. A contemporary and rival of Chrétien de Troyes, Gautier d’Arras identifies himself in two romances as a writer linked to important political and literary courts: Eracle was begun for Thibaut V of Blois and his sister-in-law, Countess Marie de Champagne, then completed and dedicated to Baudouin de Hainaut (if Baudouin IV, probable dates are 1164–71; if Baudouin V, somewhat later). Ille et Galeron, begun after Eracle but possibly finished before it (ca. 1167–70), praises the empress Beatrice de Bourgogne (d. 1184), for whom he started the romance (Chrétien may allude ironically to Gautier’s praise in his prologue to the Charrette), The romance was completed for Count Thibaut. The poet may be the same man as the Gautier d’Arras who was an officer at the court of Philippe d’Alsace and signed many documents between 1160 and 1185.
Eracle is a hagiographical romance in octosyllabic rhymed couplets that offers a biography of Heraclius, the Roman emperor who recovered from King Cosdroes of Persia and placed in Jerusalem a piece of the Holy Cross. The first half, probably based on oral legends and popular tales, which Gautier weaves together with as much coherence and vraisemblance as possible, tells how Eracle uses his miraculous gifts in the service of the Emperor of Rome: Eracle is a perfect judge of jewels, horses, and women. When the emperor must go away, he places his young and beautiful wife, Athanaïs, in a tower under close surveil lance. The inevitable happens when she falls in love and manages to start a liaison with Paridés. Eracle informs the emperor and convinces him to unite the two lovers. The second half, based on written sources and more historical in orientation, retells the legend of the cross and St. Cyriacus, to whom is dedicated the main church at Provins in Champagne, and Eracle’s expedition, after he himself had become emperor, to return the holy relic to Jerusalem. Gautier thus makes available to a courtly public Latin texts and religious legends worked into a narrative whose use of adventure and the marvelous clearly locates it within the domain of romance, as does the importance given to love in the Athenaïs episode (4,319 lines out of 6,593).
Though apparently part of the matière de Bretagne, Ille et Galeron retains the Roman and Byzantine orientation of Eracle, as it retells and transforms the familiar tale of a man with two wives. Chased out of Brittany, the young Ille takes refuge in France. Knighted, he returns and reconquers his family lands, for which he pays homage to Conain, count of Brittany. Ille falls in love with Galeron, Conain’s sister. Their love is mutual, but the difference in their social rank poses an obstacle, until Ille’s military service elevates him to the post of seneschal and marriage with Galeron. When Ille subsequently loses an eye (in a tournament according to one manuscript, a battle in another), he fears the loss of Galeron’s love, steals away, and fights as mercenary for the Emperor of Rome. Given his prowess, Ille quickly becomes seneschal of Rome and inspires love in Ganor, the emperor’s daughter. Galeron, who has searched fruitlessly for her husband, now lives secretly in Rome in the greatest misery. When offered Ganor’s hand in marriage, Ille reveals that he is married; only if Galeron cannot be found will he marry Ganor. Just as that ceremony is about to be celebrated, Galeron recognizes her husband. When Galeron assures Ille of her continuing love, they return to Brittany. Their happy life is interrupted when Galeron makes a vow to become a nun, if she survives the difficult birth of a third child. Ille grieves, but is called to fulfill his promise to aid Ganor, now empress and under attack by the Emperor of Constantinople. Ille triumphs, he and Ganor are married in Rome and live happily with their own children and those of the first marriage.
Comparison with Marie de France’s Eliduc, a lai that either furnishes Gautier’s model or has a common source, reveals how Gautier has significantly reworked a short tale into an episodic romance whose two parts are clearly related through the key event: Ille’s loss of an eye furnishes a crisis that resembles one of the love judgments reported in Andreas Capellanus’s De amore: can love survive disfigurement? This event and the exploration of Ille’s psychology before and after the crisis keep the romance plot squarely situated within the realm of the possible. The marvelous death and rebirth described in Eliduc are eliminated, as Gautier d’Arras places his art in the service of mimetic realism. Gautier thus appears as a kind of link between Chrétien and Jean Renart, as Fourrier has suggested. In elaborating the episodes that fill in Ille’s story, Gautier demonstrates his ability to reuse materials from a variety of literary traditions (chansons de geste, saints’ lives, Énéas). A narrator clearly able to please his audience, Gautier d’Arras plays an important role in the development of a romance tradition oriented toward realism, psychological interest, and contemporary life.
Gautier d’Arras. Eracle, ed. Guy Raynaud de Lage. Paris: Champion, 1976.
——. Ille et Galeron, ed. Yves Lefèvre. Paris: Champion, 1988.
Calin, William. “Structure and Meaning in Eracle by Gautier d’Arras.” Symposium 16(1962):275–87.
Fourrier, Antoine. Le courant réaliste dans le roman courtois en France au moyen âge. Paris: Nizet, 1960, Vol. 1: Les débuts (XIIe siècle).
Haidu, Peter. “Narrativity and Language in Some Twelfth Century Romances.” Yale French Studies 51(1974):133–46.
Nykrog, Per. “Two Creators of Narrative Form in Twelfth Century France: Gautier d’Arras and Chrétien de Troyes.” Speculum 48(1973):258–76.
Zumthor, Paul. “L’écriture et la voix: Le roman d’Eracle.” In The Craft of Fiction: Essays on Medieval Poetics, ed. Leigh Arrathoon. Rochester: Solaris, 1984, pp. 161–209.
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