History Literature / LancelotTheKnightOfTheCart

* LoveIsLikeReligion:
** Lancelot finds a HairMemento and decides it has magical {{panacea}} healing properties. This seems really random unless you know about holy relics. In Catholicism, holy relics are body parts (usually bones) of saints. They are treated with awe and reverence, and are often thought to be [[ArtifactOfPower Artifacts of Power]] with healing powers. Lancelot is treating Guinevere's hair like a holy relic, and thus implying he regards Guinevere herself as something akin to a saint.

** As Lancelot leaves Guinevere's chambers after a night of sex:

* LoveIsLikeReligion: ImpliedTrope. Lancelot finds a HairMemento and decides it has magical {{panacea}} healing properties. This seems really random unless you know about holy relics. In Catholicism, holy relics are body parts (usually bones) of saints. They are treated with awe and reverence, and are often thought to be [[ArtifactOfPower Artifacts of Power]] with healing powers. Lancelot is treating Guinevere's hair like a holy relic, and thus implying he regards Guinevere herself as something akin to a saint.
-->''He lays [the strands] in his bosom near his heart, between the shirt and the flesh. He would not exchange them for a cartload of emeralds and carbuncles, nor does he think that any sore or illness can afflict him now; he holds in contempt essence of pearl, treacle, and the cure for pleurisy; even for St. Martin and St. James he has no need; for he has such confidence in this hair that he requires no other aid.''

* SummoningArtifact: Lancelot has a {{ring|OfPower}} from his adoptive fairy mother, and he thinks it can be used to summon her. [[SubvertedTrope Except it can't.]] Given the passage's phrasing, it's not even clear if she told him it could, or if he just made that up like the {{Cloudcuckoolander}} he is.
-->''Holding the ring before his eyes, he gazed at it, and said: "Lady, lady, so help me God, now I have great need of your succour!" This lady was a fairy, who had given it to him, and who had cared for him in his infancy. And he had great confidence that, wherever he might be, she would aid and succour him. [[SubvertedTrope But after appealing to her and gazing upon the ring, he realises that there is no enchantment here, but that they are actually shut in and confined.]]''

** Lancelot finds a lock of Guinevere's hair and regards it as a holy relic with magical healing powers. Lancelot has a ring his adoptive fairy mom gifted to him, and he thinks it has a magic enchantment that can be used to summon her -- except it doesn't. Both episodes are brief and pretty odd. Together, though, they start to form a broader picture. This is another aspect of Lancelot as a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} -- he generally thinks artifacts from the important women in his life possess magic, even though they don't.

* ChickMagnet: During his journey Lancelot meets attractive single ladies who are interested in him. He rebuffs them and continues to instead pine after Arthur's wife. When Lancelot wins TheTourney, all the women in attendance go wild for him. Guinevere watches all of them be enamored and enjoys it, laughing to herself and knowing he's hers.

** This is an EnforcedTrope. There's a preface where Chrétien notes that this project was assigned to him by Countess Marie de Champagne. It's thought that Marie (a noblewoman) was into the idea of a noblewoman having an affair with her knight and nobody suffering any consequences from it. Moreover, it's theorized that Chrétien was uncomfortable with this theme. His other works (''Literature/ErecAndEnide'' and ''Literature/YvainTheKnightOfTheLion'') are pro-marriage. His discomfort might be the reason he had Godefroi finish the story for him. The complete silence on the topic of adultery could be because Chrétien didn't know how to discuss it without condemning it. The preface, then, is to clarify this is an EnforcedTrope and not AuthorAppeal, lest anyone think it was ''him'' who was into adultery.
--->'''Preface:''' I will say, however, that her command has more to do with this work than any thought or pains that I may expend upon it. [...] The material and the treatment of it are given and furnished to him by the Countess, and he is simply trying to carry out her concern and intention.

# Countess Marie de Champagne (eldest child of UsefulNotes/EleanorOfAquitaine) [[ContractualObligationProject commissioned]] the story and provided "the material and the treatment of it".

