[See also: FLANDERS]
Nicholas, David. The van Arteveldes of Ghent: The Varieties of Vendetta and the Hero in History.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Carson, Patricia. James van Artevelde: The Man from Ghent. Ghent: Story, 1980.
van Werveke, Hans. Jacques van Artevelde. Brussels: Renaissance du Livre, 1942.
ARTHUR
. Legendary Dark Age king of Britain, Arthur of Avalon was a major inspiration to
French vernacular writers from the 12th through the 14th century. Recent research
indicates there may have been a late 5th- or early 6th-century warlord around whom
popular legends amalgamated, but if such a man did exist he was neither a king nor
named Arthur. Given a historical cachet by the Latin fictions of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Historia regum Britanniae (ca. 1136), which was translated into French by Wace in 1155,
Arthur appears first in romance in the works of Chrétien de Troyes (ca. 1165–90). The
power of Chrétien’s imaginary constructs, particularly the Lancelot-Guenevere love story
and the Grail quest, inspired countless imitators and continuators. Arthur was counted as
one of the Nine Worthies during the Middle Ages.
William W.Kibler
[See also: ARTHURIAN COMPILATIONS; ARTHURIAN VERSE ROMANCE;
CHEVALIER AU PAPEGAUT; CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES; GAWAIN ROMANCES;
GEFFREI GAIMAR; GIRART D’AMIENS; GRAIL AND GRAIL ROMANCES;
PERCEFOREST; PERCEVAL CONTINUATIONS; POST-VULGATE ROMANCE;
PROSE TRISTAN; RAOUL DE HOUDENC; TRISTAN ROMANCES; VULGATE
CYCLE; WACE]
Lacy, Norris J., et al., eds. The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 1991.
ARTHURIAN COMPILATIONS
. A number of authors, beginning in the late 13th century, compiled lengthy bodies of
French Arthurian material, drawn from earlier sources and often assembled with little
concern for coherent organization. The Roman de Roi Artus of Rusticiano da Pisa, an
Italian writing in French during the late 1270s or the 1280s, includes the entire romance
of Palamedes as well as numerous adventures of Branor le Brun, Tristan, Lancelot, and
other knights. A century later (ca. 1391), Jehan le Vaillant de Poitiers produced a vast
work consisting of a Brut followed by miscellaneous stories about Arthurian characters.
Around 1470, Michot (or Michel) Gonnot drew material from the Prose Tristan, the
Vulgate Cycle, and other romances of the preceding century to assemble his compilation.
The dimensions of these works were prodigious, so much so that during the 16th century
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