Four Arthurian Romances: Erec et Enide -- Cliges -- Yvain or, The Knight with the Lion -- Lancelot or, The Knight of the Cart

Chretien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvere who flourished in the late 12th century. Little is known of his life, but he seems to have been from Troyes, or at least intimately connected with it, and between 1160 and 1172 he served at the court of his patroness Marie of France, Countess of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, perhaps as herald-at-arms (as Gaston Paris speculated). His work on Arthurian subjects represents some of the best regarded of medieval literature. Chreti...