Novel
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart
Le Chevalier de la charrette
Chrétien de Troyes · 1180
Synopsis
Meleagant, son of King Bademagu, abducts Queen Guinevere and carries her off to the kingdom of Gorre. Gawain and a knight whose name long remains unspoken set out in search of her. Having lost his horse, the latter agrees, after hesitating for the space of two steps, to climb into a dwarf's cart, reserved for condemned men; Gawain refuses and follows on horseback. Mocked wherever he passes, the knight escapes the trap of a bed, then must cross the sword bridge, a sharp blade that divides Gorre from the rest of the world.
Context
Composed between about 1176 and 1181, the romance was commissioned by Marie de Champagne, to whom the prologue attributes the matter and meaning of the story. Chrétien did not finish it: the clerk Godefroi de Leigni wrote its last part, with his agreement. Written in octosyllabic verse, it gives a famous example of fin'amor, or courtly love, in which the knight submits to the will of his lady. None of the manuscripts that preserved it bears a title; in 1958 Mario Roques published an edition following the copy made by Guiot, from the early thirteenth century.
Who it is for
To read the romance that makes Lancelot Guinevere's lover, ready to endure every humiliation for his lady.
Prizes and reception
On the French première syllabus for 2026-2027, it was translated into English by D. D. R. Owen in 1988, Burton Raffel in 1997, then Kibler and Carroll in 2004.