encounter of Tristan with Iseut under the tree in which
her husband, Marc, is hiding to trap them; they see his
refl ection in the water and speak in such a way as to allay
his suspicions. The poem continues with the episode in
which the dwarf spreads fl our on Iseut’s fl oor in order to
detect Tristan’s footprints (should he visit her at night);
the scene in which Tristan, having been taken prisoner,
asks permission to enter a chapel and pray, whereupon
he leaps to freedom from a window; Marc’s delivering
Iseut to a colony of lepers (for their pleasure and her
punishment) and Tristan’s rescue of her; the lovers’
miserable life in the forest (including Marc’s discovery
of them, as they sleep with a bare sword between them,
and his erroneous conclusion that they are guiltless);
their eventual repentance, caused by the waning of the
love potion (which, in this tradition, had been made to
be effective for three years); and the long episode in
which Iseut, tested in the presence of Arthur and his
knights, succeeds in exonerating herself by swearing an
equivocal oath. At the end, Tristan ambushes and kills
one of the lovers’ enemies and brings his hair to show
Iseut; when he arrives, they discover another of their
enemies spying on them, Tristan immediately kills him,
and the text breaks off in mid-sentence.
As in the Tristan tradition in general, Beroul’s narra-
tive presents a cyclical form: whether physically sepa-
rated, threatened by Marc or their enemies, or resolved
to reform, the young lovers repeatedly fall back into their
sinful ways; Marc becomes suspicious, initially refuses
to believe he is being betrayed, and is fi nally convinced;
after a period of separation or abstinence on their part,
the cycle repeats itself. Most often, the lovers have in
fact no great desire to reform, and when they do they
are motivated by less than noble impulses. Yet despite
their sin and despite the fact that they both betray Marc
(Iseut is his wife, while Tristan is both his vassal and his
nephew), the sympathies of the author and of the reader
remain with the couple, both because their enemies
are presented as despicable and jealous characters and
because Béroul frequently insists that God favors the
lovers and will punish those who oppose them.
The Tristan is a highly ironic and ambiguous text.
Appearances are always deceiving: when the lovers
appear most innocent, they are consistently the most
guilty. When Marc thinks them innocent, he is being
deceived or else, as in the episode where they sleep
with a naked sword between them, he is misinterpret-
ing the evidence. Tristan is a trickster who clearly takes
pleasure in deception, as, for example, when, disguised
as a leper, he explains to Marc that he was infected by
his unnamed lady, who resembled Iseut and whose
husband was a leper.
Despite the potential tragedy of the lovers’ passion,
Béroul’s poem is characterized by humor and, in many
passages, by a tone far more reminiscent of the fabliau
than of the courtly romance. His style is lively and
engaging, bearing many of the marks (such as frequent
addresses to Seigneurs) of both public presentation
and authorial personality. Despite numerous textual
problems, the poem as we have it holds considerable
charm and appeal.
Although Béroul’s composition is incompletely
preserved, the Tristrant of Eilhart von Oberge, written
before 1190, presents the common version of the Tristan
story in the form of a complete romance. Although
Eilhart’s German text abridges or omits some episodes
found in Béroul’s, the two works appear to have at
very least a common source, and it has sometimes been
suggested that Eilhart adapted the story directly from
Béroul’s account of the lovers.
See also Eilhart von Oberg; Thomas D’AngleterreFurther Reading
Béroul. Le roman de Tristan, ed. Ernest Muret. Paris: Didot,
1913, 4th rev. ed. L.M. Defourques. Paris: Champion, 1962.
——. The Romance of Tristran, ed. and trans. Norris J. Lacy.
New York: Garland, 1989.
Walter, Philippe and D. Lacroix, trans. Tristan et Iseut: les poèmes
français, la saga norroise. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1989.
Raynaud de Lage, Guy. “Faut-il attribuer a Béroul tout le
Tristan?” Moyen âge 64 (1958): 249–70; 67 (1961): 167–68;
70 (1964): 33–38.
Reid, Thomas Bertram Wallace. The “Tristan” of Béroul: A Tex-
tual Commentary. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1972.
Norris J. LacyBERSUIRE, PIERRE (ca. 1290–1362)
Encyclopedist, moralist, and translator born probably in
the Vendée region, Bersuire entered the Franciscan order
before joining the Benedictines. His early career (ca.
1320–ca. 1350) was spent amid the fervent intellectual
climate of the papal court at Avignon, where he enjoyed
the protection and extensive library of Cardinal Pierre
des Prés of Quercy, and it was here that he produced
his major Latin works. Bersuire came ca. 1350 to Paris,
where he seems to have studied theology late in life. He
was accused of heresy, imprisoned, and eventually re-
leased through the intervention of the new king, John II
the Good. In 1354, he was made prior of the Benedictine
abbey of Saint-Éloy in Paris, a benefi ce he held until his
death. Both in Avignon and Paris, Bersuire frequented
the leading intellectuals and scientists of his day, among
them the Italian humanist Petrarch, the surgeon Gui de
Chauliac, the English Dominican Thomas Waleys, the
musician Philippe de Vitry, and the poet Guillaume de
Machaut.
Bersuire’s works comprise voluminous original
treatises in Latin on moral theology and translations
into French. None of his works has been preservedBÉROUL