Amadis of Gaul
Preserved but no longer current.
The hero of a prose romance of the same title, supposed to have been written by the Portuguese, Vasco de Lobeira (d. 1403), with additions by the Spaniard Montalvo, and by many subsequent romancers, who added exploits and adventures of other knights and thus swelled the romance to fourteen books.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Amadis of Gaul” mean?
The hero of a prose romance of the same title, supposed to have been written by the Portuguese, Vasco de Lobeira (d. 1403), with additions by the Spaniard Montalvo, and by many subsequent romancers, who added exploits and adventures of other knights and thus swelled the romance to fourteen books.
Is “Amadis of Gaul” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.