The chivalric romance is a type of story written in both prose and poetry that was popular in the noble courts of medieval and early modern Europe. These stories often included imaginary adventures filled with amazing events, featuring a knight who is shown as brave and goes on a quest. Over time, this genre evolved from earlier epics. It is different from other epics, like the chanson de geste, because it focuses more on themes of love and polite behavior in court settings, rather than on military heroism.

Popular stories also used themes from romance, but with humor, satire, or exaggerated styles. These stories changed old legends, fairy tales, and history to match the interests of readers and listeners. However, by around 1600, these stories were no longer popular. Miguel de Cervantes made fun of them in his novel Don Quixote. Even so, the modern idea of the "medieval" period is more influenced by romance than any other medieval genre. Words like "medieval" often make people think of knights, damsels in distress, dragons, and other common romantic ideas.

Originally, romance literature was written in Old French (including Anglo-Norman), Old Occitan, and Early Franco-Provençal. Later, it was also written in Old Portuguese, Old Spanish, Middle English, Old Italian (such as Sicilian poetry), and Middle High German. In the early 13th century, more romances were written in prose. In later French romances, there was a strong focus on themes of courtly love, such as staying faithful during difficult times.

Form

The genre of romance, unlike the chansons de geste and the later novel, focused on traditional themes. These stories were different from earlier epics because they included many magical events, elements of love, and many connected stories, rather than a single main character and simple plot. Early romances were always written in verse, but by the 15th century, many were written in prose, often retelling older rhymed versions.

Romance stories often followed a dream-like pattern where heroes and heroines represented the ideals of their time, while villains symbolized threats to their success. A common feature was a hero’s journey, which acted as the main structure of the story. Scholars note that romance stories share similarities with folktales. Vladimir Propp identified a basic structure for this genre, which began with an initial situation, followed by departure, a problem, two steps to solve it, and a resolution. This same structure is found in romance narratives.

Most romances were connected in some way, sometimes only through an opening story, to three main groups of tales. These groups were later called the "Matter of Rome" (focused on Alexander the Great and the Trojan War), the "Matter of France" (centered on Charlemagne and his knight Roland), and the "Matter of Britain" (about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, including the search for the Holy Grail). Medieval writers clearly stated that these three groups made up all romances.

The three "matters" were first described in the 12th century by French poet Jean Bodel. His epic poem Chanson des Saisnes includes the lines:

"There are only three subject matters for any discerning man: That of France, that of Britain, and that of great Rome."

However, many romances were not connected to these groups. Examples include King Horn, Robert the Devil, Ipomadon, Emaré, Havelok the Dane, Roswall and Lillian, Le Bone Florence of Rome, and Amadas.

Some stories appear so often that scholars group them into categories like the "Constance cycle" or the "Crescentia cycle." These terms refer not to repeated characters or settings, but to recognizable plot patterns.

Early forms

Many medieval romances tell stories about brave knights who go on quests. These knights follow strict rules of honor and bravery. They fight monsters and giants to win the favor of a lady. The Matter of France, which was very popular early on, focused more on heroic adventures than on love stories. For example, in The Song of Roland, Roland is engaged to Oliver's sister, but he does not think of her during the story. Later, love themes became more common, especially in the Matter of Britain. People began to see King Arthur's court as a model of true and noble love. Early writers about love even said it reached its best form during King Arthur's time. A common theme in these stories was rescuing a lady from a dangerous monster, a theme that continued throughout the medieval era.

At first, these stories were written in Old French (including Anglo-Norman) and Old Occitan. Later, they were also written in Old Spanish, Middle English, and Middle High German. Important Spanish works included The Book of the Knight Zifar. Notable English stories were King Horn (a translation of the Anglo-Norman Romance of Horn by Mestre Thomas) and Havelok the Dane (a translation of the anonymous Anglo-Norman Lai d'Haveloc). Around the same time, Gottfried von Strassburg translated Tristan (a story by Thomas of Britain) and Wolfram von Eschenbach translated Parzival, bringing French romance stories into the German language.

Forms of the High Middle Ages

In the early 1300s, romances were increasingly written as prose and expanded with more stories over time. These stories were gathered into large collections of manuscripts, now known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. One example is La Mort le Roi Artu, written around 1230, which may have been the final part of this collection. These texts, along with other Arthurian stories like those in the anonymous English Brut Chronicle, became the foundation for Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur. During the later Middle Ages, prose writing became the main way to tell romantic stories, though verse returned in popularity during the high Renaissance in the works of Ludovico Ariosto, Torquato Tasso, and Edmund Spenser.

In Old Norse, these stories are called riddarasögur or chivalric sagas. The genre began in 13th-century Norway with translations of French chansons de geste and later grew to include original stories. By the early 1400s, Sweden had developed its own verse romances, supported by Queen Euphemia of Rügen, who commissioned the Eufemiavisorna.

Another trend of the high Middle Ages was the allegorical romance, inspired by the very popular Roman de la Rose.

