ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between text and image in the two illustrated manuscripts of Erec ET Enide, Paris. The text is very clear on this point, various scholars have stated that it is Erec who is seen hunting the white stag in the images we find at the beginning of the romance, in the two illustrated manuscripts. The presentation of the three robber-knights continues for about thirty lines, in the course of which the first of the robbers announces his intention of taking the lady's palfrey and leaving the rest to his companions. The jousting scene between two knights must surely have been one of the stock images for the illustration of both romance and epic, what Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden calls a "generic" image. One would expect to see the feet of at least one of the giants' horses, but, although there is plenty of room for the artist to show them.
