On the title page of a 1588 edition of Amadis of Gaul, the amorous hero sets forth in search of chivalrous adventures. “. . . and holding his shield in front of him, sword in hand, he advanced towards the lion; for the great shouts the King Garinter uttered could not deter him.” Amadis of Gaul is a primitive novel, a romance, and a book of chivalry, and it is the most relevant and original Spanish contribution to the Arthurian legend of adventures of knights-errant. There is evidence that the story has been popular since the mid-fourteenth century. The adventures circulated in three books that Rodríguez de Montalvo abridged and re-presented between 1470 and 1492, making room for his new saga of chivalry about the son of Amadis and Oriana, The Exploits of Esplandian (1510). The debt of Amadis to the Arthurian legend is evident in actual incidents, such as the investiture of the knight, and in the prophecies and the appearance of magic. For example, Merlin and Morgan have their Castilian counterparts in Urganda the Unknown and Arcalaus the Magician. As in the genre of chivalry, the driving force is love and marriage. But Amadis remains remote from the troubadour theme of adulterous love for a married woman, which is at the heart of the chivalrous adventures that most influenced Amadis: Tristan of Leonis and Lancelot of the Lake. Oriana, with whom Amadis was in love, was the daughter, not the wife, of the King of Brittany. The cycle of Amadis, continued in The Exploits of Esplandian, incorporates moralizing elements, which make the text close to the theoretical treatise School of Princes. Montalvo’s work is a Christianization of the knightly code, making  
the worn-out folkloric Arthurian model believable in the Spain of the Catholic kings. MAN