NIGHTBRINGER | The Arthurian Encyclopedia

Tibaut of Tintagel

Tiebaut of Tintagel

The ruler of Tintagel in Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval. He may be identical with Chrétien’s Thiebaut. Tiebaut, a common name at the time of Chrétien’s writing, appears in Ulrich’s Lanzelet as Tybalt. Wolfram calls him Lyppaut, and Heinrich von dem Türlin calls him Leigamar.

Tibaut raised his deceased lord’s son Meliant de Liz to the age of knighthood, at which time Sir Meliant challenged him to a tournament in order to win his elder daughter. At first Tibaut seems to have been reluctant to let the tournament actually proceed, but the chance arrival of one (or, it was first thought, two) of Arthur’s champions inspired Tibaut’s vavasour Garin to urge his lord to let his own knights leave Tintagil and fight at their pleasure.

Garin seemed to assume that Arthur’s knight(s) would enter on the town’s side – not sure why, unless Tibaut was one of Arthur’s avowed allies or leigemen. When Arthur’s knight (Gawaine, though they did not know his identity) abstained all day from the tourney, Tibaut listened to his elder daughter and was about to arrest the stranger as a merchant illegally disguised in order to avoid tolls; Garin explained that the stranger, now his guest, was honorably saving himself for trial by combat.

At Garin’s home, Tibaut found his younger daughter, the Maid with Little Sleeves, pleading with the strange knight to fight next day for her sake. Sounding much like a modern parent, Tibaut tried to make her stop pestering Garin’s guest; the later showed his true fatherly affection by having a fine sleeve of crimson samite made especially for her to give her knight as a token, meanwhile scolding her elder sister for slapping and otherwise mistreating her.


See also
Tibaut’s Elder Daughter | The Legend of King Arthur


Source
Perceval, or Le Conte del Graal | Chrétien de Troyes, late 12th century