Poet, storyteller, trouvère Writing 1160-1190
Crétien de Troyes was a trouvère at the court of Marie de Champagne - trouvères were poet-composers from Northern France writing in old French (while travelling troubadours, from Southern France, sang stories in everyday French.)
He told tales of chivalry and romance at the court of King Arthur, and wrote down 5 of these tales as epic poems, all in singable 8 syllable rhyming couplets: Erec and Enide, Cligès, Yvain the Knight of the Lion, Lancelot the Knight of the Cart, and Perceval, the Story of the Grail. Perceval was unfinished, and later unnamed poets continued the tale.
The tales of Caradoc are part of the First Continuation of Perceval, written c1200. Baring Gould placed the Caradoc tales in Callington.
Crétien’s work was very popular, influential French literature.
Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France translated by Ross C Arthur. (First Continuation of Perceval translated into English)
The Continuations of the Old French Perceval ed William Roach
://books.google.co.uk/books?id=v1ErEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA169&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Image: Engraving thought to be a representation of Crétien de Troyes in his work studio, Bibliothèque nationale de France
