Among the numerous textual parallels adduced to support this contention, especially in the second part of the poem, are Fenice’s relationships with her husband (Alis) and sweetheart (Cligés) and her expressed views on love and marriage, the nurse Thessala’s similarity to Brangien, John’s hideaway and the Hall of Images, the love potion, and lover’s lament. However, the poem is even more interesting to us for its use of irony, its balanced structure and its psychological penetration into the hearts of the two lovers. Here, as elsewhere, Chrétien shows the influence of Ovid, the most popular Classical writer throughout the twelfth century. And again Chrétien shows his ability to exploit popular material in a highly original manner.

It is now generally agreed that Cligés dates from about 1176. Although the subject matter is wholly fictional, scholars have found intriguing analogies in several of its situations to contemporary politics between 1170 and 1175. The intrigues that brought the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenus to power over his elder brother, Isaac – who, like Alexander, received only the title – are remarkably akin to the situation by which Alis comes to the throne of Constantinople rather than his older brother Alexander. In the poem, the projected marriage of Alis to the daughter of the German emperor is, mutatis mutandis, an echo of the projected marriage between Frederick Barbarossa’s son and Manuel’s only daughter, Maria. As in the poem, Frederick received the Byzantine ambassadors at Cologne. And it was at Regensburg, also evoked in the poem, that Marie de Champagne’s parents met the Byzantine ambassadors during the Second Crusade. Chrétien’s audience would not have failed to identify the fierce Duke of Saxony to whom Fenice was originally promised with Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony since 1142 and a cousin of Frederick Barbarossa, with whom he was generally at odds. In 1168 Henry the Lion was married to Mathilda of England, a half-sister of Marie de Champagne, but this did not keep Marie’s husband, Henri the Liberal, from supporting Frederick in his struggles against his cousin. Although Chrétien freely modified these events to his own artistic ends, it seems clear that the court of Marie and Henri de Champagne would have been aware of these matters and intrigued and flattered by allusions to them.

The relationship between Chrétien’s third and fourth romances, which were most likely composed in the late 1170s, is complex. There are several direct references in The Knight with the Lion to action that occurs in The Knight of the Cart, particularly to Meleagant’s abduction of Guinevere and the subsequent quest by Lancelot. Yet at the same time, the characterization of Sir Kay in the early section of The Knight of the Cart seems explicable only in terms of his abusive behaviour in The Knight with the Lion. Further, the blissful conjugal scene between Arthur and Guinevere at the beginning of The Knight with the Lion seems incomprehensible after events in The Knight of the Cart. These contradictory factors have led recent scholars to propose that the two romances were being composed simultaneously, beginning with The Knight with the Lion then breaking off to The Knight of the Cart, which itself was perhaps completed in three parts. According to this theory, as it has been progressively refined and widely accepted, Chrétien wrote the first part of The Knight of the Cart then turned it over to Godefroy de Lagny to complete. Dissatisfied with the contrast between the two sections, Chrétien himself would then have composed the tournament section to harmonize the two parts.

The Knight of the Cart tells of the adulterous relationship of Lancelot with Arthur’s queen, Guinevere. Its central theme, the acting out in romance form of a story of fin’amors, has generally been attributed to a suggestion by its dedicatee, Marie de Champagne, for it is in stark contrast to Chrétien’s other romances, which extol the virtues of marital fidelity. For this reason, scholars today often find in The Knight of the Cart extensive irony and humour, which serve to undercut the courtly love material and bring its theme in line with those of Chrétien’s other romances. Its composition, and The Knight with the Lion with it, marks an important stage in the development of Chrétien’s thought, for he turns away in these works from the couple predestined to rule to the individual who must discover his own place in society.

Many critics consider The Knight with the Lion to be Chrétien’s most perfectly conceived and constructed romance. In it he reconsiders the question of the conflict between love and valour posed in Erec, but from the opposite point of view: Yvain neglects his bride (amors) in the pursuit of glory (armes). Unlike Erec, who sets off for adventure accompanied by his bride, Yvain sets out alone upon his series of marvellous adventures in order to expiate his fault and rediscover himself. He eventually meets up with a lion which, among other possible symbolic roles, is certainly emblematic of his new self.

Chrétien’s final work, begun sometime in the 1180s and never completed, was and still is his most puzzling: The Story of the Grail. Controversy continues today over whether or not Chrétien intended this romance to be read allegorically. Even those who agree that his intent was indeed allegorical argue over the proper nature and significance of the allegory. His immediate continuers, Robert de Boron and the anonymous author of the Perlesvaus, clearly assumed that the allegory was a Christian one. Unfortunately, death apparently overtook Chrétien before he could complete his masterwork and clarify the mysteries of the Grail Castle.

In the prologues to most of his romances, Chrétien alludes to a source from which he took his story. In Erec, he says that his source was a ‘tale of adventure’ that professional jongleurs were wont to mangle and corrupt, but that he would relate in ‘a beautifully ordered composition’. Though no direct source for this, or any other of his romances, has been identified, there exists a general parallel to Erec in the story of the Welsh Mabinogion called Gereint Son of Erbin.