Very few facts are known about Thomas of Britain
except that he wrote in Anglo-Norman and probably
lived in England at the court of King HENRY II
and ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE. He composed his Tristran
romance sometime after 1155, when WACE had
completed his Roman de Brut, which seems to have
provided inspiration for a number of motives and
narrative elements in Thomas’s text.Another possibility
is that both Wace and Thomas were influenced
by GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH’s chronicle
HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE (1136–39). When
CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES wrote his CLIGÈS (1176–77), he
made satirical references to the love concept developed
by Thomas, which implies that the Tristran
must have been well known by that time.
Thomas’s Tristran has survived in 10 fragments
from six manuscripts, which were all prepared
with great care and (calligraphic) artistry, occasionally
illustrated (like the Carlisle fragment, discovered
in 1995). Thomas’s version deeply
impressed his posterity, as documented not only
by the many manuscripts, but also by GOTTFRIED
VON STRASSBURG’s comment in the prologue to his
TRISTAN (ca. 1210), where he lavishly praises
Thomas for having created the only true account
of the love affair between TRISTAN AND ISOLDE
(Gottfried’s spelling; vv. 149–171). The Norwegian
Brother Robert closely followed Thomas’s Tristran
in his Tristramsaga of 1226.
The various fragments mostly relate different aspects
in the lives of the two lovers. The Cambridge
fragment, for instance, presents the orchard scene
where Tristran and Ysolt (Thomas’s spelling) are
surprised by King Marc while sleeping there.When
they awake, they catch sight of the departing king,
and Tristran decides to leave. In the Sneyd fragment,
Tristran, in a lengthy monologue, explores
his dilemma in feeling love both for Queen Ysolt
and his own wife, Ysolt of the White Hands. In the
Turin fragment, Tristran creates a hall of statues
where he reveals his love pangs and fears of losing
Ysolt to the sculpture of Brangvein (Ysolt’s companion).
Other fragments concentrate on different
narrative elements, such as Tristran’s disguise as a
leper and major knightly battles (Douce).Most important,
Thomas tells us the end of the love story,
with Tristran near his death and waiting for rescue
through his beloved Ysolt. The latter arrives indeed,
but Tristran’s jealous wife deceives her husband,
pretending that the ship’s sail is black, indicating
that Ysolt is not coming, though Ysolt actually had
ordered a white sail to be set to signal her arrival.
Because of his profound love pains, Tristran dies,
and when the Irish princess finds him, she laments
vehemently and passes away as well, stretched out
at the side of her lover. Thomas, as all other poets
working with the Tristran material, relies on the
concept of a love potion that the two lovers drink
by accident and that ultimately bring them infinite
love pains. Tristran’s attempt to mollify these by
marrying another Ysolt fails, but this allowed the
poet to incorporate a whole new string of narrative
elements involving his wife’s brother, Kaerdin, and
his love for Brengvein, companion and tutor of the
Irish princess. In contrast to other versions,
Thomas emphasizes both the love between Tristran
and Ysolt and between these two and their respective
spouses.
Bibliography
Adams, Tracy. “Archetypes and Copies in Thomas’s
Tristan: A Re-examination of the Salle aux Images
Scenes,” Romanic Review 90, no. 3 (1999):
317–332.
Bédier, Joseph, ed. Le roman de Tristan par Thomas.
1905. 2 vols. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1968.
Gottfried von Strassburg. Tristan: With the Surviving
Fragments of the Tristran of Thomas. Translated by
A. T.Hatto. 1960.Harmondsworth,U.K.: Penguin,
1984.
Grimbert, Joan Tasker, ed. Tristan and Isolde: A Casebook.
Arthurian Characters and Themes. 1995.
New York: Routledge, 2002.
Hunt, Tony. “The Significance of Thomas’s Tristan,”
Reading Medieval Studies 7 (1981): 41–61.
Albrecht Classen