HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

LEGENDARY HISTORY: HISTORIA AND FABULA 397textual treatment of it from the seminal Erec et Enide onwards. Thebeginning of the narration in Erec et Enide brutally wrenches Arthurianspace and time away from the chronological and historical time inwhich Geoffroy of Monmouth and later Wace had inscribed their narratives,doing away with any temporal or even spatial point of anchorage:the kingdom of Logres is neither precisely England nor is it yetGreat Britain. The first lines postulate without any apology and as somany ‘attested facts’: Arthur, his kingdom, his knights and their occupation,the latter shown as essential as it is seemingly ludicrous (pursuitof the white hart, the quest for fantastic adventure in the forestperilous.). 37If it is true that the romances of Chrétien de Troyes feature certainsocial and moral dilemmas which would not have been unfamiliarto these bacheliers or young knights as yet unendowed with fiefs, ofwhom Jean Flori has painted such an evocative portrait, 38 it is importantto note with M. Zink that Chrétien’s chivalric hero remains asolitary knight—even if he is sometimes accompanied by one or morecompanions. At the heart of this romance world is thus to be foundan isolated figure with a mysterious destiny, the ‘knight errant’:The solitary figure of the wandering knight, invented by Chrétien practicallyin its entirety, reveals what is at stake in his romances: the discoveryof one’s selfhood, of love, and of the other.Intended to be read (collectively, aloud, and in society; perhaps inprivate as well) the Arthurian romances of Chrétien were composedat the court of the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Marie, countessof Champagne (who lived between 1145 and 1198), then at thatof Philip, count of Flanders (between 1181 and 1185). Erec et Enide(ca. 1170), Cligés (ca. 1176), the Chevalier de la Charrette and Yvain(ca. 1177–81), and Perceval or the Conte du Graal (ca. 1181–85) showus an imaginary world where, from one poem to another, one occasionallyfinds the same characters evolving around a hero whose destinybecomes clearer from episode to episode and from adventureto adventure. J.-Ch. Payen has emphasised the fact that with Chrétien,the author of romans “lays claim to the paternity of his work withthe pride of an artisan jealously possessive of his art”. 39 This essential37Ead. See also Boutet (1999), 39: “Dans ses romans arthuriens, le règne d’Arthurdevient autoréférentiel, il se constitue en un temps autonome, coupé de toute antériorité(sauf, idéologiquement, pour le respect des coutumes . . .)”.38Flori (1975).39Payen (1997), 131; my translation.