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A Historical Background for Chrétien's Perceval

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Helen Adolf
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Extract

In Speculum, xvi (1941), pp. 149–166, A.C. Krey devoted to William, archbishop of Tyre, an article most welcome to students of French medieval romance. Rousing our interest in the work of this great chronicler of the crusades, he makes us read it, and reading it we find what we least expected: a historical background for Chrétien's Conte del Graal.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 1943 , pp. 597 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1943

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References

1 Recueil des Historiens des Croisades (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions, 1841–1906), Historiens Occidentaux, i, 1027–48.

2 All Perceval quotations are taken from A. Hilka, Der Percevalroman, in Li Contes del Graal (1932).

3 A. Hilka, loc. cit., p. 640.

4 Fr. Mauriac, La vie de Jean Racine (1928), pp. 191, 206 f.

5 Cf. A. F. B. Clark, Jean Racine (1939), p. 243.

6 Loc. cit., p. 191.

7 Cf. H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders III (1864), iii, 584.

8 Loc. cit., p. 845.

9 M. Wilmotte, “Travaux récents sur les premiers poèmes relatifs à la légende du Gral,” Moyen Age, xlix (1939), 184; W. Hertz, Die Sage von Parzival und dem Gral (1882), p. 31; W. A. Nitze, “On the Chronology of the Grail Romances,” Manly Anniversary Studies (1923), p. 314.

10 v. 6931, Classiques français du moyen âge, xxviii (1922).

11 Parzival, 824, 1–826, 30.

12 He was, by the way, her second husband, her first marriage with William Clito of Normandy having been annulled.

13 Kervyn, Histoire de Flandre, ii, 46.

14 John of Ypres in Bouquet's Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, xii, 00471.

15 “Sibyle ne fut pas une femme ordinaire,” Biographie nationale de Belgique.

16 Loc. cit., pp. 607, 665, 898, 854.

17 Biographie nationale de Belgique.

18 The “ansanble o toi” in the same passage (v. 3598) does not fit in with our interpretation—nor with the Perceval, for that matter. For how could Perceval's cousin have been brought up by his mother, without Perceval being aware of it? These words look like a lame attempt to harmonize the real facts with the Great Fool Story, where mother and son never had parted.

19 William of Tyre, loc. cit., p. 773 f.

20 Cf. W. A. Nitze, Perlesvaus, ii, pp. 84, 328.

21 William of Tyre, loc. cit., pp. 1029, 1033.

22 See R. Heinzel, “Ueber Wolframs v. Eschenbach Parzival,” Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien (Phil.-Hist. Kl), cxxx, 45.

23 Loc. cit., p. 1005. “The leprosy called elephantiasis, noisome to the patient, but not infectious to the company,” says Thomas Fuller, The History of the Holy War (ed. 1840), p. 101. Most of the historians neglect the difference.

24 Cf. the author, Neophilologus, xviii (1933), 16 ff.

25 L. A. Warnkönig, Histoire de la Flandre (1835), i, 198.

26 Biogr. nat. de Belgique; A. Cartellieri, Philip II. August, König von Frankreich (1899–1900), i, 42 ff., 67 f.; H. Martin, Histoire de France, iii, 502; Bouquet's Recueil, xii, 214, 233; xiii, 181, 203, 414, 579; E. Lavisse, Histoire de France, iii, 184.

27 Cartellieri, loc. cit., i, 42; Bouquet's Recueil, xiii, 579.

28 Bouquet's Recueil, xiii, 203. The last words refer to the fact that Philip's father-in-law, Raoul of Vermandois, had been seneschal of France and thus entitled to carry the King's dishes. His father, Theodoric of Alsatia, had not been invested with a special function, but as a “baculus regni” he was certainly such a “princeps nobilior regni” as was required for the carrying of the sword. (See Bouquet's Recueil, xv, 589, and xiii, 414.)

29 A. Luchaire, Institutions monarchiques de la France (1891), i, 168 ff., 177 ff.; Lavisse, loc. cit., iii, 1, 34; Grande Encyclopédie, “sénéchal.”

30 In Geoffrey of Monmouth's description of the coronation of King Arthur, we see that Key the seneschal was in charge of the tables only, whereas four kings carried their swords in front of Arthur. This description probably followed the custom of the day. See E. Faral, La Légende Arthurienne (1929–), i, 277.

31 Grande Encyclopédie.

32 J. La Monte, Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1932), p. 116.

33 Loc. cit., p. 178.

34 “Kaius dapifer, herminio ornatus, mille vero nobilibus comitatus qui omnes herminio induti fercula cum ipso ministrabant.” (Faral, loc. cit., iii, 245)

35 The Mead Hall at Tara, see W. A. Nitze, “The Castle of the Grail—an Irish analogue,” in Elliott Studies, i (1911), 19–51.

