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{{short description|12th-century French poet and trouvère}}
{{family name hatnote|Chrétien|de Troyes|lang=Medieval}}
[[File:Chrétien de Troyes.jpg|thumb|Engraving considered to be a representation of Chrétien de Troyes in his work studio (1530)|alt=]]

'''Chrétien de Troyes''' ({{IPA|fr|kʁetjɛ̃ də tʁwa|label=Modern French:}}; {{langx|fro|Crestien de Troies}} {{IPA|fro|kresˈtjẽn də ˈtrojəs|}}; {{fl.}} {{c.}} 1160–1191) was a French poet and [[trouvère]] known for his writing on [[King Arthur|Arthurian]] subjects such as [[Gawain]], [[Lancelot]], [[Perceval]] and the [[Holy Grail]]. Chrétien's [[chivalric romance]]s, including ''[[Erec and Enide]]'', ''[[Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart|Lancelot]]'', ''[[Perceval, the Story of the Grail|Perceval]]'' and ''[[Yvain, the Knight of the Lion|Yvain]]'', represent some of the best-regarded works of [[medieval literature]]. His use of structure, particularly in ''Yvain'', has been seen as a step towards the modern [[novel]].

==Life==
Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been from [[Troyes]] or at least intimately connected with it. Between 1160 and 1172 he served (perhaps as herald-at-arms, as [[Gaston Paris]] speculated) at the court of his patroness [[Marie of France, Countess of Champagne]], daughter of [[Louis VII of France|King Louis VII]] and [[Eleanor of Aquitaine]], who married [[Henry I, Count of Champagne|Count Henry I of Champagne]] in 1164. Later, he served the court of [[Philip I, Count of Flanders|Philippe d'Alsace, Count of Flanders]].<ref name="gut">{{cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/dtroy10.txt|title=Four Arthurian Romances|website= gutenberg.org|access-date=March 29, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://agora.qc.ca/dossiers/Chretien_de_Troyes|title=Chrétien de Troyes|website=agora.qc.ca|access-date=January 20, 2019}}</ref><ref name="kdu">{{cite web|url=https://www.princeton.edu/~lancelot/romance.html|title=Background Information on Chrétien de Troyes's Le Chevalier de la Charrette|website=princeton.edu|access-date=January 20, 2019}}</ref> As proposed by [[Urban T. Holmes III]], Chrétien's name, meaning literally "Christian from Troyes", might be a [[pen name]] moniker of a Jewish convert from Judaism to Christianity, also known as ''Crestien li Gois''.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Q1qe21qLQoC&pg=PA205 | title=Chretien de Troyes and the Dawn of Arthurian Romance | isbn=9780786457946 | last1=Farina | first1=William | date=10 January 2014 | publisher=McFarland }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/460649 | jstor=460649 | title=The Motivation of Perceval and the Authorship of Philomena | last1=Levy | first1=Raphael | journal=PMLA | year=1956 | volume=71 | issue=4 | pages=853–862 | doi=10.2307/460649 | s2cid=164127302 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Works==
Chrétien's works include five major poems in rhyming eight-syllable couplets. Four of these are complete: ''[[Erec and Enide]]'' ({{Circa|1170}}); ''[[Cligès]]'' ({{Circa|1176}}); ''[[Yvain, the Knight of the Lion]]''; and ''[[Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart]]'', the latter two written simultaneously between 1177 and 1181. ''Yvain'' is generally considered Chrétien's most masterful work.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/yvainorknightwit00chr|title=Yvain: or, The knight with the lion|last1=Chrétien|last2=Cline|first2=Ruth Harwood|date=1975|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=0820303275|location=Athens|language=en}}</ref> The last romance commonly attributed to Chrétien, ''[[Perceval, the Story of the Grail]]'', was written between 1181 and 1190, but left unfinished. It is dedicated to [[Philip, Count of Flanders]], to whom Chrétien may have been attached{{clarify|date=February 2023}} in his last years. He finished only 9,000 lines of the work, but four successors of varying talents added 54,000 additional lines in what are known as the [[Perceval, the Story of the Grail#The Continuations|Four Continuations]].<ref name="NAEcontinuations">Grigsby, John L. (1991). "Continuations of ''Perceval''". In [[Norris J. Lacy]], ''The New Arthurian Encyclopedia'', pp. 99–100. New York: Garland. {{ISBN|0-8240-4377-4}}.</ref> Similarly, the last thousand lines of ''Lancelot'' were written by [[Godefroi de Leigni]], apparently by arrangement with Chrétien.<ref>Chrétien de Troyes, D.D.R. Owen (translator) (1988) ''Arthurian Romances'', Tuttle Publishing, reprinted by [[Everyman's Library]]. {{ISBN|0-460-87389-X}}</ref> In the case of ''Perceval'', one continuer says the poet's death prevented him from completing the work; in the case of ''Lancelot'', no reason is given. This has not stopped speculation that Chrétien did not approve of ''Lancelot''{{'}}s adulterous subject (in which case he seems unlikely to have invented Lancelot).

