Romanesque Architecture in the Old French Prose Lancelot
Paul Zumthor observed that the literary text is the point at which history and poetics intersect. The intellect, he wrote, absorbs “idéologies” from its environment in the form of ideas, images, patterns, and even technologies. This information then becomes “un pur matériel verbal,” fragments of which may be extracted from their original context and reconfigured in light of different cultural or esthetic conditions (23–25, 459). In this article I shall describe certain twelfth-century ideologies that are exemplified in the architecture and sculpture in the Benedictine abbey church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine in Vézelay, France. I shall then provide evidence that vestiges of these ideologies re-emerge in literary form in the Claudas War episode of the thirteenth-century Old French prose romance of Lancelot. This is a literary analysis in which the plastic arts provide illustration and historical events supply supporting evidence. There is no direct link between the church and the texts discussed here, but I shall offer evidence that they draw on some common sources, and I shall suggest why this finding may enhance our appreciation of the romance.[1]
The anonymous prose Lancelot, thought to have been composed between 1202 and 1225 (Stones 13, 15, 44; Stirneman 207), occupies the third position in a sequence of five Arthurian romances collectively known as the Vulgate cycle.[2] It is not certain whether the Lancelot was originally intended for inclusion in this cycle,[3] but it was probably the first of the five romances to have been composed (Frappier 1968, 133, 451). Rather than tracing the Lancelot’s reception and literary posterity, I shall propose some hypotheses regarding elements of its background and heritage that are discernible in one of the earliest manuscripts known to contain a version of the romance: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale f. fr. 768. Produced between 1215 and 1225 (Stirneman 207), this is one of the shortest renderings of the tale. Whereas the majority of manuscripts include transitional material linking the Lancelot with the romance that follows it in the cycle, B.N. 768 terminates shortly after the hero’s induction into the Round Table (572.4).[4]
The present study is confined to a relatively autonomous narrative unit comprised of the first fifty folios, which constitute about a fourth of the text in B.N. 768. Lancelot, the Lady of the Lake, and the members of Arthur’s court are introduced in this segment, but for the most part it is devoted to relating the story of two knights, Pharien and Lambegue, who are uncle and nephew respectively. Pharien and Lambegue are hereditary vassals of King Bohort of Gaunes, who “fu uns des homes do monde qui plus haute justice tint” (18.31–32). The narrator reports that at a certain point in the past, Pharien left Gaunes in order to escape a severe judicial penalty imposed upon him by Bohort. Although he never renounced his primary homage, Pharien attached his family to a rival king named Claudas who offered him wealth and prestige (18.30–34). As the story begins, Claudas invades Gaunes, causing Bohort’s death and the disinheritance of Bohort’s two young sons. Pharien and Lambegue are thereupon torn between their hereditary obligation to defend the property rights of Bohort’s children and their oath of homage to the usurper. The Claudas War episode recounts the violent aftermath of Bohort’s death.
Pharien and Lambegue are sympathetic characters who define justice as the feudal obligation to defend one’s lord. Although the men are united in their desire to liberate Gaunes, they spend nearly as much time at odds with each other or with their followers as they do in confrontations with King Claudas. The density and complexity of the plot tend to obscure the exact dynamics of their quarrels, but an analysis of the knights’ behavior and its consequences points to a consistent pattern of narrative approval regarding the knights’ commitment to justice but qualified disapproval regarding the way they construe this duty. Pharien prides himself on his intelligence and attempts to reconcile his conflicting loyalties through debate and argument. He is portrayed as wiser than his youthful, athletic nephew, who prefers decisive physical action. Lambegue loathes Claudas and seeks to resolve their dilemma by killing the king in combat. In addition to disagreeing as to procedures for procuring justice, the two knights differ in their definitions of the term. Each aligns himself with one of two incompatible absolutes imposed by their purely secular morality: Pharien justly reproves Lambegue for perjuring his oath to defend Claudas, and Lambegue, with equal justification, blames Pharien for compromising with the enemy of their liege lord.
