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Abstract
This article proposes the creation by the Old French romancier Chrétien de Troyes of a distinctly romance type of counsel distinguished by an emphasis on private counsel between individual characters and the adoption and modification of that convention by authors of Arthurian romance in the Middle High German tradition. Specifically, it examines the German author Hartmann of Aue's reception of Chrétien's convention of counsel by comparing Chrétien's own cica 1180 Yvain and Hartmann's reworking of the tale, his Iwein, from about 1195. A focal point for the comparative analysis of counsel in the two texts is the lady-in waiting, Lunete, who in both is prominent in her advice to her lady, Laudine, to marry Yvain/Iwein after he has killed Laudine's husband. From a more cultural perspective, moreover, the article clarifies the extents to which the representations of Lunete's counsel by Chrétien and his Swabian counterpart, Hartmann, function as authorial commentaries on the place of counsel in noble society. While Chrétien greatly problematizes the positive nature of counsel, in Hartmann's reinterpretation of both Chrétien's convention of counsel and his Lunete figure, counsel, in both its private and public forms, becomes singularly positive.