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Perceval’s Puerile Perceptions: The First Scene of the Conte du Graal as an Index of Medieval Concepts of Human Development Theory

This article considers the representation of childhood in medieval literature through the lens of a pivotal medieval French text. The analysis makes use of antique and medieval theories on development as adumbrated by Aristotle, Augustine and Boethius to discover how childhood – a stage of life often thought to have been largely ignored by medieval communities according to the seminal work of Philippe Ariès – was in fact implicitly, but frequently, referred to in literature of the time. Chrétien de Troyes's Conte du Graal was one of the key romances produced in the late twelfth century, with wide and prolific transmission which is extant in 16 manuscripts today. It heavily influenced the subsequent development of (particularly Arthurian) literature both in England and France, as well as more widely. As such, the references to childhood found in this text are particularly pertinent and demonstrate that medieval audiences must, after all, have had an appreciation of childhood as a separate stage in development. Additionally, it implies that the development of the codex from an item which contained purely religious, legal or historical content to one which communicated secular tales derived from oral culture created a literary environment in which notions of psychology, human development, perception and cognition could be explored creatively. Although the key text under discussion here is French, it was transmitted on both sides of the Channel, and the article's findings illuminate our understanding of English, as well as French, literary culture.