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The Old French Crusade Cycle

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The Old French Crusade Cycle The Old French Crusade Cycle Graindor de Douai Date of Birth Unknown Place of Birth Unknown, though his name suggests an origin in north-eastern France Date of Death Unknown Place of Death Unknown Biography All we know of Graindor de Douai is one reference in the text at ll.12-15 in the Chanson d’Antioche. It is not clear whether he wrote the text himself or had it commissioned. If we accept the former, he may also have had a hand in the two chansons de geste, Fierabras and the Destruction de Rome. If we accept the latter interpretation, it is just possible that he may in fact be Walter III or IV, castellan of Douai: this is argued by A. de Mandach. Firm evidence for either case is lacking. MAIN SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary — Secondary A. de Mandach, Naissance et développement de la chanson de geste en Europe. V: la geste de Fierabras, Geneva, 1987, pp. 109-28 Works on Christian-Muslim Relations Chanson d’Antioche, ‘The Song of Antioch’ (though it is seldom referred to as such) Date In its current form, from the end of the 12th/beginning of the 13th century Original Language Old French Description The Chanson d’Antioche forms part of a trilogy with two other texts: the Chanson de Jérusalem, which takes the Crusaders through the fall the old french crusade cycle 423 of Jerusalem to the battle of Ascalon; and the Chanson des Chétifs, a fantasy compilation of three tales loosely linked to the First Crusade, which serves as a bridge between the two. The text is part of a wider complex of chansons de geste known as the Old French Crusade Cycle, which starts with the legends surrounding the ancestry of Godfrey of Bouillon and concludes with the fall of Acre. While the text as it survives comes from about 1200, this hides a long and complex history of adaptation which has been much debated since the text’s first publication in 1848. At the risk of over-simplifying, there are two opposed positions: the view taken largely by French scholars that the text is adapted from an original version contemporaneous with the First Crusade, which can be reconstructed in some detail – this would make it in essence an early 12th-century text; and the contrary view taken by the American scholar R.F. Cook that the text is an early 13th- century fantasy with little if any link to the events of the Crusade. A more nuanced view is that the text comprises several strata: songs and legends contemporary with the Crusade, some of which may have been written down in some form and some of which may have sur- vived orally; a recognized chanson de geste about events at Antioch in the last quarter of the 12th century, although it is unclear whether this was in French or Occitan; an account around 1200 commissioned by the St-Pol family, possibly in the light of the Fourth Crusade, specifi- cally highlighting the role of their ancestors – this would possibly have been based on a summary of Albert of Aachen, switching to Robert the Monk for the battle of Antioch; a combination of this text with earlier material into a trilogy with the Chanson de Jérusalem and the Chétifs early in the 13th century written or commissioned by Graindor. The Antioche is 9,582 lines long in the Duparc-Quioc edition, while the Alabama edition comprises 11,407 lines, reflecting the use of a dif- ferent manuscript with additional episodes. The trilogy of Antioche- Chétifs-Jérusalem is around 25,000 lines. This in turn is central to the Old French Crusade Cycle, which occupies a ten-volume edition. Whilst references to Saracens are found throughout the Antioche, around a third focuses wholly or partly on their activities. The Antioche is a chanson de geste in which Saracens exist only as adversaries of the crusaders. The three principal opponents are Soli- man, Sultan of Rum, portrayed as comic and cowardly; Corbaran, the historic Kerbogha/Kurbuqa of Mosul; and the shadowy but powerful Sultan of Persia, Corbaran’s lord. Corbaran’s mother, the prophetess .
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