Between France and Italy: Arthur's Parrot in Le Conte du papegau

Abstract

The late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of the French prose romance Conte du papegau is an unicum, its origins and intended audience unknown. Literary critics generally dismiss it as a late Arthurian creation. It recounts the youth of King Arthur, who is accompanied by a trophy, namely a parrot that repeats aloud his adventures, which are patterned on several of Chrétien de Troyes's romances. Those elements, together with historical and artistic references to parrots, suggest a limited courtly audience for the tale, both lay and clerical: families in French and Italian international papal circles.