SOURCE: “Courtly Elements in the Estoire: Its Date,” in Tristan and Isolt: A Study of the Sources of the Romance, Vol. I. Reprint. Burt Franklin, 1960, pp. 112-83.

In the following excerpt, Schoepperle examines the treatment of love in the estoire (the French source believed by some critics to be the source of extant versions, including the Germanic and English versions), and argues that the appearance of courtly and immoral elements in some portions of the legend indicate that these episodes were composed during the second half of the twelfth century, when the “cult of unlawful love” was in vogue.

… B. Courtly Elements in the Estoire.

1. Introduction.

It is not to the most primitive traits in the estoire, it is to the least primitive ones, that we would turn in our endeavor to determine its date. Let us proceed by this method.

The early portion of the poem implies...