There are also several lesser works, not all of which can be securely ascribed to Chrétien. ''[[Philomela#From antiquity and the influence of Ovid|Philomela]]'' is the only one of his four poems based on [[Ovid]]'s ''[[Metamorphoses (poem)|Metamorphoses]]'' that has survived.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CpRg2FT3-rgC&q=philomela+de+troyes&pg=PA91|title=A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes|isbn=9781843841616|access-date=January 20, 2019|last1=Lacy|first1=Norris J.|last2=Grimbert|first2=Joan Tasker|year=2008|publisher=DS Brewer }}</ref> Two short-lyric [[Chanson de geste|chansons]] on the subject of love are also very likely his, but the attribution of the pious romance ''Guillaume d'Angleterre'' to him is now widely doubted.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Frappier |first1=Jean |year=1974 |orig-year=1959 |chapter=Chrétien de Troyes |editor1-last=Loomis |editor1-first=Roger Sherman |editor1-link=Roger Sherman Loomis |title=Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative History |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/arthurianliterat00roge/page/159 159] |isbn=0198115881 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/arthurianliterat00roge/page/159 }}</ref><ref name="Dent">{{cite book |last1=Owen |first1=D. D. R. (trans.) |year=1987 |title=Chrétien de Troyes Arthurian Romances |location=London |publisher=Dent |page=x |isbn=0460116983 |url=https://archive.org/details/arthurianromance00chre |url-access=registration }}</ref> It has also been suggested that Chrétien might be the author of two short verse romances titled ''Le Chevalier à l'épée'' and ''[[La Mule sans frein]]'', but this theory has not found much support.<ref name="Dent"/><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Arthur |editor1-first=Ross G. |title=Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France |location=London |publisher=Everyman |date=1996 |page=211 |isbn=0460875779 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Johnston |editor1-first=R. C. |editor2-last=Owen |editor2-first=D. D. R. |title=Two Old French Gauvain Romances |location=Edinburgh |publisher=Scottish Academic Press |date=1972 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/trent_0116301905257/page/23 23–26] |isbn=0701118717 |url=https://archive.org/details/trent_0116301905257/page/23 }}</ref> Chrétien names his treatments of Ovid in the introduction to ''Cligès'', where he also mentions his work about [[King Mark]] and [[Iseult]]. The latter is presumably related to the legend of [[Tristan and Iseult]], though [[Tristan]] is not named. Chrétien's take on Tristan has not survived, though in the introduction of Cligès, Chrétien himself says that his treatment of Tristan was not well received, possibly explaining why it does not survive. Chrétien's works are written in vernacular [[Old French]], although it is marked by traits of the regional [[Champenois language|Champenois dialect]] (which is still fairly similar to the "standard" French of Paris).

