LE ROMAN DES ELES L'ORDENE DE CHEVALERIE UTRECHT PUBLICATIONS IN GENERAL AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE Utrechtse Publikaties voor Algemene Literatuurwetenschap (UPAL) Series Editors: Keith Busby C. de Deugd J.J. Oversteegen Institute of General and Comparative Literature Utrecht, The Netherlands The volumes to be included in the series will fall into three main groups: a) studies which contribute to the understanding of the problems of literary theory, past and present; b) works which can be said to fill existing lacunae in the fields of general and comparative literature, including text editions; c) works which reflect the research interests of the department itself. This includes comparative literature from the Middle Ages to the present, as well as particular aspects of and approaches to the theory of literature. Volume 17 Keith Busby (ed.) Raoul de Hodenc, Le Roman des Eles The Anonymous Ordene de Chevalerie RAOUL DE HODENC: LE ROMAN DES ELES THE ANONYMOUS ORDENE DE CHEVALERIE Critical editions with introductions, notes, glossary and translations by KEITH BUSBY (University of Utrecht) JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA 1983 ©Copyright 1983-John Benjamins B.V. ISBN 90 272 2202 9 (Pb)/ISBN 90 272 2192 8 (Hb) No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means without written permission from the publisher. PREFACE A word of explanation is perhaps required as to why these two poems are presented here in the same volume, since other projects, such as an edition of the minor poems of Raoul de Hodenc, might have proved equally interesting. The present volume was conceived when I was engaged on a literary study of the Old French Arthurian romances and felt the need to back up some pronounce ments on courtesy and knighthood with evidence from outside the romances themselves. Most scholars working on late twelfth and early thirteenth century courtly and chivalric literature will have felt a similar need at some time, and if they have made the effort to look for contemporary didactic poetry on the theory of courtly and knightly behaviour, will have been frustrated by the signal lack of it. This leads some critics, for example, to quote the Old French translation of Ramon Llull's Libre de Cavalleria (1276) in support of Chrétien de Troyes' romances. The only alternative to this seems to be to use the rather brief section on knighthood in John of Salisbury's Policraticus (1159). Whilst neither Le Roman des Eles nor L 'Ordene de Chevalerie are contemporary with Chrétien, they are both considerably closer to him than Llull, and the chance of any change or distortion in the ideas is likely to be less. After all, such concepts as courtesy or knighthood are not static, and whilst certain central ideas do remain fundamental, accents and stresses develop and shift. Indeed, the differen ces between the two poems presented together here show to just what extent views of the same subject may vary between contemporaries. As far as I am able to tell, these two texts are of roughly the same date (first quarter of the thir teenth century), and are the two earliest poems on the theory of knighthood in Old French. It is therefore in an attempt to fill a lacuna in available material that they are published together. The inclusion of this volume in a series devoted to general and comparative literature also calls for some justification. First of all, I believe these poems to be amongst the very earliest on knighthood in any European vernacular, and as such they assume a place in the development of knighthood and chivalric litera ture as European phenomena. This is particularly true in view of the seminal role played by Old French literature in the early medieval period, and the texts may therefore be of interest to Germanists, Anglicists, etc. The relevance of both Vi PREFACE poems to the literature of England in particular is attested by the simple fact of their circulation in Anglo-Norman manuscripts; furthermore, L'Ordene de Chevalerie seems to have had a considerable influence on the literatures of Italy and the Low Countries, having been adapted into both Italian and Middle Dutch. From another point of view, the treatment of the Hue de Tabarie and Saladin story in the various European versions provides excellent material for a compara tive study. In France itself, both poems were known in the eighteenth century, and were used by Sainte-Palaye in the preparation of his Mémoires sur l'ancienne chevalerie (1759), translated before the end of the century into English, Ger man, and Polish, and which remained a standard work on knighthood well into the nineteenth. It is partly in the conviction that these two texts deserve to be better known to medievalists in general, not merely Romanists, that I have appended prose translations of them into Modern English. These are not offered as polished examples of the translator's art, but as an encouragement to those whose Old French does not allow them to read the poems fluently in the original to use them nevertheless. The translations are, I hope, literal enough to enable most non-Romanists to recognise which word or line of the original is rendered by what in the translation. I should like to thank the authorities of the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris, the Bibliothèque Municipale in Metz, the Preussische Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in Cologny- Geneva, the British Library in London, and the Cambridge University Library for permission to consult manuscripts in their possession and for providing me with photographs. The Section Romane of the Institut de Recherche et d'His- toire des Textes also answered a number of queries promptly and efficiently. A generous grant from the Netherlands Organisation for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z.W.O.) enabled me to consult most of the manuscripts on the spot in January 1981. The University of Oklahoma Library at Norman sent me information about House's edition of L 'Ordene de Chevalerie, and Professor William Roach kindly made me a gift of the same. I have benefited enormously from the wide editorial experience of Dr. A. J. Holden of the University of Edinburgh, who has read and commented on the whole work in typescript. Dr. Simon Varey of the English Department of the University of Utrecht cast a critical eye over the translations. Finally, I should like to thank those of my colleagues in the University of Utrecht who arranged for me to have the second semester of 1981—1982 free of teaching to complete this work. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE v ABBREVIATIONS ix RAOUL DE HODENC, LE ROMAN DES ELES INTRODUCTION: Manuscripts 3 Editions 7 The Manuscript Tradition 9 The Language of the Scribe 11 The Language of the Author 13 The Poet and the Poem 14 NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 23 BIBLIOGRAPHY 25 CRITICAL TEXT 29 REJECTED READINGS OF MS. A 51 VARIANTS 52 TEXTUAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES 61 L 'ORDENE DE CHEVALERIE INTRODUCTION: Manuscripts 73 Editions 78 The Manuscript Tradition 81 The Language of the Scribe 84 The Language of the Author 84 The Poet and the Poem 86 NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 93 BIBLIOGRAPHY 97 CRITICAL TEXT 103 REJECTED READINGS OF MS. A 121 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS VARIANTS 122 TEXTUAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES 131 COMBINED GLOSSARY TO LE ROMAN DES ELES 147 AND L'ORDENE DE CHEVALERIE APPENDIX: Modern English translations of 159 Le Roman des Eles and L'Ordene de Chevalerie ABBREVIATIONS AR : Archivum Romanicum BFR : Bibliothèque Française et Romane CFMA : Classiques Français du Moyen Âge EETS : Early English Text Society FMLS : Forum for Modern Language Studies HLF : Histoire Littéraire de la France MLN : Modern Language Notes MLR : Modern Language Review R : Romania RLR : Revue des Langues Romanes RM : Romance Monographs RMAL : Revue du Moyen Âge Latin RR : Romanic Review SATF : Société des Anciens Textes Français Script. : Scriptorium TLF : Textes Littéraires Français