36 Loc. cit., p. 1028.

37 Loc. cit., p. 1035.

38 Loc. cit., p. 1048.

39 William of Newburgh (ed. Hamilton), iii, 240 ff.

40 Loc. cit., p. 156.

41 T. A. Archer and Ch. L. Kingsford, The Crusades (1904), p. 254.

42 Bouquet's Recueil, xiii, 423.

43 Krey, loc. cit., p. 160.

44 H. Prutz, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere Geschichtskunde, viii, (1883), 105.

45 M. Wilmotte, Moyen Age, xlix, 179; Ph. A. Becker, ZFRPh lv, 403.

46 K. Burdach, Der Gral (1938), pp. 384–443; but see W. A. Nitze, Modern Philology, xxxvii (1939), 315 ff and Perlesvaus, ii, 215.

47 William of Tyre, loc. cit., p. 725.

48 ZFDA, xxxvii, 322.

49 W. A. Nitze, “Who was the Fisher King?”, Romanic Review, xxxiii (1942), 97–104, and in Perlesvaus, ii, 184. Cf. also A. H. Krappe, Speculum, xv (1940), 119 (Bran as “Poseidon and Plouton”).

50 But see La Monte, loc. cit., p. 4.

51 Cf. F. J. Dölger, IXΘγC (1910), ii, 486, on the eastern disdain for fishers.

52 W. Foerster, Wörterbuch zu Kristian (1914), p. 152; J. D. Bruce, Evolution of Arthurian Romance, i, 220; A. Hilka, loc. cit., p. xxiv; E. Brugger, ZFSL xxxv2 (1910), 46.

53 Loc. cit., p. 269.

54 Loc. cit., ii, 83.

55 Loc. cit., p. 152.

56 Loc. cit., p. xxiv.

57 Lachmann's edition, i, 16, 36.

58 Biogr. nat. de Belgique; Cartellieri, loc. cit., i, 39.

59 Cartellieri, ibid., 3. Beilage.

60 G. Paris, Mélanges de littérature française du moyen âge (1912), i, 263 ff.; see J. D. Bruce, loc. cit., ii, 83.

61 G. Paris, Manuel d'Ancien François,2 p. 95.

62 G. Paris, Histoire littéraire de la France, xxx, 23 (“vers 1180”); E. Wechssler, Die Sage vom hlg. Gral (1898), p. 45, 148; A. Pauphilet, Etudes sur la Quests del Saint Graal (1920), p. 11; Stef. Hofer, ZFSL, lx, 441; ZFRPh, xli, 418.

63 J. D. Bruce, loc. cit., ii, 83.

64 G. Cohen, Chrétien de Troyes et son œuvre (1931), p. 88.

65 W. A. Nitze, Manly Anniversary Studies (1923), p. 301 n.

66 M. Wilmotte, Le poème du Gral et ses auteurs (1930), p. 23.

67 G. Cohen, loc. cit., p. 383; A. Birch-Hirschfeld, Die Sage vom Gral (1877), p. 81; G. Gröber, Grundriß der romanischen Philologie, ii, 1503.

68 Stef. Hofer, ZFSL, lx, 442.

69 Loc. cit., p. 405.

70 E. H. Meyer, ZFDA 37, 341 ff.

71 E. Martin, Anz.fdA 18, 258; contents of the romance: G. Paris, Hist. litt, de la France, xxviii, 139–179.

72 R. Heinzel, Ueber Wolfram v. Eschenbach, S. A. Wien (phil.-hist. Kl.), cxxx, 1–113

73 Loc. cit., p. 174 ff.

74 W. Hertz, Die Sage von Parzival und dem Gral (1882), 468 ff.

75 J. L. Weston, Translation of Wolfram's Parzival, p. 291 ff.

76 E. Martin, Wolfram v. Eschenbach, Kommentar, p. xxxix ff.; “Zur Gralsage,” Quellen und Forschungen, xlii.

77 A. Schreiber, ZFDPh, lvi, 34 ff.

78 Schreiber, loc. cit., pp. 14–37.

79 Stef. Hofer, ZFSL, lx, 335 ff.

80 Le poème du Gral et ses auteurs (1930), p. 91 ff.

81 Cf. also G. Cohen, loc. cit., p. 426.

82 J. D Bruce, loc. cit., i, 41 n.

83 “Tunc largitus est Beduero, pincernae suo, Estrusiam (= Neustriam), quae nunc Normannia dicitur, Kaioque dapifero Andegavensium provinciam” (Faral, loc. cit., iii, 242). Faral suggests that Geoffrey invested Key and Bedwere with those provinces in order to make possible their burials at Caen and Bayeux, two towns in which he as well as the kings of England were highly interested (loc. cit., ii, 268). It seems more likely that he wanted to give a glorious past to the rulers of Anjou and Normandy. As a follower of Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and Matilda, he backed, in his Historia Regum Britanniae, the imperialistic ambitions of the Norman reigning house and provided precedents for a female candidacy (see J. S. P. Tatlock, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, lxxix [1938], 695 ff.). He also supported Matilda's unpopular marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet by stressing the links which united Anjou with Britain.

84 M. Wilmotte, loc. cit., p. 91.

85 W. A. Nitze, Modern Philology, xxxvii, 315. For a complete discussion of this problem, see W. A. Nitze, Manly Anniversary Studies, pp. 300–314, and William Roach, The Didot-Perceval (1941), p. 128.