ABSTRACT
The sixteenth century was an era of enormous turbulence and danger for those who undertook the uncertainties of travel. But unprecedented numbers did so, often moving permanently from one part of Europe to another. The Spanish books of chivalry were essentially a continuation of the medieval Arthurian tradition, though with important thematic and stylistic variations. The French Amadis was substantially the achievement of Nicolas de Herberay, one of the great figures of sixteenth-century French letters. Nicolas de Herberay, seigneur des Essars, was a well-connected and erudite courtier at the court of Francis I. The hopes and expectations invested in the project by its sponsors were not disappointed: the first volume of the French Amadis was an immediate publishing sensation. The investigations pursued in this chapter have demonstrated that even in the era of the most strident Reformation polemic, the barricades and borders established were porous and permeable.
