Lecheor

'Lecheor' is a short, bawdy Breton lai that tells the story a group of noble women who decide to write a lai about female genitalia.

Composition and manuscripts

The actual date of composition is estimated between the end of the twelfth to the beginning of the thirteenth centuries; and linguistic elements in the text indicate that the author may have come from Northern France or perhaps England. Since the text speaks of women poets, the poem could have been written by a woman.

The lai of Lecheor is contained in two existing manuscripts:

The Old French manuscript dates from the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century.

Plot summary

Lecheor tells the story of a group of women who are gathered together for the festival of Saint Pantaleon. It is at this festival that the men and women talk about all the courtly adventures from the past year and compose lais in remembrance of them. At this particular gathering, a group of women begin to discuss the reasons why the knights go off in search of adventure, and one woman offers a simple solution: the knight is interested in the woman's vagina (Old French: con). The other ladies agree, and they compose a lai, which is well received in the land.