ARTHURIAN TIME AND SPACE: CHRÉTIEN'S "CONTE DEL GRAAL" AND WACE'S "BRUT"

Scholars have suggested that Chrétien may also have known the Brut,7 but many have concluded that he was little influenced by Wace except perhaps for a few details and the possibility that Wace 'might have provided for Chrétien a model of narrative about King Arthur written in Old French and a framework for the courtly world'8 - despite the fact that the Brut was a primer of Arthurian history in the vernacular in a tradition that continued with Robert de Boron and the Lancelot-Grail cycle.9 Denial that Chrétien was inspired by Wace is based on the paucity of specific instances of borrowing, except for accounts of some of the events following Uther Pendragon's death in the Conte del Graal, but other approaches to the issue yield different results. Meanwhile, Chrétien as primary narrator and writer is utterly replaced by another clerk, his double, Walter Map, a courtier also known for his facetiae.77 One reason for Chrétien's apparent fall from grace may be a revolutionary phenomenon in French culture already alluded to, which occurred around the year 1200, a decade or so after Chrétien left his Conte del Graal unfinished and just as the works attributed to Robert de Boron were being written: the emergence of vernacular prose as the medium par excellence for factual narrative literature, or for narrative literature portrayed as factual, and the concurrent devaluation of octosyllabic verse as a vehicle for truthful discourse.78 Joseph d'Arimathie and the prose Merlin are among the first vernacular narratives to be committed to prose, as were chronicles of the Fourth Crusade such as those by Robert de Clari and Geoffroi de Vilhardouin.79 In fact the author of the Didot-Perceval addresses the issue of truthfulness in verse and prose when he asserts that his prose text is closer to the original dictated to Biaise by Merlin than versions by Chrétien de Troyes and other poets who write in 'rimes plaisans' ('pretty rhymes').80 Drawing Wace into his text, Chrétien forged a technique for recounting legendary history that was to endure, but not in octosyllabic verse.