Their first altercation occurs when Pharien is on trial before Claudas, who has secretly arranged for the knight to be falsely accused of treason. Pharien wishes to reflect and respond to the charges, but Lambegue, using starkly polarized terms, insists that Pharien is either guilty or innocent and should behave accordingly: “. . . s’il en est corpables, mete la hart el col et voist isnellement a son joïse; et s’il en a droit, si se deffand seürement . . .” (28.7–9). The outcome of the trial suggests that both men are, to a degree, correct, and each must learn to appreciate the justice in the other’s position, since Pharien is acquitted after Lambegue verbally argues Pharien’s case and Pharien engages in judicial combat. Claudas still controls Gaunes, however, so the justice achieved during the trial is partial at best. The episode shows that both intellectual and physical skills, if judiciously applied and socially condoned, serve justice, but it also signals their inadequacy to fulfill its demands completely.
A second clash between the knights reveals the limitations inherent in Pharien’s intellectual virtue. During a battle between the inhabitants of Gaunes and Claudas’ army, Lambegue is about to kill the king when Pharien prevents him from committing this act of perjury: “Et puis que chevaliers fait tant qu’il fait homage ne feauté, cui qu’il lo face, il lo doit garder comme son cors de toz perilz” (86.9–10). Lambegue then redirects his fury toward his uncle: “Comment? . . . filz a putain, traïtres, si volez rescorre de mort celui qui vos a faites totes les hontes et velt ocirre . . . les filz a nostre seigneur lige? Certes, vil cuer et mauvais avez el ventre . . .” (78.23–26). Pharien’s reply contrasts his own “sans,” “granz honors,” “droiture,” and “leiaute” with Lambegue’s “fole parole,” “granz hontes,” “felenie,” and “desleiaute” (85.19–86.38). He thus uses dialectical rhetoric (as Lambegue uses polarized physical criteria) to reduce a complex situation to a categorical dichotomy. Further, his preoccupation with feudal formalities blinds Pharien to Lambegue’s valid objection that their honor is compromised by the content of the oath to Claudas.
A later incident demonstrates the weakness in Lambegue’s immoderate sensuality. Pharien temporarily dissociates himself from the other inhabitants of Gaunes because they will not heed his counsel. Deprived of his leadership, they strike out against Claudas in a scene of self-destructive fury in which the materiality of the weapons is emphasized and the darkness underscores the ignorance and diminished humanity that ensue from excessive physicality: “Et cil encontre Claudas sont tant et si espés qu’il ne puent a lui avenir ne a ses genz, ançois fierent li un l’autre de loig et durement, si ocient et plaient an tel maniere et lor cors et lor chevax, car trop sont antassé li uns sor l’autre. Et la nuiz est noire et oscure qui ne lor fait se nuire non . . .” (88.37–89.2). The three episodes described here demonstrate that the intellect and the senses are necessary but insufficient, either jointly or singly, to the lasting restoration of justice. Pharien and Lambegue may change the form of injustice, but they cannot transcend it.
Despite his dislike of violence, Pharien is inescapably and ironically entangled in it. A tense meeting among the feuding barons of Gaunes, whom Pharien has now rejoined, follows the nocturnal disaster. Finding it impossible to reason with the quarrelsome group, Pharien finally loses patience and charges at his nephew with a battle-axe (96.19). Suddenly and unaccountably, Pharien’s wife appears among the warriors, places herself in the path of the descending weapon, and pleads for the nephew’s life. She has no reason to love Lambegue: “...mout avoit Lanbegue longuement haï, car par son consoil li avoit Phariens faiz mainz grant anuiz” (96.21–23), and Pharien’s wrath is transformed to bewilderment by her gesture: “mais sor tote rien se mervoille de sa fame qui tant l’avoit haï et ore li estoit correüe aidier . . . de si grant cuer que ele s’abandona por lui et a navrer et a ocirre” (97.30–32). The wife’s intervention launches a series of restorative actions in which violence gradually gives way to peace: Pharien releases Lambegue; following their example, the other barons gradually cease their internal disputes; the futile attacks against Claudas are abandoned in favor of communal and cooperative forms of defense; and finally “la pais [est] faite des barons del regne de Gaunes et Claudas” (130.14–15). This peace, although ambiguous and unstable, is lasting.
