El caballero y sus demonios: combatientes infernales en los libros de caballerías

Abstract

The selection of some representative passages of the French narrative and of Amadís de Gaula, within Hispanic studies, located in the 12th and 13th centuries, allows us to consider the signification and literary transformation of the knightly battle against infernal beings. If the identification of the enemy with the devil that appears in the chansons de geste is clear and univocal and answers to the Christian crusade spirit, on turning to the Arthurian narrative the supernatural gains ambiguity due to the mixture of Celtic and Christian elements (Marie de France); it is what will facilitate the capacity of suggestion and representation of the political and social reality in the passage of Yvain by Chrétien de Troyes. The process of cultural christianisation will make the knight fight against demoniac beings with a clearer defined identity in the narrations of the 13th century (L’Âtre Perilleux, La Queste del Saint Graal, Amadís de Gaula).