay, and the exiles back to Arthur's court.
Lancelot
is let out of prison by a mistress on his honor
to return so that
he can compete in a tournament.
Guinevere tests his obedience
by sending word he is
to do his worst; Lancelot acts like a coward
and is ridiculed until she says he can do his best.
Then he triumphs
and returns secretly to prison.
In the conclusion, which Chrétien
let his friend
Godefroi de Leigni write,
Meleager has a tower
built to hold Lancelot.
Meleager exults that Lancelot did not
show up
for their combat; but Gawain agrees
to replace him the
next year.
A woman Lancelot helped aids his escape, and he meets
the surprised Meleager in combat and kills him.
Guinevere is overjoyed
to see him but controls
her passion with reason in public.
Though
conveying passion Chrétien seems to have
distanced himself
from the theme of illicit love for a queen,
which is not only
adultery, but in many kingdoms treason.
In the prolog to The Knight with the Lion Chrétien
lamented
that few serve love today and that it has been reduced
to
empty pleasantries of those who claim they love but lie.
At
King Arthur's court Calogrenant tells how a herdsman
directed
him to a spring, where he poured water
on a stone, causing a storm.
Then a knight appeared and
knocked Calogrenant off his horse.
Arthur plans to visit the spring, but the knight Yvain
goes there
first, pours water
and mortally wounds the knight that appears.
Chasing him to a castle, Yvain is trapped at the gate
when two portcullises fall, slicing his horse in two.
The damsel Lunete,
who was once aided by Yvain
at Arthur's court, gives him a magical
ring
that renders him invisible.
At the knight's funeral Yvain's
presence
causes the wounds to bleed.
Yvain sees the widow Laudine
and falls in love with her,
which is her revenge against him.
However, Lunete persuades Laudine that Yvain could
replace her
husband, and after he argues that he was
only defending himself
and that he loves her
more than himself, they are wed three days
later.
When King Arthur and his knights pour water on the stone
and
cause the storm, Yvain appears to defend the spring
and knocks
down the boasting Kay.
Yvain invites them to the castle, and Gawain
becomes
enamored of the brunette Lunete.
Gawain suggests that
Yvain participate in tournaments,
and in order not to be called
a coward Yvain gets Laudine's
permission to leave her for one
year.
Busy winning honors, Yvain lets more than a year pass.
A
woman from Laudine denounces Yvain as an unfaithful
cheat and
takes the ring from Yvain's finger.
She compares the true lover
with false seducers.
Those who love truly don't steal hearts;
but there are those who call true lovers thieves,
while they themselves only pretend to love
and in reality know nothing about it.
The true lover takes his lady's heart but
would never steal it; instead, he protects it
so that those thieves who appear
to be honorable men cannot steal it.
The sort of men who strive to steal the hearts
of those they don't really care about are
hypocritical thieves and traitors;
but the true lover cherishes his lady's heart
wherever he goes and returns it to her.3
When Yvain realizes that his wife's love has turned to hate,
he hates himself and becomes mad, hunting game in the forest,
naked and destitute but helped by a hermit.
The lady of Noroison
sends a damsel to cure Yvain with
a magical ointment she rubs
on his entire body.
Then Yvain saves the lady by defeating the
hostile Count Alier.
Yvain befriends a lion by slaying a dragon.
He rescues Gawain's niece from a giant, prevents Lunete
from being
burned at the stake by her mistress Laudine,
defeats three knights
with help from his lion,
liberates 300 women forced to work at
weaving
for starvation wages, and defends the rights of a younger
daughter who is being disinherited by her sister.
In this last
incident Yvain fights Gawain until they realize
their identities;
then both admit defeat,
and Arthur settles the case justly.
Then
pining for the love of his lady, Yvain leaves the court
to defend
her spring, causing a storm,
and Lunete persuades Laudine that
her husband loves her.
She takes him back,
and Yvain promises
never to do wrong again.
In this romance Chrétien uses
elements of magic and fantasy
but as in Erec and Enide,
he brings home his theme that
love can be found in marriage
though
it is tested by the duties of chivalry.
Chrétien wrote that Count Philip of Flanders, whom he
admired
more than Alexander, gave him the book for his poem
called The Story of the Grail.
Young Perceval is brought
up in a Welsh forest by his mother
away from chivalry because
her two older sons
were killed in tournaments.
One day Perceval
sees five knights and is so impressed
that he tells his mother
he is going to become a knight.
She advises him to kiss a maiden
but forbids him to go farther
though he may wear her ring; she
also advises him to keep
company with gentlemen and to pray in
churches.
As Perceval leaves, his mother falls prostrate;
but
he does not turn back.
He kisses the first maiden he sees and
takes her ring.
Perceval rides his horse into the court of King
Arthur
and asks to be made a knight, saying he wants the armor
of the red knight who insulted Arthur and Guinevere.
Encountering
that knight, Perceval demands the armor
and then in a duel kills
him with his javelin.
At his castle the knight Gornemant de Goort
teaches
Perceval how to fight and behave,
warning him about talking
too much.
Perceval decides to visit his mother but first rescues
Gornemant's
starving niece Blancheflor from the cruel knight
Clamadeu, sparing
his life after defeating him.
He makes Clamadeu free his prisoners
and sends him to Arthur's court.
Perceval sleeps with Blancheflor
and promises to return.
He meets the crippled Fisher King, sees
the grail being
carried in a procession, and learns from his cousin
that his mother died of grief because he left her.
Perceval meets
the damsel he first kissed,
who has been punished by her knight.
Perceval admits he kissed her and took the ring
but denies he
did more.
They fight, and the knight admits defeat;
Perceval makes
him take care of the damsel
and go to Arthur's court.
Perceval,
in between contemplating his lady's complexion
in bloody snow,
knocks down Sagremor
and breaks the arm of Kay in duels.
By courtesy
Gawain gets Perceval to come to Arthur's camp.
At court an ugly
woman blames Perceval for not asking
about the grail before the
Fisher King
and says that kingdom will suffer.
While Perceval
is off searching for the grail,
Gawain defends maidens in distress.
Gawain swears to seek the bleeding lance.
Meanwhile Perceval forgets to enter a church for five years,
though during that time he sends sixty knights
as prisoners to
Arthur's court.
A hermit gets Perceval to repent and promise
to
help maidens, widows, and orphans.
Gawain believes that maidens
are protected in Arthur's
kingdom, and he has several adventures
defending damsels and discovering his relatives.
Though The
Story of the Grail is Chrétien's longest poem,
he left
it unfinished.
The mystery of the grail was such that four other French poets
wrote continuations, each longer than Chrétien's poem,
that were attached to most manuscripts.
The First Continuation
extended the adventures of Gawain.
In the Second Continuation
Perceval resumes his quest
for the grail but is again distracted
by chivalrous combat;
this version also ends unfinished as the
Fisher King is
about to explain the significance of the grail.
Manessier's Third Continuation then tells how
Joseph of
Arimathea used the grail to catch the blood
of crucified Jesus,
and the bleeding spear
was that of Longinus.
Perceval sets out
to avenge the Fisher King's injury and
fights the devil in the
form of a detached black arm.
Perceval overcomes another demon
who has taken
the form of his beloved Blancheflor.
He slays the
traitor Partinial and learns that the
Fisher King is his mother's
brother.
Perceval returns to Arthur's court where
he proves himself
the most excellent knight.
He restores the land and retires to
a hermitage,
sustained by the grail, which accompanies his soul
to heaven
and is never seen on earth again.
The Fourth Continuation
by Gerbert de Montreuil replaces
or in some manuscripts precedes
that of Manessier;
it emphasizes chastity and virginity by having
Perceval
and Blancheflor take a vow of celibacy on their wedding
day.
The first major Arthurian romance written in German was
Hartmann
von Aue's adaptation of Chrétien's Erec and Enide.
In his version Erec asks Enite to forgive him
for having tested
her with hardships.
Hartmann also adapted Chrétien's
Knight
with the Lion in his Iwein.
Two other poems by Hartmann
are religious.
In Poor Henry (Der arme Heinrich) a Swabian
noble
with leprosy is told by a Salerno physician that
the only
cure is for a virgin to offer her life-blood.
After a peasant
maiden and her parents are persuaded
to make this sacrifice for
him,
the knight cannot accept her death;
but he is miraculously
cured and marries the girl.
In Gregorius two orphaned children grow up and have a son,
whom they place in a small bark
on the sea with an inscribed tablet.
The mother grieves for the child and the death of her brother.
She does penance, and her land is devastated
by a duke, whom she
declines to marry.
The child is rescued and educated in a monastery,
where he is baptized Gregorius.
He wants to be a knight and learns
of his tablet.
He travels to the land of his birth
and serves
his mother as a knight.
After he defeats the duke, they marry.
When his lady discovers the tablet,
she reveals that he is her
son.
They both are horrified and decide to do penance.
He goes
to a fisherman and spends seventeen years
fettered alone on an
island.
After the Pope dies, two Roman legates have a dream
and
are guided to the island.
Gregorius goes with them to Rome.
His
holiness heals people along the way,
and he is crowned Pope.
When
his mother comes to the Pope for help,
he recognizes her and tells
her who he is;
both serve God and become saints.
The poet urges
the readers to do penance,
because no matter what their sin they
can be saved.
This spiritual romance is based on a legend and
conveys
the Christian message that sins may be forgiven,
and one
may become holy by penance.
The heroic epic Nibelungenlied was written by an unknown
poet for performance in Austria about 1200.
The beautiful Kriemhild
is the sister of the warrior kings
Gunther, Gernot, and Giselher
in Burgundy,
and she tells her mother Uote that
she has found
no man worthy of her.
In the Netherlands Siegfried, the son of
Siegmund and Sieglind,
hears of Kriemhild and says he will marry
her.
Siegfried has already proven his mettle
by slaying two Nibelung
princes.
He goes to Worms and tells King Gunther that
he will
take his kingdom from him by force.
Ortwin and Gernot calm the
anger of Siegfried,
who becomes their guest.
After a year he still
has not met Kriemhild, but he volunteers
to fight the Saxons with
a thousand men.
Siegfried defeats and captures Saxon king Liudegast,
killing all but one of thirty knights.
The victor is now allowed
to meet the princess Kriemhild,
and he sees her every day.
Instead
of accepting their gold, Siegfried advises
King Gunther to have
the Saxons
promise never to invade them.
Gunther asks Siegfried to help him woo
the indomitable Brunhild,
who has
killed every suitor facing her challenges.
Gunther agrees
to let Siegfried marry Kriemhild
if he can win Brunhild, and the
two sail to Iceland
with only the brothers Hagen and Dancwart.
Siegfried uses his magic cloak to become invisible and help
Gunther
win the athletic contests with Brunhild,
who gives the king authority
to rule her country.
Siegfried goes to Nibelung to get vassals
for support
by overcoming a giant at the gate and the treasurer
Alberich,
whom he had already subdued to get the cloak of invisibility.
Siegfried goes ahead to Worms with news of the royal wedding.
There Siegfried weds Kriemhild,
and they are dear to each other.
However, Brunhild tells Gunther she intends to remain a maiden.
When he tries to take her by force,
she hangs him up on the wall
for the night.
The two couples are consecrated as kings and queens.
Siegfried tells Gunther he will use his invisibility to overcome
Brunhild in bed so that Gunther can enjoy her.
In doing so Siegfried
takes her golden ring and girdle.
After Gunther lays with Brunhild,
she is no longer stronger than any other woman.
Siegfried and Kriemhild go back to the Netherlands,
though
Hagen refuses to go with them.
There Siegmund gives his son Siegfried
his power
and authority as king and chief judge.
Siegfried's son
is named Gunther; after ten years
Queen Sieglind has died, and
Kriemhild has her power.
The son of Gunther and Brunhild is named
Siegfried.
