What could be more instructive than a chivalric romance
King at the deepest sea,
He sees fish scurrying back and forth;
Because of the burning lamps they are so afraid
That they dare not approach, but return.
The biggest, the bravest - in the front row -
Grabbing a small one, they always swallow it,
And when she slips away, they set a trap for her.
"The Romance of Alexander"
translation from Old French by Marina Lushchenko
He sees fish scurrying back and forth;
Because of the burning lamps they are so afraid
That they dare not approach, but return.
The biggest, the bravest - in the front row -
Grabbing a small one, they always swallow it,
And when she slips away, they set a trap for her.
"The Romance of Alexander"
translation from Old French by Marina Lushchenko
History and culture. With what only sources on the history of the Middle Ages, we have not met here. These are bibles, and psalters, and collections of popular poems - it's just right to make a real library. But... so far we haven't told anything about... medieval chivalric romances, yes, those same novels that Don Quixote of La Mancha, known to everyone, was a little crazy about. Meanwhile, this genre was extremely popular at that time! And he was born almost simultaneously with the knighthood of England, France and Germany, and these novels were written, both in verse and in prose. Their second name is “courtly novels”.
It should be noted that with its appearance, the chivalric romance marked the beginning of conscious fiction and individual creativity, and as a result, it became the pinnacle of medieval narrative literature. "Books about knights" embodied the medieval man's dream of happiness, gave him a sense of spiritual strength, strengthened his will in the fight against evil.
The French called the term "roman" arrangements into "Romance", that is, the Old French language, of various heroic and love stories. Such "novels" opposed literature in Latin, and the national heroic epic, and "songs about exploits", because there was too much fabulous and fantastic in them. But the “novel” was completely indifferent to the national past, and there was no question of any kind of historicity in these works.
Apparently, the very first chivalric novel is the Romance of Alexander, which was a medieval adaptation of the Greek History of Alexander the Great. The first works appeared at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, but little of them has survived to our time.
In 1180, an already significant work by Alexander of Paris appeared, telling about the life of Alexander the Great. It contains four parts, of which the first tells about the youth of Alexander and, in particular, about his knighthood, the second tells about the war with the Persian king Darius, the third is the largest, describes the victory over Darius and the Indian king Por, wonderful travels in the depths of the sea and the sky. It also describes the monsters encountered when crossing the Indian desert; the enchanted forest of flower maidens; prophetic trees of the Sun and Moon and encounters with various fantastic creatures, including the Amazons. The last part tells about the poisoning of Alexander and his death.
The novel is exceptionally multifaceted: it contains numerous epic motifs (initiation into knights, fights and battles), and edification in the “morality” style, and it is also, of course, a real adventure novel that traces the whole fate of such an extraordinary personality as was Alexander. It is very important that the novel was repeatedly rewritten and redesigned by miniaturists.
So, for example, a version of the novel of the first quarter of the XNUMXth century, written in French, has come down to us, which is currently stored within the walls of the British Library. Perhaps this is the most colorfully illuminated manuscript among all the others, and it is his miniatures that will serve as illustrations for us.
It is clear that although Alexander the Great is described in them, we will not see anything ancient Greek in them. But on the other hand, they depict the equipment of warriors of the early XNUMXth century very well and simply wonderfully draw all kinds of fantastic creatures with which Alexander supposedly had to deal.
Alexander throws King Porus to the ground. Miniature from the manuscript "The Book and True History of the Good King Alexander", 1400-1420. Paris. British Library, London
All the military scenes depicted in the novel are highly accurate, although the use of the "toad head" tournament helmet in battle raises certain doubts.
Alexander fights with the army of King Por
Alexander defeats King Pausanias
Battle with the Persians
Alexander's army in front of the city of King Darius. Draw attention to the bows in the hands of the archers. But that's just how they should have been at that time!
Alexander's warriors are fighting... a hippopotamus!
The great Alexander had to fight with lions in his campaigns. At least that's what the author of the novel thought.
In this miniature, Alexander is already fighting with one-eyed cyclops
Alexander burns the wild man
And here he has to fight sword-horned people, whose horn, like a steel blade, grew right in the middle of their foreheads. Needless to say, the fantasies of the author of the novel here can only be envied!
It is quite natural that the author in his narration could not do without monsters. However, it seemed to him that one head was not enough, and he provided them with two, and even with eyes all over the body!
Alexander and the elephants This is how a medieval artist imagined them...
