ARTHURIAN TIME AND SPACE: CHRÉTIEN'S "CONTE DEL GRAAL" AND WACE'S "BRUT"

Abstract

IntroductionTwo names stand out among the most important writers of French narrative verse in the latter half of the twelfth century. 'Maistre' Wace, born on the Isle of Jersey and educated at Caen and then in the Ile-de-France (Paris or perhaps Chartres), was known first for his adaptations of hagiographical texts, the lives of SS Margaret and Nicholas, and a work on the Immaculate Conception. Later he produced two important legendary histories in service to the English royal court: the Roman de Brut (Vernacular History of Brutus), dated 1155, a history of the British people adapted from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae presented to Eleanor of Acquitaine, and an experimental Roman de Rou (Vernacular History of Rollo), a history of the dukes of Normandy in three versions (begun in 1160) commissioned by Henry II, the longest of which (11,440 verses) was left unfinished after 1174. For Arthurian studies, Wace's most significant work is the octosyllabic Brut, where, in amplified sections devoted to Uther Pendragon and his son Arthur, he introduces material not found in any known Latin sources and associates these kings' reigns with forms of courtesy that were evolving in his own times. In fact these sections of the Brut constitute the oldest surviving Arthurian matter written in French or indeed any other vernacular language.Meanwhile, Wace's much younger contemporary, Chretien de Troyes, is known to have been active in the courts of Champagne and, later, Flanders sometime between 1160 or so and 1189. Many of Chretien's earliest works were vernacular adaptations of Ovidian texts, but he later produced the first known Arthurian romance, Erec et Enide,1 written in octosyllabic verse, followed by others in the same style: Cliges, Le Chevalier de la Charrette (The Knight of the Cart or Lancelot, written under the patronage of Marie, Countess of Champagne), Le Chevalier au Lion (The Knight of the Lion or Yvain), and the uncompleted Conte del Graal (Story of the Grail or Perceval, written at the behest of Philippe d'Alsace, Count of Flanders). As we shall see, scholars are generally uncertain as to the relationship, if any, between Wace's Brut and Chretien de Troyes's Arthurian corpus as a whole. I shall argue, however, that Chretien's last romance, the Conte del Graal, is consciously - and playfully - informed by the 'Utherian' and Arthurian sections of the Brut and that, in forging intertextual links between his work and Wace's, Chretien's Grail romance heralds a new mode in the writing of legendary history.The Conte del Graal is unique among Chretien de Troyes's romances. Chretien left it incomplete, like his Charrette, yet it is by far the longest of them all; moreover, unlike the Charrette, which was completed by a single privileged clerk, no fewer than four other writers continued it or sought to bring it to a conclusion. No work by Chretien is informed to such a degree by prediegetic and extradiegetic matter - notably, in addition to customs and references to recent events, organized accounts of sacred history, the history of Britain, past and present events in communities in exile from Authur's kingdom, and, most extraordinary of all, history and current happenings in a mysterious world, that of the Grail kingdom, which remains largely hidden to those outside it, including Chretien's readers.2 No work by Chretien, not even Cliges, offers a secondary protagonist, Gauvain, who threatens to overshadow the one presumed to be predominant. Finally, no work by Chretien, perhaps with the exception of Erec et Enide,3 is to such a degree complemented by or, I would add, interacts with a work outside itself. Wace's Brut validates both Chretien's references to the history of Britain and new histories invented by him. Subsequent discussion will touch on all of the issues just mentioned, but of primary concern are the secondary prediegetic histories, most particularly those involving the reigns of Uther Pendragon and Arthur, communities in exile, and the Grail kingdom. …