They are visited by Siegfried, Kriemhild, and Siegmund.
Brunhild assumes that her husband Gunther should take
precedence,
but Kriemhild denies that Siegfried is his vassal.
In the quarrel
Kriemhild claims that her husband first enjoyed
the body of Brunhild
and presents
the ring and girdle as proof.
Yet Siegfried denies
he took Brunhild's maidenhead.
Hagen promises Brunhild he will
get revenge for her and plots
with Ortwin, Gernot, Giselher, and
even Gunther.
This king tells Siegfried that Liudegast and Liudeger
have declared war on him.
Hagen promises Kriemhild he will help
defend Siegfried,
and she tells him the one vulnerable spot in
his back.
While they are hunting, Hagen throws his spear
through
Siegfried's back into his heart.
Hagen spreads the story that
Siegfried was killed by robbers
and leaves his body at Kriemhild's
apartment.
Kriemhild cautions Siegmund from fighting
when they
are outnumbered thirty to one.
Siegfried's renewed bleeding in
the presence of Hagen
convinces them he is guilty of murder.
At
the funeral of Siegfried it is reported that
30,000 marks were
given to the poor.
Although Siegmund offers Kriemhild the late Siegfried's power,
she decides to remain in Burgundy
when Giselher promises her kind
treatment.
Siegmund goes back to the Netherlands, and Kriemhild
lives in her own palace at Worms for three and a half years.
Then
she is reconciled with her brother Gunther,
and her treasure is
brought to her
from Nibelungland as her dower.
She uses this to
hire foreign warriors to come to Burgundy.
Hagen fears her growing
power, gets the keys,
and sinks her treasure in the Rhine.
Hagen
is not punished,
and Kriemhild hates him more than ever.
After
his wife Helche dies,
powerful King Etzel (Attila the Hun)
sends
Pochlarn margrave Rudiger to Burgundy
to ask Kriemhild to marry
him.
Only Hagen is opposed.
Rudiger promises Queen Kriemhild that
he and his vassals
from Hungary will defend her for any wrong
she may suffer.
Rudiger also promises her more gold than she already
has,
some of which she gives away.
In Hungary they visit Rudiger's
wealthy wife Gotelind.
King Etzel welcomes Kriemhild with great
festivity,
and she is given more power than Helche ever had.
Etzel
is not a Christian,
but Kriemhild has their son baptized as Ortlieb.
Kriemhild persuades Etzel to invite her relatives to visit,
and messengers are sent to Worms.
Hagen advises going heavily
armed to Hungary.
The minstrel Volker prevents the Hungarian ambassadors
from seeing Queen Brunhild.
As the Nibelungs travel to Hungary,
Hagen kills a belligerent
ferryman; but he denies having done
so.
After they cross the river, Hagen destroys their ships
to
keep the warriors from fleeing.
When the royal chaplain escapes,
Hagen suspects that the
rest of the water-fairies' prophecy of
doom will come true.
Gelpfrat tries to avenge the death of the
ferryman
and challenges Hagen; but his brother Dancwart
offers
to umpire and slays Gelpfrat;
at least a hundred Bavarians are
killed.
At Pochlarn Giselher marries the
daughter of Rudiger and
Gotelind.
Dietrich (famous as the Goth Theodoric) welcomes the king
Gunther
and his relatives to Hungary, warning the
Burgundians that Kriemhild
still resents the murder of Siegfried.
She quickly demands her
treasure and says they must remove
their arms before entering
the royal palace;
when they resist that, she learns that Dietrich
warned them.
Kriemhild sends sixty men and then 400 to kill Hagen,
who admits he killed Siegfried for maligning Brunhild.
Hagen and
the minstrel Volker keep watch all night.
Neither side wants to
have the blame of starting the fighting;
but Volker kills a Hun
during jousting.
King Etzel manages to stop the violence
by saying
it was an accident.
Dietrich refuses to avenge Siegfried for Kriemhild;
but Etzel's brother Bloedelin is tempted to do so
by the promise
of gold and a lovely bride.
Etzel asks the Burgundians to teach
his son Ortlieb
at their court, but Hagen indicates he would snub
him.
Bloedelin and his knights attack Dancwart at the table,
but
Bloedelin is quickly slain by him.
Dancwart's men have been killed,
and he calls upon his brother Hagen,
who kills the young Ortlieb
and many others.
King Gunthar and his brothers Gernot and Giselher
also fight Etzel's knights.
Dancwart and Volker block the doors.
Kriemhild asks Dietrich to help her escape,
and Gunthar allows
Dietrich to leave with her
and Etzel and six hundred men.
Rudiger
also leaves with his five hundred.
The remaining Huns in the hall
are killed or die
when they are thrown from the door.
Kriemhild
offers much gold for Hagen's head.
Denmark margrave Iring attacks
Hagen, Volker, Gunther,
and Gernot, but is finally slain by Hagen.
A thousand Danes and Thuringians are killed
in the hall by the
Burgundians.
When her brothers refuse to surrender
Hagen,
Kriemhild
has the hall burned down.
Hagen suggests they quench their thirst
by drinking the
blood of the dead, and six hundred men survive
the fire.
They are attacked by 1200 men, who are killed.
Rudiger tries to stop the feud and kills the Hun
who calls
him a coward.
Rudiger reminds King Etzel that he conducted
the
Burgundians there and cannot betray them;
but Queen Kriemhild
insists on
Rudiger's pledge to defend her.
Reluctantly Rudiger
agrees to fight for her and Etzel.
Rudiger gives his shield to
Hagen and
mortally wounds Gernot but is killed by him.
Dietrich's
warriors attack, and his tutor
Hildebrand kills the minstrel Volker.
Wolfhart and Giselher slay each other.
Finally Hildebrand informs
Dietrich
that all their warriors are dead.
Dietrich asks Gunther
and Hagen to surrender,
but they refuse.
Dietrich fights Hagen
and captures him.
Dietrich also overcomes Gunther
and takes him
bound to Kriemhild.
This vengeful queen has her brother beheaded,
and she cuts off Hagen's head herself with Siegfried's sword.
Hildebrand is so shocked by this that he kills Kriemhild.
The
petty quarrel between the queens
thus ends in this massive slaughter.
Besides the tutor Hildegrand, only the famous warrior
kings Dietrich
(Theodoric) and Etzel (Attila) survive.
Wolfram von Eschenbach was a knight
bound in service known
as a ministerialis.
His most famous patron was Landgrave
Hermann of Thuringia.
The poet Wolfram wrote dawn songs
about
lovers parting in the morning.
His German poem Parzival
of 25,000 lines seems
to have been written between 1200 and 1210;
it extends and completes the last Arthurian romance of
Chrétien
de Troyes, Perceval or The Story of the Grail.
In his prolog
Wolfram urges women
to observe restraint and modesty.
After his
father King Gandin of Anjou died,
Gahmuret refuses to be a vassal
under his older brother,
receives gifts from him, and ventures
forth
to seek his fortune in the world.
The self-controlled and
moderate Gahmuret first battles
for Baghdad's Baruc at the siege
of Alexandria.
Next Gahmuret takes up the cause of besieged
Queen
Belacane, who had been falsely accused
of murdering her lover
Isenhart.
Gahmuret wins a single combat and persuades
the army
of Scots to withdraw.
The black queen Belacane yields to the love
of Gahmuret,
and they are married and have a son.
Gahmuret becomes
king of Zazamunc
but goes to Spain seeking adventure.
He wins
a tournament and the love of Queen Herzeloyde,
who gives up her
maidenhead to him.
Gahmuret courteously frees prisoners but goes
to fight
again for Baruc and is killed before Baghdad.
Queen Herzeloyde bears a son named Parzival and
withdraws to
the forest to keep him
from all knowledge of knighthood.
Yet the
young man meets knights and leaves his mother
as she advises him
to take a lady's ring and embrace her.
When Parzival departs to
search for Arthur,
his mother falls down dead.
He finds the duchess
Jeschute sleeping and takes her ring,
embracing her.
Her husband
Orilus punishes her for infidelity.
The lady Sigune informs her
cousin Parzival that his name
means "pierce through the heart"
and that he is an Angevin king.
At Arthur's court young Parzival
insists on becoming
a knight and kills the red knight Ither
with
a javelin to take his armor.
Parzival is taught how to be a knight
by
Gurnemanz de Graharz, whose counsel includes the following:
never lose your sense of shame;
be compassionate to the needy;
be kind, generous, and humble; neither squander property
nor hoard
wealth; be moderate; do not ask many questions;
temper daring
with mercy and allow the man you defeat
to live unless he has
committed a mortal wrong;
be manly and cheerful and esteem the
ladies.
Gurnemanz promises him his pretty daughter Liaze.
At Belrepeire Parzival finds people starving;
but he befriends
Queen Condwiramurs and defends her
against Clamide by defeating
the
champion Kingrun in single combat.
Parzival sends Kingrun
to Arthur's court to submit to
Lady Cunneware because of an insult
by Seneschal Keie.
Parzival also duels, defeats, and sends Clamide
to Arthur's court for the same purpose.
Parzival marries Condwiramurs
but leaves to visit
his mother and seek adventure.
In a castle
Parzival sees a ceremony with a bleeding lance
and two dozen maidens
surrounding a chaste virgin
holding the magical Gral that enables
them
to eat whatever they wish.
Following the advice of Gurnemanz,
Parzival asks no questions.
Later Sigune reprimands him for not
inquiring.
Finding that Orilus is mistreating his wife Jeschute
unfairly,
Parzival defeats the duke; by taking an oath before
the hermit
Trevrizent that Jeschute is innocent and giving back
her ring,
he reconciles their marriage.
Orilus is also sent to
Lady Cunneware,
increasing the animosity at court toward Keie.
When blood on snow reminds Parzival of his wife's
complexion,
he is entranced by love.
Segramor challenges him and is unhorsed.
Keie gets Arthur's permission to fight Parzival
and has an arm
and a leg broken.
Lady Cunneware welcomes Parzival at court
after
he has defended her honor against Keie.
Parzival becomes a knight
of the Round Table;
but the sorceress Cundrie castigates him for
replacing
the Red Knight Ither and for not speaking up
when he
saw the bloody lance and the Gral.
The knight Kingrimursel challenges
Gawan to single
combat before the King of Ascalun at Schanpfanzun.
While Parzival is seeking the Gral,
Gawan has many adventures.
Gawan fights for King Meljanz of Liz against Duke Lyppaut.
At
Schanpfanzun Gawan is entrusted with Antikonie,
sister of King
Vergulaht of Ascalun.
When love trouble arouses the people of
Schanpfanzun,
Kingrimursel defends Gawan.
Antikonie also helps
to bring about a reconciliation
so that Gawan can resume his search
for the Gral
as he promises to serve her womanly virtue.
In the forest of Munsalvaesche Parzival meets his cousin Sigune;
she is mourning her dead suitor and is given food in her cell
on the Gral by Malcreatiure's sister Cundrie.
Sigune forgives
Parzival and urges him to seek the Gral.
He is guided to the hermit
Trevrizent to confess his sins.
The hermit lives simply in self-denial.
Parzival has not been in churches but has been seeking battles.
Trevrizent exhorts him to seek good,
for the Gral can only be
gained by Heaven's destiny.
He must guard against arrogance by
cultivating a gentle spirit.
He says Parzival sinned when he killed
his own relative Ither
for the red armor, and his mother died
in anguish for him;
he also failed to ask a question when he saw
the Gral.
The hermit gives him penance and takes his sins.
Meanwhile Gawan woos and marries the dowager duchess
Orgeluse,
and for her he leads a life of combat.
The proud king Gramoflanz
agrees to fight only Gawan,
who invites Arthur and Guinevere to
attend the joust.
Privately Gawan jousts with a knight,
who turns
out to be Parzival,
and Gawan realizes the perverse folly of their
combat.