And during his campaign, Alexander met wild hairy women
Of course, The Romance of Alexander, for all its popularity, was not the only romance of chivalry. In fact, a lot of them were written, both in verse and in prose, so lovers of such reading had something to read at that time. In addition, many novels at that time were anonymous, in particular, such a novel as "The Daughter of Count Ponthieu" - the first French chivalric novel in prose, dating back to the beginning of the XNUMXth century, of a very, very curious content.
During a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the heroine of the novel and her husband are attacked by robbers, and the woman is raped. Fortunately, the robbers did not kill anyone, but robbed and left them in the middle of the road. And here the heroine, instead of untying her husband, tries to kill him, because, in her opinion, he is disgraced. She, however, fails to do this, but her father and her husband throw her in a barrel into the sea.
Naturally, the Flemish sailors save her, and she herself ends up with the Sultan of Almeria and ... becomes his wife. In turn, Count Ponthieu, together with the husband of the heroine of the novel, are captured by the Saracens, but she saves them, flees from her husband, the Sultan, and all three of them return to France.
The fate of a woman who was slandered, but who restored her good name, is also the content of the poetic "Romance of the Rose, or Guillaume of Dole", the first half of the XNUMXth century, truver Jean Renard.
The main character of the novel is the poor "knight of one shield" Guillaume, that is, he is a knight who does not have land ownership. Emperor Konrad falls in love with his sister Lienora, about whose beauty and good nature he is told by his juggler Zhugle. However, the insidious seneschal convinces the emperor that he saw a mole in the form of a blossoming rose on Lienora's thigh, that is, he discredits her innocence. But Lienora sets a cunning trap for the vile seneschal and thus restores her good name. In the end, everything ends well for both Lienora and her brother, the poor knight.
"The Romance of the Castellan of Kusi" - a chivalric novel by a certain Jacquemes, also appeared in the 70s of the XIII century. In it, the poor knight and poet Renault falls in love with a noble lady, the wife of the noble lord de Fayel. He excels at tournaments, sings love songs to the lady of the heart, and she reciprocates. However, a certain lady from Vermandois, who, for her part, is secretly in love with Renault, but in vain seeking him, decides to tell Señor Fayel about everything, and thereby destroy both lovers. Having learned about everything, the seigneur declares that he is going to go on a crusade, and his wife should accompany him on this campaign (a very common phenomenon at that time when noble ladies accompanied their husbands on campaigns).
However, he then suddenly pretends to be ill and thus remains in his castle, and Reno goes to the Holy Land alone. There, in a battle with the Saracens, he is wounded by a poisoned arrow. Doctors are unable to save him, and he dies on the way to France. The faithful servant Renaud Gobert must hand over to his beloved the box containing the heart of his master and his message to her, and a strand of her golden hair, which adorned his knight's shield during the campaign.
However, the box gets to the jealous husband and he orders to cook an exquisite roast from the heart of the hero, which he presents to his unfaithful wife at dinner, and then tells her what exactly she ate. In response, his wife declares that from now on she will not touch any other dish at all. And then the lord immures her in a room where she dies of starvation. Only after that he goes to the Holy Land, where he also finds death in battle with the infidels.
“Zhegan and Blonda” is a typical chivalric novel by Philippe de Remy, ca. 1210-1262, in which everything ends well in the end, and everyone "lives happily ever after."
And the plot of this novel is as follows: the poor knight Zhegan is forced to pledge his property, since his father, participating in feudal wars, squandered all the family wealth. And he had a large family - four sons and two daughters. All of them are threatened with grief and poverty, and it was then that the eldest of them, Zhegan, went overseas to England, where he entered the service of the Earl of Oxford as a servant.
Naturally, he immediately falls in love with the count's daughter Blond, and she, in turn, reciprocates. True, there is already a contender for Blonda's hand - the Duke of Gloucester. A young man and a girl have to run away from him. However, Zhegan manages to defeat his rival and, having received a fortune, buy back his hereditary fief, and also marry his sisters, place brothers in honorary court positions and reward all his faithful servants well.
An even more intricate and fabulous story is brought out in the "Roman of the Violet or of Gerard Nevers". This medieval courtly novel was written between 1227 and 1229. trouveur Gerber de Montreuil, and in an ironic tone, ridiculing chivalric literature. There are two illuminated manuscripts of the 1467th century that belonged to King Philip III the Good. Both of them are written in Gothic script and were found during the inventory of the library of the Duke of Burgundy, carried out in 1469-XNUMX. Today one of them is in the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels, and the second, which appeared later, is kept in the National Library of France in Paris.