As the battles sputter fitfully to a halt, Pharien renounces his homage to Claudas, thus solving the problem of divided loyalties. He declares that the king has “nul paior anemi . . . de moi” (117.8–9), but he also explicitly stops short of refusing to serve Claudas in the future: “. . . ge ne refuse ne vostre servise ne vostre don, ainz l’ai mout cher” (129.10–11). Similarly equivocal, Lambegue continues to denounce Claudas as “au plus felon et au plus crueil qui onques fust,” but now abruptly forswears his intention to kill the king (128.8–14). Claudas, with uncharacteristic generosity, releases them. Rather than resuming the military resistance, Pharien and Lambegue leave Gaunes and journey to an enchanted Lake. There they join Lancelot, the cousin of Bohort’s children who, like them, was orphaned and exiled during his infancy by Claudas. During the war he spent his childhood in the care of the Lady of the Lake and is now eighteen years old. Lancelot emerges at this point as the central character, and Claudas, the barons of Gaunes, and the war itself are never mentioned again.[5]
The initial episode appears to be poorly integrated with the romance as a whole, both because of the shift in characters and location and because of the many issues that are left unresolved. The text explicitly raises the question of why Pharien’s wife saves Lambegue but provides no answer. Similarly, the conflict between Pharien’s and Lambegue’s moral imperatives is meticulously depicted, but their reconciliation is never explained. Claudas’ release of the knights seems inadequately motivated, and since he retains control of Gaunes, the devastating and protracted war brings no remedy to the political injustice that provoked it. The knights’ qualified opposition to Claudas and their departure for the Lake are nevertheless portrayed with approval.
Few studies of the Lancelot dwell at length on the Claudas War. Elspeth Kennedy and Alexandre Micha conclude that the episode illustrates the legal dilemmas that plagued the feudal system (Kennedy 1957, 91–96; Micha 1987, 145). Micha adds that the characters’ solutions consistently provoke a new set of problems (1987, 147), but he does not explore these chain-reactions in depth. Lisa Jefferson documents the contemporary judicial controversies that surface in this adventure and are reprised in later ones (43–101). Jefferson, like Micha, mentions the depiction of the characters’ limitations: “ a higher moral code, based on love, . . . is shown to be the only force capable of intervening to resolve otherwise insoluble problems” (99). The critical consensus that the Claudas War episode is a prologue announcing themes related to justice is amply sustained by textual evidence, but these analyses do not address the structural and narrative anomalies that have been pointed out here. The remainder of this study is devoted to describing some literary, artistic, and philosophical legacies that were in place at the turn of the thirteenth century and to tracing their impact on the depiction of justice in this initial episode.
Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1165–91) is recognized as having set important literary precedents for medieval French romance (Frappier 1965, 240). He introduced the term “conjointure” to describe techniques for organizing textual material in patterns that enhance the signifying power of the tale (Erec et Enide 9–18). Conjointure characterizes not only the overall structure, but also the internal arrangement of disparate or antithetical motifs and themes, which are “so neatly juxtaposed that the interpretation of each clearly hinges upon one’s reading of the other” (Discenza 21). The web of echoes, hints, and evocations in Chrétien’s poems also interweaves multiple layers of meaning (Frappier 1965, 210–20). This type of symbolism resembles allegory in its hierarchical ordering of tangible and intangible values. It differs from allegory because it avoids a programmatic system of correspondences and attenuates the polarity between the physical and spiritual realms by investing each with comparable weight, reality and presence (Kristeva 38–41; Tuve 22, 53–54; Zumthor 121–28). Conjointure was to become a defining characteristic of medieval romance (Kelly 13), but despite this fact, the signifying potential of the Claudas War as a clearly articulated structural segment has not been investigated. The Lancelot’s narrative interlace has been described by scholars,[6] but although the prologue includes a suggestive passage in which Lancelot receives instruction in symbolic interpretation (142.8–146.2), the figurative potential of the text has barely been explored.