Parzival offers to fight King Gramoflanz for Gawan;
when
the king insists on fighting Gawan,
Bene berates him for bad faith
in love;
but Gawan also refuses to let Parzival fight for him.
Yet Parzival leaves early and has gained victory
over Gramoflanz
when Gawan arrives.
Gawan intends to fight the next day;
but Arthur's
mother Arnive and Bene show Arthu
that Gramoflanz is in love
with Gawan's sister Itonje
even though he has not seen her yet.
Arthur arranges a truce,
and Gramoflanz gets to kiss Itonje.
The
quarrel is dissolved in the sunshine of love
for Itonje as she
marries King Gramoflanz.
Parzival continues his search for the Gral
and fights a rich
knight;
when Parzival's sword shatters,
the infidel gallantly
agrees to a truce.
They discover that they are both sons of Gahmuret,
and the half-black Feirefiz has been looking for his father.
Parzival
informs him that their father died in a joust.
Feirefiz loves
the ladies, and Parzival promises him there
are very lovely ones
at Arthur's court.
One lady for each knight is allowed to sit
at the Round Table.
Cundrie appears with the Gral device.
She
tells Parzival to choose one companion for his quest,
and he takes
his brother, who sends to his army
to lavish gifts on the court.
Cundrie escorts the brothers and prevents them from fighting.
The ailing Anfortas, uncle of Parzival,
was the Gral king
but
lost it; the arrival of the next
Gral king Parzival heals his
pain.
Now that Parzival is recognized as the Gral king
he goes
back to his wife Condwiramurs.
Their son Kardeiz is crowned as
heir of Gahmuret's kingdoms,
and their other son is the fearless
Loherangrin.
The virgin hermit Sigune is found dead on her knees
in prayer.
At a palace banquet in Belrepeire the
Gral magically
gives everyone what they want.
Anfortas tells Parzival that his
brother will not
really see the Gral until he is baptized.
Fierefiz
is baptized by a priest and marries Parzival's aunt
Repanse de
Schoye, who in India bears Prester John.
Instead of fighting for
the love of women,
Anfortas vows to fight for and serve the Gral.
Wolfram von Eschenbach had completed Parzival by 1212,
the year a crusade won a big victory at Las Navas de Tolosa
that
drove the Almohads out of Spain.
He completed the epic poem Willehalm
in German
about 1220, adapting the French poem Aliscans
that
had been composed about 1185
and was based on an earlier
"Song of William."
Wolfram noted that his poem is based
on a true story about
a knight who became a saint and can be invoked
by those who believe in God.
Guillaume (William or Willehalm)
was made
Count of Toulouse by his cousin Charlemagne in 789.
Four
years later Guillaume was defeated by invading
Muslims in the
battle of Alischanz while Charlemagne
and his son Louis were away
on campaigns;
but his forces had made the victory costly,
and
the Saracens went back to Spain with their booty.
Guillaume helped
Charlemagne fight back
and take Barcelona in 801.
Guillaume spent
the last six years of his life
dedicated to God as a Benedictine
monk
near Montpellier before he died in 812.
Wolfram's hero Willehalm is also called
the Marquis or Margrave.
The plot is set in motion because he fell in love with Arabel,
who was baptized Giburc before she married Willehalm,
causing
her father King Terramer and her former
suitor Tibalt to launch
a massive invasion.
On the field of Alischanz two-thirds of Terramer's
30,000 warriors are slaughtered
as they wipe out Willehalm's army
of 20,000.
In the end the Marquis loses thirteen close relatives.
In grief Willehalm leaves the field and heads home toward
Orange
and witnesses the death of young Vivianz.
On his way Willehalm
challenges fifteen kings
and slays seven of them as the others
flee.
Then the Marquis kills the undefeated Persian king
Arofel
and puts on his rich armor,
which enables him to pass through
the Muslim army.
Even Queen Giburc does not recognize him until
he proves his valor by freeing 500 Christians
who had been enslaved
and then
shows her the scar on his nose.
Their castle is soon
besieged, and Willehalm goes to get help,
vowing to eat only bread
and water until he returns.
Giburc orders dead men with helmets
and shields placed
on the battlements as a show of force.
The
angry Margrave lops off the head of a toll inspector,
and he fights
his brother Arnalt
until they realize who they are.
At the court of King Louis the Queen is Willehalm's sister;
but she at first disdains his plea for a new army.
In a rage Willehalm
breaks her crown and grabs her by the hair;
but he is calmed down
by his father Heimrich,
and his mother Irmschart of Pavia
contributes
to the campaign.
The Queen's daughter Alice also helps to mollify
King Louis,
who promises Heimrich an army for his son's cause,
declaring they must all fight to defend baptism
against the heathens.
Willehalm also recruits the strong Persian noble Rennewart,
who
was working as a kitchen slave
and has an enormous club.
Louis
remains at Orleans and sends the army
forward under Willehalm.
The Marquis and Rennewart go ahead of the army,
and Giburc
lets them in the castle.
She says their army has driven her father's
army to the harbor.
She is relieved as the French army camps,
allowing her and her maidens to remove their armor.
Queen Giburc
describes how
she resisted offers to convert again.
King Louis
wanted to have Rennewart baptized;
when he refused to do so, Rennewart
had to
give up the companionship of Alice.
Giburc learns that
Rennewart is her brother,
because he is also a child of Terramer.
Rennewart resents that he was not ransomed
even though he would
have been
if they had known where he was.
He promises to fight
for the Marquis of Provence,
and Giburc's maidens put his armor
on him.
The French swear to fight the Saracens as they take the
cross.
Giburc weeps for the dead and pleads
that they show mercy
in their victory.
During a truce Rennewart is not persuaded
to
return to fight for the Saracens.
Terramer wants to become Roman
emperor
and depends on his countless reserves.
The poet described
in detail the orders of battle;
the Saracens have ten troops led
by Halzebier, Tibalt,
Sinagun, Terramer's ten sons, Poidjus, Aropatin,
Josweiz,
Poidwiz, Marlanz, and Terramer himself;
the French have
six led by Willehalm, old Heimrich,
Buov and Bernart, Gibert and
Bertram,
Heimrich le captif and Schilbert,
and Rennewart
with the cowards.
Terramer realizes that he would have to defeat this army
if
he wants to be Roman emperor
as the French are determined to avenge
the loss of Vivianz and others.
The poet noted that many men were
fighting
for women's rewards and favors.
Rennewart attacks a ship
and is able to free eight Christian
princes while sparing the
unarmed jailers.
Poidjus reports to Terramer that Halzebier has
been killed.
After Rennewart slays King Goliam,
Tibalt retreats
with his army.
Poidwiz is also dead, but in the retreat Terramer
and many escape to the ships.
Many poor soldiers get rich collecting
booty.
Marquis Willehalm gains renown
and goes on to other victories.
He sheds tears that Rennewart can not be found,
but his brother
Bernart of Brabant consoles him that
he now has Tibalt's wife
and land,
suggesting that they can exchange prisoners
for him
if he is captured.
The Saracens had 23 kings killed,
and their
bodies are returned for burial.
The poem ends abruptly,
but it
is not known how much was lost.
In this work the knight Wolfram
celebrated what
he considered the joys of chivalry
even though
they involved massive violence.
The didactic satire Meier Helmbrecht was written
by
Wernher der Gartenaere about 1250.
Helmbrecht means a libertine
and is the
name of the father and the son.
The first third of
the poem is a discussion between
these two as to whether the son
should leave
the farm to go to court.
Young Helmbrecht has made
up his mind to leave,
but his father warns him with many arguments
and even
by his dreams that this will bring much worse results
than staying to plow and tend the animals.
Young Helmbrecht leaves
and becomes a
squire to a knight as they pilfer and rob.
After
a year Helmbrecht returns to his family speaking
words from various
languages and bearing gifts.
Helmbrecht has been named Schlingdasgeu,
which means "devour the land,"
and he has nine friends
with similar names.
He tells his sister Gotlint that his friend
Lammerslint
wants to marry her and offers her three bags
of cloth,
clothing, and furs.
They are wed, and Helmbrecht continues his
violent
stealing until one day they are caught by the sheriff.
His nine companions are hanged,
and Helmbrecht is blinded
and
has a foot and hand cut off.
Gotlint guides him home, but then
victims of his
past crimes find him and hang him too.
This poem
indicates how the abuses of knight errantry
are succumbing to
enforceable law.
So many similar versions telling the story of Tristan and Yseut
were written by the 13th century that scholars have
concluded that many may have been based on a
common source that has been
lost.
The extant fragments written by Thomas of Britain
in French before 1160 cover the end of the story
and will be discussed below.
Béroul also wrote The Romance of Tristan in French
in
the last decade of the 12th century that is nearly complete
except for the beginning and end.
Béroul's extant poem
picks up the story with
Tristan and Yseult discussing their plight
under a tree
as Yseut's husband King Mark listens from the tree.
Yseult sees that Mark is listening and manages to
steer the conversation
in such a way that his suspicions
of their love aroused by his
courtiers are alleviated.
Mark now trusts Tristan even more and
allows him
to sleep in his bedchamber.
Three barons have seen
Tristan and Yseult
lying naked together often.
The dwarf Frocin
strews flour between the beds
of Tristan and Yseult to incriminate
them;
but Tristan leaps from his bed to hers.
In doing so he opens
a wound and bleeds
in her bed and on the floor.
Thus King Mark
finds Tristan guilty
and condemns him to death.
King Mark plans to burn his wife Yseult and his nephew
Tristan;
but Tristan is allowed into a church
and leaps out the window.
His tutor and squire Governal helps him escape.
The leader of
the lepers, Ivain, persuades King Mark to
turn over his queen
to the lepers as a fate worse than death;
but Governal strikes
Ivain, and Tristan carries off Yseult
into the forest of Morrois.
Both Tristan and Yseult tell the hermit Ogrin that
they cannot
repent, because their adulterous love
was caused by the drinking
of the potion.
Tristan's dog Husdant finds his way to Tristan,
who teaches him not to bark while they hunt.
When one of the barons
comes into the forest,
Governal kills him.
One day King Mark finds
the two lovers sleeping
clothed with a sword between them;
the
king leaves his sword and takes Tristan's.
After three years the
love potion wears off,
and Tristan regrets his wrong,
hoping that
Yseult can be reconciled with King Mark.
They go back to the hermit
Ogrin and say that
their physical intercourse has ended.
Tristan
agrees to defend her honor at court,
and they send a letter to
King Mark;
but the hostile barons persuade the king
to exile Tristan
for a year.
He leaves his dog with Yseult,
and she gives him a
green jasper ring.
The barons Godwin, Ganelon, and Denoalan urge King Mark
to
make Yseult undergo an ordeal to prove her honor.
She promises
to do so before King Arthur and his household.
Tristan disguises
himself as a begging leper,
causes the barons to fall in the mire,
and carries Yseult across on his back.
Tristan goes back to Governal,
who gives him his armor.
Tristan breaks the arm of a knight,
and
Governal kills another to the delight of Yseult.
Then she swears
that no man has been between her thighs
except King Mark and the
leper she rode across the mire.
The three barons still spy on
Yseult's bedroom in order to
catch Tristan; but he kills Denoalan
and Godwin before
the manuscript of the poem by Béroul
breaks off.
A finer and more extensive version is the poem Tristan
based on Thomas and written in German
by Gottfried von Strassburg
about 1210.
In the prolog Gottfried wrote that love is blissful
and
blessed though lovers suffer longing in their hearts.
Rivalin
is the lord of Parmenie but has the fatal style
of living that
returns evil for evil.
Gottfried noted that those who cannot overlook
a hurt will produce many more hurts.
Rivalin has a feud with his
enemy Morgan;
but he falls in love with Blancheflor and she with
him.
