A late 12th-c. romance written in a language and style highly reminiscent of Chrétien de Troyes, and indeed claiming as its author one ‘Crestiiens’ who worked on material provided by ‘Roger the Clever’. Set in Britain, it tells of a bewildering series of accidents that befall its God-fearing royal protagonist and his wife Graciene as, exiled and separated, they each suffer humiliation and social degradation before eventually being reunited and reinstated. Its narrative is a particularly rich hotchpotch of commonplaces (shipwreck, pirates, fortuitous encounters), and it is close in both spirit and structure to the adventure romance so popular in Anglo-Norman literature.
[Ian Short]
