Louis Maurice Brandin

“ Le chevalier à la corbeille, Le chevalier qui faisait parler les muets, Le chevalier, sa dame et un clerc, Les trois dames, La gageure, Le prêtre d’Alison, La bourgeoise d’Orléans (Bédier, Les Fabliaux, 1895) . As to fables, one of the most popular collections in the middle ages was that written by Marie de France, which she claimed to have translated from King Alfred. ”

“ He subsequently marries Medea, King Meleager’s widow, who had helped him to seize Apulia, having transferred her affection for Ipomedon to his younger son (cf. Ward, Cat. of Rom., i. 728) . To these two romances by an Anglo-Norman author, Amadas et Idoine, of which we only possess a continental version, is to be added. Gaston Paris has proved indeed that the original was composed in England in the 12th century (An English Miscellany presented to Dr Furnivall in Honour of his Seventy-fifth Birthday, Oxford, 1901, 386-394) . ”

“ Paul Meyer, Romania, xxxii. 597-618) . Although the diffusion of epic poetry in England did not actually inspire any new chansons de geste, it developed the taste for this class of literature, and the epic style in which the tales of Horn, of Bovon de Hampton, of Guy of Warwick (still unpublished) , of Waldef (still unpublished) , and of Fulk Fitz Warine are treated, is certainly partly due to this circumstance. ”

“ The first relates the adventures of a knight who married the young duchess of Calabria, niece of King Meleager of Sicily, but was loved by Medea, the king’s wife. The second poem is the sequel to Ipomedon, and deals with the wars and subsequent reconciliation between Ipomedon’s sons, Daunus, the elder, lord of Apulia, and Protesilaus, the younger, lord of Calabria. Protesilaus defeats Daunus, who had expelled him from Calabria. He saves his brother's life, is reinvested with the dukedom of Calabria, and, after the death of Daunus, succeeds to Apulia. ”

“ The remaining songs are mostly of a religious character. Most of them have been discovered and published by Paul Meyer (Bulletin de la Soc. Anc. Textes, 1889; Not. et Extr. xxxiv; Rom. xiii. 518, t. xiv. 370; xv. p. 254, &c.) . Although so few have come down to us such songs must have been numerous at one time, owing to the constant intercourse between English, French and Provençals of all classes. An interesting passage in Piers Plowman furnishes us with a proof of the extent to which these songs penetrated into England. We read of:
“. ”

“ Studien zu Wace’s Conception und Nicolas, 1878; life of St George by Simon de Fresne (Rom. x. 319; J. E. Matzke, Public. of the Mod. Lang. Ass. of Amer. xvii. 1902; Rom. xxxiv. 148) ; Expurgatoire de Ste. Patrice, by Marie de France (Jenkins, 1894; Eckleben, Aelteste Schilderung vom Fegefeuer d. H. Patricius, 1851; Ph. de Felice, 1906) ; La vie de St Edmund le Rei, by Denis Pyramus, end of 12th century (Memorials of St Edmund’s Abbey, edited by T. Arnold, ii. 1892; Rom. xxii. 170) ; Henri d’Arci’s life of St Thais, poem on the Antichrist, Visio S. Pauli (P. Meyer, Not. et Extr. xxxv. 137-158) ”