Rivalin is seriously wounded fighting for King Mark.
Blancheflor
swoons next to him;
when the recovering Rivalin has his way with
her,
she becomes pregnant.
Rivalin goes to sea against Morgan,
and Blancheflor elopes with him.
He entrusts her to Rual Foitenant,
and Rivalin is killed defending his country.
Blancheflor laments,
and four days later
she gives birth to a son and dies.
Marshal
Rual and his wife Floraete pretend
that the child is theirs,
and
the boy is named Tristan, meaning sorrow.
By the age of fourteen Tristan is well educated;
but while
playing chess on a ship
he is abducted by Norwegian merchants.
Believing a raging storm was caused by their evil deed,
the merchants
put Tristan on shore in Cornwall.
Tristan tells two hermits he
was lost from a hunt,
and they take him to Tintagel.
Tristan impresses
hunters by showing them
how to excoriate a stag.
He also excels
at music with his horn and by playing harp
at the court of King
Mark, who already has
made him a retainer as chief huntsman.
Tristan
is also admired for his knowledge of several languages.
Meanwhile
Rual has been looking for his adopted son
and eventually is guided
to Cornwall.
Rual admits he is the vassal of Tristan and explains
Tristan's
unusual birth and adoption and that
he is actually King
Mark's nephew.
Mark tells Tristan he will be his father for his
late sister's sake.
Parmenie is given to young Tristan,
and Mark
even makes him co-ruler of Cornwall and his heir.
Tristan is knighted
with thirty others he sponsors.
King Mark advises him,
Let your birth and nobility be
ever present in your mind.
Be modest and straightforward;
be truthful and well-bred.
Always be kind to the lowly;
to the mighty always be proud.
Cultivate your appearance.
Honor and love all women.
Be generous and loyal.4
Tristan sails to Parmenie and then goes
to Morgan to claim
his fief.
Morgan denies his legitimacy,
but Tristan says his parents
were married.
He accuses Morgan of killing his father
and slays
him with his sword.
Both sides suffer heavy losses in the fighting.
Tristan enfeoffs Rual and his sons as heirs and then
goes back to Cornwall with his tutor Curvenal.
Ireland's king Gurman has
been imposing a loathsome tribute
on Cornwall, demanding thirty
handsome boys each year.
Believing it is against God's commandments
for free men
to give their children for serfdom, Tristan volunteers
for single combat against the huge Morold.
They fight on an island,
and Morold wounds Tristan
in the thigh with a poison-bated sword;
only Morold's sister,
Queen Isolde of Ireland, knows the needed
herbs to heal it.
Yet Tristan fights with God and right, triumphs,
and cuts off Morold's head.
To heal his wound Tristan sails to
Ireland
with Curvenal and eight men.
Tristan enters Dublin alone
as a court minstrel
and uses the name Tantris.
Queen Isolde treats
his poisoned wound and asks him
to tutor her daughter Isolde in
music,
languages, and good manners.
Tantris tells the Queen he
has a wife,
and he returns cured to Cornwall.
At King Mark's court Tristan describes
how lovely young Isolde
is.
The barons become so envious of Tristan that he advises
Mark
to take a wife so that he can produce another successor.
Isolde
is chosen as most fitting, and Tristan is sent to Ireland
on the
embassy with twenty knights and sixty mercenaries.
Again Tristan
approaches alone and makes up a story,
bribing the marshal to
get to the court.
King Gurman has sworn to give his daughter Isolde
to any knight of noble birth who can slay the dragon.
Tristan
does so and cuts out the tongue.
The cowardly Steward loves Isolde
and claims
that he killed the dragon; but Isolde hates the Steward
and would rather die than marry him.
Her mother Queen Isolde perceives
by a dream
that the Steward did not kill the dragon.
She and her
daughter and niece Brangane with the page
Paranis find Tristan
nearly dead
from carrying the dragon's tongue.
Again Queen Isolde
cures Tantris, who plans
to challenge the deceitful Steward to
a duel.
Young Isolde finds his sword and matches the
missing piece
found in her dead uncle's skull.
They realize he is the Tristan
who killed the Queen's brother;
but she has granted him immunity.
Tristan promises that young Isolde can marry King Mark,
and King
Gurman renounces the feud.
When the Steward presents the head
of the dragon
or his claim, he is disproved
by the missing tongue
that Tristan had taken.
Queen Isolde concocts a love philter and gives it to Brangane
for Mark and Isolde; but on the ship to Cornwall
Isolde and Tristan
drink it.
Isolde's hatred for his having killed her uncle
is suddenly
gone as Love purges their hearts of enmity.
They join in affection
and share a single heart.
In joy and sorrow they hide their feelings
from each other.
Eventually the love is too strong, and she resigns
herself
body and soul to Tristan.
As they lose their shyness,
they kiss.
Brangane is persuaded to let them do as they like.
On the voyage they revel in their intimacy.
Gottfried inserted
a passage on how we reap what we sow—
how love cultivated
with deceit in seeking joy of
body and soul can cause pain and
evil.
Only steadfast friendship is the worthy love.
The lovers
worry about Isolde's lost virginity;
but they ask Brangane to
take her place in Mark's bed
on her wedding night, and Brangane
explains
to them about the potion's influence.
After being with
Brangane in the dark
Mark resumes his pleasures with Isolde.
Fearing
Brangane might expose their love,
Isolde sends two men to murder
her;
but they take pity on her,
and Isolde is also relieved they
did not kill her.
Gottfried noted that Love also includes the
pain
of anger sometimes;
but affection reconciles the lovers.
King Mark owes Irish knight Gandin a request,
and Gandin demands
Isolde.
No one is willing to risk his life against this knight
while Tristan is off hunting.
Tristan again appears as a minstrel
and carries off
the grateful Isolde back to Mark.
Jealous Marjodoc
tells the King
that a rumor links her to Tristan.
Mark tests Isolde
by saying he is going away,
and she asks for Tristan to take care
of her
until Brangane advises her that this was rash.
Isolde's
varying attitude causes Mark
to waver between doubt and trust.
The King's dwarf Melot perceives the tender affection
between
Tristan and Isolde, and he gets Mark
to climb an olive tree in
order to listen
to the conversation of the lovers.
In Gottfried's
version both Tristan and Isolde perceive
the shadow of the king
and speak
so as to relieve his suspicion.
The deceitful Melot
offers Tristan friendship but betrays him
by strewing flour on
the floor of the Queen's bedchamber.
Tristan leaps from his bed
to hers but opens a wound,
leaving tell-tale blood in her bed.
King Mark consults his council at London,
and it is decided Queen
Isolde must undergo an ordeal.
Disguised as a pilgrim, Tristan
carries Isolde ashore
and tumbles on the ground with her,
allowing
the Queen to swear with him as an exception.
Thus the hot iron
does not burn her hand,
and her honor is redeemed.
In Swales Tristan wins the dog Petitcreiu from Duke Gilan
by
defeating the arrogant Urgan, cutting off his hand.
Tristan sends
the prized dog with Brangane to Isolde.
The lovers resume their
secret intimacy at court;
but King Mark again becomes suspicious,
and in his rage he banishes them both.
Perhaps the happiest time
for
Tristan and Isolde is living in the cave.
Gottfried even claimed
that they were sustained
only by their love without food.
The
windows in their cave stand for
kindness, humility, and breeding.
One day hearing King Mark nearby, the lovers lay down
in their
clothes with a sword between them.
Mark finds them sleeping and
covers the window
with flowers to keep the sun off them.
Once
again relieved, Mark sends Curvenal
to recall Tristan and Isolde
to his court.
There Isolde begins to resent the surveillance.
Gottfried argued against it, because the vicious
cannot be guarded,
and the virtuous do not need it,
guarding themselves.
A woman
who esteems herself is moderate;
but when a woman acts against
herself,
she becomes her own enemy in losing her honor.
One day
in the garden Mark finds Tristan and Isolde
sleeping in each other's
arms,
turning his suspicion to certainty.
Tristan sees him walk
away and tells Isolde he must leave;
before he goes, she gives
him a ring
and tells him to remember her.
Tristan goes to Germany and fights
for the Holy Roman Empire.
He learns that Rual and Floraete died,
but he is welcomed by their
sons.
Tristan helps Arundel fight in their feud,
and Kaedin introduces
him to his sister
Isolde of the White Hands.
Tristan wavers between
the memories of his fair Isolde
and this new love; but Isolde
of the White Hands
does not know of his duplicity and inner conflict.
Tristan is still absorbed in thoughts of Queen Isolde
when the
manuscript of Gottfried breaks off.
The fragments of Tristran by Thomas of Britain
describe
the end of the story.
Tristran's feelings are changing, and he
thinks of the
pleasure King Mark has with Ysolt.
Assuming she
has forgotten him, he decides to marry
Ysolt of the White Hands
to try to forget the Queen.
Thomas lamented that people are changeable
but do not seem to change their evil ways
as they continually
seek novelties.
When Tristran looks at his ring, he remembers
Ysolt
and cannot break faith with her.
So he refrains from intimacy
with Ysolt of the White Hands,
and abstinence breeds hatred.
His
reason keeps him faithful and takes away his lust
for his bride;
he tells her he has a painful bodily infirmity.
The knight Cariado
tells Ysolt that Tristran has taken a wife,
daughter of the Duke
of Brittany;
but the Queen tells Cariado that she could never
love him.
Thomas described how all four lovers are unhappy.
Mark
fears that Ysolt is unfaithful
and can only have the physical
pleasure.
Ysolt has the King but longs for her beloved Tristran,
who has a bride but cannot love her
because of his love for the
Queen.
Ysolt of the White Hands desires
Tristran
but gets no carnal
pleasure.
Tristran and Caerdin go to England.
Tristran gets to see Queen
Ysolt, who persuades
Brengvein to accept the love of Caerdin.
When the two men leave, Brengvein blames Ysolt
and threatens to
betray her for having
violated her oath to the King.
Brengvein
even tells Mark that Ysolt's morals have
so declined that she
is considering giving in to Cariado,
whom she got to ambush Tristran.
So the King removes Cariado.
Tristran disguises himself as a beggar,
but Brengvein interferes until Tristran persuades her
that Caerdin
really loves her.
Tristran departs but learns that Queen Ysolt
has started wearing a corselet until he returns.
Tristran and
Caerdin kill two barons
in a tournament but flee again.
Tristran
joins a dwarf of the same name in a feud,
and they kill seven
brothers; but the dwarf Tristran is slain,
and Tristran himself
is wounded by a poisoned spear.
Tristran believes that Ysolt can
cure him,
but he cannot make the journey.
So he sends Caerdin,
admitting he cannot love his sister
because he loves the Queen.
Ysolt returns with Caerdin on a ship and nearly drowns
in a storm;
but Ysolt of the White Hands lies to Tristran
that the ship has
a black sail,
meaning that Ysolt is not coming.
Tristran dies,
and Queen Ysolt is so grieved
that she dies too kissing him.
This powerful romance though written in poetry prepares
the
way for the modern novel
that describes feelings and motives.
Though the illicit love is based on a potion,
it nonetheless symbolizes
the
emotional power of sexual attraction.
Since the troubadours
opened up the romantic feelings,
this literature indicates how
the mores of Europe are changing
even among the courtly since
Eleanor of Aquitane
divorced Louis VII to marry Henry II in 1152.
The Tristran by Thomas was written soon after that event.
Chrétien de Troyes also wrote in reaction to the great
popularity of the Tristan story to show
that not all deep love
is outside of marriage.
The long French prose Lancelot also tells of the illicit
love
of the greatest knight for a queen.
The child is the son
of King Ban of Benoic;
but his father loses his kingdom, and the
boy does
not know his identity as he strives to be a knight
and
is educated in chivalry by the Lady of the Lake.
