by Chrétien de Troyes (1181 AD)
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The following essay was first published in August 2023 under the title “The Invention of Love” as part of the eBook collection Reynarlemagne, and Miscellanea. It is currently available as part of The Early Prose.
“What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”
The above quote is from the first episode of the first season of the television show Mad Men, and it is spoken by Don Draper, the show’s main character. Whatever one may think of the words, they are wrong in a rather interesting way, which is that of incorrectly identifying the reason for love’s invention. As for inventor, love as we know it, which is formally termed “true love,” was invented by a man named Chretien de Troyes in the year 1177, and one may decide for oneself how alike he was to Don Draper.
About Chretien, beyond his name and works, we know very little. If we remember the time of the man’s life, this lack of knowledge should not be surprising, and we should, instead, take it as a sign of Chretien’s popularity that all his major works, except his first, survive to us in full. Moreover, at the time of Chretien’s death, his final work, Perceval, the Story of the Grail, was left uncompleted, and there quickly sprung up a number of continuations, sequels, and prequels, each a testament to the skill of the original author.
Here, however, what concerns us is one of the middle books of that literary titan—namely, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. In this work, Chretien invents love as we know it, and to term his creation an invention is, indeed, correct. After all, for the half millennium before Chretien, ever since the Fall of Rome, European women existed in a rather reduced state—relative, that is, to a woman of similar station during the prior days of Rome or the coming days of Renaissance. As it happened, toxic femininity being generally regarded as the cause of Rome’s downfall, Europe’s women found themselves reduced to the straits of society, confined in the most narrow compass, and thus, for the hundreds of years following the Fifth Century, they lived the most limited lives that they ever have.
Chretien, through his writing, changed this state of affairs. The word “love” is, of course, to be found before Chretien, but in such cases, certainly in the surrounding time, love was but a part of social convention, an emotion that had its proper role in society and should be properly followed. After Chretien, however, love became that which transcended society’s rules, not that which gladly bound itself by them. In short, what might be called “courtly love” gave way to “true love,” which still, to this day, reigns as our means of understanding the feeling.
In the first pages of Lancelot, we are treated to the love distinction that Chretien wishes to make clear. King Arthur knows that his wife, Guinevere, will be in danger if he allows her to accompany Kay, his Seneschal, to the challenge of the strange knight Meleagant, who rode into court demanding combat. However, because Kay went through the proper social conventions in his asking, Arthur cannot refuse, and thus, his courtly love for his wife compels him to send forth Guinevere.
At this point in the story, Lancelot, the true lover of Guinevere, has not yet made an appearance, but as she is mounting her palfrey in order to obey the commands of courtly love, Guinevere utters a sigh after her beloved, expressing the fact that he would never be so cold as to suffer her to be thrust a single step into peril. The difference made apparent to us is that the courtly lover, such as Arthur, will hazard his wife, should convention demand it, but the true lover, such as Lancelot, would never so endanger his heart.
Here, therefore, in the work’s opening, we are treated to a taste of its theme, and shortly after, we are provided with another distinction between courtly and true love. This second instance involves Gawain, the nephew of Arthur and the man universally regarded as the most knightly of Arthur’s knights. While chasing after Guinevere and her abductor, Gawain happens to come across Lancelot, who makes his first appearance in the book by way of being seen riding his horse to death in pursuit of Guinevere. Gawain provides Lancelot with a new horse, and the latter then restarts his feverish pursuit, quickly disappearing into the distance.
When Gawain catches up to Lancelot, he finds the scene of a recent battle, including the horse that he had lately given, now dead. Lancelot, too, he comes upon, and he finds the knight without horse and fully armored, though still moving in the direction of Guinevere. At the time of Gawain’s arrival, Lancelot has approached a horse-driven cart, and he is imploring the vehicle’s driver for any information regarding Guinevere.
Here, Chretien makes a necessary digression from the plot in order to inform us that, in those days, carts functioned as pillories, and they were used to make public spectacle of a criminal. Thus, to ride in a cart is one of the most shameful things that a knight can do, and knowing this, the cart-driver tells Lancelot that the only way for him to learn anything of Guinevere is to allow himself to be driven in the cart. Lancelot, chided by reason, though compelled by love, consents, and Chretien comments with the following:
Reason, who does not follow Love’s command, told Lancelot to beware of getting in the cart, and admonished and counseled him not to do anything for which he might incur disgrace or reproach. Reason, who dared tell him this, spoke from the lips, not from the heart; but Love, who held sway within his heart, urged and commanded him to climb into the cart at once. Because Love ordered and wished it, he jumped in; since Love ruled his action, the disgrace did not matter.
