The Setting of the Tournament in Chrétien de Troyes and its Historical Actuality

Resumo

The way medieval tournaments became influenced by their literary counterparts has already been written lengthily about. Since at least the first quarter of the thirteenth century the Arthurian world with its heroes, and their deeds, fortunes and misfortunes, started to be enacted in the gallant setting of the tournament and its pageantry. Far and wide, from Cyprus, where “the adventures of Brittany and of the Round Table were imitated” to the spectacular festivities in the English court of Edward III, more than two centuries later, far from becoming tiresome, they kept on being a joyous entertainment particularly to the aristocracy. The early beginnings of the popularity of Lancelot, Gawain, Perceval and their peers are the work of Chrétien de Troyes, which was to be followed soon after by numerous others.