This scene, which opens Chrétien de Troyes's romance Le chevalier au lion (Yvain), is a striking medieval depiction of a narrative in performance. It tells us much about the content and purpose of this moment of storytelling. It displays a courtly entertainment performed here by one member of an elegant group of knights and ladies; the story is intended to touch the valiant heart of its hearers. Yet the artist who illustrated the key episodes of Le chevalier au lion so richly in Paris, BnF MS Fr. 1433 passes over Calogrenant's performance before the assembly of knights and ladies, beginning rather with his combat with Esclados. These miniatures show not the telling, but the tale.

In like manner, modern critics have often yielded to the illusion of direct access to medieval narrative. They have tended to look right through evidence of medieval and contemporary performances of narrative to focus on the texts of the tales themselves as they were transmitted in writing. It is true that scholars have long recognized the significance of certain types of narrative performance. Medieval epics in Britain, Scandinavia, France, and elsewhere, are known to have been sung from memory by professional performers who accompanied themselves on a stringed instrument such as a harp or a vielle.