Three Anglo-Norman Kings (Paperback)

Benoit de Sainte-Maure

ISBN 10: 0888443072 / ISBN 13: 9780888443076

Published by PIMS, 2018

About this Item

Paperback. Best known as a Medieval French romance writer, Benoit de Sainte-Maure was the author of the pioneering and widely copied Roman de Troie, composed, it is thought, around 1165. This consisted of a 30,000-verse reworking, in twelfth-century terms, of Latin narratives purporting to describe the siege of Troy, enlivened by what the poet refers to as "bons dits" (apposite amplifications). All that is known of him, apart from what can be deduced from his two works, is that he was a learned monk from the region of Tours in North-West France. His reputation as a poet must have reached the ears of Henry II who, sometime in the 1170s, commissioned him to compose a verse history of the English king's Norman ancestors. Benoit thus found himself successor to the Norman historiographer Wace whose vernacular French Roman de Rou, named after Normandy's founder Rollo, was abandoned in favour of Benoit's Histoire des ducs de Normandie. In their quest to generate an ethnic identity for themselves, the Normans celebrated their expansionist activities in a corpus of historiographic texts in which the multi-authored and chameleon-like Gesta Normannorum Ducum claims pride of place. This and other histories, both vernacular and Latin, were what Benoit de Sainte-Maure adapted into his secular poetic narrative. One of the motivations behind Benoit's royal patronage could have been to tie the Anglo-Norman aristocracy of late twelfth-century England into a cultural homeland from which they were growing increasingly remote. The sense of Norman history that Benoit imparts through his French verse was the one that Henry II and his Anglo-Norman contemporaries must have assimilated as part of their courtly entertainment. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780888443076

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Three Anglo-Norman Kings (Paperback)
• Publisher: PIMS
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0888443072
• ISBN 13: 9780888443076
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Best known as a Medieval French romance writer, Benoit de Sainte-Maure was the author of the pioneering and widely copied Roman de Troie, composed, it is thought, around 1165. This consisted of a 30,000-verse reworking, in twelfth-century terms, of Latin narratives purporting to describe the siege of Troy, enlivened by what the poet refers to as "bons dits" (apposite amplifications). All that is known of him, apart from what can be deduced from his two works, is that he was a learned monk from the region of Tours in North-West France. His reputation as a poet must have reached the ears of Henry II who, sometime in the 1170s, commissioned him to compose a verse history of the English king's Norman ancestors. Benoit thus found himself successor to the Norman historiographer Wace whose vernacular French Roman de Rou, named after Normandy's founder Rollo, was abandoned in favour of Benoit's Histoire des ducs de Normandie.

In their quest to generate an ethnic identity for themselves, the Normans celebrated their expansionist activities in a corpus of historiographic texts in which the multi-authored and chameleon-like Gesta Normannorum Ducum claims pride of place. This and other histories, both vernacular and Latin, were what Benoit de Sainte-Maure adapted into his secular poetic narrative. One of the motivations behind Benoit's royal patronage could have been to tie the Anglo-Norman aristocracy of late twelfth-century England into a cultural homeland from which they were growing increasingly remote. The sense of Norman history that Benoit imparts through his French verse was the one that Henry II and his Anglo-Norman contemporaries must have assimilated as part of their courtly entertainment.

Review

"Ironically first edited from an Anglo-Norman copy, then, definitively, from a manuscript from the author's native Touraine, the Histoire des ducs de Normandie after many years of neglect has received in the last twenty years significant attention, culminating in this authoritative translation with notes by the foremost Anglo-Normanist Ian Short. Benoit de Sainte-Maure's massive enterprise (it numbers 44,544 lines, of which the last quarter are translated here) was started soon after his celebrated Roman de Troie and at the request of Henry II takes up the task relinquished by Wace in the Roman de Rou. Writing in French in rhyming octosyllabic couplets Benoit provides a monastic, providentialist view of his subject, seeking to reconnect Henry's French-speaking aristocracy to their Continental heritage and to give a wider secular audience access to the Latin sources. Short's translation brings to a wider readership a work that fills a significant gap in the development and character of vernacular historiography." -- Anthony Hunt, University of Oxford