Late Medieval and Renaissance forms

During the late medieval and Renaissance periods, a major trend in European literature was the creation of stories with magical and adventurous elements, known as romances. Important works, such as Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, Tirant lo Blanch from Valencia, and Amadís de Gaula from Castile or Portugal, inspired many other writers. These stories were widely popular and led to famous Renaissance poems like Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto and Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso, as well as other 16th-century works in the romance style. Royal events, such as Queen Elizabeth I’s Accession Day tilts, used details from romances for knights’ costumes and disguises. Knights sometimes took names from romantic tales, like the Swan Knight, or adopted symbols linked to figures such as Lancelot or Tristan.

The printing press helped spread these stories more widely, including their portrayals of fairies. However, from the high Middle Ages onward, some religious critics believed romances distracted readers from more serious or moral writings. By 1600, many non-religious readers also viewed romances as outdated or childish, a view shared by some educated people in the 17th century. For example, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, published in 1605 and 1615, satirizes an elderly man obsessed with chivalric romances. Similarly, Hudibras mocks the old traditions of chivalric stories. Some elements of romance, like magical settings, influenced plays such as The Indian Queen by John Dryden and operas like Handel’s Rinaldo, which was inspired by a scene from Gerusalemme Liberata.

During the Renaissance, humanists, who valued Greek and Roman classics, criticized romances as crude and foolish. However, these criticisms did not stop common readers from enjoying them. In England, romances continued to be written with complex plots and emotional themes. Examples include Pandosto by Robert Greene, which inspired Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, and Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge, based on a medieval tale and the source for As You Like It. Other works included Robert Duke of Normandy and A Margarite of America.

Related forms

The Acritic songs, which talk about Digenis Acritas and other border guards, are similar to the chanson de geste. However, these songs developed at the same time but in different places. They describe the challenges and exciting experiences of the Eastern Roman Empire’s (Byzantium) border guards, including their personal relationships. These songs were mostly passed down through spoken word and remained in the Balkans and Anatolia until recent times. This style of music may have combined with Western traditions after French and Italian knights occupied Byzantine lands following the 4th crusade. Evidence of this mixing appears in later Greek writings that show influences from both traditions.

Relationship to modern "romantic fiction"

In later stories, especially those from France, there was a strong focus on themes like loyalty and love during difficult times. Around 1760, especially after Horace Walpole's book The Castle of Otranto was published in 1764, the word "romance" began to mean stories with strange, scary, or supernatural elements, like those written by Ann Radcliffe in A Sicilian Romance (1790) or The Romance of the Forest (1791). These stories often included romantic feelings, while other stories focused on the steps of a relationship that ended in marriage. During the Romanticism period, stories with female main characters showed how relationships developed in real-life situations, similar to the "novel of education" but for women. In Gothic stories like Bram Stoker's Dracula, romantic feelings were mixed with fear and danger. Nathaniel Hawthorne used the word "romance" to describe his works differently from "novels," and 19th-century critics often saw a difference between the two, as seen in H. G. Wells's "scientific romances" at the start of science fiction.

In 1825, the fantasy genre grew after the Swedish story Frithjof's Saga, based on an older Norse tale, became popular in England and Germany. It was translated into English 22 times, German 20 times, and many other languages, including modern Icelandic in 1866. This story influenced writers like J. R. R. Tolkien, William Morris, and Poul Anderson, and helped shape modern fantasy.

Today, the word "romance" usually refers to romance novels, a type of story that focuses on the relationship and love between two people. These stories must end with a happy, satisfying conclusion.

Even though romance novels are very popular, other works are still called "romances" because they include elements from older stories, like brave heroes and heroines, exciting adventures, magical events, themes of honor, or fairy-tale settings. Shakespeare's later comedies, such as The Tempest or The Winter's Tale, are sometimes called his romances. Modern stories might separate romance from love stories into different types, like planetary romance or Ruritanian romance. Science fiction was once called "scientific romance," and gaslamp fantasy is sometimes called "gaslight romance." Flannery O'Connor, who wrote about using strange or exaggerated characters in stories, mentioned their use in "the modern romance tradition."

Examples

• Ruodlieb
• Romances of Chrétien de Troyes
• Queste del Saint Graal
• Perceforest
• The Knight in the Panther's Skin
• Valentine and Orson
• King Horn
• The Squire of Low Degree
• Romance of the Rose
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Guilhem de la Barra by Arnaut Vidal
• Guillaume de Palerme
• Le Morte D'Arthur – Sir Thomas Malory
• Amadís de Gaula – Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo
• "The Knight's Tale" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
• Chevalere Assigne
• Sir Eglamour of Artois
• Octavian
• Ipomadon
• Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle
• The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain
• Tirant lo Blanch – Joanot Martorell
• Amadas
• Sir Cleges
• The King of Tars
• Sir Isumbras
• Erl of Toulouse
• Generides
• Roswall and Lillian
• Hertig Fredrik av Normandie
• Orlando Innamorato
• Orlando Furioso – Ludovico Ariosto
• Le Roman du Comte d'Artois