He leaves for
Camelot and has adventures
as the White Knight; when he conquers
the Dolorous Guard,
he learns his name is Lancelot.
While showing
his skill with arms in the kingdom of Logres,
Gawain learns the
white knight is Lancelot,
who again disappears.
As the Red Knight
and Black Knight he befriends Galehaut,
who is fighting a war
with King Arthur.
Lancelot goes mad for a while in a Saxon prison,
but the Saxons and the Irish are defeated.
Guinevere is accused
of being her false half-sister,
and Lancelot as her champion defeats
three foes
before the false Guinevere is exposed and dies.
Enamored
of Queen Guinevere,
in his quest Lancelot rides in a cart.
In
the fifth part Lancelot's love
for the queen is finally consummated.
Having saved Arthur from Galehaut and the Saxons,
Lancelot is
installed as a knight of the Round Table.
He is recognized as
the greatest knight in the world
and is admitted into Arthur's
household as Galehaut dies.
Lancelot learns of his son Galahad,
frees Mordred,
rescues Kay, returns to Camelot, is expelled by
Guinevere, goes mad and is cured.
Between 1215 and 1230 Lancelot was followed
by a religious
allegory called The Quest of the Holy Grail
that seems
to have been written by a Cistercian monk
or someone influenced
by that theology.
The quest for the grail begins as young Galahad
is knighted
by his father Lancelot and takes the perilous seat
at King Arthur's Round Table during the feast of Pentecost.
He
soon replaces Lancelot as the greatest knight
when he draws forth
a sword from a stone
that Lancelot refused to attempt
and that
Gawain and Perceval could not move.
Gawain and other knights take
the oath
to search for the holy grail.
The hermit Nascien advises
them that no lady nor maid
may go with them,
and the quest is
joined by 150 brave knights.
This tale contains much fantasy and
religious symbolism.
Galahad attains a special white shield with
a red cross.
The knight Maleas is punished for pride and coveting.
Galahad defeats seven knights who have been oppressing
the castle
of the maidens, and the knights flee.
Galahad is persuaded to
summon the local knights
and restore decent government to the
castle.
Then Galahad learns that Gawain, his brother Gaheriet,
and Owein killed the seven wicked brothers.
A hermit considers
Galahad better than Gawain
because he defeated the seven without
killing them.
Gawain is also criticized for his dissolute life.
Lancelot is judged even more harshly for his
relationship with
Queen Guinevere.
He sees the holy grail but is not moved to act.
The good hermit persuades Lancelot to repent and promise
never
to commit mortal sin with the Queen again.
Perceval's aunt tells
Perceval of three great fellowships:
the first was Jesus and his
apostles;
the second was led by Joseph of Arimathea;
and the third
is the Round Table
devised by Merlin for King Arthur.
Perceval
is warned not to try to fight the superior Galahad.
Perceval sees
a vision of a white-haired man and is told
that he has been waiting
blind and helpless for 400 years
for this knight to heal him.
Perceval sees a lion fighting a dragon and helps the lion.
A priest
tells him that the serpent symbolizes the Old Law
and the lion
the New Law of Christ.
Perceval then is tempted by an attractive
woman
and barely escapes giving up his will to her
by calling
on the cross.
He feels so wretched from his near failure
that
he stabs himself in the thigh.
The priest explains that she is
the enemy, the master of hell.
A hermit reminds Lancelot that he fell into the sins
of lust
and pride, and as penance he instructs this knight
to wear a hair-shirt
and eat no meat
and drink no wine during his quest.
For the first
time Lancelot is taken
prisoner during a tournament.
A reclusive
woman explains to him it was because he was
on the sinners' side
in the tournament of the grail quest.
Lancelot has his horse killed
by a knight he encounters
and is left without food by a river
he cannot cross.
Sir Gawain and Hector also have trouble
on the
quest because of their sins.
Before knowing who he is, in single
combat
Gawain mortally wounds King Urien's son Owein the Bastard.
Gawain and Hector have visions warning of their difficulties.
A holy man tells Lancelot's brother Hector that he will live
on
a war-horse in the vices of pride and envy
until he comes to the
house of the Great Fisher.
Manifestations of the holy grail will
not appear to guilty men.
Thus Gawain and Hector realize that
they may as well
give up the quest and go back to Camelot.
A monk also tells the wandering knight Bors that
some of his
companions on the quest fall into adultery
and fornication and
others into murder;
but Bors will be one of the three companions
of the Round Table to succeed.
Bors pledges to live on bread and
water until he attains his goal.
He helps an oppressed lady regain
her inheritance by defeating
her sister's champion Priadan and
by killing or driving out
his vassals, who refused to submit.
An abbot explains to Bors that this symbolizes his fight
for the
Church against the Old Law.
When faced with the choice to help
a knight being beaten
by two men or a maiden carried off in danger
of rape,
Bors chooses the latter.
Later he learns that the assaulted
knight is his brother Lionel,
who castigates Bors and kills a
hermit protecting him;
the knight Calogrenant arrives to intervene
but is also killed by Lionel.
Bors pleads with his brother and
is about to strike him
in self-defense when a heavenly fire
and
a voice stop the quarrel.
Guided by the voice,
Bors heads toward
the sea to meet Perceval.
In a battle at a tournament Galahad arrives to
knock down Gawain,
and Hector flees.
Galahad meets Perceval and Bors to take a miraculous
ship,
but only Galahad is able to put his hand around
a sacred
sword that Nascien had prized.
At a castle on the Scottish marshes
the three companions
take on ten attacking knights and others
arming,
slaying them like dumb beasts.
The three realize they
are sinners for massacring
so many men; but afterward they are
told
how wicked the men were they killed.
Ten knights demand a
bowlful of blood from Perceval's sister.
The three fight the ten
armed knights but have to submit
when sixty more knights arrive.
Perceval's sister agrees to give her blood
to heal a leprous lady
and dies in the process.
As Galahad, Perceval, and Bors leave,
the wicked castle is destroyed by a storm.
The body of Perceval's
sister is wrapped
and set adrift in a boat, which Lancelot finds.
In the boat Lancelot reads her story
and finally meets up with
his son Galahad.
After six months in the boat together,
Galahad
is given a white horse and rides off into the forest.
After drifting
in the boat for another month,
Lancelot is guided by a voice to
a castle,
where he is warned not to enter the sacred room.
When
Lancelot goes to help an aged priest,
he falls unconscious for
24 days.
Lancelot's raucous brother Hector arrives
but is not
allowed inside the castle and leaves.
Then Lancelot goes back
to Arthur's court.
Galahad goes to the chapel of King Mordrain,
who regains his
sight and health.
Galahad and Perceval roam the land for five
years
before they arrive at the house of the Maimed King.
Galahad
is warmly welcomed by his grandfather, King Pelles.
Galahad and
his two companions Perceval and Bors
meet three knights from Gaul,
three from Ireland,
and three from Denmark.
Josephus appears and
promises them
glorious food before he disappears.
A figure appears
from the holy vessel and gives communion
with the holy grail to
Galahad and the other knights.
After the figure disappears, Galahad
takes blood
rom the lance and heals the legs of the Maimed King.
Galahad asks to depart from life
while seeing the glories of the
holy grail.
Josephus, son of Joseph of Arimathea, tells Galahad
they are alike as virgins and in revering the holy grail.
Galahad
kisses Perceval and tells Bors to commend him
to Lancelot before
he lays down and leaves his body
as his soul is carried to heaven
by angels.
Then Perceval and Bors see a hand
take the holy vessel
up to heaven.
Perceval spends a year in a hermitage
and then departs
this life;
Bors buries his body and then returns to the court
at Camelot to relate the story of the holy grail.
The Death of Arthur, probably written by 1235,
completes
the Lancelot cycle as Bors returns to Camelot
and tells
of his adventures.
Gawain admits that he killed eighteen knights
on the quest,
including King Baudemagus, which he regrets most.
Despite his previous resolutions, within a month
Lancelot has
resumed his ardent love for Queen Guinevere.
Gawain's brother
Agravain discovers their affair
and tells King Arthur, who does
not believe it
but makes Guinevere stay home
from a tournament
in order to test her.
Lancelot also stays behind,
but it is so
that he can go secretly to the tournament.
He meets a beautiful
maiden,
who asks him to grant a request.
He agrees, and she makes
him wear her sleeve on his
helmet even though he fears the jealousy
of Guinevere.
King Arthur forbids Gawain and his brother Gaheriet
from participating in the tournament,
because he expects Lancelot
to come.
For honor Lancelot chooses the weaker side
and helps
them win;
but Bors wounds Lancelot in the side.
Lancelot returns
to the Escalot castle
of the maiden and needs six weeks to recover.
Gawain meets the beautiful maiden and is smitten by her;
but
she is a virgin and has sworn to love
only her champion knight.
Gawain recognizes Lancelot's shield, and at Camelot
he explains
that Lancelot loves a beautiful virgin.
When Queen Guinevere learns
that the victorious knight
with the sleeve was Lancelot, she is
furious.
After a month Lancelot wants to attend a tournament
because
Guinevere will be there;
but his excitement opens his wound,
and
he cannot go anywhere.
Lancelot intends vengeance on the knight
who wounded him;
but when he learns it was Bors, he drops his
grudge.
Meanwhile King Arthur visits his sister Morgan,
who plans
to live on the magical Isle of Avalon.
She shows the King paintings
Lancelot made
while imprisoned that reveal his love for the Queen.
Morgan urges Arthur to avenge his shame.
The beautiful maiden
tells Lancelot she loves him
so much that she will die if he will
not love her;
when he rejects her because of Guinevere,
she takes
to her bed and does die.
Lancelot and his knights go to Camelot,
but jealous Guinevere
refuses to receive them.
Lancelot goes off with only a squire.
A knight named Avarlan hates Gawain and gives
Queen Guinevere
a poisoned fruit so that
she will give it to him; but she gives
it to Gaheris,
who is poisoned to death.
In the forest Lancelot
is wounded in the thigh from a hunting
arrow that missed a stag,
and he is taken in by a hermit.
Mador, the brother of Gaheris,
divests himself of his fief
from Arthur and goes to the King to
demand justice
for the Queen's murder of his brother.
She has
no knight who will aid her in this cause,
because she sent away
Lancelot and his relatives;
but Arthur gives her forty days to
find a knight to defend her.
Gawain learns that the beautiful
girl from Escalot died
and tells Guinevere what happened.
Lancelot
learns of the Queen's plight;
he says he will fight for her because
he loves her even though she is in the wrong.
Bors blames Guinevere
for failing
the finest knight in the world.
Arthur asks Gawain
and other knights
to help the Queen, but they all refuse.
Finally
Bors agrees to defend her
if she has no better champion.
However,
Lancelot arrives and defeats Mador,
offering him mercy when he
withdraws his accusation.
Queen Guinevere realizes that Lancelot loves her,
because the
beautiful virgin died for lack of his love;
now their love lacks
such discretion that soon
Gawain and his brothers know of it for
certain.
Arthur forces Agravain to tell him that they have
committed
adultery, and the King orders his knights
to catch them together
and goes hunting.
After Lancelot undresses and goes to bed with
the Queen,
the knights surround the room.
Lancelot manages to
fight his way out,
and Arthur prepares to burn his Queen.
Lancelot,
Bors, and other knights rescue Guinevere,
and in doing so they
kill Gawain's brothers
Agravain, Guerrehet, and Gaheriet.
Gawain
swoons and insists on revenge and war.
Mador informs them that
Lancelot
is at the Joyeuse Garde castle.
Arthur replaces the 72
missing from his Round Table
so that he still has 150 knights.
Lancelot sends a message that he is willing to fight in single
combat to prove he is not guilty and blames
Arthur's nephews for
bringing about their own deaths.
Arthur follows Gawain's advice
and replies it is war.
They march on the castle,
and Lancelot sorties out with his
knights.
