GAUTIER
. See also WALTER
GAUTIER D’ARRAS
. A contemporary and rival of Chrétien de Troyes, Gautier d’Arras identifies himself in
two romances as a writer linked to important political and literary courts: Eracle was
begun for Thibaut V of Blois and his sister-in-law, Countess Marie de Champagne, then
completed and dedicated to Baudouin de Hainaut (if Baudouin IV, probable dates are
1164–71; if Baudouin V, somewhat later). Ille et Galeron, begun after Eracle but
possibly finished before it (ca. 1167–70), praises the empress Beatrice de Bourgogne (d.
1184), for whom he started the romance (Chrétien may allude ironically to Gautier’s
praise in his prologue to the Charrette), The romance was completed for Count Thibaut.
The poet may be the same man as the Gautier d’Arras who was an officer at the court of
Philippe d’Alsace and signed many documents between 1160 and 1185.
Eracle is a hagiographical romance in octosyllabic rhymed couplets that offers a
biography of Heraclius, the Roman emperor who recovered from King Cosdroes of
Persia and placed in Jerusalem a piece of the Holy Cross. The first half, probably based
on oral legends and popular tales, which Gautier weaves together with as much coherence
and vraisemblance as possible, tells how Eracle uses his miraculous gifts in the service of
the Emperor of Rome: Eracle is a perfect judge of jewels, horses, and women. When the
emperor must go away, he places his young and beautiful wife, Athanaïs, in a tower
under close surveil lance. The inevitable happens when she falls in love and manages to
start a liaison with Paridés. Eracle informs the emperor and convinces him to unite the
two lovers. The second half, based on written sources and more historical in orientation,
retells the legend of the cross and St. Cyriacus, to whom is dedicated the main church at
Provins in Champagne, and Eracle’s expedition, after he himself had become emperor, to
return the holy relic to Jerusalem. Gautier thus makes available to a courtly public Latin
texts and religious legends worked into a narrative whose use of adventure and the
marvelous clearly locates it within the domain of romance, as does the importance given
to love in the Athenaïs episode (4,319 lines out of 6,593).
Though apparently part of the matière de Bretagne, Ille et Galeron retains the Roman
and Byzantine orientation of Eracle, as it retells and transforms the familiar tale of a man
with two wives. Chased out of Brittany, the young Ille takes refuge in France. Knighted,
he returns and reconquers his family lands, for which he pays homage to Conain, count of
Brittany. Ille falls in love with Galeron, Conain’s sister. Their love is mutual, but the
difference in their social rank poses an obstacle, until Ille’s military service elevates him
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