Chrétien’s structural expertise attests to the influence of French ecclesiastical architecture and sculpture on medieval romance. Erwin Panofsky points out that the extraordinary flowering of architecture and sculpture between 1130 and 1270 reflected widespread enthusiasm among intellectuals for methodical and structural problem-solving (20–27). Panofsky describes the correspondences between the scholastic movement and Gothic architecture, but his argument need not be restricted to a single philosophy or style. During the same period monasticism and Romanesque architecture, both of which are eloquently articulated in abbey churches like Sainte Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay, exemplified a philosophical stance and an artistic style that were passing from favor, but whose influence can be detected in the Claudas War episode.
Chrétien’s works are secular, sensuous, and courtly, but his evocative and hierarchical symbolism carries the imprint of the patristic epistemology favored by the Roman Catholic monks who had controlled Northern European education since the early Middle Ages. The monastic curriculum was principally derived from the works of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430), according to whom true wisdom is found in beatitude, or the immanent loving knowledge of God. As beatitude is the accomplishment of the Law of Scripture, he reasoned, wisdom constitutes justice (Conf., 306.4–29). Augustine did not reject the physical world, which he saw as the necessary mediator that allows partial intuition of God during mortal life, and the monastic curriculum emphasized the dynamic and hierarchical interdependence of the temporal and eternal spheres of existence (Conf., 366.5–9). Accordingly, the figurative glossing of Scripture to glimpse divine mysteries in the obscurities and ambiguities of the material signs of language was central to this system. Science and logic were taught, but because these disciplines describe the transient properties of the material world, many monks considered them inferior to exegesis (Conf. 75.22–76.4; De doctrina 36.5–15; Curtius 55; Lubac I.87).
The doctrine of the unity of wisdom and justice gave rise to the conviction that educational methodology is crucial to salvation. Because of its subjectivity, exegesis yielded conflicting interpretations of Scripture, and some theologians began to seek alternative epistemological systems (Gilson; 1926, 5; 1969, 1–4). By the twelfth century, the educational hegemony of the rural monasteries was weakening. With increasing regularity, intellectuals were congregating in urban schools, where treatises of physical science, recently translated from Arabic and Greek into Latin, were being disseminated; the sensuous descriptions in Chrétien’s poems reflect the contemporary trend in academia toward the methodical study of objective material data. Scholastic theologians adapted the empirical and logical methods of secular science for the study of Scripture, and the quest for wisdom began to focus on the literal, physical text as elucidated through dialectical disputation (Stock 59). During the first two decades of the thirteenth century, as the Lancelot was being composed, logic surpassed exegesis as “the most important university subject” in the Paris curriculum (Curtius 483). The entire century was to be consumed in controversy, however, as theologians struggled to reconcile formal dialectics with the paradoxical processes through which the Christian trinity is believed to actualize divine justice (Gilson 1926, 7; Lubac I.88). Conservatives charged that logic constitutes materialistic idolatry in which form supersedes content, the senses are held to be the measure of all reality, and intellectual pride outweighs the humble acceptance of mysteries that transcend understanding (Lubac I.105–108).
Traces of monastic technology, symbolism, and epistemology are diffused throughout the Claudas War episode. A structural comparison between the prologue and the narthex of the church of the Madeleine at Vézelay immediately brings to light architectural analogies that are specifically Romanesque in nature. This large enclosed western porch is fully separated from the nave by a second, interior façade (Fig. 1). Thus, like the prologue, it is connected to, and yet separate from the artifact of which it forms the introductory passage. The Gothic style (associated by Panofsky with scholasticism) eliminates such dividers and other elements that compartmentalize the sections of Romanesque edifices (Clark 400). The Madeleine’s narthex has been described as a church before the church (Salet 60); similarly, the Claudas War is a story that precedes the main adventure. The narthex and the prologue are also structurally comparable in terms of their imposing physical dimensions relative to the entire artifact.[7]
The narthex provides a space in which symbolic sculptures instruct and chasten worshippers to set aside worldly preoccupations before entering the sanctuary. The ways in which the sculptures convey meaning provide a model for understanding the signifying practices at work in the Lancelot’s prologue. In addition, the collective contribution of this imagery to the overall theme of Mary Magdalen in the church provides insights as to how the Claudas War episode is integrated into the romance. Figs. 2–4 provide a sampling of the sculptures in the Madeleine’s narthex. Fig. 2 shows the image of a mythological bird with three heads, one of which (to the left of the bird’s body) is shaped like that of a snake. Fig. 3 contains a representation of King David, who is wearing a crown, and the prophet Nathan, whose arm gesture indicates that he is speaking (Salet 198; 2 Sam. 12.7–23). The image shown in Fig. 4 is thought to depict the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (Salet 173; Gen. 2.4–3.24). Eve, at left, is stooped over (the head has been mutilated), and she is holding a branch that evokes the tree of knowledge.
