Blanchefleur ("white flower", also Blancheflor, Blanziflor, Welsh : Blodyngwyn) is the name of a number of characters in literature of the High Middle Ages. Except for in Perceval, the Story of the Grail , Blanchefleur is typically a character who reflects her name--an image of purity and idealized beauty.
Characters with the name include:
The name, in Floris and Blanchefleur, is a reference to Easter Sunday: both Floris and Blanchefleur are born on that day, named Paskes Flourie (or "flowering Easter") and associated with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. As Denyse Delcourt argues, "Almost identical twins, the young heroes are like two flowers folded into one, the name of Blanchefleur containing that Floire", and Delcourt notes that "the flower imagery [occurring over fifty times in the romance] is the principal paradigm of the power of love to constantly renew itself". [5] As Peter Haidu notes in an article in Yale French Studies , "Blancheflor" is a "kind of stuttering repetition of identity", "white" and "flower'" both denoting purity. This verbal play is underscored in Floris and Blanchefleur by Floris's hiding in a basket of flowers in order to visit Blanchefleur secretly--the basket is delivered to the wrong room, that of the minor character Claris, who pulls Blanchefleur into her room and invites her to look at a flower in the basket, combining (according to Haidu) allegory, metonymy, and metaphor. [6]
Blanchefleurs occurring in romance often present stereotypical images of idealized beauty, and according to Geraldine Barnes, the Blanchefleurs in Floris and Blanchefleur and Le Roman de Perceval are interchangeable, both texts offering "a lengthy and static portrait of perfection, proceeding from head to toe with strictly ordered reference to her blonde hair, high white forehead, "grey" eyes, exquisite nose, lips, teeth, and so forth". In the Norse Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr , which takes a decidedly hagiographic turn, according to Barnes, that description is missing. [4]
In Chrétien de Troyes' (unfinished) Perceval, the Story of the Grail , Blanchefleur lives near the castle of Gornemant de Goort (and is related to him; [10] she is perhaps his granddaughter [11] ), where a young Perceval is educated in knightly skills, and is knighted. He is asked by Blanchefleur, who visits him at night, to help her against her enemies, and he agrees. They spend the night together, and she initiates him sexually. [8] In the continuations of the Grail story, she comes to play different roles. In the second continuation (by Wauchier de Denain), she continues to act the part of a sexually attractive woman as commonly found in romance, and she and Perceval are likely to end up getting married, according to Lori Walters; the third (by Manessier) takes a more religious turn and, introducing elements from hagiography, abandons that romantic involvement. [12]
Arthurian scholar professor James Douglas Bruce held that the Clamedex-Perceval-Blanchefleur episode in Chrétien's Perceval is the source of the Baruch-Sagremor-Sebile episode in the Livre d'Artus , with Sebile as a simple substitution for Blanchefleur. [13]
In Parcevals saga, the Norse version of Chrétien's Conte du Graal, Blanchefleur has the name Blankiflur. [14] In Gerhart Hauptmann's 1914 Parsival, Blanchefleur is Parsival's tutor in the history of the Grail. [15] In John Boorman's Excalibur Blanchefleur is Anglicized as Blancheflor, and it is her father, which the movie combines with her uncle into one character, who teaches Perceval. [16]
Professor Alan Baragona of the Virginia Military Institute, who calls Forrest Gump "virtually a bullet-pointed list of conventions from the Perceval tradition" [17] maps Blanchefleur onto the character Jenny in that movie, albeit a "modern, flawed, substitute" for her. [18]
The 24th carmen in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is subtitled "Blanziflor et Helena", after the line of the poem "Blanziflor et Helena, Vanus generosa!". [19] The original Carmina Burana poem, named Si linguis angelicis Loquar et humanis [lower-alpha 1] from its first line, of which Orff's is but a middle part, begins with what appear at first reading to be addresses to the Virgin Mary in Ave Maria style, [20] [21] until reaching the "Blanziflor" line reveals the imprecations to be sexual rather than religious, [22] [23] the "Helena" being Helen of Troy and the "Blanziflor" being the Blancheflour from Floris and Blancheflour . [24] The Marian imagery of decus virginum in the poem connects to Blanziflor in that another title of the Virgin Mary is lilum, the lily, for which "blanchefleur" is a French description. [19] [25]
The Holy Grail is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a "holy grail" by those seeking such.
Wolfram von Eschenbach was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère known for his writing on Arthurian subjects such as Gawain, Lancelot, Perceval and the Holy Grail. Chrétien's chivalric romances, including Erec and Enide, Lancelot, Perceval and Yvain, represent some of the best-regarded works of medieval literature. His use of structure, particularly in Yvain, has been seen as a step towards the modern novel.
The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are an order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.
Percival, alternatively called Peredur, is a figure in the legend of King Arthur, often appearing as one of the Knights of the Round Table. First mentioned by the French author Chrétien de Troyes in the tale Perceval, the Story of the Grail, he is best known for being the original hero in the quest for the Grail, before being replaced in later literature by Galahad.
Red Knight is a title borne by several characters in Arthurian legend.
The Fisher King is a figure in Arthurian legend, the last in a long line of British kings tasked with guarding the Holy Grail. The Fisher King is both the protector and physical embodiment of his lands, but a wound renders him impotent and his kingdom barren. Unable to walk or ride a horse, he is sometimes depicted as spending his time fishing while he awaits a "chosen one" who can heal him. Versions of the story vary widely, but the Fisher King is typically depicted as being wounded in the groin, legs, or thigh. The healing of these wounds always depends upon the completion of a hero-knight's task.