The story says that Gawain killed 18 knights;
the other
side has a hundred knights missing
and took only ten prisoners.
The next day Gawain and Bors wound each other;
but Lancelot keeps
his brother Hector from killing Arthur.
The king's siege of the
castle lasts two months;
but the Pope threatens excommunication
and interdict
if Arthur will not take back his queen,
and Lancelot
agrees to let Guinevere go back to the King.
Arthur then allows
Lancelot to leave the kingdom
of Logre to return to Gaunes.
Lancelot
and Guinevere exchange rings again and part.
Gawain tries to challenge
Lancelot,
and Bors offers to accept the single combat;
but Arthur
does not allow the battle.
In France Lancelot makes Bors king of Banoic
and Lionel king
of Gaunes.
Gawain persuades King Arthur to draft an army in order
to
invade the lands of Lancelot, and Arthur appoints Mordred
to
govern while he is gone and crosses the channel.
Mordred makes
many gifts to win over people
and falls in love with Guinevere.
Then he forges the King's seal and announces that the dying
Arthur
wrote that Mordred should be made king
and marry Guinevere, and
the barons go along with this.
Guinevere gets some knights to
protect her in the
Tower of London, where she is besieged.
Meanwhile
Gawain challenges Lancelot to single combat;
Arthur promises that
if Lancelot wins,
he will give up the siege.
Lancelot offers peace
and homage and will even go
into exile for ten years, though the
kings Bors and Lionel
would remain independent.
Gawain is bent
on revenge and insists on fighting.
They fight all day, and both
are badly wounded.
Finally Lancelot gets Arthur's permission to
walk away.
Arthur learns that the Romans have invaded his realm
in Burgundy and goes to fight them.
Arthur himself slays the Emperor
and sends
his body as the only tribute he offers.
Arthur then learns of Mordred's betrayal
and siege of the Queen.
Arthur admits that Mordred is his son.
Gawain is dying of his
head wound and begs Arthur
to call on Lancelot, but the King refuses
to do so.
Queen Guinevere, fearing both Mordred and Arthur,
goes
into an abbey of nuns.
Gawain dies but appears to Arthur in a
dream,
advising him he will die if he fights Mordred without Lancelot.
At Dover an archbishop repeats the warning that many
good men
will die, but Arthur ignores him too.
Mordred wins over the Saxons
to his side
and has many more men than Arthur.
In the big battle
at Salisbury Arthur's allies King Yon
and King Caradoc are killed;
but King Aguisant rescues Yvain,
who is then killed by Mordred.
Of all the knights of the Round Table only Girflet survives.
Arthur
kills his son Mordred but is mortally wounded by him;
he sends
Girflet to throw his sword Excalibur into the lake,
and a hand
comes out of the water to catch it.
Arthur goes on a boat with
his sister Morgan,
and his tomb reads
"Here lies King Arthur
who through his valor
conquered twelve kingdoms."5
Girflet becomes a hermit and dies eighteen days later.
Guinevere
also dies in the convent.
Lancelot learns that the two sons of
Mordred
claimed the kingdom.
Bors proposes to Lancelot that they
fight them.
In the battle Mordred's son Melehan kills Lionel;
but Bors kills Melehan,
and Lancelot kills Mordred's younger son.
Bors goes back to his kingdom,
but Lancelot and his brother Hector
devote themselves
to four years of penance before they die.
Hearing
the news from the archbishop of Canterbury,
Bors retires to the
hermitage also.
This classic story that will often be adapted
in the coming
centuries describes the ethics of chivalry;
but
the violence of the knights results in their destruction.
Snorri Sturluson was born in Iceland in 1178,
the youngest
of three sons.
His father Sturla was a chieftain but died in 1183,
and Snorri
was raised from the age of three by the most powerful
man in
Iceland, Jon Loptsson (1124-1197),
at his educational farm
Oddi.
Jon's grandfather Saemund the Learned (1056-1133) wrote
the first history of the Norwegian kings in Latin.
Jon was also
proud that his mother Thora was sired
(out of wedlock) by Norwegian
king Magnus III (Bareleg).
In 1199 Snorri gained wealth by marrying
Herdis,
daughter of rich Bersi of Borg.
After Bersi died in 1202,
Snorri moved from Oddi
to her farm at Borg that had been the home
of the poet Egil Skallagrimsson.
Four years later Snorri was separated
from his wife and
moved to Reykjaholt, which was Church land the
priest
Magnus Paalson gave him to manage.
In conflicts with the
Church Snorri sided with the chieftains,
who drove the Bishop
of Holar from his diocese in 1209.
Snorri was ambitious and sent
poems to Norway's kings
Sverrir and Inge, receiving a suit of
armor
from the regent Jarl Haakon.
With his knowledge, legal skill, and growing power,
Snorri
was made law-speaker for the Iceland law
court (Althing)
from 1215 to 1218.
Snorri clashed with the chief Magnus Gudmundarson
and the Oddaverjar family but overcame them.
Then he visited King
Haakon IV and regent Jarl Skuli in
Norway; Snorri persuaded the
king not to invade Iceland.
Snorri promised to make peace for
the Norwegian
merchants in Iceland and work for the king, who
appointed him a lenderman, the highest state official.
Snorri then became the first Icelander to give
his estates to Norway's king as his vassal
and received them back as a royal
gift.
Snorri returned to Iceland in 1220 and was able to
resolve the conflict over the Norwegian traders,
because Saemund Jonsson's
power
had been weakened by local feuding.
Snorri got a nephew
of Jon Loptsson to kill
his enemy in the battle of Breidabolstad
in 1221.
Snorri served as law-speaker of Iceland
again starting
in 1222 for nine more years.
In 1224 Snorri became the common-law
husband of the
wealthy heiress Hallveig and began managing her
estates;
but they could not be married by the Church
until his
wife Herdis died in 1233.
Snorri was descended from the skaldic
poets Egil
Skallagrimsson and Markus Skeggjason, and during
this period he compiled the legends and history
of Norway's kings in
his Heimskringla.
According to the account of his nephew Sturla Thordarson
in
the Sturlunga Saga, Snorri was so ambitious to gain
wealth
and power that he was an inconstant friend
and often made enemies.
Usually reluctant to use physical force,
Snorri used his skill
as a lawyer to gain his ends.
He seized flour a merchant from
the Orkneys
had stored on his farm.
In this case Snorri sent men
to attack his ship and three men
to murder the merchant when he
took refuge with Saemund.
After a fracas between Snorri's men
and Saemund's
nephew Magnus, Snorri sued Magnus to deprive him
of his inheritance and outlaw him.
Snorri refused to break up
a riot
between factions of his thingmen.
He garnered a fortune
with his legal maneuvers
by acquiring control over thing-districts.
Although Snorri became the richest man in Iceland,
power eluded
him because of the hostility he aroused.
Snorri also tried to
gain power by arranging the marriages
of his three daughters;
but two resulted in divorce,
and the third was widowed and took
lovers.
Snorri alienated many relatives,
because he did not share
his wealth.
When his son Jon wanted to marry and live at Stavaholt,
Snorri insisted that he live with his mother at Borg.
In 1224 Snorri's daughter Thordis married Thorvald
Vatnsfirding,
who was burned to death
by the sons of Hrafn in 1228.
In revenge
Thorvald's sons Thord and Snorri went after the
chief Sturla Sighvatsson,
perpetrating cruelties along the way;
but Sturla was not home, and in 1232
he had these two brothers killed.
That year it was
agreed that Snorri Sturlason was to own half
the chieftaincies
that rightfully belonged to Kolbeinn the Young.
The next year
Snorri Sturlason put his violent son Oraekja
in charge of the
late Thorvald's estate,
and he terrorized the region.
Also in
1233 Snorri's nephew and rival Sturla Sighvatsson
went to Rome
and did penance for his crimes
against Bishop Gudmund Arason.
In 1235 Sturla became the Norwegian king's envoy
to gain the submission
of Iceland.
While Oraekja was summoned away,
Sturla seized Snorri's
farm at Reykjaholt.
Then Sturla gained revenge against Snorri's
son
by treacherously having Oraekja gelded.
Snorri formed an alliance
with Thorleif, who tried
to negotiate with Sturla as Snorri fled;
but Thorleif was defeated in 1237.
Snorri went to Norway but was
unwelcome at the royal court
and resided with the king's adversary,
the former regent
Jarl Skuli, who may even have challenged the
king's authority by appointing Snorri his jarl.
In Iceland
Sturla Sighvatsson was killed in 1238
while battling the ambitious
Gizur Thorvaldsson,
Snorri's former son-in-law.
In 1239 Snorri returned to Iceland
in defiance of the king's
order.
He joined with Thorlief to avenge his nephew
Sturla's death and increased his regional power.
After Jarl Skuli was killed
in a revolt in 1240,
Gizur got a letter from King Haakon authorizing
him to bring Snorri back to Norway.
At a meeting Snorri brought
only 100 men but faced
900 of Gizur's ally Kolbeinn, also Snorri's
son-in-law;
but Snorri managed to escape.
After his wife Hallveig
died, Snorri was reluctant
to share her estate with his two step-sons;
they joined with Gizur to plot his death.
On the night of September
23, 1241 Gizur entered
Snorri's home at Reykjaholt with seventy
men.
Snorri fled to the cellar and was killed without being
given the option of returning to Norway.
Gizur championed the king's
cause, and Iceland was
eventually absorbed into the Norwegian
kingdom in 1262.
The Poetic Edda was composed as early as the ninth century
but was probably not put into its final written form until after
Snorri Sturluson wrote his Prose Edda explaining
its myths,
diction, and meters about 1222.
The Edda poem Voluspa
is the prophecy of a seeress,
but more of the extant details are
supplied by Snorri's
later Prose Edda and in his "Ynglinga
Saga"
that is the first chapter of his Heimskringla.
He began the Prose Edda with a prolog that places
the Norse
myths in the context of the omnipotent God,
who created heaven
and earth.
Writing well into the Christian era of Iceland,
Snorri
mentioned Adam and Eve and the flood of Noah.
He then attempted
to explain the origin of the myths
rationally by suggesting that
ancients reasoned that the
Earth must be a living being that feeds
all creatures.
People must have realized that
something controls
the heavenly bodies.
Though he wrote about Leif Erikson's visits
to Vinland,
he described three regions of his world as Africa,
Europe,
and Asia, which is most beautiful and wealthy.
He traced
the origin of his people to the middle of the
world at Troy in
Turkey and wrote that their god Thor
is based on a son of Priam
named Tror.
Several generations later came Woden,
whom they call
Odin.
He led his people north to Saxony before
crossing over to
the king Gylfi in Sweden.
These people were called Aesir
because
they were from Asia.
In the Tricking of Gylfi (Gylfaginning) Snorri told
the
myths in the form of a conversation between King Gylfi
and
High, Just-as-High, and the Third.
The greatest work of the All-father
is the creation of humans
with souls that never perish even after
their bodies die.
The first creature in human form was a giant
named Ymir.
Buri is formed by being licked out of primeval stones
by the cow Audhumla.
His grandsons Odin, Vili, and Ve kill Ymir.
The gods build a city at Asgard (Troy) in the middle
of the world
for the Aesir race, and the All-father
establishes rulers to govern
people.
The temple built for the gods is called Gladsheim
and
another for the goddesses is Vingolf.
According to Snorri the
golden age
was ruined by the arrival of women.
Dwarves breed like
maggots from the flesh of Ymir,
and they work with metal.
In heaven
is the fairest and brightest hall called Gimle,
where the just
and good people will live forever;
Gimle is protected and will
stand even after
heaven and earth have passed away.
The world-tree Yggdrasill is at the center of the world,
but
its roots go down to the world of the dead,
Hel, and the frost
giants.