The sculpture topics, particularly because they include a classical image, seem to have been randomly selected, but the medieval conventions associated with these motifs suggest a thematic connection among them (Tuve 15). The multiple heads of the pagan bird, it is believed, represent false idols, especially the transitory pleasures afforded by sensual temptations (Salet 173). As if to exemplify this lesson, Nathan is shown chastising David for the adultery and murder to which his lust incited him, and David is beating his breast in repentance. Sensual indulgence can also be represented as the intellectual pride involved in assuming that truth can be reduced to the dimensions of the intellect, which is dependent on the sensory perception of empirical evidence. Saint Bernard (1090–1153) condemned such “curiosité” regarding the physical world as “amours adultères” that leave humanity “en proie de la division, des contraires, des affrontements, du sectarisme” (Davy 66–67). The allusion to intellectual concupiscence in the image of the bird, as well as its snake-like head, link it to that of Adam and Eve, whose sin was both sensual and intellectual: “the woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was enticing for the wisdom that it could give” (Gen. 3.6, 23). Operating cumulatively and obliquely, the sculptures suggest that sensuality, or the failure to maintain a loving and just relationship with God, constitutes both original sin and its punishment.
Although all the sculptures call attention to human inadequacy, only the biblical ones proffer messages of hope that link the narthex iconography to the theme of Mary Magdalen. The branch carried by Eve shows that evil is simultaneously painful and beneficial. The stout horizontal portion can be interpreted as the burden of mortality, but the less visible vertical part supports her like a cane. The lesson of hope is amplified through David’s divine election to kingship despite his sinfulness. As the entire church honors Mary Magdalen, the repentant carnal sinner for whom the promise of redemption is fulfilled (Luke 7.39; John 11.12), the portrayal of God’s testament with humanity in the narthex enhances and prepares the reception of this overall message. The architecture and sculptures do not articulate a conclusive logical argument based on empirical evidence. Rather, they are, like Scripture, material signs that function collectively to mediate between the contemplative worshipper and transcendent truths.
The literary techniques employed in the prologue to the Lancelot resemble the signifying practices at work in the narthex in that both can be understood in terms of the patristic paradigm underlying monastic epistemology. The Claudas War, in its depiction of intellectual and physical arrogance, inspires reflection on the breakdown, restoration, and ultimate meaning of justice. Pharien and Lambegue, in this view, exemplify the struggle of limited sensual beings to fulfill a limitless spiritual destiny. Pharien never loses sight of the divine justice to which his inherited fealty to Bohort is analogous, but he also accepts the necessity of compromise with the material world represented by his homage to Claudas. At the same time, this oath is the manifestation of Pharien’s intellectual vanity and worldly ambition. Likewise, Lambegue knows that his highest duty is the servitude into which he was born, but his attempts to kill Claudas indulge his own physical nature and deny the subordinate but indispensable contribution of evil to the understanding and attaining of virtue. As long as the knights’ definition and pursuit of justice remains exclusively secular, their tactics yield only “division,” “contraires,” “affrontements,” and “sectarisme.” Micha’s observation that the protagonists’ solutions only create new problems reiterates the objections of monastic theologians that logic and empiricism “allai[en]t ainsi de questions en questions,” and that “la réponse apportée faisait surgir une question nouvelle, souvent plus difficile encore” (Lubac I.99).
