SOURCE: Blakey, Brian. “Truth and Falsehood in the Tristran of Béroul.” In History and Structure of French: Essays in Honour of Professor T. B. W. Reid, edited by F. J. Barnett, A. D. Crow, C. A. Robson, et al., pp. 19-29. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1972.

In the following essay, Blakey points out how a proper understanding of the medieval interpretation of oaths can inform the critical debate regarding God's apparent support for the lovers in Tristran.

If a resurrected Tristran and Iseut were once more to stand before us charged with perjury, it seems they would have no lack of prosecutors. As one modern critic would have it, the pair are guilty of ‘shameless deceit and untruthfulness’, because ‘they lie and commit perjury without turning a hair’.¹ Another critic, while tacitly admitting their offence, pleads in mitigation a ‘sympathie béroulienne’, a ‘zèle partial...