Floris and Blancheflour is the name of a popular romantic story that was told in the Middle Ages in many different vernacular languages and versions. It first appears in Europe around 1160 in "aristocratic" French. Roughly between the period 1200 and 1350 it was one of the most popular of all the romantic plots.
Gaheris is a Knight of the Round Table in the chivalric romance tradition of Arthurian legend. A nephew of King Arthur, Gaheris is the third son of Arthur's sister or half-sister Morgause and her husband Lot, King of Orkney and Lothian. He is the younger brother of Gawain and Agravain, the older brother of Gareth, and half-brother of Mordred. His figure may have been originally derived from that of a brother of Gawain in the early Welsh tradition, and then later split into a separate character of another brother, today best known as Gareth. German poetry also described him as Gawain's cousin instead of brother.
Robert de Boron was a French poet active around the late 12th and early 13th centuries, notable as the reputed author of the poems Joseph d'Arimathie and Merlin. Although little is known of Robert apart from the poems he allegedly wrote, these works and subsequent prose redactions of them had a strong influence on later incarnations of the Arthurian legend and its prose cycles, in particular through their Christianisation and redefinition of the previously ambiguous Grail motif and the character of Merlin, as well as vastly increasing the prominence of the latter.
Parzival is a medieval chivalric romance by the poet and knight Wolfram von Eschenbach in Middle High German. The poem, commonly dated to the first quarter of the 13th century, centers on the Arthurian hero Parzival and his long quest for the Holy Grail following his initial failure to achieve it.
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance originally written in Old French. The work of unknown authorship, presenting itself as a chronicle of actual events, retells the legend of King Arthur by focusing on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, the religious quest for the Holy Grail, and the life of Merlin. The highly influential cycle expands on Robert de Boron's "Little Grail Cycle" and the works of Chrétien de Troyes, previously unrelated to each other, by supplementing them with additional details and side stories, as well as lengthy continuations, while tying the entire narrative together into a coherent single tale. Its alternate titles include Philippe Walter's 21st-century edition Le Livre du Graal.
Kyot the Provençal is claimed by Wolfram von Eschenbach to have been a Provençal poet who supplied him with the source for his Arthurian romance Parzival. Wolfram may have been referring to the northern French poet Guiot de Provins, but this identification has proven unsatisfactory. The consensus of the vast majority of scholars today is that Kyot was an invention by Wolfram, and that Wolfram's true sources were Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail and his own abundant creativity.
Perceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth verse romance by Chrétien de Troyes, written by him in Old French in the late 12th century. Later authors added 54,000 more lines to the original 9,000 in what are known collectively as the Four Continuations, as well as other related texts. Perceval is the earliest recorded account of what was to become the Quest for the Holy Grail but describes only a golden grail in the central scene, does not call it "holy" and treats a lance, appearing at the same time, as equally significant. Besides the eponymous tale of the grail and the young knight Perceval, the poem and its continuations also tell of the adventures of Gawain and some other knights of King Arthur.
Perceval le Gallois is a 1978 historical drama film written and directed by Éric Rohmer, based on the 12th-century Arthurian romance Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes.
Perlesvaus, also called Li Hauz Livres du Graal, is an Old French Arthurian romance dating to the first decade of the 13th century. It purports to be a continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' unfinished Perceval, the Story of the Grail, but it has been called the least canonical Arthurian tale because of its striking differences from other versions.
"Chevrefoil" is a Breton lai by the medieval poet Marie de France. The eleventh poem in the collection is called The Lais of Marie de France and its subject is an episode from the romance of Tristan and Iseult. The title means "honeysuckle," a symbol of love in the poem. "Chevrefoil" consists of 118 lines and survives in two manuscripts, Harley 978 or MS H, which contains all the Lais, and in Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, or MS S.
Merlin is a partly lost French epic poem written by Robert de Boron in Old French and dating from either the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century. The author reworked Geoffrey of Monmouth's material on the legendary Merlin, emphasising Merlin's power to prophesy and linking him to the Holy Grail. The poem tells of his origin and early life as a redeemed Antichrist, his role in the birth of Arthur, and how Arthur became King of Britain. Merlin's story relates to Robert's two other reputed Grail poems, Joseph d'Arimathie and Perceval. Its motifs became popular in medieval and later Arthuriana, notably the introduction of the sword in the stone, the redefinition of the Grail, and turning the previously peripheral Merlin into a key character in the legend of King Arthur.
Sir Perceval of Galles is a Middle English Arthurian verse romance whose protagonist, Sir Perceval (Percival), first appeared in medieval literature in Chrétien de Troyes' final poem, the 12th-century Old French Conte del Graal, well over one hundred years before the composition of this work. Sir Perceval of Galles was probably written in the northeast Midlands of England in the early 14th century, and tells a markedly different story to either Chretien's tale or to Robert de Boron's early 13th-century Perceval. Found in only a single manuscript, and told with a comic liveliness, it omits any mention of a graal or a Grail.
Moriaen is a 13th-century Arthurian romance in Middle Dutch. A 4,720-line version is preserved in the vast Lancelot Compilation, and a short fragment exists at the Royal Library at Brussels. The work tells the story of Morien, the Moorish son of Aglovale, one of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.