The ''Erl of Toulouse'' (also known as ''The Romance of Dyoclicyane'') is a
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
chivalric romance
As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric k ...
centered on an innocent persecuted wife.
It claims to be a translation of a
French lai, but the original lai is lost. It is thought to date from the late 14th century, and survives in four manuscripts of the 15th and 16th centuries. The ''Erl of Toulouse'' is written in a
north-east Midlands dialect of Middle English.
Synopsis
The Queen of Almayne is left in the care of two knights, who woo her. When she rejects them, they introduce a youth into her room, kill him in the presence of witnesses, and accuse her of adultery. A champion saves her from death; then her husband learns that he is his old enemy, the earl of Toulouse.
Sources
Historically,
Bernard I,
Count of Toulouse
The count of Toulouse ( oc, comte de Tolosa, french: comte de Toulouse) was the ruler of county of Toulouse, Toulouse during the 8th to 13th centuries. Originating as vassals of the kingdom of the Franks, Frankish kings,
the hereditary counts ru ...
, son of the
Guillaume d'Orange of the
Carolingian romances, and the empress
Judith, second wife of
Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious (german: Ludwig der Fromme; french: Louis le Pieux; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aqui ...
, were indeed charged with adultery and purged themselves by an oath and an offer for trial by combat; the historical situation has been embellished with romantic incident, in that the motives, which were changed from (probably) ambition to thwarted love, and the offer for combat was taken up.
Variants
The oldest group of romances is the Catalan group, with three Catalan chronicles recording it, along with a Spanish romance, and two French chronicles.
[Laura A. Hibbard, ''Medieval Romance in England'' p35 New York Burt Franklin,1963] Later, there are the English variants, including ''The Erl of Toulouse'' and Parisian ones, which contain many miraculous elements; still latter, many Danish variants, apparently based on the English ones, are found. The poem is also found in the
Lincoln Thornton Manuscript
The Lincoln Thornton Manuscript is a medieval manuscript compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English scribe and landowner Robert Thornton, MS 91 in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. The manuscript is notable for containing single versio ...
, under the title ''The Romance of Dyoclicyane''.
In the
Child ballad
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as '' ...
''
Sir Aldingar'', a clearly miraculous champion, a tiny figure of supernatual origins comes to her aid. The Scandinavian ballads include a small but not supernatural champion.
Motifs
The accusation by the knights, and the defense by a disinterested champion, represent a distinct group of romances, using motifs found only in romances, in contrast to those making use of such
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
motifs as the mother-in-law persecutor, and the champion being the heroine's own children; this is a distinctly medieval addition.
Margaret Schlauch
Margaret Schlauch (September 25, 1898 – July 19, 1986) was a scholar of medieval studies at New York University and later, after she left the United States for political reasons in 1951, at the University of Warsaw, where she headed the depa ...
, ''Chaucer's Constance and Accused Queens'', New York: Gordian Press 1969 p. 98–9
References
External links
Modern English rendition (1908)''Erle of Tolous''translated and retold in modern English prose (2016), the story from Cambridge University Library MS Ff.2.38 (translated and retold from University of Rochester, Middle English Text Series – Texts Online: from ''The Middle English Breton Lays'', edited by Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury, 1995, Medieval Institute Publications for TEAMS).
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Romance (genre)
Middle English poems
Lais (poetic form)
14th-century poems