Abstract
The episode of the Chastel de Pesme Aventure, in Chrétien de Troyes’s Le Chevalier au lion, is well known for the presence of a passage that is the subject of a debate among critics: three hundred women, underpaid and malnourished, are condemned to weave silk. Chrétien was the first to introduce the motif of forced weaving into the romance genre, but it has been accepted by a small number of epigonic romans: up to now, it has only been recognized in the Continuation Gauvain, the Merveilles de Rigomer and the Jaufre. However, while introducing changes, these three romances continue to insist on the coercive nature of the practice of weaving. The present essay aims to highlight the existence of two other romances which are linked to the episode of Pesme Aventure or which present a reference to silk weaving, that is to say Floriant et Florete and Reinbert. However these two, unlike the first three that judge the weaving work negatively, cast a positive light on it. For this reason, the study also aims to try to provide an explanation regarding the change in attitude towards weaving. We will see that it probably depends on the importance of textile production in the territories from which the two texts come.
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