[2] The main character of the story is an impoverished vassal who lacks even a coat or a hat; he has pawned all his possessions, though he still has a squire, who gets the plot going when he steals the clothes of three maidens who were bathing.
[3][a] There are seven manuscripts containing the fabliau, six French and one in Anglo-Norman (the latter in MS Harley 2253):[4][5] The author is named as simply "Garin", and it is recorded in the Nouveau Recueil Complet des Fabliaux that because this was such a common name, and there is nothing else to go on, this is insufficient to identify who that was.
[7] The two suggested explanations of this are Rychner's that it was reproduced from memory, and John Hines's that allusion to French courtly literature was omitted for the benefit of an English audience.
[7] Joseph Bédier Bowdlerized the title, as he did others in his edition of the Fabliaux, to Du Chevalier qui fist parler les dames ("make the ladies talk").
[8] Denis Diderot's novel with talking vaginas, Les Bijoux Indiscrets, was inspired by this fabliau.