Table of Contents Preface to the Reader ........................................................................vii A Brief Historical Introduction ......................................................... xi Chronology ......................................................................................xxv A Note on the Translations.......................................................... xxxvii Epic Introduction ................................................................................ 1 Beowulf .................................................................................. 9 The Song of Roland ........................................................... 107 Guillaume de Machaut, The Taking of Alexandria (Selection) ....................................................... 237 Romance Introduction ............................................................................ 345 Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain or The Knight wih the Lion ....................................................................... 357 Havelok ............................................................................. 547 Marie de France, Lais ........................................................ 629 The Chatelaine of Vergi ...................................................... 793 front matter.p65 5 12/21/2006, 7:03 PM Preface The literatures of medieval France and England offer a textual rich- ness and variety that scholars have only begun to make available to readers limited to modern English. Not all the kinds of literature that found favor among medieval readers and hearers have been fortunate enough to find popularizing champions in modern times. The saint’s life, the beast epic, the debate, the personification allegory, the short narrative—to name only some prominent forms of writing in the pe- riod—remain largely inaccessible today, sometimes even to specialist scholars. The sad truth is that many medieval works that would cer- tainly repay study and appreciation still await modern scientific edi- tions. They must be read in their original manuscripts, or, if they attained printed form in the early modern period, in versions that are normally unreliable and difficult to find. Modern literary scholarship is far from completing the archaeological tasks of this period’s recon- struction and assessment. An exception to this general rule, however, is to be found in the two genres that for most in our time typify and define culture of this bygone age. Medieval epic and romance early won places in the mod- ern literary canon because of the enthusiasms of nineteenth century scholars and revivalists (Alfred Tennyson and Walter Scott are perhaps the best known in the English-speaking world). But even those famil- iar with Beowulf and the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes (works that have often been translated) probably have little idea of the breadth of the epic and romance traditions to which these poems sepa- rately belong. The perhaps surprising fact is that many epics and ro- mances in Latin and the vernacular languages have survived the dan- gers posed by time and chance. This embarrassment of riches is un- doubtedly but a small portion of what once existed. In assembling an anthology devoted to epic and romance, I have been mindful of these distorting limitations and have attempted to travel several steps beyond the established canon. Of course, it has proved impossible in the confines of a single volume to do more than vii viii • Medieval Epic and Romance suggest the variety of surviving texts that can legitimately claim to be romances or epics in some sense. But this collection, it may be thought, gives a more substantial impression of the legacy of medieval romance and epic than has previously been available in a handy, reader-friendly form. It is intended to complement Medieval English and French Leg- ends, a companion volume also available from College Publishing, and Arthurian Fictions, which William W. Kibler and I will, Deo volente, soon complete. The three volumes should provide an extensive and flexible collection of translated primary texts suited to either the un- dergraduate or the graduate classroom. Any survey of the field intended for those who are barely acquainted with it, if at all, can hardly omit acknowledged masterworks. Of neces- sity, then, this present volume, like its fellows, offers something of a compromise. Beowulf, The Song of Roland, and Chrétien’s Yvain, three of the period’s best known works, find a place here in complete and new—or newly revised—translations. Also included is a new and com- plete translation of the lais of Marie De France. The collection is rounded out, however, by some texts that, though perhaps unfamiliar, are un- doubtedly classics of their kind: the Middle English Havelok, The Tak- ing of Alexandria (a selection only from this very long work), and The Chatelaine of Vergi. In deciding upon what to include here, I have been guided by what I have come to know of the needs of both a non-academic reader- ship and upper division or graduate students. The aim has also been to provide a semester’s worth of material for students in medieval litera- ture courses, a common offering in university English departments. Thus, along with English works that students are not likely to study in survey courses or a Chaucer seminar, we have included a substan- tially larger number of noteworthy French texts. No German, Italian, or Provençal works have found a place here. These exclusions reflect only judgments of relevance, not of value or interest. Medieval French literature, much of which was composed and consumed in the British Isles, exerted the greatest influence on developing English traditions after the Norman Conquest. Studying the important and representa- tive French texts thus has the greatest utility for students whose overall intellectual project is the mastery of literature in English, broadly speak- ing. A strong case might even be made that French literature is the master tradition of the Middle Ages in general. Certainly, prominent Preface • ix texts in this language provided many of the models for the develop- ment of vernacular writing in countries as far distant as Iceland. A final point is that the English and French works included here have been chosen for their complementarity. While sharing much in common, formally and thematically, the selections in each category also reflect, in their substantial divergences, the flexibility and vitality of the body of conventions they draw on for inspiration and inevitably “make new.” These conventions are broadly medieval, and they are as much the recognizable, shaping tradition of the modern European literatures as the unfamiliar contours of an imaginative world that can only be resurrected through the labors of translation and literary schol- arship. Such remoteness requires a somewhat elaborate apparatus to re- count necessary facts and provide some discussion of critical issues. The volume begins with a brief historical introduction that traces the important events that define the political and literary history of France and England in the Middle Ages. The historical introduction is comple- mented by a chronology, which lists in shortened and more easily referenced table form much of the same information. The two sections are each preceded by discussion, necessarily brief, of major literary questions raised by epic and romance. More specific details of literary history and analysis are furnished in the headnotes to each of the selec- tions, which close with suggestions for further reading that are meant to guide the interested reader to fuller discussion in English of literary and historical questions. I wish to thank Professor Barbara K. Altmann for her help with the translation of the Song of Roland. Her generous and gracious support of this project is most appreciated. R. Barton Palmer Clemson University December 2004 A Brief Historical Introduction At the beginning of the Middle Ages, the territories that would become France and England were two of the most important provinces of the Roman Empire: Gaul and Britain. Gaul had been conquered by Julius Caesar in the first century B.C.E., and Britain, after an initial foray by Caesar, decisively won for Rome by the legions of the emperor Claudius about a hundred years later. The Romans seized these lands from Celtic tribes. Brother Celts in both Ireland and Scotland were spared the benefits and discontents of Roman rule. Britain and Gaul were soon thoroughly Romanized and, as the new religion spread throughout the empire, their inhabitants were converted to Christian- ity, though many rural areas undoubtedly remained pagan. Roman control over both provinces weakened in the early fifth century, especially after Alaric’s Visigoths captured and sacked Rome in 410 C.E. The withdrawal of garrisoned legions led, perhaps inevita- bly, to invasion by the various Germanic tribes settled on the margins of the empire in the west. In southern Gaul, the Visigoths established a large domain that came to include Roman Spain. Northern Gaul fell prey to the Franks, who crossed the Rhine from their homeland in what is now western Germany. They quickly assumed control of lands that had belonged to Rome for more than four centuries. Though it did result in the end of Roman government, this movement should perhaps be considered a migration rather than an invasion. In many areas, the number of Franks was relatively small. Thus they quickly assimilated to their new cultural surroundings, surrendering