Desire Restrained

This chapter explores Chrétien de Troyes’s treatment of love in his late twelfth-century romance Cligès , particularly as it takes place between the title character, successor to the Byzantine throne, and the German princess Fenice. Even if their story seems influenced by Occitan exploitations of the fin’amor topos, it is treated gleefully, highlighting the complications and ultimate absurdity of excessive liaisons, possibly as a consequence of the contemporary ecclesiastical Reform movements, particularly noticeable in Northern France. Fenice thus rejects what she perceived to be Isolde’s promiscuity, strongly advocating a stable and lasting kind of love, preferably resulting in marriage. Still, Chrétien himself, perhaps the foremost exponent of nascent fictionality in high medieval literature, tends to eschew moral lessons or programmatic endings. Ultimately, no single doctrine of love can be drawn from his elusive narratives.