Lizard de Forez spies on Orianta. Drawing from the manuscript of the work of Loise Liede and Guyot d'Augerance (and someone else once wrote to me in the comments that naked women were not depicted in medieval manuscripts. They also portrayed how! National Library of France
The content of the novel is as follows: Count Gerard of Nevers, being at the court of King Louis VIII in the Norman town of Pont de l'Arche, publicly speaks of the love of Lady Orianta, his chosen one, for him. Count Lizard de Forez offers him a bet that he can easily seduce Orianta, and Gerard agrees to this. De Forez goes to the castle of Orianta's father and seduces her in every possible way, but without success. But then her old maid Gondra comes to the rescue - for some reason, apparently, the girl did not please her. She makes a hole in the wall of the room where she takes Orianth's bath and thus enables him to see the birthmark on her chest in the shape of a violet flower.
A malevolent maid is making a hole in the wall... An illustration from The Romance of the Violet. Painter Jean Vavrin, 1451-1464 Belgian Royal Library, Brussels
Naturally, de Forez immediately declares that he seduced Orianta and won the bet. Gerard de Nevers loses his county by the condition of a bet and in anger lures his beloved into the forest to slit her throat there. In the forest, they are attacked by a dragon, whom Gerard immediately defeats, but repents of his malicious intent and saves Orianthe's life.
And this is how the pages of this novel look, by the way, with very original illustrations ...
Then Gerard manages to overhear the conversation between Lizard and Gondra, from which he learns that she is innocent and fell victim to a conspiracy. Then he goes to look for her, but falls ill, and recovering from his illness, he ends up in Cologne, which is attacked by the Saxons. Gerard helps to repel them and with his courage, courtesy and beauty captivates the daughter of the Duke of Eglantine, who decides to intoxicate the brave knight with a love potion so that he forgets Orianta.
At this time, Orianta loses the ring given to her by Gerard. He is carried away by a lark, and she herself rejects the harassment of the knight Melathir. He in retaliation accuses her of killing a woman. For which she is sentenced to be burned at the stake.
Lizard peeps on Orianta while bathing. For a noble knight and count, such an occupation should have been simply unacceptable!
Meanwhile, Gerard, who has forgotten his past, is going to marry Eglantina, but then he meets a lark with a ring around his neck, his memory returns to him and ... he finds another suitor for Eglantina, and he leaves Cologne. On the way, he defeats the giant Brudigolan and learns about the sad fate of his beloved.
He immediately gets to where she is imprisoned before execution, challenges her accuser to a duel, and he, being defeated, confesses to the slander. Now Gerard is looking for de Forez, also defeats him in the tournament and denounces him before the king.
As a result, Lizard de Forez was forced to confess his crime. For which, by order of the king, he was tied to the tail of a horse, and they drove it around the city until he died, after which his corpse was hung on a tree. The unfaithful governess Gondra was boiled alive in a cauldron, while Gerard of Nevers and the beautiful Orianthe were united by marriage!
Around 1230, a voluminous prose novel about Tristan and Isolde was also created, the action of which is already unfolding simultaneously in the court of King Mark, Isolde's husband and uncle Tristan, as well as in the court of King Arthur, with Tristan bred by one of the Knights of the Round Table and busy searching for the legendary Grail.
Very often, the theme of illustrations of medieval chivalric novels was tournament fights, and why this is so is quite understandable. Here, for example, is an image of one such fight from the "Romance of Tristan" 1410-1420. National Library of Austria, Vienna
Another anonymous French prose chivalric novel about tragic love, La Belle Magelona, was written around 1438. Its plot is as follows: the son of the Count of Provence - Pierre learns about the beauty of the daughter of the Neapolitan king Magelona. He goes to Italy, captivates her heart and kidnaps, but an accident separates them. Here Pierre is captured by the Saracens, and they take him overseas, to the court of the Sultan, where he becomes ... his close and confidant. Magelona, dressed as a pilgrim, arranges a hospice and a hospital for the poor in Provence. And now, many years later, sick Pierre ends up in this shelter, not even suspecting that it is here that he will find his beautiful Magelona.
Well, one of the last preprinted chivalric novels is The Romance of Jean Parisian, a novel by an anonymous author, which was created in France at the very end of the 1494th century between November 1495 and December XNUMX ...
In any case, all these novels, although naive in our modern opinion, for the people of the Middle Ages were the most interesting and in many ways instructive reading, while the miniatures helped readers to visualize their content.
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