The term ‘episodic Arthurian romance’ requires some explanation. Since it was first mentioned by the eminent nineteenth-century French philologist G. Paris, medievalists have often used it as an indication of genre. I use it in contrast with ‘historic Arthurian romance’ and dissociate myself from the negative connotations of the concept ‘episodic Arthurian romance’. For Paris and many others ‘episodic’ means ‘a rambling romance’ of a story ‘[qui] juxtapose purement et simplement, sans souci d'assurer quelque unité organique au poème’ ([which] merely and simply juxtaposes, without any effort to construct a unified whole in the poem); according to these scholars it is the most typical expression of the medieval Roman à tiroirs (lit. a ‘romance with drawers’). This misleading image implies that the drawers can be opened in any possible order, that they are interchangeable, or maybe even left unopened.

To me the term ‘episodic’ refers to a romance which has for its central interest an episode in the reign of the famous British king, taking for granted the readers' knowledge of Arthur's biography. An episodic story always takes place ‘tenen male’ (once upon a time) in the history of the Round Table community. ‘Episodization’ plays down the historical context and presents King Arthur as a symbol of a specific attitude towards life, rather than as the historical sovereign of around 500 AD. From this point of view it might be better to describe the genre as ‘non-historical Arthurian romances’.