In these words, we see that true love, as invented by Chretien, transcends not merely all social conventions but reason itself. Lancelot here condescends to the lowest act in which Chretien is able to display him, a state to which courtly love would never expect one to descend. True love is so strong that it does not care for the worldly disgrace incurred from doing the world’s idea of the disgraceful; for it has a higher calling.
Lancelot rides the cart to the next town, and by doing so, he becomes known as the “Knight of the Cart,” the nickname that titles his story and by which he is jeered throughout. Indeed, this universal mocking starts immediately, and it comes from every corner, remaining unabating. In fact, in this first town in the pursuit after Guinevere, the first woman whom the pair of knights come across takes the first occasion to shame Lancelot for what he has done, and for all the honor that she shows Gawain, she shows the opposite for Lancelot.
A particularly meaningful scene occurs when Lancelot, from an upper window of the young woman’s house, happens to see the captive Guinevere being led through the streets below. Lancelot gazes after Guinevere, and Chretien writes:
When he could no longer see her, he wanted to throw himself from the window and shatter his body on the ground below; he was already half out of the window when my lord Gawain saw him and, after dragging him back inside, said to him: “For pity’s sake, sir, calm down! For the love of God, never think of doing such a foolish thing again; you’re wrong to hate your life!”
“No, it is right he should,” countered the woman; “for won’t the news of his disgrace in the cart be known to all? He certainly should want to be killed; for he’s better off dead than living. Henceforth, his life is shamed, scorned, and wretched.”
Here, we see our two discussed aspects melded together; for Lancelot, having almost killed himself in his longing for Guinevere, is presumed by those present to have nearly gone out the window in shame over being known as the Knight of the Cart. Thus, Gawain and the woman, each a courtly lover, simply do not understand the underpinnings of Lancelot, himself a true lover.
Hereafter, adventure intercedes in the story, though the theme of the true love between Lancelot and Guinevere remains ever present. Often happening, too, are taunts from stranger to stranger regarding Lancelot’s cart riding; for the world is not quick to forget the disgrace that has been incurred.
Eventually, Lancelot finds his way to the town where Guinevere is being held, and after much preamble, he duels with her captor to secure her release. Victorious, Lancelot is finally able to speak with she whom he has been chasing, and Guinevere is, for her part, made aware of her deliverance. Upon their meeting, however, when both Lancelot and Reader expect a touching and tender scene, Guinevere is cold to the man who is, at once, her lover and rescuer, going so far as to depart his presence.
Initially, the conclusion that Lancelot reaches is that Guinevere, as both a proper noble and queen, has heard of his cart riding, and he assumes that she must now be as disgusted with him as is the rest of the world. Scorned as he seems to be, Lancelot laments as follows:
My God! What could my crime have been? I think that perhaps she knew that I climbed into the cart. I don’t know what else she could have held against me. This alone was my undoing. But if she hated me for this crime—O God! How could this have damned me? Anyone who would hold this against me never truly knew Love; for no one could describe anything that is prompted by Love as contemptible. On the contrary, whatever one might do for one’s sweetheart should be considered an act of love and courtliness…I think that I know this much of love: If she had loved me, she would not have esteemed me the less for this act, but would have called me her true love, since it seemed to me honorable to do anything for her that love required, even to climb into the cart. She should have ascribed this to Love, its true source. Thus does Love test her own, and thus does she know her own. But I knew that this service did not please my lady by the manner of her welcome. Yet it was for her alone that her lover performed this deed for which he has often been shamed, reproached, and falsely blamed. I have, indeed, done that for which I am blamed; and from sweetness, I grow bitter, in faith, because she has behaved like those who know nothing of Love…Those who condemn lovers know nothing of Love, and those who do not fear her commands esteem themselves above Love. There is no doubt that he who obeys Love’s command is uplifted, and all should be forgiven him. He who dares not follow Love’s command errs greatly.
Rejected, Lancelot assumes his issue to be the rift between true love and courtly love; for there would seem to be no other answer. Chretien, however, is planning for the knight one of the master strokes of world literature, and when Lancelot next finds himself in the presence of Guinevere, he finds her treatment of him to be as warm now as it was cold before. Wondering at this change, Lancelot questions his love, asking whether his cart riding was, indeed, the cause of her prior coldness, and she simply replies:
By delaying for two steps, you showed your great unwillingness to climb into the cart. That, to tell the truth, is why I didn’t wish to see you or speak with you.
Guinevere is, therefore, a true lover, after all. Indeed, we find her to be such a true lover that she is able to shame Lancelot for his lack of complete devotion. Not Lancelot’s cart riding but, instead, his momentary qualms about cart riding were behind Guinevere’s behavior, and her anger resulted from her lover’s hesitation to defy society, not his actual defying of it. This reveal by Chretien, considering both its build-up and feint, ranks among the best fiction that the world has ever seen, and one who knows the context of the work can hardly get over his awe of it.