==Sources and influence==
The immediate and specific sources for his romances are uncertain, as Chrétien speaks in the vaguest way of the materials he used. [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] or [[Wace]] might have supplied some of the names, but neither author mentioned [[Erec]], [[Lancelot]], [[Gornemant]] and many others who play an important role in Chrétien's narratives. One is left to guess about Latin or French literary originals which are now lost, or upon continental lore that goes back to a [[Celtic Britons|Celtic]] source in the case of [[Béroul]], an [[Anglo-Normans|Anglo-Norman]] who wrote around 1150. For his ''Perceval, the Story of the Grail'', the influence of the story is clearly tied to the story of Saint Galgano ([[Galgano Guidotti]]), who died in 1180–1181 and was canonized in 1185: a knight, struck by God's vision, planted his sword in the ground, that immediately solidified (kept in [[Abbey of San Galgano|Abbey San Galgano]]). However, Chrétien found his sources immediately at hand, without much understanding of its primitive spirit, but appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of, although not realized, in his own day, and Chrétien's five romances together form the most complete expression from a single author of the ideals of French [[chivalry]]. Though so far there has been little critical attention paid to the subject, it is not inaccurate to say that Chrétien was influenced by the changing face of secular and canonical law in the 12th century. This is particularly relevant for his ''Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart'', which makes repeated use of the customary law prevalent in Chrétien's day.<ref>Cohen, Esther. The Crossroads of Justice: Law and Culture in Late Medieval France. Boston: Brill Publishing, 1992, 27</ref>

[[William Wistar Comfort]] praised de Troyes' "significance as a literary artist and as the founder of a precious literary tradition [which] distinguishes him from all other poets of the [[Italic peoples|Latin races]] between the close of the [[Western Roman Empire|Empire]] and the arrival of [[Dante]]."<ref name=wwcp>{{cite web|title=William Wistar Comfort Papers 1867–1941|url=http://library.haverford.edu/file-id-862|website=Haverford College|access-date=17 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319214224/http://library.haverford.edu/file-id-862|archive-date=19 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Chrétien's writing was very popular, as evidenced by the high number of surviving copies of his romances and their many adaptations into other languages. Three of [[Middle High German]] literature's finest examples, [[Wolfram von Eschenbach]]'s ''[[Parzival]]'' and [[Hartmann von Aue]]'s ''[[Erec (poem)|Erec]]'' and ''[[Iwein (poem)|Iwein]]'', were based on ''Perceval'', ''Erec'', and ''Yvain''; the Three [[Welsh Romances]] associated with the ''[[Mabinogion]]'' (''[[Peredur, son of Efrawg]]'', ''[[Geraint and Enid]]'', and ''[[Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain]]'') are derived from the same trio. Especially in the case of ''Peredur'', however, the connection between the Welsh romances and their source is probably not direct and has never been satisfactorily delineated. Chrétien also has the distinction of being the first writer to mention the [[Holy Grail]]<ref>Loomis 1991.</ref> (''Perceval''), [[Camelot]] (''Lancelot''), and the love affair between Queen [[Guinevere]] and Lancelot (''Lancelot''), subjects of household recognition even today.

There is a specific [[Classical antiquity|Classical]] influence in Chrétien's romances, the likes of which (the ''[[Iliad]]'', the ''[[Aeneid]]'', the ''[[Metamorphoses]]'') were "translated into the Old French vernacular during the 1150s".<ref name="Uitti">Uitti, ''Chrétien de Troyes Revisited''</ref> Foster Guyer argues that specifically ''Yvain, the Knight of the Lion'' contains definite [[Ovid]]ian influence: "Yvain was filled with grief and showed the Ovidian love symptoms of weeping and sighing so bitterly that he could scarcely speak. He declared that he would never stay away a full year. Using words like those of Leander in the seventeenth of Ovid's Epistles he said: 'If only I had the wings of a dove/to fly back to you at will/Many and many a time I would come'."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Guyer |first1=Foster Erwin |year=1960 |title=Chrétien de Troyes: Inventor of the Modern Novel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VZfwAAAAMAAJ&q=%22showed+the+Ovidian%22 |location=London |publisher=Vision Press |page=101 |access-date=1 June 2014 }}</ref>

