of his stories, whether he borrowed them or
invented them himself. Any poet should be judged not as a "finder"
but as a "user" of the common stock of ideas. The study of sources of
mediaeval poetry, which is being so doggedly carried on by scholars, may
well throw light upon the main currents of literary tradition, but it
casts no reflection, favourable or otherwise, upon the personal art of
the poet in handling his stuff. On that count he may plead his own cause
before the jury.

Chretien's originality, then, consists in his portrayal of the social
ideal of the French aristocracy in the twelfth century. So far as we
know he was the first to create in the vulgar tongues a vast court,
where men and women lived in conformity with the rules of courtesy,
where the truth was told, where generosity was open-handed, where the
weak and the innocent were protected by men who dedicated themselves to
the cult of honour and to the quest of a spotless reputation. Honour and
love combined to engage the attention of this society; these were
its religion in a far more real sense than was that of the Church.
Perfection was attainable under this code of ethics: Gawain, for
example, was a perfect knight. Though the ideals of this court and
those of Christianity are in accord at many points, vet courtly love and
Christian morality are irreconcilable. This Arthurian material, as used
by Chretien, is fundamentally immoral as judged by Christian standards.
Beyond question, the poets and the public alike knew this to be the
case, and therein lay its charm for a society in which the actual
relations or the sexes were rigidly prescribed by the Church and by
feudal practice, rather than by the sentiments of the individuals
concerned. The passionate love of Tristan for Iseut, of Lancelot for
Guinevere, of Cliges for Fenice, fascinate the conventional Christian
society of the twelfth century and of the twentieth century alike,
but there-is only one name among men for such relations as theirs, and
neither righteousness nor reason lie that way. Even Tennyson, in spite
of all he has done to spiritualise this material, was compelled to
portray the inevitable dissolution and ruin of Arthur's court. Chretien
well knew the difference between right and wrong, between reason and
passion, as the reader of "Cliges" may learn for himself. Fenice was not
Iseut, and she would not have her Cliges to be a Tristan. Infidelity,
if you will, but not "menage a trois"