# Countess Marie de Champagne (eldest child of UsefulNotes/EleanorOfAquitaine) commissioned the story and provided "the material and the treatment of it".

-->''But he, of whom I have more to tell, wore upon his finger a ring, whose stone was of such virtue that any one who gazed at it was freed from the power of enchantment. Holding the ring before his eyes, he gazed at it, and said: "Lady, lady, so help me God, now I have great need of your succour!" This lady was a fairy, who had given it to him, and who had cared for him in his infancy. And he had great confidence that, wherever he might be, she would aid and succour him. [[SubvertedTrope But after appealing to her and gazing upon the ring, he realises that there is no enchantment here, but that they are actually shut in and confined.]]''

* PlotParallel: During the journey, there's a man who wants to take a woman who Lancelot is escorting. This man talks to his father about it, and his father advises him not to fight Lancelot for her. This parallels when Bademagu likewise has to save Meleagant's ass when he starts an ill-advised fight with Lancelot about the detainment of a woman. Both sons are impetuous and won't heed their fathers.

* LoveIsLikeReligion: ImpliedTrope. Lancelot finds a HairMemento and decides it has magical {{panacea}} healing properties. This seems really random unless you know about holy relics. In Catholicism, holy relics are body parts (usually bones) of saints. They are treated with awe and reverence, and are often thought to have healing powers. Lancelot is treating Guinevere's hair like a holy relic, and thus implying he regards Guinevere herself as something akin to a saint.

* RingOfPower
-->''But he, of whom I have more to tell, wore upon his finger a ring, whose stone was of such virtue that any one who gazed at it was freed from the power of enchantment. Holding the ring before his eyes, he gazed at it, and said: "Lady, lady, so help me God, now I have great need of your succour!" This lady was a fairy, who had given it to him, and who had cared for him in his infancy. And he had great confidence that, wherever he might be, she would aid and succour him. [[SubvertedTrope But after appealing to her and gazing upon the ring, he realises that there is no enchantment here, but that they are actually shut in and confined.]]''

* HairMemento: Lancelot is on a quest to find Guinevere. As he's tracking her, he comes upon a place where she combed out her hair. She left behind her comb with a strand of hair still caught in the tines. Lancelot is so overcome with emotion he nearly {{faint|InShock}}s. He picks up the hair and decides it has magical {{panacea}} healing properties. This seems really random unless you know about holy relics. In Catholicism, holy relics are body parts (usually bones) of saints. They are treated with awe and reverence, and are often thought to have healing powers. Lancelot is treating Guinevere's hair like a holy relic, and thus implying he regards Guinevere herself as something akin to a saint.
-->''He lays [the strands] in his bosom near his heart, between the shirt and the flesh. He would not exchange them for a cartload of emeralds and carbuncles, nor does he think that any sore or illness can afflict him now; he holds in contempt essence of pearl, treacle, and the cure for pleurisy; even for St. Martin and St. James he has no need; for he has such confidence in this hair that he requires no other aid.''

* TrailOfBlood: {{Downplayed|Trope}} in that the blood ''is'' evidence, but not a ''trail of'' evidence. In order to EnterStageWindow, Lancelot has to remove the iron bars over the window of Guinevere's bedchamber. In the process he injures his finger and starts bleeding. They're both so excited and horny by this point that neither one notices. They have sex, and he leaves a little blood on her sheets. The imagery of blood on a sheet being associated with consummating a relationship is well-established, but typically that's about a virgin woman. This is a sort of InvertedTrope because Guinevere isn't a virgin--she's married to Arthur--and Lancelot is the one bleeding. Come morning, Meleagant sees the bloody sheet and concludes that Kay (who's known to be bleeding) is the one who was in her bed last night.

** When she recognizes Guinevere's hair, she starts laughing. Lancelot asks her why she's laugh and she initially refuses to tell him, seemingly just because ItAmusedMe.

''Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart'' (French: ''Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette'') is a ChivalricRomance and part of the Myth/{{Arthurian Legend}}s, written in TheHighMiddleAges between 1177 and 1181. It was written in Old French in Champagne, France.