Li Chantari di Lancelloto

Speranza

Li Chantari di Lancelloto

Unlike the Tristan and Iseult legend, about which there are dozens of 13th-century songs (the Vienna Ms. alone has 15 strophic lays that tell the story, for instance), it's not easy to think of anything about Lancillotto (other than the Chrétien de Troyes "Lancelot", a prose composition), even though there may well be a hoard of such songs somewhere.

 Actually, we can only think of two songs by Chrétien de Troyes: both are in the "Chansonnier de Noailles":

-- "D'amors qui m'a tolu a moi' (which mentions Tristan, making it post-Arthurian) and

-- "Amors tençon et bataille" (which could, we suppose, be part of the Lancelot story), for which no music survives.

Then there's the Wikipedia link that will take one to the source of much info about early Lancelot stuff. 

Whether it leads ultimately to musical sources is difficult to tell:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose_Lancelot 

The Lancelot and Tristan legends possess many similarities. 

But unlike Lancelot, there is quite a lot of Tristan music out there.