Chretien, however, is not done; for he still has much to reveal regarding true love. After all, not long following Lancelot and Guinevere’s true-hearted meeting, the plot contrives matters such that Lancelot fights in a tournament presided over by Guinevere, and so contrived is this plot that Lancelot happens to compete as an unknown, wearing armor that makes him anonymous to all except Guinevere, who is able to sense the identity of her true lover.
On the first day of the tournament, Lancelot, as might be expected, performs admirably, and on all tongues is praise for this unknown knight who is clearly the best of them all. Guinevere, however, that afternoon, sends a message to Lancelot, offering no other information than that the Queen bids him do his worst.
Lancelot, of course, starts to perform poorly, and he becomes unhorsed by knights who, mere hours prior, would have been terrified to ride into a joust against him. Moreover, just as quickly as his performance switches, the opinion of the crowd and fellow knights changes from reverence to disdain, and by the end of the tournament’s first day, the unknown knight is universally maligned and mocked as a coward.
The tournament’s second day begins as the first ended, and Lancelot continues doing his worst. Then, however, Guinevere sends a second message to the unknown knight, and it is much the same as that of the prior day, only its opposite. Again a total of three words, the message this time is: Do your best.
Now, of course, Lancelot returns to his former self, and the unknown knight once again becomes a jousting marvel. Moreover, just as Lancelot enjoys the admiration of all other knights, Guinevere has the pleasure of watching the tournament with all the other ladies of court, and she hears their ceaseless praise in favor of the unknown knight, enjoying within herself the pleasure that he so admired actually admires her alone.
By this point, the book’s plot is nearly concluded, but there is one more scene from the book that serves our current purpose, particularly as it concerns true love’s relationship with reason, with which we already saw Lancelot struggle. The scene in question occurs just before Lancelot’s final fight with Meleagant, which ends the book, and it is the last time we see anything of Guinevere, as well. More specifically, the scene is that of Lancelot’s sudden reappearance, just in time to fight for Guinevere, when all considered him lost. As might be expected, Guinevere is enraptured by the sudden sight, but in consideration of company, she is not able to show the slightest sign of her emotion, and utilizing the utmost of her will, she does, indeed, stifle the show. As Chretien tells us:
Where, then, was the Queen’s heart? Welcoming Lancelot with kisses. Why, then, was the body reticent? Was her joy not complete? Was it laced with anger or hatred? No, indeed, not in the least; rather, she hesitated because the others present — the King and his entourage, who could see everything — would immediately perceive her love if, in sight of all, she were to do everything her heart desired. And if Reason had not subdued these foolish thoughts and this love-madness, everyone present would have understood her feeling. O height of folly! In this way, Reason encompassed and bound her foolish heart and thoughts, and brought her to her senses, postponing the full display of her affections until she could find a better and more private place where they might reach a safer harbor than they would have now.
Thus, another of true love’s facets is its secrecy, and it is a thing that should never be fully divulged outside the two lovers themselves; for letting others in on the secret is to destroy it. Unlike courtly love, which demands formal display, true love demands passionate concealment, and reason, in this case, prevails. Chretien would seem to be telling us that context ever reigns, and the exception to the rule of true love’s defiance of reason is this case of disclosure, when the choice is between disguise or destruction. After all, true love, like all things, retains its right to self-preservation, remaining one degree removed from fanaticism; for the true lover, if actually on Chretien’s model, is no selfish martyr.
Here, we may as well end our investigation. There is, of course, much more that might be gleaned from Chretien’s work, but for the purpose of displaying his invention of that which we still, to this day, recognize as love, the above should suffice. If not, there is always the text itself, which is both widely available and freely translated.
To conclude, Chretien de Troyes created true love in 1177 within the pages of Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and to do so, that author truly forged the new out of the old, adopting courtly love and elevating it into that which was needed to birth the modern world. When comparing the state of European women prior to Chretien’s time with after, this accomplishment becomes particularly clear, and the Dark Ages may be said to have been slain by the knight Lancelot on behalf of Queen Guinevere.
To put the matter simply, Chretien knew that the true counter to brawn is not brains but, rather, belief. Thus, to pull society out of centuries of toxic masculinity that had risen in response to generations of toxic femininity, true love had to be created. Then, once widely believed in, true love could balance the scale of the sexes, which had swung between extremes for so long, and materialism and idealism could, in a sense, be remarried in a working partnership, having been separated since the death of Antiquity. True love, as it turned out, provided the path of progress, and someday, some similar thing may, for the same reason, be required again.