Under this tree are sacred wells that impart wisdom
presided over by fates across a rainbow bridge.
In the ocean surrounding
the human world of Midgard
is the serpent, who will attack the
gods
when they are doomed in the Ragnarok.
Odin is married to
Frigg, who knows human destiny
but does not prophesy.
Odin is
called All-father and Val-father, because
he gathers the dead
heroes in Valhalla for the final battle.
Odin is often disguised
as a one-eyed old man
seeking wisdom and challenging others.
Odin's
bearded son Thor is the strongest of the gods
and helps farmers
and sailors as he fights
the giants with his powerful hammer Miollnir.
The trusting god of justice Tyr is considered the
bravest but
lost a hand in the jaws of the wolf Fenrir.
Odin's foster-brother
Loki is the
father of Fenrir, Midgard, and Hel.
The cunning Loki
sometimes helps the gods,
but he often works against them.
Thor
is tricked by the transformations of Utgarda-Loki.
The wise Bragi is the god of poetry,
and the archer Ull is
the patron of hunting.
The gods' watchman Heimdall guards the
bridge
and can hear at the well of Mimir under Yggdrasill;
he
will blow his horn to announce Ragnarok.
The Aesir burn the witch
Gullveig three times,
but she is reborn and teaches humans her
magic.
The Vanir demand to participate in the sacrifices
of the
Aesir, but the war results in a negotiated peace.
Their fertility
deities Freyr and Freyia come with their
father Niord, a sea-god,
to live with the Aesir.
Haenir and Mimir are sent to the Vanir;
but they
quarrel so much that the Vanir cut off Mimir's head
and
send it back to the Aesir.
After the war between the Aesir and
Vanir, a builder
offers to repair the fortification of Asgard
and is
promised the sun, moon, and Freyia if he can do it in time.
The builder uses a stallion that Loki
in the form of a mare lures
away.
When the builder reveals he is a giant, Thor strikes him
with his hammer, breaking the pledge of the gods.
The gods also
break a promise when they bind Fenrir,
causing Tyr to lose his
hand that had been placed in
the mouth of the wolf Fenrir as a
pledge of good faith.
The gods refrain from killing the wolf in
their holy sanctuary.
The purest, wisest, and most merciful of the gods is
Odin's
son Baldr, but his decisions are not carried into effect.
After
Baldr tells of dreams that his life is threatened,
Frigg manages
to gain immunity from most dangerous
objects for Baldr; but Loki
disguises himself as a woman
and goes to Frigg, learning that
mistletoe was not included.
Then Loki gets Baldr's blind son Hod
to shoot his father
with a mistletoe arrow, killing him.
The bold
Hermod volunteers to go to Hel and offer her
a ransom for Baldr,
and Odin loans his boy his horse
Sleipnir for the journey to the
underworld.
Meanwhile the Aesir take Baldr's body
to the sea and
burn it on a funeral pyre.
Hel wants to test if Baldr is universally
loved and demands
that all creatures living and dead weep for
him to gain
his release; but the giantess Thanks refuses to do
so.
Finally Thor catches Loki even though
he turns himself into
a slippery salmon.
Loki's son Vali is changed into a wolf and
kills
his brother Nari, whose guts are used to bind Loki.
The
trickster cannot escape and will lie in bonds
until the doom of
the gods (Ragnarok),
which Snorri also called the "twilight
of the gods."
The moral decline leading to this catastrophe
is described by the Seeress.
Brother will fight brother and be his slayer,
brother and sister will violate the bond of kinship,
hard it is in the world, there is much adultery,
axe-age, sword-age, shields are cleft asunder,
wind-age, wolf-age, before the world plunges
headlong, no man will spare another.6
During Ragnarok Thor will conquer the Midgard serpent
but will
die from its poison.
Odin will be eaten by the wolf Fenrir,
but
Vidar will avenge his death by killing the wolf.
In addition to
the heavenly Gimle, the good and virtuous
will survive in the
mountain hall called Sindri.
Earth will rise from the sea and
become green and fair,
and crops will grow unsown.
Vidar and Vali
will be alive, and all will sit and discuss
mysteries and past
events in a new golden age.
Suddenly Gylfi hears noises and looks
around to find
himself on open ground, and he goes back to his
kingdom.
Other Edda poems tell stories of heroes such as
Helgi
and Sigurd, who have troubles after becoming involved
with valkyries;
these goddesses seek capable warriors,
selecting as many for Valhalla
as Odin.
Other legends based on or similar to the Nibelungenlied
are told of the historical figures Attila the Hun,
Burgundian
king Gunnar, and Queen Brunhilda.
These figures appear in the anonymous Volsunga Saga,
which was written between 1200 and 1270.
Odin's son Sigi founds
a kingdom, kills a servant,
and is murdered but avenged by his
son Rerir,
whose son Volsung is the father of Sigmund and Signy.
Sigmund gains the sword that only he can pull forth
from a tree
in Volsung's hall.
Signy marries Siggeir though her second sight
warns her it will be disastrous.
Siggeir attacks and kills Volsung,
capturing his twelve sons.
Signy pleads her brothers be put in
stocks;
but a wolf kills one each night except for Sigmund,
who
uses honey and bites the wolf's tongue,
kills it, and escapes.
Signy trades identities with a sorceress in order to sleep
with her brother Sigmund and bears their son Sinfjotli,
who helps his
father gain vengeance by
killing two of Siggeir's sons and burning
his hall,
in which Signy voluntarily perishes.
Eventually Sinfjotli
is poisoned by his stepmother Borghild,
and Sigmund is killed
in battle
when his sword breaks on Odin's spear.
Sigmund's widow
Hjordis gives birth to Sigurd,
who is raised by Regin.
Regin's
father and brothers acquire gold, which is
guarded by his brother
Fafnir in the form of a dragon.
Regin provides swords for Sigurd
so that he can slay the dragon.
Eating its heart, Sigurd by bird
language learns
of Regin's treachery and kills him.
With the treasure
Sigurd meets the former valkyrie Brynhild,
and they are betrothed.
Sigurd visits King Gjuki; after Queen Grimhild causes him
to
forget Brynhild, Sigurd marries the princess Gudrun.
Her brother
Gunnar wants to marry Brynhild
but cannot pass the flames.
So
Sigurd as Gunnar succeeds and sleeps with Brynhild,
separated
by a sword but getting his ring back.
So Brynhild marries Gunnar.
When Brynhild learns she was tricked,
she arouses Gunnar's jealousy;
so he gets his
brother Guttorm to murder Sigurd for his wealth,
though Guttorm is also slain by his victim.
At Sigurd's funeral
Brynhild laughs
at Gudrun and commits suicide.
Greedy Atli marries
Gudrun; but Gunnar refuses
to disclose where the treasure is hidden
even though
his brother Hogni's heart is cut out.
Gunnar bravely
dies in a snake pit, and Gudrun
gets revenge on Atli by killing
her own children by him;
later she murders Atli and burns his
hall.
Gudrun tries to drown herself in the sea but is carried
to the kingdom of King Jonakr and marries him;
but their sons
are eventually killed too
trying to avenge their sister Svanhild.
Snorri Sturluson wrote the history of Norway's kings from the
early myths and legends in the sagas called Heimskringla,
which means "the orb of the world" and was taken from
the
first words of manuscript that followed the missing prolog.
In the prolog Snorri indicated that he tried to find the truth
from the old stories by relying mostly
on writings from the era
described.
He believed that the stories told were probably truthful
because they would have been considered a mockery
by listeners
if they were not.
Some of the early Norse myths
are recounted
in the "Ynglinga Saga."
Snorri's history of Norway's
kings begins with
Halfdan the Black in the late 9th century and
goes up to 1177;
it is a treasure of facts and values for that
period though
some scholars are sceptical because of Snorri's
creativity.
Snorri Sturluson is also believed to be the author
of Egil's
Saga, which was written about 1230.
Egil Skallagrimsson was
perhaps the greatest of the Icelandic
scaldic poets; he was about
eighty when he died in 990.
The prose work Egil's Saga
is a historical novel
about him and his family.
The story begins
in the era when Harald Fairhair has vowed
not to cut his hair
until he has become sole ruler of Norway.
The shaggy Harald overcomes
various local chieftains
by making them his men or destroying
their power.
Kveldulf is not eager to give up his independence
and warns
his sons not to serve Harald; but Thorolf does so anyway.
Thorolf and his friend Bard are wounded fighting for Harald.
When
Bard dies, Thorolf marries his widow Sigrid.
Thorolf goes on Viking
raids and increases his power
in Finnmark; but he is slandered
by the envious Hildiridarson family.
King Harald mistrusts Thorolf
even though he brings in
more tribute from Finnmark than the Hildiridarsons;
Thorolf is killed when the king burns his house down.
Thorolf's
brother Skallagrim had refused to serve Harald.
He revenges Thorolf's
death by killing Sigtrygg
and emigrates to Iceland with his father
Kveldulf.
The fifth child of Skallagrim is named Egil,
who begins composing
poetry at the age of three.
Egil's older brother Thorolf became
a friend of Bjorn,
who had abducted his wife Thora and fled to
Iceland,
where he was welcomed by Skallagrim.
Thorolf and Bjorn
go Viking to gain plunder,
and Thorolf gives prince Erik Bloodax
a ship.
When Erik becomes king, he marries Gunnhild
and gives
Thorolf an ax for his father.
After a quarrel in a ball game,
six-year-old Egil kills the boy
Grim with an ax; in the ensuing
feud seven men are killed.
In another game Skallagrim kills Egil's
team-mate Thord,
and so Egil kills his father's favorite farm-hand.
Egil leaves home, and at a feast he kills King Erik's
steward
Bard with a sword and escapes.
Egil goes on Viking raids.
Gunnhild's
brother Eyvind Shabby kills Thorolf's
forecastleman and is outlawed;
Egil steals ships from Eyvind.
In order to serve England's king
Athelstan,
Egil and Thorolf accept preliminary baptism,
and they
help him defeat King Olaf of Scotland.
Because Thorolf was killed,
Athelstan gives Egil
two chests of silver for his father;
Egil
also receives gold bracelets for his poetry.
Egil then marries Thorolf's widow Asgerd, Bjorn's daughter.
When Egil tries to claim her share of Bjorn's estate,
he is opposed
by Asgerd's sister Gunnhild and her husband
Berg-Onund, whom Egil
challenges to a duel.
At sea Egil kills King Erik's retainer Ketil
with a spear,
and the king's forces kill ten of Egil's men.
Egil
escapes on a skiff,
and his friend Arinbjorn gives him a ship.
Egil kills Berg-Onund in the duel
and calls him a miser in verse.
Egil and his men then loot and kill more men.
He sets up poles
insulting King Erik
and Queen Gunnhild with magical runes.
The
aging Skallagrim dies,
and Egil runs the estate in Iceland.
Egil
asks Arinbjorn to plead for him
at Erik's court in York, and Egil
boldly appears there.
Gunnhild urges Erik to kill Egil right away;
but Arinbjorn argues that killing at night is murder
and that the king had unfairly sided with Berg-Onund
and had Egil's men
killed.
The next day Egil presents his poem praising
King Erik and is allowed to leave.
Egil and Arinbjorn go to King Athelstan,
and they learn that King Erik has confiscated the estate
inherited
by Arinbjorn's nephew Thorstein in Norway.
Egil appeals his case to Athelstan's foster son Hakon
at Trondheim
in Norway.
Arinbjorn's sister Gyda urges Egil to fight the berserk
Ljot,
and Egil kills him in a duel.
Egil goes to claim Bjorn's
property and finds Berg-Onund's
brother Atli holding it and asking
for compensation for his brother's death.
Egil proposes taking
the case to the Gulathing assembly,
and there Egil challenges
Atli to a duel and kills him.
That summer Egil returns to Iceland.
