Throughout the history of Arthurian research, the works of the poet Chrétien de Troyes have repeatedly proved a rewarding area of study. Chrétien was the first to combine a series of Arthurian motifs and episodes into extensive and carefully organized compositions. In addition, he instilled into those compositions a new meaning, transcending what was originally conveyed by the individual elements. The literary significance of these first Arthurian romances in both the aesthetic and the historical sphere has earned them world-wide recognition, and an examination of the works of later Arthurian poets cannot diminish this significance; on the contrary, it will become apparent that the findings of the present study include new arguments to support and confirm the importance of the early Arthurian literature for several generations of authors in the thirteenth century and beyond. This study is intended as a contribution to both reception history, examining the medieval response to Chrétien's poetry, and genre history, surveying the evolution of Arthurian verse romance in French. The main objective is to describe the evolutionary changes taking place between Chrétien's Erec et Enide and Froissart's Meliador, the first and last examples of the genre. However, it is not very fruitful to assess the works of later Arthurian writers in terms of a reduction in quality by comparison with Chrétien. Consequently it is not the aim of this investigation to confirm yet again the status of Chrétien's works as the unequalled masterpieces of the whole of Arthurian literature.