in Chrétien’s wake, is one of the first to accept the challenge laid down by Chrétien. For
Raoul, the decision to write an Arthurian romance meant acknowledging a debt to the
master while realizing the necessity to do something different. Raoul’s Arthurian
romance is playful, the humor ranging from light burlesque to broad farce.
Gliglois is a romance of 2,942 lines concerned with the rivalry of Gawain and his
squire, Gliglois, for the love of the aptly named Beauté. Gawain relies on his reputation,
assuming that this will be sufficient to win him the lady; Gliglois, on the other hand,
serves her patiently and eventually wins her love. Gliglois is unusual in that it is a
“realistic” poem without any fantastic or supernatural events and none of the usual
adventures of Arthurian romance. It is also, by virtue of Gliglois’s success and Gawain’s
failure, an exceptionally “meritocratic” romance.
The influence of Chrétien de Troyes is strangely lacking in Gliglois. The same cannot
be said of the 16,000-line Durmart le Gallois, whose author is heavily indebted to Erec et
Enide, Yvain, and Cligés in particular. Much of the narrative of Durmart is based on
Durmart’s quest for the love of the Queen of Ireland, whom he has never seen but of
whose extraordinary beauty he has heard tell. The scene in which Durmart wins a
sparrowhawk for her makes conscious use of the famous episode in Erec et Enide. After
many adventures, Durmart marries the queen, founds an abbey, and frees Rome from the
pagans. Unusual are the Irish setting and the general lack of humor and burlesque (save
perhaps the sight of King Nogant fleeing from Durmart on a camel).
The very beginning of Yder is missing. The extant 6,769 lines relate how the
illegitimate Yder attempts to win the love of Queen Guenloie. This he eventually does,
marries her, and then brings about the wedding of his father and mother, thus legitimizing
his own birth. Yder is remarkable for its unflattering portrayal of the Arthurian court:
there are hints of an amorous relationship between Yder and Guenevere, and Arthur and
Kay are positively obnoxious characters rather than the ineffective king and caustic
seneschal found elsewhere. In other respects, particularly in its preservation of the Yder-
Guenevere story, Yder is archaic and shows evidence of otherwise lost traditions.
Fergus, by Guillaume le Clerc, is a romance of 7,012 lines set in Scotland, which may
well have been written between 1237 and 1241 for the Balliol family as an ancestral
romance in support of territorial claims. Political associations apart, this romance again
shows the pervasive presence of Chrétien, and Fergus has even been called a “new
Perceval.” Certainly, Perceval, Yvain, and Erec et Enide provided Guillaume with
material for much of the poem, which is centered on the love of Fergus and Galiene.
Fergus is an excellent postclassical romance, full of humor and told in a lively manner.
The hero of the Chevalier aux deux épées is Meriadeuc, from whom the romance takes
its alternative title. This poem of 12,352 lines has a complex plot, the main part of which
concerns the love of Meriadeuc for Lore of Caradigan and Meriadeuc’s search for his
own identity. Meriadeuc’s father had been unwittingly slain by Gawain, who is
eventually reconciled with the hero. Meriadeuc marries Lore, and Gawain consummates
his love for a girl he had cham pioned earlier. The Chevalier aux deux épées is typical of
romances of the period and of the compositional techniques of romance in general,
reworking episodes and motifs found elsewhere into a tightly knit and satisfying whole.
Floriant et Florete (8,278 lines) is one of the rare later romances that reverts to the
marriage-crisis-resolution structure found in Chrétien’s Erec and Yvain. Floriant,
posthumous son of a king of Sicily, is abducted by Morgan the Fay, educated, and sent to
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