Godefroi de Leigni was a

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

and an associate of

Chrétien de Troyes Chrétien de Troyes (Modern ; fro, Crestien de Troies ; 1160–1191) was a French poet and trouvère known for his writing on Arthurian subjects, and for first writing of Lancelot, Percival and the Holy Grail. Chrétien's works, including ''E ...

during the 12th century, presumably at the court of

Marie de Champagne Marie of France (1145 – 11 March 1198) was a French princess who became Countess of Champagne by marriage to Henry I, Count of Champagne. She was regent of the county of Champagne three times: during the absence of her spouse between 1179 and 1 ...

. He finished Chrétien's romance ''

Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart , original_title_lang = fro , translator = , written = between 1177 and 1181 , country = , language = Old French , subject = Arthurian legend , genre = Chivalric romance , fo ...

'' after Chrétien abandoned it for unknown reasons.

Background

Godefroi was presumably born in the village of Leigni, now called

Ligny Ligny ( wa, Lignè) is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Sombreffe, located in the province of Namur, Belgium. Previously its own municipality, a 1977 fusion of the Belgian municipalities made it an '' ancienne commune'' ...

, in the modern

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

province of

Namur Namur (; ; nl, Namen ; wa, Nameur) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Namu ...

, or was at least intimately associated with it. Chrétien states at the beginning of ''Lancelot'' that Marie de Champagne had commissioned him to compose the poem, and Godefroi says at the end that with Chrétien's blessing, he has brought the work from line 6132, where

Lancelot Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), also written as Launcelot and other variants (such as early German ''Lanzelet'', early French ''Lanselos'', early Welsh ''Lanslod Lak'', Italian ''Lancillotto'', Spanish ''Lanzarote del Lago' ...

has been trapped behind a wall by

Meleagant Maleagant (alternately ''Malagant'', ''Meleagan'', ''Meleagant'', ''Meliagant'', ''Meliagaunt'', ''Meliagant'', ''Meliaganz'', ''Meliagrance'', ''Meliagrant'', ''Mellegrans'', ''Mellyagraunce'') is a villain from Arthurian legend. In a number of ...

, to its conclusion some thousand lines later. Most scholars have tended to believe Godefroi when he says he was following an outline left by Chrétien when he completed the poem (Chretien states he is following a text provided by Marie of Champagne). However, in 1989,

David Hult David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

advanced "the possibility that Godefroi is a fiction of Chrétien".

Roberta Krueger ''Roberta'' is a musical from 1933 with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics and book by Otto Harbach. The musical is based on the novel ''Gowns by Roberta'' by Alice Duer Miller. It features the songs " Yesterdays", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", " ...

also reads Godefroi as a scribal persona created by Chrétien himself, a "fictional clerkly-author figure conceived by the author Chrétien" to tie up his adulterous love plot in a

homosocial In sociology, homosociality means same-sex relationships that are not of a romantic or sexual nature, such as friendship, mentorship, or others. Researchers who use the concept mainly do so to explain how men uphold men's dominance in society. ...

literary bond that craftily ignores the heterosexual tension the work has sought to create. There has been much speculation about why Chrétien left the poem where he did. Some suggest that he, medieval France's greatest treater of married love, did not approve of the adulterous subject. Others hold that he was uninterested by a subject thrust upon him by his patroness, preferring to spend more time on ''

Yvain, the Knight of the Lion , original_title_lang = fro , translator = , written = between 1178 and 1181 , country = , language = Old French , subject = Arthurian legend , genre = Chivalric romance , fo ...

'', a poem he wrote at the same time as ''Lancelot''.''Sealed in Parchment: Rereadings of Knighthood in the Illuminated Manuscripts of Chrétien de Troyes'' p. 52

Background

References

Further reading