If I mistake not, the groundwork is a series of _lais_, each complete in itself, and having no connection with what precedes or what follows it. It is in no real sense a biographical romance, though perhaps it might be called a tentative effort in that direction. The _Mantle_ episode certainly formed a single _lai_; the _Fier Baiser_, now found with other adventures, probably originally did so.[24] Certain of the episodes, too, possess a distinctly archaic character, _e.g._ the description of the fairy's kingdom as a isle of women where no man penetrates, a conception much older than the _Fata Morgana_ of the prose _Lancelot_; and the description of Guinevere's prison, the magic slumber in a fair dwelling, _ein wünneclichez haus_, surrounded by a dense thicket infested with serpents, is the sleeping beauty story in its oldest 'other world' form.[25] The position of Gawain in the story is that held by him in the earlier, pre-Lancelot romances. I cannot accept the suggestion of a biographical _Lancelot_ from which both the _Lanzelet_ and the _Charrette_ were drawn. If we remember that the first mention of Lancelot in Arthurian romance can only be traced to the second half of the twelfth century, it does not seem probable that by 1164 (when, or about when, Chrétien wrote his poem) he could have become the hero of a fixed biographical romance. Nor, the _motif_ of his _liaison_ with Guinevere once introduced into the story, is the compilation of such a version as the _Lanzelet_ subsequently probable. Professor Foerster feels this difficulty, and suggests a solution, which a little more consideration would have shown him to be untenable. On page xlvi. of his introduction to the _Karrenritter_, he says, '_wenn wirklich Kristian zuerst den Ehebruch eingeführt hat, so ist doch die Annahme zulässig dass Verehrer Arturs und seiner Frau diese neue ehrenrührische Erfindung zwar gekannt, aber mit Entrüstung abgewiesen haben, um ja nicht des idealen Königs Ehrenschild zu beschmutzen_.' But a few pages further on the writer himself refers to the story of Guinevere and Mordred as told by Geoffrey[26] and Wace. He must therefore be well aware that there can be no possible question of Chrétien's having _introduced_ the _motif_ of Guinevere's faithlessness; that is one of the oldest and most original features of the Arthurian story. The question is _not_, 'Did the queen have a lover?'--that was answered in the affirmative long before Chrétien's day--but, 'When did Lancelot become her lover? Was it through the version of the _Charrette_?' a very different matter.[27]