When the wife situates herself between Pharien and Lambegue, she dismantles the polarized, empirical conceptual structures in which they have confined themselves. Her mediation restructures their understanding of justice by transforming their binary stalemate into a productive trinity. The narrative immediately reasserts this pattern when another knight places himself between Pharien and the other barons until the tension subsides: “Cil se mist entre Pharien et cels qui l’asailloient. . . . Si fist tant que la meslee departi sanz plus de perte . . .” (97.13–16). She also recontextualizes justice within the realm of the intangible, for despite the enormity of her impact on subsequent events, the unnamed, unarmed wife appears so briefly and intrudes so delicately as to be nearly invisible. The narrator’s insistence on Pharien’s puzzled reaction signals the pertinence of the fact that she has no logical reason for forgiving Lambegue. Her charity (the “higher moral code . . . based on love” suggested by Jefferson) recalls the unearned divine forgiveness invoked in the imagery of the Madeleine.
Charity does not supplant Pharien’s intellect and Lambegue’s strength but buttresses and redirects these qualities in positive ways. When Pharien later admits to Claudas that he might re-enter the king’s service, he shows a new awareness that his intellect cannot, on its own, render him impervious to worldly temptations. This humility fortifies Pharien’s intellect, since he astutely guesses that this admission will compel Claudas to release him (129.4–130.8). Similarly, Lambegue acknowledges the insufficiency of the senses when he throws his material armor at Claudas’ feet. Claudas then finds himself powerless to withstand the intangible potency of the young man’s vulnerability: “. . . et gehui ne dessirroie se ta mort non. Mais ge nel dessirrerai ja mais . . .” (128.20–21). Lambegue does not reject his equipment but re-arms himself once he has demonstrated his greater faith in spiritual “armor.”
When considered in light of the monastic epistemology exemplified in the narthex of the Madeleine, the Claudas War episode provides answers to the questions raised earlier in this article. Narrative discontinuity undermines the primacy of a contradictory literal scenario and exemplifies the lesson that logic and the senses are insufficient unless supplemented by another form of knowledge. The wife’s charity is a critical empowering agent that permits Pharien to experience a truth that exceeds his intellectual grasp and enables Lambegue to understand that power can be intangible. The importance of secular justice is never in question, but in a “jeu subtil d’oppositions dépassées,” the knights’ antithetical moral imperatives are subsumed within their redirected quest for spiritual justice.[8] Pharien then explicitly associates justice with a quest for mediated and partial knowledge, and declares that he will henceforth serve justice by seeking signs of the children of his liege lord: “…j’ai juré sur saintes reliqes que ja mais de nul home terrien ne recevrai terre devant que ge savrai des anfanz mon seignor, lo roi Bohort, voires enseignes” (129.12–14). This dynamic form of justice is paradoxically served through Claudas’ retention of the usurped kingdom. Only as a result of the suffering that ensues from their decision to serve the corrupt king do Pharien and Lambegue attain the spiritual maturity that brings about their release from this servitude. By relinquishing Gaunes, they accept that Claudas should remain in a position to goad the other inhabitants to an understanding of virtue through the experience of evil. This paradox explains why Pharien expresses gratitude to him: “vos avez ore plus fait por moi que tuit li servise ne montent que ge onques vos feïsse” (129.37–130.2); and Lambegue willingly accepts Claudas’ gift of a lance whose materiality is emphasized: “si li fait Claudas aporter un glaive mout tranchant de fer et fort de fust” (130.10–11). Closure is brought about through the completion of a spiritual maturation process that begins when Pharien abandons his original just relationship with Bohort and ends when he commits himself to the indirect and mediated restoration of that relationship.
