From the glorious courts of love during the time of tourneys, Plantegenants, and mystical monastics comes the first of the Arthurian romances to be written in the medieval era: Erec and Enide. Author Chretien de Troyes draws upon the oral tradition surrounding King Arthur and his knights, dresses it gloriously in the manners and fashion of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and elevates its content towards the level of the spiritual ideals of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

In Erec and Enide, we find a perfectly matched couple in beauty and virtue that are united quite quickly in marital bliss only to suffer a falling out not long thereafter. The majority of the romance is the reconstitution, restoration, and elevation of an existing matrimony by means of adventure. Part literature, part history, part marriage counseling, yet all romance–Erec and Enide is a classic tale worth reading, discussing, and considering.

While later Renaissance humanists preferred to think all before their age to be “dark,” Erec and Enide opens a door to a literate, bright, and high-medieval era worthy of being reclaimed–in all its strangeness–by classically minded educators, younger students, and continuing learners of all sorts. Don’t miss this opportunity to be illumined to the medieval era with Jonathan Councell!