This work is important as the first Arthurian romance, the start of a new genre in France and Germany, but it is also frequently regarded as an early vernacular work combining love with knighthood, amor et militia. This needs to be extended to include a third theme: love, marriage and knighthood. The first two themes bring women explicitly into the picture, but so does the third since, rarely in the romance genre, Enite accompanies Erec on his journey of knightly adventures and plays a crucial role in them. In all three respects a woman occupies an important place in the narrative, justifying a gendered discussion of the work. This discussion pays attention to both the French and German versions and is organised under three headings.

PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY

The impact of patriarchal customs on a woman is revealed early in the French work in the form of feudal marriage practice when Erec gains Enide's hand from her father, a transaction in which she is not consulted and remains silent (684), so that it is less an exercise in courtship and more an exercise of male bargaining. Chrétien makes it clear that Enide is an object of exchange in this: the father is to give Erec armour and his daughter (both are mentioned in the same breath: 659f.) so that he may enter the sparrowhawk contest, and in exchange he will marry her, thereby improving the material conditions of the impoverished family (662–5).