The introductory adventure functions like the narthex in providing a model of exegetical techniques that can be applied to the main body of the romance whose didactic lesson it prepares.[9] A satisfactory discussion of the adventures involving Lancelot lies outside the scope of this article, but the Claudas War episode hints that Lancelot, like Pharien and Lambegue, gradually reduces his reliance on logic and empiricism and concludes the quest for wisdom begun by them. The prologue includes a scene in which the uncomprehending Lancelot first hears of this quest (142.8–146.2). In this passage, the Lady of the Lake teaches her young pupil the obligations of knighthood. She instructs him that justice is both secular and ecclesiastical, and that chivalry is the defense of the Church — not through eradicating evil, but through ensuring that corruption and virtue coexist in proper hierarchical proportion: “Au commencement . . . fu devisé a celui qui voloit estre chevaliers . . . qu’il fust . . . droiz jugierres sanz amor et sanz haïne, et sans amor d’aidier au tort por lo droit grever, et sanz haïne de nuire an droit por traire lo tort avant” (142.32–40). In this explicitly symbolic lesson, feudal signifiers, although quite real in their own right, are literally and figuratively subordinated to spiritual signifieds: “Li escuz . . . senefie que, autresin com il se met entre lui et les cox, autresin se doit metre li chevaliers devant Sainte Eglise encontre toz maxfaitors . . .” In the short version of the Lancelot found in B.N. 768, the hero’s successful quest to restore justice in Arthur’s secular kingdom can also be read as the process whereby Lancelot, through the dynamic interplay of his inherent strengths and weaknesses, gradually learns how to understand the Lady’s lesson and finally fulfills the requirements of spiritual as well as secular knighthood.
The episode of the Claudas War includes remnants of literary, architectural and philosophical ideologies that were becoming outdated at the beginning of the thirteenth century.[10] The conjointure of narrative threads and levels of meaning enhances the literal text by stressing the interrelationship, rather than the polarity, between the spiritual and physical worlds. Indirect and evocative imagery in the compartmentalized prologue prepares reception of the moral lessons in the main adventure. Logical inconsistencies within individual passages are resolved through the recognition of the non-binary patterns that structure them and interlace them with others. Textual evidence in the Claudas War episode lends support to the hypotheses that the prologue introduces the themes of both secular and spiritual justice, and that its argument is infused with mistrust of the shift, during the early thirteenth century, from monastic to scholastic forms of the academic quest for truth. The prologue to the Lancelot, in this view, betrays vestiges of an epistemological position that did not, and could not, prevail in an increasingly secular society.[11]
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[1]The choice of the Madeleine was not arbitrary, as its location in northern Burgundy places it near the region where the Lancelot is believed to have been composed (Kennedy 1980, II.5). The likelihood that cultural norms and biases might be shared by the church and the text (which was written approximately sixty years after the completion of the Romanesque portion of the church) is enhanced by their proximity, but there is no evidence that the author was directly inspired by this church.
[2]The five anonymous romances of the Vulgate cycle are the Estoire del Saint Graal, the Estoire de Merlin, the Lancelot, the Queste del Saint Graal, and the Mort le roi Artu, For a summary of the theories on authorship, see Kennedy 1986, 1.
[3]Kennedy (1970, 1986), has argued that the version of the romance found in B.N. 768 precedes the Vulgate cycle and was intended to be self-sufficient. See Micha (1955, 1966) for arguments against this view.
[4]Citations from the Lancelot refer to the Kennedy edition (1980).
[5]In B.N. 768, the final appearance of a combattant in the war occurs in f. 51a, in which the narrator reports that Lambegue accompanies Lancelot to Camalot. Lyonel, one of Bohort’s children, re-emerges in the later adventures.
[6]Interlace in the prose Lancelot was first described by Lot, 17–28; Kennedy provides further analysis (1986, 156–201; 1994, 31–50). See also Burns, chap. 4.
[7]The episode comprises a smaller percentage of the longer versions, which vary in length.
[8]The quoted passage was used by Frappier to describe the style of Chrétien (1965, 217).
[9]The Claudas War episode is essentially the same in all versions of the romance, but its wider interpretive implications differ according to whether it is read in light of the short version found in B.N. 768, as is the case here, or in the context of one of the longer renditions.
[10]The Lancelot anticipates later literary developments, including allegorical romance, in countless ways, but this study is confined to the elucidation of certain conservative elements in the romance.
[11]I would like to thank W. W. Kibler for his encouragement and suggestions during the preparation of this article.