Perfection was attainable under this code of ethics: Gawain, for
example, was a perfect knight. Though the ideals of this court
and those of Christianity are in accord at many points, vet
courtly love and Christian morality are irreconcilable. This
Arthurian material, as used by Chretien, is fundamentally immoral
as judged by Christian standards. Beyond question, the poets and
the public alike knew this to be the case, and therein lay its
charm for a society in which the actual relations or the sexes
were rigidly prescribed by the Church and by feudal practice,
rather than by the sentiments of the individuals concerned. The
passionate love of Tristan for Iseut, of Lancelot for Guinevere,
of Cliges for Fenice, fascinate the conventional Christian
society of the twelfth century and of the twentieth century
alike, but there-is only one name among men for such relations as
theirs, and neither righteousness nor reason lie that way. Even
Tennyson, in spite of all he has done to spiritualise this
material, was compelled to portray the inevitable dissolution and
ruin of Arthur's court. Chretien well knew the difference
between right and wrong, between reason and passion, as the
reader of "Cliges" may learn for himself. Fenice was not Iseut,
and she would not have her Cliges to be a Tristan. Infidelity,
if you will, but not "menage a trois". Both "Erec" and "Yvain"
present a conventional morality. But "Lancelot" is flagrantly
immoral, and the poet is careful to state that for this
particular romance he is indebted to his patroness Marie de
Champagne. He says it was she who furnished him with both the
"matiere" and the "san", the material of the story and its method
of treatment.

Scholars have sought to fix the chronology of the poet's works,