Amadís de Gaula is an Iberian landmark work among the Spanish and Portuguese chivalric romances which were in vogue in the 16th century, although its first version, much revised before printing, was written at the onset of the 14th century in an uncertain place of the Iberian Peninsula.

As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of high medieval and early modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric knight-errant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest. It developed further from the epics as time went on; in particular, "the emphasis on love and courtly manners distinguishes it from the chanson de geste and other kinds of epic, in which masculine military heroism predominates."