Hartmann produced four narrative poems which are of importance for the evolution of the Middle High German court epic. The first of these, "Erec", which may have been written as early as 1191 or 1192, and the last, "Iwein", belong to the Arthurian cycle and are based on epics by Chrétien de Troyes ("Erec and Enide" and "Yvain, the Knight of the Lion", respectively). While the story of Chretien's "Yvain" refers to events in Chretien's "Lancelot", to explain that Arthur is not present to help because Guinevere has been kidnapped, Hartmann did not adapt Chretien's "Lancelot". The result is that Hartmann's "Erec" introduces entirely different explanations for Guinevere's kidnapping, which do not correspond to what occurred in the shared literary tradition of Chretien's Arthurian romances.