This page is referenced by:

• 1 media/Screen Shot 2022-11-15 at 10.16.10 PM.png 2021-10-21T08:10:50-07:00 What does this tell us about the Crusades? 32 image_header 2023-01-14T10:11:06-08:00

  The Chertsey tile combat roundels reference many aspects of the Crusades. The Tristan series were laid alongside the combat series in the chapter house floor. Therefore viewers would come to the Tristan tiles with Crusading themes in mind. The Tristan and Isolde tiles, like the Crusades, suggest themes of romance and heroism. Like the Crusades, the legend of Tristan also incorporates long journeys, conquest, joy, pain, and healing.
   

  /The Celtic legend, which revolves around forbidden love, begins with Tristan. As a knight of Cornwall, Tristan on one of his various journeys finds Isolde when in need of healing, and later Tristan talks about her to his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. King Mark wishes to marry Isolde. While escorting Isolde back to King Mark, Tristan and Isolde drink a love potion provided by Isolde’s mother. The two fall in love, an illicit love, as Isolde is to be married to King Mark. Yet their love propels the two to find each other despite Isolde's marriage to King Mark.

  
  
  King Mark learns of the affair and plans to punish the two. However, Tristan escapes, rescues Isolde, and flees into the forest while the king’s supporters search for the two. The king attempts to resolve the conflict since he still does love Tristan, being his adopted son, and Isolde, as his wife. Tristan returns Isolde to King Mark once cornered, and agrees to leave the kingdom for Brittany. 
  
  

   

  Tristan, banished to Brittany and married to someone else at the end of the legend, is mortally wounded in battle. Isolde, being the only one who was able to heal him in the past, is called upon to aid him. Tristan realizes that Isolde might not want to see him due to her commitment in marriage. Tristan tells his advisor to sail back with white sails if indeed the ship that is carrying Isolde, and with black sails if not. In the following days, Tristan’s state only worsens. One day Tristan sees a ship in the distance, and he asks his wife what the colors of the sails were. Filled with jealousy, his wife, who recognized the love affair between Tristan and Isolde, lies to Tristan, telling him the sails were black. Overcome with grief, Tristan believes that Isolde refused to come to his rescue, and he dies moments before Isolde arrives. When Isolde learns of his death, she too dies from grief. While the legend of Tristan and Isolde is not a Crusading story, it shares many themes with narratives that were sung and written about the Crusades: long journeys, conquest, healing, joy, and despair.