Egil asks Arinbjorn to help get the money he earned
by killing
Ljot; but King Hakon warns Arinbjorn
not to persist in opposing
him.
Egil has more adventures before retiring
to his farm at Borg
to write poetry.
He arbitrates a conflict between his son Thorstein
and Einar but gives a biased verdict.
Egil even writes poetry
about his own senility before he dies.
When Christianity comes
to Iceland,
his son Thorstein is baptized and builds a church
at Borg.
Egil's Saga portrays the Viking life of a poetry-writing
chieftain
who found independence from royal authority in Iceland
but engaged in much plundering and violent quarrels
over legal
disputes involving property.
Viking law allowed him to challenge
his adversaries in court to a duel by combat.
The author of the Laxdaela Saga is unknown,
but it was
written about 1245.
Like Egil's Saga, it begins in the
era when Harald Fairhair
is consolidating his rule over Norway.
In the Laxdaela Saga Ketil Flat-nose flees Harald's tyranny
by emigrating to Scotland, but his son Bjorn goes to Iceland.
Ketil's grandson Thorstein the Red raids Scotland
and takes over
half the country; but after Thorstein is
treacherously killed
in Caithness,
his mother Unn the Deep-minded emigrates to Iceland.
There Koll marries Thorstein's daughter Thorgerd and is given
land by the Lax River; later the widow Thorgerd marries again
in Norway, bearing the son Hrut Herjolfsson.
Koll's son Hoskuld
marries Bjorn's daughter Jorunn;
they have two sons Thorleik and
Bard
but do not get along well.
Hoskuld goes to Norway for timber
and buys a
speechless concubine, who bears Olaf the Peacock
and
turns out to be Melkorka,
daughter of Ireland king Myrkjartan.
Hoskuld has difficult neighbors.
The violent Hrapp has died and
is haunting his house.
Thord Goddi quarrels with his wife Vigdis
over
giving refuge to the outlaw Thorolf.
Vigdis gives Asgaut
his freedom for helping her kinsman
Thorolf to escape, and she
divorces Thord Goddi,
who to keep her from getting his wealth
hands it over to Hoskuld.
After Melkorka struck his wife Jorunn,
Hoskul sent Melkorka and Olaf away.
Then he entrusts Olaf to be
raised by Thord Goddi.
Hrut quarrels with his brother Hoskuld over grazing cattle,
but they settle their differences.
Melkorka marries and gives
her son Olaf her gold ring,
enabling Irish king Myrkjartan
to
recognize Olaf as his grandson.
Olaf Hoskuldson is also welcomed
at the court
of Harald and Gunnhild in Norway.
Olaf returns to
Iceland and marries Thorgerd,
daughter of Egil Skallagrimsson.
Olaf buys Hrappstead, confronts the ghost,
and ends the problem
by burning Hrapp's corpse.
Unlike his brother Bard, Thorleik refuses
to share
his father's estate with Olaf; so before he dies,
Hoskuld
gives Olaf a valuable sword and gold bracelet.
In reconciliation
Olaf offers to raise Thorleik's son Bolli,
who becomes the close
friend of Olaf's son Kjartan.
The wealthy Geirmund returns from
Norway with Olaf
and marries his daughter Thurid; but they are
unhappy.
Before Geirmund leaves, Thurid steals his sword Leg-biter;
but Geirmund puts a curse on the sword,
which Thurid gives to
Bolli.
Osvif's daughter Gudrun is considered the most
beautiful woman
in Iceland, but her dreams indicate
that she will have four husbands.
At 15 she marries the wealthy Thorvald and claims
half his estate
when she divorces him for being effeminate.
Next Gudrun gets Thord
to divorce his wife Aud
for wearing pants and marries him.
After
Aud wounds Thord with a sword, he goes after
the thieving sorcerer
Kotkel, who is then blamed
for causing the drowning death of Thord.
Kotkel and his family bribe Thorleik
in order to live by the Lax
River.
Thorleik asks them to humiliate Hrut,
and soon Hrut's son
is found dead.
Olaf captures Kotkel and his wife Grima,
and they
are stoned to death for sorcery.
Their son Hallbjorn curses Thorleik
before
he is drowned by Hrut and his sons.
Hrut goes to Olaf for
help in fighting Thorleik,
but Olaf tries to make peace
and persuades
Thorleik to go abroad.
Kjartan enjoys conversing with Gudrun at the baths
but goes
to Norway with Bolli.
King Olaf Tryggvason has embargoed ships
refusing to accept
the Christian faith, but Kjartan meets Olaf
while swimming.
At court Kjartan boldly declares his opposition
to the King;
but eventually he is persuaded by Olaf's preaching,
and he is baptized along with Bolli and their crew.
Olaf sends
to Iceland the priest Thangbrand,
who kills two men opposing him
before he flees.
The next summer the preachers Gizur the White
and Hjalti Skeggjason take four Icelanders as hostages.
While
Kjartan is pre-occupied with the King's sister Ingibjorg,
Bolli
returns to Iceland and marries
the broken-hearted Gudrun.
Ingibjorg
gives Kjartan a golden head-dress for Gudrun.
After Iceland accepts
Christianity, the hostages are released.
The returning Kjartan
is disappointed Gudrun has married;
but after a period of depression,
he marries
Asgeir's daughter Hrefna, giving her the head-dress.
Quarrels break out between Kjartan and Bolli as
Kjartan's sword
and his wife's headdress are stolen.
Gudrun instigates Bolli into
joining an ambush of Kjartan,
who fights them off as Bolli watches;
but when Bolli takes up his sword Leg-Biter,
Kjartan stops fighting
and lets himself
be killed by his foster brother.
Olaf the Peacock works to prevent more violence
in the family
feud but dies three years later.
Then Kjartan's brothers are urged
by their mother Thorgerd
to take revenge, and Melkorka's son Lambi
Thorbjornsson
and Helgi Hardbeinsson kill Bolli.
Gudrun is pregnant
and names her son Bolli.
Gudrun comes under the influence of the
priest Snorri
and trades homes with him.
Thorgils Holluson wants
to marry Gudrun, but she refuses.
Though he wishes to end the
feuding, Snorri persuades her
to make a deceitful promise to Thorgils
that she will marry
no one else in the country, while Thorkel
Eyjolfsson,
whom Snorri wants her to marry, is abroad.
Gudrun
thus gets Thorgils and her young son Bolli,
now 12, to kill Helgi.
Thorgils resents Snorri's manipulation and offers
compensation
to Helgi's sons; but Audgisl, prodded by
Snorri, beheads Thorgils
while he is counting out the silver.
Gudrun takes Thorkel as her
fourth husband.
Snorri persuades Thorleik that Helgi's death evens
the feud,
and a final compensation is paid to end it.
Thorkel
goes to Norway again to fetch lumber for a church;
but after returning
he quarrels over a land deal
and is drowned, as foreseen by a
previous dream.
Young Bolli returns from abroad wearing fancy
clothes,
and he asks his mother Gudrun, now a nun and the first
anchoress of Iceland, whom she loved most.
She finally admits
that
she was worst to the one she loved most.
The Laxdaela Saga shows how the Viking spirit of violent
conquest still caused family feuds over property
and domestic
quarrels as they settled down
and adopted Christianity.
Women
are very strong characters in this saga,
and it is clear they
held much personal power over their men
and could refuse proposed
marriages.
Written evidence of theater in Europe during the middle ages
is scant until the 14th century though it is likely that
increasing
numbers of minstrels and mimes entertained people.
Puppetry was
flourishing by the 12th century.
Religious rituals gradually were
expanded from antiphonal
choirs to a short dialog at Easter when
the Marys
learn from an angel that Jesus has risen.
Short plays
were developed to communicate Biblical stories
from the fall of
Lucifer and the creation of Eve
through the flood of Noah and
Abraham's sacrifice
of Isaac to the resurrection of Christ and
judgment day.
The center of these dramas was the life of Jesus
from his birth to his passion, and thus they came
to be called passion plays or mystery plays.
The oldest known passion play
in Latin
was in the 12th century at Montecassino.
Gradually Latin
was replaced by the vernacular
so that more people could appreciate
them.
As the guilds became involved in producing these
annual
pageants, they moved from the church doors
to the marketplace
or were performed on wagons.
The lives of saints were also presented
in miracle plays
and were often performed on the saints' days.
A short drama by Hilarius from about 1125 exists on the
conversion
of Paul from the Christian-persecuting Saul,
and Hilarius was
also believed to have written plays
about Daniel and the raising
of Lazarus.
The earliest medieval comedies that survived in writing
were found in the Loire valley where clerical students
wrote short
dialogs in Latin about St. Nicholas.
In the one by Hilarius, Barbaras
prays at the statue
of St. Nicholas to protect his things.
When
thieves steal them, Barbaras blames the saint;
but Nicholas gets
the robbers to return them,
and Barbaras is grateful.
Nicholas
tells him to pray not to him but to God.
In another short play
found
at the Abbey Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire,
three scholars ask
for lodging from an old man,
who is persuaded by his wife to house
them.
Then the couple murders them for their money.
Nicholas arrives
as a traveler
and insists they have fresh meat.
When the old couple
brings the bodies,
Nicholas revives them.
In Adeodatus
the son of Getron and Euphrosina is taken
by the king; but they
pray to St. Nicholas and get him back.
The Play of Adam (Le Jeu d'Adam) was composed
in Norman French about 1150 or so.
This play includes some appropriate
Latin hymns and presents
a lively dialog between God, Adam, Eve,
and Satan,
showing how Eve was tempted by Satan and how
she persuaded
Adam to fall also by eating the forbidden fruit.
This scene is
immediately followed by another short play
with Cain and Abel
on the primal murder,
which is to be punished by God.
La Seinte Resureccion was written in Anglo-Norman
in
England about 1180 by a cleric
but was performed outside for people.
Joseph of Arimathia gets permission from Pilate to remove
the
body of Jesus after Longinus ends his life with a spear.
Joseph
gets help from Nicodemus, who also asks Pilate.
After they carry
away the body, Caiaphas has Pilate
place a guard by the sepulcher.
Caiaphas is about to arrest Joseph
when the extant text ends.
Later versions indicate the usual story of Jesus' resurrection
and the liberation of Joseph from prison.
In 1200 Jean Bodel wrote a longer farce called
The Play
of Saint Nicholas for the Flanders city of Arras
known for
its tapestries.
Bodel was born in 1165 and died in a leper colony
in 1210.
A king of Africa and Arabia makes war
on Christians and
kills them.
One good Christian is put in prison and prays to St.
Nicholas,
saying his relic will protect the king's treasure.
The
king puts it to the test, and three dice-players,
who have been
drinking at the tavern,
take a bag full of treasure.
The Christian
facing death prays to St. Nicholas,
who appears to the three robbers
and
persuades them to return the treasure.
The king and his court
are so astounded when they find
the treasure doubled that they
renounce their religion
and agree to be baptized,
though one recalcitrant
knight
has to be forced into it by the king.
The parable of the prodigal son was dramatized in a
contemporary
setting about 1200 or so in Courtois D'Arras.
Courtois
leaves the farm of his father and hard-working brother
and soon
loses his money
to the prostitute Pourette in a tavern.
After
working for a burgher feeding pigs,
Courtois returns home and
is welcomed by his forgiving father.
1. Andreas Capellanus On Love tr. P. G. Walsh, I:268-269,
p. 117.
2. Chrétien de Troyes, The Knight of the Cart 4393-4397
tr. David Staines, p. 223.
3. Chrétien de Troyes, The Knight with the Lion
2731-2744 tr. William W. Kibler, p. 329.
4. Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan tr. A. T. Hatto, p.
110.
5. The Death of King Arthur tr. James Cable, p. 225.
6. "Seeress' Prophecy" 45 in The Poetic Edda
tr. Carolyne Larrington, p. 10.
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