Marital problems do arise, but they are also solved. Chrétien insists on a certain
equality between the spouses. Not that he meant a contractual equality in any modern
legal sense but rather a natural, noble equality that was tried and tested in conflict with
the outside world and in the resolution of disputes that occur in the marriage.
The word conjointure occurs only once, at least in the sense used to describe romance
narrative—in the prologue to Erec. Chrétien distinguishes his “very beautiful”
conjointure from the stories about Erec told by storytellers, who were wont, he says, to
take apart and leave out material (depecier et corronpre) that belonged in the tale. This
seems to mean that Chrétien’s romance puts the story together as it should be, omitting
nothing essential. That “putting together” would include both matiere and san. This
appears to be the case in Erec, whose first part combines two stories, the sparrowhawk
episode and the hunt for the white stag, to each of which Enide, because of the qualities
that make her desirable as a spouse, provides a denouement. In the sparrowhawk contest,
Erec proves that Enide is the most beautiful woman, and Arthur bestows the “kiss of the
white stag” on her for the same reason.
Enide’s beauty comprehends qualities of body, vestment, and, most importantly, mind
and mentality that make her exemplary of perfect womanhood. In the aristocratic world
of medieval romance, where everyone of worth is “naturally” on a pedestal, Erec and
Enide come together out of admiration and a kind of noble affinity. By the identification
of the qualities of persons—the invention of those qualities in source material and their
elucidation in romance narrative—Chrétien brings together the disparate elements of the
storytellers’ versions and fills out the missing features in his new romance. The molt bele
conjointure depends on the disparate elements of romance marvels, reveals the ideal truth
perceived in them by 12th-century civilization, and articulates a new, marvelous
narrative. Once the exceptional quality of that narrative was recognized—apparently as
early as Cligés—a new genre had emerged. The word roman, which first meant “in the
French language,” came to mean “romance” as a narrative recounting marvelous
adventures that express an aristocratic ethos. That achievement was Chrétien’s.
Chrétien’s popularity in his own day is attested both by the unusually large number of
surviving manuscripts of his romances—an average of seven for the first four, and as
many as fifteen for the Conte du Graal—and the enduring influence he had on the
romancers who succeeded him. While such writers as Jean Renart and Gautier d’Arras
deliberately set out to rival him, others more wisely welcomed his influence in their
work. His most influential romances were the two he left unfinished: the Chevalier de la
charrette and the Conte du Graal. The latter spawned a series of verse continuations in
the early 13th century, while both provided inspiration for the immensely successful
Lancelot-Grail or Vulgate Cycle of the second quarter of the same century. The Grail
story was also reworked independently by the anonymous author of the Perlesvaus.
F.Douglas Kelly
[See also: ARTHURIAN VERSE ROMANCE; COURTLY LOVE; GAUTIER
D’ARRAS; GAWAIN ROMANCES; GRAIL AND GRAIL ROMANCES; OVIDE
MORALISÉ; PERCEVAL CONTINUATIONS; RAOUL DE HOUDENC; VULGATE
CYCLE; WACE]
Chrétien de Troyes. Christian von Troyes, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Wendelin Foerster. 4 vols. Halle:
Niemeyer, 1884–99.
——. Œuvres complètes, ed. Daniel Poirion, et al. Paris: Gallimard, 1994.
——. Romans, ed. Michel Zink, et al. Paris: Librarie Générale Française, 1994.
The Encyclopedia 417