In the twelfth century, the introduction of Lancelot in Chretien de Troyes's "The Knight of the Cart" ("Chevalier de la Charrette") did wonders for Guinevere's fame and popularity. She was propelled into stardom much as Hester Pry ne was: through adultery. She was the kind of woman from which the public had expected better things. She was married, after all, to their once and future King Arthur, who did not deserve such treatment. And yet here was proof!
In "The Knight of the Cart" Lancelot rescues Guinevere from one of her many abductions, and along the way sets a new standard for love in Arthur's court. He swears to be true only to Guinevere and to Love, passing up an opportunit y to sleep with a very insistent maiden, riding in the dreaded lowly cart, and even following Guinevere's every whimsical command to the letter. She, in return, plays the part of a very fickle lover who, in the end, admits that she wants nothing more th an to lie "quite naked next to him, in order to enjoy him fully" (Wilhelm 168). An interesting plot twist, indeed, that Arthur's loyal knight should want to retrieve the queen for reasons more private than political, and that the queen should have a man of her own choosing over the man who has swiped her. Thus was born the triangle: Guinevere and Lancelot would love Arthur above all but each other, and he, in return, would love no-one more than the two who would betray him, again and again.
Chretien ushered themes of chivalric romance into Arthurian legend, and Guinevere's reputation would never fully recover. In chivalric literature, however, Guinevere can almost find excuse in the rule that governs romance: "love m ust rule supreme" (Lacy 82). Guinevere would later run into trouble when courtly love fell out of favor. While Chretien's romance moves quickly along with passion and comedy, Malory's treatment of the affair two centuries later would illustrate that it was not just an innocuous, if riotous, aside.
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