Chrétien has been termed "the inventor of the modern [[novel]]". Karl Uitti argues: "With [Chrétien's work] a new era opens in the history of European story telling… this poem reinvents the genre we call narrative romance; in some important respects it also initiates the vernacular novel."<ref name="Uitti"/> A "story" could be anything from a single battle scene, to a prologue, to a minimally cohesive tale with little to no chronological layout. Uitti argues that ''Yvain'' is Chrétien's "most carefully contrived romance… It has a beginning, a middle, and an end: we are in no doubt that Yvain's story is over."<ref name="Uitti"/> This very method of having three definite parts, including the build in the middle leading to the climax of the story, is in large part why Chrétien is seen to be a writer of novels five centuries before novels, as we know them, existed.

==See also==
* [[12th century in poetry]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==

*Loomis, Roger Sherman (1991). ''The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol''. Princeton. {{ISBN|0-691-02075-2}}

==Bibliography==
* M. Altieri, ''Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes: Leur perspective proverbiale et gnomique'' (1976, A G Nizet, Paris).
* Jean Frappier, "Chrétien de Troyes" in ''Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages'', [[Roger S. Loomis]] (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959. {{ISBN|0-19-811588-1}}
* Jean Frappier, ''Chrétien de Troyes: The Man and His Work''. Translated by Raymond J. Cormier. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1982. 
* Idris Llewelyn Foster, "''Gereint, Owein'' and ''Peredur''" in ''Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages'', Roger S. Loomis (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959.
* K. Sarah-Jane Murray, "A Preface to Chretien de Troyes," Syracuse University Press, 2008. {{ISBN|0-8156-3160-X}}
* Gerald Seaman, "Signs of a New Literary Paradigm: The 'Christian' Figures in Chrétien de Troyes," in: ''Nominalism and Literary Discourse'', ed. Hugo Keiper, [[Christoph Bode]], and Richard Utz (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp.&nbsp;87–109.
* Albert W. Thompson, "The Additions to Chrétien's ''Perceval''" in ''Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages'', Roger S. Loomis (ed.). Clarendon Press: Oxford University. 1959
* Karl D. Uitti, ''Chrétien de Troyes Revisited'', Twayne: New York, 1995. {{ISBN|0-8057-4307-3}}
* {{cite book |last1=Haidu |first1=Peter |last2=Tomaryn Bruckner |first2=Matilda |title=Philomena of Chrétien the Jew: the semiotics of evil |date=2020 |publisher=Legenda |isbn=978-1-78188-929-9 |oclc=1255369712 |url=http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1255369712 |language=English}}

''This article incorporates material from an essay by W. W. Comfort, published in 1914.''

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Chrétien de Troyes|volume=6|page=273}}
*{{Gutenberg author |id=435| name=Chrétien de Troyes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Chrétien de Troyes |sopt=w}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4739}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20061109163210/http://lancelot.baylor.edu/ The Charrette Project 2 at Baylor University]
*[http://www.atilf.fr/dect Dictionnaire Électronique de Chrétien de Troyes] complete lexicon and transcriptions of the five romances of this Old French author by ATILF/CNRS-Université de Lorraine and LFA/University of Ottawa
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20181013211535/https://spanishliterarytranslation.com/capella-de-ministrers-el-grial/ El Grial, including poetry by Chrétien de Troyes set to music by Capella de Ministrers & Carlos Magraner]
* Bibliography of his works on [http://www.arlima.net/no/7 Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge]

{{Chrétien de Troyes}}
{{Trouvère}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chretien De Troyes}}
[[Category:Chrétien de Troyes| ]]
[[Category:12th-century births]]
[[Category:12th-century deaths]]
[[Category:French fantasy writers]]
[[Category:People from Troyes]]
[[Category:12th-century novelists]]
[[Category:French novelists]]
[[Category:12th-century French poets]]
[[Category:French poets]]
[[Category:Holy Grail]]
[[Category:Trouvères]]
[[Category:Writers of Arthurian literature]]