the lovers’ deaths. Line 3,134 of the epilogue, the ad-
aptations by Brother Robert (Old Norse) and Gottfried
von Strassburg (Middle High German), and the Oxford
Folie, however, all indicate that Thomas had composed
a complete version, one that followed the biographical
structure and general movement of the original legend,
though Thomas made numerous modifi cations to it.
Placing Arthur in the mythic past and situating the
story in an England ruled over by King Marc, Thomas’s
reworking is dominated by rationality; the poet tones
down the fantastic elements and shows a certain logic
in the ordering of events and in the behavior and mo-
tivation of the characters. It is possible to suppose that
Thomas would have described the amur fi ne e veraie
experienced by the protagonists when Tristan fi rst came
to Ireland (see 1. 2,491), with the love potion only con-
fi rming that love. In keeping with the milieu for which he
wrote, Thomas eliminated or reworked overly “realistic”
episodes (harp and lyre, Iseut and the lepers, life in the
forest of Morois), bringing the story into line with the
new courtly ideals. A master hunter, Tristan (like his
“pupil” Iseut) is also a musician and poet as well as an
artist capable of creating the marvelous statues of the
Hall of Images.
The principal contribution of Thomas, as scholar and
moralist, is in his minute analysis of love and the other
mysteries of human nature. Characters reveal themselves
through monologues, debates, and lyric laments; and
their self-examination is analyzed through the narrator’s
long interventions. The action is motivated less by ex-
terior agents than by inner adventure, the wanderings
of the protagonists’ consciences, which, alone seems
to interest Thomas. The paradox in Thomas’s version
is thus the narration, within the story of a love seen as
absolute and perfect, of an analysis of love that shows
Tristan’s desire for change (novelerie) and his funda-
mental dissatisfaction. This analysis is coupled with
refl ections on jealousy and on Tristan’s obsession with
taking the place of the Other (Iseut or Marc) and feeling
himself the pleasure experienced (or not) by the Other.
Iseut’s role is to express, in actions and lyric laments,
her passion, tenderness, and pity for her lover’s plight.
Thomas uses the technique of “gainsaying”: the quarrel
between Iseut and Brangain allows the queen to reveal
the positive side of fi n’amor, which had been depicted
by Brangain as folly and lechery. Characters like Cari-
ado, Iseut of the White Hands, Tristan the Dwarf, and,
undoubtedly, the faithful Kaherdin in the lost episodes,
are there to fi ll out this “mirror” of the multiple faces
of love.
The language available to Thomas was not yet as
subtle and supple as his analyses. Words like desir,
voleir, poeir, even raisun, whose meanings seem still
too imprecise or overcharged, are signifi cant less in
themselves than through the systems of oppositions into
which they fi t. Repetitions bordering on redundancy,
anaphora, antitheses, and rhetorical questions occur
almost too frequently. Thomas, however, is capable of
realistic depiction, as in the description of London, the
doctors who treat Tristan, or the storm. The death scene
is characterized by a rhythm wedded to the circularity
of desire that conveys, in the echoing of certain rhyme
pairs (confort/mort, amur/dulur, anguissus/desirus), the
very essence of love.
Thomas makes good the ambitious program articu-
lated in the epilogue: to complete a narrative (l’escrit)
in which all lovers, whatever their manner of loving,
can fi nd pleasure, recall their own passion through the
exemplary destiny of Tristan and Iseut, and perhaps
escape—for that seems to be the moralist’s ultimate
goal—the torments and deceits of passion.
See also Béroul; Gottfried von Straßburg;
Henry IIFurther Reading
Thomas d’Angleterre. Le roman de Tristan par Thomas, ed.
Joseph Bédier. 2 vols. Paris: SATF, 1902–05.
——. Les fragments du roman de Tristan, poème du XIIe siècle,
ed. Bartina H. Wind. Geneva: Droz, 1960.
——. Thomas of Britain: Tristran, ed. and trans. Stewart Gregory.
New York: Garland, 1991.
Baumgartner, Emmanuèle. Tristan et Iseut: de la légende aux
récits en vers. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1987.
Fourrier, Anthime. Le courant réaliste dans le roman courtois en
France au moyen âge. Paris: 1960, pp. 19–109.
Hunt, Tony. “The Signifi cance of Thomas’ Tristan.” Reading
Medieval Studies 7 (1981): 41–61.
Emmanuèle BaumgartnerTHOMAS OF CELANO (c. 1190–1260)
Thomas of Celano was a Franciscan hagiographer, the
author of the fi rst two lives of Francis of Assisi. Little
is known about Thomas’s early life, except that he was
apparently from a noble family and received a good
education. He joined the Franciscan order in the fi rst
years of its existence, probably in 1215, and volunteered
for the fi rst Franciscan mission to Germany in 1221.
He seems to have shown administrative talent, for the
next year he was made custos of a substantial part of
the central European province, and in 1223 he was ap-
pointed vicar for the entire province while its minister
was in Italy. In 1224, Thomas returned to Italy. He may
have been present when Francis died in 1226.
Thomas’s reputation as a preacher and stylist and his
status as a relatively early follower of Francis seem to
be the reasons Pope Gregory IX commissioned him in
July 1228 to write an offi cial life of the saint. While pre-
paring the work, Thomas amassed a huge collection of
anecdotes from friars and laymen that became a sourceTHOMAS D’ANGLETERRE