of Persia and placed in Jerusalem a piece of the Holy
Cross. The fi rst 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 surveillance. 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 orienta-
tion of Eracle, as it retells and transforms the familiar
tale of a man with two wives. Chased out of Brittany,
the young llle 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 to the post of
seneschal and marriage with Galeron. When Ille sub-
sequently loses an eye (in a tournament according to
one manuscript, a battle in another), he fears the loss of
Galeron’s love, steals away, and fi ghts as mercenary for
the Emperor of Rome. Given his prowess, Ille quickly
becomes seneschal of Rome and inspires love in Ganor,
the emperor’s daughter. Galeron, who has searched fruit-
lessly for her husband, now lives secretly in Rome in the
greatest misery. When offered Ganor’s hand in marriage,
Ille reveals that he is married; only if Galeron cannot
be found will he marry Ganor. Just as that ceremony is
about to be celebrated, Galeron recognizes her husband.
When Galeron assures Ille of her continuing love, they
return to Brittany. Their happy life is interrupted when
Galeron makes a vow to become a nun, if she survives
the diffi cult birth of a third child. Ille grieves, but is
called to fulfi ll his promise to aid Ganor, now empress
and under attack by the Emperor of Constantinople.
Ille triumphs, he and Ganor are married in Rome and
live happily with their own children and those of the
fi rst marriage.
Comparison with Marie de France’s Eliduc, a lai
that either furnishes Gautier’s model or has a common
source, reveals how Gautier has signifi cantly reworked
a short tale into an episodic romance whose two parts
are clearly related through the key event: Ille’s loss
of an eye furnishes a crisis that resembles one of the
love judgments reported in Andreas Capellanus’s De
amore: can love survive disfi gurement? This event and
the exploration of Ille’s psychology before and after the
crisis keep the romance plot squarely situated within the
realm of the possible. The marvelous death and rebirth
described in Eliduc are eliminated, as Gautier d’Arras
places his art in the service of mimetic realism. Gautier
thus appears as a kind of link between Chrétien and Jean
Renart, as Fourrier has suggested. In elaborating the
episodes that fi ll in Ille’s story, Gautier demonstrates
his ability to reuse materials from a variety of literary
traditions (chansons de geste, saints’ lives, Énéas). A
narrator clearly able to please his audience, Gautier
d’Arras plays an important role in the development of a
romance tradition oriented toward realism, psychologi-
cal interest, and contemporary life.
See also Andreas Capellanus; Chrétien de Troyes;
Marie de FranceFurther Reading
Gautier d’Arras. Eracle, ed. Guy Raynaud de Lage. Paris:
Champion, 1976.
——. Ille et Galeron, ed. Yves Lefèvre. Paris: Champion,
1988.
Calin, William. “Structure and Meaning in Eracle by Gautier
d’Arras.” Symposium 16 (1962): 275–87.
Fourrier, Antoine. Le courant réaliste dans le roman courtois en
France au moyen âge. Paris: Nizet, 1960, Vol. 1: Les débuts
(XIIe siècle).
Haidu, Peter. “Narrativity and Language in Some Twelfth Century
Romances.” Yale French Studies 51 (1974): 133–46.
Nykrog, Per. “Two Creators of Narrative Form in Twelfth Century
France: Gautier d’Arras and Chrétien de Troyes.” Speculum
48 (1973): 258–76.
Zumthor, Paul. “L’écriture et la voix: Le roman d’Eracle.” In
The Craft of Fiction: Essays on Medieval Poetics, ed. Leigh
Arrathoon. Rochester: Solaris, 1984, pp. 161–209.
Matilda T. BrucknerGAUTIER DE COINCI
(1177/78–1236)
Gautier entered the Benedictine monastery of Saint-
Médard in Soissons in 1193, was appointed prior of
Vic-sur-Aisne in 1214, and returned to Soissons in 1233
as prior of Saint-Médard. He was a prolifi c writer, whose
works include religious songs, two sermons, and four
saints’ lives, as well as the Miracles de Nostre Dame,
for which he is most famous. A series of narrative poems
on the birth of Mary, the childhood of Jesus, and the
Assumption, and a paraphrase of the Psalm Eructavit,
appear in some manuscripts of the Miracles and areGAUTIER D’ARRAS