in the art of poetry as practised by Chretien and his
contemporary craftsmen (see "Some Features of Style in Early
French Narrative Poetry, 1150-1170 in "Modern Philology", iii.,
179-209; iii., 513-539; iv., 655-675). Poets in his own land
refer to him with reverence, and foreign poets complimented him
to a high degree by direct translation and by embroidering upon
the themes which he had made popular. The knights made famous by
Chretien soon crossed the frontiers and obtained rights of
citizenship in counties so diverse as Germany, England,
Scandinavia, Holland, Italy, and to a lesser extent in Spain and
Portugal. The inevitable tendency of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries to reduce poetry to prose affected the
Arthurian material; vast prose compilations finally embodied in
print the matter formerly expressed in verse, and it was in this
form that the stories were known to later generations until
revived interest in the Middle Ages brought to light the
manuscripts in verse.

Aside from certain episodes of Chretien's romances, the student
will be most interested in the treatment of love as therein
portrayed. On this topic we may hear speaking the man of his
time. "Cliges" contains the body of Chretien's doctrine of love,
while Lancelot is his most perfect lover. His debt to Ovid has
not yet been indicated with sufficient preciseness. An elaborate
code to govern sentiment and its expression was independently
developed by the troubadours of Provence in the early twelfth
century. These Provencal ideals of the courtly life were carried
into Northern France partly as the result of a royal marriage in
1137 and of the crusade of 1147, and there by such poets as
Chretien they were gathered up and fused with the Ovidian