Book IX · TREVREZENT, part 15 of 16
¶The following parallels will show that this Angevin element, though strongest in the first two books (those peculiar to Wolfram's version), is to be clearly traced even in the presentment of what we know to be traditional features of the story.
¶THE ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF ANJOU
¶WOLFRAM ANGEVIN TRADITION
¶In Book I. the origin of the Ascribes their origin to the Angevin family is traced to the marriage of one of the early marriage of Mazadan with the fairy Counts with a lady of surpassing Terre-de-la-schoie. The fairy beauty, whose demon origin was origin of the race is referred to discovered by her inability to again in Books II. and VIII., the remain in church during Mass. later allusion being in connection It was to the influence of this with Vergulacht, son of Gamuret's ancestress that the uncontrollable sister, and cousin to hero. temper of the Angevin princes was ascribed. Richard Coeur-de-lion is reported to have frequently said, 'We came from the Devil, and we go back to the Devil.' (In each instance it will be noted that the supernatural element is introduced by the wife.)
¶GAMURET FULK V. OF ANJOU
¶Younger son of the King of Anjou; Son of Fulk IV. (Rechin), and brought up at the court of French Bertalda de Montfort. His mother queen; goes to the East where eloped with, and married, Philip, he marries a Moorish queen, and king of France. She remained becomes king of an Eastern kingdom.on good terms with her former husband, and, Fulk, having already an heir by a previous wife, was allowed to bring up her son at her own court. The elder brother dying, Fulk became his father's heir, and finally succeeded him. In 1129, after the marriage of his son, Geoffrey, with the Empress Maud, Fulk was invited by Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, to become his son-in-law and successor. Accordingly he resigned Anjou to Geoffrey, went to Jerusalem, where he married Melesinda, daughter and heiress to Baldwin, and, after the death of the latter, succeeded him as king, and reigned till his death in 1142. (Here again we note that, in each instance, the Eastern kingdom is won through the wife.)
¶Gamuret's first recorded deed A similar incident is recorded of of valour is the conquest, in Geoffrey I. (Grisegonelle) who, single combat, of Heuteger, the during the siege of Paris by the Scotchman, who appears every Danes in 978, overthrew a gigantic morning before the gates of Northman named Ethelwulf, who Patelamunt, to challenge the daily challenged the besieged in besieged knights. the manner recounted in the poem. Later historians cast doubts on the truth of this story, but it appears in all the old chronicles, and was undoubtedly firmly believed in by the writers of the twelfth century.
¶HERZELEIDE THE EMPRESS MAUDE
¶Widow, queen of two kingdoms, and Widow, Empress, Lady of two Lands, marries Prince of Anjou. England and Normandy, marries Count of Anjou.
¶Her son is subsequently deprived Her son is deprived of these two of these kingdoms by the action kingdoms by the action of two of one knight, Book III. p. 73, brothers Theobald and Stephen of two brothers, Ibid. p. 80. Blois. Though Stephen was the This loss of two kingdoms by the principal aggressor, it must not action of Lähelein is insisted be forgotten that Theobald, the on throughout the poem, and the elder brother, was invited by reader should note the manner the Normans to become their Duke in which Lähelein, though only on the death of Henry I.; but on appearing in the Second Book, is arriving in Normandy, and finding constantly referred to; which that Stephen had already seized seems to indicate that the writer the crown of England, Theobald attached a special importance to resigned his claim to the Duchy this character, cf. Book III. pp. and threw in his lot with that 86 and 87; V. pp. 150, 154; VI. of Stephen. An English writer pp. 171, 188; VII. p. 196; IX. p. (such as Mapes) would probably 272. (It may be noted that in no have overlooked the part played by other version of the legend is a Theobald. An Angevin, knowing previous marriage of the hero's the Counts of Blois to be the mother recorded.) hereditary foes of the House of Anjou, would hardly fail to record the fact that both brothers were concerned in the usurpation of the rights of Henry Fitz-Empress.
¶THE RED KNIGHT THE RED KNIGHT
¶The Red Knight as represented in This character is of course the poem, mounted before the gates traditional, but the special of Nantes, in red armour, with red presentment of it in the hair. Parzival seems to be owing to Angevin influence. In 1048 William of Normandy, being at war with, Geoffrey II. of Anjou and besieging Domfront, sent him the following curious challenge: 'If the Count of Anjou attempts to bring victuals into Domfront he will find me awaiting him without the gates armed and mounted, bearing a red shield, and having a pennon on my spear wherewith to wipe his face.'
¶Red hair was a distinguishing characteristic of the Angevin Counts. Fulk I. derived his name of Rufus from this peculiarity, which was inherited by many of his descendants, among them Fulk V., his son Geoffrey Plantagenet, and his grandson Henry Fitz-Empress. The writer of the Parzival strongly insists on Ither's red hair.
¶NANTES NANTES
¶Nantes, throughout the poem, is The possession of the city of always treated as Arthur's chief Nantes was a constant source of city. Karidöl is scarcely referred quarrel between the Counts of to, the Round Table is kept at Anjou and their neighbours of Nantes, and in Book X. we are told Brittany. Time after time the that Arthur's palace was there. former claimed the over-lordship This is not the case in other of Nantes, which stood just beyond versions of the story. their frontier, and more than once they succeeded in making themselves masters of the coveted territory. To represent Nantes as Arthur's chief city, and Ither as claiming it, would be an alteration of the legend most natural in an Angevin writer.
¶Book IX. relates that Kiot sought Britain, France, and Ireland were for records of the Grail race in all brought into close connection the chronicles of Britain, France, under Henry Fitz-Empress, Count of and Ireland, and found the history Anjou, Duke of Normandy, and King at last in the chronicle of Anjou. of England, the husband of Eleanor of Provence and Aquitaine, who conquered Ireland in 1172.
¶The peculiar presentment of the Knights of the Grail as Templars (Templeisen), having their residence in a castle surrounded by a forest, recalls the fact that a close connection between the Order of Templars and the House of Anjou had existed for some time previous to the date of this poem, a tax for the benefit of the Order having been imposed on all his dominions by Fulk V. on his return from his first pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1120. A community of Knights Templars was founded by Henry Fitz-Empress fifty years later at Vaubourg, in the forest of Roumare which became very famous. (The location of Monsalväsch in the Pyrenees hardly seems to accord with the indications of the poem, which make it only thirty-six hours' ride from Nantes.)